I know this has been talked about but I need a program to complement unity as far as character creation and prop creation…
Is there anything else to consider out there?
Is unity 4.0 going to have a even more integration with iClone to make getting new characters and animations into Unity a snap ?
There is poser and Daz but I don’t see any tight integration
Im trying to avoid trying 20 different programs and just use the right ones the first time around .
What do you mean by tight integration? The compatibility of the FBX files in Unity exported by each of those tools?
DAZ Studio 4.5 now has FBX roundtripping free. That costs $0 compared to $350 for the iClone/3d5pipeline to get FBX roundtripping.
I use the DAZ software and models in my games. I don’t recommend it unless you already have a huge collection of models as there is a $500 price tag just to buy the permission to use them in a game. Then you have to buy all the models. However, if you do have a huge collection, DAZ is a very good way to get a lot of fairly unique game content as not many people are using their products in games and they mostly “match”. If you were to buy a ton of assets from the asset store many of them would be different, stylistically. There is quite a bit of work involved in getting them to Unity though and it is very helpful to use a third party program such as Ultimate Unwrap 3d for the last minute touches. The poly reduction tools in UU3d are superior to the ones you can get for DAZ and it combines the materials. DAZ figures have a lot of material zones which add significantly to drawcalls. They do look good, really good, if you put a little effort into it.
The DAZ figures Michael 4 and Victoria 4 also have LOD meshes that can be automatically used and exported. They range from 17k all the way down to 1k (they are rectangles, not triangles so it is actually double). And both those figures also have a direct pipeline to Mixamo animations so it is easy (if costly) to get a ton of good animations. You can also use BVH motion capture on DAZ figures and the entire Carnegie Mellon University mocap library has been converted for using on DAZ figures. Of course that collection is pretty crappy, but it is free. If you are going to be using BVH on DAZ figures, I highly recommend getting Poser as well as DAZ Studio as Poser has much better tools for editing the motion capture - at least in my experience.
The software, however, is cheap and very user friendly and has plenty of useful things for creating your own content such as a rig transfer tool which allows you to easily rig an original figure, providing you model it fairly closely to one of their original figures. They even have a set of figures called Blanks that allow redistribution of the rig at no extra cost. It is primarily for content creators but I verified that there are no limits to usage and they can be used in game creation as long as it is only the rig and does not contain any of the model. Carrara has some really good terrain tools that allow you to make a terrain, export it directly as an FBX for use in Unity or to simply make a height map that you can apply to a Unity terrain. The one problem with this though is when you export it, it only uses one texture map and only exports at 2048x2048 so making large terrains will have pixelated textures up close. They look awesome in small scale or from a distance and can be poly-reduced in Carrara small enough for mobile games. Bryce has even better terrain tools but it is not easy to get them out of Bryce and into Unity and they have millions of polygons that do not reduce very well. But if you can manage it, you can create some really, really nice terrains.
I see the iclone/daz/poser tool the piece that allows me to view different motion capture on different models and even manually create some motions… Kind of a staging environment… Unity kind of has this but not the character creator aspect…
I got the impression that iClone has been working directly with Unity so their integration would be by far the best choice.
Yes the total with iClone to get a working pipeline back and forth is like $500 ? And then the Unity for windows 8? I have no idea… So I am fine with free models for now while I learn
thought daz models were too high poly
Out of the box, yes. But as I mentioned they have several LOD options and they decimate decently in Ultimate Unwrap. Never get them down to mobile size with clothes, but it’s pretty easy to get them down to a size suitable for stand alone.
Hello, I work with Reallusion and wanted to chime in. We are planning further compatibility with Unity and the coming Mecanim. We just released a new batch of iClone videos and tutorials to show the step-by-step process of using iClone to create characters, motions and props for Unity. Thanks!
Personally I think it’s easier to modify character in iClone but you still need a license for DAZ 3D ($500) to reuse DAZ’s original models plus you needed to buy their decimator for DAZ’s high poly models and reduce the polys to a game level. I’ve never decimated (reduced the number of polys) in a DAZ model but they have a plugin for $99. I think you have to rework the textures and normal after that (logically because the reduced polys have alter those).
Can iClone decimate a high poly DAZ model and export a working FBX that can be used in Unity and round tripped in iClone?
iClone focuses on character animation, creation and customization (body proportion and materials), however you’ll want to decimate the character before you import into iClone. The Decimator from DAZ works well to reduce poly-count on their content for real-time use.
In iClone, you can import an FBX character and remap the bones to our HumanIK rig or create a character from one of Reallusion’s character-bases. If you import a custom character into iClone you’ll have the ability to animate with all the motion editing tools, as well as the Kinect mocap. Export the character and motions back to Unity as FBX.
Thanks I’ve licensed some 3rd party models in DAZ format that are nice and not extremely high poly either but facially I want a bit more variability and iClone is more capable of those mods (or rather it’s easier in iClone) in my opinion (nice demos thanks).
I have yet to set the clock ticking on a 30 day trial for the tools though as I want to buy the tools if they do all the mods I want when the trial expires.
I wonder how you got the DAZ models to work in Unity. I could never get the hair to export. I tried it days and days.
I export it as an OBJ and then import it back into the scene and add the material (if needed) and delete the original. I’ve actually exported all the hair I have as individual models (not attached to a figure) and add them to figures directly in Unity. This way I can use my DAZ hair on other figures with a little scale adjustments. Some hair though is way too large and even after decimating it, Unity thinks there are more tris than it can handle.
Thank you for your reply. Your videos are impressive, did you render them in DAZ or in Unity?
And I really like your way of doing things. I love it how you choose the fastest way. I guess you are using the LipSynching tool instead of spending hours and hours with the lip movements and get results much quicker and can concentrate on other things.
Thanks for watching!
The earlier ones were done in Poser. The later ones done in Carrara (a DAZ product with MUCH better and faster rendering).
I used Mimic Pro for the lip-sync. I also used a lot of motion capture - edited to suit my needs. I’ve been collecting them for fifteen years so I have a huge library of motions (more than 5,000).
To export hair you need to use hair that’s made of a mesh, not this simulated strand hair it won’t work. The mesh hair will look cartoony or plastic compared to the modern Genesis hair.
You might try modeling the hair direct in Unity using the cloth simulation functions. I haven’t tried that; it might give something OK.
I’ve exported a bunch of DAZ/Poser characters and am busy building a catalogue in Unity now. Actually just one, morphed and re-exported each time for a new character.
So far it works OK but I haven’t tried Mechanim with it yet and I’m a bit nervious because the characters only have 53 bones. Hopefully by this Sunday I can try.
Maybe someday I will buy that MegaFiers to be able to morph a character in a game runtime and save mesh space if that would work. I’m wanting to buy a few other cheaper Assets before that one though.