XFur Studio 2, the most complete fur solution for Standard, Universal RP and HDRP

Community Showcases
21

This is a very small update just to let you know that we are working fast towards a release for Xfur Studio 2. If everything goes as planned, it will be sent for approval to the Asset Store before the end of the month.

After some additional testing we have found that, while Universal RP and HDRP fur is more demanding in draw calls due to some limitations of ShaderGraph ( the tool used to create the shaders in order to guarantee compatibility across multiple Universal RP and HDRP versions ), thanks to the internal optimizations of Universal RP and HDRP the performance hit is not too noticeable when comparing it to Built in except in cases where many characters are displayed on screen.

As shader graph evolves we expect to be able to make use of more advanced optimization features, but we consider it is a fair tradeoff for extended compatibility and stability when working with HDRP / Universal RP.

Furthermore, we are happy to announce that all features tested are fully compatible with Universal RP and HDRP, which means that fur will be VFX (snow, water, blood, wind ) and physics compatible in all pipelines at release.

On top of this, we have made extensive testing on other devices and can confirm that Physics and VFX can be used even on mobile devices (though most mobile devices tested suffer performance issues when rendering fur at high resolutions due to GPU tile rendering limitations, so a fixed lower DPI is recommended in most mid-range devices ).

Mobile devices tested are Redmi Note 7, Redmi Note 8, Redmi 8A, and Honor x7. Anything with OpenGLES 3.1+ support should be capable of rendering the fur, additional optimizations may be needed depending on the target devices for your application.

We are very excited to show you how XFur Studio 2 looks and how much the toolset has improved over the past two years, in order to make it the most complete, powerful and easy to use fur system for Unity.

Have a great weekend !

2 Likes
22

We come to you with great news : XFur Studio 2 will be released and available for purchase NEXT WEEK.

More than two years after the release of XFur Studio 1.x and almost two years after the release of XFur Mobile, after countless months of development from the ground up and after trying our best to offer as many of the features that you requested over the past two years as we could for this initial release, the time has finally come to share with you more information and to finally present what is our biggest and most advanced tool yet.

6278183--693680--upload_2020-9-4_8-12-43.jpg
6278183--693680--upload_2020-9-4_8-12-43.jpg3840×2160 444 KB

Q - What has changed from XFur Studio 1.x / XFur Mobile to XFur Studio 2? What are the biggest improvements?

  • XFur Studio 2 is a complete re-write and redesign of XFur Studio. There is no need to patch meshes anymore. The whole workflow has been streamlined and most resources and setups are now fully automated, which means that adding fur to a character can take mere seconds now. This also means that XFur Studio 2 is much more flexible with the kinds of models it is compatible with, and has less pre-requirements for your art assets.

Furthermore, everything is run on the GPU making XFur Studio 2 many times faster than even XFur Mobile on all platforms and devices. HDRP and Universal RP are also, for the first time, fully supported, as is full runtime fur editing, grooming and painting through special ready-to-use virtual brushes or an easy to use API for programmers. There are many more new features, but these are the main changes and improvements.

Q - Are characters made with XFur Studio 1.x / XFur Mobile compatible with XFur Studio 2?

  • Characters made with XFur Studio 1 and XFur Mobile cannot be ported to XFur Studio 2 directly. However, the Fur Data map and most fur properties can be “upgraded” by simply loading legacy profiles exported with XFur 1.x / XFur Mobile. Grooming at the moment cannot be upgraded directly due to the much, much improved algorithm used in version 2.

While this upgrade process will not be 100% accurate (since every feature of XFur Studio 1 has been completely rewritten and improved, and many features of XFur 2 have no equivalent in version 1 nor Mobile) it will greatly reduce the time needed to set up your characters for XFur Studio 2 while also preserving most of the data and customizations you made in either XFur Studio 1.x or XFur Mobile.

Q - What will happen to XFur Studio 1.x and XFur Mobile now?

  • XFur Studio 1.x and XFur Mobile will be deprecated as soon as XFur Studio 2 is released next week. After they are deprecated, we will extend support for both versions for exactly one month but only for projects using Unity 2018.4 LTS and 2019.4 LTS, in order to ensure that customers that do not upgrade to a newer version can still use XFur Studio and XFur Mobile in their projects. No further updates nor patches will be provided after this 30 days period.

Q - I just bought a license for XFur Studio 1.x / XFur Mobile in the past few weeks. What do I do?

  • We are currently reviewing this situation especially for XFur Mobile users and we will have more information for you on Monday, but do not worry, we are taking care of this situation :slight_smile:

Q - I bought my copy a while ago and I am a returning user. What kind of upgrade benefits do I get?

  • All users of XFur Mobile and XFur Studio 1.x will receive a 30% discount when upgrading to XFur Studio 2. For the first week after the release, the discount will be higher at a 50% off in order to thank early adopters and encourage users to upgrade early on.

Q - What will be the price of XFur Studio 2?
- XFur Studio 2 will be available in two editions : Ultimate Edition and Team Edition. The Ultimate Edition is targeted to individuals and has a Per Seat license with a $125 USD price.
The Team Edition is targeted to larger teams and companies and has a Single Entity / Multi Entity license with a $1250 / $3750 USD price respectively. Please consult the Asset Store EULA for more information about Single Entity / Multi Entity and Seat licenses.

Q - Why is XFur Studio 2 more expensive than XFur Studio 1.x / XFur Mobile?

  • XFur Studio 2 has the features of both products combined into a single package : very high quality fur for closeups and highly detailed desktop / console projects and extremely performant fur for VR and mobile apps. On top of this, there are countless other improvements to performance, new features and full HDRP 7.x and Universal RP 7.x compatibility at release for Unity 2019.4 LTS.
    Q - Will XFur Studio 2 be compatible with all HDRP / Universal RP versions and all Unity versions?
    - While the XFur Studio 2 shaders for HDRP and Universal RP are made with ShaderGraph to ensure its compatibility with all HDRP and Universal RP versions on Unity 2019.4+, due to upcoming changes in the distribution of SRP packages with Unity we will limit official SRP support to LTS versions of Unity and their corresponding SRP packages, at least at release. This may change later if Unity provides a better way for us as developers to keep track of all SRP versions with a clear upgrade path.

Q - Does XFur Studio 2 work with Alembic / instanced meshes / procedural geometry ?

  • Alembic is not and will not be supported by XFur Studio 2. Procedural meshes are compatible with XFur Studio 2 as long as their material counts do not change at runtime and they are properly assigned to a Mesh Renderer or Skinned Mesh Renderer component. Instanced Meshes, since they do not use a Mesh nor a Skinned Mesh component, are not supported. It is recommended to ensure that all the parts of your model that will require fur are combined into a single mesh / skinned mesh and that you use different materials instead of different meshes to render different kinds of fur.

Q - What are the system requirements for fur rendering / physics simulations / etc.?

  • The full XFur Studio 2 package ( including its modules, GPU physics, GPU snow etc. ) require hardware matching Open GLES 3.1 or above for mobiles and full support for RenderTextures and Render Targets, which should make it compatible with most modern devices. GPU Physics simulation as well as the other XFur Modules have a memory overhead of at least ~4Kb per active module for each character.

Q - Will there be any cheaper versions of XFur Studio 2? Any release discounts?

  • There are no plans for release discounts for XFur Studio 2. However, we are currently considering the release of a new product, XFur Studio 2 - Mini, which will provide basic fur rendering and very limited features, for a much lower $25 USD price tag. We will have more information about this after the release of XFur Studio 2

If you have any further questions about XFur Studio 2 or any of the topics discussed here please leave your questions below. We will do our best to reply to all your questions as we prepare for the launch of XFur Studio 2 :slight_smile:

3 Likes
23

Have a great weekend, and see you tomorrow as we prepare for the release of XFur Studio 2 !

24

XFur Studio 2 has been finally released !
You can read all the release notes and information here ( which will also be the main thread for the asset ) or get directly the Ultimate or Team editions on the Asset Store.

Have a great week !

25

A new update for XFur Studio 2 is coming next week with the following new features :
- Per-material light probe interaction settings
- Per-material single or double sided fur
- New fur parameters : fur smoothness
In the improvements section :
- New UI for the XFurStudio Wind Zone component
- Improved FX appearance with the basic shell shaders
This update will be available next week :slight_smile:

26

There is a slight issue that has come to our attention. While we are considering a general built-in fix for this, the best solution would be for users themselves to address it in a per-project basis, so a small section in the documentation will be added about this particular situation to help users solve it. The issue is as follows :

Some third party plugins, especially those involving inverse kinematics and animation work on the LateUpdate callback but with a modified script order execution forcing them to execute AFTER all other scripts. What this means in practical terms is that XFur Studio 2 when working in XFShells mode renders the fur and THEN the third party plugin moves the bones, making the fur appear as if it is floating.

The solution? Always ensure that XFur Studio Instance is executed after all the other scripts related to animation or bone manipulation in the Script Execution Order settings of your project.

Again, a small built-in workaround will be included with the next update but to ensure that everything works as expected it is still better to ensure that XFur Studio Instance is the last script in the Script Execution Order list after any and all IK / animation scripts from third party plugins.

We hope this will help some of our users if they experience this issue.

Have a great weekend !

27

Version 2.0.1 is now available !
Changelog :
Fixes and improvements :

  • FX rendering for Basic Shells now matches 1 to 1 the FX rendering of XFShells
  • Automatic fix for script execution order issues. May still need manual setups, but it should prevent most incompatibility issues with third party assets using custom script execution order setups.
  • Adjusted rain direction vector
  • Fixed incorrect setting in URP demo

New Features :

  • Per material double sided fur settings (XFShells only). Select your database asset in order for it to auto-generate the double sided variants of XFur materials, then press Ctrl + S to force Unity to show the new assets.
  • Per material light probe settings (XFShells only)
  • Wind direction and strength now have adjustable influence over the rain and snow directions
  • XFur Wind Zone component has a new, easier to use UI
  • Exposed Fur Smoothness parameter on all fur materials
28

Hi,
this asset looks fantastic! I’m just starting using it, and so far it’s great. :slight_smile:

I thought I’d let you know about a minor issue I encountered – simply, the fur placement seems to be recalculated whenever an object changes its position or rotation, but not when the scale changes. I noticed this because I had some animals which were upscaled versions of regular animals and the fur didn’t initially fit until I moved them around.
6318066--700143--Scale fur.png
The initial setting of XFur Studio Instance may result in an “IndexOutOfBounds” error, but that seems to fix itself right afterwards, so neither issue is really a problem.
6318066--700209--XFur Index.gif

But nevertheless, can I ask about WebGL? What should I be aware of? WebGL 2.0 should roughly match OpenGLES 3.0, and a test build with the default, simple fur rendering seemed to work fine. So which are the 3.1+ modules I should avoid using? Thanks. :wink:

29

Hi there,

We are very glad to hear you are having a good experience so far with XFur Studio 2 :slight_smile:

Thank you for your bug reports, we have fixed the issue with scaling and an update targeting this has been sent for approval, it should become available for download tomorrow.

Regarding the second bug we are still investigating its cause since so far we have only reproduced it once and all subsequent attempts to reproduce it failed, but indeed it does not impact the functionality of the tool and it is related only to the custom inspector.

The 3.1+ warning is mostly to be overly cautious on our end. XFur Studio 2 should work with OpenGLES 3.0 but some mobile devices that are supposedly 3.0+ ready do not implement all the necessary hardware features for XFur Studio 2 and the fur does not display in them (unless in Forward Add mode). We did not encounter this issue with mobile devices marked as 3.1+ compatible. The warning is explicitly directed to mobile developers since it is in that platform where we found the issues with some devices.

However, if you can see the fur without problems in your build using any SRP pipeline (especially in WebGL) then all modules should work without issues since by default XFShells do not work on Forward Add mode in neither Universal RP nor HDRP and any platform that supports rendering to RenderTextures should work without problems :slight_smile:

Again, thanks for your comment and for the bug report!

1 Like
30

The patch for v.2.0.2 is ready !
- Improvements

  • Changing the scale of a mesh immediately updates the fur accordingly

Have a great week!

31

We have released a short video demonstration of the kind of control you can have in XFur Studio 2 when grooming the fur of a character:

Grooming works on animated characters as well as on standard meshes, it can be done inside of the XFur Designer editor included with the tool, through the API at runtime or using the Painter Object if you do not want to (or do not have enough experience to) do your runtime fur editing through code.

32

We have been invited to the Reboot 2020 sale extension ! For a few days only, until September 30, you can get XFur Studio 2 : Ultimate Edition with a 50% off! :slight_smile:

Have a great weekend everyone !

33

We are doing some (right now very early) experiments for curly / messy fur types. Despite being early experiments the results so far are…quite promising :slight_smile:

6354735--706731--upload_2020-9-27_10-17-47.jpg
6354735--706731--upload_2020-9-27_10-17-47.jpg1611×910 431 KB

6354735--706734--upload_2020-9-27_10-17-57.jpg
6354735--706734--upload_2020-9-27_10-17-57.jpg1616×908 274 KB

6354735--706737--upload_2020-9-27_10-18-6.jpg
6354735--706737--upload_2020-9-27_10-18-6.jpg1552×865 240 KB

The “curling” process is entirely shader driven and can be configurable within the XFur Studio Instance UI. This feature will be released in beta state sometime in the near future, but no specific ETA is available right now since we want to make sure it is as usable and flexible as possible before making it public.

Remember that XFur Studio 2 has been invited to the extension of the Reboot 2020 sale, and you can get it with a 50% off but only until September 30!

Have a great weekend, everyone ! :slight_smile:

3 Likes
34

Version 2.0.5 ( minor patch ) is now available ! :

  • Fixes for the Universal RP demo
  • Updated documentation for additional clarity on some topics
  • Minor improvements to XFur Studio Designer UI
  • Minor improvements to XFur Studio Instance UI
  • New zooming mode for XFur Studio Designer using the “+” and “-” keys on the keypad

Again, the “Curly” update will be available later, most likely in October along some other new features and the corresponding documentation / tutorials.
And also we want to remind you that the Reboot sale ends on September 30 so these are the last days to get XFur Studio 2 with a 50% off !
Have a great week! :slight_smile:

35

Version 2.0.7 is now available with the following changes :

Fixes and improvements :

  • Highly improved wind simulation
  • Improved auto-scale behavior
  • General QoL fixes for XFur Studio Designer
  • Improved tiling for procedurally generated fur strands

New :

  • New samples / tutorials
  • New simple 3D model to showcase fur and, later this month, newer features
  • New fur strands sampling method to reduce visible tiling
  • New fur strand parameters to control per-pass size variation
  • Procedurally generated fur strand maps can now be exported as .png textures for easy editing in external software such as Photoshop / GIMP.

We are preparing the Curly update to be ready as a beta feature near the end of October as well as a few other new features and improvements. We are also going to be working on the tutorials and docs provided with XFur Studio 2 to make them more detailed in the next few months.

Have a great week, everyone! :slight_smile:

36

We are currently working in the major update 2.1.x for XFur Studio 2, which will contain several new features and improvements and is being referred to, internally, as the “CURLY” update :slight_smile:
Fixes and improvements ;

  • Improved Rim color mixing to allow for a wider variety of effects
  • Improved fur strand seamless repetition
  • Improved texture projection to reduce visible tiling has been ported to HDRP and URP
  • Improved wind simulation has been ported to HDRP and URP
  • Improved fur shadowing and shadows in HDRP and URP

New features :

  • Fur strands now have more variation to produce more natural looking fur
  • Fur coloration modifier of each fur strand pass can now be manually adjusted
  • Fur rim color can now be boosted manually for better results
  • Fur strands can be manually curled in both X and Y axes to produce curly / messy fur
  • Custom, hand made fur strands textures for curly fur types
  • New parameters and properties can be generated in the Fur Strands Asset

We are also considering adding a new 16 samples Basic Shells variant to allow for a little extra quality (with some additional draw calls) but this will most likely come in a later update.

Curly fur in Universal RP :

Curly fur in Standard RP :

Curly fur interacting with wind :

backarcticdolphin

Have a great weekend, everyone ! :slight_smile:

3 Likes
37

Version 2.1.0, in other words, the CURLY UPDATE, is now available :slight_smile:

New features :

  • Fur strands now have more variation to produce more natural looking fur
  • Fur coloration modifier of each fur strand pass can now be manually adjusted
  • Fur rim color can now be boosted manually for better results
  • Fur strands can be manually curled in both X and Y axes to produce curly / messy fur
  • Custom, hand made fur strands textures for curly fur types

Fixes and improvements ;

  • Improved Rim color mixing to allow for a wider variety of effects
  • Improved fur strand seamless repetition
  • Improved texture projection to reduce visible tiling has been ported to HDRP and URP
  • Improved wind simulation has been ported to HDRP and URP
  • Improved fur shadowing and shadows in HDRP and URP

Please remember to read the manual included with the asset (the online version of the manual will be updated this week) as it contains useful information about the use of BETA features within XFur Studio 2 and how to start using the curly fur.

devotedbravecanary

backarcticdolphin

Again, as this is a beta feature, it may (and most likely will) change in the next versions as we adjust and improve its workflow to achieve the best possible results and as many variations as possible. Procedurally generated fur strands are going to receive updates soon as well so stay tuned for that :slight_smile:

We hope that this update will be very helpful to all your projects ! :slight_smile:

2 Likes
38

With the Curly update now available, we will start working on the November updates to our other modules as well as on adding new features and QoL improvements across the entire XFur Studio 2 workflow (on top of the new learning materials ! ). We are very glad with the great reception this asset is getting and all the feedback received so far, which will be very useful as we continue to improve XFur :slight_smile:

There’s still a lot of work and coding to do…which seems appropriate with today being 10.24 :stuck_out_tongue:

Have a great weekend, everyone !

2 Likes
39

Update to version 2.1.1 is currently being worked on. Since it is a smaller update it will consist mostly of smaller fixes and general improvements :

Fixes and Improvements :

  • Improvements to snow and rain effects in the VFX module
  • Fixed a bug when changing the assigned renderer and replacing it with one with less material slots
  • Fur strands R and G modifier parameters leave Beta and move into a new stable “Advanced settings” mode.
  • Fur Rim boost leaves Beta.

New :

  • New per-FX parameters in the VFX module (smoothness, penetration / interaction with fur strands)
  • Physics Module mini-tutorial
  • VFX Module mini-tutorial
  • New, entirely optional, 12 samples basic shells material and shader. *Might be pushed back to a future update

While there is no established release date yet, we expect it to be available in the first half of November :slight_smile:

40

We wanted to share with you a small render to celebrate the spookiest season :slight_smile:

We hope you can have a great time, keep safe, and happy Halloween !

2 Likes