Well, there’s a lot of different ways to go about it. Most people just move the vertices by hand. I once had a script that used the skinning to do it in 3ds back when I used 3ds a lot. It would match the vertices location based on the skin and then morph the other model based on the difference. You could also try using a cage deformer, I’ve heard there’s a way to do it that way but haven’t ever tried it myself. Now days I just do it by hand using things like Flood, soft selection and all that jazz. Honestly though, from a production stand point it’s better to use scaling joints for body customization. Most modern games are using scaling joints now. For instance, FO4, BDO and Skyforge use scaling joints.
Thanks for the replies, I do understand that using scaling joints would probably be a really good option and great for performance. But I dunno how I would use that method to add things like wrinkles, fat curves and such… It probably is achievable using different textures and probably having a lot of bones. In unity this isn’t a problem its also not a problem if you have meya lol. But I want to learn unreal because I know its better :D. I also don’t have Maya. I’m going to have to figure out a really good method for this myself using blender and it might take some time, but I am a perfectionist so by hand sounds a lil too sloppy for me lol.
Well yea, it’s best done in combination with material changes such as normal maps and what have you. Using scaling bones does create some limitations but they are considered the go-to method due to the ease of clothing development that they offer. Instead of every clothing model you make needing multiple morph targets to match the body morphs you instead just make one clothing model and you’re done. The scaling bones do the rest. Morph targets or scaling bones, that is the question. It’s a development decision that everyone has to make at some point. We’re doing scaling bones and material changes for our body customization and going with morph targets for the head. (Course that’s not set in stone as we’re still in development.)
That’s where I have been thinking of designs for plugins to combat this problem… That’s exactly what I was thinking, apply morphs to every clothing type HELL NO, I ain’t got time for that lol. To make something that will do this for me will certainly take less than applying to every item I make… So I think I am going to go down that route… I will try and achieve both, morphs and bones. But for now I will be concentrating on morphs and I always achieve my visions :D.
You have covered a lot of my questions where I have spent way too much time researching these areas. I have already been writing a plugin in blender and doing some trial and error to see how I can do this… I already have a lot of constraints and understand what is needed. The biggest constraint is once I set the morphs, I can’t change or add any to the character ( This is because I would also have to apply them to every clothing item ) I could write a script to do this, but imaging if I had thousand of items ouchh…
You have been a great help :D.
use makehuman
Making Custom Character Models is not that hard. Use MakeHuman, free, with Blender, free, using FBX export, import, export. Unreal Engine 4 easily imports FBX animated MakeHuman characters. I use free BVH files to animate them in Blender. Since MakeHuman can put out any number of morph variations of your male or female characters, you will probably just have to save out each variation, and import them into the Unreal Engine 4. You can take the MakeHuman pipe-line a step further, by importing it into Substance Painter, and then painting in real time PBR textures.
Hi morphtactic, making Custom Character Models comes easy to a person with your artistic skills, but, I would insist that a significant degree of Artistic Talent is required for getting the Skin, Hair, Cloth materials proper. I’m a novice Blender user and pretty much limited to simple objects at the moment. I did investigate into creating my own custom characters with DAZ3D. I have to admit I only gazed over the MakeHuman Site (The MakeHuman Team really should showcase the Community Gallery on the front of their site). I would be interested in seeing your workflow and results with a MakeHuman Workflow. How are you handling Clothing?
I so appreciate that Nightasy has teamed up with RBrown to develop a Character Customization Solution specifically for Unreal Engine.
Hi Nightasy.
Is this the custom character setup that you and Right are going to sell with the models?
If so, should I get this now? or wait to get the male and female models with it as a package for the best value for my money ?
Do we have any idea how long before the models are done ?
CLiff
You actually just resurrected an old thread. This thread is pretty much discontinued.
We are offering the package in separate parts through sellify and Gumroad for people that just want parts of it and not the entire kit. For instance, if you just want the blueprints because you have your own character models then you can head over to this thread and buy just the blueprints without any character models. Once we have the character models completed you’ll also have an option to buy just the male character model or just the female character model by themselves. The kit that will be sold on the Unreal Market will be the entire kit that will include both the scripts and the characters.
SO, in your case if you want all of it (scripts and characters) then you’ll probably want to wait until it gets released on the Unreal Marketplace. Buying the entire kit all together on the Epic Marketplace will be cheaper then buying each part individually through sellify and gumraod. Only the entire kit will be released on the Unreal Marketplace. The individual parts of the kit will only be available through Sellify and Gumroad.
At this time we do not have a scheduled release date. Currently hair types for the Male character are being developed.