Update 0.2 details (New Hairstyles, Morph Targets & Code Improvements)
spoiler
Update 0.2 submitted! Changes:
Optimization improvements
Now all nodes in the UCS Post Process Animation Blueprint use the fast-path. This should net significant performance improvements.
Cleaner code
Features
New “Mohawk” **Hairstyle **included. The new “Viking” preset uses it as an example.
New Morph Targets:
Eyes Width
Eyes Height
Jaw Width
Added 2 additional clothing slots that you can use if the ones included by default are not enough. There are now 7 clothing slots + hair + beard (Please note that you can add any number of clothing slots by yourself, although it does take some time)
The Universal Character Customization System empowers developers by allowing them to design high quality humanoid characters (males, females or monsters) within the engine.
Over 48 morph targets to define the shape of the face, eyes, nose, mouth, etc.
**15 Bone modifiers **to determine the character overall shape (e.g. arms size, body fat, etc.)
Over 65 shader parameters for the skin (age, muscularity, tint, etc.), eyes, hair, etc.
Highly efficient wind vertex animation for the hair. Globally control the wind direction and speed using a simple material parameter collection. Simulate movement for hundreds of hairstyles at virtually no extra shader cost.
40 free cloth meshes: T-Shirts, Polo Shirts, Jackets, Pants, Glasses, Hats, etc.
Highly customizable cloth shader with up to 4 material layers, cloth fuzz and dirt effects.
Amazing eye shader with configurable colors, veins intensity, scale, animated glow, etc.
Beautiful cosmetic effects such as blush, eyeliner, eyeshadow and lipstick.
Decals such as freckles, scars, warpaint, etc.
Configurable teeth: control the teeth, gums, tongue colors, dirt, shape, orientation, etc.
Powerful randomizer tool to effortlessly generate new characters or create small variations to existing ones.
Free simple feet-placement IK system
Very easy to adapt to any project
Cloth, hairstyles, beardstyles and accessories will be added for free in future updates.
I’ve been working on a complete character system for humanoid characters. These humanoids would be rigged to the UE4 mannequin and would have roughly 40 morphs + bone transforms and a lot of material-based customizations. I’ve seen some character customization systems on the marketplace, but they are mostly female-only or male-only, and my system would not only include both but also the ability to design monsters.
Let me show you a few screenshots of my current progress:
6 bone morphs (Eye shape, upper body size, arm length, etc). The reason these are made with bones is that it will adapt to any clothing very easily… which does not happen with blendshapes)
A very powerful yet efficient skin material with options for age, cosmetics, muscle tone, decals such as scars, and most of what you see in the screenshots (its the same material for all of them. Textures are just 2k, and the material is at 220 instructions so far)
A powerful eye material based on Epic’s eye shader with some customization (such as the emissive power you see on the monsters)
Materials for eyebrows, eyelashes (which have morphs as well related to size and other things)
Please let me know your thoughts on the above. Would you buy this? If so, what would you like me to add? If you have any morphing ideas please share them here and I’ll do my best to include them.
I hope you like it. If there is some interests I’ll probably release this in a few weeks (as most of the heavy lifting is already done)
I have to say the visual difference between character to character is very stunning, without being able to try it appears to be very functional in alterations. Ill buy it when its available . Also its been the holidays im sure youll gain alot of interest shortly and upon release. Your best selling feature looks to be creation of either male or female that’s a huge plus.
One addon later could be helms mask and paint patterns .
Thank you for your comments! I’m using substance painter to develop new skins and decals so paint patterns will surely be included. I’ll include some basic clothing and will also integrate some paragon assets into the project as usage examples, so there will definitely be some helmets.
Thank you for your suggestion! I’ll look into basic ethnic differences and will try to implement something. So far it’s easy to get the skin tone right, but I’ll do some research to include morphs that affect more subtle ethnic characteristics (e.g. lips shape, eyes, etc) for the mesh “globally”.
This looks promising so far! I am a bit concerned with only having 6 bone morphs for the body. How are you handling body shapes? I would like to see the ability to change the body parts like leg length, thickness, arms, neck, chest, etc. Can we make very skinny or very overweight characters with this?
Another big concern I always have with these systems is adding modular clothing. How are you handling this? Will you include examples / tutorials on how to produce new items, say in Blender, and add it to your system?
Could you post a short video showing what you have so far?
Those are great questions! Indeed, the reason I’m using bone morphs for the bone instead of blendshapes is mostly related to clothing.
Right now, the process to generate clothes is quite straightforward:
In Blender: Bind the clothes to the armature and then use the “transfer skin weights” modifier from the base body to the clothes.
In Maya LT: Bind the clothes to the skeleton and then use “Copy skin weights” from the base body to the clothes
This is a 2-minutes process that will ensure that any bone morphs are transferred over to the clothes. If you skin a shirt to a character and then increase the belly size scaling the proper bone, the shirt itself will increase in size and conform to the new body.
This, I’m afraid, can not be done with normal blendshapes (only with bones). That’s why I’m using blendshapes for facial features and bone morphs for body features.
Right now it’s possible to control, using bones: breasts, arms length, neck size & length, head size, upper body size, belly and legs width. Legs length seems to be extremely tricky and I’m still trying to figure out if it’s possible to control this with bones, ensuring that animations still work properly. This is somewhat difficult as increasing the leg size distorts the base of the character (so if you increase the leg size you also have to move the root bone upwards to ensure that the character is still above the ground)
I’ll post some videos soon. I’m happy to see some interest in regards to the project, so thank you very much for your comments!
This sounds really good! I’ve never heard of the bone morphs but it sounds very convenient. Looking forward to a video showing this specific system with all the different variations
I like Monsters . I have yet to acquire a Character Customizer from the marketplace due to the limitations you’ve mentioned, but, the MAJOR issue is the the lack of Supplemental Modular Clothing Packs for the Characters. Thus, I’ve been forced to develop my own.
I can rationalize why a Creators of Character Customizers would leave Clothing upto the Developers using it, but… Any Developer who has the means to create Clothing, would have the means create their own Character Customizer, so therein is a dilemma. Additionally, $upplemental Outfit Packs could provide additional revenue.
I would not acquire a Character Customizer without Supplemental Modular Clothing Packs. However, I may consider a Humanoid Monster Customizer as Monsters don’t necessarily need Clothing, because their Skin is the Clothing.
Without providing Supplemental Modular Clothing Packs, I don’t see a Universal Character Creation System, but, I can easily see a Humanoid Monster Creation System. I personally think everyone would benefit greater with focus on Clothing for other’s Characters. Perhaps a Universal Clothing Customization System.
In either case, your work looks fantastic. Keep it up.
Thank you all for the support! I’m sorry for the delay, but I’ve spent a few weeks learning how to design hair and clothing. I have some exciting news for the UCS system (which is roughly 95% complete by now)
The system will include 5-10 of my own designed hairstyles. Such hairstyles look great (some examples below), and the shader has a ton of customization options including the basics such as root/tip color, roughness, etc., but also size transformations using World Position Offset (i.e. you can change the hair or fringe scale, the length of each part, etc)
The shader not only looks great but, using a single texture sample and as few a 168 instructions, enables extremely good customization. The following screenshots show the same hair mesh with some differences set up in the material instances:
I will also include some Hairstyles taken from Paragon (Such as the ones in the first screenshots).
I’ll include at least 20 different clothes + some accessories. As an example, the previous screenshot contains a simple sweater and some glasses. So far I’ve created 10 different clothes including Jeans, Skirts, TShirts, Hoods, Hats, etc. There will be some modern clothes but also ragged, torn clothes, medieval stuff, etc.
I’ve greatly improved the skin shader. The new skin has more detail and customization options. It’s extremely easy to design characters with monster characteristics (such as burned skin, decals, deformed features, etc).
The following is an example of the same female character base with some monster-like customizations and a ragged hood:
I’ve almost finished the customization interface. It’s really quick & fun to design new characters and the system can be adapted to any Actor Blueprint in 2-3 minutes. I also included a cinematic map with many HDR lighting conditions to ensure that your character looks great on any map (In the previous screenshots you can see some of such scenarios)
Finally, I wanted to stress that any clothes are immediately adapted to other character proportions. This is the previous monster with other clothing & hair (and in another environment). As you can see, the clothes are adapted to any deformations:
You make a great point there and, indeed, one of the selling points of this system will be the clothing.
I plan to make at least 20 clothing parts with many customizations. These will be adaptable to any body types. Implementing Supplemental Modualr Clothing packs seems like a great idea, and I would indeed consider it if the system is succesfull in terms of sales.
This is a quick example of the clothes I’ve been developing – please note that these are not all final versions as I’m still learning how to design them.
Amazing progress so far! Indeed what usually holds me back from buying Character Customization systems is the modular clothing for the characters. If making clothing is as easy as you say, then this is a day one buy from me :). Also, selling clothing packs for your system is a great idea. I think making “themes” would be very popular (Sci Fi, Medieval, Modern, etc).
If you can, please make a quick video showing what you have so far
Skin textures are now 4K. The difference in quality is quite significant.
I developed 5 new hairstyles and finished the hair shader. I’m quite happy with the result. Please note that all these hairstyles will have separate versions for use with helmets, hoods, etc.
Thank you! I’m sorry for the delay in making the video. I’ll do one as soon as I finish the system (which should be soon enough). Is there anything in particular you want me to show, or just a general view of the product?
Sorry for the delay! I’ve been through some complicated times and wasn’t able to work on this for some time. But I recently got back to work and made huge progress! The system is pretty much finished, so I just have to make a promo video and submit it to UE4. I made big improvements on the skin & hair meshes and shaders, and on the clothes as well. I’ll be including a cloth editor with the system as well. In addition, I made some beards that are looking really good so far:
Thank you for your interest! I’ll likely submit it to the marketplace this weekend.
I’m sorry for not releasing the video yet! I’ll get to work on that shortly. I made some cool workflow improvements using the new editor scripting utilities – now you can save and load presets that are stored in a DataTable, which makes using the system much easier.
It basically consists on making and saving your asset and then selecting the preset in the Character BP (It can be any character blueprint with a simple Component, migrating it to any project shouldn’t take more than 1-2 minutes):
Thank you all for your patience. Have a great weekend ahead!
Welcome back. I’m a huge fan of this project and very happy to see you back working on it. I too have been busy working on a sort of Universal Customizion System geared more towards mechanical entities.
These guys have an interesting concept for licensing to other artist to create supplemental clothing ‘mods’ for your characters, and you earn commission from their sales. I think your system would be perfect for it.
I’ve joined their development team to work on (what I would call a unique) MMO, which will require a Character System like yours. Curious, if your system will have networking support?
