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Blender Metaverse Toolkit Blender Add-on (MVT) AddOn

Plugin ("Project Hermes") is a plugin for Blender to allow for easier content creation originally created for importing for the High Fidelity Metaverse Platform.

It has now being expanded to support additional platforms. as the official High Fidelity platform is turning off, while its forks are going to live their separate lives. This plugin now will focus on supporting as many platforms as possible.

Currently Supports

  • HiFi and Forks
  • VRC (NeosVR by Proxy)
  • Tower Unite
  • Faceshift/Animaze

3.1+ Works with blender 2.90 or later.

Installation Guide

Simple

Open the Github page, go to releases and download the metaverse_tools.zip zip file.

In Blender. Goto User Preferences, and Add-ons. From there Install Add-on from File and select the Zip file that we downloaded.

Enable the plugin under Import-Export: Metaverse Toolkit Blender Add-on.

If you had previous used plugin when it was "High Fidelity" Only, make sure to uninstall the old one first.

If you use the git repository:

Make sure to git submodule init and git submodule update as we are using an external add on to bind shapekeys to new model.

Copy metaverse_tools folder to your Blender Addons Directory.

On Windows this is under %APPDATA%/Blender Foundation/Blender/<BlenderVersion>/addons

Utility Functions:

General Tools

  • Material Tools
    • Automatic Principled BDSF binding to HF FBX. You can use Blender materials to define HF materials, just do not use Node Groups.
    • Set Non-Diffuse ColorData and Auto Correct on Save Tools that fixes color spaces for Roughness, Normal, and Metallic textures for preview
    • Textures to Mask and Textures to Png utility helpers.
  • Mesh Tools:
    • Merge Modifiers & Shapekeys attempt to merge modifiers onto Mesh with Shapekeys using Przemysław Bągard's ApplyModifierForObjectWithShapeKeys script, now included with this plugin, but if an existing copy exists, it is used instead
    • Clean Unused Vertex Groups Clean model from vertex groups that are not in its current skeleton.
  • Armature Tools:
    • Test Avatar Rest Pose - Attempts to detect type of skeleton and applies an absolute T-Pose by the platform reference
    • Merge Bones - Attempts to merge selected bones to last selected bone.
    • Match Reference Rolls - Uses rolls from the detected reference skeleton.

High Fidelity Tools

Generic Toolset allowing one to create content for High Fidelity forks, from

  • A new Panel on the 3D View's right tool set is added, labled MVT: High Fidelity
  • Armature Tools
    • Add Hifi Armature - Adds an Armature which is compatible with High Fidelity forks, has all the naming conventions in place
    • Set Bone Physical - (Armature Edit mode only) Adds a prefix to selected bones for Scripts in High fidelity for physical simulation
    • Remove Bone Physical - (Armature Edit mode only) Removes prefix from selected bones for Scripts in High fidelity for physical simulation
  • Avatar Converters
    • Custom Avatar - Attempts to bind of the model to a HF specific Bone naming and rotations.
    • MMD Avatar - Translates and fixes MMD models and their materials for them to work in High Fidelity. Full MMD Avatar import tutorial here

Hifi Export Tools:

  • File > Export > Hifi FBX: Custom FBX that binds to the Principled BDSF into a format HiFi understands
  • File > Export > Hifi Avatar FST: Exports Avatar, applies necessary steps for avatar to work in High Fifelity.
    • Supports Embedded textures: Exports Textures embedded to file
    • Supports Selected Only: Exports Selected only
    • Experimental Oven Feature: Experimental feature to Compress Avatar and its Textures: Only settable if you have set the path under User Settings > Addon > HiFi Blender Add-on
  • File > Export > HiFi Metaverse Scene JSON/FBX: Exports Scene as a json and Fbx
    • Marketplace / Base URL : This is the folder path for your marketplace or external server address. Simply paste the directory where you will upload the files here, and the json file will have the urls automatically appended to them. This is not optional and must be set prior to exporting: You will otherwise have an error message
    • Clone Scene prior to export

Importing from Hifi:

The add-on allows you to import primitive entities from High Fidelity. In High Fidelity, select the entities you want to export and press export.

In Blender, You can then import these entities with File > Import > HiFi Metaverse Scene JSON

You can then set materials to the objects via the material panel, modify the mesh, do uv mapping corrections.

Hifi Import Settings

  • Use UV Sphere: Instead of a Quad sphere, use a UV sphere for the base primitive
  • Join Mesh Children: If Boolean is set to None, join Children with their Parents into a Single Mesh
  • Merge Distance: Set this higher if you want to remove doubles
  • Delete interior faces: If the mesh is enclosed and not consisting of multiple convex intercepting shapes, delete interior walls
  • Boolean: Experimental feature to enable
    • None: Use no boolean solver to solve for faces
    • BMesh: Experimental: Use BMesh solver to solve for mesh
    • Carve: Experimental Use Carge solver to solve for mesh

If Entity is not Child of another entity, no Join is done. Only Children are merged with their Parents

Note that Boolean operations work differently, and some may not keep the UV Unwrapping correctly in some situations. Use at your own risk

VRChat / Neos Tools (WIP)

Work in progress module to try to stream line some "gotchas" when converting avatars to VRC without the duplicate operator additions from CATS (creating operators for Tools that are already in Blender, which create abit of clutter during operator searches). Also by proxy supports NeosVR, which automatically binds the visemes when fbx export is used.

  • A new Panel on the 3D View's right tool set is added, labeled MVT: VRC Tools
  • Armature Tools
    • Add VRC Armature - Adds an Armature which is compatible with VRC
    • Generate VRC Shapekeys - Generates empty shapekeys (for now, later will allow the use of various methods, including CATS, and custom)
    • Sort Shapekeys - Utility function to quickly sort shapekeys to match VRC requirements.

Tower Unite Tools (WIP)

Work in progress module to try to stream line some "gotchas" when converting avatars to TE.

  • A new Panel on the 3D View's right tool set is added, labeled MVT: TowerUnite Tools
  • Armature Tools
    • Add TU Armature - Adds an Armature which is compatible with Tower Unite
    • Clean Shapekeys - Utility function to quickly remove all shapekeys from a model
    • Fix Common Issues - Utility function to remove all weights for root, and all the twist bones that tend to cause issues.

Generic Rigging tools:

Mostly Tools for assisting with creating rigs for animations into various platforms and engines.

  • Pose Contraint tools:

    • Clear Constraint - Allows fast clearing of constraints
    • Location Copy - Sets up Pose Location Constraint for selected bones to copy the root
    • Influenced Copy - Sets up a Pose Location constraint for selected bones with influence based on distance to active
    • Rotational Copy - Sets up a Pose Rotation constraints for selected bones to copy the root
    • Mirror Constraint - Copies all Constraints from other bones, and mirrors it to the other side.
    • Normalize Constraints - Normalizes influences for a bone with multiple constraints of the same type.

  • Pose Utility Tools:

    • Clone Locks - Clones position and rotation locks from one bone to the other
    • Un/Lock Rotations - Locks all rotations for bone
    • Un/lock Translations - Unlocks all Translations
    • Copy Custom Shapes - Copies custom bone shapes from one to selected.
    • Clear Custom Shapes - Clears all custom bone shapes.

Changelog:

3.1.0

  • Added Facerig/Animaze Bundle export - Creates a folder structure that is compatible with animaze/facerig
  • Hifi->Vircadia rename
  • Split Mirrorable Actions Mirror Actions into Actions allowing creation of mirrored actions
  • Using latest Apply Modifiers version for better Blender 2.90+ compatability

2.1.0

  • Added Hotfix #29 and #28 Relating to Hifi FBX and the FBX changes in 2.8
  • Added Pose Constraint Tools for dealing with bone constraints
  • Added Pose Utility Tools for dealing with bone behavior

2.0.1

  • Added some sculpting tools to quickly add 0.05 and reduce 0.05 resolution prior to remesh
  • Moved compartmentalized components around for more easier maintenance in the future.
  • README improvements

2.0

  • hifi_tools is now metaverse_tools
  • Added Tower Unite specific tools
  • Fixed 2.81 FBX export (but may have forgotten 2.8)

1.5.5

  • Hifi_tools is in the process of renaming to mvt_tools, in version 2.0 this will occur
  • Added VRChat Specific tools (WIP) for experienced blenderers.
  • Prepared framework for ability to import and on-the-fly create multiple platform skeletons and retarget animations cross-platform.
  • Fixed issues with Hifi FBX export, regarding emissions

1.4x

  • 2.8 RC support
  • Removed eBPBRS infavor of just using the PBR Materials.
  • Lots of Refactoring