This set of Two Plugins for Blender and Unity will help you to convert a Character Creator 4 Character to a fully functional and ready to use UMA Asset. The Plugin will not only allow you to convert a naked Character as a new UMA Race, it will also allow you to convert clothed Characters to UMA Wardrobe Slots. The Plugin will take care of the necessary steps and keeps everything as simple as possible. The main goal is to let you focus on preparing your Character and Clothing in Character Creator 4 and build a easy to use Brdige to UMA. While you can of course modify the resulting UMA Assets directly in Unity, the Plugin is designed to let you handle everything in Blender.
The Plugin comes with an Unity Asset Postprocessor that will take the UMA Compatible outputs from Blender and automatically create a race or wardrobe slots for you. This Plugin will do a lot of steps in the Background but won't bother you with any of it.
- Download the latest release from the Releases page.
- Open Blender and go to Edit > Preferences > Add-ons > Install
- Select the downloaded zip file and click Install Add-on
- Enable the Add-on by checking the box next to it
- Click File > Defaults > Save Startup File to make sure the Add-on is enabled by default
Simply open your Unity Package Manager and click on the + Button in the top left corner. Choose "Add package from git URL" and paste the following URL:
https://github.com/valentinwinkelmann/CC2UMAConverter.git?path=UmaConverterUnity
That's it. The Plugin will be installed and ready to use.
Exporting your Character from Character Creator 4 is pretty simple, but needs to follow a few very important steps, so the Blender Plugin can understant it's structure.
File > Export > Clothed Character- Set Target Tool Preset to
Maya. (Not Unity) - Set FBX Options to
Mesh. - Disable Embed Textures.
- Enable InstaLOD Material Merge ( the type you want )
To convert a naked CC4 Character to a new UMA Race, you will import the character in blender and Choose Rig Type: Race. When you press converting the Plugin will calculate some information about the rig in Background. Inside the UMA Tab you will now be able to select which of the meshes should be exported. When you select one you will see a Slot Name field for the selected mesh. You have to fill this and it should be unique for each mesh. This will be the UMA Slot Name in Unity. You Will Also see Available Overlays list of Material names. This materials are the one which UMA will Create and are defined by the Blender Material Names. You can Rename them using the default Blender Material Tab.
Use the Export button to Choose a location for your Character. Along your exported FBX file you will find a JSON file that contains some information about your character. This JSON file is important when you want to convert new Clothings for your Character, so keep it safe. You can now Drag and Drop booth files into your Unity Project and the Postprocessor will take care of the rest.
To convert a clothed CC4 Character to a new UMA Wardrobe Slot, you will import the character in blender and Choose Rig Type: Clothing. Before you can press the convert button you have to select a Race JSON File, that you created before. Now you can press the convert button and the Plugin will do the rest. Like the UMA Race workflow you can now choose which meshes should be exported ( Race Meshes will be ignored and while they are in the Scene you dont have to worry about them ). As with the Race Creation you will have to fill the Slot Names and can rename the Material Names to your liking. You also have to Choose your desired Wardrobe Slot Type. The Plugin will give you a predefined list of Wardrobe Slots which UMA uses by Default but you can freely type any Wardrobe Slot Type you want, just make sure this is consistent with your other Clothing conversions. Aft. You will find a JSON file next to the FBX file that contains some information about your clothing. This is the *_Cloth.json file.
- If you Export clothing for a Race you created before, you have to use exactly the same Character for the Clothing Exports. If you plan to export a set of multiple clothings over time, you should save your Race Template Character in Character Creator 4.
- The Plugin Exports JSON Files, which are simple but better keep them if you plan to create new clothings for your character in the future.
- The Plugin is not meant to let you modifiy and adjust the Mesh in Blender. You can do that, but it may break the scene and make the Plugin not work as expected with your modified meshes.
- The Plugin works currently only with PBR Materials. before Exporting your Character from Character Creator 4, it's therefore necessary to set the Material Type to PBR. At the moment there are no plans to extend the Plugin to handle other Material Types.
- Currently the Plugin only works with Character Exports which used InstaLOD Material Merge.
- Currently you can't export a Character with Hats or other non skinned Accessories. CC4 adds them with a Nasty Extra Bone and the Plugin won't handle that. If you Want to Export a Hat, you have to skin it like a normal Clothing Piece and bind it to the Head Bone.
- Race Conversion
- Wardrobe Slot Conversion
- Define Wardrobe Slot Types in Blender
- Renaming Slots and Material Names in Blender
- Export Textures and rename them as their Overlay Names
- Unity Postprocessor to Create all UMA Assets for you
- GameCreator 2 Integration
- Rework the Codebase to be more flexible and extendable
- Make Renaming the Materials automatically in Blender
- Thumbnail Export for UMA Wardrobe Slots
- Individual Wardrobe Slot types for each Race
- Stability and Performance Improvements
- Support all Render Pipelines
- Support non PBR Workflows like CC4's Skin, Eye and Hair Materials
- Support Mesh exports without InstaLOD Material Merge
- Support for Accessories and Hats without Skinning
This Blender Plugin and Unity Plugin are Developed and Copyrighted by Valentin Winkelmann. This Software is Free to use in a Non-Commercial and Commercial Enviroment. Please read the full End-User License Agreement