Do You Need to Rig Character Before Uploading to Mixamo?
How to LOD Mixamo Characters
22 Dec 2019 . category: tutorials .Comments
#tutorials
DISCLAIMER
Throughout this tutorial I will refer to Torque3D MIT as Torque.
If y'all followed my Torque3D Thespian Animation I tutorial prior to this, prissy, you empathise how to get your characters into Torque. Withal, hither nosotros will be starting from scratch with a new character. This workflow will crusade whatever existing animations you downloaded before to be incompatible with the new model that includes LODs.
A basic working knowledge of Blender usage and Torque3D's LOD system are both prerequisites to this, simply I'll go over important specifics hither. I will non be going over why you need to LOD or how the LODs work in Torque, equally all of that is beyond the telescopic of this tutorial.
I am not responsible for anything you mess upwardly with your project as a issue of following this.
INTRO
How-do-you-do out there Torque people! Before I get as well far into my beginner's serial, I wanted to accept a stride back to talk near LOD(level of detail) for Mixamo characters. More than specifically, how to do this using Blender.
What You're Gonna Demand:
Torque3D MIT 3.ten.1 BINARY: Torque3D Binaries
A Mixamo business relationship at mixamo. No I don't piece of work for Mixamo, they just offer something amazing for us to leverage here.
Blender 2.81a - At the time of this writing this is the latest version, although anything newer should be similar.
Step 1: Mixamo Download
Alright, then 1 thing to go over about Mixamo that'southward important to remember if you follow this workflow. We want to download our characters in the .fbx format, NOT the usual .DAE. Nosotros can still ultimately end upward with .DAE models to utilise in Torque, merely for this LOD workflow it is important that we download the characters from Mixamo in the .fbx format initially. Go ahead and download a character from mixamo:
Pace 2: Blender Specifics
Extract the .fbx someplace and import it into Blender. Hither, we are basically going to perform a few steps to prep this model for re-rigging. Don't go worried, we won't actually have to rig it ourselves and this process is fairly quick.
one- In the height right of the Blender window, expand the collection that holds your model. The heirarchy should expect similar this currently:
Now click the Armature, so hover your mouse over the 3D viewport and printing Delete. The heirarchy should now look like this:
This is using Mixamo's ybot model.
You lot'll notice that the 3D viewport is filled with a hugely scaled version of the original model. Zoom out with your mouse so you lot tin can run into what's going on.
2- Permit's become alee and set the model's rotation now. Click on a mesh(1), exist sure you are in the Object Properties tab(2), and click the Rotation 10 field(3) under the Transform section. Change that to xc and hit enter:
Repeat this step for any meshes that might exist in your model. In my example, I'm using the ybot model so I had to rotate both the Alpha_Joints mesh and the Alpha_Surface meshes. Now the model is continuing upright:
3- The model is still super huge by Torque standards and then nosotros'll calibration information technology downwardly. Click on a mesh, be certain you are in the Object Properties tab, and click the Calibration X field nether the Transform section. Blazon 0.01 for each centrality(X, Y, Z). Your rotation and scale backdrop should now wait like this:
Repeat this step for any meshes in your model.
Since the model is so tiny now, hover your mouse over the 3D viewport and press . on the numpad to automatically zoom in(a mesh has to be selected).
four- Since we've adjusted the rotation and scale for each mesh we should use those values to each object's data. With a mesh selected, click Object - Utilise - Rotation & Scale(in the top left), like so:
Now when yous look back at the Object Backdrop tab in the Transform section, you'll notice the rotation and scale values we adjusted have been zeroed out. Perfect. Repeat this step for all the meshes in your model.
5- Now permit'due south make clean up some stuff. Since nosotros removed the original Armature, we won't need the old Armature modifier or the existing vertex groups. If yous look at the top right and expand the heirarchy for each mesh, you'll see a visual indicator for the Modifiers and Vertex Groups:
(A)Click on a mesh, be sure yous are in the Modifier Backdrop tab(one), and click the X(2) in the top right of the modifier block to delete information technology.
Repeat this step for all the meshes in your model.
(B)Click on a mesh and click the Object Data Properties tab(1). At the height of that tab you'll see the Vertex Groups department. But repeatedly click on the minus symbol to the correct of that list(2) to remove all of the existing vertex groups.
Repeat this step for all the meshes in your model. When you're done, your heirarchy should look like this:
Footstep 3: Blender LODs
Now we're gear up for the adept stuff. LODs. How you go about creating the LODs for your models is completely subjective, and there are several ways to practise this. I'll innovate ane of the simplest methods I use and leave alternative methods equally an exercise for the reader.
i- The kickoff guild of business is to duplicate your meshes(shift+D with an object selected) and rename them with the _LOD[num] suffix. Using the ybot, for example, I duplicated Alpha_Joints first. I renamed the original high-poly mesh to Alpha_Joints_LOD500 and the copy to Alpha_Joints_LOD300. Then I did the same affair for the Alpha_Surface mesh, ending upwardly with Alpha_Surface_LOD500 and Alpha_Surface_LOD300. I'll usually merely rename the Object and the ObjectData(Mesh) using the same name, like and so:
Repeat this step for as many LODs you want your model to accept.
The _LOD[num] suffix is highly subjective and will vary greatly depending on your projection's needs. Y'all are just going to have to do these awhile to go a expert set of values that work for what you are doing. A lot of times I utilise _LOD500, _LOD300, _LOD200, _LOD100, and _LOD2. What's important is as each number decreases, so should the number of polygons.
ii- Leave the original loftier-poly objects as they are(in my case _LOD500 objects) and click one of the objects with the adjacent everyman LOD suffix(in my example _LOD300). With the object you want to LOD selected(1), click the Modifier tab(2), and and so click Add Modifier(3). Choose Decimate from the dropdown.
3- The Decimate modifier has a few dissimilar means that it decreases polygons in a mesh. The two I utilise regularly are Collapse and Un-Subdivide. In the instance of Collapse(i), use the Ratio(two) slider to decrease triangles. For Un-Subdivide(1), increment the number of Iterations(2) and Blender reduces the geometry down in steps. But pay attention to the number of faces shown in the modifier interface and subtract the polygons for each LOD mesh you lot have created, and then click Employ(3).
You can find more info near this modifier in the Blender docs.
4- With all of the duplicate versions of your model stacked upwardly, in the viewport you lot'll probably run into 'squiggly' lines all across the meshes where they overlap.
This is perfectly normal, and y'all can click the heart icon to evidence/hide any LOD meshes while you are working with them. Keep in mind that when all of this gets to Torque but one of these meshes will brandish at a time, based on how far abroad the model is from the screen.
If y'all've created all of the indistinguishable versions of your model and applied the Decimate modifier to each one, you lot're set to export information technology all. Just go out all the meshes stacked up and don't add any extras such as nodes or Premises shapes. Go ahead and export the drove of LODs from Blender in the .fbx format. In Blender 3.8, I simply export these using default export settings.
Pace four: Mixamo Specifics
The reason why it is important that we work with the .fbx format(even if we ultimately want to use .DAE) is we are about to upload this collection of LODs back to Mixamo for rigging. The mixamo rigger merely accepts a few formats, and .DAE is not i of them.
1- Login to Mixamo and look to the peak right of the screen. Under the Download button click the button Upload Grapheme. A popup will announced where you lot tin elevate and driblet your exported .fbx file. Go ahead and do that at present and allow Mixamo process information technology. Mixamo's Car-Rigger interface will appear, and if all is well your stack of LODs should be displayed.
2- Click Next to begin the automobile-rigging procedure, information technology's pretty simple to use. You'll just elevate the circles onto the correct joints every bit instructed, merely to clear any confusion there is an image on the right side of the Motorcar-Rigger interface that shows what that should look like when complete. Mine looked like this:
3- Click Adjacent when done, and allow the Automobile-Rigger to do its magic. Inside a couple minutes, you should exist presented with an example idle animation hooked into your model.
iv- Click Adjacent and you'll see your uploaded model in the standard TPose. Download that file in the format you lot are working with and you are good to go! Yous are at present costless to import this model into Torque and add together any additions such as nodes, bounding boxes, so on using Torque'due south TSShapeConstructor. By following this process all of the LODs are rigged to the Mixamo basic, and will leverage Torque's LOD system.
Additional Notes
When using this workflow at that place are a couple important things to consider. One is that in one case you upload your character to Mixamo for rigging, Mixamo will store that grapheme in your business relationship. This way, when you log out and come back you lot'll be greeted with the same model you uploaded so you tin come up dorsum and grab extra aimations. Even so, if you were to upload an additional character, you would remove the existing one and thus lose the rigged character y'all had. To combat this, I e'er backup the original model file that holds its collection of LODs(i.eastward. ybot_preMix.fbx).
Some other thing to recollect is that Torque too uses nodes with its LOD organization, so yous'll need to create the proper LOD nodes using Torque's TSShapeConstructor.
I started using this workflow due to the procedure of exporting from Blender into Torque being a huge tin of worms and normally resulting in deformed skins on the model. There are ways effectually this, and ultimately all of what I've introduced here can also be achieved using Blender. However, as Blender versions change these things can pause again and this allows us to just let Mixamo handle rigging and export then we don't have to. I hope this helps anyone having issues and needing LODs for graphic symbol models. Happy blending and mixing!
Source: https://www.upstateindie.com/tutorials/2019/12/22/T3DPlayerLOD.html
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