Plugins + Scripts [PersonToCUA Motion ]Character Export, Animation Recording & Playback

1. It exports character atoms into CUAs without physics effects or collision detection, significantly improving frame rates. The exported CUA includes the character’s clothing, hair, skin, and pose.
2. It uses Timeline-based animation storage. It can store not only character poses, but also full movements. The plugin supports animations up to 30 seconds long, played at 60 FPS.

1. Creating large numbers of custom NPCs as background characters.
2. Reducing hardware load in scenes with many characters.
3. Simply creating a CUA character statue-like display that can be saved and reused.
4. Any other applications you can think of.

How to use it？

1. First, add PersonToCUAMotion.cslist to a CUA. Then select the character atom you want to save and click Export.
2. You can click <Load latest Export here> to import the most recently exported character, or you can directly find the exported CUA in the CUA folder and load it manually.
3. Clothing and hair are optional and can be included or excluded depending on your needs.
4. The exported material quality has three options: 4096, 2048, and 1024. I strongly recommend using 1024, as it produces the smallest file size while maintaining almost the same visual quality.

Click to expand...

Further more

This video demonstrates how the plugin stores CUAs of different characters. As you can see, even the eye direction and facial expressions are preserved very well. Although the exported models have no physics effects or collision, the lighting still interacts with the models very naturally and produces excellent visual results.

In addition, the exported CUAs can still be imported normally even after this plugin is disabled.

At the same time, I recommend keeping the CUA position aligned with the character’s root control when exporting. This allows better control over the orientation and rotation of the exported model. The issue shown in the video happened because this point was overlooked.

Click to expand...

Animation

This is the most impressive feature of the plugin: animation storage.

It can store animations that already exist in Timeline and reproduce them on the CUA. Multiple animations can be stored within the same CUA while keeping the file size very small.

Please note that when storing animations, make sure the character atom and the CUA are in the same position and orientation. The plugin supports animations up to 30 seconds at 60 FPS.

How to store animations:

1. After preparing the animation you want to save, click Export Character. The CUA will use the character’s current pose as the captured pose.
2. Click <Record selected Timeline loop from 0>. The plugin will start recording from the beginning of the existing Timeline animation and continue until the animation ends. Once completed, the animation will be stored.
3. Alternatively, click <Arm Timeline recording>. This allows you to manually select the start and end points of the animation. You can even combine two animations together and export them as one sequence.
   After clicking this button, you need to manually play the animation in Timeline so that it can be recorded. Do not worry about the few seconds of waiting time in between — the plugin will only start recording when the Timeline animation actually begins.
4. After recording is complete, the animation can be played directly on the CUA. Click <Loop> to enable animation looping. Other buttons allow you to switch between animations, pause playback, or return to the original captured pose.
   Since the CUA has no physics simulation, the animation playback is extremely smooth.

Click to expand...

Finally, here is my shameless and rather clumsy attempt at recreating the Storm MV using this plugin. To be fair, I was in a hurry and only spent about 5 minutes making the animation, so the result is pretty ridiculous.
However, I think it demonstrates very well what this mod is capable of. In this scene, 16 characters are moving together while maintaining a decent frame rate. I was getting around 50 FPS during playback, and I was running it on a laptop.
I believe that with better hardware, scene creators will be able to achieve much more impressive and extreme results with this plugin.

Click to expand...