Guides The definitive asset creation tutorial for VaM

[hazmhox]

hazmhox submitted a new resource:

The definitive asset creation tutorial for VaM - Tips, tricks and suggestions to easily build new Custom Unity Assets for VaM

The definitive asset creation tutorial for VaM

Introduction

This guide is a set of information, tips, tricks and suggestions to easily build new Custom Unity Assets for VaM and also, first and foremost, avoid mistakes and optimize your content.

It is the result of years of creating content for VaM, so if you dig in my old content, you will most likely realize that not all my content follows these guidelines… because I improved my workflow over time...

Read more about this resource...

 

[vamurai]

You mean bake textures from Blender to final PNGs for Unity ? This is something I could do yeah. But well... Substance Painter is way better =D (feel free to continue this or answer in the discussion)

You asked, so....

Once upon a time, I had a wild hair that I was going to start making environments for VaM because there just weren't many good ones out there. I taught myself how to use blender reasonably well, made myself a pretty rad apartment, and then... got stuck at baking textures. I tried a number of different methods, I could just never really get the hang of it. The textures either all turned out terrible, or the texture map never lined up properly when I brought it over to Unity.

I'm pretty okay at modelling and manipulating things now in Blender, but that step between Blender and Unity with regards to textures is where I stumble. If you are comfortable with that step, and have a "best-practice" like this one, I'd be forever in your debt!

 

[hazmhox]

You asked, so....

Once upon a time, I had a wild hair that I was going to start making environments for VaM because there just weren't many good ones out there. I taught myself how to use blender reasonably well, made myself a pretty rad apartment, and then... got stuck at baking textures. I tried a number of different methods, I could just never really get the hang of it. The textures either all turned out terrible, or the texture map never lined up properly when I brought it over to Unity.

I'm pretty okay at modelling and manipulating things now in Blender, but that step between Blender and Unity with regards to textures is where I stumble. If you are comfortable with that step, and have a "best-practice" like this one, I'd be forever in your debt!

Could you show me a few shots of your geometry to check something beforehand.
But yeah I can think about that

 

[vamurai]

Could you show me a few shots of your geometry to check something beforehand.
But yeah I can think about that

Sure thing! I'll try to get some examples together in the next couple days and you can have a look.

 

[hazmhox]

@enoeht

I thought that I was just using shortcuts, but was not aware that it caused trouble with script developement. My apologies for that. I will work on my folder structure starting with my next asset port.

This is a way of making a clean structure (either file structure, or prefab structure). It's not always bad to do differently... but I think it is a good way to ensure you have a clear, comprehensive way of doing your content.

You can make a really random structure for every prefab you make, but you will at some point face issues because you forgot the name of your root, or the name of your base prefab... etc... It is a matter of arrangement to ease either the update process of your content or your potential future script for your asset... or both.

Being organized always improves your efficiency : )

 

[hazmhox]

hazmhox updated The definitive asset creation tutorial for VaM with a new update entry:

New chapters and tips

• Added a Fixing the shadows chapter
• Added some insights about naming convention ( for the files and prefabs )

Read the rest of this update entry...

 

[rabbit1qaz]

hello i have 2 questions:

1) How to create Mesh Colliders on animated(fbx) objects? if i add mesh collider it works if object is not animated, but as i add animation controler with some animation collider do not work. Is it possible to do that(even if it takse more cpu/gpu power ) or mesh colliders are only static ?

2) 6 - Fixing the shadows : should i do it once for my unity project or every time i add some new objects to it ?

 

[hazmhox]

hello i have 2 questions:

1) How to create Mesh Colliders on animated(fbx) objects? if i add mesh collider it works if object is not animated, but as i add animation controler with some animation collider do not work. Is it possible to do that(even if it takse more cpu/gpu power ) or mesh colliders are only static ?

2) 6 - Fixing the shadows : should i do it once for my unity project or every time i add some new objects to it ?

1 - Mesh Colliders are static, and they are really expensive to update. If you have a skinned mesh, your animations will never update a mesh collider. Just like any other game, the idea with a skinned mesh is to add basic collisions connected to the bones. This way, all collisions will work with any animation on the skinned mesh.
Do you have any screenshot of your mesh ? and an example animation ?

2 - The include is added to the editor. So when you have restarted Unity and clear the GI cache, you are good to go for any new project using this version of Unity. Which also means any new asset, material, texture... etc... inside a single project. I've added this information to the tutorial : )

 

[rabbit1qaz]

1 - Mesh Colliders are static, and they are really expensive to update. If you have a skinned mesh, your animations will never update a mesh collider. Just like any other game, the idea with a skinned mesh is to add basic collisions connected to the bones. This way, all collisions will work with any animation on the skinned mesh.
Do you have any screenshot of your mesh ? and an example animation ?

I just ask generaly, im new into how all that works (games/unity) so i was not sure if there were a way to add dynamic mesh collision i thought that it must be expensive but also if you have more irregular not simple object like eg kinky dildos or other "insertion things" and you like close ups where such a thing go inside then its hard to get same effect with just sphere or capsule colliders

PS: Thank you 1000x for VAMoan

 

[hazmhox]

I just ask generaly, im new into how all that works (games/unity) so i was not sure if there were a way to add dynamic mesh collision i thought that it must be expensive but also if you have more irregular not simple object like eg kinky dildos or other "insertion things" and you like close ups where such a thing go inside then its hard to get same effect with just sphere or capsule colliders

PS: Thank you 1000x for VAMoan

np for VAMM

I could show you how to create "complex collisions" for static objects. Actually the glass example is a first step. The next step would be to use empties with colliders to make a more detail collision with basic sphere/capsule/box colliders... for static objects of course.

 

[hazmhox]

hazmhox updated The definitive asset creation tutorial for VaM with a new update entry:

New chapter and tips

• Added reference tips in chapter 2 (Making optimized prefabs).
• Added Bonus Chapters section and the first bonus chapter : 10 - Importing and creating a prefab from Sketchfab

Read the rest of this update entry...

 

[hazmhox]

hazmhox updated The definitive asset creation tutorial for VaM with a new update entry:

New chapters and tips

• Added new bonus chapter : 11 - Make clean releases.
• Added new bonus chapter : 12 - Ease your demos / scenes creation process : avoid the dependencies fixing nightmare.

Read the rest of this update entry...

 

[falbst]

Thanks for the info, I have a question regarding pivot points for an object. I have an object like a Door imported from Daz and its pivot point is not in the correct spot for correct rotation. I have moved it in Unity but the changes are not affected in Vam.

any advice would be appreciated.

 

[hazmhox]

It feels like either you're not updating the prefab properly, or you might not be checking the pivot with the good "mode".

In Unity you have two buttons, on top. They might be called Pivot/Local or Center/Global (or a combination of these.
When you update the real pivot of an asset, you should be in Pivot/Local.

Also, if you're using a hinge, you should also be tweaking the hinge to be at the right position.

 

[falbst]

Yes, I made sure I was in Pivot/Local mode whilst modifying the position. But in Vam the Pivot defaults back to the original zero position.

 

[hazmhox]

VaM does not magically apply changes to the assets : )

If you're sure of your asset inside Unity, then there is something going on on VaM's side and is mostly "your fault" : either you made a mistake renaming the assetbundle, you're using the wrong version in another folder, or something like that.

I had several headhaches due to some mistakes I made while working on assets... the exact examples I just told you (naming, multiple versions etc...).

There is no cache but you could try clearing it, and VaM does modify that kind of stuff : it simply loads the asset as a children of the CUA Atom.
So this is like a 99.9% chance of a mistake on your part

 

[falbst]

Yes, I understand I'm making a mistake somewhere which is why I'm seeking advice. But in this case, there is only one version of the Asset and no matter what new assets I create the pivot points work correctly in Unity but not in Vam.

 

[hazmhox]

I think your misunderstood me : I'm saying that if you're sure 100%, that you actually made the pivot properly in Unity (which is what I'm assuming in the previous post), the error IS made on VaM's side. The problem is, you're actually giving me zero information, besides "it does not work". I don't know the asset, I don't know the complexity of your prefab, I don't even know if are using the correct terms (I talked about hinges and you did not answer about that).

From what I can gather, I think you might be either missing something on your assets, or misunderstand something about pivots.

Now the next step is that... if you want actual helpful insight either :

• Screenshot your assets in Unity, your full hierarchy in unity (the prefab tree), the components, and show the asset in VaM. Also shoot what do you think is wrong with the pivot inside VaM (what makes you say it's wrong).
• Send an assetbundle of you asset, and a unity package or a zip of your asset from your project in Unity.

Don't underestimate the ton of potential errors you can make in Unity for a specific issue. Without reporting a proper bug / issue list with screenshots and details... it's like a needle in a haystack.

 

[falbst]

Thanks for your reply,

It seems that the only way to get it working correctly in Vam is to zero or move the asset within daz then export.

So in other words you need to move/align the asset to obsolete zero which determines where the pivot point will be within Unity/Vam

I think my mistake was that the same could be achieved by moving only the pivot point to suit.

 

[hazmhox]

I still don't understand what your issue was, but good to know that you found a way.

 

[Nawen]

I can't believe that actually worked, Thank you!, excited for what I can put in from my own blender creations now.

 

[hazmhox]

Ho cool!
I'm glad the tutorial helped at least one person : D
Cool guitar !

 

[Sp0_0ns]

Appreciate all the hard work. Really nice write up.

Is there anyway to do something similar as vams built in dildo? (With softbody(?) physics and stiffness bar etc..)

I assume it has something to do with the rigid body component in unity and I've messed around with it, but the model just gets all twisted so probably doing something wrong. Then it would be a script added to the cua to control the stiffness. Unless I'm completely off base and there is a way to do it all within Unity.

 

[hazmhox]

Thank you @Sp0_0ns !

First, on a CUA, you'd need a plugin if you want control over it : )
You can't do "VaM" like atoms within Unity.

I don't think the dildo is a soft-body simulation, but most likely a basic Hinge-Joint rig with a bit of bounciness.
I think the idea is just to put a nice rig, several joints and just control the limits and axis properly.

Then from here, code a plugin to control the settings : )

 

[Sp0_0ns]

Thank you so much for your help @hazmhox as I was literally at ground zero and had no idea how to go about it. I've made good progress through trial and error. I took your advice and tried the hinge joint component on a dildo that is rigged with some tweaking, it worked, but quickly found out it only worked in one axis and couldn't get it to work in all of them. I googled around and instead used the configurable joint component which is working in all axis. I got it all setup in VaM and the dildo moves in a "realistic" way when I rotate it like the built in one and now just need to learn how to make a plugin so I can control the stiffness.

Just thought I'd let you know you were a huge help.