A group dedicated to indie and standalone game development.

Post news Report RSS Character Creator 3 - 3D Game Pipeline

Follow the development of the upcoming Character Creator 3 (CC3) tool for indie game development, AR/VR games, pre-viz and animation production.

Posted by on

Character Creator 3  Work in Progress 2


Starting from version 3, Character Creator will turn into a stand-alone 3D character generator to fulfill the multi-faceted demands of AR/VR, game development, and animation production.


Bit.ly - Currently, Character Creator 3 is still in development but you can follow its 3-stage release schedule that covers a comprehensive list of interesting new features that you can expect to benefit from.

1


This WIP 2 reveals the breakthrough of how Character Creator 3 (CC3) is centered to complete the 3D game character pipeline for the industry. Other than adding a highly optimized game character base for mobile, AR and VR developers; CC3 also integrates InstaLOD’s model and material optimization technologies to generate game-ready characters that are animatable on-the-fly with multiple LOD outputs.


GAME CHARACTER BASE

CC3 is introducing a new Game Character Base with its topology optimized for Mobile, Game, AR/VR developers. The 10K polygon base also answers the call for displaying massive amount of NPCs or Citizens with true-to-life body and facial animation without serious performance drop in real-time render.

Optimized Game Base Character for Game/AR/VR/Mobile

  • Game Base Characters can be derived from any Standard CC Character.
  • Retain visual quality after mesh simplification.
  • Compatible with CC Morphs, Skin Presets, and Outfit System.



Simplified Bone Structure for Facial and Body Animation

  • CC bones optimized identically for game engine compatibility.
  • Fully-rigged 10K polygon characters with detailed facial and body performance.
  • Compatible with iClone character animation tools and mocap system.
  • Access to full set of Facial Morphs for lip sync and emotional expression.



Merge Materials for Game Performance

  • Bake all character materials into one texture for minimal draw call.
  • Keep materials in separate UV maps for game avatar component exchangeability.
  • Merged texture resolution ranging from 512 to 4K.
  • Double the Normal map resolution during texture bake to keep fine mesh details.



BUILT-IN MESH OPTIMIZATION TECHNOLOGY


InstaLOD logo


InstaLOD is a world-leading technology company specialized in automatic optimization of 3D content. The InstaLOD integration makes CC3 an unmatched game character design platform, fulfilled the complete character pipeline on polygon reduction, materials merge, texture baking, remeshing and LOD generation.

Polygon Reduction

  • Make high polygon content ready for real-time engines.
  • Choose from target polygon count or expected percentage.
  • Flexible reduction design suitable for all use cases
    • All Wearables - Reduce polycount for Cloth, Hair, Shoes, Accessories all at once
    • By Object - A selected wearable item
    • By Element - Refined Optimization to Selected and Unselected Sub-items



Bake Mesh Details to Texture Maps

  • Transfer details from a high-polygon mesh to a lower polygon one.
  • Bake normal maps for surface detail.
  • Bake diffuse maps for color detail.
  • Baked Texture Size from 512 to 4K.



Remesher

  • Combine separate character meshes into one.
  • Generate character models in multiple LOD.
  • Custom define output criteria for each mesh level.
  • LOD distance with progressive visual quality while switching character models in different viewing distance.



Merge Materials (UVs)

  • Significantly reduce draw calls for optimal game performance.
  • Options to group selected materials to target UV maps
    • Merge All Materials into One Map
    • Merge by Type – Outfit, Accessory, Body
    • Merge by Item – Individual Wearables, Body
  • Bake up to 4K merged texture size.



SEE HOW IT WORKS IN GAMES

logo unreallogo unitylogo cryengine

Game Character LOD

  • In this sample, a CC3 warrior is made with 7 levels of detail and rendered in Unity.
  • Seamlessly switch character levels based on the camera distance for optimal game performance.
  • Creation Base (LOD 0) and Game Base (LOD 1-2) serves as the 3 high mesh levels to present facial animation.
  • LOD4 to LOD6 are generated by the Remesher. The whole character is merged into a single mesh and single material format to increase performance.



3rd Person Interactive Control

  • The CC3 Export profiles have made the CC3 character fully compatible with the Unreal UE4 rig and Unity Mecanim avatar.
  • FBX to game engines are instantly ready for game character control, and without tedious bone renaming or remapping.



1st Person View (FPS)

  • The increased mesh and texture resolution for hands in CC3 enables captivating hand detail.
  • Easily create custom hand animations for various Weapon Modes by iClone Motion Capture and Motion Layer Editing.
  • The spell casting gestures are recorded from Leap Motion and edited in iClone in minutes.



Distant Low-Poly Crowd

  • Populate the scene with massive amounts of low-poly animated pedestrians or game citizens to build life-like environment.
  • Use the CC3 Remesher to generate single mesh, single material characters from a chosen character design.
  • Retain excellent visual quality after mesh and material merge.



Multiple NPC Nearby

  • NPC usually plays the role of extras or enemies in a game. There could be numerous NPC closely interacting with a player.
  • The NPCs here are mostly presented by Creation Base and Game Base to retain natural body and facial animation.
  • See the detailed character appearance of hair, outfits, and accessories all with PBR materials.



Talking Game Character

  • The fully facial rigged characters can be easily used for cut-scene dialog or player interactions.
  • CC3 characters are built with 60 facial morphs optimized for voice lipsync and professional facial capture devices.
  • This talking character is made with a 3D scanned human face in 4K texture for best details.
  • This vivid talking animation is made by iClone Motion LIVE using iPhone X as the face tracking device.



CC3 Showcase


Post comment Comments
SPY-maps
SPY-maps

What a awesome program is this!
For small indie teams this is a real must to work with, what a powerhouse!

Leon

Reply Good karma Bad karma+3 votes
Realtimer Author
Realtimer

Absolutely! This new Character Creator 3 is a must-have for all indie game developers. Stay tuned for more news.

Reply Good karma+1 vote
Post a comment

Your comment will be anonymous unless you join the community. Or sign in with your social account: