Creating anime characters for game development has never been easier with tools like VRoid Studio and Blender. In this tutorial we showcase using VRoid Studio, a free tool for creating textured and animated anime avatars. If VRoid Studio sounds familiar, we featured this tool as recently as 2019.
In the video below we walk through the following processes:
Using VRoid Studio
Exporting VRM files
Importing VRM into Blender
Creating a simple animation
Exporting from Blender in GLB/GLTF format
Importing GLB formats into the Godot game engine
Exporting VRoid characters to Mixamo for animting
In addition to VRoid Studio you need the VRM importer for Blender. If you are using the Unity game engine, there is a Unity importer for VRM files available as well, although we wont be covering it in the video below.
One area of importance with any tool, especially free tools, are what the license terms are. You can see the list of appropriate uses here, which specifically includes “Selling video games and other products featuring characters created with VRoid Studio”. Once you have all the appropriate tools, check out the video below for step by step instruction son how to create an animated anime character for use in Godot using VRoid Studio and Blender.
Today we are going hands on with two powerful Godot plugins, Waterways and Heightmap Terrain for Godot. Both are open source add-ons that work in Godot 3.2.x and both are hosted on GitHub. In the video below we showcase using easy add-on and show how they work well together.
Formally known as WaterGenGodot on GitHub, Waterways enables you to quickly create rivers using spline controls. You have full control over the path the river follows, the look of the water and even have fine tuned control over the foam generated by collisions with other objects in the scene.
This add-on adds terrain creation tools to Godot. Either import and existing heightmap or create your own from scratch. You get full sculpting tools for raising and lower terrain, simulating erosion, etc. You also get tools for painting the texture layer on your newly created terrain. You also get the ability to export as a mesh or heightmap for use in other applications or engines.
Getting Started Tutorial
Installing the plugins is a straight forward exercise. Clone each project from GitHub to a directory of choice. You can get the git url on GitHub here:
Assuming you have a git client installed, from a command line run the command git clone then the copied url. For example:
Now in your Godot project (or create one if you dont have one already), create a folder called addons then copy the addons directory from the two just cloned projects. In your project you now simply need to enable each addon. In Godot go to Project->Project Settings menu. Now switch to the Plugins tab and make sure both are enabled:
Now you’re ready to go! Be sure to check the video below to see both Water Ways & Heightmap Terrain for Godot add-ons in action.
The most recent releases of Unreal Engine now include new beta Unreal Modeling Tools Editor Mode enabling you to create, sculpt and even texture entirely in Unreal Engine. If you want to check out the new features, you need to enable the plugin. Don’t worry, there are step by step instructions available below
In Unreal Engine, select Edit->Plugins.
In the Plugins dialog, filter by Model and locate and select Modeling Tools Editor Mode and click the Enabled checkbox.
This will first prompt you if you want to continue due to it being an experimental feature. Allow this, then it will prompt you to restart Unreal Engine, click Restart Now.
Once your project has restarted, you can access the new modeling tools in the Modes menu by selecting Modeling.
Once enabled a new toolbar will be available with options for creating new geometry from primitives or other creation modes, tools for modifying and deforming as well as sculpting geometry and much more.
Go hands-on with the Unreal Modeling Tools Editor Mode plugin in the video below.
Today we are taking a look at 3 Blender 2.9 tips that every Blender user should know but probably don’t including enabling experimental mode, undo/redo stack and preventing UI from loading. There is a step by step video embedded below if you get lost on a step in the written version.
Tip 1: Enabling Undo/Redo Stack
If you’re are a error prone as I am, or are the type that likes to experiment, you probably find yourself using undo and redo all the time. If you want to jump forward multiple steps or flip forward and back in the undo history, this feature is for you.
To turn Undo History on, select Edit->Preferences…
Now select Keymap on the left, then locate Screen->Screen(Global) scroll down and locate Add New.
Now in the Add New window, expand the arrow, click the Select a Key button and enter Z. Also toggle Ctrl and Alt on, then in the text box area replace “none” with “ed.undo_history” then hit enter, like so:
Now if you hit Ctrl + Alt + Z in Blender, you will get an on screen menu to jump forward and back in the undo/redo history stack.
You can now move forward and back in undo by selecting the state from the window.
Tip 2: Enabling Developer Extras/Experimental Options
With each new release of Blender, especially alpha and beta releases, there are several experimental features. You do however need to enable them. Once again select Edit->Preferences…, then select the Interface tab. Toggle the option next to Developer Extras and the Experimental tab will now be displayed.
Clicking the Experimental Tab, you can now turn off and on experimental features by clicking the check box next to each feature. Most features will also have an info link to learn more, which will open the development page in a web browser.
Keep in mind these features are marked as experimental for a reason, do not use them in production.
Tip 3: Preventing UI from Loading When Opening A Blend File
This tip is probably the most obvious, but also the most life changing if you didn’t already know it. When you open a .blend file you download from online you will notice you also get the UI settings of the author of that Blend file. If you’d rather have it load with your own UI settings there are two ways to do it.
First is on a case by case basis. When you open a Blend file using File->Open, in the open dialog, click the gear icon, and unselect Load UI.
Now if you would prefer to have this setting disabled by default, you can also do it via Edit->Preferences… select the Save & Load tab then disable Load UI.
Also remember, if you want to keep these settings each time you load Blender, you need to save your changes. Simply click the Hamburger icon in the Preferences window and select Save Preferences, you shouldn’t have to perform this step if you have Auto-Save Preferences turned on.
You can see all three to these tips in action in the video below.
This tutorial is going to be a little outside the normal topic of game development but should still be of interest to some of you because Luminar 4 is currently available on Humble Bundle. Luminar 4 is an AI powered image manipulation program that’s easy enough even I can use it! One of the challenges though is that it doesn’t formally support Affinity Photo out of the box, and Affinity Photo is my photo manipulation weapon of choice. Therefore in this tutorial we will show how to get Luminar 4 up and running on Affinity Photo 1.8.
If you are simply interested in learning more about Luminar 4 be sure to check out our hands-on video, it’s an impressive program.
Installing Luminar 4 with Affinity Photo
First, install Luminar 4. Just go with the defaults and don’t worry about the plugins portion if you don’t already have Photoshop installed.
After Luminar is installed, navigate to the install folder in Explorer. In my case it’s C:\Program Files\Skylum\Luminar 4. Once there, locate and copy the file Luminar4.8bf. Now we need to copy it into the Adobe plugins folder, a folder that you will most likely have to create. In explorer go to the folder C:\Program Files\Common Files and if one does not exist, create a folder called Adobe. Inside Adobe create a folder called Plug-ins, then inside that create a folder called CC, then paste the Luminar4.8bf file into that directory. The end result should be something like this:
Now right click Luminar 4 in the start menu and Run as Administrator. Now select File->Install Plugins from the main menu.
So long as you copied the file earlier into the right folder, you should now see Uninstall in the resulting Window.
Click Uninstall then Install and you are done with Luminar. Now fire up Affinity Photo and select Edit->Preferences. In the resulting window select Photoshop Plugins.
Now click the add button, then select the Luminar directory.
Once selected, Luminar 4 should show up in the detected plugins section. After installing the plugin it will prompt you to restart Affinity Photo. Once done, you can access Luminar 4 in Plugins->Skylum Software->Luminar 4
While these instructions are specific to Affinity Photo, any program such as Paintshop Pro should also be able to install Luminar using this process.
You can learn more about Luminar 4 and the Humble Bundle (plus see the above process in action) in the video below. The Humble links contain an affiliate code that enables you to direct a portion of the proceeds from your purchase to support GFS and thanks so much if you do!
With the recent Fantasy 3D Models humble bundle there were a number of questions about how assets can be extracted from the Unity game engine for use in other engines such as Godot, Unreal, Lumberyard, Stride, CryEngine or basically any other 3D game engine. That is exactly what we will look at in this tutorial, as we have in the past in this tutorial for Unreal Engine. Fortunately assets in the Unity game engine are generally stored as FBX files and textures are stored in image file formats, making this process a fair bit easier than it was in Unreal.
First and foremost you need to download the assets. Unfortunately to do this you will need to have Unity installed to perform the download process. (If you know a way to download unitypackage files from the command-line or outside of Unity, please let me know and I will update!) First you are going to need to purchase an asset from the Unity Asset store (or one of the several available free options). Once you have one or more assets on your account, fire up Unity and create a new project (type doesn’t matter). Next select the Package Manager in the menu Window->Package Manager.
Next in the Package Manager, in the top left corner drop down the menu and select My Assets option.
This will load your assets. If you have several assets, you may need to click Load More and the bottom to find your asset. Once located, select your asset in the left hand list, then select the Download button on the bottom right menu.
Repeat this task for each package you want downloaded. Once you have all of your assets downloaded you can close Unity. Now (on Windows at least) go to Windows Explorer and enter %APPDATA% in the location box.
This will automatically expand into the relevant folder name. Next navigate into the folder Unity, then Asset Store-5.x. In my case the full directory is C:\Users\serap\AppData\Roaming\Unity\Asset Store-5.x.In this folder will be a list of companies, these are the creators of the assets as named on the Asset Store, pick the one you downloaded earlier, then open up the asset within that directly. You should now see one or more files with a unitypackage file extension. Copy the asset you want to use to a directory of your choice.
Now we are going to need Unity Package Extractor, download Unity Package Extractor. Extract the zip file to the same location that you copied your unitypackage earlier. Now open a command prompt and CD into that directory, in this example lets assume c:\temp. Run the commands:
cd \temp
extractor ‘packagenamewithextension.unitypackage’
This will extract out all of the assets ready for your use. Tada, done! You can learn more about this process, step by step in the tutorial video below.
Recently discussed on the Godot website, several new features have been added to the Godot 4 GPU accelerated particle systems. New features include:
support for sub-emitters
new collision systems
box and sphere colliders
height map colliders for outdoor maps
SDF colliders for internal meshes
new particle attractors
While we are going to have to wait until Godot 4 to get our hands-on the new Godot 4 in a production environment, we can check out the new GPUParticles3D node in action by building from the nightly source. That is exactly what we did in the video below, check it out for a preview and a mini tutorial on using particles in Godot 4.
The Blender user interface has come a LONG way in recent years, especially with the release of Blender 2.8. That said, if you are using Blender on a laptop, especially if you don’t have a numberpad or are stuck using a trackpad, some parts of the experience are less than optimal. Today we are going to look at ways to make using Blender on a laptop more pleasant. We will also show how to turn on experimental mode in case you want to check out some of the more… in development features in Blender.
Using a Trackpad in Blender
Using Blender without a 3 button mouse is not really recommended but sometimes you have to get by with the tools you have available. There are a few ways however to make Blender work better with just a trackpad. The first thing we need to do is turn on 3 button mouse emulation. In Blender go to Edit->Preferences:
Now select the Input tab on the left, then choose Emulate 3 Button Mouse.
Now you can control most viewport options using your trackpad + key combinations.
ALT + LMB
Orbit Camera
ALT + SHIFT + LMB
Pan Camera
ALT + CTRL + LMB or Two Finger Swipe
Zoom Camera
In addition to these key/mouse combinations, there are now icons available for performing many of these tasks.
Emulating the Numberpad
Blender also relies heavily on the numberpad for changing cameras (1/3/7/9) or rotating the camera (2/4/6/8) and on laptops 15″ and smaller numberpads are becoming increasingly rare. In this case you have a few different options. First you can leave it as it is and use the on screen controls mentioned above. Otherwise you can turn on NumPad emulation. This turns your standard number row (1 through 0) across the top of your keyboard, into a virtual numberpad.
To enable NumPad emulation, return once again to the Input tab in preferences by selecting Edit->Preferences. This time you want to enable the Emulate Numpad option.
There is a major downside to this approach, in that the use of the 1/2/3 keys to switch editing modes between vertex, edge and face in edit mode will no longer work! So let’s look at how we remap those keys next!
Remapping Edit Mode Keys
Remapping keys is another feature in the trusty preferences dialog (Edit->Preferences). Now locate the Keymap tab on the left. On the right drill down to 3D View->Mesh->Mesh Global then locate Select Mode currently bound to key 1, 2 and 3. You can simply click the 1, then hit 1 again, and with Numpad Emulation enabled it will now show as Numpad 1.
Of course you also have the option of remapping those keys to any value you wish. Simply click the arrow to the left to drill down for more details.
Here you can select multiple key combos in addition to remapping the primary key in the sequence.
Enabling Experimental Features in Blender
Finally we are going to look at the process of enabling Experimental Mode, in case you want to take a walk on the wild side of cutting edge features. This is once again a setting in Edit->Preferences. This time choose the Interface tab, then select Developer Extras. This will cause a new tab to appear, the Experimental tab.
Clicking the new Experimental tab will bring you to a new dialog where you can turn experimental features off and on. For example in Blender 2.91 if you want to check out the new Sculpting brushes, enable “Tools with Missing Icons”
You can see a detailed step by step demonstration of all of these processes in the video below (or on Odysee).
Epic Games have just released the first Preview version of Unreal Engine 4.26. UE4 preview 1 releases are extremely important as they highlight the new features that you can expect in the final 4.26 release, as well as adding several new experimental features. Unreal 4.26 is no exception, with the biggest new feature being the fact the Chaos Physics and Destruction engine is now enabled out of the box replacing the existing PhysX physics, although the new experimental water system taken from Fortnite is a close second.
Experience the latest features coming to Unreal Engine with Unreal Engine 4.26 Preview 1—available now.
Test drive the production-ready Chaos Physics and Destruction System—the now default physics system—and take the new experimental Chaos Vehicle system for a spin. Virtual production pipelines also receive a boost with added movie render queue controls, Sequencer updates, and DMX improvements. If that’s not enough, check out the brand-new water system, the Chaos Ragdoll system (beta), production-ready hair and fur, and more!
You can learn more details about the release on the Unreal Engine forums. While Chaos is now enabled out of the box, it isn’t immediately obvious how to get started using Chaos Physics and Destruction. Therefore in the video below, in addition to covering what is new in the 4.26 release, we also have a getting started with Chaos tutorial to get you up and going quickly.
Your choice of music can be everything when it comes to your video project. We’ve put together some of our favourite pieces, loosely categorised to make it easy for you to find what you want.
A beautiful and inspiring melodic piano piece, which kicks into rousing orchestra – perfect for films, presentations or YouTube videos that are ready to tug on the heartstrings.
A motivational orchestral piece featuring strings, horns and percussion. A calm introduction builds, calms, builds and finally calms again into a soft piano finish.
With a longer and shorter version included in the download, the Uplifting and Inspiring Emotional Adventure Trailer piece will have you scaling the greatest of heights. Metaphorically of course.
Timeless City is a track that shares characteristics from different genres like downtempo, chill step, uplifting trance and chill out, all combined in a unique way.
Absorbed by Space begins with piercing, clear sounds, full of mystery. Sounds in this piece are varied, but the tones are rounded and polished in a way that resembles fluidity.
A usefully looping track, Hip-Hop Background Beat is a light hip-hop track with a deliberately young, urban sound.
Coda
If you’re as emotionally wrung out as we are after listening to so many pieces of wonderful music, then take a few minutes to look at these other articles to help you to nail your film project’s music.
Background score is the music you are using in a film. It’s so important, and choosing the right music, when to add it, how to edit it are all very important…
In video production, the process of selecting music for projects can be tricky. While there are plenty of great tracks available on sites like AudioJungle…
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