Customizable 3D Character

vanHellwig

Hello community,

does anyone of you know how I must model and rig my 3D character, so that I can switch his arm parts for example, but keep the animation of it ?

We tried to exchange only the mesh of the torso model, but this resulted in strange behaviour of the vertices.

see link
[ http://youtu.be/LzxjdhmNtpM ]

You see the vertex points move incorrect in the animation. I think the problem is the weight map.

If anyone knows a tutorial or a how-to guide for the problem a link to it would be appreciated.


The programs I use: Maya, ZBrush, Unity 3D


thanks
vanHellwig

Mark Dygert

Are you doing this 100% in Maya or are you working with an engine of some kind? Typically the engine will handle the swapping, you skin the new mesh to the bones (or bones with identical names) and then the engine swaps meshes and joints as necessary, but that all depends on what engine and the programer handling it. If the programer shrugs and says "I dunno, I thought art was going to handle it" then typically you want to run away and never look back.

skankerzero

all mesh parts need to be modeled and weighted in the home pose.

you use the in-game engine to swap parts.

EtotheRic

I was looking up some unity how-to type stuff a while back and found this:
http://unity3d.com/support/resources/example-projects/charactercustomization

Might give you some ideas on all the setup in unity.