Steps in creating your own 3D avatar
The purpose of this guide is to provide the path you need to follow in order to create your own 3D model, using our site documentation. Open the links of each section for better understanding the necessary steps in building an avatar.
The info in each link is subject to future amendments, as we further develop the Animaze apps and systems.
Step 1
Concept & high-poly
General info about the concept process flow, what should be considered when building an avatar >> here.
Note that this files folder structure is mandatory for importing your creation in the Animaze Editor, and then further in Animaze apps:
- *.fbx geometry name the same as the folder name
- Textures (.tga, .png, .jpg files) go in Textures/ folder
- Animations (skeletal animations exported as solo .fbx files) go in Animations/ folder
Step 2
Retopology
General info about the process of retopology, points that you need to consider in the making, visual examples are here.
The more detailed the object is (highpoly-model), the more computational power it will need to be displayed and animated >> Check and consider the complexity tiers (by features, by performance, by download size).
Step 3
UV mapping
General info about UV space >> here.
Detailed info, visual examples and tips >> here.
Step 4
Textures & Materials
Textures (.tga, .png, .jpg files) go in Textures/ folder.
General info in technical documentation about materials, supported features table, render queues explained, supported material components can be found here.
Detailed info on Materials with example pictures can be read here.
See how Material components are displayed in Animaze Editor here.
For Animated Textures and their creation steps, we provide the sources to hybrid AvatarLily (contains rig with correct naming and bone axis, skeletal & blendshape animations, animated textures), as teaching resource. Find them here.
Step 5
Rigging
The process in which you create the skeleton is called rigging. This process can be done in a lot of programs (Blender, Maya, 3dMax, Modo etc.), as long as you consider the Animaze conventions.
General info about the Skeleton, base rig and Prop bones >> here.
Rig example that you can use as reference, or build your avatar on it is here. Contains prop bones and the correct bone naming.
Also info about Head, Eyes and Camera axis, bones names list available, bone remapping examples - lower part of page.
On this link you can find:
- Rules for the Head, Eyes, Camera (bones axis, naming, camera) - upper part of page
- Pointers on how to build the rig
- Rules for hands and full-body tracking (naming, position, axis) - mid of page
- Tips about the rigging process
- Method of Debugging the bone orientation in Animaze Editor - low on page
- Info on Prop bones
Step 6
Skinning
- Max #bones
- Max #influence on vertex
Step 7
Animations
Animations (skeletal animations exported as solo .fbx files) go in Animations/ folder.
Avatars can be animated through two methods. Read about the types of animation methods in our technical documentation, here.
Info about base animations, system directory structure, skeletal animations, joint-based animations combined with blendshape animations, 6 emotions (animations combos) can be read here.
General info about Tpose animation for full body tracking in the technical documentation.
Animations for customizing the model >> modify its proportions, general info can be read here.
General info on Visemes animations and Expression Poses is here in the avatar technical document.
All skeletal, blendshapes & visemes animations displayed and explained in the Animation Appendix.
Special Actions & how to configure them are detailed here.
Extra
Physics
General info on physics in technical doc is here. Read about Rigid Body, Collider and Constraints.
Detailed physics info in Animaze Editor, with graphic support.
An example of configuring physics in Animaze Editor, plus Tips, can be seen here.
