3D GAME PIPELINE

Game Character Base. Polygon Reduction. Remesher

Character Creator 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; CC 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

CC 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.
  • "Separate Eyelash Material" option for better eyelash quality.
BUILT-IN MESH OPTIMIZATION TECHNOLOGY
Character Creator 3 - InstaLOD logo

InstaLOD is a world-leading technology company specialized in automatic optimization of 3D content. The InstaLOD integration makes CC 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
Character Creator 3 - Unreal logo
Character Creator 3 - Unity logo
Character Creator 3 - CryEngine logo

Game Character LOD

  • In this sample, a CC 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.
  • Be able to export a single FBX with one bone and several LOD meshes.

3rd Person Interactive Control

  • The CC Export profiles have made the CC 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 CC 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 CC 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.
  • CC 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.