This sprint was all about trying to enhance the RPM avatar experience. We chose to go with RPM Avatars instead of Poser Avatars a few sprints ago and we had identified a few items we wanted to explore with adding functionality to using RPM avatars in the game. This sprint was aimed at adding some of this functionality.
The major features added this sprint include:
- Move RPM Avatar information to the AWS database for persistence
- Integrate a web view of the RPM Hub website to customize Avatars without leaving the game
- Improve the Walk Cycle of the RPM Avatar adding Run, Crouch and Jump
- Implement Walk/Run speed using the Mouse Scroll Wheel
- Develop a Poser Animation to RPM Animation Pipeline for creating new Animations that could use our thousands of Poser Animations
The hub integration is mostly complete. Here is a video of the work we were able to accomplish this sprint:
The new walk cycle implemented kneel/crouch, jump and a walk/run cycle which speed can be changed using the middle mouse wheel.
We figured out how to have a semi-automated pipeline to be able to take Poser Animations and Retarget them for use in myMO and the RPM Avatar. This was complicated and while still somewhat manual will allow us to convert selected Poser Animations and retarget them for use in myMO on the RPM avatar. Here is a rather long video describing and demonstrating this new pipeline. It included a python program we wrote to help with the animation. It uses Blender, the python script and retargeting tools in Unreal Engine to accomplish the conversion of Poser Animations to game ready RPM Animations. Still some fine tuning is needed, but, the general approach is now known. It is nearly 30 minutes long, but if you are interested in character animation you may find it interesting.
Using this process, we should be able to retarget a given Poser Animation in less than 10 minutes for use in the myMO RPM Avatar rig.
