An add-on for importing and automatically setting up materials for Character Creator 3 character exports.
Using Blender in the Character Creator 3 pipeline can often feel like hitting a brick wall. Spending potentially hours having to get the import settings correct and setting up the materials often with hundreds of textures.
This add-on aims to reduce that time spent getting characters into Blender down to just a few seconds and make use of as many of the exported textures as possible so that character artists can work in the highest quality possible using Blender.
Online Documentation (Work in progress...)
- Download the latest release.
- In Blender go to menu Edit->Preferences then select Add-ons.
- Click the Install button at the top of the preferences window and navigate to where you downloaded the zip file, select the file and click Install Add-on.
- Activate the add-on by ticking the checkbox next to Edit->Preferences then select Add-ons
- The add-ons functionality is available through the CC3 Tab in the tool menu to the right of the main viewport. Press N to show the tools if they are hidden.
- From the menu: Edit->Preferences then select Add-ons
- In the search box search All add-ons for "CC3 Tools"
- Deactivate the add-on by unticking the checbox next to Edit->Preferences then select Add-ons.
- Then click the Remove button.
- Remove the current version of the add-on by following the remove instructions above.
- Follow the installation instructions, above, to install the new version.
- Character and Object operators (Character Settings Panel):
- Add object to character, with parenting and armature modifier.
- Convert and add materials to character to use with material parameters and export write back.
- Transfer body vertex weights to object.
- Clean up object and material character data.
- Export back to CC3 will include Texture & Json data for any new objects added with these operators.
- Fix to Subsurface scattering for Blender 3.0 Cycles renders.
- Cycles adjustment settings added to preferences for user fine tuning of subsurface material parameters for Cycles.
- Added more support for exporting from characters with embedded textures.
- Baking fix for Blender versions 2.83 - 2.91
- (Experimental) Added operators to add new objects to the character data.
- See Character Settings panel with new object selected.
- Export accessory button no longer locked to character.
- Some import/export folder logic changed to try and cope with project folder & files being moved.
- Added custom texture node baking on export to CC3, including baking bump maps into normal maps on export.
- If nodes are used to modify (or replace) texture inputs to material shaders, those nodes can be baked into the texture channel on export. This assumes the mesh has a valid UV map.
- Bump maps can be baked into normal channels. Typically CC3 will only allow Normal maps OR bump maps for a material, not both, so an option has been added to combine them into just the normal map.
- Fix to crash from multiple character imports from iClone.
- Note: Exporting multiple characters in one Fbx from iClone to Blender is not fully supported.
- Characters should be exported individually.
- If multiple characters are detected then a warning pop-up will be displayed.
- Updated export function to generate compatible Fbx file for CC3 re-import with FbxKey and to write back json material parameter and texture information. To be used in tandem with Blender Importer Plugin for CC3 3.44 for full round-trip character editing in Blender.
- Import/Export Interface simplified.
- If character has Fbxkey then character is setup for editing. (i.e. Shapekeys locked to basis)
- Otherwise (character is posed or has animation) character is setup for rendering.
- Only Fbxkey character can be exported back to CC3.
- Optional Json and Texture write back for exports.
- Optional teeth rotation fix that affects some older generated characters when importing back into CC3.
- Bake on export function added to bake custom material nodes connected to master shader's texture map sockets into textures to include when re-importing back into CC3.
- Additional objects can be selected for exporting with the character, but must be properly parented and weighted with an armature modifier. Otherwise CC3 will ignore them.
- Some property and parameter fixes.
- First attempt at a single material parallax eye shader added. Which does not use SSR or transparency and thus can receive full shadows and subsurface scattering in Eevee.
- Fixed Eevee subsurface scattering settings:
- Reworked shaders to allow for direct application of subsurface radius to Principled BSDF nodes.
- Only the default values in the subsurface radius socket are used in Eevee rendering.
- As such, Eevee does not support inputs to subsurface radius and so shader and parameter code needed to be re-written to accomodate this.
- Cycles unaffected by this.
- Fixed node group upgrade code that incorrectly renamed existing node groups and did not properly replace old shader/node groups with new ones in existing blend files.
- Added render target preferences setting for Cycles and Eevee.
- Added cycles specific shaders for hair, tear-line and eye occlusion.
- Moved all shaders over to new shader model.
- Streamlined parameter and shader code to be data driven, rather than hard coded.
- Character, Object and Material parameters now stored independently for each character import.
- Json data parser to automatically set up all shader parameters.
- New eye shader model.
- New teeth and tongue shader model.
- New skin and head shader model.
- Back ported the more advanced Eye Occlusion shader from the Unity HDRP setup.
- Added displacement modifiers & parameters to Eye Occlusion and Tearline objects.
- Initial support for ActorCore models type C/D/D+.
- Fixed 'Export as accessory' correctly exporting as .obj when character was imported from an .obj file. (And not exporting as .fbx with the wrong file extension)
- Lighting setups set Cycles transparent bounces set to 50 to accomodate Smart Hair mesh density.
- Lighting setups do not delete existing lights or camera, but they will hide them.
- Material setup now properly detects Game Base objects (i.e. Converted to Game Base in CC3 before exporting to Blender).
- Each material now maintains it's own set of parameters.
- Updating material parameters in linked mode will change the same parameters on all materials of the same type.
- Updating parameters in selected only mode will only change the parameter for that one material.
- Applies IOR shader input setting when building materials.
- Exposed some build preferences in the Build Settings panel.
- Enabled SSR and refraction when importing with refractive eyes.
- Auto updater now targets Main branch for current build.
- Fixed problem appending duplicate displacment map images.
- Fixed not removing eye displacement modifiers on rebuild.
- Added eye occlusion hardness parameter.
- Refractive Eyes:
- Iris refractive transmission with depth control and pupil size parameters.
- Limbus parameters.
- IOR and refractive depth parameters.
- Blood vessel and iris bump normals.
- Option in preferences to generate old eyes instead.
- Skin roughness power parameter added.
- Corrected an issue where the opacity maps were ignored in favour of diffuse alpha channels.
- Added opacity parameters for hair, scalp and eyelashes.
- Added roughness and specular parameters for eyelashes.
- Fixed a crash calling the import operator from from script.
- Added auto update scripts.
- Full smart hair support.
- Hair and scalp hints expanded to cover the smart hair system and moved to the preferences.
- Parameter changes update only that parameter in the imported or selected objects materials.
- Fake anisotropic highlights add to smart hair shader. (Can disable in the preferences.)
- Fake bump normals can be generated from the diffuse map if there is no normal or bump map present. (Can disable in the preferences.)
- Animation ranges only changed if physics enabled.
- Build settings and material parameters separated into their own interface panels.
- Build settings now applicable by material and the object and material build types as detected by the add-on are exposed and editable so you can fix them if it gets them wrong.
- Material parameters are context sensitive to the currently active object and material.
- Material parameters grouped into sections.
- Detects smart hair material or normal hair material and only shows relevant parameters.
- Option in preferences to gamma correct smart hair colours so they behave more like the colours in CC3.
- Fix to hair mesh detection with new smart hair system.
- When no texture maps are present for an advanced node group, does not generate the node group.
- When exporting morph characters with .fbxkey or .objkey files, the key file is copied along with the export.
- Function added to reset preferences to default values.
- Alpha blend settings and back face culling settings can be applied to materials in the object now.
- Option to apply alpha blend settings to whole object(s) or just active materal.
- Remembers the applied alpha blend settings and re-applies when rebuilding materials.
- Option to pick Scalp Material.
- Only scans once on import for hair object and scalp material, so it can be cleared if it gets it wrong and wont keep putting it back.
- FBX import keeps track of the objects as well as the armature in case the armature is replaced.
- Physics support added:
- Uses the physX weight maps to auto-generate vertex pin weights for cloth/hair physics (Optional)
- Automatically sets up cloth/hair physics modifiers (Optional)
- Physics cloth presets can be applied to the selected object(s) and are remembered with rebuilding materials.
- Weightmaps can be added/removed to the individual materials of the objects.
- Weight map painting added.
- Saving of modified weight maps and Deleting weight map functions added.