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Seeking artists & coders for contracted work

ceo-2519841ceo-2519841 Posts: 0
edited May 2014 in The Commons

Hello,

I am CEO of Vontarga Technologies, Inc., a company developing technologies with a focus on education, entertainment and communications.

We are looking for avatars we can use with Unity 3D. Right now we need a male and female avatar that can be intergrated into Unity’s UMA.

I am interested in contracting for work to assist us with this project.

Thank you.

Post edited by ceo-2519841 on

Comments

  • jestmartjestmart Posts: 4,449
    edited December 1969

    http://www.makehuman.org/

  • Zev0Zev0 Posts: 7,089
    edited June 2014

    For avatars + unity integration go here. https://www.mixamo.com/

    Post edited by Zev0 on
  • ceo-2519841ceo-2519841 Posts: 0
    edited June 2014

    Thank you, jetsmart and Zevo. I am grateful to you both for taking time to read and respond.

    jetsmart, this linked page is new to me. I referred it to my COO for review.

    Zev0, we are pretty familiar with mixamo, and have a professional 'All Access' license. Our world is online. We have an MMO and also avatar modification and integration using Umity's UMA. One of the creators of that UMA contacted us today about doing contract work integrating a new avatar. The ones we have now are great for a combat game system, but we are creating a social world, and need more sophisticated avatars for facial expressions and of course as a system for clothes delivery to customers.

    I have spent almost $6,000 on avatar development, and do not have anything that meets our needs. My COO likes Victoria, and all the modifications available for her. She asked me to determine if Victoria is compatible with our system,

    What we need to know is can we use her as a virtual social world avatar on a platform built on the Unity engine... both from a licensing perspective, and also of course from a technical compatibility perspective.

    Thank you. :)

    Post edited by ceo-2519841 on
  • ChoholeChohole Posts: 33,604
    edited June 2014

    Of course you do realise that if you use DAZ 3D products you woild need the Game developers licenses?

    The main DAZ 3D game developers license only cover Daz Original products. A few PAs (Daz brokered vendors) have also provided Game Development licenses for their products. Details are on the Product pages here

    http://www.daz3d.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=license&x=10&y=5

    Post edited by Chohole on
  • ceo-2519841ceo-2519841 Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    Thank you, Chohole. Yes, I am aware. This is why I addressed this in my follow up "...we need to know if can we use her...from a licensing perspective..."

    We review all legal documentation and also perform due diligence to verify provenance, to ensure the creator is the actual owner of record of whatever we seek to acquire.

    We also need to ensure licensing rights cover video production for marketing and other uses. TurboSquid, for instance, specifically prohibits use of the models in videos. You need a separate release from the creator.

    And it is scary how many people are "creating" and selling items to which they do not actually own licensing rights.

    Chohole, one of our technical contractors just reviewed this and said we probably do not want to use Daz products, only because of poly and other size limitations. He has suggesterd other avatars for consideration. If I do proceed with Daz, how do I contact the legal department to verify adequate licensing and usage rights?

    Thank you for your interest, and the generous gift of your time in responding.

  • ceo-2519841ceo-2519841 Posts: 0
    edited June 2014

    Chohole, I am trying to multitask, with qustionable results. :p

    I forgot to say I did reveiw your link. I have already contacted Zev0 to discuss possible use of his products.

    My issue with licensing is Victoria herself.

    Post edited by ceo-2519841 on
  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 100,774
    edited December 1969

    The Game Developer License covers use of the 3D models in a finished game - it expressly prohibits their use to create content that can be purchased in-game. So a crucial question is how the avatars will be made avaialble to users.

  • ceo-2519841ceo-2519841 Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    Thank you, Richard. Avatars are free to members, but membersip is by paid subscription. However, I am concerned about in-world restrictions, and probably will say no to using Daz for this reason. Once I license property for use I will not allow an outside party to dictate my business strategies. This pretty much makes Daz worthless to me as a content source.

    Thank you so much for this clarification.

    We have other many options, but Victoria is so pretty. :)

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 100,774
    edited December 1969

    Although the standard Game Developer License would probably not suit your project it may be worth opening a Sales Support ticket setting out what you would need - assuming you have some kind of specification drawn up for assessing different options - and asking if you could purchase a license along those lines.

  • ceo-2519841ceo-2519841 Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    Thank you, Richard. I will keep that option in mind. I would seek a written clarification or contractual adenum in any event if we pursue Daz, as we do with all content providers.

    My COO really likes Daz and Victoria, and I promised her to research this option. But as I noted earlier my contractor heading conversion of an avatar for our MMO and Unity UMA (he worked on the creation team for this product) has already reviewed this thread and is lobbying rather strongly against using Daz, for purely technical reasons. We are pursuing many options. Ultimately I will defer the final decision to my COO. This is her department and I do not micromanage. I am forwarding all responses to her for review.

  • icprncssicprncss Posts: 3,694
    edited December 1969

    Sixus1 Media has the open source Project Human figures. There are high poly male and female figures and a lo poly female figure.

    Their site is Sixus1.com. They do contract work and their Project Human figures do work in DS and Poser.

    Depending upon the type of avatars, you might also consider 3D Universe. 3D Universe is a Published Artist here so you can see examples of the their work here.

  • ceo-2519841ceo-2519841 Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    Thank you so much, ICPRNCSS and Madbat.

    We had a lengthy conference call between Copenhagen and South Africa, and I believe the avatar issue has been resolved. We opted to get avatars we like and which are verified legal to acquire for our use, and also to create all our own fashions.

  • mark.jsday_2d33c65140mark.jsday_2d33c65140 Posts: 2
    edited December 1969

    I am the dev guy for Virtuoso Life social media MMO games.

    I read this blog with interest since i've studied the integration of DAZ 3D characters with Unity 3D for over a year. Firstly, there is the licensing issues which require the game dev license for using DAZ based products (this includes their clothing items). But more importantly, you need to do alot of work to prepare these avatars for unity. For example, their bone hierarchy is over elaborate for a game so it needs simplifying by retargeting using mecanim. Secondly, consider using genesis 1 since it uses a single mesh rather than genesis 2 which has both male and female meshes. Thirdly, use the polygroup editor in DAZ to reduce the groups to reduce the draw calls. Fourthy, use the decimator in daz by adjusting the weights to reduce the avatar models down to sizes 7000K - 12000K. Moreover, the DAZ models require alot of polygons to preserve the facial and breast features. If you want to apply morphing for character customisation try using the MEGA DAZ3D which allows clothing to be wrapped around the body mesh. However, this proved to be way to process intensive and slow to be used in a production environment. Using this via a scripting API provided not possible for commercial gaming due to limitations in Unity and way to slow to operate properly on an I7 Quad Core dev system.

    Ultimately, my advice is that this is a dead end path for production gaming and the better option is to use the UMA character system and find a asset creation system to attach the many great DAZ based clothes to the UMA models. (This would be a great start to a clothing library) UMA models offer both mesh and layered skin based cloth fitting (similar to second life style of cloth fitting). I don't think the clothing creation process in UMA is very good and requires a lot of learning to perfect due to its quirky nature but its still possible approach. There is still no formal dresses and decent clothing produced for UMA as of yet (in my opinion) but i do not think this is a lack of technology on UMA's part simply no one has spent the time doing it.

    UMA offers the ability to easily network and place 100+ avatars into a scene so seems the best approach so far. Also there are some great low medium and high poly models that are cheap to buy for UMA. I am kinda thinking that the high polygon models could be LOD'ed with the lower meshes in a game and utilises same clothing assets.

    Hope this give some more ideas to think about...

    GXMark, Digitech Gamez

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