MorphMixer - Create new BlendShape mixes in Unity3D

From the creators of SALSA Lipsync

Website: CrazyMinnowStudio.com
Product site: MorphMixer
Support email: assetsupport@crazyminnow.com

Available Now!​

MorphMixer is an editor extension that allows you to create new BlendShapes by combining one or more existing BlendShapes within the Unity editor. Whether you're using one of the many character generations systems, contracting out your characters, or designing your own and simply want the convenience of mixing up new BlendShapes from existing ones within the editor, MorphMixer is a simple, non-destructive, in-editor tool designed specifically for the task.

The perfect companion to lip-synchronization assets - works GREAT with SALSA!

• Unity3D editor extension.
• Create new BlendShapes by mixing multiple BlendShapes together within the Unity editor.

Character generation systems such as Fuse, iClone, Autodesk Character Generator, Daz3D, and MakeHuman include many BlendShapes. Some of these system provide viseme shapes for speech while others do not, some provide emotion BlendShapes while others provide basic facial movements. MorphMixer allows you to mix and match existing BlendShapes together to form the perfect smile, frown, or other expression and save your mix as a new BlendShape. This simplifies animation by allowing you to merge down complex multi-shape expressions into a single BlendShape, avoid BlendShape conflicts caused by trying to use the same BlendShape for speech and expressions at the same time, or create speech visemes by combining multiple basic facial movement BlendShapes, assuming your existing BlendShapes can be combined to create sufficient detail. (e.g. Fuse characters have sufficient starting BlendShapes to craft viseme BlendShapes using MorphMixer.)

Tested on these Character Systems:

• Fuse (Adobe & Mixamo)
• Autodesk Character Generator
  
• Daz3D (Genesis 2, 3, 8)
  
• iClone
• MakeHuman

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MorphMixer is non-destructive because it duplicates your mesh and performs all BlendShape actions on the duplicate only, so you can always fall back to your original .fbx or .blend mesh file. It also includes a preset system so you can create BlendShape mixes, save them as presets, and easily apply them to multiple characters that share the same BlendShapes and BlendShape indexes. If you create a BlendShape, then change your mind about the way it should look, MorphMixer allows you to delete BlendShapes as well.

• Non-destructive, does not modify your .fbx or .blend file.
• Preset system for saving and reusing BlendShape mixes on other characters with the same BlendShapes.
• Allows you to delete BlendShapes.

 

MorphMixer has been submitted to the Unity Asset Store. It should be available in a week or so. We reached out to Unity to check if we can use the asset upgrade tools to offer a discount to existing SALSA customers.

 

We will be temporarily offering a cross product upgrade for MorphMixer to existing SALSA customers. If you own SALSA, you will be able to purchase MorphMixer for 25% off the regular price of $20, taking the price down to $14.00.

 

MorphMixer is now available on the Asset Store.

https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/106808 (this link has been deprecated -- we are waiting on a new asset link from Unity)

 

Hello -- Unity just deprecated our package without warning. We have been trying to work with them to clean up the issue with the SALSA reviews appearing under the MorphMixer asset and they executed our proposal without communicating the feasibility with us and letting us contact current and potential customers.

Rest assured, if you already purchased MorphMixer, you did not purchase a dead-end product and will have a product page and asset to work with. We are trying to contact someone at Unity to find out what is going on and when/how it will be fixed. Please stand by, we appreciate your patience.

 

Ultimately what we believe will happen (as far as what we proposed to them [Unity]):

• The assets will be removed (which is what already happened).
• They will be recreated as stand-alone assets without the cross-product upgrade (Unity is unable to support this mechanism).
• Existing customers will be transferred to the new products (and notified).
• The cross-product promotional pricing will no longer be available.

They completely bypassed the "communicate with us" bullet point we proposed -- so we cannot confirm how the rest of this is going to play out. We apologize for this situation and humbly ask for and appreciate your patience.

 

I just bought MM and Amplitude, like 2hrs ago.
I was lucky.

 

Hey @wetcircuit -- no worries and thanks for the purchase support. We are trying to work this out with Unity to get it all lined back up. Go ahead and work with the assets you have access to and we will post back when we know more. We are extremely confused as well!

One thing of note, the add-ons on our website (for Amplitude and MorphMixer) might be inaccessible for the time being -- since we use Unity's invoice checking api to provide access. Once we know more we can get that operational as well (assuming it is not).

 

As we hoped was not the case, Unity did step 1 of what we proposed and then passed it back to us this morning as if the whole proposal was complete. Needless to say, we are still trying to get this all sorted out.

On a positive note, if you have already purchased this product, the add-on downloads are still available to you, simply use the invoice number you received when you purchased.

 

After the attempted cross-product promotional pricing fiasco, MorphMixer has been re-submitted to the Asset Store.

 

After I used MorphMixer to add my SALSA mouth morphs to a Fuse figure, RandomEyes stops automatically update the other mesh's matching blendshapes (teeth, eyelashes).

If I add the new mouth shapes to these other meshes, will RandomEyes figure out the matching blendshapes again…?

 

Are you using SalsaSync?

 

interesting..looks helpful..goodwork!

 

yes…. errrrr.

I could be mistaken. Sorry. I will double check that I actually connected all the dots.

 

MorphMixer is now live on the Asset Store.

https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/111278

 

The Asset Store team informed us that existing MorphMixer customers would be transferred over to the republished asset. Please email us at assetsupport@crazyminnow.com if this is not the case.

Thanks!

 

Still can't download it a few weeks later ...

 

Hello jilt,

We're sorry Unity is taking so long to transfer customers from the old asset to the new. Please know that have not forgotten about you. If you need a copy of the asset in the meantime, please send an email to assetsupport@crazyminnow.com and we'll happily accommodate.

Michael

 

Hi Michael,

I guess I'm not complaining to you, but the people at Unity sure are taking their time resolving this. Shot you an email.

 

Maybe as customers we need to complain to Unity? If their goal is to discourage merchants from side-grades they have no incentive to "fix" the issue. They also would benefit from another purchase.... Not saying Unity is selfish and evil, but the burden is on us if nothing is done.

Just tell me who I need to contact. I'm hopeful Unity would do the right thing. In my experience they usually do, but they obviously need a little reminder from the people who are actually effected.

 

Good idea, I just submitted a support request at https://support.unity3d.com/hc/en-us/requests/new?ticket_form_id=65905

 

We are in active communication with the Unity team, and they assure us that they are working on transferring customers who purchased the previous store versions of MorphMixer and/or the Amplitude asset. We're extremely disappointed in the way Unity's cross-product upgrade offering was handled and the bad information we received about it's feasibility.

Team Crazy Minnow

 

Thanks for your understanding, we replied in email.

 

Hello, we have been in communication with the two top Unity Asset Store personnel and are trying to resolve the issue with transferring customers from the old deprecated assets to the new assets. Let us just say we are extremely disappointed and frustrated with how this is going. However, we are not deterred and are staying in communication with them to reach resolution.

In the meantime, if you are an owner of the original asset and do not have the package in your local cache, please email us (assetsupport@crazyminnow.com) your invoice number and we can send you a fresh package. If you are interested in downloading the add-ons available for MorphMixer or Amplitude, you may still do so using your old invoice number.

New customers are not affected by this issue.

Thanks!
Darrin

 

Just got an email with a voucher code from Unity, hope all other customers received one as well.

 

Thank you for the update! Much appreciated!

[edit] We are unsure what is happening at this point...Unity has not communicated with us their intent or actions. We have seen a few indications of voucher registration, so at this point we can only assume everyone was issued vouchers.

 

Voucher received.

 

We finally received word back from Unity late last night and our understanding is this issue is now resolved. The vouchers received by owners of the Unity-deprecated assets (MorphMixer and Amplitude) are sale-transfer vouchers and essentially transfer the purchase to the new asset. They are not the same as vouchers issued by the publisher. If you purchased the original MorphMixer or Amplitude, prior its deprecation, and did not receive a voucher to transfer your purchase to the new asset, please contact Unity support (support@unity3d.com) to request your voucher.

We sincerely apologize for all of the nonsense centered around this issue.

 

Does this work with the blendshapes extracted from iPhoneX?

 

Hi GookGo,

As far as we know, the iPhoneX is capable of driving blendshape values not creating them. If it can create them, that's pretty awesome. That being said, MorphMixer allows you to mix multiple blendshapes together to create new mixed blendshapes.

Michael

 

This looks like a very powerful tool! If you guy have a demo, that'd be great!

 

Sorry, since it's priced very reasonably and we have no way to offer a demo without giving away the asset, we don't offer a demo.

However, it's a pretty straight forward asset. If you import a character into Unity and can see BlendShapes listed on the SkinnedMeshRenderer, then MorphMixer allows you to combine multiple blendshapes, set their percentages as you choose, and create a new blendshape from the mixed result. Additionally, you can delete blendshapes as well.

Michael

 

Hello – we discovered Unity changed their invoice-check server address without notifying publishers. We have updated our system and have confirmed the downloads invoice confirmation is working. We apologize for the inconvenience.

 

Hello all,

We created a demonstration / tutorial video for MorphMixer to help new users get acquainted with the ins and outs.

Enjoy!

 

thanks for the quick tutorial. Do you have more preset for other than smile ? like angry, sad etc...

 

Hi,

Currently we include only presets for SALSA 1.x speech shapes, but of course anyone with MorphMixer can also make presets. Keep in mind, that presets are only applicable to the same character system since the presets link to blendshapes and their index numbers. For example, making a preset for Adobe Fuse is only good for other Adobe Fuse characters.

Michael

 

I haven't attempted it yet, but I think MorphMixer could be used to recreate the iPhoneX ARKit face tracking shapes. I compiled the list here: https://cutsceneartist.com/news/arkit-maps-your-expressions-to-blendshapes/

The pseudo-workflow would be something like:

Recreate all the iPhone shapes with MorphMixer, like on a Fuse figure, and save it as an MM preset file.
Delete all the unneeded blendshapes(?)
A script that reads the iPhone shapes and transmits them to the figure for live puppet of the blendshapes.

There is also a free asset that records the ARKit face shapes to a Unity .anim https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/3d/characters/arkit-animation-tool-120313
I'm not sure what would be involved to make that animation work on an MM modified figure. As far as I know blend shapes are 0-100 and ARKit is 0-1, so the anim would need to be translated or converted….

 

Thanks @wetcircuit , this is a good way to start.

But Salsa supporting ARKit would be a killing feature ;-) Animoji with real characters. Maybe one day !!

 

Agree (and I asked too lol)… but, if we can get the lip sync from the face tracking I guess we wouldn't need SALSA. It's not really the same product – more of a different core product that fills a similar niche (for us).

...But after SALSA 2 is released maybe we could nag Crazy Minnow to consider an ARKit face puppet/recorder as a companion product, CM already does blendshapes and the 1-click loaders nicely. Some of that would be familiar territory for them.

 

Just bought Morphmixer and installed through the asset store (only the core, don't need the presets) in 2019.1.7. I can open the wiondow, select a skinned mesh GO, but pressing COPY, nothing happens, I can get any further without completeing this step.
Any idea?

 

Managed to get it going after Unity restart.
I was able to create a blendshape mix, but subsequent attempts failed. A 2nd blendshape is created by MM, but it does not change any expressions?

 

Hi,

Can you send your MorphMixer invoice and a screen shot of your mix settings to assetsupport@crazyminnow.com?

Thanks,
Michael

 

MorphMixer 1.1.0 has been submitted to the Unity Asset Store. The update should be live in a week or so, and includes the following:

Add: Lock/unlock mesh asset files
Fix: Work around for Unity blendshape creation API bug in 2018/2019 versions.

 

MorphMixer 1.1.0 is now live on the Unity Asset Store.

https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/tools/animation/morphmixer-111278

 

Hi @Crazy-Minnow-Studio, so Salsa 2.2 is a game changer, pretty awesome. However, we can't distribute viseme presets between characters, so it's DIY every time. I'd like to ask if MorphMixer does solve that problem? Thanks.

 

Hi Gregorik,

We're glad you like the new SALSA LipSync Suite.

When you say...

do you mean you have different blendshapes on each character, or are you referring to the process of setting up the same visemes in the SALSA inspector on each character?

Michael

 

I mean simply reusing the same set of visemes/emotes between different characters with identical blendshape setups in the Fbx's.
It seems some form of the feature is in there, I just can't seem to make it work yet.

 

I understand now. For rapid deployment of the same visemes on many different characters, we recommend writing custom one-click setups. This is exactly what we do for our one-click setups for popular character generation systems such as Fuse, Autodesk CG, Daz3D, iClone, CC3, etc. In fact, you can download any of those one-clicks to use a reference when constructing your own custom one-click setup. See the "API" and "API Configuration Examples" in the documentation for details.

Unlike SALSA with RandomEyes v1.x where our character setup scripts assisted in mapping SALSA output to various characters, our one-click setup scripts in SALSA LipSync Suite v2.x are only executing configuration parameters for the core systems.

• NEW! Reuse blendshapes or bone components for multiple visemes.

This is actually referring to the new central QueueProcessor component that handles shape collisions and conflict resolutions between the entire SALSA suite. For example, if you use the same shape in multiple visemes, or for speech and for an expression, the QueueProcessor will gracefully prioritize and handle conflicts.

From the documentation:

Michael

 

Thanks for a detailed answer.
So I suppose MorphMixer doesn't address the issue of reusing presets for different prefabs, it has different goals.

 

MorphMixer provides the ability to create new blendshapes from the mix of one or more existing blendshapes. An example usage would be to simplify a complex, multi-shape smile emote to a new single blendshape called smile.

So instead of a smile emote consisting of these shapes and values:

• RightMouthUp 80
  
• LeftMouthUp 80
  
• RightNoseScrunch 25
  
• LeftNoseScrunch 25
  
• MouthOpen 20
• RightBrowLift 15
• LeftBrowLift 15

You can use all of the shapes and value above to create a new blendshape called smile:

• Smile 100

This can also assist with blendshape collisions. Since you can only apply one value to a blendshape at a time, the scenario above would allow you to use any of the shapes that make up the smile shape, and the new smile shape at the same time, and the effect is additive.

Michael