Tower Unite - Workshop Player Model Tutorial (Blender 2.8 - Blender 3.4)

Check out the Steam Guide by Spoom that has a TON of helpful info!!!:
steamcommunity.com/sharedfile...
Join the Tower Unite Discord server & go into the #workshop channel if you need any extra help!:
/ discord
Get Blender:
blender.org/
or
store.steampowered.com/app/36...
Get the Tower Unite Suite for Blender v2.8+:
forums.pixeltailgames.com/t/t...
OUTDATED LINK (LINKS TO ROOT POST IN ADDON THREAD):
forums.pixeltailgames.com/t/4...
Blender Material Combiner Addon (if you need it):
github.com/Grim-es/material-c...
Thumbnail by CarbonCopyCat:
steamcommunity.com/id/carbonccat
This is a tutorial for how to port a player model into Tower Unite! Here is a text outline with timestamps if you would like to see anything specific:
0:00 Introduction
0:12 Prerequisites
- Blender 2.8 through Blender 3.4
- Tower Unite Blender Addon
- Model should already be rigged
- Model should be below 30k vertices (lower the better)
- Model should have 10 or less materials (lower materials the better because sometimes it doesn't always match)
- Make sure unit scale is set to 1.0
- Check clip values
2:40 Model Setup
- Materials must be set to Principled BSDF and have an image texture
- Model normals must be facing correctly (TU enforces Backface Culling!!)
- Materials can have normal maps applied to them
- Materials with special properties, ignore special properties for now
- Remove model shape keys
- Delete any unseen parts of model
- Model should be set to shade smooth
5:32 Porting Part 1
- Spawn in tower unite armature just to scale model to its size
- Apply all transforms to model (Location, rotation, scale) then delete/hide TU armature for now
- Pose fingers like fist (Recommended, TU armature fingers aren't great)
- Apply current armature modifier to save those changes
- If armature is parented, clear parent and keep transforms
- Recreate/Unhide Tower Unite armature
12:41 Porting Part 2
- Begin renaming vertex groups to match Tower Unite armature
- Make sure all parts of the model are weighted to something
- Not all bones are required for the model
- Check progress using addon's pose menu if you want
18:39 Porting Part 3
- Model parts on extra bones must be set to closest matching bone (or whatever looks nicer)
24:52 Testing
- Use addon's pose menu and see how it looks
26:13 Export
- Export using addon's export menu
28:29 Import
- Import into Tower
29:49 Material Metadata
- Set up metadata for materials
32:50 Player Metadata
- Set up metadata for model & its wearables
36:57 Upload
- Upload to Steam Workshop
39:29 Done!
#TowerUnite

[@NIKO-P]

Hi everyone! Small update: The addon that's used in this video is considered to be *OUT OF DEVELOPMENT* meaning the development of it has frozen. As such, the addon is only usable up until Blender 3.4. *USING ANY OTHER VERSION BELOW 2.8 AND ABOVE 3.4 WILL NOT WORK WITH THE ADDON!!!!* If you find yourself not having any success, please double check the version you're using! If you would like to be safe, use the exact version that I am using in this video.

[@jenagloopboy]

you cant download it anymore help

[@NIKO-P]

@@jenagloopboy There's a response to the original forum post that has a fixed version for some weird bug that should let it function on newer Blender versions. You could try that!

[@pocketpj2722]

@@NIKO-P i just tried it today. neither link is available anymore..

[@NIKO-P]

@@pocketpj2722 Hmmm... I'll check with my friend since she uploaded the fixed version.

[@NIKO-P]

@@pocketpj2722 Seems like the google drive link still works. Try it again?

[@WiiFitGOTY]

Thank you so much for making this. Their 2018 tutorial was in much need of an update. I usually only do this once a year so I always have to go back to the tutorial to remember all the steps. The one thing that I had to go back to their tutorial for was to see the names of the armature bones in the preview. It helps me a lot in the renaming vertex groups step.

[@lenshibo]

Thank you for making this! very easy to follow and worked perfectly! Also great to see another oneshot fan in the wild!

[@FlareyFlurry]

tysm for this, i had barely any experience with blender yet it helped me amazingly

[@vodahminhahnu4267]

Thanks for the tutorial, helped me bring one of my creations into the game. Already had a few people doing double takes when they spot me.

[@tgwalrus]

Great work! Happy to claim the first walrus character in the workshop.

[@InkyTheBlue]

I managed to get my player model of ExVeemon working for this game, thanks to your guide. Cheers!

[@KateW601]

Thank you so much for making this! I have 0 experience with Blender, and even I was able to follow along and get a working model. Great work!

[@NIKO-P]

Glad to know the tutorial still helps people!

[@thatraelsnake8845]

39:54 Alula with the drip

[@SnSinny]

LEGENDARY

[@CarbonCopyCat]

thank you very cool

[@tieiai]

Hi, thanks for tutorial i learning 3d so tu is a nice place for upload my models. :DDD

[@epocfeal]

THANK YOU!!!

[@user-yz7rx4xm3v]

Thanks so much for this, very easy! 😊I was able to convert one of my Sims 4 characters, however in the in-game poses (idling, standing, etc.), the elbows are dislocated and the neck elongates. I wonder if I need to shorted the bones maybe?

[@NIKO-P]

Do not touch the bones whatsoever. This is unfortunately a consequence of the animations for the armature, and not much can be done about it. You could blend the weights for the two bones by the joints so that they smooth out, but besides that you're gonna be outta luck.

[@SansIsLost]

I need some help with exporting textures, whenever I export a player model or item to Tower Unite, it always comes untextured even after making sure the settings include textures upon export.

[@NIKO-P]

Might be easier to help if you join the TU discord and bring this up in the #workshop channel :-)

[@Tycitron6000]

What about if a model has a skirt? im trying to upload a touhou character model and she has a skirt. I did also notice the Touhou avatars on the workshop have skirts that DONT clip and follow the legs, any idea how to do this?

[@NIKO-P]

If they follow the legs, then that means they're weight painted to the leg bones. There's a guide that's linked at the end of the guide provided in the video description that has some tricks & tips you could use to make skirts look better in game. I primarily use the leg splay trick for most of my more recent models.

[@Ericman100]

Such an amazing and helpful guide.. I need help though.. May I ask if there is any easy way to get a low poly model that uses Alpha Cutout Textures to work well? I see some on the Workshop, yet I'm having trouble with them

[@NIKO-P]

What specifically are you having issues with?

[@Ericman100]

@@NIKO-P My Model normally relies on Transparent BDSF to display textures on transparent planes, but Principled BDSF doesn't seem to support it

[@NIKO-P]

@@Ericman100 It does. In blender you'd have to set up the Alpha link to the image texture and then further below set it to use Alpha Clip for Masked textures and Alpha Blend for translucent ones. In Tower Unite you'd simply mark the texture as Masked/Translucent in the material metadata editor. Keep in mind that masked is rendered and sorted properly but translucent isn't and can be weird, so unless the specific material is meant to be entirely transparent (like glass), use Alpha Clip & Masked.

[@Ericman100]

@@NIKO-P Thank you so much for the help.. I managed to upload the model!! Sure, it does have a few things that could be fixed, but I was able to do it, thanks to your help!

[@Ackermany]

great video! very informative. In your next video, can you please say "I should grab some emergency meds." ? Thank you!

[@NIKO-P]

YOU.

[@tomnuke9122]

Hey there NIKO, your guide has been really useful and I managed to get the model imported! There is one thing that's bothering me, and its the character's skirt clipping through her thighs. To what part (vertex group) of her body should those portions of her skirt be parented to?

[@NIKO-P]

@@tomnuke9122 Glad it was helpful! Skirts have always been a trouble area for model rigging, and to be honest I still don't know what exactly the best method for them is. Personally, this is the way I prefer having them: I weight paint a large portion of them to the nearest thigh using the Gradient tool set to Spherical (or whatever it's called), then just sorta adjust for both sides and smooth them out as much as possible. It's kind of hard to explain over text, but basically what you want to do is just weight each side just enough so that you minimize clipping and distortion as much as possible.

[@tomnuke9122]

@@NIKO-P I think I sort of understand what you mean! Could I bother you for a reference image of the weight paint "heatmaps" on the skirt of a model please :D

[@NIKO-P]

@@tomnuke9122 Sure! Take a look at these: imgur.com/a/DrXOa1v You can kinda see the point where I start the Radial Gradient weight and went outwards to sorta cover the area.

[@tomnuke9122]

@@NIKO-P Fantastic. That did the trick. Thank you so much for your help NIKO! 😤I should get around to replaying the iconic OneShot one of these days.

[@SeeOHZee]

Trying to port a Vroid Studio (VRM) model and when I do the Tower Unite poses the cat ears aren't aligned with my character.

[@NIKO-P]

See the section for Porting Part 3, most likely your model's cat ears belonged to their own bones and their vertex groups haven't been combined with the tower unite ones.

[@pikkushi3371]

hey man!! i wondered where did you get the alula 3d model ?? I'm looking for it everywhere but it seems the creator has taken it down, do you know where i could get it ?

[@NIKO-P]

I managed to scavenge it with some help and uploaded it onto Garry's Mod's workshop as a playermodel addon. If you want it, you can extract it from there.

[@yosteggas]

Was able to port my personal VRChat model to Tower! Thanks! Also my first time really using blender so obviously this was pretty easy to understand so thanks for that

[@Wawan56Tale]

is it possible to turn the player model from tower unite to blender? like taking it from tower unite and then we can edit it freely. something like that, is It possible?

[@NIKO-P]

No, it is not possible.

[@ilonkamvtv]

Hi at 8:46 It doesn't show pose mode for me? nor the skeleton.. does anyone know why? thanks in advance

[@NIKO-P]

Make sure your armature is selected.

[@ilonkamvtv]

thank you :D it worked

[@ilonkamvtv]

um.. help? My 3d model is full of ''pins'' around its body. right at the time I import it. I don't know what it means and what to do with it.

[@NIKO-P]

Are they blue colored? If yes those are the lines that show which directions the normals are facing. Purely visual and only there to be a helper. They don't actually appear on the model in that case.

[@ilonkamvtv]

@@NIKO-P oh i see thank you!!

[@gaomondigiadicto]

juuust in case you have the same problem as me and you dont know where to find answers, if your uploads keep failing check that -the picture for the workshop is 200x200 or less -The whole thing including the picture weights less than 30Mb -dont use tags or description -name your upload "1" or any single character name /all of this you can edit back later on steam itself, you just do this to upload correctly //if you have a bigger size avatar and it still uploads make sure that in steam workshop appears with the correct size, not 0.000b

[@AntiquaRaven]

Hey, thanks for the tutorial. I am having a consistent issue however -- most of the models I import have a distorted face. It seems as though their mouth or eye gets dragged downward, and I tried looking at the weight paint but I don't see anything wrong or out of place. In Blender it looks fine, but Tower always messes it up. Additionally, the arm and shoulder joints look jagged as well. I appreciate any help

[@NIKO-P]

If they're converging to the floor, especially if it's to a single point, that means those vertices are not weighted to any of the tower unite armature bones. it looks fine in blender because they just stay at the models rest position instead of going to the floor like in tower unite. You can go into pose mode and move the pelvis bone to drag the whole model and see what gets left behind

[@AntiquaRaven]

@@NIKO-P Sorry to reply again, but quick update: I fixed the face issues because there was a hidden iris model in the eyes. However, my shoulders keep looking crunched and jaggy, and I'm not sure why. Nothing is being dragged to the root, and the weights seem to be painted fine, but when I Towers it just looks very pointy.

[@NIKO-P]

@@AntiquaRaven Probably just more weight paint issues (the TU armature isn't the best), you could try adjusting the weight paints for that area but aside from that idk if much can be done

[@AntiquaRaven]

@@NIKO-P Alright, thank you for your advice. Aside from that everything is working fine, I'm just a perfectionist. Thanks again for the tutorial!

[@ellis_cake]

Superuseful 🦑

[@tylerangle2269]

One question I have. How does one go about uploading models like, a car. Or non human shaped models. I know there's alot on the workshop just curious how a tutorial on that plays out. Great tutorial though!

[@NIKO-P]

Props are very simple, but vehicles specifically made for the Accelerate karts have a bit more to them. I personally don't know exactly but from what I remember it's not terribly difficult, just has extra considerations. As for non humanoid models, thats trickier to explain, and I'm definitely not experienced in it. The steam guide I have in the description has a few guides for very basic non humanoid models, like 2D images that'll just rotate, but as far as anything else goes it's basically whatever people who have rigged those models know. I wouldn't be one of them.

[@LivePhotograph1036Gaming]

can you export model from tower unite workshop to blender or gmod pm?

[@NIKO-P]

@@LivePhotograph1036Gaming Nope.

[@PileOfScrap]

16:19 did you forget about the almighty two keys known as ctrl and z?, anyways, great tutorial, managed to make my first and shitposty 3d model into blender

[@NIKO-P]

Definitely didn't forget, since this method applies for any situation where the pose is changed and is again the safest way to reset the pose properly.

[@Trix_]

y'all better smash that like button or i'll find where you live

[@ms.awesome]

lulaa :333

[@pixel__huh]

what if the model is in a zip file?

[@NIKO-P]

Unzip it!

[@hunterkrovac]

Model has a existing armature but does not pose with at as mentioned in the video.

[@NIKO-P]

Either the armature isn't set up correctly or it just flat out doesn't have vertex groups.

[@hunterkrovac]

@@NIKO-P So i'd have to either use mixamo and reconfigure the vertex groups or create new vertex groups?

[@NIKO-P]

@@hunterkrovac Pretty much. Either way you will have to put in some manual work. Mixamo, if it succeeds with the auto rig, will more often than not need fixing in some spots. Personally speaking, I've used it before a few times and they've been manageable. No joke on the manual corrections needed, though.

[@mr_coffee0508]

woa voice reavil!1

[@YukonMeister]

9:15 gottem

[@akurvaanyadat]

nvm ill just play as male07 thanks tho

[@lawluu]

When I put my model into Tower Unite I have missing textures.. I don't understand why

[@NIKO-P]

Make sure you're setting the materials up properly like how i outline near the beginning of the video. If that's all set up correctly, then make sure when you're exporting the model that you save it on the same folder as the textures. When you import it into tower, they must be in the same folder together to work in game.

[@lawluu]

@@NIKO-P Oh I see, thank you lol. I created the model using VRoid and I don't know where I should get the image textures as I only got a .vrm file

[@NIKO-P]

@@lawluu If I'm not wrong then you should be able to export the textures from the blender project. Try File > External Data > Unpack Resources.

[@lawluu]

@@NIKO-P I got them!! Thank you lol, but now I have one last issue. I can't seem to weigh my hair down onto my model by assigning it to the head along with an accessory

[@NIKO-P]

@@lawluu Should be able to if you're in edit mode and you select the bertices you want to weight, then just assign them to the vertex group you want them to move with.

[@kamurocho]

aluler??? oh my god,,,,,,

[@DVo-fe8ew]

Did everything, but with my model, she wears clothes, so when I put automatic weight and checked her pose by rotating her arm, her clothes dont come down with her, only her hand. Know what I can do? Noob at this, literally was learning how to use this for 10 hours ever since downloading it today lol😂😭

[@NIKO-P]

This is sorta why automatic weighting is unreliable. You have two options basically: you can either try to use Adobe Mixamo's automatic rigging, or you have to weight paint the clothing parts yourself. I recommend against using the brush in weight paint mode and just using edit mode to select the clothing parts, then the Vertex Group panel on the right to assign them to a vertex group like how i did for the hair and hands.

[@DVo-fe8ew]

@@NIKO-P alright Ill fix it, gonna weight paint it myself, but just so u can have a bit more info(and others who come across this), the girl is imported from an xps file, had to make her textures opaque because she was transparent otherwise, and she had pre made bones too, so once I finished scaling her, matching the tower unite skeleton to her body, I did the clear parent thing. Although, a bit different because I had to highlight her model from the top right armature menu and click select because just clicking on her model doesnt fully get "it". When i did that at first, and cleared parent, it deleted the whole model, so yea I figured out that I had to do that and when i cleared it the whole model was there so all i had left was to delete the bones/armature it came with. Now I just need to weight her clothes to make it move with her new armature

[@DVo-fe8ew]

@@NIKO-P yea nvm im lost, just stuck in this part, tried doing the weight paint with the hair and her head doesnt even move just the armature itself. I didnt delete any vertices because im not sure what to even delete. There's Head then a lot of Hair_Top/Side vertices, then simply just HAIR then finally Neck.

[@DVo-fe8ew]

@@NIKO-P ok so what I was missing was to rename the vertices to the tower unite ones, and I did automatic weight again and the model now moves with the armature. Few problems that can for sure be easily fixed though and its that the face's mouth stays in one place and the clothes around her chest area stretch, also her hair.

[@StarJelly64]

Installed the addon numerous times, didn't allow me to add the armature :I

[@NIKO-P]

It's gotten a bit unsupported on newer versions, try using the version of blender that I have in the video.

[@StarJelly64]

@@NIKO-P Aw dang that sucks but thanks for clearing that up!

[@StarJelly64]

Oh I forgot to ask, what version is used in the video :0?

[@NIKO-P]

@@StarJelly64 Right at the beginning I say that I'm using version 3.2.2

[@StarJelly64]

@@NIKO-P Sorry, I must've skimmed over that by accident. Anyways, I got it working now, thank you for clearing that up!

[@zellexy]

Im trying to import a model from blender to tower unite but i get told ive got too many materials. (14 and i need 10 max). I've tried to strip down the amount but it's already at its bare bones and i've got no idea how i can minimize the amount of materials any less.

[@NIKO-P]

Have you been using the material combiner addon? It'll allow you to combine materials down to one atlas material.

[@zellexy]

@@NIKO-P I didn't know that existed, ill try combine some but will the materials still work the same? I'm still quite new to blender, just started yesterday to make my own character.

[@NIKO-P]

@@zellexy if they're basic materials with no special needs like transparency or emission then yeah. you're able to freely pick which materials you wanna combine into an atlas. just keep in mind that if you want to keep certain effects (like how i made the material for alula's eyes emissive) then you shouldn't combine those

[@zellexy]

@@NIKO-P thanks for the assistance but i ended up realising i needed to use the tower unite armature and not using an auto rig as it added materials which sent it over the limit. i was previously following the old spy one but people in the discord sent me to this video.

[@warblenoise]

Even after deleting unnecessary vertex groups - certain parts of my model (namely details on the legs) stay stationary and stretch out when attempting to pose the model - any idea how to prevent this?

[@NIKO-P]

You have to assign those unweighted vertices to the nearest bone, which in this case would be whichever leg it's closest to.

[@warblenoise]

@@NIKO-P Ah thank you, I admit even when you said to do that in the video for some reason I didn't try it - is it possible to have more than one vertex connected to a bone? I understand that it causes them to become numbered but would they still be bound correctly?

[@NIKO-P]

@@warblenoise That goes without saying. Multiple vertices can be assigned to the same bone, unless you meant to say "Can multiple vertex groups be assigned to the same bone?", in which case no they cannot. The name of the vertex group corresponds to the bone that controls it.

[@warblenoise]

@@NIKO-P Thank you very much, I apologise - since this is my first time using blender - the terminology is still very new to me, this guide has been extremely helpful - thank you.

[@moldorm30]

What do I do if the model I have doesn't have bones or a rig?

[@NIKO-P]

I cover it briefly in the video: You can try an autorig software like Adobe Mixamo (only for bipedal models, WILL NEED MANUAL CORRECTING!!!), rig it yourself, or get someone to rig it for you.

[@asbfabfoaijfo8]

i had fucking deleted seom of the vectrex groups im remaking the model 😭😭

[@kazimirthegothrobot8763]

40 minutes long and i lack the comprehension or patience to port my model a friend made :')

[@NIKO-P]

Never hurts to take it slow! First time I ported something to gmod took me a week.