It is possible to add your own non-physics humanoids into TDW from a .fbx file. However, the files must first be converted into an asset bundle (just like objects). To do so, you'll need to use TDW's HumanoidCreator.
The humanoid .fbx model must already be rigged. When it is converted into asset bundles, it won't receive colliders.
- The
tdwmodule - The Asset Bundle Creator Unity project. Read this for a list of requirements.
To convert robot .urdf files and their referenced meshes into asset bundles, TDW uses Asset Bundle Creator, a Unity Editor project. It is possible to run the Unity project without any Python wrapper classes but there is usually no reason to do so.
Asset Bundle Creator can be used not just for models, but for other types of asset bundles as well, such as models.
Asset Bundle Creator will be downloaded automatically the first time you use the Python wrapper class (see below).
To create an asset bundle of a humanoid:
from pathlib import Path
from tdw.asset_bundle_creator.humanoid_creator import HumanoidCreator
from tdw.backend.paths import EXAMPLE_CONTROLLER_OUTPUT_PATH
source_file = Path.home().joinpath("humanoid.fbx")
output_directory = EXAMPLE_CONTROLLER_OUTPUT_PATH.joinpath("humanoid_asset_bundles")
print(f"Asset bundles will be saved to: {output_directory}")
r = HumanoidCreator()
r.source_file_to_asset_bundles(name="test_humanoid",
source_file=source_file,
output_directory=output_directory)Output:
~/tdw_example_controller_output/humanoid_asset_bundles/
....Darwin/
........test_humanoid
....Linux/
........test_humanoid
....Windows/
........test_humanoid
....record.json
....log.txt
Darwin/test_humanoid,Linux/test_humanoid, andWindows/test_humanoidare platform-specific asset bundles.record.jsonis a serialized HumanoidRecord.log.txtis a log of the creation process.
HumanoidCreator has several optional constructor parameters:
If True, suppress output messages.
If you installed Unity Editor via Unity Hub, HumanoidCreator should be able to automatically find the Unity Editor executable.
If the Unity Editor executable is in an unexpected location, you will need to explicitly set its location in the HumanoidCreator by setting the optional unity_editor_path parameter:
from tdw.asset_bundle_creator.humanoid_creator import HumanoidCreator
a = HumanoidCreator(quiet=True, unity_editor_path="D:/Unity/2020.3.24f1/Editor/Unity.exe")When you create a new HumanoidCreator Python object, it automatically compares the version of your local Unity project to the one stored on GitHub. This requires an Internet connection and might not be desirable in all cases, especially on servers. To prevent the version check, set check_version=False in the constructor.
This must be set on Linux machines, especially headless servers, and must match a valid X display.
You can feasibly create asset bundles for multiple models by calling source_file_to_asset_bundles() in a loop. This is not a good idea. Repeatedly calling Unity from a Python script is actually very slow. (It also appears to slow down over many consecutive calls). Instead, call source_directory_to_asset_bundles():
from pathlib import Path
from tdw.asset_bundle_creator.humanoid_creator import HumanoidCreator
from tdw.backend.paths import EXAMPLE_CONTROLLER_OUTPUT_PATH
h = HumanoidCreator()
h.source_directory_to_asset_bundles(source_directory=Path.home().joinpath("humanoid_fbx_files"),
output_directory=EXAMPLE_CONTROLLER_OUTPUT_PATH.joinpath("humanoids"))There are many optional parameters not shown in this example. Read the API document for more information.
Call cleanup() to delete any intermediary files within the Unity Editor project created in the process of creating asset bundles. This will delete all intermediary files, including those of other models. This won't delete any of your original files (assuming that they weren't in the Unity Editor project).
get_base_unity_call() returns a list of strings that can be used to call a Unity Editor function:
from tdw.asset_bundle_creator.humanoid_creator import HumanoidCreator
print(HumanoidCreator().get_base_unity_call())Output:
['C:/Program Files/Unity/Hub/Editor/2020.3.24f1/Editor/Unity.exe', '-projectpath', 'C:/Users/USER Alter/asset_bundle_creator', '-quit', '-batchmode']
call_unity() will call the Asset Bundle Creator Unity project as a subprocess with command-line arguments. You can call arbitrary methods this way (assuming you know the underlying C# API. This function is used by every function that communicates with Unity, for example source_file_to_asset_bundles().
You can load a humanoid saved on a local machine with the add_humanoid command.
There are two ways to do this. First, you can just manually set the URL of the asset bundle. Be aware that you need to select the asset bundle for your operating system and you need to add file:/// to the start of the URL.
The second, easier, way is to deserialize the record.json file, which includes the file paths:
import json
from tdw.backend.paths import EXAMPLE_CONTROLLER_OUTPUT_PATH
from tdw.controller import Controller
from tdw.tdw_utils import TDWUtils
from tdw.librarian import HumanoidRecord
name = "humanoid_0"
# This assumes that you've already created asset bundles and a record.json file in this directory.
output_directory = EXAMPLE_CONTROLLER_OUTPUT_PATH.joinpath("humanoids").joinpath(name)
# Load the record.
record_path = output_directory.joinpath("record.json")
record_data = json.loads(record_path.read_text())
record = HumanoidRecord(record_data)
c = Controller()
c.communicate([TDWUtils.create_empty_room(12, 12),
{"$type": "add_humanoid",
"name": name,
"url": record.get_url(),
"id": c.get_unique_id()}])Next: Create custom humanoid animations
Python API:
Command API: