Best Practices for Preparing Templates for Use in Popul8

Setting up your character Template properly is essential for smooth use in Popul8 Express.

Following the guidelines below will help ensure optimized performance, clean organization, and fewer issues during import and editing.

📁 Files & Asset Structure

Since Popul8 Express relies on the FBX workflow, please follow these best practices when preparing your files:

✅ Recommendations:

• Use a consistent naming convention for all files:
  • FBX files, texture maps
  • Internal data: geometry, rig, materials
• Avoid using namespaces
• Do not use special characters in file or node names (e.g., non-ASCII letters, accents, symbols)
• Supported content includes:
  • Polygon meshes
  • Bone-based rigs
  • Keyframe animation
  • Material assignments
• Do not include unsupported objects such as:
  • NURBS curves
  • Constraints
  • Lights
  • Cameras or helper objects
• Make sure the scene uses a consistent axis orientation (Y-up or Z-up) as defined in your project

⚠️ Current Limitations:

• Animations Blendshapes and corrective blendshapes are not supported yet

🔷 Geometry

✅ Recommendations:

• Avoid problematic geometry, such as:
  • Loose vertices
  • Non-manifold geometry
• It's recommended (but not required) to separate geometry into logical meshes, such as:
  • head, body, eyes, teeth
• All meshes must have a UV set — stacked or distributed
• UDIMs are supported
• Freeze transformations and ensure pivots are at the origin (0,0,0)
• Custom normals are allowed and respected

⚠️ Current Limitations:

Multiple UV sets are not supported

🦴 Rig

✅ Recommendations:

• Every object (Template, Shape, Deformable) must have at least one root bone
• Keep the root bone positioned at the origin (0,0,0)
• Pre-rotations in bones are allowed (either oriented or stored in rotation)
• The rig must have a stored bind pose in the FBX file

⚠️ Current Limitations:

• While there’s no per-vertex influence limit for import/export,
  • Deformation visualization in Popul8 Express is limited to 4 influences per vertex
• Blendshapes (animated or corrective) are not currently supported

🎨 Materials & Textures

✅Recommendations:

• All meshes must have assigned materials
• Multiple materials per mesh are allowed
• Use PNG format for textures
  • TGA is also supported, but with some limitations
• Recommended texture setups:
  • PBR workflows using either MaskMap (Unity) or ARM (Unreal Engine) formats

⚠️ Current Limitations:

• Material properties cannot be modified inside the tool. they are based on predefined material presets
• TGA files with floating point data are not fully supported
• The in-app shaders are for preview purposes only, not for final rendering

Summary

This checklist will help you avoid common pitfalls and ensure that your custom characters are ready to work seamlessly in Popul8 Express.

For more advanced use cases, stay tuned for upcoming updates.