Creating Characters (v1.0)

All of the editor tools are embedded in-game.

To access the player model editor, go to the Main Menu of Tower Unite. Near the bottom, there is a Workshop Editor option. From there, click on Player Model/Item Creation.

We assume in this guide that you have prior knowledge with 3D modeling and rigging characters.

We recommend using Blender as your model editor.

Step 1. Creating the Rig

Before you can begin importing your character into Tower Unite, you must first rig the character to our skeleton. We suggest using Blender when creating characters.

Blender

We recommend using the community-made Tower Unite Blender Add-on (by Spoom) when creating characters.

The Tower Unite Blender Suite is a community-made add-on for Blender which streamlines the model creation process. Aimed at the latest version of Blender, it is easy to use and provides powerful features such as:

• Tower Unite Export
• Export Pre-Proccessing
• Tower Unite Armature
• Adjusting Tower Unite armature
• Tower Unite Pose Previewing

Once you have rigged your character to our rig, please make sure you have set up your materials and pointed the textures to the correct file paths.

Other Modeling Programs

Advanced users only:

• Download the Tower Unite armature: Workshop Rig
• Import the units.
• Set the units to be metric at 0.01 scale.
• Set armature to 1:1 scale.
• Z is up!

Step 2. Exporting

When you are happy with your rig, export the rig into DAE format. DAE is the only format we support for characters. Your modeling program may have DAE support through a plugin, so you'll need to enable that.

Note: If using Blender, make sure you have Export Materials selected when exporting to DAE. Make sure you export both the model AND the skeleton!

Step 3. Importing Into Tower Unite

Once you have rigged the model and exported to DAE, it's finally time to open up Tower Unite and load the Player Model Editor!

To access the player model editor, go to the Main Menu of Tower Unite. Near the bottom, there is a Workshop Editor option. From there, click on Player Model/Item Creation.

Once in the editor: Select the My Imports tab. Select Player Model from the dropdown. Click Import. Select the .DAE file you wish to import. That's it.

Your model will then be converted into our format (.model). If it fails for any reason, the editor will tell you why in the Compiler Info. You can also see the entire import process there and troubleshoot any issues that come up.

You can reimport over and over until you get the perfect player model.

Step 4. Metadata

You can also further edit your player model for Tower Unite specific features using the metadata editor.

The metadata editor allows you to adjust player scale, wearable offsets (hats, etc.), and materials to make your player model compatible with all the features of Tower Unite.

Shoulder Width / Height

To help with characters that have different shoulder widths, you can adjust the shoulders width and height in both directions.

Material Metadata

You can adjust the material settings using the metadata editor.

• Emissive: Adjusts how much the material glows in the dark.
• Roughness: Adjusts how smooth reflections are.
• Metallic: Adjusts how much the material is metal.
• Specular: Adjusts how reflective the material is.
• Transparency: Adjusts if the material is partially translucent or masked (masked takes in lighting and does not have as many visual sorting issues)
• Toon Shader: Applies a cartoon effect on the material.

Step 5. Testing

When viewing your imported player model, you can preview animations and the capsule collider with the tool bar at the bottom right in the editor.

Step 6. Publishing

To publish your Character, select the My Imports tab, and make sure that Player Model is selected.

Once you have done this, you should see a list of all of your imported characters.

Find the character that you wish to upload, and click on its name. On the right, click on the big blue upload button. From there, you will see the upload panel.

Fill out the necessary information, tag your character appropriately, and follow our rules.

Once you have filled out all the information, simply click Upload, and the editor will upload to Steam Workshop.

If you want to make your vehicle immediately public, click the Publish & Make Public check box then hit upload, otherwise leave that unchecked and you can make it public from the published Workshop page.

You can update your vehicle's title, description and images on the published Workshop page. Unfortunately, you cannot update your tags or thumbnail without doing an update to your vehicle.

Upload Errors

If your character failed to upload to the Steam Workshop, it will give you an error message:

• Nothing: Sometimes this just happens. Try uploading once or twice again, before investigating further.
• Title / Description: Large bodies of text in the title or description field may prevent the upload. Keep it short or empty and you can update it freely afterwards.
• Maintenance / Downtime: Sometimes Steam Workshop is taken offline and will be unable to accept uploads. If this is the case, try again in 15 minutes or so.
• Bans: If you have recently had an item removed from the Workshop, you may be limited by a temporary Workshop ban, even if it wasn't a Tower Unite item.

Video Tutorial

Updating

To update an existing workshop character, while in the item editor, click the My Uploads tab.

From there, you will see a list of your uploaded workshop addons. If you do not see any uploaded Workshop addons, check if you are properly connected to Steam or click Get My Uploads.

Find the item you want to update, and click on its name. An update dialog will open up, and will automatically populate with existing information for the character for you.

From here, you can update the title, the image, tags, and the file.

To update the model, click on Select File To Update and select the file from the list that pops up.

Once you are done with your changes, click Update, and the editor will send the changes to Steam Workshop.

You may have to clear your workshop cache and restart Tower Unite to see the update.

Example