So it took me a while to wrap my head around how UMA works, but it doesn't really work the way I think most people (including myself) think/thought it does. I assumed that it is just a utility that can be used to generate a static 3D humanoid model. In actuality, it creates the mesh only in real-time and it is completely dynamic. While the game is running, you can change every parameter of its DNA such as height, eye spacing, head size, arm length, etc., in real-time just like the character creation screen in Skyrim.
Quite frankly, with enough work, this could be used to usurp the vanilla DFU character creation and paperdoll systems.
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I'll tell you that I'm very excited for all the cool options and effects that this will open up for characters.
For example:
Once we have a library of clothing, armors, weapons, hair models, ect., any other humanoid could also use those. That means that NPCs could change their clothes, or at least the citizens can display far more variety. MOBs could show what armor and weapons they have equipped. NPCs and MOBs could have completely unique faces and have variation in height.
This also opens up really cool effects. For example, the orc in the above picture is using Unity's cloth physics on his drapes so they should move around realistically as he moves. And I've also attached a real-time reflection probe to give his armor realistic reflections. The possibilities are nearly endless and I can't wait to explore it further.
Whoa, I missed this. So you're saying billboards could be replaced with new sprites or even 3D models?
Sorry if I'm mistaken.
Yes. In fact, if I understand correctly, you could even replace a billboard with a particle system if you wanted... It's just looking for a game object. So chances are you just need to create prefab with a script that can do something with the incoming SetPerson arguments: (race, gender, personVarient, isGuard). I think this applies to townsfolk and the city guards.