Hi, Hi, Thanks for your review! Just wanted to clarify that there's no need for ObiBone to have its own local solver. It is however recommended for it to be setup this way, as it allows fine control over inertial forces.

Hi there, At the time of writing this reply (31 Oct), the website seems up for us?: http://obi.virtualmethodstudio.com/ Could have been some short temporary downtime, thanks for the heads up nonetheless! Let us know if you have trouble accessing it. "Also is there a way to slow down the cloth simulation frame rate to imitate an an anime style effect like stepped animation." Not built-in, but should be possible to only update cloth rendering every N frames by slightly modifying ObiClothRenderer.cs. Write to our support forum/email for further help.

Hi there! "I don't want to paint a complex object (with lots of occluding geometry) for 30 min with layers in an editor that is painful to use and still get the wrong result. Do me a favor: Just select nearest vertex, edge or face, smooth and leave me alone :D" When creating proxy skinmaps, you can just click "Bind" and the triangle skinmap will automatically pick the best matching face for each particle and bind them together. You can control what *best* means by changing the barycentric, normal and elevation weights. If you set barycentric and elevation weights to 1 and normal to zero, it will just pick the nearest one as you want. There's absolutely no need to paint anything unless you want to manually direct the binding process. "HOW?! Why is there no make skirt button? Is it that uncommon? Nobody? Nobody uses skirts in their game? How about I give you two ellipses and you give me a perfectly configured skirt? How about a shirt? Plus open jacket that can be a coat? 95% of all cases solved." Obi is a physics engine, not a modeling tool. You are supposed to create skirts/jackets/shirts or whatever garment mesh you need in external modeling tools and import them. You can also import their per-vertex values from texture maps, so you can avoid using the provided vertex painting tools entirely if you don't find them comfortable. kind regards

Hi there, Please get in contact with us if you're having trouble setting Obi up. Following the tutorial videos/manual should yield a correctly set up cloth simulation, regardless of the mesh used. Keep in mind that Obi is considerably more complex than Unity's built-in cloth, however the extra complexity is there for a reason since it's also a lot more flexible and modular.

Hi! Edit2: Here's a link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ttvr9Md2zQ Edit: I kindly asked you before to write to our email address, in part because it would also be nice to make the video using the exact same mesh you have, in case there's issues specific to it that might need addressing. If I just make my own, I might not hit the very issue that is stopping you and the video won't help you. In my opinion, this conversation should be taking place either in our support forums or via email, not in a public review section. I have to check if anything new has been added to your review and answer you, which is rather error prone (Unity doesn't notify of changes in review content). ###“im sorry if you feel like I am blackmailing you for a tutorial but this is standard with most assets I've bought.”### Do you routinely rate all assets you buy 1 star, and promise to change it to 5 stars if the publisher makes you a step by step video for your <very> specific use case? I’m sorry but that’s unacceptable. If you’re asking for a Obi tutorial video, there’s several of those available. But you’re asking for - and I quote: “tutorial using meshes that haven't been prepared ahead of time [..] a ship with two sails”. That’s oddly specific: a modeling/exporting tutorial for a ship with 2 sails not 1, not 3. This has nothing to do with the asset. Once you have your mesh ready (be it a trenchoat, a flag, a ship with two sails, or whatever), all remaining steps are already covered in the existing material. Note that I will record the video for you nonetheless, but this shouldn't be the difference between "this asset is garbage" and "this asset is excellent", which is what 1 and 5 stars mean. ###“I just find that reading through the entire manual is difficult when you're learning new assets while working a job, I don't have a lot of time“### Please understand it's not my job to explain what’s already covered in the manual to you, to save you reading time. Of course I'm here to clarify concepts or help you if anything's not working well, I'm more than glad to do that. But at the bare minimum, you are expected to read the manual. Obi is a rather large asset and it's made abundantly clear that it is targeted at advanced users. It takes time to get used to it, specially if you don't have much experience with other physics engines. Most of the issues you mention in your review gave me the impression that you just skimmed trough the available docs: “it says place this component in the hierarchy, but it doesn’t say where“ the manual it says *up* the objects hierarchy, not *in* the hierarchy. “there’s no constraints glossary”, when in fact there is far more than that. “I don’t know what this picture is supposed to represent”, but it’s explained right underneath it. ”the first page doesn’t explain components” no, because that’s explained in the next page. "It uses the term actor instead of cloth which is confusing", but the reason why is explained right before, etc. Sorry if I sound angry, I'm not, but you’re placing blame on the available learning resources when it’s quite clear you didn’t make good use of them. ------- Thanks for your review, I can understand your frustration. ###"if a full video is released on setting up a proper sail from scratch, I will gladly bump this up to a 5 star review"### A bit of review blackmail, but ok. I’m willing to help you with your specific issues on a personal basis, so just drop me an email (support(at)virtualmethodstudio.com) and we can schedule a Zoom session, or I can record a custom-tailored video for you. Now I will do my best to clarify some points: ###“have failed time and time again due to my sail shrinking”### As I tried to explain in the forums, shrinking is usually caused by a mismatch between the blueprint’s scale and your transform hierarchy scale. Either your blueprint scale is too small, or the transform hierarchy scale is too big. The simplest, safest way to ensure there’s no scaling issues is to export everything at unit scale (1,1,1), which in Blender can be done by applying your scale values to the mesh (Object->Apply->Scale). ###“I have looked through the forums and there is people having the same issue but only 1 community manager giving information”### I’m a one-man operation, so yes it’s only me giving advice. Occasionally other fellow users chime in to help, but there’s nothing I can do about that. ###“I made sure the cloth was on the outside of the collider for the parts selected in the blueprint and even tried inside by using the unity physics setting to ignore the layers”### Unity’s physics layers have no effect on Obi, since Obi does not use Unity’s physics system. Collision filtering is achieved in a completely different way (collision filters). This is explained in the "collisions" page of the manual: http://obi.virtualmethodstudio.com/manual/6.3/collisions.html ###“and the UV on the mesh seem to look completely deformed.”### Obi has nothing to do with UVs. It just moves vertex positions around, and recalculates normals/tangents. It doesn't touch UVs at all. If there’s any UV distortion going on, it must have happened when exporting from Blender. (or, it's not UV distortion at all) ###“should be a tutorial on how exactly it was done from scratch, no premade assets, no editing”### There’s one simple requirement for cloth meshes: they cannot be non-manifold. This is a fairly common requirement for meshes when used for purposes other than rendering, and most modeling packages have automated tools to detect and fix non-manifoldness for you. Within this limitation, any mesh will work. A tutorial on how to make mesh assets from scratch would be a modelling/exporting tutorial, which is far beyond the asset scope. Being able to create and correctly export a mesh from any modeling package of your choice is something that Obi takes for granted, like a lot other basic skills. ###“I want tutorials that explain it on a lower level and cover the steps of getting the mesh ready until the play button is played### As I said, tutorials on “getting the mesh ready” are basically Blender/Maya/Modo/<insert your modeling package here> tutorials, not Obi tutorials. This being said, I’m willing to help you with your specific issues on a personal basis, so just drop me an email (support(at)virtualmethodstudio.com) and we can schedule a Zoom session, or I can record a custom-tailored video for you. ###"and the simulation works flawlessly even if there are mistakes made"### That's a pretty unrealistic expectation. How can something work flawlessly if you made mistakes setting it up? Systems can be error-tolerant up to a point and even hold you trough the setup process (Obi warns you if your mesh is not readable and pops up a button to automatically fix that, sets up all components automatically when you create a cloth from the GameObject menu, etc), but things cannot magically work the way you need them to regardless of how you set them up. ###“The settings are all named the same instead of having an unique descriptor,”### Not sure what you mean by that, there’s no two settings in Obi that have the same name? ###“introduction page of the user manual, and the setup page only outlines how to import it, how the folder is laid out, some bit about how SRP is compatible and how to fix the material issues and a plug for obi fluid, THIS PAGE IS NOT HELPFUL.”### It may not help you with the specific issues you’ve encountered, but it might help others? (in fact that specific page was co-written by a fellow user). ###“it does not explain how to properly setup the GameObjects and Components appropriately and that is what should've been there. “### That’s covered in the “Architecture” page. It goes over all core components in Obi, what their purpose is, and how they relate to each other. ###“I reach solvers which includes overly explained instructions "Every Actor needs to have a solver in it's hierarchy" basically says "Every cloth object needs to have an Obi Solver Component in its hierarchy" but where? the use of the name Actor is unnecessary and confusing“### All kinds of cloth are collectively called “Actors” (and for other Obi packages, ropes, fluid emitters, softbodies are Actors too). This is established at a previous point in the manual, in the “Architecture“ page and repeated throughout many sections/pages: in simulation, actors, particle rendering, scripting, just to name a few. So saying “Every Actor needs to have a solver up it's hierarchy”, means every cloth regardless of its type (regular, skinned or tearable) must have a solver component up its hierarchy. The alternative would be saying "Every tearable cloth, skinned cloth, regular cloth, rope, rod, fluid emitter, granular emitter, volume softbody or surface softbody needs a solver up its hierarchy" which is arguably a lot less clear and more verbose. You can find examples of this in Unity's documentation too. When dealing with components in a general way, it says "components", instead of listing every existing component subclass. ###“basically says "Every cloth object needs to have an Obi Solver Component in its hierarchy" but where? I personally understand that it has to be on the parent GameObject, but this does not specify the location needed”### It's doesn't say "in its hierarchy" but *up its hierarchy*. This means anywhere above it in the transform hierarchy, at any nesting level: can be at the parent, at the parent’s parent, etc. This is how many other Unity systems work, for instance UI: you need UI elements to have a Canvas up their hierarchy for them to be rendered. Animators also work in a similar way. It's a rather common setup pattern in Unity, and I believe the clearest, most succint way to describe it is "place X component up Y component's hierarchy". Not sure if there's a better wording to express this? ###“until you reach the "Continuous Collision Detection" portion where the illustration is a box with circles inside one darker than the other and a red line going from the top left corner to the bottom right, I skipped this part as it was honestly too difficult to grasp the message being delivered”### That particular illustration (https://i.imgur.com/R4cqkMq.png) has a description right below it that reads: “A moving particle and its bounding box”. The box is -obviously- the bounding box, the opaque circle is the particle's current position, and the red arrow is its movement/velocity vector. Assuming you’re familiar with vectors and bounding boxes (both of which are really basic concepts in game making) I think the picture requires no further explanation? Honestly a circle with an arrow coming out of it is the best graphical representation of a 'moving particle' that I can come up with. And a bounding box is well, a box. Unity illustrates CCD the exact same way in their own manual: https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/ContinuousCollisionDetection.html ###“there should be a "Constraint Glossary" page dedicated to the following items as their description is vague.”### There’s a lengthy, extremely detailed explanation of how constraints work in general (which does include a glossary of all constraint types at the very end): http://obi.virtualmethodstudio.com/manual/6.3/convergence.html As then there's individual pages for each and every constraint type, containing illustrated explanations of what they do and their parameters. Some examples (not a comprehensive list, just some of the links for the stuff you mention): http://obi.virtualmethodstudio.com/manual/6.3/distanceconstraints.html http://obi.virtualmethodstudio.com/manual/6.3/volumeconstraints.html http://obi.virtualmethodstudio.com/manual/6.3/bendingconstraints.html http://obi.virtualmethodstudio.com/manual/6.3/tetherconstraints.html http://obi.virtualmethodstudio.com/manual/6.3/skinconstraints.html ###“There is NO discord server, we are in 2022, and the old school forum styled website is outdated, replies can come within a day to 3”### I beg to disagree. If you consider that replies coming “within a day to 3” is unacceptable, that’s a problem (considering in Obi’s case, it’s often within the day, except during weekends). In most support systems I’ve used you get an answer within the week if you’re lucky. In my humble experience, a Discord server does nothing to improve response time unless other users chime in to help - which they can, and sometimes do in our forums. Being 24/7 available for chatting in Discord (or any other platform) is not an option. ###“I understand that you do not have a massive team running your operation but simply giving refunds or telling people to request one when they cannot solve their issue isn't a solution,”### Not sure what you mean, tbh. I haven't told you to request a refund, have I? I only do this when it’s clear that the use case presented by the user is not solvable using Obi, and there's a large disconnect between the user's expectations and what the asset actually does. If it’s clear that Obi cannot help with the problem at hand, I do 3 things: A) Explain why Obi is not a good choice for that specific problem, B) Offer a refund and C) point to a better solution, if I know of one. What would be the correct way to handle this in your opinion? Keep a frustrated user bending over backwards to use a tool that’s just not a good fit for their problem, and was never designed to be? allow them to waste their time, hoping to be able to keep their money? If I purchased a hammer to drive some screws, I’d really appreciate it if someone told me a screwdriver would be a better choice, and allow me to refund my hammer. ###"this is your chance to improve and find solutions to different problems"### There's problems that can be solved by a reasonable modification/extension of the asset. Then there's problems that are so far beyond the asset's scope that they're either impossible to solve within the existing paradigm, so niche that they don't justify the architectural changes required to solve them, or so convolved that solving them would end up bloating the asset into a unmanageable mess. This second kind is the one that I usually offer a refund for, since they're either unsolvable or there's a far better solution out there. ###“polishing everything to the point where 99% of people can use the system without asking too many simple setup questions.”### I agree, and that's what I strive to do. But at some point you have to assume the user has a certain base knowledge level. Otherwise, the amount of concepts that need explaining spirals out of control. Obi assumes you’re familiar with basic math (vector spaces, vector/matrix algebra, that sort of thing), intermediate C# programming, and simple asset management (meshes, transforms, etc). The manual does not explain things like “local/world space”, “bounding box”, ”transform hierarchy”, "friction", or ”manifoldness” are because these concepts are at the very foundation of 3D graphics/physics.