Breaking the Avatar

This doc goes into breaking up your custom Avatar for Roblox using Blender in order to break up like a standard character in Roblox experiences.

Tutorial

As a standard Roblox Character requires many parts we will need to break the model up into segments like the upper arms/legs, lower arms/legs etc.

Blender will keep the rigging information on the vertices even after you split up the assets.

Break up the Duplicate and name accordingly...

• Duplicate the character. We can use the original asset to help make our split avatar asset normals more unified.

Required Assets...

• Break up the duplicate character into the respective parts by :

  • Select the target polygons.

  • Right Click > Separate > Selection.

  • Name them (in white below) :

    • Head (including Neck)

      • Head_Geo

      • LeftEye_Geo

      • RightEye_Geo

      • Tongue_Geo

      • UpperTeeth_Geo

      • LowerTeeth_Geo

    • Torso (including Pelvis)

      • UpperTorso_Geo

      • LowerTorso_Geo

    • Upper Arms

      • LeftUpperArm_Geo

      • RightUpperArm_Geo

    • Lower Arms

      • LeftLowerArm_Geo

      • RightLowerArm_Geo

    • Hands

      • LeftHand_Geo

      • RightHand_Geo

    • Upper Legs

      • LeftUpperLeg_Geo

      • RightUpperLeg_Geo

    • Lower Legs

      • LeftLowerLeg_Geo

      • RightLowerLeg_Geo

    • Feet

      • LeftFoot_Geo

      • RightFoot_Geo

Cap ends of all assets...

• Cap the parts so they are all closed assets. This includes things like the eyes if you have removed half the sphere to reduce polycount.

  • Select the edges of the hole.

  • Use the 'F' Key to create a Face from Vertices.

  • Right Click > Mark Sharp if you want the edge to be sharp.

Refining the results

Refining the Normals...

• If you want the assets to look like they blend together rather than have an edge as they are different meshes there are different approaches to do so :

  

  Data Transfer Modifier...

  • Use the 'Data Transfer' modifier to copy data from your original asset onto your split model assets, or...

  • In Edit Mode on the mesh, use 'Mesh/Normals/Copy Vector' and 'Mesh/Normals/Paste Vector' to copy the normal from one vertex to another.

• Make sure to Apply the Transform (Ctrl + A in Object Mode in Blender) to all meshes before export so that :

  • Location is 0,0,0.

  • Rotation is 0,0,0.

  • Scale is 1.0, 1.0, 1.0

Example of Applied Transforms...

Troubleshooting