Changelog

Version 1.2.1

• Fixed: textures now load for iClone "Export USD (Omniverse)" characters, whose texture folders are laid out differently from Character Creator's USD export.
• Added dedicated Character Creator FBX and USD export walkthroughs, and a new iClone export section — including how to bring iClone-authored motion into Houdini (an FBX round-trip through Character Creator, or the NVIDIA Omniverse plugin). Note: iClone's direct USD export is experimental — standard characters work, stylized ones may not.
• Documented the best-quality workflow: an FBX-imported character driven by lightweight USD motion clips, so you keep the expression wrinkles while the animation stays light.
• Refreshed in-app tooltips and help that still referred only to FBX now that USD import is supported.
• Bug fixes and improvements.

Version 1.2

USD import mode

• New USD import path. A new Import dropdown at the top of the node lets you import Character Creator's Export USD (Omniverse) output instead of FBX. USD import is dramatically faster and lighter on memory — around 50–75× faster, with the gap widening on heavier characters — and is now the default mode. FBX import is unchanged and still available. See USD vs FBX.
• Sparse facial deformation in USD mode. The facial blendshapes now stay sparse through deformation instead of being expanded into memory — only the expressions active on the current frame are computed. The heaviest HD characters drop from ~26 GB to under 3 GB of working RAM, identical results. With this, 16 GB of RAM works for standard characters and 32 GB covers HD in USD mode (FBX mode keeps its previous requirements).
• Real Character Creator eye & skin values. In USD mode the tool reads Character Creator's actual shader values and seeds the lookdev controller with them automatically — real iris color, iris size, limbal ring, sclera shading, and subsurface amount — instead of the generic starting points the FBX export forces. Reset to Defaults returns to these real values in USD mode.
• Honest feature gating. Character Creator's USD export omits the data behind expression wrinkles and the root-to-tip / highlight hair re-dye, so those controls are clearly disabled with an "(FBX import only)" note in USD mode. Flat hair re-dye, the Lightness (Bleach) control, displacement, and everything else work in both modes.
• Animation database accepts USD motion clips. Add Animation now also takes the Motions/*.usd clips Character Creator writes beside a USD export — they load instantly and use a fraction of an FBX clip's RAM. FBX and USD clips mix freely in one database and work in either import mode; USD clips can even drive an FBX-imported character, keeping expression wrinkles working from featherweight clips. Retarget Animation now engages automatically when a clip's format differs from the import mode.
• Cross-character clips no longer break characters with accessory bones. A clip from a character without this character's hair/accessory rig used to explode those parts; they now follow along rigidly (hair rides the head).
• Scenes saved before 1.2 open in FBX mode automatically — existing work is unaffected.
• Bug fixes and improvements.

Version 1.1

• Documentation moved to the new JVtools docs site (the one you're reading now).
• In-app update check. The asset now checks for a newer version when you build a character and shows an unobtrusive notice if one is available — so you never miss an update. A version label on the node shows which version you have.
• Bug fixes and improvements.

Version 1.0

The first public release.

Materials

• Karma MaterialX materials for skin, eyes, teeth, hair, and clothing — tuned for Karma XPU, also render in Karma CPU
• Physically-based skin with subsurface scattering, normal detail, and roughness controls
• SSS Color, Amount, Radius, and Quality controls to balance lifelike scatter against skin detail
• Skin Re-tint: shift overall skin tone (warmer/cooler, tan, pale) live, across all skin, without re-exporting from Character Creator
• Teeth controls (Brightness, Roughness, Specular, SSS Amount) to tame Character Creator's over-bright, glary teeth — grouped in a Teeth sub-folder inside Skin
• Refractive ray-traced corneas (Hero Eyes) with a fast cutout fallback
• Dielectric clothing/accessory handling (ignores Character Creator's junk metallic maps by default)

Wrinkles

• Expression-driven head wrinkle system reconstructed live in Karma
• Per-channel control over wrinkle relief, color, and roughness
• "Go to Max Wrinkle Frame" helper to find the most expressive frame

Hair

• Full hair re-dye system: root-to-tip ombré and ID-based highlight streaks
• Luminance-preserving recolor that keeps strand detail intact
• Lightness (Bleach) control to lift dark hair lighter — turn a brown- or black-haired character blonde/platinum, not just recolor them
• Specular-mask control to tame over-bright highlights
• Flow-map-driven anisotropic sheen for realistic directional hair highlights
• Independent eyebrow tinting (Brows sub-folder) to match dyed hair

Eyes

• Iris color tint, iris scale, and limbal ring — reproducing Character Creator's HD eye look (which isn't baked into the export)
• Sclera tinting for subtle realism pushes or fully stylized colored eyes
• Eyelid contact shadow, faked on the occlusion mesh with a top bias
• Overall eye glossiness/wetness control (works on every character)
• Tear-line wetness controls for characters that ship a tear-line mesh
• Separate eyeball normal strength
• Stylized eye glow with several modes (flat, texture, multiply, iris circle, iris dot)
• Eyes-as-light-source — glowing eyes illuminate the scene
• Controls organized into Iris / Limbus / Sclera / Eye Shadow / Wetness tabs

Displacement

• Per-character displacement: bump or true displacement
• Adjustable displacement strength

Animation

• Animation database: add, select, and remove FBX motion clips
• Embedded-animation and database sources
• Retarget Animation: drive a character with a clip authored on a differently-proportioned Character Creator character — body proportions matched, teeth/tongue/eyes kept seated, and facial expressions/visemes/blinks carried over automatically
• Separate Body and Facial animation sources: drive the body from one clip and the face from another (Embedded / Animation Database), or bypass the face entirely — keep this character's own facial performance on a borrowed body clip, with retargeting engaged automatically when the sources differ

Fixes & workarounds

• Fix Broken Blendshape: excludes elements affected by Character Creator's rare duplicate-blendshape export glitch and point-deforms them cleanly
• Skin Fix: an editable subnetwork with ready-to-use Sculpt and Soft Edit tools for quickly fixing mesh intersections (clothing poking through the body) before skinning — blendshape data is separated out and merged back automatically

Rendering & Setup

• Optional one-click three-point light rig, camera, and Karma XPU render settings
• Lookdev controller gathering all look controls on one node
• Reset to Defaults button to return every lookdev control to its original value in one click
• Quality presets (Preview / Production) for fast look-dev

Utilities

• Geometry caching and a scene-cache reclaim utility
• Navigation buttons and quick links to documentation and community

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