NPC Model Sourcing

This page records the source evaluation and the active character plan. The decision is ADR-0017, which supersedes the generator-first sourcing decision in ADR-0015.

Active direction

Quaternius Ultimate Modular Characters (CC0) is the primary NPC mesh and animation source. The project-owned procedural library remains the shipped fallback until the Quaternius migration passes the silhouette and gear gates.

The migration keeps the runtime contract that Godot, gear and tests already consume:

one npc_base skinned mesh under the 13 required core bones (optional extras allowed);
five tint slots: skin, cloth, pants, accessory, hair;
front on Blender −Y / Godot +Z, feet grounded, height about 1.81 m;
24,000 triangles / 24,000 glTF vertices per character;
gear stays at 1,500 triangles and props at 4,000;
committed GLBs and maps only; no Quaternius, Blender or network dependency in CI, build or runtime.

Stage 1 (default)

Import the researched Quaternius GLBs and choose a canonical base.
Map the 62 source joints to the 13-core contract and bake a proportion warp.
Skin the mesh, retarget Idle and Walk, and verify seated/arm-down poses.
Map the five slots, unwrap and bake 256² maps.
Fit the existing gear and render the silhouette gate.
Build the 12 variants, audit, and capture the 12 × 6 baseline.

The Quaternius 62-joint rig and its 24 animation clips are an authoring source. They are not loaded at runtime.

Stage 2 gate

The 62-joint T-pose source does not share the project's arm-down rest pose or proportions. If the Stage 1 proportion warp cannot preserve the Quaternius silhouette and deformation, stop the rollout and write a new ADR for adopting the 62-joint rig at runtime. Do not ship a hybrid rig, a second gear offset system or a silent NpcAvatar change.

Research findings

The researched files are the three converted Quaternius outfits used by the Ducz Character Creator: Casual, Casual_Hoodie and Worker. They are kept locally in tmp/npc-research/quaternius/ with the licence and mirror notes.

File	SHA-256	Structure
`Casual.glb`	`bc2d84fba249ebaa0629cb9d133ad37234196e4b8004aa205a6397abed04e05c`	4 meshes, 62 joints, 24 clips, 7 materials
`Casual_Hoodie.glb`	`f5b722199f7628b24550989af4230f65d5230727df9c326fd2b3e360effe5249`	4 meshes, 62 joints, 24 clips, 7 materials
`Worker.glb`	`8d0f454336c2effc5c08f63a177af3a82d1a7af025ca9588b40e4c90c4703534`	4 meshes, 62 joints, 24 clips, 11 materials

Source: Quaternius Ultimate Modular Characters and Ultimate Modular Women, CC0 1.0. The Ducz mirror is a browser builder over the same packs; it adds 21 outfits and a shared skeleton. The three full GLBs are the initial scope; the 21-part builder is a fallback for role coverage, not the default.

The first prototype measured 12,518 imported vertices, 3,199 after welding and 2,423 vertices / 4,654 triangles after a 0.75 decimate. Idle and Walk read well. The source is a T-pose with a 62-joint realistic rig, roughly 0.96 m hip, 1.68 m arm span and 0.153 m shoulder offset, so a contract bake is required.

The 24,000 cap leaves room to stay much closer to the source LOD than the prototype's 4,654 triangles. Do not decimate to the old 7,000-triangle target before the silhouette gate.

Contract mismatch

The expensive part is the rig and proportions, not the mesh. The source has a T-pose and a realistic skeleton; the runtime expects an arm-down 13-core rig, fixed gear attach points and the existing pose composition. The Stage 1 bake must therefore:

rotate the arms down and match the contract wrist positions;
warp the hips, knees, shoulders and head without collapsing the deltoid, shortening the arms or changing the silhouette;
keep one skinned npc_base mesh and the five slots;
verify gear against the new shoulder, hip and head positions.

If those constraints distort the model, Stage 2 is the correct next decision, not a local workaround.

Licence and provenance

CC0 preferred. CC-BY is allowed only with attribution in CREDITS.md.
No service asset whose terms restrict redistribution may be shipped.
Keep the source URL, author, licence, download date and SHA-256 in this page and in CREDITS.md.
Research files and generated previews stay in tmp/ (gitignored). Only final audited assets and committed review sheets enter the repository.
Quaternius models and animations are CC0; the existing credits entry already names Quaternius. Keep it accurate if the shipped source set changes.

Closed tracks

The MakeHuman/MPFB body pipeline is closed for the NPC base. The accepted MakeHuman head and the procedural npc_base remain tested fallbacks until the Quaternius rollout is complete. Their research scripts and renders were removed from tmp/ after the pivot; the measurements and decisions remain in DONE.md, MEMORY.md and the review docs.

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