Coming from Cubism¶

Umamo is built to work with Live2D Cubism and it reads and writes the Cubism Editor’s own files. However, it is not built to be exactly like Cubism. It instead uses the design paradigms and interface style of the popular Blender 3D modelling software. If you’re already familiar with Blender then working in Umamo will feel like home.

Terminology Map¶

In Cubism	In Umamo	Notes
ArtMesh (Drawable)	Drawable	A piece of art with a mesh. The Outliner lists them as Drawables.
Part	Part	—
Warp Deformer, Rotation Deformer	Warp Deformer, Rotation Deformer	Rotation deformer is not supported yet.
Parameter	Parameter	—
Combined Parameter	Linked Parameter	Two parameters shown as one two dimensional pad.
Keyform	Keyform, Key	Keys are shown on the Keyform Sheet and inserted(keyed) on the keyform with Insert Keyframe.
Blend Shape	Blend Shape	—
Glue	Glue	Glue is not supported yet.
Physics	Physics	Physics are not supported yet. See Physics.
Draw Order	Draw Order	The same.
Clipping, mask	Masked By	A drawable lists the drawables that mask it.
Reversed Mask	Invert Mask	—
Multiply Color, Screen Color	Multiply Color, Screen Color	—
Blend, Alpha modes	Blend, Alpha modes	—
Offscreen Drawing	Part Composite, the Isolated group mode	This is named as the isolated part composite mode. Cubism’s naming is describing a low level graphics drawing technique that does not describe what is happening to the user.
Guide Image	Guide Image	—
Texture Atlas	Atlas Pages and Tiles	Shown in the UV Editor area. A page is one unique texture atlas. A tile is an individual art layer positioned on the page.
Mesh editing	Edit Mode	A mesh is edited in the 2D Viewport while in edit mode. Press `Tab` to enter Edit Mode from Object Mode.
Automatic Mesh Generation	Generate Mesh from Art	Accessible from the Command Palette and `Shift`-`M`. See Generating Meshes from Art.
Updating a model after the artwork changed	Reload, relink, and match	The Sources editor. Umamo can also watch the artwork files to reload automatically. See Reloading and Relinking.
Select Target Version	Runtime Target	See Runtime Target.
Animation	Not yet	A long term goal.

The terms of the whole manual are in Glossary.

Keymap Presets¶

Umamo has three sets of shortcuts to start from. You choose one in Quick Setup or in the Keybindings category of Settings. See Keymap.

We highly recommend learning the default keymap as it is used throughout the manual. However, the Cubism preset is for people who do not want to learn a new set. There are fewer keys bound by default. It keeps:

Ctrl-N, Ctrl-O, Ctrl-S, and Ctrl-Shift-S for New, Open, Save, and Save As, and Ctrl-Shift-O for Import Artwork.
Ctrl-Z to undo, and Ctrl-Shift-Z and Ctrl-Y to redo.
Ctrl-P to open the Command Palette.
Ctrl-0 to fit the view, Ctrl-1 for actual size, and Ctrl-Equals and Ctrl-Minus to zoom. Ctrl-Shift-0 frames the selection.
Ctrl-Tab for Pose Mode, F9 for Adjust Last Operation, and Ctrl-Comma for Settings.
The keying keys, I, Alt-I, and K, and P and Alt-P to pin and unpin art in the UV Editor.

Because the Cubism keymap conflicts with many of the default keymaps there will be some functionality that will be only accessible through the Toolbar, Sidebar, and Command Palette. See Default Shortcuts to view all the available keymaps.

File Compatibility¶

CMO3. Umamo imports and exports CMO3 files and is tested with Cubism Editor 4.2 to 5.4. A CMO3 exported from Umamo can be opened in the Cubism Editor. Umamo has advanced editing features that when exported to CMO3 may not be supported in Cubism.
MOC3. Umamo imports and exports baked models together with their sidecar files. Importing MOC3 is functionality intended for rescuing a puppet file when the original CMO3 was lost.
Artwork. Umamo reads layered artwork from Photoshop, Clip Studio Paint, Krita, and flat image formats.

While Umamo is in development preview you should keep your original Cubism files. Import them into Umamo, work on them, and export the result as separate copies. Use File ‣ Save As… to save an UMA file as you go. See Cubism Interchange for what is kept when moving between formats.

Umamo is not affiliated with Live2D Inc. See Legal.

Keying Differences¶

In Umamo pose authoring is not automatically keyed and keying a pose onto a parameter requires an explicit action.

Pose first, then key. In Umamo you set the parameters to the pose that you want to key, shape the lattice of a warp deformer in Pose Mode, and key it with I, Insert Keyframe. Until the change is committed it is only a preview and will be denoted on the Keyform Sheet marked with an orange circle. Moving a parameter before keying an uncommitted pose will discard the pose edit, but can be brought back with Undo.
Edit Mode is the rest shape. Edit Mode changes the shape of meshes and deformers at the default pose. You cannot insert, remove, or move keys while in Edit Mode.
Key what is under the pointer. I keys the field or the row that the pointer is over, Alt-I removes the key, and K opens a pie menu to key the lattice, the opacity, the colors, or all of them.
The Keyform Sheet shows the keys. It shows the keys of each object as marks on tracks, similar to an animation dope sheet. Keys can be selected and moved there.

See Keyforms, Pose Mode and Keying Lattices, and Keyform Sheet.

Runtime Target¶

The Cubism Editor has a “Select Target Version” setting that limits the availability of features based on the SDK runtime version. Umamo’s Runtime Target option has all the Cubism targets plus other runtime targets. It can be found in the Properties editor area, Puppet tab, Runtime section.

The Runtime Target hides the controls for features that are unsupported by the target version. If you downgrade the target version those features will not be removed from the puppet file, but a MOC3 export strips unsupported features in the resulting file. See Runtime Targets and Cubism Versions.