MakeHuman assets

[animate1978]

Just experimented with MakeHuman assets, this one was hair. With some work it is possible to add at least some of these assets to MB-Lab. Most work is just scaling the mesh right. I have yet to try out the proxy fitting tool in MB-Lab so don't know how that will work with the MH assets just yet.

These are licensed as CC0.

[blaisefaint]

I've been playing with creating textures using Paint.net and GIMP.

In many ways, I believe it might be better for the MakeHuman Community assets to include Blend files in addition to the .obj, .mhclo, .mhmat, .mhpxy, and .npz files they currently include. I know it's possible to edit .mhmat and .mhclo files with a text editor, so if MakeHuman were to make it possible to do that within the program, it might be easier to alter textures on the fly. As it is, I find it easier to alter textures within Blender. For me, it boils down to the confusion given that MakeHuman, MB-Lab, and Blender are currently in flux. I'm still not able to wrap my head around the optimum workflow for creating characters with good-looking assets.

I've found it difficult to work with many of the MakeHuman community files, and disagree with many of the UV mapping choices and textures provided by the original creators. IMHO, it's worth the trade-off involved by having to "finish" the MakeClothes process by being able to work more easily with more textures and more meshes to customize the clothes the way I want them to look.

I've posted links to the new textures I created and some starter Blender files for working with the various categories of MakeClothes tools on my blog.

(The images I tried to post here showed up because I've switched from Firefox to Chrome.)

[animate1978]

Initial assets added to library

[blaisefaint]

What I don't understand about Blender, posing, animating, adding assets and whatever else is pretty overwhelming. It also turns out using Blender 2.80 pretty much means re-learning Blender from scratch (and I definitely need to upgrade my computer equipment).

Here are links to a couple of YouTube reference videos I created: 1) MB-Lab Pose Test: Shows the base female and male poses that come with MB-Lab animated with a character wearing a proxy I created from a MakeHumanCommunity (MHC) MakeClothes (MC) template (and one with no proxy). I didn't finish the MC process, but simply imported the unfinished asset from its source file, then scaled and adjusted the mesh. I used the Workbench render engine to save time (though I couldn't figure out or find documentation how to make the world transparent). I also used the pose library made from this first character and a second male character to animate a third character. 2) MakeHumanCommunity MakeClothes Asset Test: assets I designed using the MHC MC base meshes to fit the MHC average female character. I believe I've created over 200 variations, just by moving logically through the meshes. I used the Blender Render engine in 2.79, again to save time.

The animated poses are fairly reasonable, but I've realized that average female character for MHC, in addition to the scaling issue, just has different proportions than the MB-Lab characters.

I don't know why MHC scaled their characters the way they did, and I don't know why Manuel Bastioni scaled his characters the way he did. (They're all way smarter than me!)

However, from my perspective, it would be nice to be able to use MHC and MB-Lab characters and assets interchangeably, whether that means one project scaling its characters to match the other, or someone writing a conversion script that makes that easy.

IMHO, the MB-Lab characters are simply superior, and the MB-Lab proxy fitting system seems easier to me than the steps required to finish assets using MC. I imagine someone could write a script to make that process easier. I've avoided finishing any MC assets, because it's hard to keep the steps straight.

As things stand right now, I believe it would be appropriate to take the MHC MC assets (tights, coat, hair, etc.), scale them to the approximate size of the corresponding MB-Lab characters, then design outfits around the proportions of the MB-Lab characters.

MHC has children and babies, which MB-Lab does not. MB-Lab has elves and anime characters, which MHC does not. It might be necessary to tailor outfits specifically to those types of assets for MB-Lab to get them to work properly.

Questions I have right now include: 1) what is the ideal type and size of each character in MB-Lab around which to tailor assets? 2) Will MB-Lab be adding children and babies? 3) Will MHC be adding elves, dwarves, and anime characters? 4) Will MB-Lab be adding the Western-style comics characters that Manuel Bastioni had discussed while he was developing Manuel Bastioni Lab?

On to the topic of poses, I can't wrap my head around the reason why MHC and MB-Lab handle poses the way they do.

My current understanding, and I may be completely wrong, because I'm not an experienced or talented animator or poser, is that to animate poses in Blender requires the pose library (and possibly also a walk cycle library, I don't know).

So to animate the poses for the first YouTube video, I: 1) Created a character using MB-Lab. 2) Appended an outfit I created in Blender with MC, which did not quite fit even after I scaled it and beat the mesh up a little. 3) Applied one of the base female poses (for the female character I didn't have direct access to the male character poses). I'm not really sure that the male and female poses are all that different to justify segregating them. My guess is that the female poses are more tuned to wearing high heels... 4) Making sure I was in an unused frame, added the pose to the pose library. For some striking poses, I used the Blender pose flip tool to reverse the pose from left to right, and also saved that pose in the pose library. 5) I went back through the timeline, about every 25 frames, and inserted a keyframe for each individual pose. Because this is just a quick and dirty reference video, I didn't bother to correct the many conflicts, where body parts passed through clothes, and through the body. I don't know the best way to address these problems, whether it's simply applying a force field, or adding interim pose key frames to minimize the conflicts. It seems that for some poses, certain outfits will just never work.

Now that I have created this first pose library, I was able to use the pose library to animate other characters, with the caveat that tweaks may be required depending on the type of character, its size, outfit, or whatever.

I don't understand the best format to use for adding poses to the pose library directly.

I previously animated the 2500 or so CMU bvh files using MHC MakeWalk (MC).

These files have 3 key issues: 1) They were made a long time ago, so they just might not be up to modern standards. 2) They don't seem to work so well with MHC or MB-Lab characters. 3) Their hands don't move.

However, these files have literally thousands of poses that could be useful, if certain conditions are met: 1) a tool in Blender to easily adjust hand poses (I have no idea how to do that, or to apply just hand poses from a pose library to a future character.) I get that it's a matter of choosing just the bones from one hand when saving and adding poses, then flipping them as needed when applying them (to the other hand), I've just never successfully done that in practice. (Ditto for adjusting base ankle orientations to deal with heels of different sizes.) 2) I see no need to use every frame from the CMU files. To my current way of thinking, it would be worthwile to pick key poses from each file, add them to a custom pose library, then allow Blender to animate more smoothly between frames than is the current result of using the bvh files.

Is there some clear how-to documentation I need to read or watch on YouTube?

I've posted the Blender file with the pose library I created here, labeled MB_Lab_poses, in case it might be of use to anyone else.

Thank you.

[animate1978]

I don't know why MHC scaled their characters the way they did, and I don't know why Manuel Bastioni scaled his characters the way he did. (They're all way smarter than me!)

Yeah the scale differences are an annoyance but can be worked around. I don't know why either but it is what it is I guess.

However, from my perspective, it would be nice to be able to use MHC and MB-Lab characters and assets interchangeably, whether that means one project scaling its characters to match the other, or someone writing a conversion script that makes that easy.

I think some kind of conversion script would be easiest method, otherwise both projects would have to completely overhaul the meshes and skeletons to accommodate the other. Since it is only asset files I think it would be easy to just scale the object at it's origin, we just need to find that scale value.

IMHO, the MB-Lab characters are simply superior, and the MB-Lab proxy fitting system seems easier to me than the steps required to finish assets using MC. I imagine someone could write a script to make that process easier. I've avoided finishing any MC assets, because it's hard to keep the steps straight.

As things stand right now, I believe it would be appropriate to take the MHC MC assets (tights, coat, hair, etc.), scale them to the approximate size of the corresponding MB-Lab characters, then design outfits around the proportions of the MB-Lab characters.

MHC has children and babies, which MB-Lab does not. MB-Lab has elves and anime characters, which MHC does not. It might be necessary to tailor outfits specifically to those types of assets for MB-Lab to get them to work properly.

Questions I have right now include:

1. what is the ideal type and size of each character in MB-Lab around which to tailor assets?

I think we should break it down to each of the mesh types. Realistic male, female. Anime male, female and Realistic male and female. This is just an on the fly guess I haven't put a lot of thought into it yet.

2. Will MB-Lab be adding children and babies?

The only issue is the algorithms that Manuel bases the age of the mesh, it's a huge code that makes no sense to me but it works. However it only reaches ages 18-80 so that does make a problem for children and babies. I "THINK" we can incorporate younger ages just not sure how, they would have to able to use the base skeletons.

3. Will MHC be adding elves, dwarves, and anime characters?

4. Will MB-Lab be adding the Western-style comics characters that Manuel Bastioni had discussed while he was developing Manuel Bastioni Lab?

Actually this was discussed today with a modeler. The plan is to add more base meshes. The problem is HOW, I don't know the exact details of what is connected to code and JSON files etc... I do know that they are connected though so that makes making new models that will work correctly with MB-Lab will be the biggest challenge of them all. We essentially have to reverse engineer the addon to make sense of it. But there are plans yes.

I previously animated the 2500 or so CMU bvh files using MHC MakeWalk (MC).

These files have 3 key issues:

1. They were made a long time ago, so they just might not be up to modern standards.

2. They don't seem to work so well with MHC or MB-Lab characters.

Yes I tested a walk BVH and it reminded me of those nurses from the "Silent Hill" series, very stiff and disjointed. Not natural movement. But it's still pretty cool that we can use them to some degree.

[blaisefaint]

CMU Mo-Cap Pose Library Test

I've worked out some issues that I hope will be helpful:

1) female human hair asset. So far, there's only 1 asset for the human female that comes with MB-Lab.

I've taken the long ponytail and created some additional variations: a) short ponytail b) shorter ponytail c) shortest ponytail d) bun e) cropped

I've included those assets in this Blender file "MHC MC vs MB-Lab assets" meant to showcase:

2) asset comparison of MB-Lab female human body and MHC MC average body, tights, coat, etc. I scaled the MHC assets to approximate the scale of the MB-Lab asset, and

3) "Quick and Dirty character clothing": Manuel Bastioni includes the "generic" shading by default, which works out to trunks for male characters and bikinis for female characters. I revised this for the female human character to be a t-shirt and a set of shorts, as shown in the YouTube video I discuss in item 4. If you examine the materials for the fem_asian character in the "MHC MC vs MB-Lab assets" file, you will see that I've put together some outfit variations that are painted directly onto the character.

I hope that it could be easy to program additional variations for future iterations of the MB-Lab to include short shorts, Bermuda shorts, Capri pants, and long pants, tank tops, sleeveless shirts, elbow-length, and long sleeves, all available at the touch of a button. I didn't take the time to add textures to these, but hope that would also be easily do-able by people who use the add-on.

4. I would like to suggest the creation of a complementary Github project for the MB-Lab, devoted to converting the CMU Mo-Cap Library of bvh files to Blender-based CMU Mo-Cap Pose Libraries.

As in this YouTube video, I loaded a CMU Mo-Cap bvh file, then edited it in Blender, as follows:

a. I kept about every 10th key frame and deleted the rest. b. Where I found issues with bones, I corrected the first instance, then deleted all the following key frames. For example, I kept the t-pose hands from frame 0 and deleted the rest of the key frames for the hands, because the index fingers tended to bend strangely in those frames. c. Using the MB-Lab pose library I previously generated, I inserted various hand pose key frames about every 100 frames, just to relieve the monotony of having the hands wide open for the whole sequence. It would be simple enough for anyone using this file to revise the hand poses to suit. d. IMHO, the new animation is smoother (less "Silent-Hill" like) than the original bvh file. e. Unfortunately, as you can see in the video, there are still some "wonky bones" issues (and some frames are just crazy). I don't know if this is an idiosyncracy of the way Blender animates, or if it's a bug within the MB-Lab itself, or the result of some other issue I haven't considered. I'm confident these issues can be corrected with further refinement (such as adding new key frames).

I would expect it to be a series of .blend files, one for each particular CMU Mo-Cap Library bvh file (skipping the ones that contain only a t-pose or are otherwise too short). If no one else has the time to create the project, I'd be happy to, with the caveat that I am still new to Github and have a learning curve to get things up and running. Hopefully once the project is set up, lots of people can pitch in to work through the files.

I would appreciate feedback or suggestions.

Thank you.

[animate1978]

I think if you want to take on this project that would be great, I'm actually going to be removing the assets we added to MB-Lab because it has caused a lot of downloading issues for some reason, plan is to put them somewhere else so if you make up a new repository I can make a link to it in the wiki.

[blaisefaint]

Thank you. I've posted zip blend files of the first batch of bvh files here: https://github.com/blaisefaint/CMU-Mo-Cap-Pose-Library

I've also started a repository geared toward creating MB-Lab specific assets here: https://github.com/blaisefaint/MB-Lab_Specific_Assets

Thank you.

[blaisefaint]

I've made some basic adjustments to the MHC MC female assets, and would appreciate if people would test them out and give feedback. Here is the preliminary roadmap I've come up with.

[blaisefaint]

I just learned about Vroid, which is in beta: https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ja&u=https://studio.vroid.com/&prev=search

It may be a good source for hair for anime characters.

Here's a YouTube video with more information: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqUEI4ZF5jc

[ldo]

Vroid is non-Free software.

[animate1978]

@blaisefaint if you are still available can you go through and see if you can complie a list of the assets you downloaded and modified, who the authors were and the license type (CC0/CC-BY). I am updating the asset repo and need this info for legal reasons.

[blaisefaint]

Dear Animate:

Today I received and installed the 500W power supply that I needed to operate my first-ever GPU.

Right now I'm looking at a base MB-Lab character in EEVEE for the first time ever in Blender 2.80 (final).

I'm essentially starting from square one, and will be working to re-learn Blender and how to use MB-Lab and dress the characters.

I'll have to do some research, but if I recall correctly, the assets I've made so far were some textures that I made myself in GIMP and paint.net. Those are CC0.

I also made some outfits that I'm not happy with, using the MakeClothes add-on for Blender provided by the MakeHumanCommunity.

I just checked and it doesn't appear that the MakeHumanCommunity has put out a release since March. Hopefully they will do something soon, now that Blender 2.80 is out.

Here's a link to the MakeClothes wiki: http://www.makehumancommunity.org/wiki/Documentation:MHBlenderTools:MakeClothes -- looks like they use the "Content is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ unless otherwise noted." license.

It will take me some time to get you a more detailed answer.

I hope this helps, Blaise

On Sun, Aug 4, 2019 at 12:01 PM animate1978 notifications@github.com wrote:

@blaisefaint https://github.com/blaisefaint if you are still available can you go through and see if you can complie a list of the assets you downloaded and modified, who the authors were and the license type (CC0/CC-BY). I am updating the asset repo and need this info for legal reasons.

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/animate1978/MB-Lab/issues/25?email_source=notifications&email_token=AJTZKRSPL6FS7NPJB3AKNPLQC34NFA5CNFSM4GOJZ2VKYY3PNVWWK3TUL52HS4DFVREXG43VMVBW63LNMVXHJKTDN5WW2ZLOORPWSZGOD3QESSQ#issuecomment-518015306, or mute the thread https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AJTZKRVZ2XZZCNK5WGZOUPLQC34NFANCNFSM4GOJZ2VA .

-- Thank you, Blaise Faint

[animate1978]

OK that sounds good. Take your time, if needed I will go and try to find which model went to MakeHuman asset.

[blaisefaint]

Dear Animate:

I hope this blog post answers your questions: http://blaisefaint.blogspot.com/2019/01/makehuman-makeclothes-experiment-with.html

It has links to the 3 types of assets I shared on Github. I'm still not certain what the license is for MakeClothes itself.

Please let me know if you need more information.

Thank you, Blaise

On Mon, Aug 5, 2019 at 9:51 AM animate1978 notifications@github.com wrote:

OK that sounds good. Take your time, if needed I will go and try to find which model went to MakeHuman asset.

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/animate1978/MB-Lab/issues/25?email_source=notifications&email_token=AJTZKRWMLDFJABT2KWVKNS3QDAV7LA5CNFSM4GOJZ2VKYY3PNVWWK3TUL52HS4DFVREXG43VMVBW63LNMVXHJKTDN5WW2ZLOORPWSZGOD3R4DSQ#issuecomment-518242762, or mute the thread https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AJTZKRWKO3CZPLPV3CCVE6TQDAV7LANCNFSM4GOJZ2VA .

-- Thank you, Blaise Faint

[blaisefaint]

I've been trying to create base clothes templates for the MB-Lab characters by duplicating vertices, separating them to create a new mesh, and adding the shrinkwrap modifier.

Along the lines of this YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLDYCTYA9Zg&t=504s

The idea is based on the MakeClothes add-on for Blender, but the hope is for these meshes to more closely conform to the MB-Lab characters:

Unfortunately, I'm not having much success with the Proxy fitting, as shown below:

Can anyone advise me how to make this work properly? I've posted the tights and skirt assets here, created in Blender 2.80.75 with MB-Lab 1.75:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1xucarjK2Y77kqIcSMA0XwAQxjIqTyAqk https://drive.google.com/open?id=1C_NKGXU-JWhOflHhe33mNTROyi3FoCCH

Thank you.

It took me about a week, but I've animated the base poses that come with MB-Lab v1.75 at 60 fps using the EEVEE Render Engine:

https://youtu.be/eGOfaMQ8R5M

[kity0114]

I've been trying to create base clothes templates for the MB-Lab characters by duplicating vertices, separating them to create a new mesh, and adding the shrinkwrap modifier.

Along the lines of this YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLDYCTYA9Zg&t=504s

The idea is based on the MakeClothes add-on for Blender, but the hope is for these meshes to more closely conform to the MB-Lab characters:

Unfortunately, I'm not having much success with the Proxy fitting, as shown below:

Can anyone advise me how to make this work properly? I've posted the tights and skirt assets here, created in Blender 2.80.75 with MB-Lab 1.75:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1xucarjK2Y77kqIcSMA0XwAQxjIqTyAqk https://drive.google.com/open?id=1C_NKGXU-JWhOflHhe33mNTROyi3FoCCH

Thank you.

It took me about a week, but I've animated the base poses that come with MB-Lab v1.75 at 60 fps using the EEVEE Render Engine:

https://youtu.be/eGOfaMQ8R5M

Not sure if you are still wondering about this, but to save the asset and have it nicely fit, you need to save it using the average human model ( Caucasian male or female). Once you do this, you would be able to proxy fit onto the other ethnicity.

[Anyeos]

Did you tried the "Modeling Cloth" addon for Blender? It is a helper to make things like clothes more easy.