Finish first version of MakeUp tool

[joepal1976]

Experimental and preliminary code for the MakeUp tool has already been merged to master, but it needs to:

• be cleaned up
• get unit test coverage
• get inline code comments
• fixed with pylint

Also, some testing and user feedback would be nice.

[Vidyut]

I did the update just now, and prima facie, stuff seems to work, though the materials have gone wonky and need fixing. She isn't supposed to look like she had a shower (and left her hair and clothes dry...) This is how she looked a few days ago. I've made a few tweaks, but nothing that shiny... This was enhanced +SSS I think. Turned out it had loaded the multilayered shader (though she hadn't been shiny in multilayered either earlier). Loaded enhanced+SSS and now she looks like this: This is with just enhanced Game looks similar.

So the extra shininess is basically in the enhanced/multilayered stuff. I'm not that great with code, so may not spot issues quickly, but the differences might help cleverer minds see what changed?

Anyway, this is with Makeup. random test, since the character doesn't use makeup, so no need to be too careful. lol. Not sure what I did wrong, but can't get the test makeup to render. Goes pink. Probably me being a doofus with some image node, but earlier today had an issue with a skin refusing to render as well. Not sure if it is the addon or something I did wrong - but that was the skin. Making a new file and applying the same skin solved it. Gotta go now, but will try to get the makeup to render as well later.

[Vidyut]

All these are just the default skin loaded (other than makeup, of course). Some setting probably changed, and I'll find and dial it down, but the default skin definitely wasn't as shiny - if you compare with the eyes - they are the same in all the renders - the skin is competing with them now. lol.

Unless of course I made some mistake - but there isn't a lot to mistake in loading a basic skin with one diffuse texture - I purposely didn't use many textures so we know what is the shader and what is my images. One day I need to take a solid week and figure stuff out instead of dabbling.

[Vidyut]

Lack of confidence in my own settings apart, I think the plugin shouldn't change shaders on existing files - they'd been set up to look how I wanted. I opened two files and it did that glassy skin on both - I don't dare open more. Both shaders had switched to multilayered - I'm very certain that I hadn't set them to multi-layered.

For now, I'm not saving any of the files and hoping that I can figure it out or some future update can restore the shaders or I can disable this upgrade for now and use the previous version.

[joepal1976]

MPFB doesn't change already existing materials, if what we are talking about is a blender material existing on an object inside a blend file. What can happen though, is that a material which was created with an earlier blender version looks different when opened in a new version.

To me, the first image (with the glossy skin) looks as if the character scale is off, but that is just a guess. This has been known to happen because the material needs to know about the scale attribute of the object, and how this is read has changed.

The pink stuff happend when blender can't find an image texture (for example a skin diffuse texture).

But if you care to share the blend file where this looks strange, you could upload it here: http://www.makehumancommunity.org/custom.html and I'll have a look at it. All that should probably be a different issue though, as it doesn't really have anything to do with the new makeup functionality.

[Vidyut]

Shared. I don't understand a lot of this, but the blender version didn't change. I literally was working on that figure, which I made in MPFB2 (of course) and remembered to check here - saw this thread and downloaded the addon version. It took time to download, so I made the other thread and commented about topologies. Download completed. Closed the file I was working on, updated MPFB2, opened the file. Same file. Nothing other than the addon changed. It began with that "wet" look. When I investigated, the shader had been switched - then I made those screenshots, posted them... I must have done something wrong in the update, but I can't figure out what. But blender didn't change. The file was working literally five minutes before... If not the addon, I can't imagine what.

weird thing is when I opened the file just now to check before uploading. the texture looks really weird. Not even the skin texture that was fine in the viewport is looking normal.

I have to go out now, but if you tell me what to investigate, I will do it as soon as I return.

[Vidyut]

MPFB doesn't change already existing materials, if what we are talking about is a blender material existing on an object inside a blend file. What can happen though, is that a material which was created with an earlier blender version looks different when opened in a new version.

Yes, this is what I would expect as well. But I don't use the multilayered material unless I'm making textures - like you'd suggested in another thread here. I'm making different versions for different uses, and they have either MakeSkin texture or Enhanced+SSS. I haven't used Game or plain Enhanced or Multilayered. And I would definitely notice if my model looked like she was dipped in oil. When I checked after seeing the skin, it was definitely multilayered - Gorgeous as the functionality is, hard to confuse that wall of a shader with anything else, or its impact on my potato.

[Vidyut]

So I played about with the file a bit more, and since it seemed to be an issue with textures, I tried to "pack textures" to see if that helped. It didn't but it gave a clue. It was searching for some textures in scripts/addons - which is where the old plugin was. But now it is in extensions/user_default.

The poor girl now has black demon eyes of missing-texture.

Could it be that it wonkified my materials because it couldn't find what it was looking for? Maybe it looked for the correct shaders in the wrong place and when it couldn't find them, sort of gave me the kitchen-sink of shaders - here's everything, take what you need. lol.

But I still don't know how to fix this without making those files all over again...

update

Which gave me an idea. I went to user_default and copied location for the mpfb folder and went to addons and "ln -s"ed it - I forget what it is called, but it makes a fake copy of the folder like forwarding mail. And now Ax has eyes again.

I'm 500% sure this is probably a problematic way to solve this issue and will probably break something somewhere, so I'm leaving the files alone till you can take a look at this thread and advise me what to do.

BTW, I totally don't know why MPFB isn't the KING of human generators. I've tried to make this character in so many different ways, and this is the closest I've come to making her look as she is in my mind. I tried the MetaHuman thing, and she looked too... I don't know, like she lives in a game/ad. The MB-Lab female comes close but there were other complications and I couldn't make it idiot-proof enough for my skill-level in either MB-Lab or Charmorph. AI messes her up obviously and Daz feels too fantasy. I free version of Reallusion Character Creator had fancy blendshapes for expressions, but hard to design the face they were sitting on. lol.

MPFB "just works" And the target sliders are out of the world, plus it makes it easy to sculpt whatever is needed. I don't dare to open the main files right now, in case more shaders get switched, but the skin shaders are gorgeous. Seriously brilliant software, even if I'm complaining on this thread.

[Vidyut]

Update 2: Good news. I am able to generate new humans and render them out without any problems, including using old presets.

But opening old files still wonkifies the shaders. this is a different file, generated from the same presets with a similar look. The render above was just the generated preset with no changes. New generation is working - existing files are getting wet skin and you can see the shader has switched again.

Switching shaders manually is not an ideal option for me - some of the other files have wrinkle maps and such attached, so the original shader has changed and I'll loose all that if I open them and they go multilayered.

[joepal1976]

Deleted last message, had errors in it. New attempt follows.

[joepal1976]

Did you share a blend file? I don't see it on the web site.

Anyway, my best guess here is that something is off with the scale. This is how a character looks when the scale is off by a factor of ten:

As you can see in the lower right corner, the MPFB_GEN_scale_factor is 1.0 while it should be 0.1. I'm not sure this is the same thing, but it doesn't hurt to see if the value is there. If it is there, you can try to change it by a factor of ten upwards and downwards to see what happens.

[Vidyut]

I thought I'd uploaded, but I checked the tab and the file is too big :(

Will see what I can do to make it smaller.

I don't think the scale is off. Surely if the scale were wrong, the model would become too big or small for the camera frame. I tried generating from the preset using multilayered and that too isn't shiny. It looks same (the skin was rendered from it as you suggested). It is the old files that get opened in the new extension that become shiny - I think some roughness or similar value gets altered. Will have to go through the shader to see differences.

Update: Gen factor is 0.10 for both old and new files. Their size is also the same. The issue is with skin, not object.

But anyway, I don't know how to give you a small version of the file and it is probably better if I just make new files from scratch - I have the presets and the curves hair and such can be appended, as can the material nodes. It will take some time, but at least I'll have peace of mind instead of worrying about something going wrong.

I will try to make a separate test of the makeup layer generator once I get more time. Apologies for causing confusion.