So I thought - what if I make a figure in Makehuman and rig it in Poser? Or in Blender eventually - well actually the rig will export to Blender but I want to use it in Poser...And so I fired up Makehuman and played around with it. It is not so bad, slow on my silly little laptop that I use at work, but there is real potential here. Much better than when I last looked at it. A bit cryptic, it would be nice if the face morphs had names instead of numbers. The version I have now is version 1 Alpha 6, and it has been out a while but I only took the occasional look at the website, didn't really do anything with the software. And when I last played with Makehuman I had virtually no skill with Blender - that is different now.

Having read the thread on the hypothetical mainstream figure, I am trying to make the default pretty female with curves. There is now a library of African figure types and this suits me very well because I need African figures.

If you export the obj with groups from Makehuman it has a lot of groups - these would need to be reorganised and the material zones sorted out. Under 14000 polygons though, and a lot of versatility. Hmmm... shall we play "Makehuman"?

 

 

Well, last time I looked at makehuman I think to remember I had a problem with the mapping.

But, as you showed, the obj file has pretty good Poly distribution.
Looks like good morphability.

I"ll take a second look tonight.

Also, ifmy internal memory does not fade??
Somebody even rigged her once in Poser.....

Yes, I remember something like that. Could be one of the older makehuman obj files, it was a long time ago.

Good idea, will check.

There are rigged makehumans shipped with Poser I'm pretty sure?

They're certainly there in my runtime... I didn't put them there. But probably the older mesh I suspect?

;-)

Monkeycloud are you thinking of the Project Human figures by Sixus? I don't have any Makehuman figures in any of my runtimes right now. I do have the Project Human male and female, they came with Poser (not sure which version of Poser, I think it was 9/Pro2012.)

 

Hmmm... yes, I'm getting confused with those! You're right Nanette.

The new MakeHuman mesh looks interesting eh?

I last looked at it when I was looking at Blender... right at the start of getting back into CG art.

But then I subsequently found Poser's learning curve much simpler to follow... and there was useable ready-made content, etc.

Poser rigging MakeHuman definitely sounds like an interesting game to me...

;-)

 

The mesh is definitely different from the previous versions.

I am first trying to import it straight into Blender for grouping. I am not friends with Poser's grouping tool, except perhaps to quickly group a skullcap for hair.... However, my Blender complained that my version of Makehuman is old, so I am now downloading a nightly build to get the up to date exporter.

Sounds like a worthwhile project.  I'll give it a shot.  Hopefully I can organize the groups and materials in Wings.

Just starting experimenting with MakeHuman a few weeks ago. Would be nice to share tips with other users. -TOM-

I also use MakeHuman. Its great if you need hands and head to go with a clothed figure. Yes lots of potential.

I am still in the process of sorting out the many groups into material zones that would be recognizable by EZskin, and also at the same time creating Poser-like polygon groups for rigging. The MakeHuman figure has a single texture map and the obj comes in with one material only, but if you want to use shaders more material zones are needed. I am fumbling but learning.

Well, better too many poly groups than too few! Otherwise I am impressed with how efficient the mesh seems to be, and it should be really easy to create morphs for use in Poser.

MakeHuman exported as a .dae works not too bad in Carrara

I've also been thinking of this so it is great to see a thread here on this topic. Looking forward to seeing how this develops.

It may be relevant to post a cross link here.

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2850609

My point being that there is a lot that you can do with these figures.

That looks very interesting Phil - I was planning to do some sculpting and texture painting in Blender as well, using these meshes.

One of the difficult things for me is how to group the mesh. There are so many small vertex groups in the makehuman mesh. I don't want to lose them yet, because they will be important for creating material groups for the teeth, inner mouth etc. So I am working through them - there seem to be hundreds - and assigning them to Poser groups. I can already see that I shall have to make some decisions about whether to have buttocks or not, whether the have a waist or hot, and whether to have breast groups or just a chest. The Makehuman grouping seems to suggest that buttocks will be needed, and breast groups as well.

This is the figure I am working with. Customising the base mesh took about half an hour.

The grouping is tedious beyond belief but I have made quite some progress. Here is what I think I'll do: Once I have grouped the figure into Poser-like groups for rigging, and assigned material zones, I'll share the Blender file. There is no sense in everyone going through this on their own. We can then discuss whether I have done a reasonable job on the grouping and make any necessary changes. Blender allows one to transfer grouping from one mesh to another, so even if you (or I) make a differently shaped figure in Makehuman, we can still share the grouping.

Sorry about the string of posts, but here is an update for information.

The lots of little Makehuman groups can drive you bonkers. For anyone planning to do this - you need those groups to set the material zones for the teeth, tongue, innermouth, eyeballs and corneas. Perhaps for the eyelashes, nails and lips as well.

The rest of the groups I tried to organise into Poser-Compatible groups, but gave it up because the grouping is just too different. I am now grouping the figure in the classic paint by numbers way as illustrated in numerous tutorials out there. I have done everything except for the hands and fingers but now I am tired and am going to read a bit. My grouping is turning out similar to the G2 grouping and the girl is looking really funky, painted all the colours of the rainbow and then some.

 

Are you doing the regrouping in Poser or Blender? Grouping in Poser drives me bonkers. I find it far easier to do it in Blender.

Just import the mesh into Blender with the UVs, keeping vertex order, and without the group info, Scale it up so you can work on it easier if needed, then group to match whatever skeletal structure you want to use. Export it with the UVs, keeping vertex order, and the new grouping you just made. When you import it into Poser, you will have to scale it back down to the proper size if you scaled it up in Blender to work on it.

If you want to change the UV mapping to use another characters maps you can do that as well while you are at it. Mark the UV seams on the mesh to about match the other characters map seams, select the vertexes that will be on the UV map. Import the UV template for the character you want to match as your UV image. Then adjust the mesh to match it for each UV map. Repeat for all the UV maps that you will need. then export the character.

I don't have the latest version of Blender installed, with the older versions you will have to go into the obj file after you export it and correct the group names. For some reason it changes the names you assign to the groups. Not sure how the newest version handles the group naming. Any decent text editor will make quick work of that.

 

Shvrdavid, that is more or less what I am doing. I never get very far with Poser's grouping tool. I am grouping in Blender. It wasn't necessary to scale her up in Blender, she comes in at a very convenient size. I'll scale her down for Poser.

I am going to assign the material groups to vertex groups in Blender. I have one copy of te figure with material zones assigned (the way Makehuman did the materials), and another copy in rainbow colours with the Poser grouping.

As for remapping, now that is an interesting idea. I have never attempted it, but Blender's UVmapping tools are very good now. I can do the skin and eyes easily, but the teeth, tongue and inner mouth scare me.

The MakeHuman texture is all on one map. That is very convenient, but there only seem to be very few texture maps in existence. There is definitely something to be said for re-mapping. I suppose at this stage the best figure to map to would be V4. The thing is, since it is an androgynous base figure, the mapping should work for a male figure as well.

One step at a time. First let me finish the grouping.

Just a comment on the mesh - I now have a much better understanding of what good topology means. I am very impressed with the efficiency of this mesh. There are no more polygons than needed, but the edges and loops are where you need them. And the morphing capabilities in Makehuman are really impressive, even though it is still an alpha version. This is an incredible resource.

 

Here is the grouping from the front (Screen snip from Blender)

Front the back

The top of the hand

Bottom of the hand

Top of the foot

Bottom of the foot

Prompted by ShvrDavid's suggestion I had a bash at remapping the mesh to V4 textures. I gave up. I spent the afternoon on it, no more. Anyone who feels like doing it - please go right ahead. Remapping just isn't my thing.

The original MakeHuman is mapped to take a single texture image. V4 is mapped to take several. Plus, there are major differences in the mapping and unwrapping, not something can can be handled with scaling and rotation. I ended up pushing individual vertices around, and that is not fun. I plan to paint textures directly onto the mesh in Blender, using Blender's built-in paint tools, and then to finish it off by adding details in a 2d graphics application - Photo-Paint, Dogwaffle or Gimp, whatever works best for my purpose. For that, using several different texture maps is just not very user friendly. A single texture map is much easier for texture painting, and also easier to use in the material room. I get the impression that the Makehuman team gave these issues a lot of thought. What about all my V4 and V3 textures then? Well, V4 and V3 will use them. The whole point of this project for me is to create more diversity, and to build my skills in both Poser and Blender.

 

OK, closing this chapter for now. I made another figure in Makehuman, imported her to Blender and failed at transferring my grouping because Blender said the indexes were not the same. Unless I can make the effort of rigging the figure apply to any figure I make in Makehuman, it is not worth the effort just for a single character. Perhaps I am stupid or not doing something right.

However...The character transfers very well to Blender using the MHx format and the appropriate import script. It comes in with rigging, face options and expressions. You can even import it with basic clothing straight from MakeHuman. And it works very well.

So I am saying, we need a MHx importer for Poser. But I would not advise the coders to rush into it, since according to the Makehuman website, the deformation system is changing, and that will surely break any import script. Not yet, then. But when Makehuman stabilises and moves to the final release version, then it will be completely worthwhile writing an importer for Poser. In Blender, it is already awesome, and all the features are not even implemented. Makehuman is definitely something to watch. In the meantime I'll play with it in Blender, and like Phil, perhaps use it to make heads and hands.

interesting thread... surprised how old it is. I have CC3, Daz Studio, Poser (or do i?!?) and i find makehuman amazing. you can do quite a bit of customizing to the character, it exports rigged, nice poly layout and the textures are very descent too. but for me, i think the best aspect is that the characters you make are "yours", and you can do with them as you please. fbx seems to be the trend now, and more and more programs accept the file format so it opens up more possibilities. sadly (for me as i can not sink my teeth into blender), the whole blender thing makes it tough, but if you can get past blender, you can do a lot with makehuman figures.

the makehuman figures import nicely in 3dcoat, zbrush and carrara.