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MakeHuman Alpha 8 to Collada for Second Life and OSGrid Tutorial
Used for this tutorial:
MH Alpha 8 revision 6720 (Friday Jan 10th 2014) including data from myself and older revisions (skin, teeth, etc)
All addons for Blender installed (MakeHuman Exchange and Makewalk are the most important ones you need)
Blender 2.69 64bit
Windows 7 64bit
Firestorm Viewer for SL, using the Betagrid (no cost for uploads).
1. Create and shape your model in MH;
2. When you're done modelling, click Geometries/Eyes and choose low-poly on the right;
3. Also, click Teeth (if you really need it!) and choose one of the models on the right, base for example;
4. Proxies then, I still have the best results with the None!!! But you're free to choose a different one. I recommend choosing None = most detailed mesh proxy.
5. Genitals, if you're a boy, check on the right. If you're a girl, None.
6. Eyebrows? Sure, if you want to apply, go ahead. Otherwise choose None.
7. Next is choose a material for all options chosen; Materials/Skin Materials. It's actually not relevant but it saves you searching for the textures after uploading. They will all be saved in a folder above the folder where you save the final model. Later more about this.
8. DO NOT SKIP THIS STEP: Pose/Animate and then click the Skeleton tab! On the right, choose the second_life_rig with 26 bones! Not the 19 (check on the left), not the game not the humanik, Select the 26 bone SL rig.
9. Don't panic if the avatar looks funny textured, it shows that you applied the rig.
10. Click Files and Save your MHM body first so you always have a back-up. Click on the ... to browse for a folder, type a good name with characteristics about the body as filename. In my case something like MH8_Male_length_SL_Rig_26_John and HIT SAVE in the dialog and Save again in the MH window! Now your body has been saved as <filename>.mhm
11. Click Files again and click tab Export;
12. Choose the following for a MHX export: Mesh Format, Blender exchange (mhx). On the right, enable: Feet on Ground and Meter ONLY.
13. Click ... again and find the same folder where you just saved the .mhm and type something meaningful there like MH8_Male_length_SL_Rig_26_John_v1. Hit save and you see again the entire path appearing like under 10, and this time you need to click Export. This might take a while depending on your machine.
14. You're now done in Makehuman! You can close it if you like or save your model again if you see an * appearing behind the filename in the header. It does mean that you changed something and it better not be something drastic.
PART 2
I expect that you have installed at least the addons 'MakeHuman Exchange' and 'Makewalk' from the MakeHuman package. If you didn't, please do before you import your model, using the info found via the explorer here:
- Install the addons in Blender
1. Start Blender and click outside the Splash screen to have the default start-up file loaded. Should show you a Cube, Camera and Light. ([MW] Mousewheel back/forward is zooming. [MRB] Mouse Right selects!)
2. Already installed the addons before? Good, go to 3!
2a. If you just installed the addons, you need to refresh the addons folder first and make sure it's selected in Blender. [CTRL+ALT+U] opens User Prefs, [LMB] Addons, [LMB] Refresh, and wait a few secs. Search for MakeHuman on the left in the magnifier field. All 4 Addons from MH should show up on the right. Enable at least .mhx and MakeWalk. [LMB] Save User Settings. Close the window.
3. [MRB] the cube and press [DEL], [LMB] Delete to confirm.
4. In the top menu bar aka Header: File/Import/MakeHuman (.mhx). Use the System or System Bookmarks to locate your saved <model_name>.mhx (Warning, Blender can be a little slow using this filebrowser system, [LMB] One-clicks have a small delay, just have patience and don't doubleclick or you might fire up the wrong file.)
5. BEFORE you [LMB] your .mhx in the filebrowser, look at the left for Import MHX and [LMB] tick Advanced Settings.
6. Enable ONLY: Enforce version, Mesh, Proxies, Clothes. And now you can [LMB] your <model_name>.mhx from the folder where you saved it. [LMB] on the right 'Import MHX'. And wait! Do not act fast and have patience!
7. If all went ok, you see the main window with your model and a few colorful lines around your model. Look on the right, top window if you see Scene with nodes under that containing Camera and Lamp, PLUS your <model_name>!!!
8. [MW] to zoom in and out, [MWB+HOLD] to dolly around, [MWB+SHIFT] to reposition your view. Just don't [LMB] NOR [RMB] anything from your model yet. Just get used to those movements.
9. [NUM3] on the NUMPAD and NOT your keyboard (do that and you will panic - tip: CTRL+Z once.) shows the FRONT view. And now you say; Front??? But I see it rotated to the left aka the Negative Y axis! Indeed, but we're gonna fix that now.
10. Still in Pose Mode? (Look at the bottom of the screen, if not, [LMB] that little selection menu (Interaction mode) next to Pose and make sure it says Pose Mode.)
11. Press [A] to select ALL. Press [SPACE] and a window pops up; type T-pose. [LMB] option T-Pose => Rest Pose (and yes that sounds wrong. Trust me, it's ok.)
12. Your model snaps in T-POSE!!! It's not the t-pose from SL nor OSG, but it will do fine for uploading. Because this step is REALLY important.
13. Bottom screen, change from Pose Mode to Object Mode and press [A] TWICE after to select EVERYTHING.
14. Don't skip this next one: on the right top with your scene details, [LMB] Both eye icons from Camera and Lamp to hide them.
15. Still see green lines and outlined body? Good. If not: Press [A] until you see everything outlined Green. (Color may vary if you use a different layout.)
16. Press the following keys after each other and make sure you have a good view: First [R] and then [Z] after. Hold [CTRL] for rotation steps of 5 degrees and move your mouse around so that everything you selected rotates PLUS 90 degrees and so your model faces the positive X and that is CRUCIAL!
17. When done, [LMB] and the global rotation is done. DO NOT FORGET THE FOLLOWING STEP:
18. [CTRL+A] and choose Rotation in the selection, you MUST DO THIS or it will not apply this transformation during export. Apply that rotation aka [LMB].
19. You're done. Now it's time to export! Choose File/Export/Collada (.dae). Again that file browser with the slow responding LMBs... Anyway, choose the folder where to save your new model but stop before actually hitting that Export COLLADA button on the top right.
20. Left pane again shows also Export COLLADA, and choose the standard Operator Preset 'SL+OpenSim Rigged'. Leave all presets like it is EXCEPT the following: ENABLE 'Include Material Textures' and DISABLE 'Deform Bones Only'.
21. Change the filename untitled.dae into something with more info about your model and then [LMB] 'Export Collada' on the RIGHT. HAVE PATIENCE! Once clicked, wait, it might take a while.
22. If you want, save this 'scene' as .blend file too, Just pick Save As from the file menu and you also have a back up file from your rotated and rigged model for future clothing designs.
23. Close Blender, [CTRL+Q]
And now it's time to fire up your SL/OS viewer!
1. If you're familiar with uploading rigged Meshes, you can probably skip this. If not, start your viewer and log in. Betagrid or OSG or SL Maingrid, all works the same. However, SL MAIN WILL COST MONEY and you must have 'payment info used' AND completed that Mesh Intellectual Property Tutorial (10 questions about Mesh and copyrights) in your account.
2. When logged in, depending on your viewer, you need to upload a Mesh model, find that option first, browse to your saved <modelname>.dae and select it.
3. The Mesh uploader opens as a window, displaying your mesh model facing towards you in the preview and with info like this:
- Mesh upload window
4. First, depending on testing or not, change the LOD settings of the Medium, Low and Lowest Level Of Detail aka LOD to 1 and select 'Avatar Shape' from the 'This model represents...' pull-down menu as shown below:
- Mesh upload 1
5. Change to tab Upload Options and enable 'Include skin weight' and 'Include joint positions'. (Thanks to the 'Feet on Ground' option, you do not need to mess with the Z offset unless your body is THAT tall or small that you must.)
- Mesh upload 2
6. When done, click that button 'Calculate weights & fee' once. The body will be checked for errors, weights and more blahblah by the server and returns this button below when all is safe:
- Mesh upload 3
7. The button changes into 'Upload' and the cost to upload is visible. Also info about Land Impact, Download, Physics and Server is now displayed after calculating. This ALL depends on LOD settings and Vertice counts!!! So, it's NOT always an upload cost of L$ 14 on the main grid in SL. When you set all LODs to their original calculated values, the body can cost you around 50-70 Lindens. Even more for very complex models. So, KEEP THEM SIMPLE. I tend to use only LOD High and Medium as their original values and set Low and Lowest to 1 during a final upload.
And now you can click that 'Upload' button!
8. The model will appear in your 'Object' folder, find it there and attach it to your (stripped and with hidden with a full alpha layer) Avatar body like this:
- How to attach 4
9. And this is how I look after applying the tutorial model. I didn't apply textures this time, feel free to test those yourself. You can find them in a subfolder of the folder where you saved your model. Use Edit Linked and CTRL+. to select linked parts one after the other to change its texture and as you see; my firestorm version does NOT support materials yet! (I use an outdated version for SL. New v4.5.1 will work for sure according to my OSG account.)
- The result! 5
10. Last note on the linked parts: Yellow outlined = ROOT (Body), Blue = Child (Genitals,Teeth, whatever you added) on the pic above but this MAY vary, don't be sad when the root is suddenly the eyebrows, just unlink and link them all back selecting the BODY itself as last link. Might be important for our professionals. :p Good luck!
Bo (SL)
Yoshi (OS)
Don't forget that I'm not a pro with Blender. If things can be done faster, let us know below. if you succeeded in uploading a model and actually wear it, let us know too!!!
