Tutorial Request: Making Alternate Skins

[bennyblades]

Tutorial Request: Making Alternate Skins

I am requesting a tutorial on how to
1. Extract a make human’s skin UV (in blender). At the moment I only see the UV as a texture and I’m not sure how to get it back in to UV format so that I can edit it. (I’m a bit of a noob when it comes to textures)
2. How to alter said UV and place it back on the Human as a Texture (I’m assuming you would need to put it back in this format to import it back in to MakeHuman
3. How to import the altered texture back in to MakeHuman.

My goal is to use make human as a repository so that I can mix and match parts for my characters and import them directly in to Blender and start animating with little to no alterations needed. At the moment I have been consecrating on making their cloths and hair but I’m going to need to eventually need to change lipstick colors, add scars, etc.

[Aedonix]

The only method i have found is to take the skin texture and physically edit it in photoshop adding lip stick eye shadow etc to it there, then taking it through to blender and using this new texture in place of the default MH one.

If there is a better or more simple way of doing it I would love to know about it too.

[duststorm]

To create a new texture you need to create a new image and accompanying material (mhmat) file, and place both in the data/skins folder (either where MakeHuman is installed, or in my documents/makehuman/v1/data/skins).

The mhmat file is just a text file that you can manually edit in a text editor like notepad. You can copy an existing material file of a textured skin, rename it and modify it, or you can enable the material editor in makehuman by going to settings > plugins, enabling it and restarting makehuman.
The material needs to be saved in your skins folder in the same location as where you place your texture.

You can create a thumbnail by creating a png file with 128x128 pixels dimensions, saving it in the same location with the same name as the mhmat file, and renaming the extension to .thumb

[brkurt]

The only method i have found is to take the skin texture and physically edit it in photoshop adding lip stick eye shadow etc to it there, then taking it through to blender and using this new texture in place of the default MH one.

If there is a better or more simple way of doing it I would love to know about it too.

If you are using Adobe Photoshop, are you primarily using the vector tools (non-destructive layers) or the raster ones (copy the orginal, make permanent alterations to the copy).

If you are doing makeup, then your changes will be very subtle. It is better to create these in layers, rather than to destroy the original skin (which I am assuming you are putting a lot of effort into).

You can use the original makehuman skins images, without changing them this way.

I use Inkscape (an open-source alternative to Adobe Illustrator), but the workflow is the same.

[Fred Astair]

To create a new texture you need to create a new image and accompanying material (mhmat) file, and place both in the data/skins folder (either where MakeHuman is installed, or in my documents/makehuman/v1/data/skins).

The mhmat file is just a text file that you can manually edit in a text editor like notepad. You can copy an existing material file of a textured skin, rename it and modify it, or you can enable the material editor in makehuman by going to settings > plugins, enabling it and restarting makehuman.
The material needs to be saved in your skins folder in the same location as where you place your texture.

You can create a thumbnail by creating a png file with 128x128 pixels dimensions, saving it in the same location with the same name as the mhmat file, and renaming the extension to .thumb

Ok, so I have made a copy of the young caucasian female skin and added the word "test" to both the MHMAT file, and the .PNG image and put them both into the same folder as the original. When I choose this skin from the pallete I get this image. Shouldn't they just be exactly the same?

[Fred Astair]

Well it looks like I've been dealing with multiple "Textures" folders. I am using the nightly build and I have found a Textures folder on my C drive where MakeHuman 1.0.2 is installed. In the nightly version, which is just on a different drive, in the folder it unpacks as, there are two more Texture folders. One by itself, which only holds that skin you see in the above post and must be used in the event there isn't a skin available in the skins folder. The other is in the skins folder. I copied the original skin into Gimp and made some quick changes just to see if it works, then "exported" the modified image as a PNG file, since saving it in GIMP only saves it as an .xcf file, and moved that into the Textures folder inside the skins folder. I renamed it with the word "test" added, and did the same to the MHMAT file inside the skins folder. I modified the MHMAT file to describe the skin with the word "test" added. Now everything works properly and I can choose my modified skin from the palette and it works on the model. It was a very confusing journey to get here because of the multiple Textures and skins folders. I hope this helps anybody else who is finding this confusing and struggling with this.

[duststorm]

Ok, so I have made a copy of the young caucasian female skin and added the word "test" to both the MHMAT file, and the .PNG image and put them both into the same folder as the original. When I choose this skin from the pallete I get this image. Shouldn't they just be exactly the same?

The error is right at the bottom of the screen:
"cannot get texture file path ../textures/young_lightskinned_diffuse_test.png, no such file"

Are you sure you created the image "young_lightskinned_diffuse_test.png" and put it in the right folder? MakeHuman says it cannot find it.
The texture you are seeing on the human is this one:

Texture not found

texture_notfound.png (9.69 KiB) Viewed 11684 times

It's the default texture MakeHuman uses when the image file at the specified path is not found.

[Fred Astair]

Ok, so I have made a copy of the young caucasian female skin and added the word "test" to both the MHMAT file, and the .PNG image and put them both into the same folder as the original. When I choose this skin from the pallete I get this image. Shouldn't they just be exactly the same?

The error is right at the bottom of the screen:
"cannot get texture file path ../textures/young_lightskinned_diffuse_test.png, no such file"

Are you sure you created the image "young_lightskinned_diffuse_test.png" and put it in the right folder? MakeHuman says it cannot find it.
The texture you are seeing on the human is this one:

texture_notfound.png

It's the default texture MakeHuman uses when the image file at the specified path is not found.

I finally figured out that I wasn't exporting the skin as a PNG because GIMP saves it with a different extension and I didn't know that I have to export rather than save. I have now figured out how to make a copy of an existing skin and use it in GIMP and MakeHuman. I am trying to use projection painting in Blender now to tweak the existing skin and fill in missing areas. The UV map is right there in Blender when I choose "Texture", but it is unwrapped down the back center line. Is there a way to re-wrap it with the current texture and material intact, and then create new seams down the sides and unwrap it that way? I know that I could just create a new UV map that way, but I would want to preserve the existing skin material and textures, since all of that looks pretty good. I just want to tweak it using texture painting.

[duststorm]

In theory the MH material system supports alternative UV maps, it's not recommended though (and undocumented).
If you want a different UV map, better to create a proxymesh that has different UVs. Put the vertices in the "exact" vertexgroup in MakeClothes to have an exact fitting (search forum for more info).

You will have to make new materials for your proxymesh though, with textures adapted to the new UV map.
You can use Blender's texture bake to bake all the original textures between MH's default UV map to your new custom UV map.