Makehuman to Blender to Motion Capture

[brkurt]

Hello everyone...I am going to create a series of Kung Fu moves, and donate them to the Makehuman library.
I will be using Blender for my 3d posing; I am going to color-code the armature bones, and place the armature on a separate layer.
Otherwise, this model will be straight out-of-the-box Makehuman 1.1. This is my Gina Carano model, and yes, she looks like this in real life.



The first step is to create a Ready position for Wu Bu Quan. To do this, I needed to create loose fists. Martial arts experts can argue over the fist postures later; I just want a fist that has no intersecting planes. A fist is difficult in the new modified A-Frame model, because you can only use free rotation (which I almost never use). The model has to be rotated until the plane you wish to move is parallel (flat?) to your screen; even then you will need to correct the fine rotations of the finger bones. The good news is that this only has to be done once, on one hand. Then you can copy and paste using the X-Flip command. After that, I rotated the clavicle and deltoid bones through the X-axis for the 'arms-cocked' position, and the clavicle and deltoid bones along the Y-axis to bring the upper arms close to the chest.



When creating the movements, it is important to (at least) divide them in half. So this is Bow Preliminary:



And the Bow Final. For this, I rotated the Root bone along the Z-axis. This can be quite a bit of trouble, as one has to determine how the quaternion rotation will work.




And on to the Punch Kick combination. This is the point where I usually begin adding custom bones. A pair of Gluteus bones would sure help the pants to fit properly, but I did promise that I would keep this model 'out-of-the-box'.



And the final Punch Kick. Since this is a 'snap kick' move, I'll need to insert a few extra keyframes to make that work.



For brevitys' sake--and also because I've already contributed a complete Wu Bu Quan model, I'm only going to post ten images--preliminary and final--a video, a Blender file (.blend) , and the motion capture biovision hierarchy file (.bvh)

Here is the Blend file. It will be update with the picture poses.

http://www.geekopolis.ca/blender/wushu_kungfu/ginaCaranoWuBuQuan2_272b.blend

[duststorm]

Prints on clothing really don't work that well when stretched so much.
Perhaps a texture without print would work better.

[brkurt]

Prints on clothing really don't work that well when stretched so much.
Perhaps a texture without print would work better.

Good point.

If I was going to create a finished version of this model, I would have multiple resolutions of the clothes, and sculpt in the folds.
That's not as hard as it sounds, since I'll have a dozen poses by the time the motion capture looks convincing.

I could certainly use your help when it is ready (by tomorrow), as I have never actually contributed to the Makehuman library before.

I'm under the impression that there have been a lot of changes to the tool set.

[brkurt]

And on we go. Here is Flash Palm Horse Stance Right Punch. If I was going to add custom bones to my rig, I would need an extra wrist bone and a 'wig rig' for the ponytail. But...I'm working straight 'out of the box' on this one. Just two more forms (with their preliminary poses) to go.



Now to the most difficult, the Cross Stance. This one makes great demands of hip and ankle flexibility. It is a fine test of the Makehuman rig.



And here's the worst of it. Try posing a model with crossed legs, and not having intersecting meshes, and doing it all without shape keys.





http://www.geekopolis.ca/

and here is the updated model:

http://www.geekopolis.ca/blender/wushu_kungfu/ginaCaranoWuBuQuan2_272b.blend

[brkurt]

And now to the Drop Stance. Things get decidedly easier from here.

I've created the posts with a North American athlete in mind; a Chinese-born practitioner would be a contortionist in comparison.

Preliminary:



Final:

[brkurt]

And finally the Cat Stance. If the stance looks 'weird' to you--as if the model should fall over--try the Cat Stance yourself. It's all about balance.



and the render:



and the 'close-enough-to-finished' model:

http://www.geekopolis.ca/blender/wushu_kungfu/ginaCaranoWuBuQuan2_272b.blend

and don't forget the motion capture!

http://www.geekopolis.ca/mocap/ginaCaranoWuBuQuan2_272b.bvh