makehumancommunity.org

This thread is going to demonstrate what happens when you push the sliders to the places which yield realistic models depicting women of size. This is no easy task since the meshes we use do not yet support all the moves which fatty tissue follows due to gravity and ligamentary restraints. Nonetheless, with a bit of care in the model making and more care in the render camera placement verses the pose being rendered, it is entirely possible to create images of large ladies that show just how lovely they are to look at as an art form. As you look at these girls, know that many folks in the world will find them attractive, because indeed, they are.




Bernadette Peters, Mars, Olympus Mons
Chamber of Commerce, public relations department

Shea Collings, Mars, Planetary Council
Envoy to Pacifica, Planet Regelia

Eva Gomez, Phillipines
lucha cholita (female wrestler)

Greetings,
I am familiar with your work, and you are very good with your form of art! As you know I am very happy to contribute in any way when you need additional assistance or advice! If you need any more sliders or anything really, always feel free to request. Everyone is usually quite happy to add to repo for the advancement of our communities potential. Nice work buddy,
Elv

Greetings, Ma'am. I am honored for the reply and interest in my humble attempts at making human art.

You mentioned sliders. Well, I do have a few requests. Draw down a cup o' joe and yank ye up a sitter...

The first concerns the chin. Heavy females have fat under the chin which continues all around the neck. When I try to model this, I get mixed results. None of my efforts so far have been able to accurately reproduce this fat in a realistic way. I have had some success using your jowl and wattle jowl targets in combination with the stock neck and chin sliders.

The second is the belly. The "spare tire" effect where the fat on the stomach crimps around the navel to make two rolls, one above and the other below the navel, is just not available in the program. Belly hang is not there, either. I have tried to adjust the muscle tone and pregnancy shapes but the results are not in line with the way real fat behaves under gravity. I can create a nice round belly but it does not hang or crease the way an actual tummy would.

The third is the arms. I can get the "pillow arm" effect by moving a lot of sliders on the stock setup, and use custom targets to get the ssbbw look, but the upper arm and shoulders are still a wee tad wonky. Also, elbow dimples and lower arm shaping are not currently doable.

Finally, there is the pelvis. I can get that "cushy tush" look somewhat, but it needs more control to allow for the way it hangs due to gravity. I can make it fuller, but I cannot get it to look real in many aspects, from the "high and tight" to the "worn out from having babies" look.

In all the above examples, gravity plays a big part in how the finished model looks. Hair is also an issue here since it tries to be "glued" in place, such as the default long hair style clinging to the back in all poses when it should swing free. I feel that getting this relationship between gravity and protoplasm will greatly enhance the realism of rendered models. It has been an issue with every 3D proggie I have used, including DAZ, Poser, etc. We need to take gravity into account.

I know this is a lot to ask and I do not expect immediate results. However, the first to the finish line on this will go down in history as the artist who advanced 3D by leaps and bounds, getting us ever closer to a model that is indistinguishable from the real item.

I thank you for reading this and pondering upon what to do next. You are one of the epic people here and it is a true pleasure to be working with you and all the other fine members of this team.

I sense great things are about to happen for those who see humans as art.

Aja Singh, India
Hired Mercenary

Greetings,

Firstly, ty for all your kind words! Secondly, a great deal of what irks you is simply not that fixable makehuman side, and in fact benefits from multiple types of overlaying remedies. For instance, having polygon hair move with the body in a more natural way is simply not the nature of that particular beast! Then using particle hair might be the route to natural appearance blender side going forward, alternatively editing or making new polygon hair for every pose? In regards to body tissue moving more naturally, I have found success in past, in places such as opensim using jiggle rigs. Having different bones in a skeleton representing body parts that will move such as breast and butt areas. I have personally seen much success with this even with body parts one might not suspect. Makehuman offers no physics or other gravity based effects yet to date to my knowledge, and blender would be the way to go to get to that place with tweaking and use of modifier stacks.
All of that said, I have a plus size model, miss Cheryl Lyn-not very large but plus size nevertheless, and thus I have worked out a handful of targets to bring her weight to a larger more natural place(to my eye). Now I have not used any of the existing big lady model targets in the repository personally. And none are used in Cheryls images. I have created a few targets I would like you to go over and test for me if you will, I will upload here in zip for beta purposes. Feel free to give feedback here, or in message form if you like. As I have absolutely no experience with heavy target making, they may not be the best, but I have done my level to be respectful to the female form and output something befitting.
Cheryl Lyn is using only these targets and my wattle jowl, and I will show you my humble works here to give reference. Images from makehuman not blender.

Elv

I want that model! She is very beautiful and your set of fine targets are evidenced here.

I placed the files in my custom folder and played around with the new sliders. All of them work as advertised, being properly labeled as to form and function. Most do the job at 50%. Others require only 25% while some need 100% to arrive at a given shape, but all in all, this is a fine set worthy of addition to the repo. There are lots of good options which were badly needed by those of us who do larger ladies in 3D.

I am working on a new model as yet with no name. She uses your new files and those which were already in the repo. When this model is complete, I will upload it and add a topic in the forum in line with other BBW offerings already in place here. When I do, credit will be given and any resource links placed in the post. Since the new files are not yet up and the model in question is far from finished, I will hold off on that post.

However, I will be showing her off in the gallery just to get the community excited. I will speak more of the new files once they become part of the repo. We still need a neck target which solves a problem with the head/neck interface where jowl fat continues around and below the ears. The stock nape slider takes care of the back part of the neck, but there are still dents between the neck and cheeks, along with the entire shoulder/neck/head sections being a wee tad fiddly and wonky.

I must tip my hat to your hard work and the speed with which you brought it to me. As with all targeting, the use of these new files will require some practice since they always interact. That is the fun of it, really. You make a small nudge here, another there, get an oopsee to back out of, fix, then rinse and repeat until the model looks real from all angles at all magnifications.

IMHO, you have succeeded. It has really gotten me fired up and I cannot wait to see what you do next. This community profits immensly from your involvement and selfless contributions in so many areas. Now to find others who have a likewise zeal. Make Human would advance very quickly. It is already my go to proggie for figure creation since I can export the results into so many other editing and post working tools.

Thank you, Elv. Keep up the stellar work!

Greetings,
I am so glad to hear that they are working, for the most part! I know it is not the usual to post not working art, but can you post or send me images of the broken areas of concern so that I might examine them and try to work through them on my end? I know Cheryl Lyn would appreciate the compliment, she is not used to being of such size and felt a tad exposed, but she is an amazing model for me and a wonderful muse,
Elv

Good evening, Ma'am.

Every target in the kit works well. I am still learning how each one affects the others. I am also working on the interactions between these new targets and the ones already in the repo. The chin is really tricky. At first, the mesh tore around the head/neck juncture, but I was able to fudge it around to fix the ripping. In the image accompanying this reply, look closely at the area mentioned where the head and neck come together and note the little valley below the chin near the neck.

This area is sometimes exactly like one sees, with the little crease. Other ladies will lack this crease completely or have it in various amounts from a well defined seem to none at all, AKA, the "neckless gal" shape common to clinically obese patients. Using all available targets and a lot of tweaking, I was able to get this far. Note the dent right under the chin just behind the point where it sticks out below the mouth. I could not make that go away, but I am still working with it.

To be truthful, this is the most realistic looking BBW face I have made so far, and your targets make it possible. I must also add that the body targets, especially those that create the spare tires and apron, do a wonderful job on the belly. Know that the belly is always a challenge because we have a lot of sliders that all interact. It is a lot like torquing down the screws on a CPU heatsink. You have to take them all down together in a star pattern, until all are bottomed out.

Targets will always affect other targets, some more than others depending on the strength and vector of the target in question. With the chin, we have sliders found in the neck, chin and cheek areas which definitely interact. When we turn on the jowl and wattle, things really get interesting. The biggest interplay is with these sliders and the double neck control in conjunction with measure/neck/diameter and face/neck/scaling. The head and neck movers also make big changes with a small push.

So, it is not enough to have the sliders, but also, to know how they work together to achieve the desired result. With your new controls, I can come much closer to the real thing, and with more practice, probably arrive there (or get close enough for government work.) As I play around with these sliders, I am bound to find the combinations which work the best. Perhaps then, I can show the world how I did it. When that time comes, I will tell them that your work made it all happen.

Again, I am deeply grateful and in total awe of what you did here.

Let's keep going!