MakeHuman Compliant - specs?

[ReverendSpeed]

Hey folks. New here, moderately experienced Blender modeler/animator. Been playing about with Make Human and it's an incredible tool! Amazing work by everybody...!

I was curious to know if there was a guide to making a base model for the program (ie. building my own human topology in Blender to put INTO MakeHuman). I'm currently poking around with Make Target and reading the docs - and aside from about ten lines on this (http://www.makehumancommunity.org/wiki/Documentation - under the heading 'Making Wavefront .obj Files MakeHuman™ Compliant') page, there doesn't seem to be too much info on making objects MakeHuman compliant or setting up helpers on the models. I'm also a little unclear on the text on that page, so I have a few questions.

1) Do I have to use a base.obj from MakeHuman as my starting point for the model?
2) If not, do I have to keep closely to the topology of that model?
3) Exactly how do the helpers work?
4) Presumably if I wrote enough targets for a custom model, I could, say, build a tiger topology, import that into MakeHuman and (while most of the standard targets for humans wouldn't work) I could customise the tiger using my own custom targets (eg. making fangs bigger or smaller, making ears perk up and down). I recognise that this is something of an extreme example, just trying to find the limits here.

Given that I've downloaded and run all these models(http://www.makehumancommunity.org/proxies.html) in MH I imagine that adding another base model or so shouldn't be too much trouble.

Still - anything I'm missing regards MH compliance? Many thanks!

--Rev

[joepal]

I think you've ended up confusing targets and proxies. A proxy is a full body glove with its own topology. It is attached on top of the base mesh, rather than a modification of the base mesh. This is one of the main differences between a target and a proxy.

In general, proxies are made with MakeClothes, not MakeTarget.

The basic requirement is that the mesh should occupy roughly the same space as the base mesh. Ie, a six-legged creature, a whale or even a very exaggerated anime figure would be tricky, since the form would deviate too much for MakeClothes to make efficient deductions regarding which vertex point on the proxy should follow which vertex point on the base mesh. MakeClothes will also assume an all-quads mesh and will complain if there are tris or n-gons.

See http://www.makehumancommunity.org/wiki/ ... a_proxy%3F

You might also want to skim through http://www.makehumancommunity.org/wiki/ ... dyparts%3F as it discusses some of the differences between available approaches.

[ReverendSpeed]

I think you've ended up confusing targets and proxies. A proxy is a full body glove with its own topology. It is attached on top of the base mesh, rather than a modification of the base mesh. This is one of the main differences between a target and a proxy.

I think I'm confusing a lot of things!

So, if I may rephrase:

No matter what toplology you choose in MakeHuman, underneath you are always modifying MakeHuman's base topology (currently Homunculus08 modeled by Manuel Bastioni, ie. the 'none' model available at the top of the Topologies model under Geometry -> Topologies in MakeHuman, ie. the default mesh), which the other topologies (actually proxies) are conforming to / inheriting from, like a body glove (hence 'MakeClothes').

You don't make alternative base meshes for MakeHuman, you make further proxy meshes with MakeClothes which can appear to totally override the outer appearance of the base mesh (or appear as partial replacements, ie. hats, t-shirts etc). Correct - or close to it? =)

MakeClothes will also assume an all-quads mesh and will complain if there are tris or n-gons.

And so it should, fuck tris.

Thank you for both links! I also found these very useful: http://3d-art.berghold.net/?page_id=115 , http://3d-art.berghold.net/?page_id=120

I appreciate your patience as I stumble towards some kind of understanding here.

--Rev

[joepal]

No matter what toplology you choose in MakeHuman, underneath you are always modifying MakeHuman's base topology (currently Homunculus08 modeled by Manuel Bastioni, ie. the 'none' model available at the top of the Topologies model under Geometry -> Topologies in MakeHuman, ie. the default mesh), which the other topologies (actually proxies) are conforming to / inheriting from, like a body glove (hence 'MakeClothes').

Yes,

The base mesh is always there. If you want to see how it looks in raw form, you can download the wavefront obj file here: https://bitbucket.org/MakeHuman/makehum ... at=default. In makehuman, some targets are applied by default, so you never see the raw base mesh.

Targets move around the vertices on the base mesh, and then the selected proxy (if any) is fitted to the change. (It's a bit more complicated than this under the hood, but it's a functional description).

If exporting with MHX2 you export both the base mesh and the proxy and can then choose on import if you want either or both in blender.

You don't make alternative base meshes for MakeHuman, you make further proxy meshes with MakeClothes which can appear to totally override the outer appearance of the base mesh (or appear as partial replacements, ie. hats, t-shirts etc). Correct - or close to it? =)

Yes. Proxies and clothes are actually the same thing, just in different directories.

[ReverendSpeed]

Targets move around the vertices on the base mesh, and then the selected proxy (if any) is fitted to the change.

That makes sense to me. You (the developers) effectively only need to create shape keys for the base, to which the proxies later conform (again, way more complicated than this under the hood).

Thank you for excellent answers - I feel much more informed about MakeHuman. I'll download the .obj (as soon as I figure out Atlassian!) and spend some time cogitating. Cheers!

--Rev