Expressions and Poses

[Sauceverde]

Hi!

MPFB is really amazing! However, I can't import expressions and poses: someone knows how to do it? Please, help me!

Thanks a lot!

[joepal]

Expressions and poses are not yet separately importable in MPFB2. This is still on the todo list.

You can get a character with a pose and/or expression by setting the pose in makehuman and then "import human" in MPFB. But then you'll get both the expression and pose as rest pose in blender.

[Sauceverde]

Thank you! MPFB2 is the most amazing, creative and useful app ever!

[Taholmes160]

Howdy -- any updates on this yet? kinda need some poses

[GORYGIRL1996]

IS THERE ANY UPDATE FOR 2024? BECAUSE BELIEVE ME, NEW POSSES AND EXPRESSIONS WOULD SAVE SOOOOOOOO MUCH TIME! ESPECIALLY FOR EXPORTING AIMATIONS AND FACIAL EXPRESSIONS OUT FOR DIFFERENT SOFTWARE. IN MY CASE, IT'S "SOURCE FILMMAKER" AND "GARRYS MOD" FOR THOSE WHO ARE CURIOUS, (FOR THE TIME BEING).

ALSO ON A RELATED NOTE, IDK FI TI'S JUST ON MY END, BUT MOST OF THE EYELASH MODELS DO FOLLOW THE EYES RIGHT (I TESTED IT IN MAKEHUMAN TOO, TO SEE IF IT WAS JUST AN ISSUE ON MPF2B'S PART BUT IT'S NOT, AS THE EYELASHES DON'T FOLLOW THE LIDS THIER EITHER). SO SOMETHING'S WRONG EITHER WAY. SO CAN SOMEONE FIX THIS FOR BOTH MAKEHUMAN AND THE MPF2B PLUGIN?

[joepal]

MH style poses are supported in MPFB since a few weeks. You can import the ones from the asset repo as long as you use the default rig

Expressions are fundamentally different and will take longer.

[Ricardo2020]

The MPFB2 plugin for Blender is a remarkable tool. Once one has a look around and plays with it some, the program is rather straight forward and easy to use. I owe the developer team a great debt of gratitude for all their hard work. This plugin has opened a lot of doors for me as a wannabe movie maker.

I have no issue with posing in MFPB2. However, there is no Expressions Library on the Apply Assets menu. I need to have that function so I can give life to the faces of my models.

I have finally figured out how to place the camera and light(s), pose the model, and render the image which the camera sees. This is going to replace the rendering ops I used to do in MakeHuman because it is a much better rendering engine with raytracing and such. I really like the way shadows are rendered in relation to the light source. The results are much closer to reality and this will vastly improve my renders. I am making progress.

When I am finally able to get those expressions on the menu and apply them as needed, I will be well on my way to getting the pictures I need for my web comic source material. Perhaps one day, I will even be able to animate the models and create filmstrips. These can then be used as layers in movie making. Put the actor in a green screen and dub in the scenery, then dub the Foley and dialogue so that the flick has light, action and sound.

I gots big dreams...

[joepal]

Unfortunately, expressions are a bit away. The MakeHuman implementation of expressions is quirky and assumes the presence of things which are not there in MPFB.

Before being able to support MakeHuman style expressions, a functional port of the pose unit system needs to be made. While the fundamental pose units should not be rocket science to port, the mixing of pose units (which is required for expressions) will require a lot of thinking.

[Ricardo2020]

I can see Punkduck and Tomcat going after Elv and the others to get this done.

I am certain it will be very difficult and time consuming to bring in this function, but not impossible. You have already accomplished much more than others trying to acheive the same goal: make a human using a computer and put it in a movie. Payware on big iron with a staff can fo it, but this stuff you are building puts all that under one set of hands on a single local machine. Pick axes on frozen cliff climbing and making it to the top...

As such, I am cool with the wait, no matter how long, since I have plenty of other stuff about my new setup to figure out first. It has taught me that my computer, which is very well healed, really does need to be bigger, especially after I started cranking up the rendering settings and watching the system monitor tools as it went about chewing the resulting huge data set. Although renders take a while, file saves are still very swift.

I really need to learn how to make clothes and other assets. I need to figure out how to animate. I must also learn how to put all that into a scene which then becomes a movie clip. However, there is much plain static comic book art making which I need to digest. This thing is really deep and powerful. I see that increasing as the programs evolve...

Many thanks for all that you do, Joe.

[Ricardo2020]

Blender is very good at creating new poses or modifying those already made. This operation is doable both on premade or imported models, as well as new ones made from scratch. These poses can then be used in MakeHuman as assets which can be loaded in the Pose tab of MakeHuman, provided that the pose files are placed within the correct folder within the data dir in MakeHuman.

To make a useable pose in Blender, position the model bones in Blender using the Pose Mode. Once the model has the pose, click File>Export>BVH. Tell Blender where to put the file. I usually place it in the same folder that I made for the model in Documents>Blender>Model Name>Poses. Then the file can be copied to the poses folder inside the MakeHuman data dir.

I lool forward to the same being done for Expressions, but as Joe has stated, this is a whole other ball of wax which is far more complex. There are a lot of bones in the face, and these move every which way while interacting among themselves. It is going to be a challenge to implement this most wanted feature within MPFB. I am also looking forward to being able to get custom targets into the plugin.

I also want to see the body shapes get into MPFB. The hormonal shape keys are very useful. They are an incredible time saver. I also want to put some targets made by Elvaerwyn in there for shaping arms, legs and belly, plus that wonderful wattle jawl slider. Blender handles shapes well, but I need those extra keys to get more realism...