Characters change from MakeHuman to Blender

[ZPhugeFan]

Hello everyone,
I've got this issue with either Blender or MakeHuman and I hope there's a solution to it. First of all let me say that I use Blender 2.78b and MakeHuman 1.1.0
So I made a character in MakeHuman that I intend to use for animation and model clothes for. But I noticed that when exported to Blender the character's appearance changes quite significantly. And that's a big no-no for me. I have a clear vision of how these people have to look and it bothers me when they don't look like they did in MakeHuman when ported to Blender. And yes, this doesn't happen to just one model. Here are two examples:




I think their heads just get thinner or something. I can't continue with my project unless this problem is resolved.
Any tips on how to fix that would be really helpful.

P.S. I notice the skin texture is also a bit off. It comes off a lot more bright or pale in Blender than it was in MakeHuman, but that's not such a big deal, I can fix that with nodes and lighting.

[Aranuvir]

1) The stretching results from the fact that MakeHuman uses orthographic view and the blender camera perspective view. In perspective view the stretching depends on the focal length. Believe it or not, here is the default cube rendered at a focal length of 2mm:

stretching.png (8.79 KiB) Viewed 9549 times

You can minimize the effect by using bigger values for the focal length.

2) The render result, i.e. what textures look like, is a function of the render engine used, the material setup, the lighting, etc, etc, etc. This CANNOT be predicted by MakeHuman!
If you want to learn, how to use Blender, the beginner tutorials of Andrew Price aka Blenderguru on youtube can be recommended.

[ZPhugeFan]

It never occured to me to switch between ortho and perspective in Blender . Anyway I'm glad this is not a bug in either of the two programs used. I'll check what this focal length thingy is and see how to deal with it. Thanks for the reply.

[Aranuvir]

Just To be clear: on the final render you want to have perspective. To simply illustrate the differences, make a new scene. add two cubes and move them around a little in the x and y directions. Then press numpad 1 for front view and numpad 5 to toggle ortho and perspective. Numpad 5 only influences the viewport, not the camera! For the final render you need to position the camera and play around with the focal length setting of the camera, depending how much stretching you want.

[punkduck]

It never occured to me to switch between ortho and perspective in Blender . Anyway I'm glad this is not a bug in either of the two programs used. I'll check what this focal length thingy is and see how to deal with it. Thanks for the reply.

It is also possible to switch on orthograpic mode in Blender. But that is mostly used for technical purposes. So this does not make much sense for natural photos. The pre-defined focal length of 35mm in Blender is like our eyes. But fashion or model photography is normally done with a length up to 120mm. Otherwise the you get the fish-eye effect. Using a big length will solve most of your problems and you will have the perspective effect as well.

As an example, we have a topic "fashion rendering" started by Joel Palmius.

http://www.makehumancommunity.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=13770

In this picture you can see how it is normally done. The length of the lense is even used for portraits.

http://www.makehumancommunity.org/forum/download/file.php?id=3783&mode=view

[ZPhugeFan]

Just To be clear: on the final render you want to have perspective.

I had no intention of working/rendering only in ortho from now on. Don't worry. I have only worked on inanimate objects or imaginary creatures in Blender up untill now, so that's why I never noticed big differences in the appearance of objects between ortho and perspective. I usualy work in perspective and switch to ortho where I need precision.

It is also possible to switch on orthograpic mode in Blender. But that is mostly used for technical purposes. So this does not make much sense for natural photos.

Yes, that's what I've used ortho for before.

The pre-defined focal length of 35mm in Blender is like our eyes.

Huh.. didn't know that You learn something knew everyday. And thanks for the links.