Feature Request: Anatomically Correct Skeleton and Muscles

[kinghauken]

I would like to suggest a change to how bodies are created in MakeHuman.

What if they were built from the ground up? The base figure could have an anatomically correct skeleton that morphs with changes in age/size to the body.
From there muscles overlay the skeleton and morph with changes to the body. The skin then overlaps them both and changes with the muscles and skeleton.

Great care should be made so that the skulls match the shape of the face for ethnicity and changes made by the user to head shape and facial features.

The individual bones and individual muscle groups should be separate objects so you can show/hide parts.

This way the MakeHuman renders are completely anatomically correct.

[bogdan666]

I think that is not a simple task, because for the muscles and a skeletal system to behave correctly you would need a real time physical skin/gravity/flesh simulation, but as a workaround you could use shape keys and fake muscle behavior for different poses/animations....for this you will have to use blender and become an anatomist .

But generally speaking (don't want to hijack the post) from experiences I have made recently with "muscles"=shape keys and the problems I've encountered:

The bodies really need an optimization (topology, bone weights...) that allows for better deformations without having to resort to the brute method of further subdividing the mesh, which is a no go in real time environments like game engines.
(up to 100k triangles per naked character model is ok with the current hardware, but the body has to look as realistic as possible).
The face topology needs an update, because it lacks realism and individuality and it's from 2014 like the body mesh. Female characters look ok/sometimes even cute, but males mostly look like from a horror show

The mesh topology should resemble what we see now in DAZ3d as it is the state of the art in human body realism.The uv map layout has to be completely reworked, because the skin stretches too much at the armpits,knees etc.
I don't really know how to do it in a good way as there is lack of space on the texture map (even 4k is not enough). Maybe it would be time to split the skin in multiple textures like CC3 and DAZ3d are doing, so the armpits,knees,butts etc. have more space.

Then we need reference poses for every imaginable limb rotation or body deformation in order to achieve a base for further refinement by creating bone driven shape keys for correct flesh and muscle simulation with different poses (in blender for use in blender or game engines)

With one subdivision applied + some emergency changes of the uv layout + emergency reskinning of the affected areas + some reweighting of some bones + adding some shape keys I was able to make a somehow decent looking female.
The problem is not with standing poses, but when the bones are rotated too much (sitting,arms up,yoga..)

I've been playing around with posing of my character and creations of different muscle shape keys, but it's the part where I'm really struggling as I don't know how the bones are meant to be posed in order to look realistic and my custom made shape keys look somehow off nonetheless, because it's really difficult to make realistically deforming characters. I don't even know how many shape keys I need. (one for each rotation axis doesn't seem to be enough) I've done 5 shape keys for one arm alone and it still doesn't seem to look smooth/ realistic with some poses. I really need some references for poses like arm up, arm back, arm forward, leg forward, leg back, leg to the side + every anatomically correct rotation limit as a base for doing some general shape keys, which are fool proof for every situation without needing "dirty solutions"=too many unnecessary and maybe even redundant shape keys that look off anyway....

I know all the technical sides, but the anatomic part is really difficult to master.

Why is there no cooperation with people like the creator of mb lab or some other "anatomy expert". Something should really happen. At least we need some place and people for exchanging some anatomic/technical knowledge...

[kinghauken]

Perhaps MakeHuman could work with these guys? https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mi ... full-color

They have the anatomy knowledge and are working on a 3D human body project. I would take what they have and incorporate MakeHuman's dynamics.

And to your point about the skin, it would deform just as it does now, it's just that the muscles would deform along with it.

[bogdan666]

They are using DAZ3d for their 3d models, so no way to go around DAZ3d if you want to see realistic bodies

As for the muscles with skeleton: There is even a blender addon for it.
It's called Blender X-Muscle system (youtube channel k44dev), where it seems that the muscles push/deform the skin.

[loki1950]

They appear to use DAZ3D to create their models which is a commercial product that also is incompatible with our own licencing structure you can read the fine print of DAZ3D's terms of use you will find that you do not in fact own the models you design in that you can not sell them except though their own marketplace.

Enjoy the Choice

[kinghauken]

They are using DAZ3d for their 3d models, so no way to go around DAZ3d if you want to see realistic bodies

As for the muscles with skeleton: There is even a blender addon for it.
It's called Blender X-Muscle system (youtube channel k44dev), where it seems that the muscles push/deform the skin.

Would the skeleton work with any MakeHuman exports? Or does it come with its own generic body?

[loki1950]

Their skeleton is covered by copyright we would need to pay to use it under license probably thousands of dollars yes that much.

Enjoy the Choice

[kinghauken]

Is there no way to search for any 3D Modelers/Medical students who would be interested in joining the team and creating the skeleton from scratch?

It would be a great feature for MakeHuman. If combined with the muscles, it could improve the quality of the MakeHuman export.

[loki1950]

The current mesh was based on about 10,000 body scans done by a Russian research group about ten years ago.

Enjoy the Choice

[bogdan666]

The mesh itself is ok, but the topology needs an update to allow for better deformations.


By the way I've analysed the daz mesh today at it seems like daz characters can achieve smoothly looking bodies and realistic deformations with only <33 k triangles (naked mesh) and a total of 94 bone driven shape keys. (in blender)
With MH models however I need at least 140k triangles (one subdivision) for a look that is slightly smoother than with daz + an unknown amount of bone driven shape keys which have to be made yet.
What surprised me was that daz characters have no breast bones, in contrast to MH characters (default rig)