Blender export

[ThomasL]

A new version of the Blender export script is now available.

http://rapidshare.com/files/288510215/mhx-v01.zip

It will be moved to the main distribution eventually, but I have to become more familiar
with svn first.


The new script has a number of new features:

1. There is a (minimal) user interface. Files are now selected by a file selector
instead of being hardcoded.

2. The script can be registered with Blender. Just copy mhx_import.py to your Blender
scripts follow, and it should appear in the File > Import meny as "MakeHuman (.mhx)".

3. There is an option for rotating the mesh and rig 90 degrees, to get the head up.

4. The rig has been completely remade. It has the following new features.

a. Arm FK and IK.

b. Leg FK and IK, with an inverse foot setup.

c. Finger FK and IK, a la Bassam Kurdali.

d. Gaze bone for eye tracking.

e. Bone layers.

f. Display objects for bones

5. The mesh has a number of shape keys for morphing. Since the morphs were made on the base
mesh, they will work more or less well depending on how much the character deviates from the
base mesh.

The shape keys can be turned off, to reduce load time and file size. This should be done if
you plan on modifying the mesh, e.g. to add clothes, since that will ruin the shape keys anyway.

The weighting and morphs can be modified in the file base03.blend and exported to a new mhxbase.mhx.


Issues:

IK does not work terribly well, especially for the fingers.

One can choose between FK/IK at load time. The choice should be driven by bones instead,
but I have not figured out how to implement driven constraint influence from a Python
script. If somebody has done that, I would be interested to see a code example.

Also shape keys should be driven by bones.

Display objects should be in wireframe, but I haven't figured out how to press the W button
from python. Also, only the outline should be shown.

The Blender import script did not register on my Linux machine, but it works nicely under
Windows (XP).

[HumanMaker]

I can't download it. Can you post a link on mediafire maybe?

[mflerackers]

The latest version is here I think: http://www.makehuman.org/download/mhx-v03.zip.

[cinmay]

Hi can you post a download for your latest work?
Can we put it in to svn so we can follow it on a regular basis? Perhaps even contribute patches?

[ThomasL]

The code has been in svn for about two months. The relevant files start with mhx, or are located in the folder with this name.

[cinmay]

Thanks. I must admit I did look in the subversion repository but I guess I must have been temporarely blind when I looked in the very obvious utils folder

Anyways. I got it working and it looks cool I'm looking forward to see the shapekyes for the rest of the body.
I only encountered 2 problems. I could not get the face rig to work and the path to the texture files is hard coded in to the .mhx file generated by makehuman.

Hope to see more blog posts about progress soon
Good work.

[cinmay]

I am wondering if I can help with the development of the exporter in any way? I can code (Although not good) both python and c++
As I have stated before I believe the main challenge with the exporter is in the poses.
How is the pose system in makehuman going to work and how can we make it work in blender so we don't have to create two separate pose systems?

[ThomasL]

The current shapes have two major limitations:
1. They were created by a non-artist, i.e. me, and can only be a half-descent placeholder for the real
thing.
2. They were made for the default character, and will look better the closer the character is to the default.
Manuel has promised that the pose engine which create custom shapes for each character. Once available, it should be straightforward to "bake" the poses to shapes which can be exported to Blender.

I have not encountered any problems with the shapes themselves (except that some of them are ugly), but the bone driving is sometimes confusing. Especially pydrivers seem to break sometimes. The reason for this is unclear to me. Note also that Blender 2.49b is needed, because there is a python bug in earlier versions.

As for help with the exporter, I think that the main problems at this time are on the artistic rather than on the technical side. If there are any rigging gurus out there, I would appreciate comments on the armature, though.

[bruno.chansou]

Bonne année.
I read the blog there was a problem with the Win7 release on 64-bit.The are problems too with Mac release (I work with an imac with mac osx 10.6 and blender 2.49b). I install the latest version mhximport.py and pydrivers.py (rev 495 and rev 420 on the svn) in blender script folder. And I import a character created with the latest version MakeHuman alpha 4. The import runs correct (no error) but the switches IK FK doesn't work and the facerig doesn't work ( all the bones of Pface)
Sorry for my bad english.
Thanks very much for your work,

Bruno

[ThomasL]

For the facerig to work, you need to load the file pydrivers.py from the utils/mhx folder, preferably before import. This is not very elegant, but it is the way pydrivers work in Blender.

Dynamical FK/IK switching has stopped working for me too, for no good reason. I just committed a version of mhx_import.py, where the FK/IK choice is made at load-time instead.