Have a look at some interesting things I've found while researching an area of 3D modeling UI called “Sketch Based UI." The following concepts and papers were presented at various Siggraph and Eurograph conferences which could, in theory, be turned into some very interesting and user friendly tools for MakeHuman.
Sketching Hairstyles:
Site link - http://sweb.cityu.edu.hk/hongbofu/index.htm
Research Paper (PDF) - http://sweb.cityu.edu.hk/hongbofu/doc/sbim07_hairstyle_sketching.pdf
YouTube Video – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwa37QvTMYs&feature=channel_page
The problem with any sort of hair style creation is how to get it out of MakeHuman and into other applications. This could be solved by converting the hair particles to a solid mesh object somehow, for export as an .obj file similar to Poser and Daz Studio hair objects. Alternatively I believe the Collada file format does support either dynamic hair or clothing, though not both (It may have changed since I last checked.) I just can’t remember which at the moment. Another possibility is that someone could code a specific export plug-in for the application of their choice.
3D Garment Sketching / Creation:
Site link – http://artis.imag.fr/Publications/2007/TWBCH07/
Research Paper (PDF) – http://artis.imag.fr/Publications/2007/TWBCH07/sketch.pdf
Video – http://artis.imag.fr/Publications/2007/TWBCH07/sketch.avi
A technique like this one would be great for creating simple garments that could be further edited in more general 3D modeling programs (Blender, trueSpace, Silo, etc.).
Editing of 3D models with a Sketch Based Interface:
Research Paper (PDF) – http://www.cs.rutgers.edu/~nealen/research/sc_preprint.pdf
YouTube Video – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6G2YSP9Ad_k&feature=channel
SilSketch site link – (M. I. A.)
The potential benefits of a system like this are that it would allow users to create their own morph targets directly inside MH. Early iterations of the tool could be used by developers to help speed creation of the ethnic morph database without having to rely primarily on the use of Blender or any outside applications, which may speed up some development time. Later more stable versions when released publicly, would allow end users to create their own morphs, further shortening the creation process for artists when exporting to other apps.
If any or all of these techniques (or ones similar) were to be implemented I think it would also be necessary to enable some kind of library system so that you could save and load hair, clothes, and morphs separately from the figure mesh. This would have the added benefit of allowing users to share their own content with each other, potentially giving the whole user community access to a huge amount of material.
That’s all for now.
