Makehuman as plugin for blender 2.5

[cinmay]

Hi. This might have been discussed before but I could not find anything about it.

Now that the limitations of the blender event system and python api are being removed in blender v2.5 is anyone working on or are there any plans to make a makehuman plugin for blender 2.5?

Ofcourse I'm not talking about abandoning makehuman as a standalone application but it would be relay cool and helpful to be able to use, shape and pose characters directly in blender.

I don't think this would be to much work either as much of makehuman is written in python and can be compiled as a module.

Another cool thing is that as I understand it anything can be animated with the new blender animation api so i think it would be possible to actually animate characters only using the pose targets so we would not need to rig the character with bones.

[Manuel]

Not exactly a plugin.
As soon 1.0 is completed, the plans is to write a good "communication script" with Blender.

Regards,

Manuel

[StTheo]

The idea of a good communication script seems pretty neat. Would this include armature support?

Actually, I just had an idea about armature support. Makehuman has built-in pose restraints for joints, yes? You could take these and apply them towards the armature for the sake of inverse kinematic joint restraints. (Or at least as an option upon transfer from makehuman to blender)

[m.e]

There seem to be several threads going as to makehuman/blender interfacing. One of these is in the scripting forum. As it is, blender is working towards 2.5 and makehuman towards the new 1.0, and both of these will drastically affect any interfacing, so it may be a bit early to make any moves. The following repeats a bit what I have written in other posts...

The current alpha of MH has an integrated user interface via some C++ code which generates a Python module called mh. The C++ code calls OpenGL and cannot co-exist with blender as blender also has its own OpenGL interface. What I have started on (see the other thread) is a 'fake' mh Python module that does not do anything and in particular does not call any C++ or OpenGL. This can then operate in 'headless' mode and get called by blender (running under blender's Python interpreter not MH's).

Let me add that what I had in mind was to use Blender's IPOs (or whatever they call them in 2.5) to drive the MH pose and expression systems. This would imply a blender interface that would allow setting the pose and expression values (lots of floats as far as I can see, so an interface with lots of sliders would work). The values could then be captured by keyframes and played back as part of the animation; blender would interpolate automatically. The vertexes, faces etc could then be puilled back from MH into blender. This approach would imply, I think, not using blender's armature and skinning system.

There is the interesting question of objects held in the character's hand and the like. To do this it is necessary for locations (and orientations) dependent on part of the makehuman figure to be reflected back into blender so that the 'child' blender object's location and orientation copy the "parent"'s.

I've written a test of concept; code is at viewtopic.php?f=9&t=201&p=3316#p3316

[cinmay]

Well I can confirm that your script works. Very cool.
This is exactly what I was looking for. I think you are right that both blender and makehuman is a bit early in development to start to make some sort of integration but blender 2.5 is going to be released in about 5 weeks so I think we can start planing it. My main motivation for making makehuman as a plugin is to make a comfortable pipeline when I work. I find the "pose -> export -> import -> check pose - > pose correction -> export -> import -> cleanup" work flow to be a bit hard to use. Especially when the character interacts with objects and the environment inside blender. I find it hard to pose in 3 dimensions and having it fit with my concept inside blender. I think it would be a lot easier if I could pose a character using blenders own armature system.

My suggestion for interacting with the make human character from blender is to make a armature with a bone setup similar to the one make human will probably have because of it's export functionality and have the bones drive the pose values in makehuman.

There is a good chance that I will start a "big" (well big for me as 1 person) project using blender and makehuman and I believe it will be worth my time to make such a plugin. I hope that others will be able to join me in making such a plugin.

Ps. Cool video by the way (From m.e's homepage) http://thereisnoend.org/2009/09/04/index.html#mh1

[cinmay]

I have been trying to sum up some of the arguments for and against pluggin vs exporter
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=166916

[Manuel]

I have been trying to sum up some of the arguments for and against pluggin vs exporter
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=166916

thx for post, but I don't agree with most of "cons" you wrote about exporter for makehuman.
Anyway, before reply you, to avoid misunderstand, what do you mean with "Exporter for Makehuman "?

makehuman ->export-> blender

or

blender -> export-> makehuman

?

Cheers,

Manuel