A Noob doing something wrong exporting Makehuman to Blender

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A Noob doing something wrong exporting Makehuman to Blender

Postby LadyAly » Thu Apr 12, 2018 9:27 pm

Hi All,

First and foremost.... I am completely new to 3D graphics, animation and rendering. And I am trying to teach myself. So bare with me, please! I would like to learn how to create my own models and clothes for things like Second Life and dabble a little into 3D animated videos...

I am using Makehuman v 1.1.1 to create my models, and Blender v 2.79 for the animating, etc. I've got most of the Add-ons that have been suggested MakeClothes, MakeTarget, mhx2v027, MH Community Plug-ins, etc.

I am absolutely certain that this issue has been covered countless times. But I've scoured over everything and have not been able to find the answer.... So Im going to try just asking!

When in MH I've been trying to use some of the high heel assets. I've had this particular issue with a couple of shoes (e.g. "elvs knee high boots1" by Elvaerwyn and "female knee boots" by punkduck) - And I'm not trying to single anyone out, I think these assets are awesome, which is why I'd like to get them "working"). And unfortunately I'm going to be picking on the "female knee boots" for my example... sorry punkduck :(

When I load them onto the model in MH - the foot part of the shoe falls below the z-axis (as shown in "Image 1")

Screenshot (52).png
Image 1 - Make Human - "female knee high boots" by punkduck with " **lingerie** stockings01" by Marco_105


Then, when I import the model into blender, using the mhx2 exporter with the "feet on ground" option selected.

I get the same translation in the z-axis plus something else... (see image 2 - I've already adjusted the z-axis in the picture)

Screenshot (51).png
Image 2 - Blender - "female knee high boots" by punkduck with " **lingerie** stockings01" by Marco_105



So... here's what I would like to know

1. How can I fix the issue in MH, so feet & shoe are on the z-axis (i.e. the ground)
- I had a slightly different but similar issue with a couple of other heels. Which was solved by adding a special foot pose into the .mhclo file. But that doesn't work here...

2. How do I fix the feet sticking out of the shoe in Blender.

3. What can I be doing in the future to prevent this or to cause it (once I start making and sharing my own).

As I said... I sure someone has already asked about this... but if people could send me in the right direction or suggest some great tutorials, I'd be very grateful!!!


P.S. On a bit of a side.... Can anyone explain to me how to load MH assets directly into blender to be placed onto a pre-existing & pre-designed MH rig. I'd like to see how some other outfits/assets would look rendered. But I'd like to be able to do it without all the importing & exporting wait time... Thanks again!!!! :D
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Re: A Noob doing something wrong exporting Makehuman to Blen

Postby Aranuvir » Fri Apr 13, 2018 10:32 pm

Some short answers:
There is currently no way to correct feet on ground for shoes, here is the feature request: http://bugtracker.makehumancommunity.org/issues/940

When you model heels you can either use face masks for the parts of the feet, that should not be shown, or you can use the special foot pose: http://bugtracker.makehumancommunity.org/issues/913

An asset provides an obj file, which, of course can be imported in Blender. But in most cases you will, probably have to perform a bit of manual fitting of the clothing, which can be assumed to be more annoying, than this export&import thingy...
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Re: A Noob doing something wrong exporting Makehuman to Blen

Postby loki1950 » Sat Apr 14, 2018 1:44 am

And you can correct the position of the feet/shoes on the ground plane within blender but moving the whole model up-ward in the z direction I have not any issues with animations doing that.

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Re: A Noob doing something wrong exporting Makehuman to Blen

Postby LadyAly » Mon Apr 16, 2018 2:34 am

loki1950 wrote:And you can correct the position of the feet/shoes on the ground plane within blender but moving the whole model up-ward in the z direction I have not any issues with animations doing that.

Enjoy the Choice :)



Hi Loki1950,

Thank you for the reply. I had already done the z-axis shift in image 2 (it's hard to see but the line that the sole of the boots is sitting on is the z-axis).

The issue I'm having is that the foot is coming out of the ankle of the boots. If I use a special foot pose (or if I modify the foot rotation, in blender) it causes the foot & the boot to change... picture "image 2's foot toes pointing down at 45 degrees. Well the boot's toe would also point down at the same angle... but the foot's toes would still be protruding out of the ankle area of the boot.

I have read on other posts that the designers of these boots have written into them the relations and used deleted groupings. But, for some reason, what I have is not actually deleting the foot toes nor assigning control of the foot armatures to the boot...

And I guess that is what Im actually asking how to do... redelete the toes and re-assign the armatures...
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Re: A Noob doing something wrong exporting Makehuman to Blen

Postby Elvaerwyn » Mon Apr 16, 2018 4:30 am

Would like to hear more of your workflow and expectations, but some more food for thought is that alphas are utilized in second life/opensim and similar universes. Most times the alpha is written to exclude the foot portion completely in favor of showing the boot/shoe or false foot in a sandal, or heeled shoe. These alphas can be created in gimp and even in sl itself. Furthermore in SL etc there is option on your upload to include a hover* in the avatar itself to compensate for foot on floor issues that persist, and also an ability to edit your avatar ingame in a similar fashion to editing the outfit of the avatar its Hover* height perceived in world that changes dynamically. I am unsure why the foot would show when exported in the usual sl manner of a dae file with clothing on it to blender, as it does not do this with my export/import process at all. In reference to re assigning an alpha to the foot, it depends where you intend to bring it after blender really or what you wish to do with it in blender for that matter.
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Re: A Noob doing something wrong exporting Makehuman to Blen

Postby LadyAly » Mon Apr 23, 2018 8:15 pm

Elvaerwyn wrote:Would like to hear more of your workflow and expectations...


Sorry for the delay in response... I was getting frustrated with this, so I moved onto some else for a while...

My workflow so far has been very basic & beginner. Just been following what a lot of tutorials have been doing. But here is what I've been doing...

Make & heavily modify avatar in MH ---> Load Clothes onto avatar in MH --> Save newly clothed Avatar (avatarname (x) [x=new variant #] --> Export avatar using Mhx2 (feet on ground checked & units set to meters) --> Import into Blender using Mhx2 Addon, with user overrides.

But I get both issues in both Blender & MH... I was wondering what, if anything, I can do to solve this with the pre-existing clothes in MH & to prevent this with clothes I (eventually) make make.

Elvaerwyn wrote:I am unsure why the foot would show when exported in the usual sl manner of a dae file with clothing on it to blender, as it does not do this with my export/import process at all.


Could some of the issues I'm having in Blender be because I am using the Mhx2 export/import. Should I be using one of the other types that gives me the dae file?

Elvaerwyn wrote: In reference to re assigning an alpha to the foot, it depends where you intend to bring it after blender really or what you wish to do with it in blender for that matter.


At the moment, I'm not really doing much of anything but learning the programs and how to do things with them. Eventually, I would like to be able to use the avatar in things like SL/OpenSim. Intermixing other peoples' items (like the boots) with things that I create myself. But there are some other things that I'd like to do before getting too ahead of myself... like upgrading my PC.

Would loading the object directly into Blender and then adding to the avatar change anything or work better?

I hope this answers your questions...
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Re: A Noob doing something wrong exporting Makehuman to Blen

Postby Elvaerwyn » Mon Apr 23, 2018 9:31 pm

I can understand your frustration, until something is right, everything appears to be wrong! Im not sure what they intend to do with the mhx2 format personally, so I have found uploading a dae file from mh to be my best option. To do this, i do the same as you essentially; i edit a mh model, load it with clothing and accessories or leave it nude. Then I export the file as a dae file from mh with feet on ground- z up and facing x, with local = global and meter as scale units. I then import the collada file to blender and it will be exactly as it was in makehuman give or take some blender idiosyncrasies.(note that I have it in the t pose stance and the sl basic skeleton is inside the body). I tried to reproduce your error and was thoroughly unable to do so. Even in the mhx2 format the feet are in the shoes as intended, with alpha masking the foot area that would normally be visible.
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Re: A Noob doing something wrong exporting Makehuman to Blen

Postby punkduck » Fri May 11, 2018 11:12 pm

LadyAly wrote:
But I get both issues in both Blender & MH... I was wondering what, if anything, I can do to solve this with the pre-existing clothes in MH & to prevent this with clothes I (eventually) make.

Could some of the issues I'm having in Blender be because I am using the Mhx2 export/import. Should I be using one of the other types that gives me the dae file?

At the moment, I'm not really doing much of anything but learning the programs and how to do things with them. Eventually, I would like to be able to use the avatar in things like SL/OpenSim. Intermixing other peoples' items (like the boots) with things that I create myself. But there are some other things that I'd like to do before getting too ahead of myself... like upgrading my PC.



Why not asking the author ;)

This looooong "Daily life of models" text in the gallery section shows that the deletion of the unvisible parts is normally working. I used this several times.

By the way, it is also highly recommended to use the delete groups (deletion of parts for all assets). Otherwise legs, arms will peek through the clothes here and there at least when you pose the character.

I created the boots this way, because it is very simple method for most users. It works fine for all "closed" kind of shoes. If you really want to squeeze the feet into the boots by rotating them with a target or with a bone, I had to redesign them very big in the foot-region.

Your problem could have this reason:

http://www.makehumancommunity.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=15593&start=6

=> Do not unmark the "Hide faces under clothes" box in "Geometries/Clothes". Otherwise also the export of mhx2 will not work properly.

So for your questions:
  1. best to be done in Blender, even if you use shoes with a flat sole, they are under the ground
  2. see above, hopefully there are no other errors in the code
  3. You can work with a foot pose. But it is more complicated than without. For heel sandals it might make sense normally. For the heels I wrote a comment: "You are not only standing on the tip of the toes when you wear heels --- one reason because these heels are unhealthy is the narrow toebox. And so I not only changed the pose, I also pushed the toes together. It looks more elegant, like in reality."
  4. (additional question): The export of the asset with mhx2 does not use the original one. It changes the asset until it fits to you character. So it must be exported at least for the same character.

    As you can see I modelled my girls with a lot of extras (like strand hair, own textures etc.). Not to repeat this work, I export the same character but then re-assign the clothes to the "beautified" ones. Be aware that in this case you need a character with no skin deleted! When I do a scene, I sometimes have to delete these parts after dressing and before posing in Blender. Sometimes the vertices must stay, especially if you are using techniques like shrinkwrapping or cloth collision.

    This is, how I dress my characters:
    http://www.makehumancommunity.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=13729

    You also can import the .obj file of an asset to Blender. But mostly these clothes will fit to the male/female/neutral base mesh and not to your character AND you have to know where to put the textures and how to create a node setup.

Feel free to ask. Most problems I also got when I started. Just an example: I needed 3 days to understand that I've to export a character with skeleton ... (without it does nothing except using memory space) :lol:
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