Target for Fingers

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Target for Fingers

Postby Geoff » Mon Dec 28, 2020 1:16 pm

Hi from Australia.
Let me say what a great piece of software MakeHuman is.
With three days experience with it (V1.2.0) and two and a half days of Blender (V2.91) I have managed to create numerous poses and copying the brow example for MakeTargetV2 I have made targets covering earlobes, winking and blinking. As I want to use the program to create figures to 3D print for my 1/32 scale slot car track these targets are probably of little use other than learning to use the MakeTarget tool. My idea was to create targets that manipulate the fingers but I cannot find any information as to whether this is possible. Any information would be greatly appreciated.
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Re: Target for Fingers

Postby loki1950 » Mon Dec 28, 2020 3:35 pm

It would be much simpler to just pose the finger bones as targets actually change the the dimensions of the bones while you want to change the position of the bones relative to each other to create various hand shapes.

Enjoy the Choice :)
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Re: Target for Fingers

Postby RobBaer » Mon Dec 28, 2020 4:35 pm

loki1950 wrote:It would be much simpler to just pose the finger bones as targets actually change the the dimensions of the bones while you want to change the position of the bones relative to each other to create various hand shapes.

Enjoy the Choice :)


And, changing the position of the bones requires going to the pose tab and adding a skeleton which you then move to Blender where you can use the bones to change the fingers.
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Re: Target for Fingers

Postby Geoff » Mon Dec 28, 2020 11:08 pm

RobBaer wrote:
loki1950 wrote:It would be much simpler to just pose the finger bones as targets actually change the the dimensions of the bones while you want to change the position of the bones relative to each other to create various hand shapes.

Enjoy the Choice :)


And, changing the position of the bones requires going to the pose tab and adding a skeleton which you then move to Blender where you can use the bones to change the fingers.



Thanks for the quick replies. I have been using this method but as I have already saved 20 different basic poses with just finger changes it seemed that using this method I will end up with a library of thousands of poses and that as targets appear to me to be intended as localised mesh modifiers, then fingers would be an obvious area to "target".
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Re: Target for Fingers

Postby loki1950 » Tue Dec 29, 2020 1:04 am

Yes targets are localised changes to the mesh but there is no change to positions of the skeletal bones so yes you will have a large library of hand poses going the target way will not work as I mentioned as only the dimensions of the various finger segments is changed not there relative positions ie: fist,pointing,grasping or spayed.

Enjoy the Choice :)
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Re: Target for Fingers

Postby joepal » Tue Dec 29, 2020 6:46 am

You could import a character with a rig, pose it and apply the pose as a shape key and then rename the shape key to what maketarget calls it. This way you can create targets from poses. As far as I remember, there's nothing magic with the maketarget shape key, it's just a shape key with a certain name.
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Re: Target for Fingers

Postby Geoff » Tue Dec 29, 2020 8:28 am

Sorry, do not know what a shapekey is(more reading required).
I think Loki1950 was, like me, overthinking the importance of the skeletal placeholders but the software takes care of them. I have attached my right finger close target and also a leg mover target.
Attachments
right_leg_sweep.target.txt
delete.txt from filename
(71.18 KiB) Downloaded 197 times
right_finger_close.target.txt
delete .txt from filename
(33.56 KiB) Downloaded 216 times
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Re: Target for Fingers

Postby RobBaer » Thu Dec 31, 2020 12:01 am

Your goal seems to be to change the fingers within MakeHuman. Perhaps you are trying to make a MakeHuman addon that is similar to the "utilities | expression mixer" for hands? MakeTarget and Joel's hint would help you accomplish this.

If not, know that typically we think of MakeHuman as being Upstream, not downstream, from Blender in the workflow. The hands/finger positions would typically be done downstream ion Blender .

I was trying to point you at the "pose/Animate > Skeleton" tab where you can add a skeleton, not the ""pose/Animate > pose" tab . If your human has a skeleton, you can easily create many, many different finger/hand positions using the MakeHuman skeleton (bones) in Blender to reposition the mesh in Blender. These many positions are easily "saved" using keyframes of an animation in a single .blend file. You can render just the keyframe of interest if you end-goal is a static image. And yes, MakeTarget would probably be the way to make them into shape keys which are essentially Blender's version of what MakeHuman calls "Targets".

My thought is that hand positioning is best done in Blender (or some other downstream program) with bones not in MakeHuman with shape keys (targets), but the "utilities | expression mixer" tab is a good counter example of other ways to think about it.
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Re: Target for Fingers

Postby Geoff » Thu Dec 31, 2020 7:03 am

Thank you for your reply and suggested workflow, but as you point out, MakeHuman has targets for facial expressions and a number of other modifications that due to the nature of a slider, have a multitude of adjustments within each slider so by simply moving sliders within MakeHuman a considerable amount of work is carried out to the mesh before it needs to go to Blender. As mentioned I have now been using MakeHuman and Blender for less than a week. With no idea about Blender I decided to watch video tutorials but the problem is the interface had changed so much from tutorial versions to what was on my screen.
Whilst I am aware of some of the things that Blender is capable of, at this point my requirement for MakeHuman is to create people of varying genders, sizes and poses to be exported as STL files, scaled down to approx 54mm high, sliced and 3D printed.
When I enquired about targeting fingers I was thinking along the lines of closing the fingers for 3D printing. Once I realised a .target file was simply a set of co-ordinates I felt any target was possible. That is why I made the leg sweep to see if the clothes would follow. Since posting the samples I have made over 50 targets.

If for example you create a new model, go to poses, select Sit01, the left arm crashes through the left knee if your model has a gender less than 95% female but with a left arm up target the crash can be resolved all within MakeHuman.
The Benchmark pose has a problem with fingers intersecting but is easily resolved with a tickle from the left arm down and right arm down targets.

grab_2020-12-31_17.35.38-small.png


grab_2020-12-31_17.35.50-small.png


grab_2020-12-31_17.32.02-small.png


grab_2020-12-31_17.32.18-small.png
Geoff
 
Posts: 12
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Re: Target for Fingers

Postby Geoff » Thu Dec 31, 2020 7:08 am

Thank you for your reply and suggested workflow, but as you point out, MakeHuman has targets for facial expressions and a number of other modifications that due to the nature of a slider, have a multitude of adjustments within each slider so by simply moving sliders within MakeHuman a considerable amount of work is carried out to the mesh before it needs to go to Blender. As mentioned I have now been using MakeHuman and Blender for less than a week. With no idea about Blender I decided to watch video tutorials but the problem is the interface had changed so much from tutorial versions to what was on my screen.
Whilst I am aware of some of the things that Blender is capable of, at this point my requirement for MakeHuman is to create people of varying genders, sizes and poses to be exported as STL files, scaled down to approx 54mm high, sliced and 3D printed.
When I enquired about targeting fingers I was thinking along the lines of closing the fingers for 3D printing. Once I realised a .target file was simply a set of co-ordinates I felt any target was possible. That is why I made the leg sweep to see if the clothes would follow. Since posting the samples I have made over 50 targets.

If for example you create a new model, go to poses, select Sit01, the left arm crashes through the left knee if your model has a gender less than 95% female but with a left arm up target the crash can be resolved all within MakeHuman.
The Benchmark pose has a problem with fingers intersecting but is easily resolved with a tickle from the left arm down and right arm down targets.

grab_2020-12-31_17.35.50-small.png


grab_2020-12-31_17.35.38-small.png
Geoff
 
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Joined: Mon Dec 28, 2020 12:28 pm
Location: Australia


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