How To Move A Character From MakeHuman To Blender

[Tanny]

I've created a character in MakeHuman. Could someone please explain how to get the character in to Blender?

I've watched a couple videos, read a couple pages, they all give different information, and my copy of MH 1.1 appears not to have the needed Blender exchange format. FBX export/import seems not to work. That is, the usual 3d industry file exchange mess.

Many thanks!

[joepal]

Did you find the FAQ?

The relevant section for MHX is here: http://www.makehumancommunity.org/wiki/ ... d_later%3F

Or the download page, which links to a zip containing most relevant plugins. The download page is here: http://www.makehumancommunity.org/conte ... loads.html

[Aranuvir]

Reading the own posts can be helpful, too...

http://www.makehumancommunity.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=13560&p=35240#p35240

[Tanny]

Did you find the FAQ?

The relevant section for MHX is here: http://www.makehumancommunity.org/wiki/ ... d_later%3F

Mac OSX not even mentioned in this FAQ.

When I "install 9_export_mhx2 to the MakeHuman plugins folder" the MakeHuman Exchange (mhx2) format never shows up as an option in MH.

There's no point in having a FAQ if it can't even explain where the destination folder is, there's no point in having a forum if every question is met with "read the FAQ", and there's no point in having MH if it can not seemlessly exchange data with the external program, Blender, MH was designed to work with.

Verdict: Not ready for prime time. Maybe someday, but not today. Simply not worth the bother....

[RobBaer]

I've created a character in MakeHuman. Could someone please explain how to get the character in to Blender?

I've watched a couple videos, read a couple pages, they all give different information, and my copy of MH 1.1 appears not to have the needed Blender exchange format. FBX export/import seems not to work. That is, the usual 3d industry file exchange mess.

Many thanks!

There are multiple ways to do this, including FBX. If you are having specific issues, perhaps we can help you address them. The collada exporter also should work. Again, if it does not, please share the specifics of the fail. Even .obj files will get some of the assets to Blender.

Each of these has idiosyncrasies because FBX is proprietary, and because Collada spec is weakly evolved. The .obj format does not support all the information you wish to move to Blender. The problems with the workflow chains is not always on MH's end, but sometimes resides with the Blender importer. Still, this is a very possible task, and we can probably help you if you provide specifics of where things fail.

As others have said, Thomas Larsson's .mhx2 plugin is generally the easiest way to do this, but most of us are not on the Mac platform, so we don't have masses of experience. Here is the folder that I think should work on the MakeHuman side of the .mhx2, but I don't have a Mac right now to verify it:

Copy the 9_export_mhx2 folder to the plugins folder here:
Macintosh HD/Applications/MakeHuman.app/Contents/Resources/plugins

Hope it's what you need.

[Tanny]

Rob, thanks for your helpful note.

Yes, I agree, the problem is not MH specifically. It's the immaturity of the 3D industry as a whole, particularly the failure to create reliable data transfer standards. If the problem was just MH, that could be easily solved by jumping to another application.

As best I can tell, few members here are animating their MH characters. If that's true (corrections welcomed), then that tells us that most MH users have arrived at the same conclusion I'm coming to, animating MH characters is possible, but not worth the bother.

That would be fine if there was some other use which MH characters can be put to, but so far I don't see what that is. Well, ok, many users seem entertained by rendering their MH characters in to static 2d images. There's nothing wrong with that, and fun is good. But for myself, if I'm going to work in 2d I'd rather stick to high quality photos.

The most interesting and accessible use of MH characters I can come up with at the moment is to make them speak with the program CrazyTalk (available for Mac and Windows, base price $30, if I remember correctly). This is a kind of compromise, because you can only animate the head of your character, but you can do so in a way that is easy and cheap. Hey, if I'm not complaining about the interface you know it must be pretty easy.

So far I've detected little interest in CrazyTalk here and on other 3D forums, so I'm not clear how acceptable of a compromise this would be for most 3d users. If anyone is interested in exploring, they might try checking out the CrazyTalk tutorial videos on YouTube, which I found to be very well done.

In short, for the time being at least, it appears CrazyTalk will be where I use my MH characters. If anyone should wish to discuss that, happy to oblige.

[wolgade]

As best I can tell, few members here are animating their MH characters. If that's true (corrections welcomed), then that tells us that most MH users have arrived at the same conclusion I'm coming to, animating MH characters is possible, but not worth the bother.

No, I already told you that it takes too long to render. If you want photorealism you choose cycles as render engine. A single image can take hours to render even if you use your GPU for this purpose. Let's assume your machine renders eight images within 24 hours. You need three days for one second (24 frames/s) of your animation, a month for 10 seconds, a year for two minutes. Got the problem? That's why Hollywood uses render farms.

[RobBaer]

As best I can tell, few members here are animating their MH characters. If that's true (corrections welcomed), then that tells us that most MH users have arrived at the same conclusion I'm coming to, animating MH characters is possible, but not worth the bother.

I know you have already seen this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXbq9wU ... e=youtu.be

But the community as a whole does all kinds of things, including animation, with MakeHuman. Some of this is hobbie level and some at the professional level.

MakeHuman is at the very upstream end of most toolchains (workflows) that include game engines (most using animation), OpenSim (the same), the video you've already seen above (and you are right it's awesome because its the first example I remembered to cite for reply), short demo's of sports maneuvers, and the list goes on and on.

I'm sure whatever idea you have for photo-realistic characters could move to reality faster by starting with MakeHuman. Animation or still. Using a render farm for rendering as the pros do, doesn't keep you from using MH at the start of your project. If you use Blender, take a look at the MakeWalk tool.

[Tanny]

No, I already told you that it takes too long to render. If you want photorealism you choose cycles as render engine. A single image can take hours to render even if you use your GPU for this purpose. Let's assume your machine renders eight images within 24 hours. You need three days for one second (24 frames/s) of your animation, a month for 10 seconds, a year for two minutes. Got the problem? That's why Hollywood uses render farms.

Didn't have this problem in Cheetah. And at that time I was working on an 8 year old laptop with 2gb of RAM.

If it's taking three days to render one second of video, the problem is with Blender. Yes, I get the problem, you've not done much animation, or you've used the wrong tools, or you're just determined to object to anything I might type.

[Tanny]

But the community as a whole does all kinds of things, including animation, with MakeHuman. Some of this is hobbie level and some at the professional level.

Ok, fair enough, but whatever MH users are doing animation appear not to be sharing it here. My impression derived from the small scale of this forum, and the relative absence of animation, may thus be incorrect. I can see that.

the video you've already seen above (and you are right it's awesome because its the first example I remembered to cite for reply), short demo's of sports maneuvers, and the list goes on and on.

Does the list of MH character animation go on and on? Where? I got the impression that video was offered as a sample because it's one of the few available here to point to. I also get the impression those suggesting I should dig through all the arcane absurdities involved in this process of animation have declined to do so themselves. If true, that's cool, I get it.

I'm sure whatever idea you have for photo-realistic characters could move to reality faster by starting with MakeHuman. Animation or still.

Well, there's Adobe Fuse, but that doesn't really solve the problem. Again, it appears to me that the best way (that I know of) to animate photo realistic characters is to use real high def photos, and then animate them (to the limited degree possible) using CrazyTalk and Morphage (Mac app).

If you use Blender, take a look at the MakeWalk tool.

I have looked at both and found both to be more trouble than they're worth, at least for my personal taste. Others will come to different conclusions of course, based on their own situations.

I like MH generally, but can't really find a lot of use for the characters that it creates. Again, the problem is not really MH, but the 3d industry more generally. It's just not ready for the larger market beyond those who do 3d because they enjoy arcane technical challenges. I know I'm supposed to feel guilty about being part of that larger market, but as it turns out, apparently I don't.

Anyway, no big deal, and who cares really. Life goes on without 3d. Something to look forward to for the future.