alpha 8 vs alpha 7

[ferria]

Maybe this is not the place but i have a comment on the quality difference in output from alpha 7 to alpha 8.
It seems to me like the a8 is a step backwards. Perhaps it is due to the desire to make an approachable skin texture which is more easily modified. I took a week or two to make a nice realistic avy with 7. first week was losing the eastern european ambiance and a week to polish the result til i was happy with a pretty , natural non cartoonish human female.

I have used a 8 and have made progress getting it rigged for blender per Bo's tutorial. The tutorial is certainly an improvement over earlier ones for a7. BUT!, i cannot for the life of me get a realistic look. I am not excluding my own lack of experience but i will be using 7 while waiting for an alpha 9 which combines the blendability of 8 and the definition and professional look of A7. I have fine luck taking the MH output straight to OS/SL. Armature work seems dicey exporting back to os/sl from blender in a7 and that is a definite improvement in A8 I would like to clothe and accessorize in blender but I am totally satisfied with the human output of A7. Is it so detailed polygon-wise that it is hard to manage? Is it the texture? I love the makehuman attitude and the work is great. I am not saying that i am anything but a tad bit disappointed with my own personal results with 8 whereas 7 has made some of the best custom meshes i have ever seen. Does any one else concur with my opinion? Modest negativity aside, you guys have excelled, sometimes in the face of other more cartoonish avatars gaining what i think is undeserved favor over MH. Great work, I am so thankful for your efforts. underline the last line several times

Fer

[Ghastly]

Yeah I've been sticking with A7 mesh as well. The topology of the A8 seems weird. Sorta like it was just a cylinder that was shrink wrapped around a human mesh. It seems to be a straight up grid instead of edge loops defining the rib cage, pectorals, abdominals, and hips. Plus there's the genitals issues with the A8 mesh.

[duststorm]

There is no such thing as alpha8. The recent version is MakeHuman v1.0, which is the first stable release.
The new basemesh is here to stay for a long time.

[ferria]

a rose by any other name...

[duststorm]

a rose by any other name...

Not really, no. There's more in a name.
Mh alpha 7, contains the word alpha, which means: we cannot guarantee that everything works as expected or that it will remain compatible in the future.

Mh v1.0 (stable) means: we are convinced this product is stable. We vouch for backward compatibility in the future, and you can expect the basemesh and assets to stay compatible for a very long time. All future developments will be based on the current basemesh.
The previous alpha version on the other hand, is completely abandoned. There will be no more support for it.

[ferria]

perhaps an improvement later will bring me back, until then i will use the default avatars and avastar and my old tatty copy of 7. The quality of result i have been able to get is not what i consider acceptable

[Ghastly]

The previous alpha version on the other hand, is completely abandoned. There will be no more support for it.

That's a pity because while there are some parts of the current mesh that are better (the hands) there are other parts that are absolutely terrible (the feet, genitals, knees and ribcage). I guess I too will come back to check things out with v2.0.

Glad I didn't delete my Alpha 7.

[duststorm]

Why not create an alternative topology with the features you like?
MakeHuman allows the use of _any_ topology.

Also take the time to check out the alternative topologies that are already present in MakeHuman. The default basemesh is intended to be general, and is not meant for high quality detailed results. You explicitly need to select a topology that fits your intended result.

Check out: http://www.makehuman.org/blog/new_topol ... cters.html

[Ghastly]

So are you saying I can just load the Alpha 7 mesh into MakeHuman v1.0 and it will work with all the stuff?

Now that is awesome!

Okay something is weird I go into the Geometries and I'm not seeing the option to load my own mesh. When I go to files and load none of my A7 exported meshes are loadable. Not seeing the instructions on how to do this in the documentation, it just talks about using the low poly game proxies.

[Manuel]

other parts that are absolutely terrible (the feet, genitals, knees and ribcage)

Terrible?
The current base mesh topology is perfect for general purpose, multiple characters and sculpting. It's the result of years in studying the best topology to be used as BASE. Also it's designed for perfect deformations in rigging.

Before to use the word "terrible" you should look the amount of work done to offer you, for free, a "state of the art" mesh:
http://www.makehuman.org/content/mesh_evolution.html

Then, of course, we are developing special topology for particular case (see the reply of Duststorm above).

It seems to be a straight up grid instead of edge loops defining the rib cage, pectorals, abdominals, and hips. Plus there's the genitals issues with the A8 mesh

The base mesh is a base mesh.
You want a mesh designed for a muscled character. If we provide it as BASE, a lot of people will complain that all the fat characters will appear muscled (because poles are poles, no matter how much you smooth a surface).
Also other people will complain about muscle kids and even muscled babies. And what about old muscled women?
So this was a BIG issue for alpha 7, FIXED in 1.0.0.

The new makehuman offers the alternative topology feature. So now you can have a perfect muscled character: