Make Human History Documentory

[meta-androcto]

hi,
I'm meta-androcto,
I've been discussing for a while doing a video documentary on the history of Make Human software.

About me: I'm a long time fan & user of MH from the earliest versions, I do some Blender addons developement & release my blender materials library's & help out in irc with other artists. I've done some training videos before & needing a challenging & worthwhile project.

The Concept: To created a video documentary on the history of Make Human from it's earliest concepts until most recent version.

Pre-Production:

There's several things to do in pre-production, I'll list them & update progress.

1/ Test old MH versions as working: Done!
2/ Gather resources: Ongoing.
3/ Set up Project file system: In progress.
4/ Conceptualize script: In progress.
5/ Do stuff: Ongoing.
6/ Decide working title.
7/ Write Scripts.

Video Timeline:
1/ Introduction, Titles: 30 - 40 sec.
The basic intro stuff like my logo, presents, make human logo, the working title.
2/ Introduction, Documentary: 1 min
The Introduction to make human, some of the concepts that inspired it's creation, let's take a look.
3/ Make Head: 1 min 30
The earliest of Manuel's python scripts creating a head.
4/ Make Human 180b: 1 min 30
The famous Blender script
5/ Make Human 2.0: 1 min
An interesting version before the change to standalone (I'll need to check exact version release dates).
6/ Make Human 0.8: 1 min 30
The Move to standalone!
7/ Make Human 0.9: 2 min
Indulging in Fantasy
8/ Make Human 1.0.0 series: 1 min
The beginnings of the current generation.
9/ Make Human 1.0 Alpha 7: 1 min 30
The current version release.
10/ Make Human next gen: 2 min
The current development version
11/ Summary, Closing 30 - 40 sec
hope you enjoyed cya
12/ closing credits: 30 sec

Man that's a lot of things in a short time!
14:30 I guess that's the aim, squeeze 12 years of software development into 14 min
This should be flexible, I'm thinking, with some talking & music & screenshots & renders & screen recordings of each version in use, it's about the right amount of time for each version to be interesting & visually appealing.

Help is very much wanted & needed.
Screenshots, final renders, animations, information, ideas, all most welcome.
Manuel has already sent me several awesome original sketches & unreleased video, it will be great weaving these things into the documentary.

It's a big project, I intend to use Blender for the entire project. (project files will be failsafe rendered in .png image sequence)

I'll post some more here soon.
cya

[duststorm]

Very nice initiative, I can't wait too see the final result. You are really taking this task seriously, I think the result will be worth it.

[brkurt]

Having contributed to Make Human since December 2008, and having used it since December 2006, I can say quite confidently that there are many stories underlying the software that could go unnoticed.

Here are four:

(1) The Italian film in 1998 about the restoration the Sistine Chapel that uses MH 3d models to explain the work done. (My Italian isn't good enough to understand much more than that).

(2) The Geisha Project of 2007 which did things with facial animation of a .91 model that have yet to be equalled. (Presumably the designer lost interest in the project).

(3) Make Animal; I may need sodium pentathol and hypnosis for this one, but I distinctly remember development in this area about five years or more ago.

(4) Make Skeleton. I know for sure that I downloaded early Alpha 4 models that came with a complete skeleton, but those hard drives either died or were re-formatted.

That ought to get you interested.

[DavidBrennan]

Ah, this should be really cool, Meta-Androcto. I'm definitely looking forward to it.

If you need any help with the video editing (I assume you're using Blender's VSE, unless you're a traitor!) let me know and I'll be happy to try to help. Alternately, "3PointEdit" and "Turi" at BA are both real, real studs with the VSE.

So please let us know as you progress. A "trailer" or snippets of completed portions are very much welcome.

[Manuel]

(1) The Italian film in 1998 about the restoration the Sistine Chapel that uses MH 3d models to explain the work done. (My Italian isn't good enough to understand much more than that).

Eh? The first MH was around 1999/2000. Have you more info?

[brkurt]

(1) The Italian film in 1998 about the restoration the Sistine Chapel that uses MH 3d models to explain the work done. (My Italian isn't good enough to understand much more than that).

Eh? The first MH was around 1999/2000. Have you more info?

Here you go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtR7SkpObjM

It is from a show called "Super Quark", and the title is: Il catastrofico Michelangelo Buonarroti "no"

The video on YouTube claims to be uploaded in 2007, but the MH version used is the oldest I have ever seen.
I remember information from another upload that claimed the 1998 date, but I can't confirm that. Sorry.