Zipped assets

Discussions that concern the community rather than the makehuman software

Re: Zipped assets

Postby stormrider » Wed Jun 14, 2017 6:19 pm

Hello,
I am new here so first off I would like to say that makehuman is awesome. I am very thankful for all the work that's been done and all the user contributed content is great.

joepal wrote:It is inferior. The difference being that the downloader plugin is able to correct path mistakes and normalize file names, even inside asset descriptors. One of the most common problems with assets is that a file is wrongly named as in having differences in capitalization, illegal characters in the file name or having an erronous path inside the descriptor. Add to that, that the asset downloader is able to correctly place the asset in the appropriate subfolder, and you will have a solution which is preferable in most cases.

A few points
I spent hours downloading assets individually and finally find out about this so called superior downloader plugin that I need to watch a video to figure out how to use in a thread started a month after I started downloading assets. Why can't you bother to put a link to it on this page?
http://www.makehumancommunity.org/content/user_contributed_assets.html

How can wrongly named asset work for the developer of the asset in the first place? Out of nearly a hundred manually downloaded and installed assets I haven't encountered any of these errors.

I did have trouble getting downloaded skins to work until I figured out that a separate textures subdirectory was needed, so your point about the downloader placing everything in the proper directories is only really valid because you don't have a standardized subdirectory format.

Compression. Not everyone has a superfast connection and some users still have metered service. It just took me 6 minutes to download everything for the Tactical vest, I zipped it, uploaded it to my box account, and downloaded the zip in 2 minutes.

Lastly where does this plugin go and what permissions will it require? I don't like the fact that I am required to give third party plugins 755 permissions to work on my Linux system and I don't like the fact that I can't install makehuman in the location I choose on my system.

If you think I am being too critical I apologize. I mean no offence to the developers or anyone who has made contributions, and I am sure there are good reasons for some of these things that are beyond my comprehension. Still I would ask you to consider this. Time is our most precious commodity, if it takes three times as long to upload content only one third as much will get contributed.
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Re: Zipped assets

Postby RobBaer » Sat Jun 24, 2017 4:53 am

stormrider wrote:... because you don't have a standardized subdirectory format.

The format is highly standardized, just complex as you have experienced. The whole point of the plugin is to help you start faster getting real use out of MH rather than learning some "standardize directory format".

stormrider wrote:Lastly where does this plugin go and what permissions will it require?

That depends where you installed the program, but it goes in the plugins subdirectory below that main folder. I sense you use a Linux OS of some sort, and I'm guessing that since the plugin is executable it will need x permissions on your system.

stormrider wrote: I don't like the fact that I can',t install makehuman in the location I choose on my system.

You can. Install where you like. Because we have standards, doesn't mean you can't ignore them :D

stormrider wrote: Time is our most precious commodity, if it takes three times as long to upload content only one third as much will get contributed.

Yep! Well said! That's why the developers spend their time the way they do! :D

And finally, even 6 minutes to download a resource, painful as it is, is a mere fraction of the time it took some dedicated community member to create it for your use. You should remember to thank those community members for giving of their precious "commodity of time".
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Re: Zipped assets

Postby stormrider » Sat Jun 24, 2017 7:25 pm

RobBaer wrote:The whole point of the plugin is to help you start faster getting real use out of MH rather than learning some "standardize directory format".

Yes, I am probably too critical and I apologize for that, I just haven't worked with anything that has such a complex layout. Clearly the developers have done what they feel is best and I certainly don't have the technical knowledge to provide a better or simpler way.
The plugs from the community-plugins-master zip don't seem to want to load for me anyway. The splash hangs on loading plugins and if I start blender or even just change to that workspace I get an error message: Exception during event onStart.
I'm not that worried about it. I don't really like auto downloaders/installers anyway, but I understand that this is a valuable asset to the community so if there aren't any know issues like this I can start a separate support thread.
RobBaer wrote:You can. Install where you like. Because we have standards, doesn't mean you can't ignore them

I wish I could, but I don't know how to force the PPA to place everything where I choose, and even if I compile I would get a deb file that will choose where to install. I know most users prefer these methods but I don't care for them as much. I am willing to do the extra work it would take to configure everything the way I want but so far I haven't been able to learn how.
RobBaer wrote:Yep! Well said! That's why the developers spend their time the way they do! :D

And finally, even 6 minutes to download a resource, painful as it is, is a mere fraction of the time it took some dedicated community member to create it for your use. You should remember to thank those community members for giving of their precious "commodity of time".

I am very thankful to both the developers and the community members for their time and I really hope to be able to make some contributions of my own.
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Re: Zipped assets

Postby RobBaer » Sat Jun 24, 2017 8:59 pm

stormrider wrote:The plugs from the community-plugins-master zip don't seem to want to load for me anyway. The splash hangs on loading plugins

This is a design imperfection that is on the list for improvement. This is NOT an auto downloader plugin. It checks the list of available assets (which grows dynamically) to see if there is anything new, but YOU choose what and how much you want to download. The checking process is unduely long right now, but this should be improved when we can get to it. The checking process is likely to be worst of all the first time you enable the plugin, but it will remain longer than desirable going forward. There is already an issue on the bug tracker. Still if you get it working I think you will see it's benefits. If not there is always the web approach.

stormrider wrote:I wish I could, but I don't know how to force the PPA to place everything where I choose,

Once the ppa is done, just move it where you like. MH should still work if you move the main folder and all subfolders as a group. Of course, executables will need x permissions. User data files will by default be created in the ~/makehuman/v1 by default, but again this is user selectable.

stormrider wrote:I am very thankful to both the developers and the community members for their time and I really hope to be able to make some contributions of my own.

Well the community welcomes you and looks forward to your participation if not your contributions.
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Re: Zipped assets

Postby Aranuvir » Sun Jun 25, 2017 10:09 am

I'd like to add some own observations here:

1) I've never seen an installation option that lets you choose the location for any ppa. Since ppas provide Debian packages, the definition where each file of the package is installed is determined by Debian themself. It is convenient using the package manager to install programs, because you do not have to care about resolving dependencies and updates will be checked automatically. That's why this way of installation is recommended.
The downside is, that if you want to install plugins they need the same file permissions as makehuman.py, i.e. you need to do something like chown root:root plugin_name.py. Setting the plugin executable is superfluous since everything is interpreted by python(2), anyway.
There is new code that will allow users to place plugins in their home folder. Maybe it will be included in MH at some point down the line...

2) About code safety: some plugins have been separated from the core code tor reasons I do not want to reiterate, but all plugins provided on our sites are developed by the MH team and as trustworthy / not trustworthy as the rest of the code. If you use plugins from other sources (though I haven't seen any) you should always be cautious, regardless the plugins are installed in system folders or in the home folder.

3) If you don't like using the package management, as I do not like it, because you want more control, I recommend running MakeHuman from source clone (see here: http://www.makehumancommunity.org/wiki/ ... t_on_Linux).

Disadvantage:
    you need to handle dependencies on your own (as explained in the documentation).
Advantage:
    full control on the installation location
    after setting up, once updates will only take some kB instead of >300MB for the Debian package
    probably some plus on safety, since the program does not need root permissions, when not being placed in a system folder.
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Re: Zipped assets

Postby stormrider » Sun Jun 25, 2017 5:31 pm

RobBaer wrote:This is a design imperfection that is on the list for improvement.

I just let it go for about three hours with the same results so I may be experiencing some additional problem, permission stuff I think.
Aranuvir wrote:1) I've never seen an installation option that lets you choose the location for any ppa. Since ppas provide Debian packages, the definition where each file of the package is installed is determined by Debian themself. It is convenient using the package manager to install programs, because you do not have to care about resolving dependencies and updates will be checked automatically. That's why this way of installation is recommended.
The downside is, that if you want to install plugins they need the same file permissions as makehuman.py, i.e. you need to do something like chown root:root plugin_name.py. Setting the plugin executable is superfluous since everything is interpreted by python(2), anyway.
There is new code that will allow users to place plugins in their home folder. Maybe it will be included in MH at some point down the line...

I did something like chown root:root plugin_name.py to get mhx2 to work, but I am not that great with the command line so I have to be careful about using such commands. I haven't tried this yet with the community-plugins-master stuff.
Last night I tried to move the makehuman directory from /usr/share to my home folder but I made a command line mistake so everything got sent to /usr/share/Home and the main makehuman directory everything was in was apparently renamed Data. I didn't really think just moving that directory would work anyway because I am sure the executable file stored in /usr/bin points to /usr/share/makehuman and I don't think it can be modified without compiling.
Aranuvir wrote:all plugins provided on our sites are developed by the MH team and as trustworthy / not trustworthy as the rest of the code. If you use plugins from other sources (though I haven't seen any) you should always be cautious, regardless the plugins are installed in system folders or in the home folder.

What about mhx2? I though I read that it wasn't an official plug.
Aranuvir wrote:If you don't like using the package management, as I do not like it, because you want more control, I recommend running MakeHuman from source clone

Thank you, I am downloading the source now.
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Re: Zipped assets

Postby loki1950 » Sun Jun 25, 2017 10:57 pm

Thank you, I am downloading the source now.


Since you have already done an apt-get install you have all the dependencies so no additional need be installed as for mhx2 it's written by one of our senior devs the decision to remove it was made by others ;) You might put the source in a folder that is not named makehuman as that one already exits for user data I have been running the source for several years now and it behaves quite nicely in userland if you have any issues just post.

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Re: Zipped assets

Postby RobBaer » Mon Jun 26, 2017 5:05 am

stormrider wrote: What about mhx2? I though I read that it wasn't an official plug.


mhx2 is not official but it is really really helpful. Thomas L, who wrote and maintains it, is/was a long time MH developer. He has largely moved on to other things now, but he kindly maintains this updated and improved version of his older mhx exporter. He is completely reliable, and you will notice most forum members use this plugin despite it not being official.

There are historical reasons for "not official" status, but they have to do with developer resources and responsibilities and not plugin usefulness or trustworthy-ness.

Five stars ***** on this one.
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Re: Zipped assets

Postby stormrider » Mon Jun 26, 2017 6:09 pm

Aranuvir wrote:I recommend running MakeHuman from source clone

Thanks again, I've got it running and the asset download plug works just fine. The splash didn't really stick too bad and the sync process didn't take too long either.
loki1950 wrote:Since you have already done an apt-get install you have all the dependencies so no additional need be installed

I did have to copy the official /usr/share/makehuman/data directory to the data directory in the core download directory in order to get the default geometries to show up. Do I need to compile something to get these to appear without copying from the PPA files?
RobBaer wrote:mhx2 is not official but it is really really helpful. Thomas L, who wrote and maintains it, is/was a long time MH developer. He has largely moved on to other things now, but he kindly maintains this updated and improved version of his older mhx exporter. He is completely reliable, and you will notice most forum members use this plugin despite it not being official.

Yes, I used it to export a rigged model for blender. It works great and I've no doubt about the trustworthiness, I am just curious about the license status of models exported with it. I don't plan on using them for much more than rendering 2d stuff in blender to use for mods for an open source game.
The asset installer plugin does work really well and I agree that it is a good way to make these wonderful contributions available.
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Re: Zipped assets

Postby loki1950 » Mon Jun 26, 2017 6:18 pm

There is a script that downloads the default assets for the source version in the source makehuman folder called download_assets.py

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