Just a noob's import to blender

[pterandon]

Here's an experiment with importing into blender using last night's nightly and Blender 2.59.

Comments:
i) I am over-the-top impressed at how nice the whole rigging process works. I tried hand-rigging some earlier versions of MH models in blender, but I had barely skill to do it once and no patience to do it 16 times for a "serious project".

ii) The facial expression poses are superb. If one wanted to set up a suite of characters, I imagine you might want to use them to help further differentiate the exported, basic model: i.e., make "Mr. Evil" be "three notches of Furious" or whatever.

iii) So far, I'm neutral on the amount of differentiation that is possible with the face. So far, I'm wondering if we had more control to make radically different characters in, um, two-releases-before-this-one. Notable is the width of the nose. The flickr link below is of some chars I did back then:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pterandon/2631861253/

iv) Clothing is cool that it's there, but even with some ClothSim physics, there were still intersections. I note that this may be extremely difficult to fix.

v) I repeat my complaint that the male model needs a "Speedo bulge" option, and not merely the two options of completely NSFW and "spooky female depression." If the clothing physics are to conform to the body contours, they will conform to the spooky depression.

[Manuel]

Hi,

iii) So far, I'm neutral on the amount of differentiation that is possible with the face. So far, I'm wondering if we had more control to make radically different characters in, um, two-releases-before-this-one. Notable is the width of the nose. The flickr link below is of some chars I did back then:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pterandon/2631861253/

We are working on this.

v) I repeat my complaint that the male model needs a "Speedo bulge" option, and not merely the two options of completely NSFW and "spooky female depression." If the clothing physics are to conform to the body contours, they will conform to the spooky depression.

Can you better explain the problem?
Best,

Manuel

[pterandon]

Here is an analogy:
Lay three figures on a set of tables:
i) Real human male, dressed in a way that 90% of males dress 90% of the time, SANS pants!
ii) A life-sized representation of a MH male with genitalia off.
iii) A life-sized representation of a MH male with genitalia on.

Now drape a silk sheet over all three models, and set up a curtain like they have in operating rooms that will show people only the bottom half of the figure (belly button down).
i) Will look like, um, a real male, because of the contours in the groin area.
ii) Will make everyone think it's a female, because of "the spooky female depression".
iii) Will either have a contour that is "unrealistic" (and by analogy, an unnecessarily difficult Cloth Physics computation because of all the nooks and crannies, and/or if perfect will make folks say "ewww, commando!"

So in this "silk drape" thought experiment, I am trying to explain how the makehuman figures need a "speedo bulge" in order to provide realism in how clothes drape over the way 99.5% of male humans in industrialized world dress.

[brkurt]

The old solution to this problem was to use 'MakeTarget''; which was a specialized blender build.

That way you can contribute to Makehuman by creating the morph targets (blender shape keys) and importing them into Makehuman. The linux distro OpenArtist actually comes bundled with it; there also used to be MakeClothes and MakeAnimal. Makehuman is a dream project for a historian of technology. Oh, and don't forget the branch that had the best muscle and vein movements the world has ever known. Mystery upon mystery!

[Manuel]

Ah ok, it's clear.
I've added this in my personal todo list.

Best,

Manuel

[pterandon]

Thanks for the long-term advice brkurt ; Manuel, thanks, and I hope my idea helps the MH project overall!

[ThomasL]

Re skin that peeks through clothes. I usually change the material under the clothes to invisio, the material assigned to the joint diamonds if they are imported. This material is shadeless with alpha=0, so it is really invisible and does not cast shadows. Alternatively you can delete verts covered by clothes. This is not a perfect solution, because there might be problems where the clothes end.