MakeHuman 1.0 alpha 1 ready to download!

[DuttyFoot]

wow, i have tried this software before and based on what i see this is a huge improvement. thank you :)

[kees]

Same here.

I expected it to be crap, but was pleasantly surprised how far the tool has come.
Congratulations on making it this far!

take care,

[robodesign]

Hallo!

Congratulations for the tool. Keep it on and good luck.

[doCHtor]

Great work so far. Probably this is on this to-do list, but anyway, it would be great if the region of the mesh i'm going to modify with the tools would be outlined so i can easily see before i click the mesh. Another solution would be that instead of the outline, part of the mesh would be highlited same way as it is now when i click on it.

[visionmaster2]

greay work, but i dont like the "poser" interface.



.

[Meta-Androcto]

Congratulations to Manuel & the Make Human team.
The program is certainly heading in the right direction.
I enjoy the level of detail controls, as others have said, some more control would be good.
I know this is coming in future releases, so this 'Alpha version' certainly has me excited about the future development of this project.

Thanks!

[Dennik]

Great!
Now everyone can charge a measly $20 for making a whole human character.
Cheapo clients all over the world rejoice!

[biliousfrog]

Excellent, the previous version has been a great help on a couple of projects so I look forward to the new release.

[Bmanuel]

greay work, but i dont like the "poser" interface.


Thanks, but I want underline the interface is completely different from poser.
We have developed it in months of study, starting first in collaboration with openusability:

http://season.openusability.org/index.php/2008/10/04/success-stories-08-3d-widgets-for-makehuman/
http://www.makehuman.org/blog/index.php?y=2008&m=3


Initially it was completely 3d:
http://www.makehuman.org/blog/index.php?y=2008&m=7&d=29
http://www.makehuman.org/blog/images_articles/mhnuovagui.jpg

But then, because negative feedback from users, we have modified it in 2D.
Prealpha was colored:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmGXlhzkU20

But a lot of users report us that due the colors it was not professional. They like grayscale, so the alpha1 is as you see. Anyway the only thing in common with poser maybe the percentange of grey...

Anyway the theme is easy to customize. They are just png in makehuman/data/images.
Will be great to have help for more themes :-)

Regards,

Manuel

[DestroyerU]

greay work, but i dont like the "poser" interface.



.

Waaaaaa. This free software isn't exactly how I want it.. Waaaaaaa.

Kids today... ;)

[anobrin]

Looks cool
but I already own poser6 & Daz studio
and Daz studio exports to Collada rigs with animation
so I dont see much use for another canned human program.

[guest01]

thanks
I will try this
I tried the older version of it

[Bmanuel]

Looks cool
but I already own poser6 & Daz studio
and Daz studio exports to Collada rigs with animation
so I dont see much use for another canned human program.

Well, probably you don't use subdivision surfaces.
Our topology mesh was developed very accurately for subdivision (even if it's still not perfect as I want). Unfortunately I've only this old article to show you, with the first, ugly mesh from year 2005, but it's enough to show you the studio on human topology (of course, the mesh is strongly improved in last 3 years!):
http://www.makehuman.org/docs/articles/05_12_01_new_model.pdf

our mesh is certainly..."different" from poser.
There are a lot of other differences (in example the usability of our GUI), but we will talk about them when MH will be completed. This release is just an alpha1 :-)

Anyway there is another big difference: MH is open source.

Regards,

Manuel

[anobrin]

HI
Daz studio is FREEware and the base figures "V4& M4" are FREE
and there is alot of FREE clothing content for them and DAZ has SubD
and Exports to Collada with rigging intact.
so for a person potentially needing some simple canned humans for arch vis
or background or film previse /forensic animation DAZ studio is a decent choice.
as well


Cheers

[mackdadd]

This is pretty damn cool! Love the interface, looks super easy to use, can't wait to give it a test run!

[KOKE]

That was pretty impressive, I was expecting something much worst when I clicked the link.

Great work guys!.

JK.

:D

[richcz3]

Great!
Now everyone can charge a measly $20 for making a whole human character.
Cheapo clients all over the world rejoice!That's one way to look at but it also speeds up other aspects of personal project development.

There were cheap clients 10 years ago.
It's better to have the tools become more effective to offset cheapness overflow. Use whatever tools it takes to meet the budget - make the project deadline. :)

[Bmanuel]

Thanks to all for encouragements. We are already working on alpha2, to improve performance and to add new tool. We are working also on a serious facial reconstruction tool, in collaboration with the universities of Rome and Milan.


Daz studio is FREEware and the base figures "V4& M4" are FREE
and there is alot of FREE clothing content for them and DAZ has SubD
and Exports to Collada with rigging intact.
so for a person potentially needing some simple canned humans for arch vis
or background or film previse /forensic animation DAZ studio is a decent choice.
as well

there is a big differences between freeware and open source. I don't want move this thread in a thread "closedsource vs opensource", but just underline one of most important aspects.
In case of MH (that's open source), you can directly correct the software bugs. It's not needed you are a coder, because there are "bugs" in the mesh too (UV can be improved, topology can be improved, textures can be improved, etc...).

So, while you can't collaborate with a freeware project (and often freewares are limited, in function to "pro" version$, ora can be limited in any time, without ask your opinion...), you can collaborate with an OSS project, donating your experiences, your needed, your suggestions, and if you want, modifying directly the sw.

In example we are working on a serious ethnic database.
As "serious" I mean that we have studied for long time the anthropology and anthropometry (asking to universities and even to forensic experts), in order to make phenotypes scientifically corrects (and not only top-model and centrefolds). But it require a lot of modelling time and we are in late because the lack of artists in our team. For the face we are analysing 3d laser scans of real human, but for the body this is not possible, and it must be modeled by hand.

So, an help of skilled CG artist will be very appreciated :-)

Regards,

Manuel

[richcz3]

Manuel
It sounds like you guys are taking MH into a different path getting universities involved in the development. Bring forensic experts sounds pretty interesting. It will be interesting to see how MH progresses.

Daz is a pretty strong app on its own but is built around a structure of modular purchases like AniMate (for animation) a 3rd party plugin as well as shaders. Speculation is there will be a Pro (for pay) version of Daz stusio which would bundle a few modules.

Which brings the question, is MH designed for modular 3rd party or plugin support?

[Bmanuel]

Which brings the question, is MH designed for modular 3rd party or plugin support?

Of course :-)
All in MH is a plugin. Take a look into the folder makehuman/mh_plugins of alpha1.
Not only: each plugin is just a simple python script. The API should be enough stable for production in about 1 month, but in meantime you can take a look here, to have an idea of our work:

http://makehuman.sourceforge.net/API/

Python script is very easy, so when the core of MH will be completed, will be very simple to add new plugins.

As example of our work with universities, the GUI was studied with university of Rome and in collaboration with Openusability, while recently we are working with Rome, Milano and other to add a MHplugin for facial reconstruction from photos. Take a look:

http://www.makehuman.org/blog/index.php?y=2009&m=2&d=14

http://www.makehuman.org/blog/images_articles/face_transf02_tb.jpg

Regards,

Manuel

[ctguitars]

HI
Daz studio is FREEware and the base figures "V4& M4" are FREE
and there is alot of FREE clothing content for them and DAZ has SubD
and Exports to Collada with rigging intact.
so for a person potentially needing some simple canned humans for arch vis
or background or film previse /forensic animation DAZ studio is a decent choice.
as well,Cheers

Hi Lads,

Bmanual, as a response help to add the following with respect to anobrins comments is very appropriate.

http://www.daz3d.com/i/faq/0?id=6&_m=d

QUESTION:
Is it legal to distribute a derivative of a DAZ model?

ANSWER:
DAZ models may not be used to create derivative, second-stage, or further stage derivative 3D models which can then be distributed in competition with the original DAZ product (see Section 6 of the DAZ End User License Agreement).

... One of the simplest ways to create an illegal derivative model is to convert a DAZ model (typically OBJ format) to another non-Poser format, and distribute that. Beyond this, a DAZ model may be altered by adding and/or removing geometry in order to create a derivative work. Even more difficult for most users to recognize, but still detectable to trained modelers, are methods involving tools that can create a derivative mesh without transferring the polygonal layout of the original. Many of these methods can result in a mesh which seems legitimate, often with no vertices coincidental with the original. These types of tools/methods may include: NURBS/poly conversions, subdivision/smoothing or triangulation operations, de-resing, shrink-wrapping/fitting and randomization operations.

The distribution of models created using any of the above examples is strictly prohibited, and any of these methods will result in a mesh that is still subject to DAZ's copyright.



http://www.daz3d.com/i/faq/0?id=114&_m=d

QUESTION:
What can I use DAZ products for legally?

You may:
Create still images, animations, or any other rendered output in any format for any purpose. Once you've created an image or animation, you may use it however you like. This means you can sell, give away, use in projects at work, use in greeting cards, use in personal or client websites, use in illustrations, advertisements, use to create tangible replicas, etc..

You may not:
Distribute any part or portion of the data (or "files") that you receive from DAZ as part of your purchase. You may not sell, nor give away, nor modify and then redistribute any portion of the files whatsoever. You may not use a DAZ product to create any item that competes with said product.

With respect to Anobrins comment above it would seem exporting via collada to be included in another 3rd party project falls within the "You May Not" section above. The only usage you can make of any DAZ / DAZ STUDIO FREE or not is POST render stage still from within DAZ Studio itself.

I am saying all this because I reckon - though open to correction - that these restrictions DO NOT apply to Make Human content? Over to you BManual ..

For further required reading re use of DAZ 3D content just go here:
http://www.daz3d.com/i/contact/faq?cfaq=legal&_m=d

Aidan

[doCHtor]

Is it possible to somehow run Alpha1 in full screen or larger window?

[anobrin]

With respect to Anobrins comment above it would seem exporting via collada to be included in another 3rd party project falls within the "You May Not" section above. The only usage you can make of any DAZ / DAZ STUDIO FREE or not is POST render stage still from within DAZ Studio itself.


Aidan


WRONG!! where in that FAQ do you find that one has to render DAZ assets "Within DAZ studio itself"??

I am speaking from the perspective of a CG artist who Delivers work in the form of an animation or still render not some one who deliver the assets themselves(Models ,textures native scene files)
there is no restriction on my exporting a DAZ model as Collada to Cinema4d,MAX ,or MAYA
to render in a project etc...

if MH is for making canned human models for commercial sale thats good for them.
it would be interesting however to see what kinds of pricing one could get for generic canned
human meshes with no rigging.

when a potential buyer could get an already rigged & textured DAZ model and morph it to look different from the default and export to his chosen high end app as collada for rendering.
from the DAz studio feature page:

"Collada Exporter
http://www.daz3d.com/images/spacer.gif Using all your favorite 3D content just got even easier! This new file exporter for DAZ Studio allows you to export your entire 3D scene to the new COLLADA interchange technology file format. COLLADA technology is quickly being adopted by more and more major 3D companies and is poised to be become one of the most widely supported and most robust file formats in the world. Take Victoria 4.1 into Maya, Softimage, 3D Studio MAX, or almost any other popular 3D package, with complete mesh, skinning, rigging, lighting, camera, and animation data, which is then immediately editable. This file exporter will bring a whole new realm of possibilities to your existing DAZ 3D content."

[Bmanuel]

if MH is for making canned human models for commercial sale thats good for them.
it would be interesting however to see what kinds of pricing one could get for generic canned
human meshes with no rigging.



Well....I must explain you an important thing.
The version of MH we have just released is an "ALPHA1".
There are several steps to make a software. Starting from pre-alpha, then alpha1, alpha2...beta1, beta2, and then stable release. The description of these steps are usually placed in a document called "roadmap".
In example, a rough version of rm for MH project is here (please, take a look):

http://makehuman.wiki.sourceforge.net/Release_RoadMap

This mean an alpha1 is still unstable and incomplete. It's to get interesting feedbacks from skilled users.
Of course, during the development a lot of features will be added. I'll add collada exporter in TODO list with much priority, because it seem to be very important.

@ctguitars:

Thanks, the FAQ is very interesting.
For comparison, this is from our license (full text here: http://makehuman.wiki.sourceforge.net/Licensing):

When you export, save, or in any way convert a MakeHuman data file, you may store any deformations that you have applied/created, along with the topology of the base mesh and any positional information that you have not materially changed. You are the Copyright holder of changes that you have made. The MakeHuman Team retains Copyright over the topology and the base mesh, but grants you permission to copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the generated materials over which they hold Copyright, including the topology and positional information constituting the base mesh provided that this does not prevent others from doing the same.

We retain copyright only to protect us in case a smart company think to make a commercial clone of MH, using our work.

Regards,

Manuel

[Szos]

Interesting looking software.

:thumbs up:

[ctguitars]

WRONG!! where in that FAQ do you find that one has to render DAZ assets "Within DAZ studio itself"??

Within the info I pasted in my last post:

QUESTION:
What can I use DAZ products for legally?

You may:
Create still images, animations, or any other rendered output in any format for any purpose. [ I assume any format will be 2D or 2D video ]

Once you've created an image or animation, you may use it however you like. This means you can sell, give away, use in projects at work, use in greeting cards, use in personal or client websites, use in illustrations, advertisements, use to create tangible replicas, etc..

You may not:
Distribute any part or portion of the data (or "files") that you receive from DAZ as part of your purchase. You may not sell, nor give away, nor modify and then redistribute any portion of the files whatsoever. You may not use a DAZ product to create any item that competes with said product.

Ill take your comments re collada from the DAZ Studio feature page. Maybe DAZ need to relook at their Eula's and licences. If you READ above again - the bold parts - AND the You may not part, one surely can see ambiguities?

Anobrin, I am not after a fight, I already had a joust about exporting models from DAZ and using them / editing them elsewhere. The replies were generaly no can do - legally. Its how you read into the DAZ Licences me thinks. However I will say that MAKE HUMAN is a great OPEN SOURCE Tool which by its nature has a less ambiguous licence. All I can say more power to you Bmanual, great work - I for one of many support your ongoing endeavours.

Aidan

[anobrin]

Ill take your comments re collada from the DAZ Studio feature page. Maybe DAZ need to relook at their Eula's and licences. If you READ above again - the bold parts - AND the You may not part, one surely can see ambiguities?

Aidan

No Ambiguity sir not at all
it is very simple and does NOT take a copyright lawyer to understand

Example:
EXPORTING a DAZ figure as Collada to YOUR seat a MAX to render in mental ray to give/sell RENDERED IMAGES& ANIMATIONS
to your client is NOT 'Distribution"under the DAZ EULA

EXPORTING a DAZ figure as Collada to YOUR seat a MAX to give,sell etc the MAX project files exported .obj etc. with the mesh data
to a third party is Distribution. Prohibited under the DAZ EULA
why is this so hard for you to understand??

[tharrell]

It looks to me like the tool has come a long, long way since my last test run.

Let's face it, you can be a purist and blow tons of time or you can use tools like this to generate a basemesh in the ballpark of what you're looking for in 10 minutes, then take it into sculpting and rigging and get pretty acceptable background characters quickly. When you're on deadline in a small shop (or by yourself), a shortcut is a shortcut as long as you can get quality output, and having the mesh open source has quite a few advantages.

Unlike Poser, the basemesh cage (at least in the last version I tested) was quite light with better topology than V4/M4 in my opinion -- certainly much better topology for rigging. Painting weights on a mesh as dense as V4 can blow the better part of a week if you're going to get decent deformations.

My only complaint was that there was a little bit of invalid geometry in the last version of MakeHuman that I tested -- particularly around the fingernails and corners of the mouth -- that required a fair bit of re-topologizing in order for ZBrush to not mangle my sub-d levels, or for mental ray to approximate them properly. If I recall, the fingernails in particular had several lamina faces (and other biggish problems) that freaked pretty much every app out in some way or another.

Anyhow, good work! I'm looking forward to playing with the release, and I'd really like to play with the facial reconstruction tools.

--T

[ulb]

That software looks really promising!

I hope you will be able to push it as far as you want to. It is a great thing that it is open-source too. I will be looking forward to future releases. :bowdown:



@anobrin: your reel is about as great as the esteem I have for daz studio. Maybe you should work a bit more instead of hijacking this thread to speak about daz.

[ultramedia]

Great work guys :beer:

I'll also add my two cents worth regarding the (raging?) debate about Daz3D versus MakeHuman. First of all, let me say I actually do like Daz3D and their models (my collection of daz/poser chars weighs a little over 6GB). The most obvious advantage of a program like Daz3D or MakeHuman is the huge savings in time you can create if the stuff they make is what you need.

The problem that I ran into with daz is that I reached a point where I realized that in order to create the animation I wanted to make I would need to get a team of people working on it with me - it was just too much work for one guy to chug through even if I was using microwave dinner characters.

The problem with the Daz3D business model is that it requires everyone in your team to purchase a personal license for any of the characters or accessories used in the scene/shot you want them to work on for you before they can install it on their computer. To make it worse, some of the stuff I'd selected for use in my animation I'd had for years and had no record of where I got it from and who to ask permission for use (or purchase of additional licenses) from. I emailed Daz3D and posted on their forums about this issue, and asked about the possibility of project licensing, but the best answer they could offer was to say that I'd have to work that out on an individual basis with each author of every asset. Which while it was understandably the best answer they could give me, was also understandably useless to me.

Bottom line : while both programs may share the same free availability, their content certainly doesn't

[anobrin]

The problem that I ran into with daz is that I reached a point where I realized that in order to create the animation I wanted to make I would need to get a team of people working on it with me - it was just too much work for one guy to chug through even if I was using microwave dinner characters.

The problem with the Daz3D business model is that it requires everyone in your team to purchase a personal license for any of the characters or accessories used in the scene/shot you want them to work on for you before they can install it on their computer. To make it worse, some of the stuff I'd selected for use in my animation I'd had for years and had no record of where I got it from and who to ask permission for use (or purchase of additional licenses)



HI sorry i did not mean to hijack the thread with my comparison to DAZ for Canned human content

BUT I am curious as to what kind of animation pipeline you were planning
that required every team member to have EVERY SCENE ELEMENT/ASSET on his/her computer?
This is NOT how a collaborative animation production is accomplished.

For example if one team member is animating the Donkey in "Shrek"
Why does he need to have all of shrek's "Costumes an accessories" on hand?? or even "Shrek"himself for that matter
even if one needs to match scene props and other elements a remote animator would just use primitive proxy objects.
You need go watch the "making of" DVD section of any major animated film release and you will see what a team production pipie line is really like.




Cheers

[ultramedia]

BUT I am curious as to what kind of animation pipeline you were planning
that required every team member to have EVERY SCENE ELEMENT/ASSET on his/her computer?
This is NOT how a collaborative animation production is accomplished.


Well that's an interesting opinion, let's see what other people think about that. To everyone else, if you were working in a collaborative project doing some character animation, would you want to see your character in context, on location, clothed and amongst the other characters they were supposed to be interacting with or would you be happy animating a naked character in solitary confinement in an empty grey room?

[duke]

You've got quite an attitude on you anobrin. Calm down a bit, stop being so combative, and maybe you'll be taken a little more seriously. Firstly, yelling at someone on the internet like a madman doesn't work, secondly, it makes you a dick.

[Bmanuel]

@ctguitars
@ultramedia

Thanks. This is already a contribution to the MH project :-)
I guess to extract some interesting license FAQ from this discussion.

Regards,

Manuel

[anobrin]

You've got quite an attitude on you anobrin. Calm down a bit, stop being so combative,

You know something Duke looking over my recent posts
you actually have a point:sad:
Apologies to all effected





Cheers

[Samo]

hi Manuel
Congratulations for this software, it is very useful for many of us and besides it is OSS. Looking forward to having some clothing options!

[Kanga]

Regardless of whether or not these models are suitable for animation or any other application I applaud your group for providing what looks like an excellent artist reference system.

I checked out the youtube video and was delighted to see the method of choosing attributes and the apparent ease of independent part manipulation. The base models appears to be of high quality and the interface looks very intuitive indeed. The fact that this is open source has deepened my respect for that unfathomably generous philosophy.

As an incredible artistic reference I will be recommending this along with Blender to all my students.

Job well done.
Cheerio Chris

[Bmanuel]

@Samo: Thanks!!!
@Kanga: Thanks a lot! We need encouragement!!

And for all CG artists, we have just opened a site dedicated to modeling/texturing tasks.

http://www.dedalo-3d.com/lab/getinvolved.jpg


Please, take a look: http://sites.google.com/site/makehumanartists/Home

http://lh3.ggpht.com/_U_UAchQSYOc/SerhsdqjzZI/AAAAAAAAAEo/F5JpvNeQ4W4/getinvolved.jpg

[Kanga]

@Samo: Thanks!!!
@Kanga: Thanks a lot! We need encouragement!!

And for all CG artists, we have just opened a site dedicated to modeling/texturing tasks.
Please, take a look: http://sites.google.com/site/makehumanartists/Home

http://lh3.ggpht.com/_U_UAchQSYOc/SerhsdqjzZI/AAAAAAAAAEo/F5JpvNeQ4W4/getinvolved.jpg
On the site your first page should explain what open source is. Give a short intro of your team and explain the how and why a bit. Although a great fan of open source I still find the basic ideal a little foggy :)

What would be absolutely ripping would be anatomical maps/ muscle and muscular bumps. If an individual doesn't own zbrush (which has very good and inexpensive muscle reference by Zack Petroc) then anatomy models are very expensive. For a good reason because they require a mountain of work.

Keep up the great effort.
Chris

[Bmanuel]

On the site your first page should explain what open source is. Give a short intro of your team and explain the how and why a bit. Although a great fan of open source I still find the basic ideal a little foggy :)

What would be absolutely ripping would be anatomical maps/ muscle and muscular bumps. If an individual doesn't own zbrush (which has very good and inexpensive muscle reference by Zack Petroc) then anatomy models are very expensive. For a good reason because they require a mountain of work.

Keep up the great effort.
Chris

Thanks!
We have just updated the MHartists site following your suggestion:
http://sites.google.com/site/makehumanartists/Home

Best regards,

Manuel

[Kanga]

Nice :)
Well done.

[Bmanuel]

Hi,

we have just released alpha2:

A very quick intro video of new features here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ru8_dHInC88


Download here:

http://code.google.com/p/makehuman/downloads/list


And more info on the official site:

http://www.makehuman.org/blog/index.php

Regards,

Manuel

[doCHtor]

Really great work.

[Kanga]

Looks terrific Bmanual.

Very nice top image on the site. Top work buddt.

Cheerio Chris

[Bmanuel]

Thanks!
We are already working to add hairs tool (will be in alpha3).
Anyone can help us in hairs modellation ?

Regards,

Manuel

[Bmanuel]

Hi!
Just to inform you about a new "last-frontier" feature (wip):

This is an experiment (a prototype in Blender) of a new feature we are developing in our makehuman software. It's a new, original next-gen tool, that automatically models the most probable realistic head. So the user needs just a few clicks to roughly set the most important facial features, and makehuman will do the rest of the work :-)
Actually we have a limited DB at the moment, so the results are still limited.

This is the automodeling at work:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1-5Y4RAZR4

and this is the same feature used to repair a bad modeled face:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQ4ghCNGOxA

Best Regards,

Manuel

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