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From: Mike the Elder
Subject: Go figure! (again)
Date: 12 Nov 2008 12:40:00
Message: <web.491b145b87020f10ad9dd8b40@news.povray.org>
The last time that I broached the subject of adding human figures to my POV-Ray
work, I became so frustrated that I just gave up and went back to working
figure-free.

I realize that much of what I'm bringing up here has been discussed before, but
things change so much and so fast that I really believe that a current
"from-scratch" thread on the topic is likely to be of benefit to a number of
folks.

The short version of the question is this:
Keeping in mind that I would like to be able to do as much as I can myself and
avoid being stuck with having to purchase "improvements" figure by figure,
texture by texture, hairdo by hairdo, etc., where should I invest my money and
how much should I expect to spend?


am).  I really would like to support the freeware movement and its associated
communities whenever feasible.

Last time I checked, PoseRay was the way to go to convert figures for use in
POV-Ray. Anything new to know about in this area?




hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars worth of add-ons before one can do any

program without giving them a credit card number and signing up for AUTOMATIC

membership!  Am I missing something? Are there free or reasonably priced
do-it-yourself tools usable with DAZ Studio where I can learn to design my own
clothing, hair, etc. for the figures?



both figures and clothing of my own design, albeit at a fairly basic level.  It
seems as though I could easily spend more to get as far with DAZ.


can integrate with furniture and props that I create directly in POV-Ray?  Am I
stuck generating figures with empty hands sitting on empty air in the figure
software and then tediously trying to match things up by trial and error in
SDL?

Finally, what about whole new alternatives I might be missing?


Thanks in advance for all replies.

Best Regards,
Mike C.


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From: alphaQuad
Subject: Re: Go figure! (again)
Date: 12 Nov 2008 13:30:01
Message: <web.491b1f13607813b33f297fb40@news.povray.org>
"Mike the Elder" <nomail@nomail> wrote:
> The last time that I broached the subject of adding human figures to my POV-Ray
> work, I became so frustrated that I just gave up and went back to working
> figure-free.
>
> Finally, what about whole new alternatives I might be missing?
>
> Thanks in advance for all replies.
>
> Best Regards,
> Mike C.

My idea was to script the constructions of all curves via the quad curve func:


  ; r=xwidthradius b=yheightofarc and r==b for circle




click in 2 2D curves on a BG-image, rotate one curve 90 degrees and fill with
the quadfunc, price: your free time. of course my first obj was one of my
favorite one(s).
1st attempt:
http://home.earthlink.net/~openuniverse/smooth_reductr279.png


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From: Chris B
Subject: Re: Go figure! (again)
Date: 12 Nov 2008 15:15:07
Message: <491b394b$1@news.povray.org>
"Mike the Elder" <nomail@nomail> wrote in message 
news:web.491b145b87020f10ad9dd8b40@news.povray.org...
> The last time that I broached the subject of adding human figures to my 
> POV-Ray
> work, I became so frustrated that I just gave up and went back to working
> figure-free.
>
> Finally, what about whole new alternatives I might be missing?

Hi Mike,

The MakeHuman project is attempting to make humanoid figures available to 
everyone on a GPL license. They already have a good open licensed humanoid 
base mesh and a working humanoid modelling application that was released 
about a year ago (as a release candidate).

The new release candidate currently under development is being built to 
incorporate a large range of ethnic, physiological, age and gender model 
variants and an improved pose GUI.  It exposes a considerable amount of 
functionality through its Python API. A POV-Ray export function is already 
built into the project on SourceForge which will give POV-Ray users a lot of 
options that they don't get with meshes converted or exported from most of 
the available tools (see 
http://makehuman.wiki.sourceforge.net/UG_POVRay_Export).

> I really would like to support the freeware movement and its associated
> communities whenever feasible.

As yet the model has no hair or props (e.g. clothes) and no built in 
animation features and needs people to invest time and modelling skills to 
increase the speed at which such features can be implemented.  I have some 
POV-Ray macros for the generation of hair and some simple clothing from work 
I did on earlier POV humans a few years ago. My plan is to adapt these to 
fit the MakeHuman model. Anyone wishing to contribute time, coding skills, 
modelling skills, POV-Ray skills or just ideas at any level is most welcome 
to join in.

> What about "two-way-traffic" between POV-Ray and figure software so that 
> figures
> can integrate with furniture and props that I create directly in POV-Ray? 
> Am I
> stuck generating figures with empty hands sitting on empty air in the 
> figure
> software and then tediously trying to match things up by trial and error 
> in
> SDL?

The MakeHuman application currently under development incorporates a Python 
interpreter and exposes its Python API so that Python plugin scripts can be 
coded and run through command-line options without needing to install 
anything else. You could therefore conceivably code a Python script to take 
an input file that you generate from your POV-Ray scene, load a figure, pose 
it based on your generated data and export a posed model that can be 
included in your scene.  It would clearly be quite some work, but it opens 
up the possibility of getting a character to walk over terrain or climb 
stairs defined in your scene file.

Best Regards,
Chris B.


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From: alphaQuad
Subject: Re: Go figure! (again)
Date: 12 Nov 2008 23:35:00
Message: <web.491bada5607813b365e6af150@news.povray.org>
"Chris B" <nom### [at] nomailcom> wrote:

> The MakeHuman project is attempting to make humanoid figures available to
> everyone on a GPL license. They already have a good open licensed humanoid
> base mesh and a working humanoid modelling application that was released
> about a year ago (as a release candidate).


amazing that they cant' put the target OS on a download page at sourceforge
it doesnt run, of course


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From: alphaQuad
Subject: Re: Go figure! (again)
Date: 13 Nov 2008 00:00:00
Message: <web.491bb3de607813b365e6af150@news.povray.org>
Blender doesn't have a prob with my python.

Do I have to configure python or need something else?
Wheres the instructions? no readme!

this dl page did give the winOS
http://www.makehuman.org/blog/index.php?post=s1210866244

    * MakeHuman 0.9.1 RC1 for Windows 98/200/XP/Vista
MakeHuman-0.9.1-RC1a-setup.exe
30,017,194


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From: alphaQuad
Subject: Re: Go figure! (again)
Date: 13 Nov 2008 00:15:00
Message: <web.491bb6d1607813b365e6af150@news.povray.org>
> it doesnt run, of course

wish they had spent less time on pdf files and more time on a text called
instructions or readme to put in the release!

this page came up from docs/articles
http://www.makehuman.org/blog/index.php?post=s1209488294

no instructions, this page
http://www.makehuman.org/docs/articles/06_11_05_EN_QuickStartGuide09.pdf
starts out, no stated requirements, just "should look like this" ... screencap
of the prog.

apparently only tested on their OS, and imagined it running on others.

disgusted


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From: Leroy Whetstone
Subject: Re: Go figure! (again)
Date: 13 Nov 2008 00:18:44
Message: <491BB93C.3060507@joplin.com>
Mike the Elder wrote:
> The last time that I broached the subject of adding human figures to my POV-Ray
> work, I became so frustrated that I just gave up and went back to working
> figure-free.
> 
Leroy's thought:
  Me to! So I went to making robots.

> Mike the Elder wrote:
> The short version of the question is this:
> Keeping in mind that I would like to be able to do as much as I can myself and
> avoid being stuck with having to purchase "improvements" figure by figure,
> texture by texture, hairdo by hairdo, etc., where should I invest my money and
> how much should I expect to spend?
> 
Leroy's thought:
  There is probably a formula that would solve that problem.
  It have would to have many variables TIME, Money, Software 
limitations,...etc


> am).  I really would like to support the freeware movement and its associated
> communities whenever feasible.
> 
Leroy's thought:
  As do I. If I can't get it free and I really,really,really want it I 
make it. Then if its half way desent I put it on my web page free to 
everyone.(http://leroywhetstone.s5.com/)

> Last time I checked, PoseRay was the way to go to convert figures for use in
> POV-Ray. Anything new to know about in this area?
> 
Leroy's thought:
As to rest of your comments, I don't have any opinion on any of that 
software, I don't use them. And right now I'm working of an animation 
that uses robots. While also writing software that will help with the 
keyframe animation.

Have Fun!!


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From: alphaQuad
Subject: Re: Go figure! (again)
Date: 13 Nov 2008 01:40:00
Message: <web.491bcb79607813b365e6af150@news.povray.org>
> it doesnt run, of course

I *can* run it, if I launch the app, then ctrl-alt-del quickly enough, shutdown,
cancel, hainus

ok I'd post her but she aint nuthin to look at, yet, if ever
I'd post the data but its 2500kb.

makeHuman export as obj -> poseray -> povray, no skin exported,
eyebrows viewed in makehuman exported 3-4 times thicker


materials.mtl (from makeHuman)
# Material file for mesh.obj

newmtl eyebrows
Kd 0 0 0

newmtl teeth
Kd 1 1 1

newmtl head
Kd 0.901961 0.772549 0.694118

newmtl tongue
Kd 1 0 0

newmtl iris
Kd 0 0 0

newmtl body
Kd 0.901961 0.772549 0.694118

newmtl eyelashes
Kd 0 0 0

newmtl eye
Kd 1 1 1

newmtl bones
Kd 1 1 1

ok back to something useful


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From: alphaQuad
Subject: Re: Go figure! (again)
Date: 13 Nov 2008 01:55:00
Message: <web.491bceca607813b365e6af150@news.povray.org>
Warning!
MakeHuman
Creepiest hermaphrodite screencaps, avoid at all cost if you want to keep your
dreams untainted.

hurl yucky pooh pooh


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From: Chris B
Subject: Re: Go figure! (again)
Date: 13 Nov 2008 05:23:35
Message: <491c0027$1@news.povray.org>
"alphaQuad" <alp### [at] earthlinknet> wrote in message 
news:web.491bceca607813b365e6af150@news.povray.org...
> Warning!
> MakeHuman
> Creepiest hermaphrodite screencaps, avoid at all cost if you want to keep 
> your
> dreams untainted.
>
> hurl yucky pooh pooh
>

** Warning. This response may contain elements of sarcasm. **

Thanks for the carefully thought out and eloquently phrased review. It must 
have been hard to conduct such a thorough evaluation of last years MakeHuman 
release candidate in the few hours that you've spent on it, especially given 
the time you've evidently invested in crafting your 5 newsgroup responses.

In response to some of the diverse points you've raised:

> amazing that they cant' put the target OS on a download
> page at sourceforge it doesnt run, of course

I see you've already found the answers to most of these points yourself, but 
just to summarise; There are prebuilt installers for the year old release 
candidate as listed on the download page at 
http://www.makehuman.org/blog/index.php?post=s1210866244 for various Windows 
Operating Systems, for Mac OSX and for Mandriva (whatever that is). The 
version currently under development is, as yet, only available as source 
code on SourceForge, but is being written to run across multiple platforms 
and will have prebuilt installers for Mac OSX, Linux and Windows. I believe 
the main developer uses Ubuntu, but I was able to build myself a version on 
Windows without much difficulty. The version under development doesn't 
actually do very much when you get it running, but it does permit you to 
experiment with the Python scripting, so I was able to write and test the 
POV-Ray export function with it.

> wish they had spent less time on pdf files and more time
> on a text called instructions or readme to put in the release!

I too had difficulty following their original documentation. My response was 
a little different though, I offered to assist with the documentation of 
their new release candidate (still! each to his own). I've therefore been 
assisting with the documentation on the new Wiki at 
http://makehuman.wiki.sourceforge.net/. Community feedback on the new 
documentation would be welcomed as it's something we can collectively 
actually do something about.

> makeHuman export as obj -> poseray -> povray

Ah! I see you found the old .OBJ export route required by the year old 
release candidate and that you didn't like it very much. I didn't like that 
very much either. Once again our approaches differ here slightly. I wrote a 
direct POV-Ray export for the software currently under development and 
submitted it for approval to the project team, getting it incorporated into 
the application. I'm suprised you didn't see the page describing that as I 
linked to it in my original response to Mike the Elders question.

> Creepiest hermaphrodite screencaps, avoid at all
> cost if you want to keep your dreams untainted.

You raise two points here; As explained in the technical paper on the new 
Wiki, the base model is a neutral model to which a very large number of 
gender, ethnicity, age etc. variants can be applied using controls provided 
by the MakeHuman application. I assume you wouldn't have read that though as 
your busy schedule clearly didn't leave you any spare time for such things. 
The year old release candidate also enables you to tailor all of the 
features to create the model of your dreams, whether those dreams are 
tainted or not, but I'm guessing from your notes that you didn't have time 
to explore any functionality or anything trivial like that.  Note though 
that the new GUI will change the way such character tailoring is performed.

Anyhoo. Thanks for the valuable time you've spent in your highly articulate 
review and the words of encouragement that I'm sure will encourage the 
MakeHuman team. After all it's words like yours that stimulate people to 
provide their time for free to solve the many complex problems that have 
been outstanding for so many years to bring free humanoid modelling to the 
open source 3D graphics community.

** End of sarcasm warning. **

Regards,
Chris B.


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