Avatar Add-on

Integration of Makehuman inside Blender with a intuitive interface for a fast prototyping of dressed human models. The add-on includes a small subset of assets available in Makehuman. The 3D model shape can be slightly modified by a set of different parameters. The purpose of this add-on is to have a ready to use tool to generate large datasets that can be used to train neural networks. Everything can be scripted in python, most useful functions and explanations are given below.

Useful python code

  1. Camera
  2. Body
  3. Materials

Avatar: 3D human modeler suite (youtube video)

Avatar

Installation

Requirements: Blender >= 2.8

  1. Go to Edit>Preferences>Add-ons>Install and choose zip file

The new addon should appear in the right tab (press N on the 3Dviewer screen)

Shape Panel

There are several parameters to control the shape of the body. Each one of the parameters is a PCA from several bodies created when modifying the correspondent parameter in Makehuman.

Reset parameters, change the body weights to set the original body shape

Motion Panel

There are currently 3 different ways to import an action to Avatar model

  1. Using blender Location/Rotation constraints (default)
  2. Using 3D points (implemented but not activated)
  3. Using external addon BHV Retargeter (recommended)

Methods 1, and 2 are very slow, and they need a list of bone correspondences between the target and source. There are examples in the $avatar_path/motion/rigs folder. Might be necessary to mark “x”, “y” or “z” in the select file windown when loading the BVH file depending on how is defined the skeleton in that file. Method 3 is completely automatic and the recommended method.

Motion file resources

  1. CMU
  2. Mixamo
  3. SFU Mocap
  4. OHIO
  5. DanceDB

Dressing Panel

There is a set of clothes downloaded from Makehuman website. These clothes are slightly modified to fit the makehuman body without having to remove vertices from the model.

Original textures can be downloaded in the Makehuman website or here

If you want to use your own texture in one of the clothes:

  1. Set the image or images in the cloth folder > $avatar_path/dressing/textures/cloth_folder
  2. Change the image name in file > default.txt
  3. Default file assumes: 1st line texture image; 2nd line normal map; 3rd line specular map. If your texture has no normal map neither specular map, you can leave the line in blank.