Creating a character for games in Godot using MakeHuman

Tomcat

Creating a character for games in Godot using MakeHuman

An expanded and expanded edition of the MH into Godot tutorial (part 2)

In 3 volumes.

This is not really a tutorial, but more of a developer's diary type of thing.

It is intended for game developers and is supposed to be published on the Godot site. I will be grateful for comments, suggestions and other constructive criticism.

Volume 1. MakeHuman

Creating a character in MakeHuman. Plugins, Assets.
Selection of clothing. Additional settings.
Importing into Blender.

Volume 2. Blender

Exporting to Blender.
Assigning Animations.
Importing into Godot.

Volume 3. Conclusion

Challenges and perspectives.

Volume 1

Creating a character in MakeHuman

Creating a character for the game with a change of clothes and several animations.

Introduction. MakeHuman Overview

FAQ:What is MakeHuman?

MakeHuman is a completely free, innovative and professional software for the modelling of 3-Dimensional humanoid characters.

Documentation:What is MakeHuman?

MakeHuman is an open source (AGPL3) tool designed to simplify the creation of virtual humans using a Graphical User Interface, also commonly referred to as a GUI.
…
Humans are created through the manipulation of controls that allow for the blending of different human attributes to create unique 3D human characters. The controls are intended to provide the user with a simple way to create characters that give expression to the widest possible range of human forms.
…
The MakeHuman project strives to provide a complete tool that allows for the management of all things needed to create realistic virtual humans.

Distinguished by a large number of settings and easily expandable features. There is a plugin for mass character creation "Mass produce". Has a lot of ready-made clothing and accessories. You can create new ones yourself. Easy to integrate with Blender.

Has options not found in other similar programs:

Allows you to change the age of a character. It is enough to create a model and you can change the age with one parameter. Very convenient if you are making a game about growing up.
Allows you to assign different rigs to characters. Large selection of ready-made skeletons or you can make your own.

Sliders do not have the ability to enter a numerical value, which is sometimes not very convenient.

The program is mainly aimed at artists who create static images or videos. It is still little adapted for use in games, but has a lot of opportunities in this regard.

I will try to show how you can make a character with a change of clothes and assign him animation.

Programs used:

MakeHuman 1.2.0
Blender 2.93.9
Godot 3.4.4

Addons:

For Blender
Retarget BVH
MHX2

For Godot
Blender Importer Addon for Godot
The additional viewport in the screenshots is Camera Monitor.

Step 0

Program Installation

Download the program, install it.

User data is located in the folder:

Windows
C:\Users[Name]\Documents\makehuman\v1py3\data\

Linux
??

This is where you install additional assets: clothes, hair, poses ect.

You can install them directly from the program, tab "Community". Or manually from the site — User contributed assets.

They are very well represented in the gallery, but it's a bit difficult to get there.

The following assets were used in the tutorial:

Author
Asset

punkduck
sport briefs 01
sport bra 01
sun visor (sports visor)
Short jeans (female)
Sleeveless Shirt
tennis shoes
Martial-Arts Shoes (Kill Bill)

Elvaerwyn
Ladies Sunglass1 by Elv

RehmanPolanski
Scalp Viking

callharvey3d
Fangs

sonntag78
Orkifyhead
Orkifyheadtarget custom skin

Hatshj
Alien Eyes

blindsaypatten
Fully close mouth

Joel Palmius
Elf ears

Animation used from the cgspeed
MotionBuilder-friendly version 2010 RE-RELEASE
BVH directories 01-09 (32 MB)
02_01.bvh walk
02_03.bvh run

Step 1

Modeling

Run the program and customize the character. By default, it offers a middle-gendered and middle-aged character.

Since there are no numeric values to enter, you have to move the sliders, like this:

General body settings, head, torso, arms, legs...

Apply the modifiers
Custom
Orkifyhead
Elf ears
Fully close mouth

Geometry

The following sequence is not important, we need to equip our character with everything necessary for life ~~and combat~~: hair, teeth, tongue, eyebrows, eyelashes… if it is supposed that the character will not open his mouth, you can skip the teeth and tongue setup.

Hair
Scalp Viking

Fangs
Fangs (from the Clothes[Accessory] tab)

Making the body parts modifiable is possible, but difficult. At the end I'll tell you how.

Materials

Assigning textures.

Body
Orkifyheadtarget custom skin

Eyes
Alien Eyes

Step 2

Dress up your character.

Geometry
Choose clothing

If a change of clothes is expected, then we put all the necessary clothes on the character. In this case there are 2 sets: casual and sports.

Casual
Short jeans
Sleeveless Shirt
Martial-Arts Shoes
Ladies Sunglass

Sporty
port briefs 01
sport bra 01
sun visor (sports visor)
tennis shoes

The option "Hide face under clothing"
If you don't intend to change clothes, it's better to leave this option. If this option is disabled, then it will be visible when the body goes beyond the clothes. When exporting, this function will be enabled in any case.

Step 3

Pose/Animate
Assign a rig

The rig should match the animation. For this example I use the CMU Motion Capture animation and assign the corresponding rig CMU mb.

The character is ready for export.

Step 4

Export to Blender

You can put the character from MH into Blender in several ways.

The most reliable one is exporting to .mhx2 (MHX2 - MakeHuman eXchange format 2). This is the only way to correctly transfer the textures to the game engine.
If you use export to Blender via Socket (tab in MH "Community"), you will have to assign textures in the engine manually.

It is desirable not to forget to switch "Scale units" to a meter.

To be continued…

Funds

I'd like to try to raise finances to work on gamedev. I suppose, in addition to the engine site, also to put up on Patreon. Of course in completely free, but with an offer of donations. Considered an option with itch.io, but I could not find there section for tutorials. Are there any thoughts and suggestions on this topic, where else you can publish a tutorial?

Translated with http://www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

Tomcat

Volume 2

Importing into Blender and assigning animations. Importing into Godot

Need two addons for Blender:

Step 1

Import

The import panel can be called in 2 ways:

File –> Import –> MakeHuman (.mhx2)
N-панель –> Import MHX2

result is identical:

If you need facial animation, you need to enable "Face Shapes".

In Rigging turn on Add Rig and choose Rig Type [Exported].

The rig assigned to the MH will be imported.

[Import MHX2]

Remove all the masks:

If the clothes will be the only one, it's better to leave masks.

Step 2

Assignment of animation

*A little note. For the game, the animation must be played without moving the character. Moving the character is done in the game engine by moving the object itself. As the animation in the example contains movement, you need to get rid of it (or take the animation already prepared). You can choose any convenient way for the character to stay in place. In my opinion, the easiest is to tie the Hips(root) bone to the position at rest. The way is not the best, but simple and fast. To do this, I make a copy of the skeleton at rest position. This is only necessary for binding.

To assign the animation use Retarget BVH plugin finalized by punkduck [MakeHuman Team] (for which he is very thankful).

[Load And Retarget] allows you to load animation and immediately apply to the character.

Select animation (02_01.bvh) and load it.

*Now bind the Hips animation bone to the rest pose bone for the character to walk in place.

Add the running animation (02_03.bvh).

Now the file is ready to be exported to Godot.

The documentation for the engine recommends that you triangulate the models.

But Blender does not allow you to triangulate an object that contains shape keys:
Modifier cannot be applied to a mesh with shape keys

Step 3

Godot. Import

The Blender Importer Addon for Godot allows you to open Blender files as Godot scenes.

This feature is built into Godot 4, but it doesn't work correctly there.

Just save the .blend file in your project folder and it will be automatically imported into the engine.

In an open scene, you can remove the resting pose skeleton you don't need anymore and separate clothes by scene for easy switching:

Video

Face morphs will be transferred, but you must remember to set the same Shapes settings for different body parts.

The main part of the tutorial is finished.

Tomcat

Some suggestions that arose during the creation of the tutorial

Make an option in .mhx2 to save body parts and clothes separately, so they would be automatically put into Blender collections (for example, body parts into "body parts" collection, and clothes into "clothes" collection, maybe even by categories: "sports", "casual"…).
Support importing collections from Blender, so that Blender collections open as nodes in Godot.