Rendering a Makehuman model in Blender cycles


You have imported you model in cycles and there you are wondering now what? Image

Here is a simple way to texture your model and move on to other things. You will be using the materials that you applied in the make human program before exporting your model. If you exported your model as lady1 for instance there will be a folder in your makehuman/export directory called lady1, inside the lady1 folder is a folder called textures. With that out the way lets get cracking.

Invisio material
Invisio material

In object mode with your model selected go to the material panel. Select the skin and click use nodes. Split your view port so you have a node editor and 3d view window.Image

You are going to select add / texture /and then image texture. select the skin texture from your texture folder. the skin should look like this.Image

you are going to connect the skin texture to the diffused shader.  you will then add a mix shader. Place the diffuse shader on the bottom and then add a transparent shader.Image

Your model should be coming to life. Human skin is some what oily and a little reflective so to fake this add another mix shader and then a glossy shader. Set the roughness value of the glossy shader to .5 and the factor value of the mix shader to .1.  Next you have to mask the clothes.  so you add a mix shader and a transparent shader.  Then add the mask texture, connect it to a color invert node then connect that to the factor value of the mix shader. and you are done with the skin.Image

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It gets a little easier from here. The next material is the mouth. as in step 1 you will be adding a mix shader and a transparent shader.  The diffuse shader on the bottom and the transparent on the top. Add your skin texture to the diffused shader and the alpha to the factor value of the mix shader. To make the eyes and the eyebrows easier to do you will group the texture node the transparent shader node the diffuse and mix shader nodes together. You hold down shift and select each then press control G and move to the next material slot.

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Here is the new node group.

Move on to the eyes.  Select use nodes. Delete the diffuse shader. Select add group. Connect it to the output shader and you are done with the eyes.

 

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Repeat the above procedure for the the eye brows.

 

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The invsio material is a mix shader diffuse and transparent shader. and for the red green and blue material just click use nodes

Invisio material
Invisio material

 

 

 

 

 

Your model is ready to render except there is no hair. You can use the hair mesh if you created the model in makehuman with hair or you can strand render hair in experimental mode. For this I will use the hair from make human.

With the hair mesh selected we go to materials and use nodes. Add a mix shader a transparent shader and a diffuse shader.

Hair node set up

Hair node set up

You are now done and have a complete character rendered in cycles. I hope this helps you along enjoy.makehuman tut11

2 thoughts on “Rendering a Makehuman model in Blender cycles”

  1. I haven’t tried yet, but if you use the MakeHuman hair libraries can more hair be added to the mesh for one thing and can you comb it back. I have a character I’ve generated that I don’t want the hair in her eyes.

    The other gripe I’ve had with the MH hair is the fact that it mostly leaves a scalp line of stubble. In other words it doesn’t cover everywhere…

    Thoughts?

  2. The makehuman hair is just a mesh that just doesn’t fit any of the models generated with any kind of complete coverage. If you are up to it I would imagine you could model more hair. The best way is to generate hair is with a particle system. You could then comb and style it. The hair here is an example of hair with a particle ssystem. https://newart2000.wordpress.com/image-gallery/#jp-carousel-99
    It is far easier to do particle hair as opposed to model a mesh in my opinion. to render hair in cycles however you need blender 2.67 or higher I believe. It is something that requires a little more research and some work. I’ll will post a follow up on makehuman hair styles in the future. Sorry I couldn’t be more help.

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