It would be great if the library could have some hands like Poser does (if memory serves).
It doesnât appear because I canât enable the add-on. I downloaded it then went to blender and clicked install then found the zip and click ok but I canât find it in the Add-on tab to enable it.
You need to rename the folder inside the zip file to something without periods (ie: MB-Lab-1.7.3 to MB-Lab-173), that should fix your install issue.
I had to extract it, change the name, and then compress it. Why not just have the original name be something that works?
Usually you can edit a zip from the extraction app !
Mine came with a proper name, where did you get yours, is it the latest ?
I got it from the github https://github.com/animate1978/MB-Lab/releases
yes itâs the latest
Also what is the reasoning behind not making a Patreon or OpenCollective so we can support this very important add-on? Would make it easier for developer to help if they can afford take the time to work on it.
The reasoning for not making a Patreon account is simply ethics, I and the rest of the contributors of MB-Lab did not come up with the addon, we are only working off of what was already there. When Manuel shut down his project I decided to put the source on Github as it is open source and this amazing addon did not have to die (though I am sure if I didnât someone else would have). Since we did not come up with the basis of this addon itâs hard to really accept donations of monetary value for something we did not build from scratch. Even if I did I think I would feel awful, as this was the whole reason that Manuel decided to shut down the project, he was not making the money he thought he would. So why should I or anyone else that is adding on top of this? It would not be fair to Manuel, if I were in his position and someone was making some kind of money from donations or whatever I would be furious really. So in that end I think it is fair to say that accepting help like that would not be in our best interest.
Plus there are multiple people contributing to this addon, who gets what slice of the pie?
The ONLY thing I am considering is raising funds for a proper site where people can download this addon without the install issue.
I also doubt that donations will replace my job hours, just saying I have one of those kind of jobs that suck but pays decent I just canât miss days because I want to work on this addon. So I instead work on it in my free time during my morning and after work at night.
As for your issue with installation, itâs a common problem because of how Github packages the addon when you download it. I should make it clear that if you download from the master this wonât happen AND that the master is always the latest release, I have a separate branch for development that when the time comes I merge into master and release a new version.
If you open up the zip file, without extracting it, you can rename it and then it saves that name in the zip. OR you can just extract to the addon folder and bypass the installation in the first place.
Also in version 1.7.3 is the Auto-updater so that you donât have to re-install each version upgrade, you can just update through Blender and it downloads the files from Github.
8 Likes
Thatâs makes sense. Thanks for the clarification and all the hard work your putting in to the extension!
I get mine from the link posted in the first post.
In the zip file I get, the directory is named âMB-Lab-masterâ, so I get no errors !
I use Linux Mint, but I doubt it has anything to do with the zip content.
Hi, and thanks to animate1978 and all for this MB-Lab port!
I only started playing with Blender 2.8 this week and was very happy to discover that MB-Lab continues Manuelâs fine work. I downloaded a free .bvh from https://sites.google.com/a/cgspeed.com/cgspeed/motion-capture/daz-friendly-release and loaded it with MB-Labâs âLoad Animationâ panel on a âstockâ character. Eevee render.
This is the result, albeit with the odd glitch, no need to rename bones.
https://vimeo.com/327183824
Just an update on the next version being worked on but not yet committed to the Github repo.
Over the past couple of weeks I have been working on the shaders quite a bit. One thing that has changed is the removal of the Principled BSDF node and going back to a custom skin shader, I think that using that node for skin was a mistake as there was little control over the look, plus it did not look as good as I planned. Now the skin shader has a lot more in common with Manuelâs original skin shader again but looks a little more realistic. There is still the texture maps for albedo, sub-dermal, bump, spec and roughness they are just connected a bit better in this version.
The freckles have been an issue ever since they were introduced many versions ago. I havenât seen anyone post images with them so I assume everyone thinks they look ugly. They do. They look like the characters have some serious disease. With the next version that will change. Now the freckles only appear in certain areas thicker than others through a texture mask, there is also color variation so they all donât look the same.
Another procedural feature was added : Veins! Yes, there is now sub dermal veins that the user can control how much they are visible. Either none at all or very prominent. Cool thing about them is that it uses an Overlay blend, so if the user changes the skin hue, the veins change color accordingly.
The above screenshot shows the veins in EEVEE. I changed the value to 0.50 just to show the veins a bit better, usually I have them barely showing. Also donât pay mind to those eyesâŚ
Another change is a fully procedural eyeball shader. While the texture map did look good, in the end the user is only given a specific color range to change the iris color, this is not very helpful. Plus one of the most common iris colors, brown, is not in that range, while unrealistic colors like purple, are. So the texture map was removed and now the eye is completely procedural. The iris still needs a lot of work and I have been having problems getting it right but for now it works. I am thinking of keeping the eye texture map in the repo for people that want to export to other software like Unreal, the UV map remains the same as well.
Texture maps are also getting an overhaul, specifically the bump map, which in my opinion is not realistic at all. This has yet to be done as of this writing but actively being worked on. One thing that needs to go is the bump of the eyebrows, itâs been an irritation far too long. The next area to be worked on is the scalp, which in my opinion, makes the characters look like burn victims. I also want to make the bump map a 4K texture so that really tiny details can be painted in, such as the lips and around the eyes. I am also going to be editing the albedo map, the face needs some love, again around the eyes the color is not as realistic as it could be, so close ups still are not very good. Hopefully with these texture map upgrades close ups of MB-Lab models will look a bit more attractive.
The GUI will also have slight edits, nothing too drastic. There is exploration into adding a color wheel to the skin editor for changing colors that way rather than use sliders but that has yet to be added, in fact I have not even seen this itâs only been mentioned on Discord, so it may or may not be in this upcoming version.
There is still a known issue with the Auto-Updater that is causing MB-Lab to error out if you try to disable the addon in Blender, this is a registration issue (it errors out during unregistration), at this point itâs not fixed. So at this point should you decide to get rid of MB-Lab, the only option is to delete the folder from your hard drive.
So that is it for now, hopefully in the next week or so these changes will be made I just donât want to make a new version riddled with shader problems or texture lookup bugs like I have done in the past. More testing will be done before release just so that things look up to par.
3 Likes
Isnât the bump for the eyebrows inverted? It just seems to me that they are being pushed into the head and not going out. 
Exactly. In all reality there should not be a bump around the eyebrows at all. Well aside from skin cells and such but the âhairâ should not be affecting the bump anymore.
or that⌠yes⌠maybe make preset maps for particle distribution maps or something⌠and particle presets for long hair short hair eyebrows and eyelashes⌠xD
A lot of work, i knowâŚ
Iâm really glad to find that someone is continuing Manuelâs work. I have been following him since 2013 when he was working on MakeHuman alpha 8. I did my first character projects using that, and he liked it enough that he asked me to make a version of it that was on the front page of the MakeHuman site for years until the current team revamped it after heâd moved on to ManuelLab. He spent a lot of time talking with me via email and helping me through the process of making an MMD style anime custom target for makehuman, among other things. And then when he started MLAB, I bothered him to create the Modern Anime and Realistic Anime bodies.
We had off-and-on talks via email for about 5 years. And through that whole time, I was asking him to let me donate to him and pay for all the time and help and great tools he gave me. And the whole time he kept saying âsoon.â And then after all those years when the time finally came that he opened up some monetization, it was in the form of assets that I did not need and could not use! And I didnât buy any because I thought that surely he would add a donate button or Patreon soon. But he didnât! And I have hoped that he would come back, but he has not.
So I think you are making a mistake by not setting up a Patreon. I understand you do not want to be seen as profiting off Manuelâs work. That is good and very decent of you to do. But please, let people support you for YOUR time and work. Especially since you are taking feature requests. You arenât taking money away from Manuel by doing so. You are right that it probably wonât be a huge amount of money I suppose, so maybe itâs not worth the trouble. But you are providing value, and I donât think itâs wrong for you to profit off the work you are doing here.
1 Like
Iâd totally donate my procedural skin setup if theyâd just let me use the characters in an RPG character builder in a game engineâŚ
2 Likes
Thatâs up to ManuâŚ
âŚoh wait!
Except it is, because this is based on his work.
Even if heâs not developing it further, itâs still under the license he built it withâŚ
all this story and abrupt dissapearing of Manuel forces to think that there is something shady behind the scenes. Manuel was a dedicated person and not stupid. And setup pateron button is just a matter of minutes.
May be mblab still uses something from makehuman and his departure was not so smooth and included agreement not to make a money from the work of many peoples⌠So when he finally give up - someone from the past contacted him and induced risk of legal negotiations⌠and in Germany this is tough.