Create Fantastic Characters in MakeHuman

MakeHuman is such a fun program to play with that I've frequently found myself wasting all my free time playing around in it. The program is still in the beta stage, though, so you probably won't be able to do everything that you would like but if you like creating interesting 3-D human models you will find it more then sufficient. In fact, I'd say that the people who own the famous Poser program are probably starting to get a little nervous. Not only is MakeHuman gaining on them quickly as far as features go, it is absolutely free.

To get your copy of this wonderful software, just go to the MakeHuman website and follow the installation instructions. When you first open the program you will see a screen that is similar to the screen as shown (this is with version 0.9). The 3-D model that you will be manipulating is in the large section in the center of your screen and on the left is a menu tool bar.

The first thing that you will probably notice in the menu on the left, are the sections labeled Ecto, Meso, and Endo. Each section is then further divided into arms, torso, and legs. These are the three body types that describe most people's build and this is a quick way to change the global shape of your model. For those of you who have never encountered these body type descriptions before I will elaborate... A pure Ecto body type is usually thin with a short torso and long arms while the Meso is the type that is most athletic, they are typically muscular with broad shoulders and narrow hips. The Endo's have long arms and legs along with a long torso and tend to have more problems with excessive weight gain.

Now that you know what they are about, let's try to give your 3-D model a Meso's broad shoulders. This is really easy, just go to the Meso section and click on the torso part of that section. Continue holding down the mouse button as you drag to the right. If you are doing it correctly you should notice the shoulders of your model spread apart. To move the shoulders back to their starting point just drag to the left. Play around with some of the other body types to see what they do.

Underneath the Ecto, Meso, and Endo Section you will notice several squares labeled Charact1, Charact2, and so on. If you click once on the Charact1 option a new section will open on the right side of the screen. This section allows you to add new face and body features that don't fit into the Ecto, Meso and Endo categories.

If none of the above options gives you the detailed control that you would like, just click on the icon at the top of the screen that looks like a segmented body. This will take you to the "Body Details - realistic morphings" screen. To change a particular feature just click once on the body part in the left hand menu and then the various options will open on the right. Once the menu on the right is open, just select the feature you want to change and drag to the right to increase that feature or drag to the left to reduce that feature.

MakeHuman also allows you to do fantasy body details, you can find these options through the icon that looks like a white segmented body. Play around and give your 3-D model horns or a massively swollen head or both. As far as I can tell you can't give them bat wings or other similar appendages yet but maybe that will come along in the future.

The last feature that is active at this time is the posing ability. If you want to give your character a pose, look for the crouching body icon. To pose your figure, just click on the body part you want to move on the left and then click and drag on the action on the right.

If you would like to move your character around in the main view you can rotate your character by clicking and dragging in the 3-D character's pane. Then to zoom in, just type the '+' key on your numeric keypad and then to zoom out, type the '-' on the numeric keypad.

You will probably notice several icons that you can't click on in the menu at the top. These are features that are planned for future versions of MakeHuman but aren't ready yet. These sections include clothes, lights, expressions, asymmetry, hair, and materials (you can see the names for yourself by hovering your mouse over the icon and viewing the name in the Tooltip area at the bottom of the screen). If hair is a big issue for you, there is a separate makehair script that will work in the free rendering program named Blender. Poser can also add hair to your 3-D model (MakeHuman can export in the .obj file format and Poser can load this format). If you are good at modeling you can also add clothes in other programs such as Carrara, Hexegon, Blender, and any other modeling program that allows you to import a .obj file format. The easiest way to add clothes at this time is with the Poser program. As nice as it is to be able to do things like this though, I can't wait until these features are available in MakeHuman.

Modeling used to take hours of painstaking work but with the new programs like MakeHuman out there it's becoming easier and easier for anyone to bring their artistic visions to life. In my opinion, MakeHuman is one of the best examples of these new programs and the most amazing thing about it is that it's free! If you would like to thank the makers of MakeHuman and help ensure that it stays around for a while, you can give them a donation. Programming something like this take thousands of man hours plus amazing skill so any donations they receive are well earned.