(May of 2026)

Greetings again Community!

 I am so happy to be writing to you again-as it has been a very long week of changes and development for MH2!
We managed to polish the pbr shader & fix the directionality on normal maps so that they work seamlessly with any lighting
conditions! Thank you to a very helpful git issue reporter(always stay stubborn). We enhanced and added to our gltf exporter
so it is closer to creating studio and game ready characters at export!

 I personally have spent many hours learning, and relearning, in effort to better meet the needs of our small team. The
Time spent has been both fun and rewarding. I have reached beyond my usual scope towards video creation and editing in effort
to create quality, informative & fun content for our community at large while using free opensource software such as our own!

 As the site etc. approaches completion(and launch ready) I am taking the time to reflect on the journey this far, and that roadmap
that still lies ahead. I am both exited and motivated to see this to where it will take us all! I hope that our community will bolster
us and spur us on to future success and continued support of our passion project.

Elv

So here after a long time a few sentences from my side. MakeHumans old version 1 had a pretty good concept.

But it was limited to a certain mesh. One of my ideas was to make that flexible. Long ago I added wings inside old makehuman. I changed the base mesh (just put other helpers at the end). It worked. But after that the old version did not really run.

So idea was born to make that flexible. This concept is new and it partly works. Atm. I am struggling with a target correction of e.g. wings for this mesh based on hm08. But that fantasy version will be added as extra base, which can be downloaded as one packet in the end.

But I wanted to show possibilities that we even can work with meshes the same way with a complete different mesh. The small mh2bot should be an example for that.

A few other things, like writing glb files I added. The old mhx2 format is replaced by a new format mh2b which is also the streaming protocol for blender socket. Old fashioned as I am, I like a second layer as an option.

Animation I always wanted. Given the character has a limited number of vertices, not only poses work, but also animations.

For glTF standard I wanted to change materials to that standard. So AOmap, Normalmap, Metal-Roughness Map, Light-Emission map, Texture. I added phong shading, pbr shading and good old litsphere textures as well. For a better presentation a skybox is added and you can use a floor.

We finally have a focus angle and not only orthographic projection.

Of course I must admit, I could need some help for stuff like a real normal-map etc., but when we do not start, we will never be ready.

(black-)punkduck

(April of 2026)

Greetings,

 It has been quite some time since I(Elvaerwyn) was able to address the people of MH!
This has been a truly unprecedented few years of development by Punkduck and
myself. I have truly missed the sense of community, and artistic freedoms-however real life
along with the reality of the size of the endeavor-has kept me quite busy overall! Working
with Punk has been a great experience also, and to that end I am grateful
once again for our ability to work together and meet one anothers team needs
without the necessity for leadership in general. Both of us are responsible and goal oriented
and found it easy to not lose track of the needs of this project!

 The Software now known as MH2 has been built new from the ground up-this has involved
much learning curve journeys for both of us. Punk has learned all new code writing skills
along with stepping outside himself to tackle the backend of complexities such as
intuitive software design and user interface. I have learned to do more tedious things
without losing focus like designing and creating more icons than I ever thought I would in
life in a very short time. I also got to revisit site design and have managed to create a
brand new home for our software, resources, art, history, manual etc.

 I hope that the first users diving in, will appreciate the patience, dedication, and
time that has gone in to making all of this a solid reality! I also hope they will
feel free to add to the project with their bug finding skills, along with the usual
assortment of artistic contributions to the community asset pool! That being said-
I am exited to announce there is even more room to contribute to this pool as we now
need more skybox images-or cubemaps for customization of inside Makehuman rendering!

 My current objective is to make the fantasy release a reality with many new body
part customizations and abilities outside the standard MH2 character body model! Feel
free to be ready with your new custom body parts to add here also-such as tails, antenae,
wings, ears, etc! ;). Exiting is the fantasy Skeleton!(Finally my creation sees the light of day!)
Cue the manical cackles…

 To those that prefer or in fact need a stand alone character creator in the
open source capacity-Ribbons cut, alpha release open-Welcome :D!

Elv

Just a quick note to say our site development approaches completion, Steams MH2 hard work & resulting launch approaches,
alpha 2 is stable and ready to be downloaded and tested!

The documentation and educational resources are coming to fruition, videos are starting to become available on youtube,
tumblr is ready to see community art.

Discord is ready to embrace feedback, suggestions & valuable input-along with the github :D.

I believe we soon have some ribbons to cut and they likely will be Orange!

Elv