Hey everybody!

A few words from my side considering the fantasy version.

The idea of expanding our normal hm08 mesh to a new mesh including some features like a fishtail or wings was something which I tried years ago. The mesh I used was of course not identical but at least similar.

Doing that broke old makehuman of course and a lot did no longer work. This was the main reason for a new more flexible version of makehuman. As you may have noticed the program can also be used for completely different characters like the small robot which was more or less our proof of concept.

With the fantasy version we now are able to add parts like wings which can also be animated. That fantasy mesh has a parameter called “parentmesh” in base.json, this indicates you can also use all assets made for hm08 (except hm08 skeletons, that would make no sense). We have a tool converting morphs (targets) to the new mesh. Like all the other tools we will upload these to the git repository for those who want to convert their own old hm08 morphs.

We struggled both with some problems putting a version on Steam which is stable. We started with pynsist which creates a self-extracting .exe file. Then we found pyInstaller. pyInstaller itself creates code which was not as stable as we hoped. Pyside6 and pyOpenGL created a bunch of dependencies which are not easy to understand. Also the use of “half-deprecated” (not directly supported) openGL features in pySide6 is still a mess (the display of the wireframe mesh is an example, it does not always work, especially mesa implementations might have problems). For pyInstaller especially the macro-targets crashed the system. So we needed to find methods which are more stable. The reason that the macro-targets are now calculated the same way as the normal ones and not in an own parallel thread.

A few things will be changed in near future, ideas are: for that wireframe mesh I want to use an own shader and we will also add a method to reduce the skeleton to the bones used on export etc.

For those not using Steam: the .exe will be available and also the debian package. Also the source code will be always available. The alpha3 version is identical with fantasy version except that the fantasy-mesh is not included. It will be possible to use the alpha3 version and download that mesh to user space as well. My first idea was to only add the fantasy-packet to Steam and go on with alpha3. But it is easier for most of the people to use it by downloading the complete version. However the concept of Makehuman2 is, that the user can put everything also in user space, so add his own base mesh including a bunch of config files without changing the code.

I hope most will work … but hey, I am a programmer and we all know Murphy, so I am sure there will be work left :)

If you have experiences with e.g. putting a native Linux on Steam, we would be happy. pyInstaller itself works for Linux. For those doing experiments, check our build folder on github, the python scripts ppabuild, winbuild and pyinbuild are the scripts we use for debian package, windows exe and pyinstaller package.

Greetings

Black-Punkduck

Greetings,

Once again it is time for me to take pen to paper, and express my thoughts on Makehuman 2.

With the upcoming fantasy release, one thing I have not had is time for deep reflection. With that said however, I still have some personal wisdom to impart regarding the upcoming fantasy release, the road thusfar, and the future of Makehuman 2.

Having stepped away from my historical roles lately, more and more I find myself coding, researching, interacting with the community, and handling the management aspect of this project. Granted a larger team makes for lighter work, however the pressures imparted on both myself and Punk in last months have felt even greater than expected.

Be aware that I have no regrets on this project, as I am so very happy and proud to be able to make something for others, to create with. That is the true love for me personally, to have a space where all creators are free to express their creativity both without limits, and with no judgment. I have also been able to channel my 3d art towards skyrooms, ui appearances, and many other things I did not expect really!

There have been many obstacles in last months, both in and outside my MH2 work, I keep managing to hurdle,-my sincere hope is that I shall continue to be able to do just this going forward also.

The fantasy release is going to continue our new MH2 tradition of opening things up and giving more options for character creation. This is the mission, we actually strove for in the original plans. That said, we are happy to be able to reach such a milestone of success!

The future plan, the roadmap actually was written a while back in effort to arrange our thoughts on the ongoing development and the future of MH2, as we originally did not expect to go past this point. However we both have so many other ideas, thoughts, drafts, etc…and having talked with so many others now there are more ideas coming in too as I type this. I cannot see a reason not to continue this journey and see where it takes us.

Thank you all for being a part of this release, and MH2 in general, heres to much more going forward,

Elv

(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