PART 3 of Making Materials with CLIP STUDIO COORDINATE

YES, BUT WILL IT BLEND?

This is part three of a five part Series on importing 3D models to create Character Material in CLIP STUDIO COORDINATE for CLIP STUDIO PAINT and MANGA STUDIO.  Here is the table of contents for this series:

Foreword

Introduction

Part 1: Oh Maya!

Part 2: Importing Models from DAZ Studio

Part 3: Yes, But Will It Blend?

Part 4: Importing from Sketch-Based Modelers

Part 5: Cheetah3D - My Best Solution

Part 6: Change Faces!

You may be thinking that the FREE, open-source 3D program “Blender” might be the answer here.  Well, you can easily pull the FBX parts files into Blender and tweak them (I really like Blender’s sculpting tools for quickly modding a mesh), you could also assemble your models - from parts or from scratch and then export them as a single model.  However, Blender’s current support for FBX models is rather poor.

I didn’t have much luck trying to work with rigging bones in Blender.  As of this writing the current, stable release of Blender can only import binary FBX models and any rigging already in them won’t be exported.  That’s right, Blender currently strips the skeletons out of FBX models on import.  You could try to rebuild the rigging from scratch with Blender’s native rigging tools, but you’ll only be able to export it as an ASCII model with rigging in an outdated FBX formate that cannot be imported properly by either COORDINATE or CLIP STUDIO PAINT.

My first attempt to try and get Blender to import the sample FBX files with rigging intact led me to a patch for the FBX importer/exporter (this is for the stable version 2.7.0 - it will not work on the later “test” release):

https://github.com/jbruening/fbximport

This still only exports ASCII models, but you can convert them to FBX 2012 binaries with the free Autodesk FBX Converter.  The import, though, is still very buggy.  This patch imported the skeleton rotated 90 degrees from the mesh.  You can reposition it, but that’s not the only problem.  In Blender you’ll see the skeleton as just a series of dots - regardless of what viewing mode you use for the bones:

That’s because they are not only imported with the wrong orientation, they are not being scaled properly.  If you zoom in really tight you’ll discover that each of those dots is actually the entire joint and the dashed line (in most views) shows which other tiny bone it is connected to.  You can make them easier to work with by selecting each joint, in turn, and scaling it up about 100x, but some of the individual bones are rotated 90 degrees in the Z axis - but not all of them (or this would be easy to fix):

In some of my tests I did get a modified head and body, with skeleton, to export - but in COORDINATE the head and body moved independently.  In another test the models head ended up glued to the ground with a freaky long neck stretching back up to the body.  You could move the body around, but the head remained glued to the ground.

For Blender users on Windows there is apparently a third-party script which (from what I’ve read on various 3D modeling forums) imports FBX models to Blender with rigging and allegedly exports them “flawlessly” but it’s not available for Linux or Mac users.  You Windows folks can get it here:

http://blenderfbx.render.jp/home

I’ll just say that I tried to use it (on the Windows version, of course) and encountered some Python script errors that prevented me from successfully opening any files with it.  I’m not sure if this script was made for the version of Blender I was using, and it’s possible there is a bug-fixed version available, but all I can say for sure is that the one I downloaded did not work for me.

The unstable development release (2.7.1) has a slightly better FBX importer and exporter in it that will write out FBX 2014 (aka FBX version 7.4) binary models, but it still cannot import an FBX file with rigging intact.

At the heart of the problems with using Blender for this is the poor support for the FBX format.  Blender only recently acquired add-ons for this format and they are buggy and incomplete.  You can’t really blame the Blender developers for that though - FBX may have become an “industry standard” for character modeling - widely used in game development - but it is a proprietary format owned by Autodesk and their license on it - and the Software Development Kit for it - are not under terms friendly to open-source projects like Blender.  This is one thing where you’re better off using a commercial 3D modeling program that can just pay Autodesk their licensing fees and include proper support.

I’m not entirely ruling out Blender’s usefulness, particularly for building a model from scratch or easily modding a base model.  But you’re probably not going to be rigging the model or exporting an FBX you can use in COORDINATE or CLIP STUDIO / MANGA STUDIO.  So to answer the opening question “Will it Blend?”  No.  Not by itself it won't.  But you can actually get somewhere by using another program called "MakeHuman."

MakeHuman to Blender

MakeHuman is a character creation program similar to DAZ Studio, only MakeHuman is a free and open source alternative.  While it is designed to create high detail (meaning high-polygon) models, it does have some alternative "topographies" that are lower-poly.  However, if you want to reduce the poly count of the models you'd probably be better off using Blender's "Decimate" modifier instead, as it will give you much better fine-tuned control of just how much the model is simplified.  Ah, but I'm getting ahead of myself.  First you need to get the programs and the plugins:

Step 1: Download the free “MakeHuman” program here:

http://www.makehuman.org/content/download_makehuman_101.html

Technically you only need the Blender Tools, but it is much easier to modify the character bases within the stand-alone MakeHuman program and export them in MHX format (a special format for exchanging with Blender).

Step 2: Download “Blender” program here: http://www.blender.org/download/

Step 3: Download and install the MakeHuman “Blender Tools” to your Blender scripts/addons here:

http://download.tuxfamily.org/makehuman/releases/1.0.1/blendertools-1.0.1-all.zip

Step 4: You then need to enable all of this in Blender.  Instructions are here:

http://www.makehuman.org/doc/node/blendertools_download_and_installation.html

And the MHX Importer:

http://www.makehuman.org/doc/node/exporting_a_character_to_blender_with_mhx.html

Step 5: Open up MakeHuman and tweak the base character as much as you like (make it young, old, fat, skinny, etc).

The “Alpha 7” has more options or hair and clothing, but the models aren’t as nice.  The current 1.0.1 version makes much nicer models, but is missing some of the library elements in the earlier version (and the Alpha 7 library items are *not* compatible with 1.0.1).  You can install both versions on one computer, so try them each.

Step 6: When you are done configuring your character go to “Pose” and select the “humanik” Rig Preset (it’s the closest to the ones CLIP STUDIO uses):

Step 7: Export the file in “Blender Exchange (mhx)” format.  Don’t worry about selecting a “Rig Format” your model will have the “Human IK” rig bound to it.  Set the “Scale Units” to “centimeter” since models in CLIP STUDIO are all measured in centimeters:

Step 8: Close MakeHuman and open up Blender.  Go to “File → Import → MakeHuman (.mhx)” and navigate to the model you just exported and open it:

Step 9: I had trouble getting any of the textures to import properly, which would need to be fixed before it gets into CLIP STUDIO COORDINATE.

Modify the model however you like, for example with the Sculpting Tools, or build clothing around the model if you imported it nude.  

Small Detour: Making Clothing with MakeHuman Tools in Blender

However, if your intent is to make custom clothing you should use the built-in base models in the MakeHuman Blender Toolkit.  You’ll be able to export the clothing to MakeHuman so you can apply it to your customized character there and then import your models to Blender in MHX format already clothed (it’s easier than trying to cloth them in Blender and then shrink-wrap the clothing to the body mesh, which I haven’t figured out how to do successfully yet).

In the panel along the left side of the model space find the "Make Human" plugin tools.  Under "Type" select a Base Mesh from the list that says "with Helpers" to get the clothing assistants.  It will then load a strange looking model like this:

Those different colored things allow you to more easily create shirts, dresses, skirts, tights, pants, and hair.  Details on using the MakeClothing tools in Blender:

http://www.makehuman.org/doc/node/makeclothes_making_a_simple_dress.html

Ok, if you're back from going down the rabbit hole of virtual tailoring and dressmaking, you need to decide what you’re going to do with your MakeHuman model:

Option 1: Modify the Skeleton

Modify the skeleton so that it conforms to the CLIP STUDIO “Standard Bone Specification” and, as long as you get the parenting and names right, it should work like a native CLIP STUDIO skeleton, then…

Option 2: Drag-n-Drop to CS PAINT

Whether you modified the skeleton or not “File → Export” it as an FBX file, put the FBX in the same folder with its textures, zip them up and drop the zipped folder onto your page in ClIP STUDIO PAINT.  The model should import fine, but it won’t be added to your Materials Library.  If it still has the Human IK skeleton from MakeHuman it won’t adopt Poses dragged onto it (because the skeleton is non-standard).

Option 3: Reset to T-Pose, Transplant Skeleton or Rig in COORDINATE

First we need to get the model into the standard “T-Pose” (assuming you used the 1.0.1 version of MakeHuman, the model’s feet will be apart and arms down, the feet need to be together and the arms straight out).

Thankfully, with the MakeHuman Tools for Blender this is pretty easy to fix.

1. Go to the “MakeWalk: Utilities” panel on the left side of your Blender screen.

2. Scroll down and select “Set T-Pose” and the model will snap into the standard pose.

3. Scroll down more and select “Current Pose → Rest Pose”

Go to “File→ Export” as an FBX or OBJ file.

Transplant Skeleton

Import the model into Cheetah3D or Maya.  If you exported as FBX strip out the non-standard skeleton, if it’s an OBJ it has already been stripped out.  Now we need to re-rig it!

Now transplant the standard skeleton from one of the Celsys sample models and once you’ve got it set up right BIND the skeleton to the mesh and SAVE the model in FBX format.  Make sure the model and its textures are in the same folder.  You should now be able to zip it up and drag-and-drop it directly into CLIP STUDIO PAINT (and it should assume poses you drag onto it), or you can make a more complete “Character Material” by pulling the model into COORDINATE first…

Rig in COORDINATE

Whether you exported as an OBJ or FBX, and whether you did a skeleton transplant or not, if you want to create a more robust “Character Material” and register it as a material so it shows up in your CLIP STUDIO PAINT “Material Library” panel you need to pull it into COORDINATE.

If you have an OBJ, or an FBX without any bones, you’ll need to rig the model with the COORDINATE rigging tools.  Be forewarned this is highly likely to be out of alignment with your mesh in places and make it crease oddly.  You get MUCH better precision rigging it by hand, but rigging in COORDINATE is still an option, just not the best one.

←PART 2

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