ProjectDoll / Blog: Recent posts

Today we are working on the transition deliverables: Best practice evidence and an installable that works for both Linux and Windows operating system. After the installable is finished, we can install everything on everyone's computer to standardize our tests.

With the feature development phase over, we have to iron out bugs and prepare a final presentation. We fixed the following bugs:

• Not being able to be added as an add-on through the add-on panel

• Made the grow height algorithm better (Changed vertex groups to hold one end in place and improved the scale to match the model more)

• Export function needed the separate add-on file added on to function... read more

Today is the last day of iteration 5 and of feature development. We have a Project Stakeholder 2 presentation tomorrow. Bradley is finishing the tests, Yumi is finishing the finalizing the clothing model. Bryant is finishing the height resize and Raymond is getting integrating the export add on to our add on. After this, the code was refactored, comments were made to be more meaningful. After the export integration was complete, Raymond and Bryant worked in the link/append function from Blender as the import function. The demo is thoroughly tested. We also implemented the button to automatically mark the seams from the SEAMS group.

In today's meeting, Yumi was unable to make it so our clothing model making process was slowed down. We are confident she can catch up. Bryant was able to use Yumi's vertex points on the pants to expand it in the x and z directions but not y since some vertex points were missing. Bradley began the testing documents. Raymond got the code for exporting the current selected object into a .blend file to work and it maintains the important information such as vertex groups. However, he had issues trying to get the Blender's "append_link" function to work which would allow importing any object from any .blend file into the current working file.

Today we got quite a bit done. We decided to split a mesh into human model meshes and clothing meshes. The clothing class has been written and is being integrated into the rest of the program. A new GUI panel has been added to allow changing parameters of the clothing. Another panel was made to help register an object as either human or clothing. Realistically, our program has no way to tell so it is the job of the user to tell us. ... read more

After the stakeholder review 1 presentation, we had a little downtime to work on other projects and the final exam for this class. Following the schedule, we knew what we had to do next. The model transformation process is switched back to a button now. The GUI is updated a little bit to accommodate options for both human meshes and clothing. Work began on learning the process of flattening 3D models into designs. It seems Blender can also create seams using the same process. More unit tests were written up and work can begin on clothing transformations after clothing models are created with vertex groups to manipulate.... read more

With today being the end of Iteration 3 and tomorrow being the stake holder review 1, we had a lot to do. We finished the deliverables for the stakeholder review. We realized that the .obj files we were exporting and importing did not contain the vertex groups needed to move the models. Luckily, we were able to swap the import .obj file code with MakeHuman's export .mhx code. Bryant finished implementing his model alteration code with the changing sliders in real time. Unfortunately, whether it is a bug or a hardware issue but changing in real time does not look very good. In the future, we shall put the alteration back to a button after the user picks the size.... read more

Bryant was able to finish code to alter models by vertex groups. With this, he could manipulate the right parts in the direction he wanted. By the end of the day, he got the model to look shorter or taller without looking too off.

Yumi continued working on the shirt but had issues at the end which almost lost progress. Luckily, it was salvaged at the end but it was incomplete.

Bradley began working the deliverables and finished the Design approach portion after discussing with us.... read more

Yumi completed a girl's tanktop before the meeting and during today's meeting, she almost finished a shirt for the male model. Bradley began working on the Construction deliverables. Bryant was working on finding a way to alter group of points on specific bodyparts on our human model. He eventually made it work. Raymond had some issues working on the new bmesh objects from Blender which delayed his ability to add functionality to the GUI.

So currently, we have a GUI with unused properties tied to sliders to change the values. The properties are unused because we are trying to get body alterations working. The MakeHuman application has a great human modeling interface so we looked into the API. Unfortunately, the MakeHuman API is not meant to be used as a library so integrating it with Blender would take too much time to research.... read more

With only one more iteration before the first stakeholder meeting, we have a few roadblocks to overcome that slowed us down.  We have our default male model and female model thanks to the opensource program MakeHuman.  We gave Yumi the job of making clothing models, Bryant is to implement basic manipulation of the human model with code, Raymond is going to finish most of the GUI, and Bradley has to look into implementing collision in code.... [read more](/p/projectdoll/blog/2014/03/post-of-31914/)

Today, we finished up the inception deliverables due today. We narrowed down even more features because the schedule was too ambitious compared to our realistic expectations. We are going to try making realistic proportional 3D models using the Kinect. As a back-up, we are making a very simplistic model from scratch. We learned that Blender allows cloth collision and cloth weights which makes some of our features easier to implement.

We are finishing up the Inception deliverables and finalizing the project features. We went through a list of suggested features and eliminated the ones which seem too complicated for the scope of this class.

We compiled a list of features we will fit in by the end of April/ early May.

• Full 3D posable male and female model
• Blender Addon Integration
• Sliders/Buttons to dynamically adjust shape/size of bodies/clothes
• Different clothing colors, weights
• Gives measurements of fabric needed for current design
• Templates for commonly used parts
• Custom seam allowance and lines
• Custom standard fabric width and alert if it goes over
• Uses best sewing order when possible... read more