CharMorph v0.4.0 Character Creator Released
CharMorph is an Open Source character creation tool for Blender. Its goal is to offer high-quality, parameterized character models that not only rival closed-source solutions but exceed them, achieving the level of quality seen in blockbuster movies and next-gen video games.
We are pleased to announce the first major release of CharMorph, a comprehensive character creation system for Blender that serves as a spiritual successor to MB-Lab.
CharMorph recreates the core functionality of MB-Lab while significantly expanding capabilities, enhancing user experience, and—importantly—including non-AGPL models that can be freely implemented in commercial game projects.
Key Features in This Release include:
- Character Downloader: Download characters directly within Blender
- Custom Library Location: Define your own locations for assets allowing users to save space.
- Vitruvian: A New Open-Source Character that boasts realistic skin and proportions. You can see it in action from the article’s image.
- Add-on Updater: Updates the add-on from within Blender itself.
- Blender 4.4 Support: We’ve worked ahead of time to fix support for the coming Blender version.
For community support and discussion, join our Discord server. We welcome your feedback and look forward to seeing what you create with CharMorph.
There were IP issues with MB-Labs: “A Big issue with MB-Lab is Licensing Concerns of the base mesh that manuel bastioni has created, which splits the license into two separate parts, GPL for the Code and AGPL for assets created, ” From CharMorph web site: “LICENSE OF MODELS GENERATED BY THE SOFTWARE: The AGPL can be an obstacle in case someone wants to create a closed source game or closed source 3D models using 3D characters made with the lab because the AGPL will propagate from the base models and from the database to the output models. Please use CC-BY models if you want to avoid it. – License of MB-Lab characters is AGPL 3: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl.html. As derived product of the AGPL’d database, the models must be distribuited under AGPL 3, with the same copyright of the database.”
Blender wisely says that the art you create with it is yours. CharMorph will suffer the same stunted growth as MB-Lab unless they fix the license, because at the end of the day we all have to eat.
Hello, I believe you are mistaken with reading the license, those terms only apply to models under that given license. Unlike MB-Lab, CharMorph is modular so there are CC-BY and now a CC0 model, as you can see with the following line in the license. The license is also semi-outdated as the newest versions no longer have a unified database rather you can download the characters separately.
Thank you for explaining Seen_buklee. It wasn’t clear to me. And it’s still not clear to me but I trust you! :-) I think you are saying there are multiple meshes to choose from and there is now a CC-BY and CC0 version. Wasn’t obvious from my reading and with respect the makers do need to be very clear because the mere wiff of IP contamination is enough to send artists elsewhere.
Compare it to MakeHuman who are crystal clear: “MakeHuman is free and open-source, with the source code and database released under the GNU Affero GPL. Models exported from an official version are released under an exception to this, CC0, in order to be widely used in free and non-free projects. These projects may or may not be commercialised.”
Though hey thanks for posting. I will have a closer look at it.
What versions of blender are compatible with char morph. So far I have char morph working on 2.93 does it work on 4 & above?