CEB_ECON Unofficial Update

This project contains unofficial updates for the CEB_ECON Blender add-on.

• ECON is is designed for "Human digitization from a color image"
• TEXTure

• tuned ECON Merged to official ECON
• tuned TEXTure

Installation Guide

Tutorial Video

• Tutorial video has been added

Download

1. Click on the green <> Code button and select Download ZIP.

   • This will download the CEB_ECON-main.zip file.

2. Visit the original CEB_ECON page, name your fair price, and click on the 'purchase' button.

   • If this project has been helpful to you, please consider supporting Carlos Barreto and CEB Studios on their Patreon page.

3. [RECOMMENDED] Download CUDA 11.6 and vs_BuildTools.exe.

   [NOT RECOMMENDED] Instead of installing CUDA 11.6 and VS BuildTools, you can download JIT_Compiler_PY38_CUDAv11.6.7z from this link and install it from Blender.

   • You can skip this step if you have already installed CUDA 11.6 and Visual Studio 2019.

4. Obtain Hugging Face Tokens

   1. Register for a Hugging Face account and log in.
   2. Navigate to the https://huggingface.co/settings/tokens page.
   3. Create a new token.
      1. Click on the New token button.
      2. Name it (e.g., ECON).
      3. Set the role to 'read'.
      4. Generate the token.
   4. Copy the token, paste it into notepad, and save the token text as a .txt file. Remove the .txt extension and name this file TOKEN.

Installation

1. vs_BuildTools.exe

   1. Open vs_BuildTools.exe.
   2. Install the C++ build tools.

2. CUDA 11.6

   • Install CUDA 11.6.

3. Run Blender as an administrator.

4. Navigate to the Scripting tab in Blender and copy-paste this code:

   import subprocess
   import sys
   subprocess.check_call([sys.executable, "-m", "pip", "install", "ruamel.yaml"])
   

5. Press the Enter key and ensure that it returns 0:

   >>> import subprocess
   >>> import sys
   >>> subprocess.check_call([sys.executable, "-m", "pip", "install", "ruamel.yaml"])
   0
   

6. Navigate to Edit -> Preferences -> Add-ons. Click on the Install button and select the CEB_ECON-main.zip file. Then, click on Install Add-on.

7. Enable the CEB_ECON add-on by clicking on General: CEB ECON. Close the Preferences window.

8. Navigate to Window -> Toggle System Console and keep this window open for reference.

   • From this point forward, keep an eye on this window for any potential errors as you proceed with the installation process.

9. Open the ECON Install tab in Blender.

   • Click on the arrow button on the right side.
   • Click on ECON Install to open the installation tab.

10. Click on Venv and Installs to open the tab.

11. Click on Path and choose the directory in which to install the virtual environment (venv).

    • For example, C:\ECON_VENV

12. Click on Create ECON Venv and wait for the process to complete.

13. Click on Download ECON and wait for the download to complete.

14. Click on Finish ECON Install and wait for the installation to finish.

15. Click on Down&Install Pytorch_3D and wait for the process to complete.

16. Click on Download TEXTure and wait for the download to complete.

17. Click on the Register button, then go to Login -> Register to register.

18. Log in.

19. Click on the Register on all button from the Blender add-on.

20. Register all projects by clicking on the Register now buttons.

21. Go back to Blender, type your ID and password, then click Download.

    • This may take some time. Wait until the process is finished. (if you see Out: pymafx_data.zip on the console window, it means the process is finished.)
    • This add-on does not collect your ID and password data.

22. If desired, you can delete downloaded zip files by checking Erase Zip and clicking on the Download button once more.

23. Copy the TOKEN file to C:\Users\{USER NAME}\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\{BLENDER VERSION}\scripts\addons\CEB_ECON-main\ECON\TEXTure\ .

Test Run

Blender requires administrative privileges for the first run.

1. Navigate to the ECON Generate Models tab on the right side to generate 3D models.

2. [Optional] You can change the ECON Settings

   and click on Save Configuration.

   • Refer to this page to understand how each option affects the output.

3. Import a full-body image by clicking on Import Image.

4. Click on Generate 3D Model to generate a 3D model from the provided image.

   • Per vertex color is included. You can check it by navigating to Material Properties -> New -> Base Color (click circle button) -> Input -> Color Attribute.

5. Click on Generate Animatable 3D Model to generate a model in A pose with a UV mapped texture file.

6. To generate a backside texture, write a prompt that describes your image and click on Generate texture.

   • For example, A man wearing a black T-shirt, black jeans, and black shoes.

7. After the first run, Blender no longer requires administrative privileges.

Release Notes

• June 1, 2023:

  • Uploaded Tutorial video

• May 26, 2023:

  • Fix TEXTure install bug
  • Fix IFNet option

• May 25, 2023:

  • Fix imperfect texturing (TEXTure)

• May 24, 2023:

  • Updated the TEXTure Feature
  • Updated the Avatarizer Feature
  • UI Improvements

• May 23, 2023:

  • Updated the "Download ECON" button to fetch the newer version of ECON, moving from the Jan 09 version to the May 14 version.
  • Enabled config (econ.yaml) modifications directly from the add-on. For usage instructions, refer to the tricks.md. Please note there is a current issue with 'use_ifnet' that needs fixing.

Upcoming Updates

For the Plugin

• Integration with Mixamo.
• Integration with the TEXTure feature is underway, which will include both the installation and usage aspects. (done)

For ECON

• Working to resolve the xatlas UV mapping issue that causes black seams. (done)
• Improvement of the Texture feature. (done)
• Plans to enable Unity integration are in the pipeline.
• The 'use_ifnet' bug fix is currently being worked on. (done)
• Directory bug on windows (temp fix on CEB ECON)

Tested Environment

The plugin has been tested and validated under the following hardware and software configurations:

• OS: Windows 11 (Please note, only Windows OS is currently supported)
• CPU: Intel i7 13700K
• GPU: NVIDIA RTX 4080 with 16GB VRAM
• RAM: 32GB

performance may vary under different hardware configurations