Where to get 3D people?

[Brian Cassil]

I've seen the lowpolygon3d stuff, which looks affordable and like it would look pretty good for mid-to background stuff. Does anyone know of other resources, both low and high poly stuff?

[ecastillor]

metropoly?

[Jeff Mottle]

www.axyz-design.com

www.lowpolygon3d.com

http://www.complete-characters.com/

[Brian Cassil]

Thanks guys!

 

I have to say the complete-characters look so cool, but there aint no way I'm gonna convince the powers to spend $3200 on people. I probably only need 20 or so but it looks like it's all 100 or nothing with them. The metropoly looks like they might have a little more detail than the lowpolygon3d stuff.

[Ernest Burden III]

One of the big reasons to use 3D people is to animate them, which is tough. I think it was lowpoly3d that made some boned and rigged and walk-cycled figures. It's a whole other adventure, that I'm hoping to talk a client into financing on an upcoming project (meaning animated people cost extra).

 

Is that where you're headed with this?

 

 

Oh! This is my opportunity to mention something I noticed the other day when Jeff posted the complete-characters site in the news. That is the one with animations already added to the models. When you look at the list of available 'moves' you cannot help but notice right at the top is "beaten_up female". OK. That's going to look good in my animation. I suppose they should add "domestic violence arrest".

[Brian Cassil]

One of the big reasons to use 3D people is to animate them...Is that where you're headed with this?

 

Eventually, yes. However, right now, I would just like a faster way of adding people to scenes, and having them look like they "fit in" better. I can get people to look pretty good by doing it in PS or by creating "people planes" in 3d, but it's a little laborous, and by the time the architecture is finally done, I have little time for things like people. It seems to me that it would be faster to take some pre-posed 3d people and plop them in. That way they cast and receive shadows on thier own, are in the correct lighting, and scaled properly.

[Trick]

The Axys people are OK for medium distance in stills and even close distance in animation. The T-pose models have perfect polygon flow for good character movements.

 

The LP3D people are OK for far distance (and VERY MAYBE for medium distance) in stills. They are also good for NON-moving entourage at medium distance in animations. The animated (FBX or CS) models IMO have bad polygon flow which result in "plopping" faces when you have explicit lighting.

 

I just tested a sample from Complete Characters and I really think they are the best what can be bought at this moment. Per model the price is OK although I don't think I will cash down that much money for the whole collection. Even the lowest poly model looks better then the best from the other collections and keeps a good poly flow for animation. Textures are very detailled although skin and face textures are a little bit too stylized. The inclusion of normal maps can even make things more realistic. If the BIP's were just a little bit more realistic (that is less distracting) and could be used to mix and match for easy motion assembling, I think I would have already bought it. As it is now, you still have to find some good BIP's or animate things yourself...

[Brian Cassil]

I've looked all over the complete-characters website but cannot find how to purchase individual characters anywhere!

[Trick]

The models can only be bought as a whole collection. But eventually the per model price ($32/€25) is OK if you compare it to others. That is if you don't take the current 50% price reduction from LP3D into account. If you like a sample you'll have to email them and just ask...

[slawnick]

Check out http://www.peopleforpeople.com/ ; I like them because they are actually lit by the scene, rather than some fake prelit texture.

[oluv]

if it doesn't have to be totally photorealistic, i would suggest the alan fraser models from formfonts. check them out!

[Brian Cassil]

That looks like it would work ok for NPR renderings... but I don't do a whole lot of that.

[DennisB]

Just curious, but why doesn't anyone use Poser? It seems cheap enough, and capable enough.

[Brian Cassil]

I don't know a whole lot about Poser, but it's my understanding that you need to either create (time consuming) or purchase (expensive) clothing for the models. Maybe I'm wrong and there is an easy way to accesorize models built into Poser. Anyone out there have experience with it?

[DennisB]

I don't know a whole lot about Poser, but it's my understanding that you need to either create (time consuming) or purchase (expensive) clothing for the models. Maybe I'm wrong and there is an easy way to accesorize models built into Poser. Anyone out there have experience with it?

I'm surprised you guys don't know more about it.

 

A couple of years ago the UK mag 3D World was giving Poser away free. So, I'm only familiar with the early versions. The new versions are far more sophisticated, but even the early versions came with walking animation scripts, clothing and figure choices. Okay for distant figures in other words.

 

There's a big wide Poser world out there, although it has shrunk somewhat in recent years, at least from what I see this morning. Most are hobbyists and many have done massive amounts of painstaking work with Poser, from clothes models, to hair and facial textures, to morphs and props. Most all of it is for sale cheap too.

 

There's some add-ons for Poser that enhance control as well. Victoria and Michael I think, and the control over facial expressions are substantial. Here's a quick find from Renderosity (sorry, normal was hard to locate)http://www.renderosity.com/photos/GAL_200506/GalleryImage969803.jpg

http://www.renderosity.com/photos/GAL_200312/GalleryImage558788.jpg

http://www.renderosity.com/photos/GAL_200507/GalleryImage1007361.jpg

 

As you can see, pubescent boys have figured this out. Check out "Digital Babes" or Digital Love Doll. Yes, you too can have your own private dominatrix.

 

My point is, virtually all of this stuff (clothing, facial textures, props, poses, etc) is for sale, and much of it is more mundane as there's a big following amongst adult women too (a doll thing?). So, there's a huge repository of related everyday attire and materials to be had at:

http://www.poserworld.com

http://www.renderosity.com

http://www.dazstudio.com

http://www.3dcommune.com

 

The problem is figuring out who does good work and who's selling crap. I'm told, and Poser users are one of my markets, that the real Poser aficionados know the good artists and shop their site stalls for new offerings weekly. And if any of you want to repurpose your interiors for some additional bucks, you'll likely find a ready market of Poser users.

 

Anyway, this should get some of you started, assuming there's an interest.

 

Good luck and have fun.

 

Dennis@DigArts

http://www.gardenhose.com

[Ernest Burden III]

You have to figure out how to use Poser results. You can pose and render right in Poser, them matte them in Photoshop. Or, you can export the figures as models and even motions. The problem then becomes import filters, etc. There are some products written for Cinema4D (likely others) to read Poser stuff.

 

A Poser model is actually about 400,000 polygons, some as low as 40,000. So even if you import them you will want to do some serious polygon reductions. To animate them you them need to rig them. Ah, but there may be some of the translators I mentioned that will bring in a rig.

 

Anyway, I've done this and it was a lot of work. That was OK since I just wanted to learn about how to do this, not OK for production.

[STRAT]

EBIII - i like ur idea of spd cars. have you thought about adapting it for peeps somehow maybe? or am i loosing the plot here?

[DennisB]

The problem then becomes import filters, etc. There are some products written for Cinema4D (likely others) to read Poser stuff.

 

For Max: http://www.e-frontier.com/article/articleview/1424/1/419/?sbss=419

 

I see Maya and 4D as well, but nothing on reducing polycounts.

 

Their gallery might be worth a look too as there's some animations, etc, but no architectural applications. A missed opportunity as this is an obvious market.

[Ernest Burden III]

EBIII - i like ur idea of spd cars. have you thought about adapting it for peeps somehow maybe? or am i loosing the plot here?

 

I've thought of that. At least for backgrounds, where people are just little blips.

 

Particles can work, too.

[Brian Cassil]

Well, this does sound like an option for adding characters in close views. But 40,000 poly characters to populate a scene is obviously no good. I guess one of the other options would work ok but then by the time I invest in poser, the character sets, and this translation tool, plus the other low poly option like metropoly or whatever, I'll probably be well over my budget.

[Ernest Burden III]

I'll probably be well over my budget.

 

Do you have more time or money?

 

One rather good idea would be to use Poser to render images of people from a series of angles and use those renders to create your own RPC objects, with the RPC Creator program, which I have yet to buy.

 

Simper yet, you could make one-poly boards and map images of models onto them for background and even midground. You can have one poly that is set to face the camera, and a second copy that is set to be invisible to the camera and face a sun light, so your figure will cast a good-looking shadow.

 

Prepackaged 3D fiures are good for time but costly, so as usual, we must pick our poison.

[Chad Warner]

New one to throw in the mix:

 

http://store.got3d.com/products/bundle-3d-models-people-1/index.html

 

Haven't tried them, but Got3D normally has a good product.

[rajivrungta]

Greetings from A R Digitech, you can find textures etc from http://www.3dexcellence.com.

 

If you are interested in outsourcing your 3d modeling and rendering jobs you may contact us at rajiv@ardigitech.com.

 

Rajiv Rungta

[joseph alexander]

I've been very happy with the xyz sets. roughly 3,000 polys per character. I've seen entire stadiums populated with them. We have all the sets here and I use them on every project..

 

-joe

[DennisHolland]

Picked up the Got3D people bundle yesterday, it looks and works great (even in close up) and a very low polycount. Same procedure as the lowpolygon3D stuff, only way better mapped. Very smart pricing as well. I think the Got3D store is the best, also for 2D maps, high quality!

 

Dennis