Designing/Printing humans - anyone know how?

[bootneck]

I have taken an interest in building large scale vehicles, currently learning with 1:24 Land Rovers and they could do with having figures standing around them.  I have heard about systems/facilities to draw and print your own figures but haven't go a clue how to do that.   Does anyone here currently do that?  Is it difficult?

I would be grateful for any help and advice on how to go about it, especially if there is a numpties route!

 

cheers,
Mike

[wellsprop]

I've been wondering this too, it'd be lovely if there were some software you could create your own figures and pose them yourself! 

[matti64]

Not followed anything on this forum  for a while, but I do recall it having a very active section on 3D sculpting...https://www.planetfigure.com/forum/

Edited December 20, 2021 by matti64
correction

[Tony Andrews]

It would be worth looking at Blender (free) or ZBrush (limited version free for personal use). These programs are both designed, amongst many other things, for sculpting figures.

 

Tools are available for creating figures and clothes. Intimately linked to Blender are MakeHuman and MakeClothes. These may well also work with ZBrush but that's way beyond my limited experience. MakeHuman allows you to create pretty much any human figure you could imagine. If you include a skeleton rig then the figure can be posed in Blender. MakeClothes allows clothes to be designed and, if done correctly, these can also be posed along with the figure.

 

Blender has incredible capabilities but is also UNBELIEVABLY non-intuitive for a beginner. Try these for starters:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIoXOplUvAw

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnj2BL4chaQ

 

For MakeHuman:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WiEDGbRnXdE (this is an older version and some aspects have changed significantly)

 

Biggest issue with Blender is identifying the 1% of its capabilities that you actually need. However, as it's free and has a large user base, there are a lot of resources available.

 

As a very trivial start you can do the following:

 

1. Run MakeHuman to play with a figure design starting from its default.

2. Select the "Pose/animate" tab - pick "MakeHuman" on the left then "Default"on the right which creates the skeleton structure.

3. You can also put on some basic clothes if you want - "Geometries -> Clothes" then pick options from the left and right sides.

4. Send this to blender either by exporting from MakeHuman (as an mhx2 file) and importing to Blender or via its built-in direct link.

5. In Blender select "Pose Mode", choose a bone, press "R" (Rotate) and move the mouse to change the pose.

 

HTH

 

Tony Andrews

 

 

[bootneck]

Hi Tony,

I have used Blender but that still presumes you know quite a bit about anatomical principles, which I don't.  I shall have a look at that MakeHuman video tonight, it sounds quite interesting.

 

cheers,
Mike