Extending basic shapes with a few human models

General Forums Blender and CG Discussions
1

I’m curious after reading a thread here about speech synthesis.
Why didn’t Blender ever included a few variations on basic human shapes (ea male/female child adult).
The most complete shape currently is Suzanne, and while she’s nice to test things on.
A basic human shape is a standard for size (in architectural works), and starting point for games and animations.
And yes while i know there is make human, it seams to me often a bit overkill.

I am wondered are there reasons that its not in Blender so far. ( installer get to large or so ?)
Or are we free to start a contest for for best human shape, and then include them in a basic human models add on ?

If it would be OK, then should we start such a contest on BA ?

2

Or are we free to start a contest for for best human shape, and then include them in a basic human models add on ?
There is nothing stopping you from organising this

3

oh heck the goals post will be high on that one :wink:

have you seen the skills some of these guys have on a Wacom loaded with a HOT sculpt brush rofl

there is never going to be a one size fits all answer to speech in 3d , dif dolls/rigging all need dif answers

if you want a cheap (ish) way to see how it can work look at daz studio…then see what it can cost for better results

4

You can use MakeHuman along Blender, of course it’s not integrated in Blender but Makehuman had (and probably still have) exporters that go well with Blender (and some armatures too)
https://wiki.unrealengine.com/Workflow:_MakeHuman_and_Blender

5

For such a contest, it should be reasonable models.
Models that could be zoomed in, into details such as, hand, face, foot etc, and still look good.
But on the other side when used in games and for prop use, the total mesh count shouldn’t be to high, preferably low.
Otherwise it would slow down a game, and when used in props for architectural show cases, cause long render times.
The rules as for animation should also be that it’s a symmetrical mesh, quat based, and in the default rigify pose.
The mesh shouldn’t bend awkward with rigify.

A model considered better if it had a morph for basic clothing ea pants, shoe, shirt, pants-pocket??.
As the goal would be gaming prop use, however not to much details no helmets, no nudity.
Nudity can be a big topic here on BA so let me be tackle it.
I’m not against nudity, i’m an artist and have hand drawn lots of people in their eve costume.
But such models would simply not qualify as basic, and commonly handy for use in games or as props.
There should be some bonus for lower vertex counts… because this is our goal.

Be close to a normal figure, ea no hulks or superwomans robots aliens.

Can be based upon another model baked to a lower poly version (ea makehuman baked to your optimized mesh model)

( side note see yes i’m aware of mekehuman, but the models are to complex, to be commonly handy )

Agree there is no one size fits all, but thats the same for Suzanne, she can be sub divided or altered, or you can use another monkey head. But the fact that there was a Suzanne has so far saved us all lots of time to quickly do tests in Blender (we never had to search for monkey heads).

However because there is no one size fits all, i think its better to do it as a contest, so people could
A) set in their own model (in some BA threat)
B) vote on the model based upon the practical rules (and maybe there should be more, like UV unwrapped etc).
C) could be proud to have taken part into opensource Blender development. (finally something for non coders!).

Maybe after a year or so the contest should be hold again, not sure if we should stay with a model or update to better models regularry.
Since tutorials often depend on things that do not change often. Or we do a beta contest first, as this would need to get some attention.

please let me know your reactions to this proposal here.
So we can start such a contest.

6
  • Make a man and woman low poly in Makehuman
  • Export into obj
  • Make a Blender Python addon

Done.

7

Indeed its not that complex in principle

But i think would be fun if people could be part this and send their best model as a contest.
As well eventually someone will add something that would eventually as commonly known as Suzanne.
Think of the honor that goes to the winner of the contest, and his/her skillfull model.

8

Adding default mesh such as human model in my opinion is bad idea.
If You wanna have human mesh just download it.
If You really wanna have option to add base mesh. Make addon.

I am wondered are there reasons that its not in Blender so far. ( installer get to large or so ?)

Yes. This is the reason.
Blender devs wants to keep default blender as little as possible.
Some 3d packages have several GB install files because that kind default examples.

It would be better if they eg. add ubershader for cycles, or something that is very common (and base mesh is not).

9

I’d definitely be in favor of it, as well as Blender shipping with other decent default assets (brushes, alphas, materials, etc). I’d MUCH rather spend a few extra minutes downloading, than 20 minutes setting up and configuring Blender just so I can be productive in it.

Ton had some plans about having template blend files – I’m not sure if it was dropped or was waiting on the asset management system overhaul.

10

It would be good to use the cloud to develop assets. 30€ to get the full Blender library is affordable to anyone serious about CG and capable to buy a computer made for 3D work.

11

In the (long) past, Blender had a CD filled with textures (and plugins) you could buy
It went public domain a year after, so i imagine creating a CD filled with base mesh and other useful assets would certainly work for their cloud stuff.

12

Well its a good idea,
With these days internetspeeds and disk sizes, I dont think it would be a problem if the download got in between 5~15MB larger just by including 2 medium detail level models. Also in this case, this isnt at the cost of development PGTART made it clear he called for artists for this and not for developers.

I also like his idea to give anyone a chance for this, and it be part of default Blende.
But maybe it should go as a free optional adon first.
Not behind some resource paywall, or so because he asks anyone should be able to join the competition.
It would be strange to ask anyone and then later sell it as a pro product, that seams not right.
He probaply is one of those opensource python coders, who has some fun in coding and making it happen.

But how do we attract attention to such a contest ?.
Should it becomme a weekend contest, should it be anounced on blender.org ?
Any ideas on who we (us in this threat) could get that done

13

Well again.
Including a model that would be used only in very specific situation is not good idea. Cause someone who would make any use of it, can download it from Internet or model it on he’s own.
It is not so common to use human model. Models like Suzanne, teapot, dragon, rabbit are for testing purposes and not actual usage.
Ubershader, set of cycles shaders, alphas, more complex brushes - definitely yes.
Even including simple hdri have more sense.

Yes. It is cost of development. Server’s of Blender Foundation aren’t for free.

Makehuman have everything that you want. (And it weight as much as blender itself.) And it is used for
Daz and so on have even more stuff.

Blender is a tool. Not a content library.

14

They dont have a cost to their bandwidth usage as far as i understood (otherwise they’d be distributing it by other means, ea torrents)…
I think Ton told me that once.

Well blender is missing a content library, and adding just a few shapes, shapes that are just like the cube, …a starting point
Its also possible tought to distribute such a addon outside of the blender.org there are enough free web hosters, or people wiling to host it.

15

Hi guys, a word from the developer

A little update on the subject.

I am myself going to write this as an addon, so yes i am the developer for this.
And so no worries about that this will cost valuable time of the core developers.
As I am not a core developer, i work as a programmer on my day job, but not for Blender.

Why dont you support the cloud ea funding for Blender make it a payed addon ?
Its my choice, besides even without this addon people could download figures, so it wouldnt work out.

Yeah why code it, since people can allready download figures.
Because I see a need for starting gamers, starters in animators, starter visualizers of architecturals etc to have simple human shape.
And sometimes people dont want to spend hours on adding a crowd of people, but just place 30 people (and that shouldnt stress the system). Lets also dont forget the fact the human shape is the basis for anything we see that is man-made.
(house, hand holding pen, chair, cars, planes etc etc). Also i think about all the great people doing youtube tutorials, they cannt currently relay on a basic inside model. If we get serious about teaching Blender for animation. Blender should have at least a general basic model for this. So people could reproduce and learn, i strongly believe this. Also i see a huge need for architects, those people need such a ready to use prop without any complexity (i’d like Blender to go into their direction as well, its a group with great potential for the future of Blender).

As the discussion went on here, i came to the insight that, this addon could as well just be hosted elsewhere for a start.
It doesnt matter much, I got gigabytes webspace at work, or i could post it at my own Art site, although currently its not about Blender its about painting, and stone sculpting… Or i just create another site, or dropbox etc… these days data storage is no problem.
If blender got a few MB’s taller i dont believe it would be a problem, these days disks go in Gigabyte, not in Megabyte.

Ah ok so your a programmer, when will it be ready ?.
Great question, well give me some time, i am about to move to another home. So for the moment that eats all my time. I also would need repair the new house… So probaply it takes a few months till i am setled. But hey dont worry it’l be there.
But hey next year we wont have many Blender releases anyway, so you get something to look forward :slight_smile:

I am also thinking about to start a first version of this mod…ehm addon, without a contest, as i think its better to release addon first and next start a contest… (but still a bit in doubts here because i dont want myself to set such a standard), and then when my code works start the contest, but need to show it of first.

But i have this great model, that i like to share to you NOW !.
Well it would be really super if you would help me out on this part, i’m no pro in this side.
Simply contact me here on BA, i be happy to not spend too much time on the modelling side; as i prefer to code.
You’ll be in the first Beta release. If I get no response to this, no worries either the addon will be made (promise) but then i temporally use some public mesh, for the first Beta release.