I’m looking to invest in a good human base mesh. Ideally, I want something rigged and textured. The intended use is actually for stills, but I want to be able to pose and animate the mesh so that I can use cloth simulations, etc. Pretty much what I do in posters like this.
I like the deformability of the Universal Human rig (this would be great for sci-fi stuff!), but it seems it is not textured (although, maybe textures will be released at some point?). I suspect HGv3 might be the way to go for the time being.
Anyway, I wanted to ask opinions from users - maybe you even have experience of both - which would you recommend? Would you recommend other packages?
So Universal Human isn’t a universal morphable base mesh in any way: it’s just an impressive but $$$ rig with an untextured, neutralized base mesh that’s been nerfed by mixing the male and female shapes 50/50 so that can be sold as a separate product, same with the couple of morphs for race that exist. I’m also not a fan of the look of the female character. She looks off.
On the other hand, Human Generator is a pretty full-featured character creator that includes the morphs for gender, race, and shaping a variety of facial features (and some for the body too), multiple textures for skin tones for each race. Shaders are pretty solid, and the textures look good - all for less money than Universal Human. The rig isn’t particularly impressive, but it works fine, and includes a face rig, no extra charge. The lips could be better shaped, but if we’re modifying a base mesh with sculpting or other modeling anyway (and with Universal, that’s your only option), it’s not a big deal. Mesh might be a bit dense if you want to use it in games.
Universal Human is expensive for what you actually get. The individual race and gender morphs are separate products: and the morphs include a grand total of three races, two genders - so not a lot of customization, and it has no textures. I wouldn’t assume he’ll add the textures for free either, since even gender is a separate product - everything is sold in a piecemeal form. It’s a fancy rig, and very impressive, but it looks like that’s about it. I get that it’s made for people who are comfortable sculpting their own characters - and isn’t supposed to be a full featured character creator, but it’s a lot of money for an untextured, rigged base mesh that requires a separate purchase just for gender. Even Daz and Character Creator include teeth and gender in their base meshes without requiring a separate purchase.
You can sculpt your own character using HumanGen if you aren’t interested in using the shape key based character customization. It works fine as a rigged basemesh too.
@Nanoglyph Thanks for these points - very helpful. I do find the price of universal human a bit offputting, and as you say it does seem to offer less value than human generator.
I think I’m also starting to appreciate the relative simplicity of human generator too. I’m still somewhat new to character making, so it might be a better option for learning too. I think the universal human results seem impressive, but my worry is that I simply lack that amount of skill/experience to replicate them at the moment.
Close, but not quite. It was CC-BY, not CC-0 (see license text below). Still infinitely more compatible with a closed source game than an AGPL model. I believe his intention was that the CC-BY option applied ONLY if obtained from the official website (now gone), not if obtained from a third party, but his FAQ has been wiped off the internet and I could be remembering wrong. The currently maintained versions of course don’t count.
I still have the 161a version and it’s license in case I ever want to use it as CC-BY, but I’m not sure I’ve ever had results good enough to bother. The collar bones are weird, and the body shapes are too exaggerated for my tastes. When working with clothed characters who aren’t supposed to be braless, it’s also easier if the mesh doesn’t have pointy nipples sticking out, and like MakeHuman, MB-Lab’s pointy nipples are impossible to smooth away with morphs without deforming the breasts. But, here’s the relevant license text:
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.
For this reason it was decided to consent a double license ONLY for
the models generated by the official software*, NOT for the source code,
NOT for the json database and NOT for blend files included in
the distribution:
The default license for models generated by the software
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.
Alternatively, for closed source games or closed source 3D models,
it’s possible to choose, for characters generated by the official* software,
the Attribution 4.0 International, giving to Manuel Bastioni the credit
as required by that license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode.
You’re right, Daz is much higher quality, but you pay for it in pieces (well, not the base meshes, they’re free. Totally proprietary, but free to download and render). Getting it to minimal effective solution as a character creator requires buying a few products. But you do choose which products and the sales can be killer if you have time to wait it out. I think Character Creator is also higher quality, possibly higher than Daz, but pretty much has you pay for it in similar pieces, but way more expensive and you have to pay $150 for the base software and mesh too? I’ve never been sure which if any shaping morphs come with the base product, but I got super bored with the few morphs included in the trial version. I think Daz was better rigged in my experiments.
Yeah, there’s really no point in bothering with Universal Human if you can’t sculpt or texture characters yourself since it lacks those features. Human Gen can be retextured or sculpted if you want, and you can tweak shaders or make new clothes/hair to your heart’s content, but the product is usable out of the box, and improvements have been pretty quickly developed, and aren’t sold as separate products.
It’s mainly modelled on stock 3D sites’ licenses (partly for consistency in case I decide to use their services), so it’s pretty standard actually. What were you finding restrictive about it, if you don’t mind my asking?
…unless you add the (optional) extras.
Genders and races were omitted to keep the price down for those who prefer to sculpt their own, as well as to save anyone from doubling up on purchases (e.g. if you bought the base meshes and later wanted the rig, you don’t have to pay for the meshes all over again). There’s no way to do automated upgrade discounts on Gumroad unfortunately, otherwise I’d probably have gone that route.
Again, to avoid doubling up, and to keep the base meshes cheap (since the only way to get a new shape key onto the rig is to get the mesh that contains it).
In general though it is probably correct to say that my offering is better suited to those wanting to dive in and sculpt/texture/animate their own characters, rather than it trying to be a ready-made dial-in-a-preset type generator. It may seem comparatively expensive from the viewpoint of it being no more than a rigged base mesh, but it’s only a few textures away from being this (and shaders/textures are indeed on the way as optional extras):
Mainly the “obscene” purpose restriction which is vague and up to the viewer and all of the promotional restrictions which basically precludes the use for video games since a lot of titles based in modern settings include one or more of those activities and any media can be argued as “promoting” if it includes the activity. There’s another one that I don’t have a strong opinion about but I know others would but I don’t wanna open that can of worms, I think you can guess.
That’s an example of a section that mirrors the wording of one of the other sites, and I think “obscene” is a strong enough word for most people to get the gist, especially within the context. Of course it’s open to interpretation to some degree, but it’s not possible to outline every conceivable obscenity while keeping the document short and concise, which is why there’s the invitation to contact me if there’s any doubt about specific use cases.
I think you mean the “nor may you use them for the promotion of alcoholic beverages, tobacco, gambling, weapons and explosives or unlawful activities” part. Characters can use those things in a game of course, but that’s entirely different from having them promote (i.e. endorse) them. Again, standard.
Actually I can’t (and am quite curious as to what it might be now)… Anyway, appreciate the feedback!
Oh no, not this again. MB is good for testing purposes and playing with it, but it is really not convenient for any real posing. I used it for a long time and then switched to more “normally rigged” base mesh from Meng Low (and really never looked back after that): https://www.artstation.com/marketplace/p/GblP/base-meshes-character-starter-kit-rig
It does not have any shapekeys, but have nice IK setup. It lacks any proportions changer though (i ended up makin custom python rescaler specifically for this rig, thanks to not using shapekeys)
Heh. Frustration with MB-Lab drove me to learn character modeling and rigging myself, back in the dark days of early pandemic quarantine… (I had far more time than money)
I always thought Menglow was Men Glow, not a name like Meng Low. But yeah, looks like I’ve had their name wrong for years now.
Hi, i’m french, so i apologize my approximate vocabulary.
I already purchase the human generator. It’s a quite good option for game-dev or for static render(if you change, and tweak a huuuge amount of parameters, I’ll let you a quick render below), but when you have to animate realistic facial expression instead of a neutral face speaking slowly and unexpressively, humgen can’t do it. I tried to tweak the shape keys but the mouth is not really deformable.
if the “face rig” video (found on the gallery in your website) :video face rig is really part of your product, and if you can sculpt a little the base mesh, i would definitely buy it for my entire studio ! It’s maybe a little bit expensive but if i do a similar one by my own, i would spend an amount of time that cost so much more than two hundreds dollars.
One last question :
Could you post an overview of the UV map (in 2D), so i can check if the UV map that i made for humgen or my own meshes ar easely compatible.
Regards,
Jules
That’s the idea, although if the sculpt deviates too far from the base shape, especially in areas like the eyelids, mouth and joints, you might need to adjust the individual shape keys and/or weights to compensate. You can get just the head by itself by the way, if you don’t need the rest of the body.
There are full-body and face-centric UV layouts, which you can resize/rearrange or disperse across UDIM tiles of course.
Anyway, appreciate the feedback!
