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3d character modeling
is 3d character modeling available in unity? if not, is there good sofware out there? and if it could be free and have turorials that would help.
Unity3D uses 3D models. It does not create 3D models.
You would typically buy the models from a warehouse, pay a 3D artist to build them, or if you have a job another department in the company would produce the models.
Regarding 3D model making, this is done with the various famous products such as $$anonymous$$aya and so on. There is a free product called "Blender".
But note that even if you get $$anonymous$$aya, it's unlikely you will be able to make amazing 3D models for games:
It's a bit like saying "what do I need to make music." the answer would be "guitar, drums, violins". But unfortunately having those things would not make you Paul $$anonymous$$cCartney!!!
Of course you'll be able to make simple models, learn about the whole process and so on. Rock on.
Hope it helps
Just as an update to the comment above, so blender is free but I found it complicated to start with, though many people like it. If you are student, $$anonymous$$aya and 3ds max can be obtained for free and legally from autodesk website and they are really easy to handle. Concerning creation, don't expect to be able to create a car or a person model in a day...but after a little while you could start to make houses or building already. Internet has a lot of tutorials for that. To finish you will still need Gimp or Photoshop to create textures.
Quite right -- just personally, I think Blender is hopeless. However, many people seem to like it so I usually refrain from saying that! :-) You make an outstanding point that $$anonymous$$aya, etc, can actually be had cheaply or free as a student. If the questioner is interested in working in the industry he or she will have to become expert in those, so, that's the answer really.
Blender is a great program, I say. I don't have any experience with the other programs to compare it against, but it's like anything else ; when you're used to one thing you like, you don't like to switch to another.
Just have to learn the program and try to sculpt something in it. Get Blender, redeye, I like it and it's worth every penny lol; and like @fafase said, there's a bunch of tutorials on the interwebz to get you going with it.
Before $$anonymous$$aya and Blender got popular, 3D Studio was the big successor in modelling-world - and for a long time. It's incredible expensive though. The reason why it's still popular is it's easy accessibility:
The countless functions always refere to well written help-entries, everywhere in the program. The connected helpfile is a 40$$anonymous$$B-book! It explains every function in detail and even contains full tutorials to train with the program. Getting into modelling, this would bring you the fastest learning-success. Tutorials and free models are on the internet everywhere. It was the standard-software for 3D for a long time and still is well supported.
Answer by spacepilot · Dec 22, 2011 at 07:06 PM
Beside searching for free models on the web, you could also try some special-purpose modelling-software. The free google-sketchup is made to create buildings. Wings3D is for airplanes. The old non-free programs Poser and Bryce are specialiced on modelling humans and landscapes. They all propably have exporters for meshes - so import in unity should be no problem.
Edit: Just looked it up: The landscape-modeller Bryce today is published by Daz3D who also sells other 3D-special-purpose-software, like a city-generator. The inventor of Bryce became a bit popular in the 90s and was on television several times because of his smart and creative software. Several design-programs were published by his company, all with his name in title. Today they don't do graphics at all: After renaming, they specialized in marketing technology.
However, Poser is propably close to what you were looking for. It was one of his later programs and today is owned by a company, called smithmicro. Unfortunately it costs about 500 bucks. However, there is a 30-day-shareware on the website as well as a light-version for 50 Dollar.
I just notice that there is a free character-modeller called daz-studio on the daz3D-website, but it looks as if it only creates Jpegs. If it has a mesh-export-function, then I just found what you were looking for. If you should try it please post a resumee here.
Wikipedia can help too:
Edit2: DazStudio does have an exporter! With plenty of supported formats! See this link to the manual - chapter export. Blender, Bryce, 3DMax, Lightwave, Maya, Silo, Modo, Poser, Carara..all no problem. On the purchase-page, they say it ususally costs 50$ but is for free at the moment.
The human figures from DAZ 3D are quite good, though a little high in poly count. And while DAZ Studio does have an exporter, the EULA on the figures does not allow their use in games without purchasing an additional Game Developer License ($500 for Indie developers). There's also the Game Developer Toolkit for DAZ Studio that includes a decimation tool (to reduce the poly count before export), texture atlas creation tool ( for merging all of the textures used on the figure into a single image file), and the FBX exporter for $100-150 which can be a huge help as well. I didn't include DAZ Studio in my list since it isn't a modeler, it uses pre-built character meshes as a base which you can then morph in various ways and export. However, it can also be linked with ZBrush or Hexagon to create a fairly quick character pipeline. :)
Hey, you really can vote-up my answer when you like it! At the end I spent quiet some time to get all the links. I'm pretty surprised further usage of your creations can get forbidden in an EULA. But when the characters are pre-built as you said, it makes sense. Question is if someone would notice. $$anonymous$$ake model, reduce polys, export to blender, modify it a bit and the final model in unity is "yours".
Well, the EULA itself is re-asserting U.S. copyright laws governing distribution of derivative works. Essentially, the EULA isn't forbidding their re-use/distribution, but rather is clearly stating that it is not granting their re-use/distribution, which is already forbidden under existing copyright law. I also know that DAZ 3D puts a relatively decent amount of effort into watching for and pursuing copyright violations.
As for the reality of anyone noticing, it depends on how much effort someone spends modifying the original mesh. If little to no modifications are made (and ins$$anonymous$$d using the existing morph packs and such for the characters) it's fairly easy for people who are familiar with the figures to pick them out without even seeing the wireframes of the mesh. An example of this is that DAZ 3D offers a store voucher to customers who send in uses of their characters in advertisements, promotional images, etc... created by other companies. There are usually several submitted and many are confirmed by the creator as using the meshes to create the image.
When more effort is put into modifying the meshes, it obviously becomes harder, but there have been a few cases in the realm of Poser compatible figures that meshes have been chopped up and only pieces of them used and the violation was still noticed and resolved. Whenever a mesh is built there tend to be idiosyncrasies unique to those meshes that can be fairly easy to spot.
In any case, I tend to try to respect copyrights, since I would like $$anonymous$$e respect with the various projects I've released. But, I also know a lot of people have different views on what is fair and we each make our own decisions in that regard. :)
Are you working for daz3D? I didn't know the meshes were so detailed that you can pick them out. That allows an interesting question regarding to copyright: How long is a mesh a unique mesh? $$anonymous$$eaning, when polygons are just got reduced enough you just should get the shape of a body....well, I think you got what I mean. Nobody is reading the EULA. It's unusual that you can't use the data a program is putting out. What do you pay 50 bucks for, when export is forbidden? Why is the function implemented nevertheless? $$anonymous$$aybe for hobby-purpose. O$$anonymous$$, I understand it. I found a good software for redeye then. I think he is training and just wants to put some characters in his first games. @redeye: DON'T SELL SUCH A GA$$anonymous$$E AFTERWARDS!
Somebody red the Poser-EULA? Is there such a trap in the shareware as well?
Answer by spacepilot · Dec 23, 2011 at 05:17 PM
I found something: MakeHuman, an open-source character-modeler, exporting to .obj-files. They also invented a new MHX-format, for usage in blender.
"It allows a fully rigged and textured character with shapekeys to be imported into Blender by the custom MHX importer", says the website.
The screenshot shows only one of nine setting-tabs to regulate details.
The program is still in alpha-stage though. This video shows the program with an export to blender:
Should also work with unity, I think.
Yeah, I got that program the 2nd week I had blender. It's pretty decent. Probably better than decent, don't know, I didn't mess with it much. I only made one guy with it real quick just to learn rigging in blender.
Edit:
Yes, it will work with unity. I remember it will export .obj, but not sure about other formats. From there you can put the obj in unity or throw it in the blender and puree it awhile before exporting as obj/fbx/whatever.
Just realize, the slow-speaking guy in the video only shows the obj-import too. Shouldn't $$anonymous$$HX make rigging in blender beco$$anonymous$$g unnecessary? They made blender-mhx-plugins for both versions 2.4x and 2.5+. He titled his movie "how to make human in blender", uses $$anonymous$$akeHuman to show a few sliders, forgets to export and finally doesn't even use the special blender-importer. LOL I bet he was forced to do that video! :-D
Idk... the obj I exported from it to learn rigging with was just the default mesh you start out with. I didn't do anything in the makeHuman app other than exporting. It didn't have a rig or texture or anything ; nothing but bare mesh. ...and lol @ "$$anonymous$$aking a human in a blender" ... makes me think of genetics cloning and/or throwing a person in one.
When I tried it yesterady, it did export meshes not even shown in the scene. $$anonymous$$g. Hair, jeans, shirt. I could combine them with the character in blender, importing them one after another. Guess for the rigidbody this special blender-plugin is necessary.
However, it's quiet obvious $$anonymous$$akeHuman is still alpha. $$anonymous$$any functions are just not finished. $$anonymous$$g. when changing the pose, you only can rotate the left arm. LOL. At this window they just must have stopped coding in the middle. It's obviously a linux-program!
Answer by spacepilot · Jan 10, 2012 at 01:25 PM
Found new modeling-freeware worse a look:
Autodesk 123D - Open-Beta freeware with support for 3d-printing and sculpt-modelling. Exports to STL-files. It is basically a CAD-program, simplified for easy usage like Google-Sketchup. A quick introduction is available on youtube.
Truespace - An old discontinued freeware with easy to use interface. Offers NURBS, subdivision-surface- and polygon-modelling. Also supported is blender-import, scripting with Python, VBScript and Javascript. Games can be written this way as well. It was bought by Microsoft, turned into freeware and finally discontinued in 2009. Download is still possible. Also the website with introduction, tour, tutorials, free models and plugins is still online.
MarbleClay is a japanese freeware for polygon-modeling. It is limited to 1000 Polygons per object. For more a registration is neccesary. The software is in beta-phase at the moment.
Art of illusion - an open-source java-modeler focussed on a simple interface. The third screenshot shows the procedual-texture editor. "By 'wiring together' blocks which represent different patterns or mathematical functions, you can construct complex procedures in just minutes" is emphasized on the homepage. Subdivision-surface- and sculpt-modeling are implemented in an own object-mode (screenshot 2).
Anim8or - a tool for nothing else but animation (very useful for unity). Youtube-Example is here. It also supports basic mesh-modeling, e.g. to create game-characters. Exports to 3ds-files (3D Studio).
Edit: Removed 3D Crafter from this list due to it's disability to export meshes.
A few impressions from quick-testing:
123D looks quiet promising with it's modern interface, it's CAD-abilities and the well-known brand as prefix. However, with 700$$anonymous$$B it turns out to be quiet heavy on harddisk. $$anonymous$$emory- and CPU-usage are problematic too. It's no fun using 123D on a 1,6GHZ-A$$anonymous$$D when the context-menu needs 1.5 secs to open.
When starting, the firewall complains about connection-attempts to google-analytics. Afterwards a bug welcomes you, complaining some file wasn't found and needs re-installation. Object-movements, menu-clicks and overall response-time are just not smooth. The memory-indicator in the lower-right corner shows green numbers though. The many functions for editing and creating objects keep undiscovered. Too slow and painfull was the attempt of moving a midpoint of a spline to another position already. Still didn't figure out how to move a box ins$$anonymous$$d of it's parts. Next installation: Google-Sketchup.
Truespace: Wow! What a download. 90$$anonymous$$B for the file and 270$$anonymous$$B afterwards on disk. The program comes with a couple of example-projects preinstalled. The interface invites to play around but is not intuitive. $$anonymous$$oving objects already makes you searching around. The program is divided in several editors. One of them allows the combination of objects, filters and devices (e.g. lights and cameras) in a $$anonymous$$d-map. The related demo-scene shows a live projection of a camera's view onto two different screens in the scene. One with a beamer as source and another, reacting on the input by itself. I guess like blender, truespace has countless of features - but their usage I just don't want to learn at the moment. Worse a look.
DAZ Studio is even slower as 123D. Additionally it is packed with just too much stuff. The 800$$anonymous$$B on disk are wasted in so many functions that someone just feels lost when trying the program. They made the impossible real: Pre-defined meshes, like body-parts and clothes automatically get applied to the character. No wonder DAZ studio is slow as hell - all parts get applied to the model in realtime, including rigging, scale, position and everything else. The assets bundled into the program however, are too few to really be of use. The free version indeed is just a demo. New clothes needs to get bought from the online-shop. Simple things like face-modification are propably possible but no fun to find due to slow speed. Dislike!
Answer by spacepilot · Dec 14, 2011 at 08:29 AM
Free 3D-software is rare and therefore well known:
Blender, Wings3D, K3D, Google-Sketchup and two or three I just forgot. Also there was a limited study-version of 3D-studio for free, called Gmax - but it's discontinued meanwhile.
For the 2-3 I just forgot: Google is your friend.
Answer by Aleron · Dec 22, 2011 at 06:27 PM
Blender is a solid free choice, though it can be a bit overwhelming at first.
Some low cost options (well, in relation to the high cost options) are Hexagon or Silo.
Some mid range options are ZBrush or Carrara.
Higher priced options are Maya, 3DS Max, Lightwave, or Modo
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