Makehuman.org

[John.d.h]

I found an interesting program the other day that allows you to quickly and easily make 3D models of people.  The program itself is licensed under the GPL and anything you create with it is free to use in any form, commercial or non-commercial.  The site is makehuman.org and it allows you to very easily make 3D models of people and gives you lots of control over variables to make your model the way you want it, and then export it to an *.obj file with a single key press (it's the 'e' key, by the way).  You can adjust overall how masculine or feminine your model is, how light or heavy, how muscular or flabby, and how young or old.  You can also adjust ethnic background to modify aspects of the face, height, etc, and modify specific characteristics by scaling and moving body parts and facial features.  In short, this application is very powerful and very simple, even though it is currently only a pre-alpha.  It is expected that future versions will support posing and animation, but the current version does not.  One problem is that the models exported from this application are very high-poly and include unnecessary details like the inside of the mouth, which we really don't need.  Hopefully future versions will give more options to reduce this, but currently we have to do it on our own.  If you want a powerful, easy-to-use, and free way to customize human models, you definitely should check this out.  Currently, this program is available for Linux and Windows.

The MakeHuman Team retains Copyright over the topology and the base mesh, but grants you permission to copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the generated materials over which they hold Copyright, including the topology and positional information constituting the base mesh provided that this does not prevent others from doing the same.

[Hectate]

The computer I use for modeling is a half-disassembled laptop that my brother gave me. It has a number of interesting programs on it, including this one. I've only played around with it, but is very powerful and impressive. I haven't tried to use it for the Imp yet, particularly since my initial goal was minimal poly's, but with a larger unit size now being given to me I might be able to use one as a base. I'll experiment. I still prefer from scratch myself...

[Omega]

Are you serious? It even makes insides of the mouth? OMG, I need this (not for glest, but for games, and other projects that I work on). Thank you so much for telling me about this. Now I just need to try it...

Hmm, I'll have to download it some other time. Dial up is too slow. Happily, its a ZIP, so I can do it at school. BTW: does anyone know a site that lets you download a file by renaming the extension? I really need one of these. I'm quite sure its possible...

[Hectate]

Hmm, I'll have to download it some other time. Dial up is too slow. Happily, its a ZIP, so I can do it at school. BTW: does anyone know a site that lets you download a file by renaming the extension? I really need one of these. I'm quite sure its possible...

perhaps try a right-click save as... ? (and change the save as filename extension)

[wciow]

I Tried this program out ages ago. Its fun to play around with but as John said the models are too high poly for Glest. The main reason i don't use it is because its written in python and runs on top of blender which makes it hideously slow.

[Omega]

perhaps try a right-click save as... ? (and change the save as filename extension)

To my knowledge, every web browser ever made will automatically add the extension unless you add the exact same one yourself, meaning renaming myprogram.exe to myprogram.txt will just end up downloading myprogram.txt.exe

Say, how do I use this? I can't figure out how to export to obj. I don't know about you, but isn't clicking export suposed to do something?

[John.d.h]

Say, how do I use this? I can't figure out how to export to obj. I don't know about you, but isn't clicking export suposed to do something?

I think the interface is currently under construction.  Just hit 'e' and it will automatically export to the same folder that has makehuman.exe in it, under the name "export.obj".

[DVD]

(Hey everyone first post! I finally have something to say!)
Oh, I fell upon the Makehuman site not long ago.
it's really a very cool tool.

The stable 0.9.1 release is the only usable one.
as it allows the user to export in Collada .dae or Wavefront .obj.
and the ability to pose is very cool.

Now the Alpha 2 of 1.0 is out...
exporter doesn't work(for me), no poses, and it's much slower. 

so if you wana actually use it, go stable.

The models COULD be used in Glest.
you'd have to Decimate them like crazy...
Get the model, toss it into Blender and add the Decimator modifier to your hearts content.
By doing this I was able to get the face count to 362. (it'll go lower, but it begins to look nasty)

also overdecimating will freeze old releases of Blender.

If nothing else, it's fun to play with... 

[Omega]

Oh, yeah, I figured how it exports (really needs a dialogue box, I kept thinking it wasn't doing anything).

I have no intents of using it in Glest though. I tried to export to Blender to use for other purposes, but was unable to find a efficent way to control the mouth... BAH!

I'll just wait until a later version. A much, much later version...