Human form rendering

[surfdabbler]

I'm after some code for a simple articulated human form. Are there any standard libraries available for this? Free or fairly cheap?

My application does a nice shaded 3d render of a vehicle, and I include a rough human figure for scale, and to make it look nicer. Currently it's a simple person built of 6 rectangular blocks or stretched sphere's.

I would like to improve the look of my blocky human figure, as well as include simple articulated limbs (at least knees, hips, shoulders, elbows and neck) for easy coding of the figure's stance. It's for a static model, so animation is not needed (although the view is dynamic, so performance is important). It doesn't need to be photorealistic. I don't want a polygon-complex model that's going to affect rendering performance, and it's certainly not worth a huge amount of effort on my part. But something that looks reasonably human would be cool. Using texture mapping for some colour/features would be really nice too.

Any ideas on how to best achieve this?

[des]

I know one way. If animation is not needed just create the model in 3dsmax, it's easy. Then export model in ASE format. For rendering ASE model use NV ASE Reader Library. You can find it in NV SDK.

[surfdabbler]

Hmm, not a bad idea. But, I don't have 3d Studio, and I don't have any 3d human models to work with. :(

[toucel]

First, get blender / wings3d / milkshape

Then take a look at makehuman - http://www.dedalo-3d.com/

You can extract a mesh (in wavefront/obj)

Note that no texture coordinates are generated (the project is undergoing heavy development)

To "solve" that you could instead visit the blender model repository
http://www.katorlegaz.com/index.php?a=download&c=Blender_3D_Model_Repository

There is textured model of the base makehuman male
http://www.katorlegaz.com/downloads/Blender_3D_Model_Repository/human/MAKEHUMANGUY-uvunwrapped.zip

If the mesh is too complex for your liking (note it probably will be) simplify it down with whatever modeling program you have and/or cut out any extraneous detail.

Of course, you could just look around and find a simpler model that suits your purpose and export it the the appropriate file format...

[des]

In our country its not hard to find programs like 3dsmax. It costs over 2$ in every shop.

[Zengar]

It's true, but this is a de-facto stolen product :-/

[surfdabbler]

I've had a look at blender there's some nice models there, with great detail, but I'm afraid they are way too detailed for me, and it would be quicker for me to redevelop a simple human model with OpenGL than to learn how to use blender. :) I might keep an eye out for a simple poseable DXF model though, because I already have a DXF renderer in my application.

And yes, being a software developer, I respect developers' rights to earn a living. I'll use good shareware if it's available, but if I'm going to use commercial software, I will pay full price for a real licence.

[rgpc]

Have a look at Turbosquids (http://www.turbosquid.com/) free models. There's bound to be something useful.

[matrixmode]

you should be able to find a human form in the .3ds file format with a bit of googling, then implement lib3ds, which has a opengl implementation example.

[knackered]

yes des, you should be ashamed of yourself [he says while cancelling another genuine advantage windows update]

[James W. Walker]

Another option is Cal3D. https://gna.org/projects/cal3d/