Recommendation for Human Characters/Anatomy for Product Render Scenes: Poser?

br3ttman · July 31, 2015, 09:45:39 AM

Hi all!

We're looking to step our game by adding much better human models and anatomy to better stage and render our product concepts. We're doing more and more wearable products and having human figures and anatomy would really help tell the story. Poser looks like a very nice option. Or are there other packages that are more powerful or efficient? Also, will the new animation scripting import feature in KeyShot 6.0 allow for importing animations from Poser?

Any feedback would sure be appreciated! Thanks!

TpwUK · July 31, 2015, 11:18:47 AM

If poser exports animations using Alembic Cache or Sequential OBJ then they should work in KS6. Not sure if FBX is going to play at this stage though...

There is a company that does body scans (some of which are full nudes) that would be great for modelling clothing round. I have seen male and female scans from them that are super quality and with varying age groups. Poser is far less detailed and don't render too well in KeyShot without a lot of work. I will try and remember to hunt down the scans website if someone else don't reply with it first. They seem to have special offers on every month or so and could possibly work out cheaper than Poser if you need just a few models

Martin

Ed · July 31, 2015, 11:45:06 AM

Two years ago I experimented with a hand model in KeyShot to show rings. I installed DAZ Studio V6 which includes the Genesis 2.5 model. I wasn't satisfied with the results below (mainly due to the model's skin map) so I didn't pursue it further.

I'm interested as well if anyone has a good solution.

Ed Ferguson

TpwUK · July 31, 2015, 12:06:01 PM

Skin tones are exceedingly difficult because we all look at them all day. We take them for granted, but instantly know when something does not look right. For hands or fingers displaying rings, go the other way and do a mannequin waxy translucent type of material then you can go as ballistic as you want with the artistic licence and abuse the colour schemes to your heart's desire

Martin

TpwUK · August 04, 2015, 06:09:30 AM

The sellers of the figures is 3Dscanstore.com

They are having another offer on just now for a female figure £19.99 + VAT/TAX

Martin

Ed · August 04, 2015, 08:59:59 PM

Thanks for the scanned anatomy link Martin. It's too bad the hands don't include the forearm as its hard to work with just the hand cut off like that.

So, may just get the full female model and throw away the good parts

Ed Ferguson

br3ttman · August 10, 2015, 09:05:45 AM

Thanks TpwUK and Ed for your feedback. After playing around with their tutorial, exporting a couple models to KeyShot, and seeing their capabilities and assets, I think I'm going to purchase Poser Pro. It's 40% off through the end of the day today. I agree that skin tones and many of the models can often be distracting if going for too much realism. I know Pixar, DreamWorks, and Sony will exaggerate features and tones to avoid the strange results of trying to achieve true human likeness. I think for $270 the Poser Pro package will go a long way to help us tell more powerful concept stories for our wearable and medical product development. Hopefully, I'll have a chance to share some of our results in the forum.

Speedster · August 10, 2015, 02:44:32 PM

QuoteIt's 40% off through the end of the day today.

Thanks for the heads up! Just purchased and downloaded it. Been wanting to try Poser Pro, and this is a price that works. Just hope I can use it! And have time to learn it, along with Zbush! And working 10 hour days!

I could not find info about export options except Collada, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed. But I have SimLab, which has been bullet proof in allowing me to import SolidWorks, and then export as OBJ and several others. Collada is on their list...

Bill G

andy.engelkemier · August 13, 2015, 11:49:34 AM

I match to real photos, and that is really my only recommendation for showing off products. You'll spend more time trying to make the character look realistic than the product. And Really, you want the product to look good.

Now, when you get to animations, that becomes something a bit different, but you'll have a tough time using Keyshot and Poser to create an animation as well because you can't bend things currently in keyshot. Even in the future, I believe you have to import the mesh in a unique way from different software that can animate soft bodies.
But you run into something called Uncanny Valley. It'll look great. But for some reason, it looks kind of creepy. So my suggestion is to go for something very non-realistic, or use a photo.

That being said, if you're object needs reflections, like a ring, then stick a poser hand or something in there just to get those, but make the hand invisible. Camera match that to a real hand, and work some photoshop magic. I've done some handheld tools before and mixed with a real photo causes nearly everyone to believe it to be an actual prototype. In most cases it only takes a couple hours taking the photo, and photoshopping them together. I often do most of the photoshop work on a preview render while the full size/quality render is going. Once it's done, just drop that in, and i'm finished.

Speedster · August 13, 2015, 04:32:54 PM

Rather than being entirely realistic, I wonder what a "toon" hand would look like with a well rendered ring, for example. Or even in a matte black? Kind of like a store mannequin.
Bill G

br3ttman · August 16, 2015, 10:37:49 PM

Quote from: andy.engelkemier on August 13, 2015, 11:49:34 AM
That being said, if you're object needs reflections, like a ring, then stick a poser hand or something in there just to get those, but make the hand invisible. Camera match that to a real hand, and work some photoshop magic. I've done some handheld tools before and mixed with a real photo causes nearly everyone to believe it to be an actual prototype. In most cases it only takes a couple hours taking the photo, and photoshopping them together. I often do most of the photoshop work on a preview render while the full size/quality render is going. Once it's done, just drop that in, and i'm finished.

I agree, matching photos is typically how I'll do still shots, and as you mention above, part of the reason I want Poser is to get better reflections and shadows. Recently, I rendered a headband product on a girl soccer player. I was able to line up the headband on the girl fairly quickly by using the photo as a backplate. Fortunately, I didn't need reflections as the materials were primarily a soft fabric head band and rubbery elastomeric materials. However, I ended up adding a sphere with skin material to help create shadows on the headband as well as reflected warm tones. Did post work in Photoshop, and the client was floored. Turned out great!

As you also say, "animations are a whole different story". And although the Poser characters aren't true to life, importing an animation, and combing it with a product in KeyShot could be a nice way to tell some compelling product stories. Additionally, rather than going for character realism, even just rendering the character in an ghosted X-ray, or toon material while the rest of the scene is photorealistic, is a nice way to provide context and scale, while still keeping emphasis on the product. We recently completed a patient scanning device that we animated to tell functional aspects and highlight key HMI areas. In this case we found a female figure on Grab CAD or Turbo Squid and just put her in chrome (ala Silver Surfer) on the scanning table. The final animation turned out really well, however there were a pair of "assets" on our character that were a bit exaggerated. I would have like to have been able to tone down those "distractions" in Poser to avoid interruption to the overall story.

andy.engelkemier · August 17, 2015, 04:35:42 AM

Haha. Very discretely put. Yes, I have found that to be a problem as well. Female characters always seem to have that problem, and male characters all seem to be body builders. Well, good for them, they Really work out. But I'm going for the 95th percentile male here, not the 0.5% that take steroids. I tried putting a skeleton to one, because we needed to transition to showing only the bones in the middle of an animation. That's when I realized just how terrible the model was, and this was a really good model, as far as the models from turbo squid goes.
It was probably a good idea to go with a chrome look on her for that. People may forgive the lack of gravity a bit also, which is another common problem with 3D people.