MikeTrice Posted February 17, 2021 Share Posted February 17, 2021 I wanted to ivestigate the possibility of 3D Printing, in quantity, some 4mm scale passengers for a coach. There are some collections of .stl models available for a price which I am too mean to consider. Trying to model them from scratch was also deemed too much effort. A search of the internet led me to this article: https://www.16mm.org.uk/2021/01/01/january-2021-3d-printed-passengers-for-open-coaches/ Inspired by that article I downloaded MakeHuman and started to have a play. The range of clothing is fairly limited as are hairstyles, however when adding them and then exporting to .stl for printing they were badly non-manifold. MakeHuman comes with a number of predefined poses which are what I used, however it also has the ability for the figures to be imported into Blender and posed there. In the end, as an experiment, I exported the unclothed figures and spent time trying to resize them then printed them on my Anycubic Mono X with 0.02 layer height: I thought that these might make a useful starting point so my plan at present is to print them several times larger, modify them with Milliput, then use photogrammetry to scan them back in, resize and print. Another option worth investigating is a piece of software called MB-Lab which does something similar. 3 1 2 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
5D_Stoke Posted February 18, 2021 Share Posted February 18, 2021 (edited) Interesting work, Mike, I too had a go at this a few years ago and produced a sprue of half a dozen 7mm scale Victorian figures using a mashup of available files like top hats, figures manipulated in Blender and then in Sketchup. In the end Shapeways couldn't to print the sprue as there were too many errors and I never returned to finally fix it. I agree absolutely with what you are saying about a lack of available models and parts, there are so many variables esp if you want to model particular eras of clothing. Now I do my own printing at home (Photon S) I'll return to it one day, my ideal was to print some carriage seats complete with passengers already sitting on them, to go into Victorian compartments. The detail doesn't need to be amazing but they need to look right and have plenty of variations, it turned out to be much harder to achieve than I expected. I began to think that phtogrammetry from life sized figures in suitable clothing was possibly the easiest way to go, such as Modelu already does. Edited February 18, 2021 by 5D_Stoke Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Fen End Pit Posted February 18, 2021 RMweb Gold Share Posted February 18, 2021 I had a play with Makehuman trying to make a figure to drive a narrow gauge simplex. I was able to mock up the seat and brake handle in Blender and then use the rigging of the figure exported from Makehuman to position the figure to sit and hold the brake. The limitation was the quality of the cloths which were very much designed for the cyberpunk games industry more than railway modellers, I could make a figure in jeans and T-Shirt or a business suit but not find any suitable overalls. I'll admit to finding some of the options in Makehuman 'NSFW' particularly when you start altering the size of female figures... David 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeTrice Posted February 19, 2021 Author Share Posted February 19, 2021 Continuing the experiment I have modified the initial pose of the female figure slightly and printed it off on the Mono X. Slightly bigger than I envisaged but should make it easier to rescan: Next job is to start hair styling and dressing in late 30's style. Will be using this as a reference: 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeTrice Posted February 19, 2021 Author Share Posted February 19, 2021 Not brilliant but by the time it is reduced to 4mm it should be ok. 5 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
woko Posted March 10, 2021 Share Posted March 10, 2021 Mike I was aware you have quite the range of skills sir, but didn't realise hairstyling was amongst these On a secondary note and perhaps a bit of a steep learning curve but have you heard of marvellous designer, a 3d application for creating clothing for characters, might be a bit pricey though, and its quite a steep learning curve Im going to use it to do the seat upholstery in the Howldens when I get round to detailing the interiors. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpoorObjecten Posted March 15, 2021 Share Posted March 15, 2021 While not actually passengers, these are also 3D printed, in color! 1 3 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeTrice Posted March 15, 2021 Author Share Posted March 15, 2021 Thanks. As far as modelling the base figure and rescanning I hit problems with getting the epoxy putty thin enough to add things like shoes so I ended up with a rethink. In the end I added a 1930's hairstyle and dress to the original MakeHuman generated stl. Good enough for 4mm: In reality the figures are bare foot, but I suspect on painting it will not be obvious. 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeTrice Posted March 18, 2021 Author Share Posted March 18, 2021 Made some changes to poses which together with mirroring the model in the slicer gives a number of variations. Hopefully careful painting will give more variety: Some additional cleanup would not go amiss. I think I have as many as I need so if anyone fancies having a go here are the stl files. Figures are low resolution. Basic Female Sitting Cross Legged.stl Basic Female Sitting Looking Ahead.stl Basic Female Sitting Looking Right.stl Basic Male Sitting Looking Ahead.stl Basic Male Sitting Looking Right.stl 3 1 1 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold kipford Posted March 19, 2021 RMweb Gold Share Posted March 19, 2021 Mike Did you use photogrammetry in the end? If so could you explain what you used please? I tried it about 3 years ago but the software I used was fine in the demo but was next useless in a practical solution. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeTrice Posted March 19, 2021 Author Share Posted March 19, 2021 No, I thought I would use it initially but ended up modifying the MakeHuman generated forms in Blender. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bedders Posted March 19, 2021 Share Posted March 19, 2021 Showed MakeHuman to my daughter who loves playing Sims and is very interested in designing some figures for me Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold JCL Posted April 21, 2021 RMweb Gold Share Posted April 21, 2021 (edited) Hi Mike, They look great. On a Facebook group the other day I also saw a reference to a different piece of software for $68US. You end up with clothed, rigged and so posable people. https://www.humgen3d.com/ Edited April 21, 2021 by JCL Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeTrice Posted April 21, 2021 Author Share Posted April 21, 2021 I had a look at that and the basic figures are nicely detailed though lost at 4mm scale. To be honest for $68 it did not give me anything more than I could do with MakeHuman. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
woko Posted April 21, 2021 Share Posted April 21, 2021 If you folks want to make figures have you tried Daz Central? Its a free bit of software that allows you to make males and females and pose them, however the clothing is limited unfortunately https://www.daz3d.com/dazcentral I have used it in the past for work, the posing is a bit of a headache, but once you get the hang of its ok, and there are tutorials on Youtube for using it. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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