Show HN: I made a 3D pose maker for artists

66 points by augustvdv 7 hours ago on hackernews | 30 comments

lagrange77 | 7 hours ago

Very cool idea, congrats on the launch!

virtualritz | 7 hours ago

No inverse kinematics?

That is the most important feature this would make me use this over the good old wooden puppet, which is small (10cm). I.e. it travels with me with my drawing utensils.

I guess I am asking: what exactly is the value proposition?

majiy | 7 hours ago

What exactly is inverse kinematics? A short search tells me it is something like "if the hand goes in a certain position and a certain angle, elbow and shoulder must go into these angles", is that it?

progbits | 7 hours ago

Yes. Instead of having to figure out the bone angles one by one you can drag eg a finger and the rest will follow as much as constraints allow.

steezeburger | 7 hours ago

Does it just make it easier to get in a position you want or does it give you more natural looking positions as well or any other benefits? It's pretty fun to play with!

dagmx | 7 hours ago

It means that you can lock the end point to a position and figure out the rest of the pose.

Imagine a character walking with forward kinematics. Every time you move the characters hips , you’d have to rotate the leg joints and make sure the foot doesn’t slide. Remember virtual characters don’t have friction.

IK lets you lock the foot in a spot so you can animate the body above it without having to spend time matching the foot position.

In a real world, this is like if you tried to put your hand on a door handle while jumping up and down. It’s easier to keep position when you hold the handle than if you were to just touch it.

wang_li | 6 hours ago

It also means you can move the point and the rest of the joints adjust. Want to make your model walk? Just figure out the foot motion and the rest of the details are calculated based on joint range of motion and limb length.

dagmx | 5 hours ago

Without some extra solving most full body IK systems won’t give you walking motion. It’ll just be like pulling a doll by its limb or QWOP

You need a proper motion controller on top to actually have realistic walking motion driven by steps.

rootlocus | 7 hours ago

Imagine placing the feet on the ground at some location and then pinning them there. Now you can move the hips and the upper and lower legs as well as the knee orientations change to keep the feet planted in the same position.

numpad0 | 6 hours ago

regular kinematics derive coordinates from joint angles

INVERSE kinematics derive joint angles from coordinates

it's useful when you have a chain of joints and a mug to grab with it

embedding-shape | 4 hours ago

This image explains it pretty well, you typically chose between Forward Kinematics, or Inverse Kinematics, depending on what you're trying to accomplish and how you want it to look like: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ebrahim-Poustinchi/publ... (imagine the robot parts are human limbs, same thing applies :) )

LoganDark | 2 hours ago

Inverse kinematics lets you position the end of a limb and automatically moves the joints for it, rather than you having to move each joint manually.

progbits | 7 hours ago

It's a checkbox in the "..." menu. Off by default for some reason.

delichon | 7 hours ago

Though the internet is for porn, this does not seem to support genital or secondary sexual characteric contributions to a pose. I respect the bold approach but doubt that it will discourage much use of this tool by that community.

NordStreamYacht | 7 hours ago

There was a Mac app called Poser which is probably what you want.

ndr42 | 3 hours ago

It was Windows first for some time, now it's Windows only.

GlacierFox | 7 hours ago

What's up with the pricing? $7 per month for 'pro' or 20 for pro +. You can buy an actual real life manekin you can use forever for 10. Who's going to pay monthly for this? Who even is the target market.

If you're comfortable enough with 3D meshes to make use of the 3D export function in the paid subscription, you could just download a manekin into Blender and do all this for free.

amelius | 4 hours ago

The internet was great at first.

But then companies figured out they could use it to force per-month payments down our throats.

miguel-muniz | 7 hours ago

As much as I would like to use this, $7/month seems like a lot when Clip Studio Paint has similar 3D pose tools[1] and a marketplace full of free models/poses for $4.49/month. Plus you get an entire professional art program...

[1] https://www.clipstudio.net/en/characterart/#:~:text=Learn%20...

Joel_Mckay | 4 hours ago

A permanent Clip Studio Paint forever license with quality pen input devices can be a good option.

Blender also offers free rigged 3D base models that offer similar functionality too. Render a png of the 3D pose in 4k, and have fun in free Krita. ymmv with pen-pressure sensitivity features, as some devices are better than others. =3

https://studio.blender.org/characters/

https://krita.org/en/

islammidov | 6 hours ago

look interesting, but not sure price make this worth that

Fraterkes | 5 hours ago

Looks really polished. My one point would be that I would consider making the default model a realistic mannequin (or ecorche if you have it). I get you're saving that for pro, but I think that would make it more obviously appealing for people studying anatomy / perspective (which might be a bigger market than pros looking for pose-reference for illustration work).

Having the abstract mannequin as a default may make people feel like they might as well just buy one of those wooden posing dolls (https://www.amazon.com/wooden-mannequin/s?k=wooden+mannequin).

felooboolooomba | 4 hours ago

What about male genitalia and woman's breasts? That's a perfectly valid and much drawn part of the human anatomy.

cluckindan | 4 hours ago

Why not both?

stronglikedan | 3 hours ago

that's what "and" implies

raincole | 4 hours ago

If you want something out of box for free you can use Blender and download rigged models here: https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/rigged-characters-482b7772d3.... Or find poses and animations from https://www.mixamo.com.

Or you can use Houdini's free version, it comes with a fully-rigged mannequin and a realistic proportioned human. You can't export them in free version but if you're a 2D artist you can just screenshot and use it as a reference.

Houdini has everything from full-body muscle simulation to writing a OpenCL image processing kernel there. All free if screenshot-as-export is acceptable in your use cases. If you need actual rendering it's $25/mo billed annually.

This website's pro plus subscription is $15/mo.

(Not saying there is no room for another tool. Just stating the alternatives.)

argee | 3 hours ago

You can also just upload models to Mixamo and pose them using their animations right in there.

However I suspect none of these (at least for static posing) beat the usability of the solution this app is imitating: purchasing a portable, posable mannequin that’s built for purpose.

marknutter | 3 hours ago

The range of motion seems very limited. These dummies need to take a yoga class or two.

photonair | 2 hours ago

This looks like a fantastic resource for artists who find traditional wooden mannequins a bit too limiting for complex anatomy. I particularly appreciate the inclusion of the "Timed Drawing Challenge," as consistent gesture practice is such a vital part of improving one's craft. Additionally, the option to toggle biological constraints is a very clever touch for those working on more expressive or stylized character designs.

thot_experiment | 2 hours ago

I've wanted a reliable tool like this for the longest time because I'd like to be able to draw arbitrary poses off my phone if I'm just sketching on the train and I'm having trouble visualizing how a shadow would fall or something. I of course would never pay a subscription for it, that's absurdist comedy. What I want is github pages page you can ctrl+s and keep forever, might just put my money where my mouth is on that one too. I've got a lot of three.js under my belt and local models have made me unreasonably bold.