software for posing models for drawing?

[sophiarosehips]

Hi all,
I'm wondering if anyone can point me in the right direction here. I'm looking for software that would allow me to design poses, lighting, and other attributes which I could then use as a model for drawings. I am not actually interested in 3D animation, just in a utility that lets you perhaps decide on some of the model's characteristics, like you would choosing a character in WoW or The Sims (gender, how thin, hair length--though this isn't a deal breaker), and then lets you pose them exactly as you wish, perhaps with props. It would be great if I could also set the light source(s) and intensity.

I've found a few websites where they's taken photos of models from many angles, and that's helpful, but not as advanced as what I'd like.

I read a bit about Poser 8 and 9 but those are 3D animation programs, and I don't know that they'd actually really let me do what I want here. I also really don't need to be able to do animation with the models.

ETA: I found this: http://www.daz3d.com/daz-studio-4-pro/ It says it's regularly priced at $250 but it's... free. WTF? Sounds too good to be true?

 

[Kaido]

Poser is the standard for this. There's some history with Daz Studio & Poser here:

http://ken1171.deviantart.com/journal/Poser-vs-DAZ3D-367726529

Poser is here:

http://poser.smithmicro.com/poser10-poserpro2014/

You can probably just use Daz & some basic models to get what you want done.

 

[sophiarosehips]

Thank you, those links were extremely helpful.

 

[Jodell88]

Blender3D. It's completely free and very powerful.

 

[Kaido]

Blender3D. It's completely free and very powerful.

Yeah, but then you're stuck creating humans from scratch, which is insane (noses, fingers, joints, bones, bends, nurbs, etc.). Character modeling is extremely time-consuming. On the flip side, Poser/Daz gives you OOTB functionality for this, plus clothing, which makes what the OP wants to do super easy. Blender is a powerful tool, but it's not a real good choice for this particular application. Of course, the downside to Poser is that everything looks cookie-cutter unless you really work it & do a lot of Photoshop to the final image to make it look good.

 

[Kaido]

Thank you, those links were extremely helpful.

No problem. There's a couple other good layout tools available, but they're more for doing video storyboarding - Poser/Daz lets you pose existing base models, as well as add clothing if you want to get an idea for colors & whatnot, which is a huge tool to be able to show people, especially if you have a laptop running it. A picture is worth a thousand words - showing people what you mean can help a lot. Here's a couple other ones to look at, but Daz should have you pretty much covered:

http://www.powerproduction.com/storyboard-artist-studio.html

http://tamajii.com/storyboards3d/

http://www.reallusion.com

 

[gorobei]

kaido's tamajii looks like it might be a hair easier to use than poser.

i believe the full version of either manga studio or anime studio has a base maquette and some included character models. i dont think it particularly customizable as far as body type or faces go.