MistyLaraPrincess posted at 8:48PM Sun, 06 September 2015 - #4226760

**> looking at drawing planes cage feeling intimidated.

how hard could it be to model a human figure?
water tight so it 3d prints - (inner mouth? 3d printer prints toothy smiles?)**

It's not difficult to model a human figure. It's difficult to model a human figure... well. :)

However, there are open-source human figures that you can use without licensing issues. Before, we were talking about Smith Micro figures, so that subject didn't come up. But, there are plenty of open source figures that you could use as a starting point for your own,custom, figure. (ie: For example, "Project Human" figures are open-source, somewhat. You'd have to look at their licensing documentation, as I'm not familiar with it.)

keep to quads so the subdivision works.
model one side then mirror so symmetry morphs work

These are not issues with any competent 3D modeling program. At least, not on their face. (That's a 3D joke...) The key to modeling something like a human figure, well, so that it sub-d's well and all that other good stuff has to do with "topology" or, how the geometry flows. This isn't critical for static 3D models and their topology can look like something an inebriated monkey made. But, for animation and for certain procedures, like certain forms of subdivision and smoothing, topology is critical. Topology may not matter one bit in 3D printing - I don't know.

posing bones in the lips the new thing?

Never heard of such in Poser. It seems counterintuitive. While lips are very dynamic and full of expression, rigging them with standard "bones" or something wouldn't likely yield good results - Our lips don't have bones in them. It'd take a bunch of bones to mimic the muscles that form the lip's expressions, I would think.

do 3d printers use the same file formats? do they import obj?

imagine if poser could print directly to the printer?

Most 3D printers do accept the Wavefront object file format. That is such a universal standard for basic object geometry that I don't think there is a 3D app that deals specifically with 3D objects that wouldn't accept it. If anything, there'd be a converter or script for them.

AFAIK, 3D printers, internally or externally, convert the 3D mesh to their own internal data sets. A 3D mesh is, after all, only a representation that is meant to be presented in a 2D format ( a screen). However, because of their construction, they are certainly portable to a 3D environment, if one can translate them correctly.

If you can not get licensing from Smith Micro, all is not lost! Look around the 'net! There are plenty of free 3D objects and figures out there and, even if they have limited license, you could certainly contact the artist and ask for permission, right? Or, grab one with an open license, morph it, using a 3D program or even Poser, export it and print it out, yourself.

For instance, here's MakeHuman's answer on "selling" - http://www.makehuman.org/can_i_sell_models_created_with_makehuman.php

It's a "yes." :)