ChameleonScales just gave Suzanne a bunch of new expressions! Download the model from Blend Swap and share your creations in a comment below.
Free Download: Suzanne Head Rigged (+ Facial Expressions)
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About the Author
Bart Veldhuizen
I have a LONG history with Blender - I wrote some of the earliest Blender tutorials, worked for Not a Number and helped run the crowdfunding campaign that open sourced Blender (the first one on the internet!). I founded BlenderNation in 2006 and have been editing it every single day since then ;-) I also run the Blender Artists forum and I'm Head of Community at Sketchfab.
10 Comments
Very nice! I don't know how much space it would take, but it might be cool to include this (or a model like this) with Blender so that tutorials could start with this model. I know, it's not much work to download it (point a link to it in a tutorial) but to just have something right there that newer people can practice on, just might be a user friendly feature. Anyway, looks great!
I think (I'm not sure though) that 2.8 will have some more modern built-in mesh(es). Hopefully including texture maps.
Yep. I agree, but with even furthermore, the default lighting should also just be right there. Blender should just concentrate one release just for the beautiful, out-of-the-box configuration. 3D should be simple. Bring in a model and click render and the render should be beautiful, not dark or a lot of technical BS like all renderers - mental ray, Maya, Blender Internal and even Cycles. Cycles should be beautiful with the default config.
On this I may not agree so much. The purpose of having a better built-in model is to get a better starting point for testing and learning about all the next steps (texturing, shading, rigging, animating, lighting). But giving a default "beautiful" lighting would have no other purpose than pre-chewing the work (since rendering is the last step). I'm sure if we had this, beginners would use it 80% of the times in their early artworks and that to me is a Pandora's box for originality. Especially considering that beginners are more prone to making the mistake of giving much less importance to the lighting than to the models.
However, maybe a consequent pack of lighting presets such as Pro-lighting studio would be varied enough to have a positive effect on experimenting and learning.
I agree to an extent. It's always a balance. A question that should also be asked is how many people poke their head into Blender for the first time, say wow, too complicated, and move one. It could be argued that these people may not make it far anyway, if the passion isn't there, but for some that have the creativity and are looking for an outlet, then a case could also be made that if an application is inviting, it may draw them into a passion for 3D as an expression of their creativity.
I like what you said about lighting setups. Have a few defaults that will give you pretty good lighting to start off with. Something very simple, maybe just 3 spots. A new person could look at this and say, oh, this is how to set up good lighting.
The purpose of a nicely rigged and textured suzanne for default is just the same as when I download someone else's model because I like something about it and want to study it. You can learn new things by analyzing how others have done things, and may inspire you to go further with your own idea.
I think blender 101 will address those issues of overwhelming information for first-time users by providing different versions for different levels or purposes, as well as the future 2.8 splash screen that will provide options for the startup file.
Blendswap rejected my blend. I'll try to fix whatever made this happen but in the mean time the blend file is also available on https://free3d.com/3d-model/suzanne-head-rigged-facial-expressions-58836.html#addyours
Interesting, based on what?
I guess it's because I didn't include the HDRI in the uploaded blend file because it was not a free one. I explained it in the blend's description but I guess they'd prefer it to be ready to render without any purple background and give the same result as the preview images.
now it's fixed and the model is improved a bit too.