Jay Versluis
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Meet Digital Jay π
🕑 Added 2023-08-24 22:47:07 +0000 UTCHello Supporters! π
Julia and I went on an adventure this week and had our bodies scanned. What a crazy idea indeed! I've been working with body scans for a while and have come to appreciate how important the concept of a digital double is becoming. I thought for a laugh, it would be hilarious to make a version of myself for Daz Studio and Unreal Engine.
Here we have the first rendition of what I'd like to call Digital Jay, or perhaps Jay 51 (based my current age).
I tell you, it's quite the experience seeing yourself in Blender π Granted, my digital twin needs a bit of work, but this isn't bad considering it was made with a handheld Structure iPad scanner.
The process was quite simple: after we found a good even light in the studio, the operator (Julian) walked around me while I was standing still for about 1 minute. The data gets sent to the cloud for processing, is sent back within 10 minutes and boom - we have an OBJ complete with 4K diffuse texture.
From what I understand, the device sends out an infrared pattern onto a surface and measures the reflections. Whatever deviations are detected is translated into vertices in 3D space. This is very different to the more common photogrammetry process, which takes regular pictures from various angles.
The result is relatively low res, but probably good enough for a game character. However, this wasn't the only scan we took that day! The company we went to is called 3D Chimera, a Miami based 3D printing service, in fact Brian found them online when we talked about body scanning.
They had another scanner made by Polyga that can create much higher resolutions of a face, albeit without a texture. It's a device that flashes bright lights at the subject, so for that and wrapping reasons, I thought it best to keep my eyes closed for the 30 seconds it took for a sweep. Check this out:
Look at the skin detail. I'm thinking that with a bit of fiddling, I should be able to combine both versions to create a complete version with great facial detail - at least that's the plan. The sizes very different, and it'll be a puzzle, but let's see how this works out.
I'll spend some time over the weekend to get the full body scan cleaned up with Wrap, convert the textures, import it all onto Genesis 9 in Daz Studio, and from there hopefully Digital Jay should walking around soon in a Third Person project inside Unreal Engine.
If you're curious about what 3D Chimera looks like from the inside, I've made this little video for Brian because I know he's into 3D printing. You'll also meet our scanning operator Julian, who was very generous with his time and explanations. I wanted to shoot a little interview with the owner of the company while we were there, but things were too exciting so it'll have to wait until next time.
While I have you, and speaking of Unreal Engine, I'm doing a Daz+ stream this Saturday! Join me for animating Daz content in Unreal Engine and retargeting animations from other sources. In case you have a favourite Daz character, or you happen to have a digital double of yourself for the purpose, drop by and learn how to do it. It'll be fun!
Have a good week π
Comments
DarjaZ Zlindra
@Jay can you check if your avatar measurements are matching your true body measurements and get back to me with the feedbacks. I really want to know . Advise which process for taking scan with a phone works the best re the textures received Post me in discord as well.
Jay Versluis
Absolutely! We see all kinds ob 3D objects in our apps, but never an image of ourselves. It's a surreal experience, much like hearing yourself on tape for the first time, or watching yourself on video. I imagine eventually we'll get used to it, but for now... it's definitely weird.
Brian Cramer
Congratulations on the digital double! It's super weird seeing yourself as a 3D model for the first time, isn't it?
