The CGTrader blog recently spoke to Lukas Lamprecht and Andreas Monke from RenderPeople - one of CGTrader’s most prolific and unusual 3D model sellers.
CGT Blog: How did Renderpeople begin?
Lukas: Renderpeople started in late 2013 with a small store in Cologne which allowed people to come in, get scanned and 3D print little mini-Me’s of themselves.
In 2014 we ended up getting in touch with an architect. He was doing 3D visualizations for his own project but he would have liked to have included 3D people. He connected with Andreas who was in charge of that store at that time and they came up with the idea of creating random people which are actually 3D digital versions of real people.
CGT Blog: So that was the core idea. How did you progress from there?
Andreas: We then worked to start creating our 3D people and our online store. Using 3D scanned models, they became quite popular in the architecture visualization industry. Today our customers are mostly architects but also visualization studios. 3D people make the visualizations more realistic and vivid, like a shopping mall or a football stadium. People are spending millions of dollars for these projects and want their buildings to shine.
A few years ago there was a big lack of people visualizations. Not anymore! We have 3000 people on our website – 650 of them are showcased on the CGTrader Marketplace.
3D design by abSketches (www.absketches.com)
CGT Blog: How does the process work?
Lukas: We use photogrammetry scanning. Our scanner has 250 DLSR cameras. We actually scan real human beings. From the scan we get a mesh and textures, geometries and colors. We put in a little extra effort to refine all those geometries and textures to make them usable and accessible for our customers.
CGT Blog: And where do you find all those people to scan?
Lukas: We use professional models for our scans. The people have the ability to stand in front of 250 cameras and look natural. Professional models can also act and show emotions. It is important that they look realistic because, depending on the setting, you see their expressions and gestures.
CGT Blog: And tell us where CGTrader comes in.
Andreas: Even though the 3D people became quite popular with the architecture visualizers, during the past couple of years there are still many markets out there that could make use of our 3D assets. So we began looking at other channels to reach a broader audience including artists.
We started offering our people on CGTrader in 2016. CGTrader is very good for this. It has a big reach and it is a one stop shop, meaning that a 3D visualizer can find the 3D people, furniture, plants of all kinds – all the stuff they need in one place. So for them it is really convenient and it helps us raise our visibility.
Andreas: If you run a store like we do, you can’t miss CGTrader. It creates a very big opportunity to showcase what’s possible nowadays. That’s why we have 650 3D people on CGTrader.
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