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Hi, I'm an animator and I frequently use maquettes in my work to make sure my work is consistent.

my request/suggestion is to allow us to import and rotate very simple, low/mid poly OBJ(or other) files, without any kind of materials, just a very simple default shader. Maybe we could "freeze" or capture it at whatever angle, and then move that off to the side as a reference picture of its own, or just allow people to rotate it freely as they need to. The simpler the better- the point isn't for it to look pretty, just to understand the forms in 3D space.

If you aren't aware, a maquette is a small tabletop 3d sculpt of an animated character for the animator to look at from any angle they may need to help them draw that character. If you google search for it, you'll find a bunch of great examples from animated features- but these days, many are just 3D sculpts.

I find myself having a Sketchfab tab open but that website can be cumbersome, it isn't designed for this. One of my heroes, Greg Smallwood, uses 3D sculpts he himself makes for his comic characters in a very similar way. Clip Studio Paint allows importing of 3D objects, but it's a frustrating undertaking and isn't convenient. There is no program at all that does simply this- allowing you to look at and rotate a 3d object- without it being a huge heavy software suite. I don't need to edit it or anything, I don't need textures, I don't need fancy lighting or posing... just rotate it around.

anyway, tldr: I'd like to be able to rotate a very simple 3D object like one would a traditional maquette.

I can elaborate more if needed. Thank you!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2024-09-06 10:48 by jam_etc.

Thank you for the suggestion! This is not currently a feature on our roadmap but we've noted that it is something you would like to see in the future. PureRef is not built on web-tech so its a bit more of an undertaking than just embedding a sketchfab unfortunately, but we'll keep it in mind as we continue developing!