What can i do with 3d models as an everyday joe?

QuietStorm@lemm.ee to No Stupid Questions@lemmy.world – 44 points –

i recently found an ai that makes 3d models from text. ive been messing around with it a tiny bit but now i have a handful of 3d models that im not sure what to do with. the bad thing is i have like no skills and they are not the best looking either. i would 3d print them but i dont own a 3d printer because they are pricey.

so like what can i do with 3d models?

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What AI is it?

There's companies you can find on Google, you send them the 3d model and they mail you the finished print

its called luma ai, i use there discord client and currently its free.

I hate the recent trend of funneling people into a Discord server to access software. This trend needs to stop.

I've drawn my luddite line at Twitter and Discord. The twitter decision is seeming like a very good idea, and I assume the Discord one eventually will, too.

Import them into Gary's mod and create 2005 era yt videos.

You can get a decent 3D printer for ~$100 USD these days. Look for an original Ender 3 or one of the many clones of it. For double that you can get something pretty good. If that’s the route you want to go.

Otherwise learn some modeling software, if you’re going the 3D printing route then CAD can be useful, I like Fusion 360, some people find TinkerCad or FreeCad easier to start with. Tons of tutorials for all of these on YouTube.

If you just want to edit or make some fun models maybe learn something like Blender.

This is totally random and off topic, but damn the idea that you can buy a $100 device decently replicates 3d mechanical objects still blows my mind.

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Seeing a lot of recommendations for the ender 3 here. It’s a great printer, don’t get me wrong, I have one myself and I love it. BUT. You have to be ready to tinker with it. A lot. It is by no means comparable to a desktop inkjet or laser printer. You will be tinkering with it for tens or even hundreds of hours to make it better and better. If you like the printer itself being a project, then it’s honestly great. If you want a care-free 3D printer, then yeah, they are expensive.

you can get an Ender 3 on sale for $100.

probably cheaper to invest in one rather than continuously pay for a service to print them off.

some libraries will 3D print stuff for very cheap though.

If you're an Apple product user:

If you convert them to usdz files (RealityConverter can help with this) and you have an iPhone, you can open them up and it will throw them into an AR camera mode where you can take photos with them in it. You can also embed usdz files in web pages and it does this through safari. Check out some examples here: https://developer.apple.com/augmented-reality/quick-look/

Make a meme where your cat is fighting a 5-foot tall melty-looking mouse!

You also can import them into RealityComposer and make simple interactive AR applications without doing any coding.

Import them into a game engine and make something weird? I dunno

Looks like a lot of people are encouraging 3d printing (of which I am a huge fan) but I'll go the other way. You could try making models for a video game or 3d environment. Any models that look a little meh you can throw into blender to try to touch up. Fire up unreal or Godot and see what you can make!

could also make them a available as asset libraries for other people to make into games - it seems hard to find consistent sets of 3d models for games

I dont have any suggestions but I would like to add that 3d printers are cheaper than ever and can be easily found for under $200

Seconding the suggestion to see if your local public or maybe school library offers printing services.

Share the models of thingiverse for others to use.

It would be better if they share the site/ai model they’re using so people can do this for themselves. Thingiverse doesn’t need an influx of likely unprintable random models

3D printing them would probably not give you decent models for now, even then what would you do with them?

Im a 3D modeler/animator and could theoretically use them for animations/backgrounds to fill a set without needing to take hours working on models that will be on screen for 5 seconds. I haven’t used them any 3D ai though and considering theres a ton of 3D modes available for free with higher quality topology there’s a lot of options already. I do see how they could be useful though

The minetest game engine accepts 3d models if you ever want to play with game moddng