Autocad 3D people - Graphic Design Courses

Adding people to your Autocad 3D scene adds a sense of realism, as well a quick impression of human scale. We explain how it works in our Autocad 3D training courses.
Firstly, there are two types of people in Autocad 3D models: cutout silhouettes and photos. Go to the Insert menu and choose Attach; then navigate to the location of your human images and hit OK. Autocad asks you for a Scale factor – use 1 to begin with and note that AutoCad places the image on the X-Y ground plane. We’ll have to scale it up and rotate it in 3D space. Select the object and go to the Home tab and select Modify and Scale with a Scale factor of 100. Next orbit around the object and zoom in to note its orientation.
Next choose the 3D Rotate tool and select the object. Note the three axis rings. Hold your cursor over the Red axis until it turns gold in colour, then click and type 90 degrees, and hit the Enter key. Then hold your cursor over the Blue axis until it turns gold in colour and click to type in 90, and hit Enter again.
Next choose the Scale tool, select the object and apply a Scale factor of 10. Move the people close to an object like a sofa, for example, and go to Front or Right view. Right-click on the View Cube and select Parallel. Then scale the people up or down by increments (for example 0.9, 0.1, etc) until they are the correct size compared to other human scale objects.
The next step is to draw a Polyline shape around the people. First create a cube with the Box tool and type UCS into the Command Line to change the orientation of the X-Y plane. Note that the Polyline tool works easiest when you are drawing on the X-Y plane. Click the F7 key on your keyboard to show the Grid, then type PL into the Command Line for the Polyline tool. Zoom in to carefully click around the people; you can zoom and pan as you draw. When you reach the end of the shape type C to Close the polyline shape. And adjust the Grips if necessary.
Now you can delete the original people object. Type UCS and W into the Command Line to return to the World Coordinate System. Delete the cube and type VS and R (for Visual Styles > Realistic).
Now go the Render tab to select Materials. Click on the small arrow to the bottom right to open the Material Edit, or simply click the Create New Material button which is located under the Sample swatches, and name it Blue Grey. Click on the colour bar and choose a blue-grey colour. Then take the Opacity slider down to 40%. Select the People object and click the Apply Material to Object button. Render the scene again and note that objects behind the people will show through due to the 40% opacity.
The 3d interface in Autocad is user-friendly and easy to learn, and we take time to teach a broad range of applications in our classes including modeling, materials, lighting and animation. See many examples of our clients’ work on our Facebook page. For more information there are lots of resources on the web, but try the Autodesk site to begin with: www.autodesk.com. Support options and user forums are also available from the home page.
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