I’m working on some renderings and i need to populate the scene with black people. I never really payed any attention to the race of the people in the libraries i have, but now i notice that they’re all white. Good low poly 3d models would come in handy too.
Any suggestions?
Axyz has some very diverse libraries of low poly people. And IMO the
African American people are the best looking models from them. We can
actually get the camera a little closer to those models.
Regards,
Mike
Yeah, they definitely look good. And they come complete with boombox and plastic bag from the corner quickmart to boot! Did anyone else laugh out loud then die a little inside at this ethnic stereotyping by axyz? All they’re missing is the unfolded cardboard box and one character posed in a break dance move.
That being said, the people look good, we should probably purchase them. That stuff just really bugs me…
Shaun
I agree. I cant imagine using those props in a render.
I remember a while ago, looking forward to the AXYX upcoming ethnic catalog, and was incredibly disappointed with the racial sterotyping when they released their “african-american” still-poses catalog. And not just the props, but the clothing and the poses are disturbing as well. Do you they think all black people are street hustlers, rappers, prostitutes, or homeless people? Its really quite insulting.
Where is AXYZ team from anyway?
you know, on an international forum saying African-American really isn’t PC because not all black people are from American with an African heritage.
Some of my friends who are not from America actually get offended. They are neither African, nor American yet everyone refers to them as African American. They responds, “no dude, I’m just black.” It’s kind of funny really.
Well, actually I did mean African-American because I think that the profiling that AXYZ used was inspired by american ghetto stereotypes (BTW, I’m american). I think that African immigrants, as well as Afro-Brits and Afro-Europeans look different culturally than the collection they created. That is why I wondered where they were from. Originally I assumed they were some eastern european outfit, but now I think AXYZ is a couple white guys in the american south.
Or, if not, they have certainly been watching too many “gangsta” films…
you’re american? good god, who let that happen.
I hear you in Stereo
Things get touchie especially in Los Angeles when it comes to race. I was at a party one day with my girlfriend who is Mexican American and I was talking to one of her cousins, in her parents neighbourhood of Sylmar, the ethnicity is 95% Mexican. I made a general statement about Latino culture and football, I thought I was doing the right thing but he got all up in my grill " I ain’t no Latino, I’m a Mexican Bitch - don’t put me in same boat as some stinking Puerto Rican ". To be honest sometimes being white you have a target painted on you, their are alot of people who are already pissed off at society and are ready to pounce as soon as you make even the most innocent and well meaning mistake. 
Now here is a hilariously depressing story. My thesis film at AFI was set in the 1950’s and was about a Barbie Doll that comes to life. The film made fun of how Barbie comes in various different colors, but all the faces and figures are exactly the same. While doing research on Barbie at Toys R Us I came across a black barbie doll that - this is no joke - worked at McDonalds and had 3 kids. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
I definitely need some business like people, not rappers and gangsters. Cutouts would really be useful, probably even more than 3d people.
Sorry, this got a bit off track probably because of me…
I don’t normally recommend RPC but they do have an ethnically diverse collection of libraries:
http://www.archvision.com/ContentDetails.cfm?BundleID=10600&Category=1&Dimension=3&LocationID=3
@Adam: You called your mexican-american girlfriend Latino? Ouch! 
The RPC collection is pretty good, it beats much of the other stuff we have from ArchVision. I had to use them in PS using the plugin because I resolved to never install RPC for MAX/VIZ ever again…too many issues crop up when using them in MAX/VIZ, and I just generally do not like the cut-and-paste look that they give right out of the box.
I ended up hand-painting the skin on all our aXYZ business people and kids… can’t share them, though, but it works well enough. Interestingly enough, there’s actually a law in the US that says the people depicted in advertising for real-estate must depict a somewhat accurate diversity-percentage to the area the building is located. Otherwise you could be violating the Fair Housing act or something.
Just open the textures and find a good photo of someone with an ‘ethnic’ skintone, then copy/paste/match the skin.
Actually her cousin
Actually it was her cousin - who was a big guy ( about 6-2") 260 lbs, with a saved head - I did sweat a little. It got sort of funny when he told me that he had never talked to " A white guy " for so long before, that I was Alright !! then we all did shots of tequila and I don’t remember much more of the evenig :lol:
“Newspaper asks why New York train station renderings lack blacks Local developer Louis Cappelli’s proposal to create what he says will be a new downtown for White Plains, N.Y., has it all: glistening office towers, a five-star hotel and condominium building, and a rebuilt train station. What it doesn’t have much of is African Americans in its conceptual images. In four renderings by architect Skidmore Owings & Merrill, only four of 87 figures in the renderings were able to be identified by the Journal Sun newspaper as representing black people—less than 5%. The 2000 census showed 17% of White Plains residents are African American.
The Journal News (White Plains, N.Y.), May 18”
The fact that someone studied the images long enough to realize that the representation wasn’t ‘accurate’ means that people are looking at this stuff, we just don’t think they are. It is kind of silly in the long run, but people can be very sensitive about the whole race and ethnic thing.
My firm purchsed the RPC African American library and overall they are fairly decent.
Sorry to bring this up again. I desperately need some black people cutouts also. The rpc ones referred to above are very outdated and anyways black people don’t look like that over here in SA. I need some business people and also some shopping people.
Marlin Studios, Got3D, rpc - none of them seems to have usefull black people in their libraries
thanks Olli that’s perfect for casual stuff. Now I just need some black guys in suits (black bussiness people)
You could always just use white people in suits and photoshop the black heads onto them. True story, worked out really good.
Was not quick though, you need to be careful to not make it look odd. All the black people being misshapen and broken would probably be more racist than none at all.