Tucson Sculpture Festival 2012

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Tuesday, 14 April 2026

More RIGGING and MOTION -- MESHY

I found that MESHY was really good for converting 2D images into 3D objects -- and also for rigging and animating them too.  They do have a free tier:

My figure -- into a T-POSE -- into a downloadable 3D object
Download: "TPOSE.GLB" (932.62 KB)


PROCESS
  • I altered one of my figure drawings in KREA to look more like a Bernini sculpture
  • I asked AI to make that figure into a "T-POSE" using FLOW/Nano Banana 2
  • I uploaded that T-POSE into MESHY to convert it into a 3D file (the MESHY 5 model allowed me to download, whereas the MESHY 6 model is a paid download)

With a T-POSE GLB I can then rig and animate the figure in MESHY.  I can import that 3D animation into AUGMENTED REALITY.  The animation files can be pretty large, but I can even compress a GLB animation into a pretty small file with GLB Compressor for downloading (17.12 MB to 1.44 MB).

View in AUGMENTED REALITY (18 MB animation)
DOWNLOAD: "BOX.GLB" animation (1.44 MB ) 




The above AUGMENTED REALITY animation works with Android phones -- but does NOT seem to work with iPhones (though a stationary GLB sculpture does show up on the iPhone with Augmented Reality).  According to the Google AI, this is because the iPhone wants their proprietary USDZ file, and Android is content with the open source GLB standards for AR:


3D CONVERSION VARIATIONS

NOTE: The "MESHY 6 model" gave better, more detailed, 2D-to-3D conversion results, but one needs to have a subscription to download the advanced "MESHY 6 model" 3D files:

The MESHY 6 model gave better conversion results


NOTE: MESHY did a lot better job converting 2D-to-3D than "Huanyuan 3D-2.1" did in KREA:

April 13, 2026
Huanyuan 3D-2.1 in KREA
was good, but not as good as MESHY
Download: "260413B.GLB" (587.19 KB)

NOTE: MESHY also did a better job converting 2D-to-3D than "Hunyuan 2.1Image-to-3D Simplified" did -- which we ran locally at Quelab on a computer with 12 GBs of VRAM, to generate the 3D jaguar: 

RIGGING in 3D
AI Origami Animals
Hunyuan 2.1Image-to-3D Simplified
Paint 3D
EzGIF
MESHY vs HUNYUAN Conversions:
The 3D jaguar had less detail
when converted from 2D into a GLB file
 with Hunyuan 2.1Image-to-3D Simplified --
than the 3D human figure 
converted with the MESHY 5 model


ANIMATION ALTERNATIVES
and RIGGNIG issues

MIXAMO

MIXAMO offers a lot of good motions and is free.  However I have to first convert a GLB file into an OBJ file in order to upload a 3D file.  The file has to be in a T-Pose in order to rig it (which is the best way to rig) -- but in the rigging process the 3D object loses all the color and texture with MIXAMO.

MIXAMO
MIXAMO LOSES
 all the color and textures of the figure
in the rigging process

Moreover I was having a problem with MIXAMO animations -- as they seemed to float too high, and did not work well in AUGMENTED REALITY. I was able to correct that by adjusting the height level in Babylon.js 3D viewer.

Convert GLB to OBJ Online
MIXAMO
OBS Studio
EzGIF
A MIXAMO Capoeira animation
 in FBX format (16.16 MB -- huge)


MESH-to-MOTION

MESH-to-MOTION is a free animation alternative program to MIXAMO.  It does not seem to lose the color and textures when rigging the input T-POSE model. However it is more difficult to rig because of more moving points to map.

HOWEVER the most curious thing is that MESH-to-MOTION seems to animate with BALLS -- rather than with BONES.  Note the difference in the image below:
  • The T-POSE on the left was rigged in MESHY with BONES, and exported as an FBX file
  • Whereas the MESH-to-MOTION animation on the right is covered with BALLS -- not supported by bones -- when opened in BLENDER

BONES vs BALLS

MESHY vs MESH-to-MOTION
The figure on the left has "bones," 
as it does in FBX files --
 the figure on the right for download is a GLB file,
that was animated in MESH-to-MOTION
Download: "meshangry.GLB" (1.17 MB)


BALL OF CONFUSION

It gets even more confusing when I open an animated GLB file in BLENDER -- as it turns into a big ball (which also animates, as if the ball were breathing).  Apparently GLB files animate differently from FBX files:

BLENDER
ODD -- the animated GLB opens up
as a ball in BLENDER


MESH-to-MOTION also offers some Experimental RIGs and Animations in BLENDER format from their GitHub page:

Mesh-to-Motion Rigs
Rigged human figure in Blender format
for download


RAYLIB

We were trying to import the GLB animations into RAYLIB, but that did not work (and it will not accept FBX animations at all).  Apparently RAYLIB only accepts limited animations, as noted in the GOOGLE Search AI:




*****

With MESHY I am all that much closer to placing my FAKE Augmented Reality sculptures in the Albuquerque Museum Sculpture Garden:

Outcropping in DALL-E 2
Augmented Reality -- Adobe Aero app
AUGMENTED REALITY -- Denver
My Augmented Reality Sculpture fantasy
in an AI version of the Albuquerque Museum Sculpture Garden

MindAR

The best idea is to use MINDAR to place the AUGMENTED REALITY sculptures, as one website should should show all the sculptures in the Albuquerque Museum Sculpture Garden.  If visitors only have to go to one website then they are likely to view all the artworks.

Corrina Espinosa had a great MINDAR exhibition at the 2025 CURRENTS exhibition in Santa Fe. However I was not successful using MINDAR on my first tries.


OTHER:

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