Last Updated on February 27, 2026
MakeHuman is a completely free, innovative and professional software for the modelling of 3-Dimensional humanoid characters.
MakeHuman is developed using 3D morphing technology. Starting from a standard (unique) androgynous human base mesh, it can be transformed into a great variety of characters (male and female), mixing them with linear interpolation. For example, given the four main morphing targets (baby, teen, young, old), it is possible to obtain all the intermediate shapes.
The goal is to see it used in two different pipelines or workflows.
Short Pipeline
The short pipeline is intended for quick character prototyping and for 2D art. The user defines the character, adds clothes, hair, a pose and expressions, by selecting them from our libraries, and running the render to obtain an image of the character (future goal: indistinguishable from a real photo of him). This output can be used as a character preview, fine art, blueprints, storyboards, comics, illustrations, etc.. No special skill is required from the user.
Long Pipeline
The long pipeline is intended to create a 3D character in rest pose for export to external software (Blender, Maya, Max, C4D, etc..) in order to be tweaked, animated and rendered. Another common usage of the rest-posed character is for games. The long pipeline requires the user to have professional skills and a good working knowledge of the external tools chosen to produce the desired final product.
Website: makehumancommunity.org
Support:
Developer: The MakeHuman team
License: GNU License Affero GPL
MakeHuman is written in Python. Learn Python with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
Related Software
| Modelers | |
|---|---|
| Blender | Very fast and versatile 3D modeler/renderer |
| Blockbench | Low poly 3D model editor |
| Bforartists | Complete 3D suite to create 3D content |
| Wings 3D | Advanced subdivision modeler that is both powerful and easy to use |
| MakeHuman | Character creation suite using 3D morphing technology |
| Gmsh | Automatic three-dimensional finite element mesh generator |
| Dust3D | Create low poly 3D models for video games, 3D printing, and more |
| Art of Illusion | 3D-modeler, renderer and raytracer |
| CharMorph | Character creation tool for Blender |
| Maverick Model 3D | Triangle-based 3D model editor |
| K-3D | 3D modeling and animation system |
Read our verdict in the software roundup.
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