Character is everything. It maintains a perspective for the audience, and instigates emotion. That’s why character is the foundation of storytelling. But building a 3D character from scratch isn’t easy, especially if you need multiple characters for a scene or experience. Below, we’ll share free 3D characters that can be your video or animation project's lead, sidekicks, or background faces. Or, these free 3D characters can serve as placeholders until you build the right one for your finalized project.
Short on time? Here’s the list.
1. Manny
2. Robot Kyle
3. The Armored Adventurer
4. Rat
5. Wyvern animated
6. Casual Male
7. Adventure Character
What is a 3D character?
A 3D character is an animated person or creature in a scene or design. Specifically, in game design, a user interacts with a 3D character through a controller console, touch screen, or augmented or virtual reality experience. In film and television, 3D characters can interact with real-life human characters using motion capture special effects.
The most common 3D characters are:
- Humans
- Animals
- Robots
- Mythical/fantastical creatures
- Humanoid aliens
- Animal-like aliens
- Anthropomorphic characters (i.e., a talking orange)
Most robust 3D projects have more than one 3D character, hence the importance of finding some free 3D characters to fill out a scene or test an experience.
7 Best Free 3D Characters in 2024.
1. Manny (Unreal Engine Game Animation Sample Project)
Unreal Engine recently announced its Game Animation Sample Project, which includes 500 AAA-quality animations, specifically fully functional free 3D characters. If you’re an Unreal Engine user, this is literally a game-changer, as it allows you to use mannequins to simulate animation actions within a video game world. We tested Manny, one of the sandbox characters for our Refineries Kit walkthrough, and we loved how easy it was to apply the 3D character and interact with the world. Plus, Manny looks like a prototype Iron Man suit, which helps. Of course, the main downside is that these free 3D characters are only available for UE users.
License: General (for UE users)
Tech Specs: N/A
Compatibility:
Unreal Engine
2. Robot Kyle
If you’re a Unity user, Robot Kyle is the perfect free 3D character for beginners to a URP project. Robot Kyle is also a solid placeholder for any prototyping scene because of his humanoid structure and simplicity. If you’re a Unity user, you can access Robot Kyle and more free 3D characters through The Unity Asset Store.
License: Standard (for Unity users)
Tech Specs:
- Texture dimensions: 2048
- Number of meshes/prefabs: 1
- Rigging: Yes
- UV mapping: Yes
- 8.6 MB
Compatibility:
Unity
3. The Armored Adventurer
BlenderKit is an open-source platform for creators to build and share 3D assets, including characters. Out of the selection of BlenderKit’s free 3D characters, we love The Armored Adventurer by AnonmalyFound. This grey-cloaked knight is designed for any medieval, fantasy, or ancient sci-fi story with a full plate of armor, helmet, shield, and sword. However, you must sign up for BlenderKit’s free plan to download this character.
License: CC0 - No Rights Reserved
Tech Specs:
- File size: 16.6 MB
- Face count: 19.5K
Compatibility:
Blender
4. Rat
You’ve never met a rat like this. The Rat free 3D character created by subatasos on TurboSquid is angry at someone or something, yet it makes you chuckle when you see his elongated limbs and sunken eyes. Maybe you put Rat next to another character in your scene or start a new adventure with Rat as the lead character, frustrated about his neighborhood rats stealing his trash.
License: Standard
Tech Specs:
- 12,635 Polygons
- 12,710 Vertices
- Polygonal Quads Only
- UV Mapped
- Unknown Unwrapped UVs
Compatibility:
NATIVE ZBrush
4. Wyvern
Dragons… so hot right now.
If you’re hoping to light the fire of your next fantasy project and need a big bad dragon to spark conflict, then Wyvern is the perfect free 3D character to start with. Created by charliecatling on SketchUp, Wyvern is already fully animated and ready to go for your project. That’s a rare feature for free 3D models and worth taking advantage of. Just be nice, Wyvern bites.
License: Standard
Tech Specs:
- Total triangles 28.7K
- 14.6K
- UV Layers
- 96MB
Compatibility:
- FBX
- glTF
- USD
5. Casual Male
Nothing says placeholder like “casual male.” If you need a humanoid 3D character as a background NPC or prototyping type, then the Casual Male is the guy for you. He may look like he’s waiting in line at a Starbucks or ready to talk to you about his fantasy football team, but he’s perfect as a stand-in for your project.
License: Royalty Free
Tech Specs:
- Triangles: 4.5K
- Verticals: 2.3K
- 96MB
- UV Mapping
Compatibility:
- Blender
- FBX
- Unity
7. Adventure Character
Not to embarrass Casual Male, but Adventure Character from MB-Studio on CGTrader is way cooler. While this dude doesn’t have the moldability of a Casual Male, Adventure Character has a distinct look that fits any project where a hero is in a remote location hunting for buried treasure or battling bad guys. Plus, this muscled brute comes with clothing accessories to style him for different climates and scenarios.
License: Royalty Free
Tech Specs:
- 803 MB
- PBR textures
- UV Mapping
- Polys: 119,538
- Triangles: 236,200
- Verticals: 118,900
Compatibility:
- FBX
- Unity
- UnrealEngine
8. Robot
Another detailed and high-quality free 3D character on CGTrader that we adore is Robot. This humanoid-looking mechanical robot is structured for movement and would be a stellar addition to a sci-fi or dystopian world. We could easily see Robot loading gear into a terrain rover from our Mission to Minerva free kit (just another free idea for you).
License: Royalty Free
Tech Specs:
- 5.16 MB (Max)
- PBR textures
- Polygons: 13,383
- Vertices: 14,217
- UV Mapping
Compatibility:
- Cinema 4D
- FBX/OBJ
- DXF
- Stereolithography
9. Polygon Santa
If you want to stand up a project or game, polygon characters are an easy way to make a prototype concept. And who’s one of the most iconic royalty-free characters of all time? The big man in red–Santa Claus. Synty Store offers polygon 3D assets, and Polygon Stanta is a fun 3D character to play with on your preferred software or if you’re looking to make a low-fi holiday project.
License: 5 seats per copy
Tech Specs:
N/A
Compatibility:
- FBX
- Unity
- Unreal Engine
You’ve got the characters. Now, build the environments.
If character is everything, then the world you put them in is where everything plays.
With Cargo, you can build professional environments for your characters to roam, interact, and move a story forward. Cargo gives you access to over 15,000 premium 3D models and materials from KitBash3D (that’s us). With 1-click import to all the major 3D rendering software, powerful search and filtering, and a vast library of 3D assets from a wide variety of genres, Cargo houses one of the largest asset libraries for game, animation, and VFX design.
