Daz Best assets and tips for making a convincing milf/mature genesis 8.1/ 9 character?

[Hotcoffee3DX]

Hi, I'm attempting to make a convincing mature milf (early 40s to mid 50s) with genesis 8.1. Does anyone have any tips? What lesser known assets does everyone recommend? Im looking for high quality skin details that really showcase the mature aging.

 

[MissFortune]

Finding a good starting skin is half the battle.

I find

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works pretty well for most things. Some others, though:

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,

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,

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,

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. Feng's G9 stuff is probably what you're looking for, though.

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should take care of the rest.

Not quite 40's like you're looking for (more mid-30s.), but here's Jacqueline 8.1 with the linked Aging morph:



It's not a perfect solution, but it's the best I've come across for aging figures goes. Ones that aren't already older, at least, which are a rarity on the Daz store. It's easy to go overboard with, though.

 

[Hotcoffee3DX]

Finding a good starting skin is half the battle.

I find

You must be registered to see the links

works pretty well for most things. Some others, though:

You must be registered to see the links

,

You must be registered to see the links

,

You must be registered to see the links

,

You must be registered to see the links

. Feng's G9 stuff is probably what you're looking for, though.

You must be registered to see the links

should take care of the rest.

Not quite 40's like you're looking for (more mid-30s.), but here's Jacqueline 8.1 with the linked Aging morph:

View attachment 2811765

It's not a perfect solution, but it's the best I've come across for aging figures goes. Ones that aren't already older, at least, which are a rarity on the Daz store. It's easy to go overboard with, though.

I apologise I didnt see this reply. But thank you, i've actually been playing around with G9, I find the mature figures alot more convincing and they've been in abundance recently. I'll definitely revisit 8.1 with the assets you listed. I've found that all of the wrinkles sort of dissapear with any lighting that I come up with. So perhaps I need to be less soft and more stark with shadows.

 

[MissFortune]

I apologise I didnt see this reply. But thank you, i've actually been playing around with G9, I find the mature figures alot more convincing and they've been in abundance recently. I'll definitely revisit 8.1 with the assets you listed. I've found that all of the wrinkles sort of dissapear with any lighting that I come up with. So perhaps I need to be less soft and more stark with shadows.

G9 is pretty great texture-wise, so hard to argue going that direction. I just don't recommend it a ton as the library is quite a lot smaller, whereas 8.1 can use both G8 and 8.1 assets, obviously giving it a much larger backlog of assets. And not everyone is working with 3090/4090s, and G9 tends to chew up a fair bit of VRAM (and storage space, seeing as vendors have forgotten to optimize things.), which obviously doesn't lend itself to VNs very well if you aren't using high-end hardware.

Wrinkles are a tough aspect when it comes to light. Generally speaking, the harsher/sharper the lighting, then less you'll see. Softer, more wrapping-style lighting will generally do a better job of highlighting the wrinkles in a complimentary way.

 

[Hotcoffee3DX]

G9 is pretty great texture-wise, so hard to argue going that direction. I just don't recommend it a ton as the library is quite a lot smaller, whereas 8.1 can use both G8 and 8.1 assets, obviously giving it a much larger backlog of assets. And not everyone is working with 3090/4090s, and G9 tends to chew up a fair bit of VRAM (and storage space, seeing as vendors have forgotten to optimize things.), which obviously doesn't lend itself to VNs very well if you aren't using high-end hardware.

Wrinkles are a tough aspect when it comes to light. Generally speaking, the harsher/sharper the lighting, then less you'll see. Softer, more wrapping-style lighting will generally do a better job of highlighting the wrinkles in a complimentary way.

A few Daz artists I know have said the very same thing about G9 and even 8.1. Personally I have found creating convincing Milf characters is quite a bit easier with G9. However, I'll take another go at g8/8.1 again.

Thank you, noted! I have to work on understanding natural indoor lighting, I dont want that type of character detail to be lost in the lighting. What do you mean by wrapping-style lighting by the way?

 

[MissFortune]

Thank you, noted! I have to work on understanding natural indoor lighting, I dont want that type of character detail to be lost in the lighting. What do you mean by wrapping-style lighting by the way?

Could've phrased that better, honestly.

It's generally a form of continuous lighting that'll wrap around the face, with a slow falloff of intensity as it wraps around. This can either be done with a fill light, or some sort of reflector/bouncing board. In the case of Daz, a reflector/bouncing board can be recreated with a primitive plane that has all reflection settings turned down. Using white will reflect, black will block the light from reflecting.

This style of lighting for a VN can take a bit of planning, and is good for single figure renders. Time of day, angle of where the characters are sitting, where the light is coming from, the distance of the character from the main light source, indoor vs outdoor lighting, etc. It sounds like a lot, but tends to come together once you get the first few answered. Which is where motivated lighting tends to play its role in certain shots.

I tend to use a more short side technique for lighting where I can:



So, here I use the HDRI to use have the sun hit the window some, just matching the general direction of where I want the light source to be coming from. Just off the left side of the frame, there's a spotlight pointing right at the short side of his face. The broad side in this context would be the side closest to the camera. The part you're seeing the most of here, as the name would imply. The short side is the opposite, the side that's barely exposed or only partially exposed to the camera. Just enough to create a bit of a rim/highlight. The ghost light on the roof does the rest of the job in lighting and filling in the shadows on the broad side of his face. A similar concept is present in this video:


That being said, there's a lot of ways to either exaggerate details in the skin (via light or texture maps), and some angles will bring it out more than others. As will certain colors and lighting styles. Just takes a bit of experimenting to know what works best for each scene and character. Not all skins are made equal, and some do it better than others. Especially in Daz.

Here's a short little video of me playing around with a couple spotlights (from a single light to three point lighting), and angles:

 

[Hotcoffee3DX]

Could've phrased that better, honestly.

It's generally a form of continuous lighting that'll wrap around the face, with a slow falloff of intensity as it wraps around. This can either be done with a fill light, or some sort of reflector/bouncing board. In the case of Daz, a reflector/bouncing board can be recreated with a primitive plane that has all reflection settings turned down. Using white will reflect, black will block the light from reflecting.

This style of lighting for a VN can take a bit of planning, and is good for single figure renders. Time of day, angle of where the characters are sitting, where the light is coming from, the distance of the character from the main light source, indoor vs outdoor lighting, etc. It sounds like a lot, but tends to come together once you get the first few answered. Which is where motivated lighting tends to play its role in certain shots.

I tend to use a more short side technique for lighting where I can:

View attachment 2954607

So, here I use the HDRI to use have the sun hit the window some, just matching the general direction of where I want the light source to be coming from. Just off the left side of the frame, there's a spotlight pointing right at the short side of his face. The broad side in this context would be the side closest to the camera. The part you're seeing the most of here, as the name would imply. The short side is the opposite, the side that's barely exposed or only partially exposed to the camera. Just enough to create a bit of a rim/highlight. The ghost light on the roof does the rest of the job in lighting and filling in the shadows on the broad side of his face. A similar concept is present in this video:


That being said, there's a lot of ways to either exaggerate details in the skin (via light or texture maps), and some angles will bring it out more than others. As will certain colors and lighting styles. Just takes a bit of experimenting to know what works best for each scene and character. Not all skins are made equal, and some do it better than others. Especially in Daz.

Here's a short little video of me playing around with a couple spotlights (from a single light to three point lighting), and angles:

Wow this is all super insightful, I do plan to stick to single or a handful of renders per scene/character to begin with atleast. I will watch these videos in full. The fidelity in your render is stunning, great job! I love how soft and subtle the natural lighting is. Do you usually keep the HDRI lighting low enough to still see the background if a window is present. I find that I have to get a balance.

I've attached a very quick render using my basic studio lighting for when I make characters. This is Genesis 8.1, I've tried my best with the info & assets on hand. Just an example of where I am at in relation to this thread.

 

[MissFortune]

Do you usually keep the HDRI lighting low enough to still see the background if a window is present. I find that I have to get a balance.

It depends on the environment for me, really. The only things I usually adjust with HDRIs are the dome rotation and environment intensity, the white point with tone mapping, and rarely Environment Tint. If it's indoors, I usually have the HDRI take care of the background lighting and give some natural ambience to the room, but not a ton. I'll usually use spotlights and ghost lights for everything else indoors as it gives more granular control over everything. I'll usually use a ghost light or ghost light prop if I feel a corner is too dark.

Sometimes the angles of HDRIs can be bad, especially when looking through windows, both visually and with its lighting. In which case I'll usually just add a fence/wall asset within the frame of the window that's just tall enough to block the bottom but low enough to keep the sky within view of the window.

I've attached a very quick render using my basic studio lighting for when I make characters. This is Genesis 8.1, I've tried my best with the info & assets on hand. Just an example of where I am at in relation to this thread.

Definitely good.

The main light source is either too close or too bright (hard to say without seeing the BTS behind the image.). I'm not sure if you're using spotlights or an HDRI, but a cheap way going about it with an HDRI is to make the exposure value a bit higher (default is 13.00, iirc.) in the tone mapping settings. Jumping up to 15.00 should make a bit less intense. Again, environment intensity could do something similar here. There's a few ways of adjusting spotlights, though. From making them bigger and thus softer to bringing the spread angle up to just straight up lowering the intensity of the spotlight (via the Intensity slider or the lumens.).

 

[Hotcoffee3DX]

It depends on the environment for me, really. The only things I usually adjust with HDRIs are the dome rotation and environment intensity, the white point with tone mapping, and rarely Environment Tint. If it's indoors, I usually have the HDRI take care of the background lighting and give some natural ambience to the room, but not a ton. I'll usually use spotlights and ghost lights for everything else indoors as it gives more granular control over everything. I'll usually use a ghost light or ghost light prop if I feel a corner is too dark.

Sometimes the angles of HDRIs can be bad, especially when looking through windows, both visually and with its lighting. In which case I'll usually just add a fence/wall asset within the frame of the window that's just tall enough to block the bottom but low enough to keep the sky within view of the window.



Definitely good.

The main light source is either too close or too bright (hard to say without seeing the BTS behind the image.). I'm not sure if you're using spotlights or an HDRI, but a cheap way going about it with an HDRI is to make the exposure value a bit higher (default is 13.00, iirc.) in the tone mapping settings. Jumping up to 15.00 should make a bit less intense. Again, environment intensity could do something similar here. There's a few ways of adjusting spotlights, though. From making them bigger and thus softer to bringing the spread angle up to just straight up lowering the intensity of the spotlight (via the Intensity slider or the lumens.).

Do you mind if I reply and ask you some more DAZ related question in DMs? I'm finding this very helpful!! Plus this discussion is becoming more about lighting than the thread title.

 

[MissFortune]

Do you mind if I reply and ask you some more DAZ related question in DMs? I'm finding this very helpful!! Plus this discussion is becoming more about lighting than the thread title.

Of course. Feel free.

 

[Hotcoffee3DX]

Bump if anyone has anymore suggestions or tips

 

[psycho dude]

Bump if anyone has anymore suggestions or tips

Um excuse me which character is your pfp?

 

[Hotcoffee3DX]

Um excuse me which character is your pfp?

She is a character that I created in daz myself