Blender vs Daz3D: What's Best for You?

[Saki_Sliz]

Oh, I think I answered at the same time you responded.

 

[Saki_Sliz]

Ignoring the re inventing the wheel issue, I think the main benefit of daz is just how streamlined the process is.
In blender, I have fun with custom topology, shape keys, etc, but I consider myself a technical artist, I do it for the process not for the final product. I have fun making the models not the 3D images. But then, if I want to make more than one characters, if I want to have clothes, then actually shaping the clothes alone is to much of a pain in the butt for me and I wish I had something like daz to use, where tedious unimportant things are automated or finished for me. For most users making a rig is one of the harder things to do and it's tedious. I have never met anyone but myself who has fun making rigs. not even other blender users.

 

[desmosome]

My layman's understanding of this is like Renpy vs Unity. Renpy lets you make VN really easily and well while Unity is a more generalized and robust engine if you are skilled. I guess Daz is like Renpy of rendering and Blender is Unity? I don't know anything about this though so I could be way off.

 

[Saki_Sliz]

My layman's understanding of this is like Renpy vs Unity. Renpy lets you make VN really easily and well while Unity is a more generalized and robust engine if you are skilled. I guess Daz is like Renpy of rendering and Blender is Unity? I don't know anything about this though so I could be way off.

I would say that is an accurate analogy.
general vs optimized.

 

[megaplayboy10k]

I would say that is an accurate analogy.
general vs optimized.

Right. So if I was a dev with a team of experienced specialists, I might opt for Unity as the game engine, and some mix of DAZ and scratch-built models using Blender/Maya/3dMax/whatevs. Plus someone to mix a soundtrack, some voice actors, and maybe a 3d animation guy/gal to do some animated scenes.
If I was Johnny Lonestar dev with me, myself and I as the team, I'd go with Ren'py, and either DAZ or Honey Select for my models and scenes. Probably zero animations in the first game, maybe they show up by my 2nd or 3rd effort.
I have a friend who studied 3d animation/modeling in school, it took him a few years to get good at it. I suspect that unless a dev is a 3d artist already, or working with one, they're probably going to go with DAZ or HS.

 

[Saki_Sliz]

yus

I think if one mostly wants to make Vn like games, or dating sims, where most of the time there is talking, menu navigation, and just point and click mechanics (say for exploring a house room by room), while it can be done in both, it my take a bit more work to get started with making custom icons/buttons in ren'py, I think it will pay off in the long run since eventually, you will have the recipe to make the kind of games you want memorized, and a lot of general programs like unity or blender have the issue of bloat, too much on the screen, to much to click on, and it just gets annoying when you don't need it, with renpy I don't believe this is an issue.

now if you work alone, but you do so to explore, experiment, or learn new skills, I would say, play with blender and unity, and it may help you, but other than that nah, just do that stuff to get the skills. and really, they don't teach you anything (like school), it just you're thrown into a fire, and you have to figure out how to swim (by asking forums, google, and youtube videos, that's how I mostly learned).

an example of bloat, I think programming is kinda dumb. I mean, I love it, have been doing it for more than 10 years, but seriously, we use the same tricks over and over again in code to do the same stuff in most games. Because of this I've been working on my own language, and one of the things I am trying to remove is the damn bloat seen in other languages. just as unity and blender what to do everything at once, too much to click on, languages have too many things they want to try to do. My language is a translation language, you describe a concept, and it writes it in C/C# using the techniques typical in game making (event systems, components, etc) as well as goes through and guides you through the process to make sure the idea you have is fleshed out, complete, and functional.

 

[recreation]

My layman's understanding of this is like Renpy vs Unity. Renpy lets you make VN really easily and well while Unity is a more generalized and robust engine if you are skilled. I guess Daz is like Renpy of rendering and Blender is Unity? I don't know anything about this though so I could be way off.

It's more like Daz is Godot and Blender is Unity. If you don't know Godot and look at their website, you'll think it's a 2D or platformer Engine for simple games, but if you delve into it, you'll notice that you can do way more with the Engine.
I said it already, but you can do way more in Daz than many people even know. It is limited, but it's not as limited as some people want to make you think of it.
No offence @Saki

 

[Saki_Sliz]

Oh none taken, I understand I may be mistaken and I thank you for your corrections (in fact I should have updated my posting). Saying something (such as daz) is optimized is not the same as saying something is stripped down. The way I think one way to describe it is like, A general purpose computer ready for programming, vs a calculator with all the built-in tools. Both can do math and be programmed. Blender is ready for anything, but only because its not ready for anything in particular. Daz, on the other hand, has a focus. Daz has many of the same tools, and it has new tools tailored to their user's needs, but more importantly, I think it is the format that counts. how the program interacts with it's users. with blender everything is either splade out (information overload and clutter) or hidden (short cuts for once hidden commands and improper/old documentation), meanwhile a program like Daz (the metaphorical calculator) knows its purpose and tries to assiste users by simply having a better overall experience (not that I would really know since I haven't played with it too much ). Like writing an essay you do the rough draft, get everything out there (blender), then you edit and revise, rewriting things such that readers can better follow along with the points you want to make (Daz). I almost want to ask if you or someone should write out a list of possibilities you could do with daz, but I am sure there is already a list somewhere, and i'll just be asking for someone to reinvent the wheel.

A played with godot but just as 3.0 came out, and I hated having to redocument all the rewritten functions, I swapped back to unity. It would be like, if I got tired of blender's crap and just went back to rhino cad.

 

[recreation]

I almost want to ask if you or someone should write out a list of possibilities you could do with daz, but I am sure there is already a list somewhere, and i'll just be asking for someone to reinvent the wheel.

Actually there is no real place (I know of) where you'd find all the information, not even a complete overview of all the functions. Daz own documentation is outdated and lacking. The best place to find Information is the daz forum and partially the old docs.

 

[Saki_Sliz]

damn, why is everything like this. Does renpy have any issues with documentation? I know one of the reasons I went back to unity was because it had better documentation.

 

[caLTD]

Oh GOD not again.

So you claim, you can create a full real life character with,with working Genitalia, Hair, a decent clothes set with full set of facial expression and this character has full sets of poses and those poses compatible at leas 2 or more people.

And you teach yourself this in 8 months. Great,

So how much time you will need to create this character ?

 

[TBall]

Okay, people here is the thing.

Long story short Daz3d allows you to create visuals for VN's faster and possibly won't lead to program and developer fatigue like Blender could.

Long story uhh ... long....
Both Daz3d and "Generalized 3d Content Creation Software" i.e. Blender/Maya/3DsMax can create the scenes for a visual novel style game which allows for graphically enhanced stories.

But, we must also understand that Daz3d is a software that specifically targets creating scenes and characters quickly. For a developer or anyone really who wants to tell a visual story it's a great piece of software that does scenes and characters very well. It allows the user to focus on a specific set of skills. These skills are using morphs, posing characters in imported scenes and rendering and possibly animation. They can quickly bring in assets that they know more or less will work in the Daz3d environment and that have a similar method of use. It is easier to clothe, pose and use morphs (i.e. blender shape keys) in Daz3d on characters. This also allows for a fast turn around on designing characters and developing so a developer can "hit the ground running." There are tons of different scenes and presets that they can use to quickly make content that paying Paetron customers expect in consistent updates. Very rarely do they have to leave the Daz3d environment except to gather models and assets for scenes, or learn multiple 3d art skills.

In contrast, general 3d modeling software targets a larger audience of users. Its true that one can, depending on the software, (1) poly-model, (2) sculpt, (3) retopo, (4) rig, (5) weight-paint, (6) animate, (7) render scenes, and (8) render animations among other things. But, each of these things takes time to learn and sometimes even more time to do well enough that the quality is what the designer desires. This may require the user to learn a variety of skills and different "workstations" in just one program. Sometimes the user has to deal with the hassle of moving assets between software and oftentimes that creates problems with scale, rigging, textures, or even vertices among other things. They may also need other software better suited to certain tasks like creating textures (Substance Designer), painting and baking textures (Substance Painter, 3dCoat, Mari, Photoshop, etc), sculpting objects (ZBrush, Mudbox, 3dCoat, Blender, etc), or designing clothing (Marvelous Designer). If they choose to use additional software, it becomes another software that they potentially have to learn how to navigate. Add to that potential add-ons one can buy or that are free which may offer a speed boost or grant some ease of use. And keep in mind all of this may be involved in just building one 3d asset. This process can eat up alot of time for just one developer.

None of this is to discourage anyone from using what they feel is most viable for their projects. I only ask that a developer or budding developer ask themselves "What am I trying to accomplish?". If it's to make a visual novel think of this (1) Blender v. (2) Daz comparison like you would as someone who is contemplating making a full on 3D game and having to choose between (1) "building a game engine from scratch" versus (2) "using an already established game engine". In both instances the first option gives you control over very small details, but with that comes the possible danger that you spend all of your time "building" something other than a game. Also they are similar in that the more people you have who have the skills required the more likely you can get to the actual objective. But don't forget that development time is still the same it's just split up among more people. The second option gives you a streamlined method to get what you want quicker and is focused on that task. You don't have to worry about building the elements that make up some small part over the course of months or years. Someone else has done that work for you and you are able to build off of that and get to your true goal without the grind that can discourage you.

Saki_Sliz, it is clear that you do like blender, however, you also admitted that you have not gotten familiar with Daz3d in a similar manner. If you have the skills in blender to create content why not learn how to import that content to Daz. Maybe you can create content that is sold in the storefront, or once you have learned how to move content between these two programs reliably maybe you can create a tutorial and show others on this forum. It may even help you to go to the standard Daz forums and talk to some of the users about how to move assets between these two programs. In addition, you could also go to the "other software" tab on the blender artists forum and ask some blender users.

Finally, Saki_Sliz you mentioned in another thread and in this one that you were using Unity as your game engine. If I am not mistaken, you cannot use Daz3d in an interactive full 3d game without a full separate license. Is this the reason you choose blender? Or are you making a visual novel game?

I am sorry to all who had to read a wall of text

 

[CandleLight]

Don't be sorry, you guys are helping me out like crazy. and I'm sure some other lurkers are learning a lot too. Thank you.

It seems that things would be much simpler if it was easier to bridge between the softwares, it's a shame.

"Marvelous Designer" is a new one for me and seems very good, but I don't know if it would be worth the price if I'm currently learning blender intensly...



I personnaly am mainly learning this to create cool environments. So I went with Blender. But as for the characters, it seems that using a pre-made model from DAZ saves a lot of hassles.
And again, as it was said, using Blender to customize, is an option.

So if I want to export a Victoria 8 model and say, completly change its morph and adding hair and clothing in Blender to have a completly unique character while still retaining the riggin information and all of that... it is doable ?

 

[Saki_Sliz]

yay, walls of text
I'm not alone :3

@TBall another well contemplated write up, thanks for that, and thanks for the suggestion. Selling something on the store may be a good way to make some money on the side. It would mostly have to be clothes and textures since I would probably have to conform to their Genesis 8 ecosystem, so no significant new bodies, but maybe a body morph. I'm quite pleasantly surprised with how many assets have been made for Gen8 so far, it is starting to rival Gen3's diversity.

@CandleLight Thanks. I feel one of blender's weakness is an outdated cloth simulation system. I know one artist I follow on youtube was showing how they made clothes using some program, was able to do real time simulation, and then port it over to blender where it was then simplified for animation purposes. I have been thinking of doing something similar, using a better program for cloth making, I'm getting tired of having to use some work arounds in blender to create the clothes I want. I haven't been able to find the video but I think this marvelous designer was just the program I may have been looking for. As for bridging software, it is a shame. something that is being tried however is, with blender 2.8beta, they are trying a more optimized tab system, so that blender will have tailored modes for different needs, ie sculpting. It had something similar before but it wasn't intuitive.

Actually, one thing I think plagues most 3d creation tools making/using a 3D environment. We have characters, and things that go with characters (ie clothes), which programs like Daz have an ecosystem for to solve, but then there are environments, which are not as easily solved. We all need them, and for the most part we either have 1 make from scratch (I have heard some daz users use primitives to build their houses), 2 get a scene (such as from a store), or 3 get various assets and then combine them. But there isn't any tools just for making house as simple as daz lets users customize characters. Daz users may have the benifit of being able to get environments from the daz store, but I (one who has yet to convert to focusing on daz) can get them from sites like cgtrader, blendermarket, blendswap (questionable equality), artist store, turbo squid, heck, I even go to the unity asset store to buy levels and just export the stuff to blender just to derp around. And yes I do buy things from time to time. I'm more comfortable when things are less than $30 and come as something mostly complete, but I have thought of getting the girl 7 bundle for daz at $90.

Is enviorments an issue others have found a good solution to?

 

[Saki_Sliz]

@caLTD answering your question, ignoring the sarcasm and how like it sounds like you are a minor who is just trolling me at this point, trying to irk me, how long it takes to make a customized character (quoting every engineering professor I've had) "it depends".

I tried playing with a concept for "style", where I define style as, first you learn how to art, and after you know the rules, you know how to break them, and your style is just a collection of short cuts and technique one uses. and yes I mean short cuts literally, if most freelance artists could get paid a liveable amount per art piece they make, then there would be a lot of happy people. But most artist don't. Most people (myself included) aren't able to properly perceive the value of making art. We see a character drawing on deviant art, and most of us probably wouldn't spend more than $20 per character. Now lets say we pay an artist to make something, $10 per hour. In order to make a character at a competitive cost, they would have to draw a character in 2 hours. If you freehand it, and use some short cuts, sure, that would be alright. But the issue I find is, most of the time game devs ask either to mimic a style, provide reference material, and or want to parody a character from something else. As a result, the artist now has to meet various expectations. I usually take 10 hours to finish a character if I am making a 2D drawing, minimal shading. and the first 3 hours is just planning and experimenting, trying to master someone else's technique or style. no one's gonna pay me $100 bucks for a character, which at the early point in development is mostly just going to be used as a place holder. It's not feasible, so a lot of artist focus on a style, which can collect a variety of short cuts, which allows them to work at a good pace and buyers must be willing to accept their style.

So for a 3D model, it is the same thing, first there will be planning and experimenting. if a client really wants something specific, I'll spend the first few days (even a week) just communicating with them back and forth, making drawings and test pieces to see if it'll work or not, or to see how much wiggle room I may have. Then I may do a prototype. A prototype can be a quick mockup using stuff I already have, ie, I already have my favorite mesh, with genitals, and body morphs, rigged and ready. The client can even use it if they are comfortable with using blender and using the morphs (similar to daz, just I don't have as many.... sets of morphs. ie it is all for making realistic bodies). this can take 2 to 6 hours. if they really need something custom, like a cartoonish style, then everything is made from scratch, ie block out, sculpting, retopo (probably the most skill focused part and why most don't make from scratch) , repeat for anything that needs it, then rigging, shading, etc. and this will easily take me about a week's worth of employment. I've only every had to worry about making custom stuff for when I am making animatronics for some company, most of the time just reusing my personal collection of assets is enough. even I'm not going to reinvent the wheel when money and time is a concern.

 

[Saki_Sliz]

So if I want to export a Victoria 8 model and say, completly change its morph and adding hair and clothing in Blender to have a completly unique character while still retaining the riggin information and all of that... it is doable ?

a bit more challenging, it is doubale, but there are a few gotcha's. I have seen some videos on how to export characters, but sometimes corrective morphs do not carry through, at least that is what I've heard some time ago, not sure if this is still an issue. you may want to make custom morphs and stuff in blender then port to daz if corrective morph are an issue.

a corrective morph is a type of morph on the body, but you don't control it with a slider or use it to customize your character. the point of a corrective morph is to make corrections during animations and posing. For example, say you want to bend the elbow. In Blender, if a character doesn't have perfect weight painting, sometimes the way the mesh will deform will look wrong, such as the mech might pinch in or stretch oddly. so there are different ways to fix this. Blender has a corrective smooth feature as well as volume preservation. Which usually is enough (and quick to apply, like three clicks), but sometimes there are extreme cases. for example, the shoulders and the hips are notoriously the most difficult areas to deal with. I got to see how they did the topology with the Gen8 characters and I love how they did their shoulders. A simple solution is to use corrective morphs, which are just morphs used to fix or even stylize things, such as the mesh shape when bending. Sometimes instead of using morphs for the genitals, a lot of blender users find adding more bones in just for the privates is a good way to prevent distortion or minimize it. Then you can do things like simulate muscles under the skin or apply a mesh deform or simulated soft body, but these things often take multiple tries to get right.

if there is an issue with daz exporting corrective morphs, just using a corrective smooth may be enough, but I have also seen some assets on the blender store that try to improve them, you could do something similar in blender, but its just you making your own custom corrections.

Try searching "pose space deformation" its pretty neat, I don't know if daz uses something like this, but i know with a bit of math and trickery you can do this in blender, but it is not as simple as with other more professional programs. heck if you really want to get fancy, I like to use mathematical models of human locomotion to further improve how rigs work with my characters, its also how I can fake an underskin muscle system, but that is overkill for things like making VN images.

 

[recreation]

You can Export gen3/8 and use as Base model, or create one from scratch and when importing in daz attach the gen3/8 rigging (don't remember how it's called in daz). You can also sell uniqe models in the daz store that are not based on any model. Most of the Monsters (but not all), animals, dragons and so on are not based on a genesis model.
For houses I can recommend

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, I don't think there is anything as easy and quick to learn as this. I used to do that in Daz, but pcon is so much faster, it's like a daz especially for houses, and you can Export it to any thinkable 3d program.

 

[Saki_Sliz]

Oh awesome! Pcon looks pretty cool, and thanks for further enlightening me on daz, I'll have to further investigate these.

 

[Zairus]

Somehow i started learning blender many times and it always showed me a middle finger) I know the basic stuff, learned through the sfm characters exporting was so much pain for me, the rigging also, even so the chars already have a proper weightmapping, but it was fun. Maya was more friendly to me in combination with Zbrush and Mary. Well in my opinion daz3d not a proper 3d aplication like Blender,3dsmax,Maya,Katana and so on, it have some function, but really, it's mainly for using already pre built stuff, and can't be compared to program that i mention above.

 

[mickydoo]

For most users making a rig is one of the harder things to do and it's tedious. I have never met anyone but myself who has fun making rigs. not even other blender users.

I can UV Unwrap all day, I love it. Never met anybody who even remotely likes it.