Daz 3D Licenses for Games

[GeneralZero]

Hi everyone, so I'm looking into creating my own adult game and I'm curious about Daz's Licenses.

Which licenses should I buy to use it in a game?

I know that the folks from Lessons of Passion use Daz, but I'm not sure if they pay any money for the license of the assets. Can anyone explain this to me?

Also, I would post my game here and on Patreon.

 

[danger_mouse]

you only buy the license if you are making a realtime 3d game and you would have to put those assets into the game files themselves. if you're just making an RPGmaker or Visual novel and are just going to use renders you don't need a license.

 

[GeneralZero]

I see. I read something about a game license. That was replaced by that Interactive License, right?

So, if I make a game with "pictures" rendered from Daz3D I don't need to pay for a license? Even if I use a game engine like Unity or Unreal for that?

 

[danger_mouse]

you don't need a license if you're just using renders. regardless of engine.

 

[Boogie]

I'm just getting started with playing with DAZ3D so I'm no expert, but I think I see some misinformation in this thread. You need to buy a license to use any asset in a game you are releasing to the public. If you are releasing a real time 3D game were the assets have to be included in the game so your engine can create images on the fly, there is a different more expensive license you need to buy.

 

[danger_mouse]

No.

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Technicallly when you purchase the assets, you're paying for the standard license. And of course downloading them off f95 is piracy and therefore you haven't paid that, so you "shouldn't" sell a game made with said downloads. But there is no other license to use renders. Just the interactive license for when the assets are bundled up in the game files where someone could go in and rip them out.

So you don't need any extra license if you're selling a game with just renders, a comic or an animated video.

 

[GeneralZero]

You guys are talking about paid assets. But, does the same applies for free assets? Like Daz Originals?

 

[OhWee]

I'll go ahead and share the long form on this issue:

The interactive licenses were the result of a bunch of people asking for them. A fair number of people were asking about using the actual daz 3d model meshes in games (unreal engine, etc.), and the deal was that you had to contact the content creator individually (on the side), but for the products that Daz owned exclusively, you had permission. This was confusing for people. People didn't understand why there wasn't a licensing regime that was easier to use, hence the 'standard interactive license' addon thing was finally hammered out.

Among other things, it had been pointed out that a couple of other places on the net sold you 'full rights' to use the product, and Daz was a bit behind the times...

So it was a long time coming

---

These licenses do NOT apply to people that are selling 2d representations of the characters they own. Most assets bought on Daz and a couple of other places are intended for this purpose. Example, making a book cover for a novel or comic (this certainly has been allowed since I started using Daz/started reading about this issue), and this 'usage right' has been reiterated several times by the mods at the Daz forum.

On a related note, there was a question as to whether you could generate a 3d model (using a 3d printer) using a Daz asset. As I remember, this shook out that as long as you printed it just for yourself on your own equipment that you were 'ok' but if you offered the physical 3d model for resale, this crossed into licensing territory. I think, but really don't know if the interactive license also covers this situation (haven't checked, this hasn't been an issue for me as I haven't tried printing any 3d models yet/don't own a 3d printer), but it's been a nagging issue as well. Note that Daz now has an addon product that facilitates the creation of printed 3d models.

So short form, any 2d art/2d representation that you generate using all/almost all purchased Daz assets is fine/no additional license required, but any usage of the 3d model itself inside a game (say unreal engine), etc. is crossing over into extended licensing territory.

NOTE THAT some freebies (from Renderosity, ShareCG, etc.) have their own usage rights spelled out. Some are fine for personal use, others allow commercial or unlimited use, so if you are concerned about such things, definitely check the usage rights of any such freebies that you download.

And, of course, any so called 'free downloads' that you may find on the various bucaneer forums/download sites... well if it's for sale somewhere, and you didn't buy it, well you are already in trouble on the usage front if it comes into question.

 

[Deleted member 167032]

@OhWee you should get your info Stickied, as its something that will be asked over again...

If i can give you advice @GeneralZero then create a brand for youself so long. Create a Patreon page, Twitter, Discord account etc.. even though you have nothing to show. Get the word out so long. THAT IS IF YOU ARE SERIOUS about creating a game.
IF it's just fiddling around then do not worry.

 

[Rich]

@OhWee - A minor correction, not that it really matters.

"Back when," there was a Daz Game Developer License. If you were going to embed meshes, etc., of Daz Originals in your Unity/Unreal/whatever, you needed to buy that - the rights to embed didn't come along with the asset itself. But that was a one-time purchase - if you had bought the game developer license, you could embed any Daz Original item. Some of the other PA's also offered similar "buy it once and you're good" Game Developer Licenses in parallel.

This has since been scrapped and replaced by the asset-by-asset "Interactive License." So now, to (legally) embed an item, you need the Interactive License for each individual item that you embed, as you correctly stated. One of Daz's comments was that "well, if you only want to embed one item, this is cheaper for developers." True, but for the vast majority of people I've heard comment, it ended up being more expensive. (Why is this not surprising? LOL) Fortunately, Daz grandfathered all the people who bought the older license.

But, as you also correctly stated, any 2D representation made from assets purchased on the Daz store are legal for any use. That includes animations that give the appearance of 3D motion, but are composed solely of 2D images. (There are one or two exceptions associated with really old assets, but those assets clearly state that on their pages.)

As you also correctly stated, this concept doesn't automatically transfer to assets purchased on other stores - you have to review their license terms individually.

 

[OhWee]

@OhWee - A minor correction, not that it really matters.

"Back when," there was a Daz Game Developer License. If you were going to embed meshes, etc., of Daz Originals in your Unity/Unreal/whatever, you needed to buy that - the rights to embed didn't come along with the asset itself. But that was a one-time purchase - if you had bought the game developer license, you could embed any Daz Original item. Some of the other PA's also offered similar "buy it once and you're good" Game Developer Licenses in parallel.

This has since been scrapped and replaced by the asset-by-asset "Interactive License." So now, to (legally) embed an item, you need the Interactive License for each individual item that you embed, as you correctly stated. One of Daz's comments was that "well, if you only want to embed one item, this is cheaper for developers." True, but for the vast majority of people I've heard comment, it ended up being more expensive. (Why is this not surprising? LOL) Fortunately, Daz grandfathered all the people who bought the older license.

But, as you also correctly stated, any 2D representation made from assets purchased on the Daz store are legal for any use. That includes animations that give the appearance of 3D motion, but are composed solely of 2D images. (There are one or two exceptions associated with really old assets, but those assets clearly state that on their pages.)

As you also correctly stated, this concept doesn't automatically transfer to assets purchased on other stores - you have to review their license terms individually.

Thanks Rich, it's an important clarification on the history. I'm newer to Daz, so I hit this issue mid-stream. I was just paraphrasing the various disucssions over the last year as I remembered them from memory, and didn't remember all the details r.e. why Daz Originals were included but not other products.

Thank you very much for the additional clarification. Of course, as has been pointed out a few times in this thread, the licensing regime has changed to include the interactive licenses for the PA's that choose to offer them now.

And (to reiterate), as far as the question at hand is concerned (as you point out), we've covered that. 2D renders are fine/do not require additional licensing if bought from the Daz store and a couple of other places. Of course, products that you may find elsewhere may have their own licensing terms (personal use only, etc.) so (as has been pointed out a few times) it's good to check the readmes on any freebies you may find.

Again, thanks for sharing that additional clarification, Rich!

 

[Rich]

didn't remember all the details r.e. why Daz Originals were included but not other products.

That one's really simple - just a question of who owns the rights. Daz could provide the license for theirs, but other vendors might or might now. The PA's retain the copyright to the assets, even if sold thru the Daz store. In fact, there have been several PA's who've pulled their products off Daz's store and headed elsewhere. Daz is just acting as a middleman for them.

Of course, as has been pointed out a few times in this thread, the licensing regime has changed to include the interactive licenses for the PA's that choose to offer them now.

There were actually a few PA's that offered game licenses previously - they were kind of "rogue products." My take on this (and it's just a guess) is that Daz decided to make it easier for PA's to offer an interactive license at the time they decided to take the new product-by-product route. I'm betting it's a checkbox for the PA when they submit the product to Daz - "do you want to offer an interactive license, and if so, for how much?"

Again, it's just a guess, but if you go back some years, the game engines really couldn't easily cope with models as detailed as the Daz ones (even Genesis or M4/V4). With the increased power of machines and the engines, this is something that's probably only really reached the consciousness of Daz and the PA community over the past year or two.

 

[GeneralZero]

If i can give you advice @GeneralZero then create a brand for youself so long. Create a Patreon page, Twitter, Discord account etc.. even though you have nothing to show. Get the word out so long. THAT IS IF YOU ARE SERIOUS about creating a game.
IF it's just fiddling around then do not worry.

Thank you for the advice. I definitely will. And I'm serious about it. I just haven't figured a name for my account and the game is still early in development. But, once the name is chosen I'll definitely create a Patreon Page, Twitter and Discord account. Also a Thread here with the game for people to critic the shit out of it and allow me to improve the game!! LOL

 

[Deleted member 167032]

What i've done is asked a few guys on here that i trust to review what i have so far and it's been very good responses. They gave me good idea's on how to improve certain scenes but overall they were impressed. Advice can either brake you or make you. So always be prepared for the worst and if it's the worst then decide what you going to do about it. Fall flat and give up or carry on.
ABOVE ALL, if do not have fun making the game then you are going to hate doing it later on...

Thank you for the advice. I definitely will. And I'm serious about it. I just haven't figured a name for my account and the game is still early in development. But, once the name is chosen I'll definitely create a Patreon Page, Twitter and Discord account. Also a Thread here with the game for people to critic the shit out of it and allow me to improve the game!! LOL

 

[spjjipsinsfn]

I'm sorry if I'm not understanding this, but this whole standard license issue vs what I see en masse being produced by enthusiastic aspiring game creators every day just doesn't seem to add up to me.
If I understand this correctly, RenPy VN games using prerendered DazStudio still images using premade assets from the DAZ3D Store require the game dev to purchase at least the standard license for every single asset he ends up using in the final product, right? Is every dev like that, who's asking for donations on Patreon seriously buying every single asset he uses, even the cheaper standard license ones just for the renders?
That must cost hundreds if not thousands of dollars just to get started on a simple home setting game judging by the prices in the DAZ store and I'm thinking of way crazier ideas that would cost way more. Just a single figure with a few clothes and accessories seem to be on an average $10 for older submissions. The new ones over $100.
What's the precedent on the asset creators taking legal action over this kind of use? Have there been examples of asset providers suing pirate VN makers?
I want to make a game too but doing it fully legally just seems way too expensive to be worth it, if I only wanted to use already existing assets. And eventually I'd buy most of the stuff I end up using in the actual final product (although I might pirate hundreds of other stuff that would never make it in the final product just to see what's available).
This seems like such an inefficient system if all the legal claims and copyrights on the DAZ store are at all enforced. I'm guessing that in reality they're not enforced considering the sheer amount of startup projects I see, but I'm such an eternal pessimist that this really makes me want to just forget about my ambitions of making games and stick to my soul crushing dayjob. I'm afraid that I'd be the first one to be made an example of for this. Being forced to pay thousands of dollars worth of stuff before my project could take off would ruin me.
I would only be able to pay for them if I could use and (semi-)monetize them for free first through donations.
Or is it only possible because these game are mostly monetised through Patreon and not through direct sales?

 

[OhWee]

I'm sorry if I'm not understanding this, but this whole standard license issue vs what I see en masse being produced by enthusiastic aspiring game creators every day just doesn't seem to add up to me.
If I understand this correctly, RenPy VN games using prerendered DazStudio still images using premade assets from the DAZ3D Store require the game dev to purchase at least the standard license for every single asset he ends up using in the final product, right? Is every dev like that, who's asking for donations on Patreon seriously buying every single asset he uses, even the cheaper standard license ones just for the renders?
That must cost hundreds if not thousands of dollars just to get started on a simple home setting game judging by the prices in the DAZ store and I'm thinking of way crazier ideas that would cost way more. Just a single figure with a few clothes and accessories seem to be on an average $10 for older submissions. The new ones over $100.
What's the precedent on the asset creators taking legal action over this kind of use? Have there been examples of asset providers suing pirate VN makers?
I want to make a game too but doing it fully legally just seems way too expensive to be worth it, if I only wanted to use already existing assets. And eventually I'd buy most of the stuff I end up using in the actual final product (although I might pirate hundreds of other stuff that would never make it in the final product just to see what's available).
This seems like such an inefficient system if all the legal claims and copyrights on the DAZ store are at all enforced. I'm guessing that in reality they're not enforced considering the sheer amount of startup projects I see, but I'm such an eternal pessimist that this really makes me want to just forget about my ambitions of making games and stick to my soul crushing dayjob. I'm afraid that I'd be the first one to be made an example of for this. Being forced to pay thousands of dollars worth of stuff before my project could take off would ruin me.
I would only be able to pay for them if I could use and (semi-)monetize them for free first through donations.
Or is it only possible because these game are mostly monetised through Patreon and not through direct sales?

I'll take another stab at this. Feel free to bring more clarity to any points I may gloss over, F95 collectrive!

OK, so the interactive licenses are for using the 3D model meshes themselves inside of a game engine, etc., NOT for 2D renders that you generate using Daz Studio (and a few other rendering engines as I understand, say Octane). As an example, porting a Daz model into Unreal Engine would require an interactive license, but just rendering a pic of said model does not.

3D printing also falls under this category, as you are exporting the mesh itself from Daz, but there are product solutions that address this. So if you want to say print out that sexy gal as a resin model, and paint her, yeah that's a different thing. I've read where doing such 3d printing just for yourself is fine, but if you go to sell those figures, yeah that's additional licensing territory, not sure what the TOS says on that. I'm also not sure where the 3D printing solutions offered by Daz fall on the 'sell printed 3D model commercially' issue, so I won't say either way.

So you can make and use as many 2D renders as you want, and you don't need additional licensing for those, at least with assets purchased from Daz3D and a few similar vendors/stores. The licensing requirements may be different for other vendors/stores, but yeah Renderosity paid assets usually have similar 'usage' rights as Daz assets.

NOW, for freebies that you may find on Renderosity and ShareCG, THOSE have a different usage rights structure. Some allow unlimited use, others allow personal use only (so no commercial usage), and a number fall in between here. The 'unlimited' usage is mainly for people looking to redistribute the models themselves in some fashion, so this doesn't apply to most 'game designers' that are using 2 dimensional renders that they made in Daz. 'Commercial usage OK' or 'Unlimited' is what you'd be looking for to use said freebies.

What may be confusing you is that you'll see a number of people here mentioning the need to buy the assets themselves (through the Daz store), once they are ready to release their game. I.E. not use pirated assets in their commercially released game. But that's a separate issue.


So again, for stuff bought from Daz3D and similar vendors with similar usage rights, You can use the 2D renders that you generate in Daz Studio all day long in Renpy games etc., as well as sell said 2D renders if that's your thing. No additional '3D Interactive License' is needed for this.

It's only if you are exporting the actual 3D model into a game engine that you'll need to worry. Renpy and similar VN engines do not have this capability in the first place, as they mainly just display pictures and animated pics.

So for most (all?) Renpy and RPG Maker games, yeah no 3D model meshes are being used in the Renpy engine currently (just 2D sprites/pics). Hence, no need for a '3D interactive license'.

Animated pics are essentially a bunch of 2D renders back to back. Hence, a series of 2D images that produce a 'moving image' is also allowed under 'standard' Daz usage rights.

This is different from using the actual character model ingame where you can change their pose interactively in said game. Say importing a character into Neverwinter Nights (I'm sure there's SOME way to get a Daz model into Neverwinter, with a lot of work and a few conversions...).

Hope this helps!

 

[spjjipsinsfn]

Hope this helps!

I appreciate that you took the time for his, but no, it didn't help.
When I look at an entry in the DAZ3d Store there are mostly two different purchase tiers: Standard license and Interactive license. No matter how much I read the definitions on their site, it seems like that even for 2D renders I'd still need to purchase the actual rights in order to monetise it. At least that's how I interpret it. I could be completely wrong but that's what their legal definitions make it seem like.

 

[OhWee]

No, for 2D renders (unless the TOS has changed in the last few weeks, upon which I'm sure there'd be a shitstorm on the Daz3D forum if it had), you do NOT need 3D interactive licenses. People have been operating under those terms for years now, and selling their 2D renders and using them in Renpy games, etc. with no issue.

The 3D interactive licenses were added to the Daz store within the last year or so, and didn't exist before then. Before that time for individual PA's (Paid Artists, as Daz calls them, they are the ones making the models), you had to contact each PA separately to get permission to use their models inside of a 3D game engine. Which was a bit of a pain. Hence, the 3D interactive license regime was eventually worked out.

But as for two dimensional renders/works:

From the current

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:

Terms of Use. Two Dimensional Works. Subject to the terms and conditions of this Agreement, User may (i) access, use, copy and modify the Content in the creation and presentation of two-dimensional animations and renderings, (ii) incorporate two dimensional images (including two dimensional images that simulate motion of three dimensional objects) derived by User from the Content in User’s other works, and (iii) publish, market, distribute, transfer, sell or sublicense User’s two-dimensional animations, renderings and other works; provided that User may not in any case publish, market, distribute, transfer, sell or sublicense any renderings, animations, software applications, data or any other product from which any Content, or any part thereof, or any substantially similar version of the Content can be separately exported, extracted or de-compiled into any re-distributable form or format.

Note the emphasis on Two Dimensional Works.

What may be confusing you is the last line, which essentially says 'if someone exports, extracts, or de-compiles and the the actual 3D model into another program, and redistributes said model, yeah that's not allowed'.

But, if you still aren't clear on this, yeah there's the Daz3D forum for that. Also, you can contact Daz customer service.

 

[spjjipsinsfn]

Note the emphasis on Two Dimensional Works.

I'm so sorry for not explaining it better. I didn't mean the Interactive License but the Standard License. It's still illegal to obtain and use the files even for 2D renders if you don't buy the Standard License for them if I understand correctly.
Even paying for the Standard License would be hundreds of dollars in a simple game.
I'd like to buy that, but I can't afford that. Not before my potential future project is successful already.
So my original post was wondering if devs all use free assets or is everybody just risking it?

 

[spjjipsinsfn]

But, if you still aren't clear on this, yeah there's the Daz3D forum for that. Also, you can contact Daz customer service.

Oh God, no. That'd be pretty much ratting on every VN dev if I happened to be correct on this and DAZ didn't realise. I don't want to get them in trouble. I like these games and I want to make my own.