Daz: Use G8 Female with my own morphs? Also: multiple morphs?

[Selek]

I'm fairly new to Daz, and I'm playing around with it, thinking about making my own game. I own ZBrush, and I've been using it to make my own morphs for the basic Genesis 8 Female actor. I seem to be able to make a wide variety of body types even with the relatively small number of vertices available. I imagine the same is true of faces, though I haven't really tried yet. So my first question is: if I'm willing to make my own morphs, can I stick with the G8 figure? Or should I be purchasing Victoria or one of the other variations on the G8 figure? I'd prefer to use Genesis 8 and my own morphs not only to save money, but more importantly to generate more unique characters. Also, modeling in ZBrush is fun.

Also, once I've made a character, presumably I'll need many different morphs for her. Facial expressions are one example. But also changes in body shape -- e.g., boobs hanging different directions. I'm not quite sure how to manage all this. Have one character with a zillion morph options? Or save a lying character, a standing one, a happy one, a sad one, etc. On top of that, hair and clothes will hang in different directions. Do these differences effectively require a different save file too? Any thoughts or advice on this?

Edit: I answered a further PowerPose question myself. Sorry to be a bother.

Thanks in advance.

 

[osanaiko]

Complicated questions... I'm not sure how familiar you are with 3d modelling and rigging.

The figures that come with (or are sold as add-ons for) Daz are nearly all built around core rigged figures in the Genesis series. The various "characters" consist of morphs and skins all working from the same basic geometry.

When you're making your modified characters in Z-Brush (or even blender if you are brave), as long as you follow the golden rule of "never change the number of vertexes and edges", then you should be able to load your edits over the top of the existing characters geometry using the "MorphLoader Pro" tool (which is built in to daz). This will potentially give you a saved "slider" to dial your morph on and off of any relevant character.

Once you've changed the shape, you should still be able to use all the existing Daz tools to pose the figure. With the correct add-on packages you can do things like have the breasts hang to the side or be squished. And there are dozens and dozens of pose packs to include standing lying, dancing, fighting etc.

Regarding saving money, you should definitely consider buying content from the creators... but if you are just playing around and not making any profits, then many people on this board use various sites to get copies of daz content and try it out to see if they like it before purchasing. Take a look in the Assets release thread and go shopping

 

[Kerr Avon]

One of the things buying a 'character' for G8 can get you is a new texture map 'skin' ( shop around and find characters with skins that you like ) . It's surprising how much difference a different texture map can make to a character. Alternatively consider something like 'Skinbuilder' which will let you make your own texture maps.

 

[Deleted member 1121028]

If you're about to use Zbrush & GoZ, you can still import/export high subD meshes following this method, since greedy fucks at Daz removed the option so they can sell overpriced HD morphs. (And there is no really other option far I know outside baking displacement maps which it's quite tedious for lot of reasons)

 

[Selek]

Thanks for all those helpful replies. I know I can't make all my own assets, but I would like to make the things that are fun to make and have the most profound effect on a character's unique look. That might mean hair, skin, facial structure, and body shape; maybe not so much clothing, pose, accessories, surrounding environment. I have a lot of experience posing and animating, some experience with 3D modeling and rigging, but relatively little experience creating textures and normal maps. For hair, I've been having fun playing with Daz's new strand-based hair, and Fibermesh is an option in ZBrush. I've made some plausible body and face morphs using ZBrush.

On the other hand, I'm not as interested in making skin textures, but maybe I could get into it. Kerr Avon , Skinbuilder looks interesting and feature-packed; maybe that would pique my interest. Likewise, I find making and texturing clothes tough, as I have little real-world fashion sense, and I'm trying to avoid the temptation to buy Marvelous Designer. (Does anyone here use MD to make clothes for games?)

No-Name , thanks for the link on HD morphs. Good to know about. osanaiko , I will shop around a bit (and I'm willing to pay for assets), but for now I'm interested in figuring out what I can make myself -- and what I'll want to leave to others to make for me. I find it satisfying to create stuff.

 

[osanaiko]

I feel you on the enjoyment aspect of making your own content pieces.

I've discovered I really enjoy learning how to do hard-surface modelling, and I've been making or adapting various props for my own purposes, including to use in Daz.

 

[Selek]

osanaiko , that's truly awesome. What modeling program did you use? How did you texture it? I'm impressed.

 

[osanaiko]

The render itself was in Daz.

The main statue model (no idea what specific figure) and clothing (Dforce Bollywood Bride) were from Daz assets, although i've tweaked the shape of the draped fabric, head scarf and belt to avoid poke-through.

I think the cup also came from some Daz decoration pack.

The lotus flower base was a 3d OBJ file i downloaded from some free model site.

Everything else was hand modelled from scratch.

All the modelling and UV layout was done using Blender (mainly v2.78 because it was more than 1 year ago).

All the image based textures (except the statue and it's clothing, and the cup) were manually created mainly from "found" images. I think the wood and metal textures might be from some Daz shader pack I downloaded.

Originally it was supposed to be a prop in a game idea I was working on. but i ended up spending literally a half-month of evenings to get it to this point, and it was not worth the effort given it appears for such a small time in the game.

Over the past few years, I've been learning not only about modelling / uv mapping / texturing, but also the more practical questions of where to spend my efforts and limited free time if I am ever going to complete a game far enough to be worth releasing.

Here's another environment I made nearly all the content from scratch, for another game idea that so far did not come to fruition:

 

[Selek]

Wow, that's just an awesome environment -- impressive you made it from scratch. I imagine you could sell that on Renderosity or some such. At the very least, I hope you can find a way to put it into one of your games.

You've put your finger on the issue that confronts me: what to spend precious time on, and where to rely on the work of others. That's a balance I'll have to figure out if I get serious about this. First I want to see if I can build a few nice-looking characters.

 

[osanaiko]

Wow, that's just an awesome environment -- impressive you made it from scratch. I imagine you could sell that on Renderosity or some such. At the very least, I hope you can find a way to put it into one of your games.

You've put your finger on the issue that confronts me: what to spend precious time on, and where to rely on the work of others. That's a balance I'll have to figure out if I get serious about this. First I want to see if I can build a few nice-looking characters.

Hahaha. "Rundown Japanese apartment" coming to Rendo any day now!