Daz Dealing with Age in DAZ

[Haberdashery Haven]

I'm a beginner to working with DAZ, and I'm looking for advice on how to deal with character age.

In virtually all the character models I have seen, it seems that they don't tell you how old the character is supposed to be. It makes it challenging when I'm trying to make a character who is, say, 28...usually the models start out looking younger than that, but it's not immediately clear how to adjust that.

I have tried messing with some aging morphs, but I'm not sure how good the results are looking (see spoiler for example pics - first is the default model, second is after I made some adjustments). Does anyone have advice for how they typically handle this? And...what age estimate would you give for both pics? It doesn't help that I'm typically bad at judging age in general.

Spoiler: Sample Pics

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[osanaiko]

There's a thread around in the artworks subforum called "GILF challenge", lots of examples and some discussion in there about how to do aging.

 

[MissFortune]

Skin is plays a huge part when it comes to getting the right look. Find a good quality skin to start with and then the Aging Morphs by Zev0:

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. That's basically my process with all of my older characters. That isn't to say that making a model look older is entirely about the skin. There's a lot that can go into it. Hair, makeup, posing/posturing/expressions, clothing, etc.

I have a few 25+ characters in my VN that I feel are clearly that. I don't necessarily 'age' my characters, but sometimes it's necessary.



This one is a mix of

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with a mix of the aforementioned aging morph and some minor brush work on the bump/normal to emphasize it a bit more.

 

[QuantumVNs]

Have you tried just mixing the head/body with another, clearly older, model? As long as the skin and majority of the influence is from your "main" model it should still be identifiably the same person. Especially if the older model has HD morphs you can layer in to add details without changing the overall shape.

 

[Haberdashery Haven]

Have you tried just mixing the head/body with another, clearly older, model? As long as the skin and majority of the influence is from your "main" model it should still be identifiably the same person. Especially if the older model has HD morphs you can layer in to add details without changing the overall shape.

That's a good idea, that never even crossed my mind. I will definitely give it a try.

As a new user, it's clear that DAZ can do lots of great stuff...and also clear that it can cause immense frustration.

 

[Haberdashery Haven]

Skin is plays a huge part when it comes to getting the right look. Find a good quality skin to start with and then the Aging Morphs by Zev0:

You must be registered to see the links

. That's basically my process with all of my older characters. That isn't to say that making a model look older is entirely about the skin. There's a lot that can go into it. Hair, makeup, posing/posturing/expressions, clothing, etc.

I have a few 25+ characters in my VN that I feel are clearly that. I don't necessarily 'age' my characters, but sometimes it's necessary.

View attachment 2581108

This one is a mix of

You must be registered to see the links

with a mix of the aforementioned aging morph and some minor brush work on the bump/normal to emphasize it a bit more.

That example looks great, and is pretty much exactly the look I am going for. I have started playing around with the Aging Morphs...it's a bit overwhelming since there are so many options, but I'll get there.

Selfishly, I wish there was a dial I could use where it would just be something like, "make this character look 10 years older." But I don't think anything so simple exists.

 

[MissFortune]

That example looks great, and is pretty much exactly the look I am going for. I have started playing around with the Aging Morphs...it's a bit overwhelming since there are so many options, but I'll get there.

Selfishly, I wish there was a dial I could use where it would just be something like, "make this character look 10 years older." But I don't think anything so simple exists.

It's overwhelming at first, but once you know what you're looking for, it becomes a lot easier to sift through. In regard to the Aging Morph, there is something that'll effect the entire age of the face. It's called "!Aging Head Controller". Make sure your figure is selected in the "Scene" pane > Parameters > Figure Name (Tanya for Genesis 8.1 or Genesis 8.1 Female, for example) > Actor > Head > Real World > Aging Morphs. The Aging Head Controller should be at the top there. Go up by a couple of percent until you get something resembling what you want.



From there, adjusting little things from there like wrinkles and sags, laugh lines, etc. Again, having a good base skin to work with will help immensely. Mixing light sprinkles of HD morphs for older figures might help a bit, as well.

 

[osanaiko]

Using a skin bump map from one of the "old" characters like Mabel 8 and dialing up the bump displacement is a good way to add lots of fine wrinkles too.

 

[coffeeaddicted]

I'm a beginner to working with DAZ, and I'm looking for advice on how to deal with character age.

In virtually all the character models I have seen, it seems that they don't tell you how old the character is supposed to be. It makes it challenging when I'm trying to make a character who is, say, 28...usually the models start out looking younger than that, but it's not immediately clear how to adjust that.

I have tried messing with some aging morphs, but I'm not sure how good the results are looking (see spoiler for example pics - first is the default model, second is after I made some adjustments). Does anyone have advice for how they typically handle this? And...what age estimate would you give for both pics? It doesn't help that I'm typically bad at judging age in general.

In DAZ, everyone is young and beautiful. It's the pink world of Lala Land.
But, i learned that there are some figures that can make your character look aged.
For females, you want to look at Mable, Frida, Linda, Winnifred and Olivya. There is at least a handful ladies that have very nice aged skin. Making skin is not easy i think so i rather pay for it i suppose.
The age morphs are good but require from what i understand that the SubD level is around 3. Details...
Personally i would mix and match to not have the main figure but rather your own version of several ladies.
Then again, there are people in real life that look more older even if there aren't and vs versa.
What bugs me more is that all characters seems perfect. It's rather seldom to find one that is asymmetric, has imperfections. In reality, people (women) hide it behind makeup.
To me figures like Azra and Alla have a very nice skin.
You can also (more work) add wrinkles and such via a layer to the existing skin. There was somewhere a guide in how to do that on DeviantArt.
Or use Skin Builder which allows to create your very own skin with some simple clicks which also has imperfection and makeup options.

 

[EchoFoxtrot]

I was wondering this very question a bit ago. I was gonna make an image of all the characters in my VN that has more than a small part and see if people could fit the ages to the characters if I provided the ages.

There are some ageing morphs but it is all just guess work really. Make her look the way you want and don't worry about it. Most Daz chicks can be 18-30 just by picking hair, makeup and clothes.

 

[Haberdashery Haven]

Thanks all for the advice...I tried some things out and ended up way overshooting the age I was going for (which was 28), but I know I can make adjustments now.

Spoiler: Here's what I came up with

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[osanaiko]

Very good, just right amount of wrinkles for like a 38year old.

A couple of minor things I noticed:
- The haircap looks a bit strange in the hair part above the brow, and it also looks like there is something weird under the hair on her left temple.
- those eyebrows are not super feminine.

 

[MissFortune]

Very good, just right amount of wrinkles for like a 38year old.

A couple of minor things I noticed:
- The haircap looks a bit strange in the hair part above the brow, and it also looks like there is something weird under the hair on her left temple.
- those eyebrows are not super feminine.

Might've been edited since you posted it, but it says 28 year old. So, like OP said, probably a little much. Especially around the eyes, but still very much on the right track.

It's OOT, so it's more than likely something to do with the head size/height/width, and/or the same parameters for the forehead. I imagine either adjusting the Head Size (or maybe the asset scale by a half-percent or so) would do the trick. That, or it's a newer hair on an older model. Rare, but I've had some weird little bugs like that with certain 8.1 hairs on G8 figures. Do agree on the eyebrows, though some vendors certainly aren't great with them.

 

[Haberdashery Haven]

Very good, just right amount of wrinkles for like a 38year old.

A couple of minor things I noticed:
- The haircap looks a bit strange in the hair part above the brow, and it also looks like there is something weird under the hair on her left temple.
- those eyebrows are not super feminine.

I definitely noticed the hair thing...no idea what is going on there. Any time there's an issue that requires me to go beyond the basics, I'm pretty much lost...but that's how it works when you learn something new.

I didn't see the weird spot on her left temple until you pointed it out. But yeah, that definitely doesn't belong there.

 

[coffeeaddicted]

Here is some help how to make a more realistic character without morphing them silly.

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At 28 you already will have some slight character changes from flawless to something more of an aging person.

This is all along my biggest criticism with DAZ. What you being sold is the exact same as the media and society gets fed. A pinky barbie world where no one actually ages. Well, except men.
Women have to look always like 20 year old or better, teens.
The biggest problem is, that most skins are really flawless. There are some characters that have imperfect skins but they are rare.