Thanks a lot for the explanation. I should watch a few Blender tutorials to see if I can understand its capabilities better. So, if I wanted to learn 3DCG, would you recommend I start with Daz for a few months and then experiment with Blender to see if I can take advantage of the added capability, or if you were doing it all over again, would you start with Blender from the beginning?
That's honestly a tough question for me to answer. I think ultimately it depends on what you're end goal is. Me personally, my goal is total creative freedom. I realize to achieve that I need to learning everything there is about 3D modelling from start to finish. Many developers get along just fine without that depth of knowledge and are quite successful otherwise.
I will say that both are built upon the exact same foundations. They just present them to the user in different ways. The principles of 3D modelling, Texturing and Rigging are the same. It's just a difference in the level of control and the complexity of use.
The things I've learned about modelling in Blender make me appreciate what Daz is trying to do by making things simple. And learning about 3D textures has certainly helped me understand how to change surfaces in Daz. Iray's setup might be different, but the principles of PBR Texturing are the pretty much the same. So my experience is that the knowledge of one definitely helps with understanding the other.
If you just want to create some awesome art using the huge market of assets currently available, Daz is a great place to begin. You can jump right in and with a few tutorials, get a pretty start on making really cool stuff. But if you have a very active imagination and have things that you want to create that don't exist in the Daz store, then Blender is the way to go because it's total creative freedom.
To me the big gap is in the information available. There are large number of Daz tutorials available, some good, some bad, but you really have to hunt to find what you're looking for. While Blender is used a lot more in professional applications and is gaining wider acceptance in other uses. So there are a lot more structured courses and lesson available regarding Blender. And each course is built to achieve a specific thing.
For example, these are some of the Blender Courses I've completed that have enabled me to start doing some of things I've sampled above:
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These are just the ones I've completed. I have a lot more sitting on my wishlist. If you're not familiar with Udemy, let me give you a tip. Some of the courses are quite expensive. Set up an account, start a wishlist, and then check it weekly. Every week they are running sales and specials. I've never payed more than $20 for a udemy course, and that includes the ones that are $150 and $200. Just wait for the sales and you can pretty much learn anything you want for cheap.
I've also done Udemy courses on Marvelous Designer, Substance Painter, and ZBrush if you're interested in those as well. It's a great resource and has saved me beaucoup hours of trying to figure shit out or find a proper tutorial online.
Hope this helps mate!
