3D-Daz Early character studies for future game - no name yet

[Dylan741]

Yeah, I've kind of obsessively binge-learned Daz.
One thing that helps is I used to do lots of photography, with actual film not digital. I had my own darkroom and everything. This helps with an understanding of lighting and composition. I also come from a CAD background in engineering, of course that drives me crazy about Daz also; I can't mate surfaces together and set parameters like Solidworks will I have to just move things until they look like they're on the surface of something....the inaccuracy drives me crazy.

Ah!Ah! Yeah I can understand as I'm trying to learn to use it for creating my sketches instead of drawing I noticed that.
It's definitely a good tool for posing but it's not the best, it's noticeable if you import the models on another 3D software, I mostly use Blender for the renderings since it's quite light on that department.
Probably is also due to lack of good hardware as well though, wish I could afford something more powerful than the tuna can I have for a PC, I would like to try my hand with something that doesn't crash if I use more than 2 spotlights and reduced noise...

 

[HogRocket]

Ah!Ah! Yeah I can understand as I'm trying to learn to use it for creating my sketches instead of drawing I noticed that.
It's definitely a good tool for posing but it's not the best, it's noticeable if you import the models on another 3D software, I mostly use Blender for the renderings since it's quite light on that department.
Probably is also due to lack of good hardware as well though, wish I could afford something more powerful than the tuna can I have for a PC, I would like to try my hand with something that doesn't crash if I use more than 2 spotlights and reduced noise...

I actually started out trying to learn modelling in Blender because of my CAD background but picked up Daz later, and since you use prebuilt assets and move them around it was way easier. I use lots of pose packages as starting points then tweak them. I also use a couple of pose modifying scripts. Pose Fusion Plus and Ultimate Pose Master are the ones I use the most. I thought about trying rendering in Blender but decided I shouldn't add another level of complexity to things at this point . Even though I did upgrade my computer recently and have an Nvidia 3080 card, it still bogs down and locks up on some scenes. Some scenes I can do a render, then have to shut down Daz and restart it to make another render of the same scene or all I get is a black screen. On the scene I'm ultimately having to remake, I had to restart the computer between renders.

 

[Dylan741]

I actually started out trying to learn modelling in Blender because of my CAD background but picked up Daz later, and since you use prebuilt assets and move them around it was way easier. I use lots of pose packages as starting points then tweak them. I also use a couple of pose modifying scripts. Pose Fusion Plus and Ultimate Pose Master are the ones I use the most. I thought about trying rendering in Blender but decided I shouldn't add another level of complexity to things at this point . Even though I did upgrade my computer recently and have an Nvidia 3080 card, it still bogs down and locks up on some scenes. Some scenes I can do a render, then have to shut down Daz and restart it to make another render of the same scene or all I get is a black screen. On the scene I'm ultimately having to remake, I had to restart the computer between renders.

I did it 'cause I needed to see more view of what I was going to sculpt, especially because it help me visualize better my ideas since a single sketch can't be enough even doing the three views ( and as I said that's good to see if the master will be good enough even before starting to get my hands dirty with the clay).
Of course that got me hooked to learn more, I'm always interested to learn as much as I can about the tools I use.
Luckily I don't need to go out too much wih DAZ so I can just use the pose function without needing anything else, maybe one day if I want to try some animation... But not now, I already have enough on my plate...
Well Blender is a decent 3D software with pro and cons, the render engine is not that good ( mostly you can do a barely decent work if you don't try to smash in too much textures) but to get a really good scene you need absolutely a good render engine.
On the other hand is more light on the CPU and especially the GC so if you don't move a million of polygons at the same time it gives you the possibility to manage a decent preview, sadly I can't do that with the poor excuse of a PC I have atm.
Certainly if you want to use both at the same time, you need a better machine.

 

[HogRocket]

I did it 'cause I needed to see more view of what I was going to sculpt, especially because it help me visualize better my ideas since a single sketch can't be enough even doing the three views ( and as I said that's good to see if the master will be good enough even before starting to get my hands dirty with the clay).
Of course that got me hooked to learn more, I'm always interested to learn as much as I can about the tools I use.
Luckily I don't need to go out too much wih DAZ so I can just use the pose function without needing anything else, maybe one day if I want to try some animation... But not now, I already have enough on my plate...
Well Blender is a decent 3D software with pro and cons, the render engine is not that good ( mostly you can do a barely decent work if you don't try to smash in too much textures) but to get a really good scene you need absolutely a good render engine.
On the other hand is more light on the CPU and especially the GC so if you don't move a million of polygons at the same time it gives you the possibility to manage a decent preview, sadly I can't do that with the poor excuse of a PC I have atm.
Certainly if you want to use both at the same time, you need a better machine.

I don't do any sculpting, because I don't want to frighten people
One of the things that gets me bogged down in renders is lighting. I place lots of light sources for natural looking scenes both daylight and indoors. I think there are 11 light sources in this shot


because low light rendering gives shitty results, I render at a brighter setting then adjust the exposure in GIMP. It takes longer but is better resuts. That is an illustration render I did, not a game render (although it might end up in there). A lot of the early game renders will be much simpler although I've shown this one before


That is two renders at different exposures compositied. This layout has already changed since I did this. The kids and tree are pretty much the same but the meadow has changed.

I've talked to some other devs and they all say that what I'm doing takes too long for them, that they have thousands of images to render. The way I look at it, one perfect render tells the story of a many crappy ones or a simple animation. I am also not trying to turn out a porn film, but tell a story that has sexy bits. .

I look at people like Oceanlab and how his renders speak whole paragraphs without a word on the screen. Even HS2 devs like Caribdis who are extremely limited by the software can get powerful visuals that need fewer words.

 

[HogRocket]

Was driving a few minutes ago and all of the sudden it occurred to me that there was a huge, glaring plot hole in my "dark" story plot line. Good thing I haven't found the huge plot hole in the "light" one coming up for release yet.....

 

[Dylan741]

I don't do any sculpting, because I don't want to frighten people
One of the things that gets me bogged down in renders is lighting. I place lots of light sources for natural looking scenes both daylight and indoors. I think there are 11 light sources in this shot
View attachment 2231871

because low light rendering gives shitty results, I render at a brighter setting then adjust the exposure in GIMP. It takes longer but is better resuts. That is an illustration render I did, not a game render (although it might end up in there). A lot of the early game renders will be much simpler although I've shown this one before
View attachment 2231894

That is two renders at different exposures compositied. This layout has already changed since I did this. The kids and tree are pretty much the same but the meadow has changed.

I've talked to some other devs and they all say that what I'm doing takes too long for them, that they have thousands of images to render. The way I look at it, one perfect render tells the story of a many crappy ones or a simple animation. I am also not trying to turn out a porn film, but tell a story that has sexy bits. .

I look at people like Oceanlab and how his renders speak whole paragraphs without a word on the screen. Even HS2 devs like Caribdis who are extremely limited by the software can get powerful visuals that need fewer words.

Ah!Ah! It certainly requires a lot of studying if you start from scratch like I did but believe me, considering how many create certain "monstrosity" in this field that sell a lot I'm sure that, with your disposition, you would become a good sculptor as well.
It's a matter of knowing what to do like any other work, also having 3D softwares nowadays you don't need to dirt your hands the 3D printers offer opportunity to everyone to try enter this world, I'm trying to get one by myself both to create my on products but also as an opportunity for others who wants to have 3D printed details for their business, of course I'm talking of a good machine.
back on topic it's true what you said, I noticed that without a good render engine it's almost impossible to work directly ( well if you exclude some 3D softwares like Maya or Cinema 4D) with the 3D softwares, I tried V-Ray and Lumion thanks to a friend of mine that work in that field and oh man, it is another story with them, problems is you really need a good workstation or else it will be a nightmare to create something good if you go for a darker or night setting, especially if you work with ambient light and nothing more they tend to be bad anyway without a proper light set up, final renders are without a doubt a hassle.
And yeah, it's the old quality VS quantity dilemma, it really depend on the story you want to tell, if you want a compelling story where the sex is part of it then it's better to have fewer renders but very good with lots fo attention to the details, imho.
Many peoples sadly doesn't think nor are educated enough to appreciate this aspect with the VN sadly...
In the end it's a matter of finding a good workflow and a good balance with what you want to get and what you must do in order to put out a game.
Ocean is definitely great in that regards, ideally you should find a good compromise between his renders and Caribdis ability to release it's updates regularly, it's a hard challenge but hey if you're honest and upfront with your potential target of audience you will be ok, many peoples don't mind to wait for a good product, so there's lot of space for you to grow and make a name for yourself, and considering what you showed so far I think you can do it imho.

 

[HogRocket]

Ah!Ah! It certainly requires a lot of studying if you start from scratch like I did but believe me, considering how many create certain "monstrosity" in this field that sell a lot I'm sure that, with your disposition, you would become a good sculptor as well.
It's a matter of knowing what to do like any other work, also having 3D softwares nowadays you don't need to dirt your hands the 3D printers offer opportunity to everyone to try enter this world, I'm trying to get one by myself both to create my on products but also as an opportunity for others who wants to have 3D printed details for their business, of course I'm talking of a good machine.
back on topic it's true what you said, I noticed that without a good render engine it's almost impossible to work directly ( well if you exclude some 3D softwares like Maya or Cinema 4D) with the 3D softwares, I tried V-Ray and Lumion thanks to a friend of mine that work in that field and oh man, it is another story with them, problems is you really need a good workstation or else it will be a nightmare to create something good if you go for a darker or night setting, especially if you work with ambient light and nothing more they tend to be bad anyway without a proper light set up, final renders are without a doubt a hassle.
And yeah, it's the old quality VS quantity dilemma, it really depend on the story you want to tell, if you want a compelling story where the sex is part of it then it's better to have fewer renders but very good with lots fo attention to the details, imho.
Many peoples sadly doesn't think nor are educated enough to appreciate this aspect with the VN sadly...
In the end it's a matter of finding a good workflow and a good balance with what you want to get and what you must do in order to put out a game.
Ocean is definitely great in that regards, ideally you should find a good compromise between his renders and Caribdis ability to release it's updates regularly, it's a hard challenge but hey if you're honest and upfront with your potential target of audience you will be ok, many peoples don't mind to wait for a good product, so there's lot of space for you to grow and make a name for yourself, and considering what you showed so far I think you can do it imho.

I would love to be able to afford a dedicated render machine with a bank of graphics cards or one mega card. Better yet a whole render farm of computers. Maybe when I'm making $12,000-$20,000 per month like Dr. Pinkcake is with Being a Dikwad I'll look into it.

 

[HogRocket]

Identify this girl and her game and get a gold star

 

[matschbirne]

Identify this girl and her game and get a gold star
View attachment 2232988

nefari from mythic manor

seen by chance in the thread

 

[Dylan741]

I would love to be able to afford a dedicated render machine with a bank of graphics cards or one mega card. Better yet a whole render farm of computers. Maybe when I'm making $12,000-$20,000 per month like Dr. Pinkcake is with Being a Dikwad I'll look into it.

Couldn't agree more with everything you said!

 

[HogRocket]

nefari from mythic manor

seen by chance in the thread

Cheater!!!!

 

[matschbirne]

Cheater!!!!

stupid coincidence, no cheating

 

[HogRocket]

stupid coincidence, no cheating

(mumbling) "cheater.....no elves for you.....cheater....."

 

[matschbirne]

(mumbling) "cheater.....no elves for you.....cheater....."

at least a few facepalms for me

 

[HogRocket]

Ok People,
I hate scenes that should have people in them but don't due to the hassle of making dozens of unique models and the insane drain on resources. Daz has things called "billboards" that are flat images that can be used in backgrounds, but none that I can find match the scenes I need or the lighting is weird. I have seen the following trick used in some games, both Daz and Honey Select. The background "mannequin" figures I have made are smaller files and render easily compared to regular figures. Some people may find them "non immersive" but I'd almost rather have them than big empty spaces. Nothing is more "non immersive" to me than seeing a street in New York with 3 people on it. The prologue is probably the only place this will ever show up just because the core of the story takes place in a less populated environment.

Example:

 

[HogRocket]

crop the billboards and make it a smaller panorama view this way people can assume and mentally make the image greater and fill in whats missing!
View attachment 2239915

something along these lines!

its like 1/10 of the library so people will assume there are at least 20 people around

There's going to be more happening in this view. This was just a quick example. There will be other places this will be more needed. I had none of the mannequin figures in this scene before, and may not use them at all here. It was just the easiest to add them for effect.

 

[HogRocket]

I think I've decided to break my creative block by starting a third game before I release the second one which will come before the first one. I'm going to throw together a quick Steampunk, post-apocalyptic, dystopian past, fantasy detective, isekai, alternate universe thriller about Sherlock Holmes. That will make Game 3 into Game 1, Game 2 will become Game 2 again instead of Game 1 and Game 1 will be Game 3 instead of Game 2 like it was. Got that?

That ought to do it!

Wait.....What?.....I can't do that until I have two unfinished games already in release?.....AND.....thousands a month coming in on Patreon?.....Damnit!.....you people and your rules.......Motherfuckers......Now what am I going to do?.......Asssholes!.........I just wanna..

 

[matschbirne]

hey george, ähm HogRocket has disney waved a few dollar bills yet?

 

[Warscared]

I think I've decided to break my creative block by starting a third game before I release the second one which will come before the first one. I'm going to throw together a quick Steampunk, post-apocalyptic, dystopian past, fantasy detective, isekai, alternate universe thriller about Sherlock Holmes. That will make Game 3 into Game 1, Game 2 will become Game 2 again instead of Game 1 and Game 1 will be Game 3 instead of Game 2 like it was. Got that?

That ought to do it!

Wait.....What?.....I can't do that until I have two unfinished games already in release?.....AND.....thousands a month coming in on Patreon?.....Damnit!.....you people and your rules.......Motherfuckers......Now what am I going to do?.......Asssholes!.........I just wanna..

WHAT ABOUT YOUR CREATE SCENES develop them and when you finally have a minimum viable product you sent it out here for us to try and thanks to the feedback you can refine it...
i mean if its good enough you can earn 50 bucks per month from patreon at the start and as long as you have a continuous quality improvement product in 10 years you might even be making 2000 dollars oer month!

and trust me Andromeda was considered a minimum viable product... the concept is that you can fix the bugs and refine the story as you go along... but they did not even do it in Beta considering the quality of the product they decided to do it in Alpha trials!

besides even if it sucks as long as you are learning and enjoying yourself thats what matters!

so create the scenes render them and make them into a coherent story!

Coherent? From me? You're expectations are exceeding reality

am i? have you seen my fan fiction?

besides once you got the scenes you can more easily connect them with mini scenes or animation, like a puzzle!
you need to get shit out there and see how its received so you can improve, its not science its art,
science as the intrinsic value of trufh, art is only valuable as long as its a social mirror
into the psyche of individuals and society!
since art is what ressonates with people´s hiden ego!

so unless its being seen and evaluated by others it holds no value!
and even if just 0.5% of those who see it like it... hey 0.5% of 300 millions
or 7 billions is still enough people... if you can get to them!

 

[HogRocket]

WHAT ABOUT YOUR CREATE SCENES develop them and when you finally have a minimum viable product you sent it out here for us to try and thanks to the feedback you can refine it...
i mean if its good enough you can earn 50 bucks per month from patreon at the start and as long as you have a continuous quality improvement product in 10 years you might even be making 2000 dollars oer month!

and trust me Andromeda was considered a minimum viable product... the concept is that you can fix the bugs and refine the story as you go along... but they did not even do it in Beta considering the quality of the product they decided to do it in Alpha trials!

besides even if it sucks as long as you are learning and enjoying yourself thats what matters!

so create the scenes render them and make them into a coherent story!

Coherent? From me? You're expectations are exceeding reality