I'm going to have to disagree here. While other programs may have a varying number of models available for them, saying that Daz Studio doesn't have a lot of models available to it is a very misleading statement.
If you are talking just free character models, on the one hand Daz essentially has only 7 'base' models that are free. Those being Genesis, Genesis 2 Female, Genesis 2 Male, Genesis 3 Female, Genesis 3 Male, Genesis 8 Female, and Genesis 8 Male. HOWEVER, a large number of other characters, both free and paid, use those seven models as templates.
As for Michael 4 and Victoria 4, or Michael 3 and Victoria 3, yeah those aren't free currently, but were designed for both Daz3D and Poser. Poser is NOT free software, however. The various Genesis models can also be ported into Poser with some work (not sure how successful people have been trying to bridge Generation 8 models though, a few things changed between 3 and 8), but I digress. I did end up getting M3, V3, M4, and V4 for free from Daz3D when they were offered for free for a limited time, but normally they aren't free.
Daz3D does occasionally offer other characters for free in their freebies sections, but again that's usually only for a limited time.
Anyways, back on topic, there are a number of free Daz character models that you can find around the web, and a number of free morph packages that you can also find around the web, mainly on Renderosity and ShareCG, but in other places as well. There's a now stickied thread on this forum that talks about this. In particular, Sickleyield has his SY200 morph packages for Genesis 8. Morphalynn has a bunch of morphs for Genesis 3, there's the Die Trying morphs for Genesis 2, and that's just to name a few.
The reason the free morphs are important is that you can use these to dial in your own characters, thus giving you nearly endless possibilities.
As for other free stuff for Daz3D, I find that poserdazfreebies is an awesome place to look for links to free stuff. Here's the 'gateway' page for Genesis 3 female as an example:
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There's this thread on F95Zone too, which was recently stickied, as a lot of people ask about free stuff for Daz:
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There's clothing, a BUNCH of prespun characters (some with textures, some without), including some attempts at celebrity lookalikes and cosplay related stuff, hair of course, shaders, and character related props.
Other generations of Genesis, including the 'older' Victoria 3 and 4 era stuff, also has a number of free links catalogued on poserdazfreebies.
As for other stuff (furniture, rooms, vehicles, etc.), well Daz DOES import OBJ and a few other formats, and there are a number of Daz native models as well. Again, start with poserdazfreebies. For the stuff you import, you may need to work on the textures to get them working, but I've had good luck with this in general. And there are a number of free textures available around the web to help with this as well.
Daz Studio shaders can work really well with re-texturing such imported items in a number of cases, but most of those shaders are paid assets. There are some free shaders available as well, though, but in this case the phrase limited number (of free shaders for Daz3D) is very much appropriate.
There are also a few programs out there that can 'sculpt' Daz models (thinking of Blacksmith and ZBrush in particular here), but those are paid programs. A lot of people rave about ZBrush (which can also be used for other modeling programs), but it's a bit pricey...
I can go on, but to say that Daz3D is significantly limited in it's selection simply isn't true. Yes, it has difficulty with other model formats (say 3dSMax as an example) but those other programs cost money. Often a significant amount of money...
Of course, Daz3D (and Renderosity, etc.) do make money off of various paid assets for Daz, and a number of people do buy these at some point. But it is entirely possible to use Daz3D entirely for free.
But a number of assets for the other modeling programs cost money too. Just like Daz, the other companies often have stores where you can buy specific characters, props, etc..
BTW, the Daz3D store itself (not counting Renderosity, Renderotica, and other stores) has 30,674 items in it as of this post. And thats even with Daz3D regularly purging content, be it because it's old/no longer being supported by the author, a PA moves to another store, etc. OVER 30,000 items doesn't sound very limiting to me, and then there's all of the free and paid stuff for Daz, plus other the models in formats that daz can import, scattered all across the web.
So far, I haven't seen a comprehensive link of free character stuff for other 3D modeling programs. While you may be able to find copies of Honey Select via various means, Honey Select itself isn't free last time I checked. I tried to find a link to the software itself, via the company that offers it, but google just failed me. I do see a few hongfire, etc. links though...
Yes Blender is free, which is awesome. But we don't have oodles of threads here discussing all of the wonderful free characters for Blender. Most of the developers around here that I interact with use Blender for 'one offs', i.e. they want to make an outfit or some model, not for their rendering environments by default. I'd say that the majority here use Daz Studio, either exclusively or at least to build their scenes before exporting to another rendering engine to do the actual rendering.
So,
@polywog and others, I get that a few of you have a chip on your shoulder r.e. Daz Studio. What I HAVEN'T seen from you is a 'Free blender resources' thread that talks about all of the characters, clothing, etc. models you can use, and a bunch of premade scenes, etc. for blender. I'm not saying that's not out there, but in my mind there's a reason we don't have such threads here on F95Zone.
It IS possible to make a geme entirely for free using Daz3D for your scenes and rendering needs. Yes, as far as premade assets, your choice may be more limited, but it is still a rather significant library. And then there's Hexagon, which is now also free, that you can bridge to Daz3D if you need to build some 3D models.
Blender may be better suited for such building, but I use Hexagon due to the bridge. That and I never got the hang of blender, plus blender requires a 10 key, which many smaller laptops lack (important to know if you are using a laptop right now). I do have a plugin 10 key, but that'll tie up one of my USB ports, and I generally need all three (internet, mouse, hard drive). My older laptop had a 10 key and SIX usb ports, but it died...
If you can get the hang of Blender, yeah by all means learn it and use it as needed. But I'm not seeing a lot of games around here where the developer is bragging about using Blender for all of his/her 3D modeling needs.
Now as for 'bootleg' copies of other programs, well if you want to go down that rabbit hole, that's your choice, but some developers do worry about having their legal bases covered, which is why they (eventually) buy their 3D modeling programs and assets.
So, in short, don't go misrepresenting Daz. ALL modeling programs have limited asset resources, not just DAZ. And a number of them can import OBJ as well (including Daz), and there are a LOT of free OBJs out there.
BTW, I AM challenging some of you to start threads about legally usable free assets for 3DS Max, Blender, etc.. to prove me wrong. If, at the end of the day you can demonstrate by example that there are more free assets for other modeling programs, that can be acquired legally and used commercially, that's good stuff to know for this community.
I suggest you start a new thread for that, so that it can be stickied if it eventually deemed worthy by the mods. Posting it in this thread will probably result in it getting buried eventually by the sheer number of posts that are generated daily over time.
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BTW, I migrated to Daz from MakeHuman, after I began to get very frustrated trying to port MakeHuman characters into Blender. MakeHuman IS free, but it does have limitations. Once I made the jump to Daz3D, and learned the ropes in Daz using entirely free assets for a bit, yeah I never looked back. It didn't take me long at all to figure things out in Daz, although some of the more advanced stuff I'm still learning about/getting the hang of to this day.
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That's not to say that people shouldn't look at the other 3D modeling programs, but do keep in mind how much it's going to cost you at the end of the day for each choice, and also the time investment required to make your own 3D assets versus using various already built assets around the web.
BUT, do pay attention to the terms of use for any asset that you acquire for any particular modeling program. Some may not allow commercial use, others may have additional licensing costs if used commercially, while some will allow unlimited use. This will matter if you are worried about keeping your legal bases covered.
And also keep in mind that some people simply won't have the knack or particular desire for building their own assets, so you'll need to figure out for yourself. Blender might be a good place to start to answer that question for yourself, since it's free. Hexagon is also an option which is now free, but it wouldn't be my first choice for answering that question (whether building 3D models is for you).
BTW, I should note you CAN build things like rooms, walls, stairs, couches, etc. inside of Daz using primitives (I do this every so often), but your selection of source shapes is limited, so I'd recommend using Blender or Hexagon if you are trying to build a more detailed asset. Although you can import somewhat more complex shapes via .obj to help with this if needed though.
I'm all about choice, and renders built using other modeling programs (besides Daz Iray and Daz 3Delight) do have their own charm, and it's nice to see a change of pace. But yeah there's a good reason that a LOT of us here use Daz Studio for our rendering needs, keep that in mind. It is a very flexible tool for storytelling, and has a LOT of youtube tutorials and other 'how to' documentation around the web, not to mention free and paid assets. The 'higher end' programs may have certain advantages, at a cost of course.
I should note that film and televesion studios, and the companies that work for them generally do NOT use Daz3D very often, if at all, but then they usually have HUGE budgets (in many cases we are talking millions of dollars) for their software/rendering needs. Most developers around here don't have that level of monetary resources... plus those studios generally have render FARMS at their disposal, while most developers here are trying to make do with their home desktop system.