If you want to make a game with 3D rendered images, the most common choice is DAZ3D.
You can use Blender to model and render scenes.
If you do not want to render at all, many people use Honey Select game (modded) to take screenshots of characters and scenes, it has a studio program in it in which you can build scenes.
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If you search on google, you will also find mods that allows you to export assets from Unity to Honey select, that can be an extra step to build more "custom" scenes if you go down that route.
If you do not want to render at all, many people use Honey Select game (modded) to take screenshots of characters and scenes, it has a studio program in it in which you can build scenes.
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If you search on google, you will also find mods that allows you to export assets from Unity to Honey select, that can be an extra step to build more "custom" scenes if you go down that route.
- Jan 18, 2019
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Is there any other program gor 3D rendering image i am using DAZ3D but i want to know Is there any other program, thank you for your response
Yes, if you are interested in characters you can get a similar result with MakeHuman but you will need to put some extra work as there is not that many assets.
Alternatively there are plugins to generate humanoids for most software used for 3D modelling, including Blender, 3DS Max and even ZBrush.
Other programs similar to MakeHuman are Fuse and iClone.
For scene rendering the only one I know of, beside DAZ3D, is blender.
Alternatively there are plugins to generate humanoids for most software used for 3D modelling, including Blender, 3DS Max and even ZBrush.
Other programs similar to MakeHuman are Fuse and iClone.
For scene rendering the only one I know of, beside DAZ3D, is blender.
- May 19, 2017
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Daz doesn't have a lot of characters, so all the games that are made using Daz look alike.
Other programs have a hundred thousand characters that don't work in Daz.
- Aug 28, 2018
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I am sorry to disagree, but if you only are talking about models available on the Daz site directly, yes the choices are limited for the base models. However, you can take any base model and modify him/her to your heart's content. Also, there are other content creators like Deviant Art, Renderosity, and Digital Creations, to name a few, who have a bunch of other original models. So the field is nowhere near as limited as you propose. Games that look alike are products of creators who didn't bother to take the time either to find a more unique model, or to modify the look of the model they selected. That's not the software's fault.
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No need to apologize for your opinion. It's a matter of perspective. From where you stand you might see Daz as having a lot of models. I'm a Renderosity vendor, I have multiple DA galleries, and I'm friends with Adam Thwaites. You aren't telling me anything I don't already know. Where you are wrong is when you say it's not the software's fault. That's exactly the problem. Daz decided that they didn't want to stick with the Industry standard that everyone else uses, they went proprietary.
Reread what I said... There are well over a hundred thousand models that do not work in DazStudio. Other software will use Daz models, but you are very limited with what you can do in DazStudio software. Free models may eventually be given Iray materials, and sold by Daz for people who want to buy them, but you can use them now in other programs.
- Aug 28, 2018
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What's the line, in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is King? Maybe it's just ignorance on my part. I realize that other programs may have considerably more options, however I still hold to my opinion that the reason most games look like carbon copies of each other is that developers are lazy and just slap the same models in place and don't even bother to try to make them look unique, even though it can be done in Daz 3D. Maybe not as much as in Blender and other tools, but it can be done. I barely know Daz 3D (about 3 months experience thus far) and I know enough how to modify models to make them look unique.
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I'm glad to hear you use the word ignorance correctly. None of us were born with knowledge. Daz studio is free software to get you to buy their models. Like HP sells printers for $10 to get you to buy a lot of their tiny $30 ink cartidges. There are better printers you can buy, that don't cost an arm and a leg to print 1000 pages.
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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:
There's this thread on F95Zone too, which was recently stickied, as a lot of people ask about free stuff for Daz:
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.
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:
You must be registered to see the links
There's this thread on F95Zone too, which was recently stickied, as a lot of people ask about free stuff for Daz:
You must be registered to see the links
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.
---
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.
- Jun 17, 2017
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One other note.
Hand drawn art for games is also perfectly acceptable, if you are talented with such things, or can find a suitable artist to do the art for you. And if it's done well, this can really make your game stand out amongst the crowd.
Of course, though, some of us never really get past the 'stick figure' phase in our artistic skill, or simply don't want to spend hours upon hours painting/drawing pic after pic, which is why you see so many people using 3D modeling for their illustration needs.
But yeah, hand drawn art does need a mention in this thread. Something to keep in mind.
Hand drawn art for games is also perfectly acceptable, if you are talented with such things, or can find a suitable artist to do the art for you. And if it's done well, this can really make your game stand out amongst the crowd.
Of course, though, some of us never really get past the 'stick figure' phase in our artistic skill, or simply don't want to spend hours upon hours painting/drawing pic after pic, which is why you see so many people using 3D modeling for their illustration needs.
But yeah, hand drawn art does need a mention in this thread. Something to keep in mind.
- May 19, 2017
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There's no chip on my shoulder, I simply stated the facts.
Any Daz model can easily be used in (insert industry standard 3D software title here). Can you say the same about using other models in Daz Studio? There are more houses available in Skyrim mods, than there are for Daz studio. Since Daz went off the reservation, very few modelers, still make content for Daz Studio.
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That's not true either. One only has to look at the list of PAs that currently have PA pages on the Daz3D site. There are well over 100 modelers currently offering products through the Daz store (may possibly be over 500 actually, but I won't be able to gie you an accurate count until the next 'entire store on sale' sale comes along). And that doesn't cover all of the other artists that make Daz-specific products that they offer through other sites, through deviantart, and a lot of other places.
A number of new artists also show up throughout the year as well, offering their stuff via deviantart, the various stores and freebie sites, etc.
Heck, there are 49 PAs that are have their libraries listed as part of the March Madness sale today alone.
Usually there are 8 or more new products (which will be an assortment of characters, clothing, poses, textures, etc.) showing up daily in Daz sales, of which there is almost always a new sale each day. Occasionally less, and often more. This doesn't include the Daz specific products being offered via other sites.
And not all software can open Daz's .duf and other formats either. Several require that you export as .fbx first, as opposed as just saving them as a .duf scene. So that cuts both ways. So in order to use the Daz native stuff, you need to use Daz to export as .fbx in a lot of cases, and like importing stuff into Daz, there's no guarantee that the Daz version will import into other software without issues.
So, again, I'm challenging those of you here that use other programs exclusively or almost exclusively instead of Daz Studio, or Honey Select (we have a few threads on this forum about Honey Select) to start up threads that document all of the free resources made specifically for those other programs. 'Industry Standard' doesn't mean much in the 3D world these days, due to the sheer number of modeling formats that there are, be it 3DSMax, Lightwave, Sketchup, Blender, I can go on.
Here's a list someone put together of what the author felt were the best Free 3D modeling programs available in 2018. Note the sheer number of formats, and how very few programs can handle most or all of those various formats.
You must be registered to see the links
Daz3D is well suited for those looking to just tell a story, without having to invest a lot of time trying to learn how to build new models, and have to learn advanced concepts like wrapping textures, adding bones, etc.. That's the appeal of Daz, which is why we have oodles of games on this forum that use Daz Studio renders, but again not a lot from other programs, Honey Select aside (Honey Select is pretty popular too).
It's not just the program, it's all of the premade stuff for those other programs (as well ad Daz Studio) that is very important to storytelling, and how much you need to invest to use those resources, and also how easy it is to track down those models. If models are scattered across dozens of sites, you'll need to invest a lot of time to track those down. Google searches can help with this, but again you may be jumping from site to site and not quite finding what you need via said searches.
At least with Daz3D, five sites have you pretty much covered. The poserdazfreebies sites is very helpful in finding content on other sites as well as the 'big 5'. The other four sites being Daz3d, Renderosity, ShareCG (freebies mainly) and Renderotica. There are a number of 'second string' sites as well, a few of which are documented in
You must be registered to see the links
:It's important to note that there are a number of models out there in Poser formats that will often work (usually quite well) in Daz3D. And while Poser is becoming less popular, people are still making new models for Poser as well. Importing the latest versions of Poser characters may be more problematic though (I haven't read any La Femme to Daz3D success stories as of yet, but I haven't looked very hard either).
My POINT here is that, other programs are all fine and good, but if, as you imply, there is an ocean of free stuff out there specifically made for those programs (not .objs, you can find oodles of .objs with google, and .obj isn't program specific to any one program), and if those programs are well suited for storytelling purposes, we REALLY need a few of you to start new threads documenting all of that here. Getting hung up on 'industry standards' doesn't help people find lots of cheap/free and effective resources that they can use in storytelling.
And, as I implied before, there's a good reason that the majority of adult game developers on this forum use Daz3D as their program of choice. Mainly the ease of tracking down resources, the relatively affordable cost (paying over $100 for a car model just isn't in most people's budgets, but say $5 or less via a Daz plat club offering, or less than $30 otherwise, is much more reasonable, and then there are sales throughout the year that will help cut that cost further).
Many of the popular games around here use Daz Studio renders, and if you peruse the 'fan art' threads, most of the fan art on this site is done mostly or exclusively with Daz Studio (with varying amounts of postwork in Photoshop etc. of course). And the 'Show us your Daz Skill' thread has 450 pages of content at this point. No other art thread that isn't game specific can even touch that number.
So PLEASE, rather than pontificatiing, get to work on documenting these other resources you are referring to, noting how much work it will be to use them as appropriate, as well as licensing restrictions, and sharing them here (via a new thread). We can go back and forth on this for days, but that won't help people that are new to this whole 'making adult games' thing. They want practical solutions, not theoreticals and endless debates.
I REALLY DO want to see these other threads. No sense encouraging effective Monopolies more than necessary, and for 'casual' 3d artists that are engaged in storytelling, yeah Daz really does have that market pretty much locked (with Honey Select being the 'AMD to Intel' to Daz3d).
Blender is out there too, but I don't see a lot of storytelling in adult gaming that is done using just Blender. I love that Blender is open source/free, but if it was the best tool for storytelling, well more people would be using it exclusively, as opposed as just something to build a couple of models that a person can't find otherwise, or to just modify outfits and such.
Professionals use other programs of course, but then they can generally afford the often much higher costs to purchase assets, etc. for those programs. For the 'rest of us', If the end result of this 'side discussion' gives adult game makers another cheap and effective and LEGAL solution (not bootleg) besides Daz that the casual 3d modeler can take advantage of to tell their stories, that won't require large amounts of their time (to build models, etc) or lots of money either, either up front or over time, well everyone wins.
- Jun 3, 2017
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Given, for fun, I've made an -exact- copy of myself in Daz before today (and what I did with it is no one's business! 
), I see no limitations with it as modelling software.
), I see no limitations with it as modelling software.
- Aug 28, 2018
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You make a lot of good points. In the beginning (3 months ago) I was terrified of animating in Daz 3D so I was limiting myself to animations that were already created. After learning a little more, I was able to create two custom animations this month and I was blown away by how ridiculously easy it was to create a decent looking 3D animation. I literally created 5 keyframes and let Daz 3D do the rest. Am I going to go into competition with Lucasfilms tomorrow? Not bloody likely. But, the ease of using Daz 3D allowed me to add visual animations that enhanced my storytelling considerably without a huge learning curve. So that's another reason I like Daz 3D.
- May 19, 2017
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That's true. Daz software is very proprietary, and does not play well with others. Again, Exporting from Daz Studio isn't the issue, you can use Daz models in any 3D software. The problem is importing other models into Daz Studio. They prefer that you only buy from Daz. Importing into Daz is a long process, even longer if you want to use Daz's proprietary Iray.
For those of you experienced Daz Studio users, who know how to import other models, and character models, into Daz Studio, and create custom bones and skeletal controls... why don't you make a tutorial to show the noobs, if it's so easy for you.
- May 19, 2017
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A distinction should be made, between Daz Characters, and Daz Studio hobbyist Software.
Some of you might recognize Daz Characters in a game, and assume that the game was made in Daz Studio.
You can tell by the scene. If the scene looks cheezy, and usually just a poorly lit room, it was probably made in Daz Studio.
If the scene is vibrant, huge, and beautiful, chances are it was made in another render engine, and not Daz Studio.
Anyone here who says Daz Studio is the best render engine, is a fucking liar.
Some of you might recognize Daz Characters in a game, and assume that the game was made in Daz Studio.
You can tell by the scene. If the scene looks cheezy, and usually just a poorly lit room, it was probably made in Daz Studio.
If the scene is vibrant, huge, and beautiful, chances are it was made in another render engine, and not Daz Studio.
Anyone here who says Daz Studio is the best render engine, is a fucking liar.