But first a disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, and I don't provide legal advice. When I talk about the law, I am giving my best understanding of what I have read and/or heard from people who know this stuff better than I do, and I won't accept any liability for the information I provide. /disclaimer.
The interactive licenses are actually only needed when you are using the 3D assets themselves in the game in a way which allows the player to interact with them directly, hence the name "interactive license." As long as you are using the Daz assets to create 2D images, and the players of your game are not interacting with the 3D assets, you do not need an interactive license.
I am not a full lawyer either, though I worked professionally on subjects that included software licenses and also copyright for the images and similia, so, one has to read the terms of the license, to know what is allowed.
The fact they use the word "interactive" in itself means nothing, because depends on how they define "interactive" in their license, USA law
.
On the other hand, even if I did not read the full EULA (I leave that pleasure to others
), the short answer is that you are right, to some extent, looking at DAZ (see below)
"An Interactive License is required when using or distributing 3D content from the Daz 3D store, whether modified or in its original form, in video games or other applications. This is because apps and video games use, alter, or manipulate the original 3D data, rather than 2D rendered images (one exception being content created using a stack of renders, such as a sprite — in which case the standard agreement would suffice)."
So, I would say 2D renders should be OK (though if you go to a lawyer, remember they love opinions, especially in the "common law" system
, and they are not responsible). They even say that in practice if you create a sprite by superimposition of 2D renders, it is ok.
But if e.g. you create a kind of "3D" video, then it is not OK, even if the player does not really interact with it to change the camera angle, only sees it (which makes me wonder about games made with Unity).
Notice if one wants to collaborate with others, you can also give them a scene subset file with your characters, or one for each, or something with similar if partial purpose (character preset), and it would not be a problem (because they will need anyway to have the assets, the subscene file just will get them all the elements, morphs, clothes, poses, etc.).
If one distributes the full components, that would be in theory a problem, unless everything you use was made by the person or created mixing "merchant resources".
I know most of the stuff on Renderhub has broader freedom of use (but the single author can set tighter limits), while I think Renderosity is more similar to Daz, but I admit I never checked the exact terms of the base license of Renderosity.
Again, I think they are really thinking about someone doing something like a video or a movie using the assets from DAZ, eventually exported to other software which may be better at making videos, not at someone making a game using Ren'py.