Daz The easiest way to get a at least a little unique good looking character in Daz?

[joecoe]

I would like to create a visual novel as a hobby project and intend to use Daz and Ren'Py. But I have no time to create completely new characters and textures, so I have to do with customizing the model from the store.
I like some of the store characters as they are but I assume that the characters from the store have already appeared in dozens of visual novels. I don't remember specific games but some faces are very familiar to me.
What is the most common technique for getting a little variability? Most developers just play a little with morph sliders, or use some more advanced techniques?

 

[MrFoMo]

I am not a game developer, but I do like to play around with Daz, and like you I am thinking about trying to make a game as a hobby project. I have created quite a few models, and all of them have been made using the generic Genesis 8 model and morph sliders, and personally I think they all look markedly different from each other. One key thing I've noticed is that the skin makes a huge difference, so I would try to get quite a few of those to have some options.

I'm sure more experienced Daz users use way more advanced techniques than me, but I am more than happy with the results I've been getting by using just store assets and morphs.

 

[OhWee]

There are a few morph randomizers out there if you don't want to be bothered. here are a couple for Genesis 8, there are also some for earlier figures such as Genesis 3...

You must be registered to see the links

You must be registered to see the links

As MrFoMo mentioned, skin textures is the bigger deal, as they can be a pain to do yourself. They will often work on other figures in the same generation, though, so mixing and matching skin textures to other figures is done fairly often.

You can edit them to a degree in photoshop, etc. but if you aren't familiar with this, you are better off working with the existing skin texture pool.
There are the Skin Builder scripts for Daz that can help you with this:

You must be registered to see the links

Body adjustments are easier to work with usually, but there's a randomizer for that too.

You must be registered to see the links

In either case, you can then tweak the randomized results to taste, or discard them and try again. I've never worked with the randomizers though, but at least then you won't be recasting some Daz 3D figure in yet another role. Personally, I'm good with recasting figures in multiple roles, but that's just me.

Another thing to do is watch ShareCG, Renderosity, etc. for people releasing free figures or figure shapes. You might spot a figure there that you might like, and since many VN artists are good with the 'canned' figures, chances are good that the free figure actually isn't getting used much. Of course, you'll often need to port over skin textures from another model, and the makeup options for the free figures are usually more limited if they do come with textures. Also, pay attention to the usage rights. It's a thought though.

Now, if you are trying to replicate a famous person or recreate a custom figure, that's MUCH harder, but to just dial in or tweak a figure to add some differences isn't all that hard. You may need to acquire a few morph sets to give you a good suite of morphs to work with though.

 

[Rich]

But I have no time to create completely new characters and textures, so I have to do with customizing the model from the store.

Few of us do - creating a character from scratch is a very laborious process.

I like some of the store characters as they are but I assume that the characters from the store have already appeared in dozens of visual novels. I don't remember specific games but some faces are very familiar to me.

Yes. There are certain characters that you see over and over again - the base G3F and G8F being among them. Also, in many cases I think, people see a character they like in one game, and then go find the one that it's based on and use it in theirs.

Not all characters are hideously common, however - in particular, characters on Renderosity seem to get less play than ones on the Daz Store. Some are sold both places, of course, but there are quite a few Renderosity-only characters.

What is the most common technique for getting a little variability? Most developers just play a little with morph sliders, or use some more advanced techniques?

Morph sliders are your friends. There are a few straight-forward options:

1. Create a character that's a mix of two or more other characters. You'll find that most characters have separate "head" and "body" sliders in addition to a "full character" slider. You can, for example, dial the head down from 100% to 50%, and then find some other character and dial in some percentage of them.
2. There are some products on the Daz store that are just body/head shapes, without textures. These tend to get used less, in my experience, possibly because they're not "one-click and I have a character." M3D makes a number of them for males, for example, and SickleYield has her whole People Of Earth series, plus Dogz publishes some "200 Plus Head and Body Shapes" products. These provide additional options for #1.
3. Use individual "feature" sliders to dial in some customization. Make the nose bigger or smaller, reshape the chin, etc. This is a little more fiddly and the effects might be more subtle. That can be good or bad, depending on what you want to achieve. I've had some success subtly aging characters this way, for example - trying to take a 30-ish character and make him/her into a 40-ish character by dialing in crow's feet, add little bit of jowl, etc., etc.
4. As OhWee mentioned, using one character's textures on another character's shape can sometimes have a fairly dramatic effect on how the character looks. G8 textures are all interchangeable. Many G3 ones are too, but not all of them, since a few characters (Olympia 7 comes to mind) have custom UV layouts, so their skins aren't interchangeable with "vanilla" G3F characters.

Also, as odd as it may seem, hair styles can be important if you're trying to be distinctive. There are a few hairs that have been a bit over-used. (Again, possibly inspired by characters in other games.) So a lesser-used hair style with a non-default color (say, blonde instead of brunette) can help, as can using some of the styling options on the hair style so that its shape is different from the default. (Finding different hairs can be challenging, since the pool of really good-looking hairs is smaller than that for characters, IMHO.)

Basically, with just a small amount of effort (maybe an hour), and a few Daz resources, you can tweak a character enough that they appear distinct as opposed to "reused yet again."