What's your favorite Character?
SnowPheonix
Posts: 896
I'm curious to try and fish out the best of the best on DAZ3d so I thought I would ask the users, what is your favorite character?
Personally, I like the more realistic characters. So, I'll start off with an oldy but goody.
http://www.daz3d.com/nadia-for-v4
Nadia for V4 has some remarkable details built into the character... if you look closely you'll see skin hair and pores that show a lot of work and effort went into making those freckles look real. The only setback to this character is that I keep getting an unusual reflection that makes the skin look plastic.
So... What's your favorite? If you don't mind, include a headshot and any other renders you think my help somebody decide what character to buy.
Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
7533 S Center View Ct #4664
West Jordan, UT 84084
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2025 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
What's your glossiness setting at in the Surfaces tab? I had the same problem on a character and the glossiness was like 75%. I cranked it up to 100% and it removed all that fake shine.
Looking at the render and the product specs (it is an old enough product that studio settings were not a "thing" back then) I would say the issue is no studio settings so it is using poser settings which are not optimal for a render. I'd suggest plugging in the bump map and then checking the specularity settings etc against a newer product that has studio settings.
That must be Axel: http://www.daz3d.com/axel-for-m5
Here's a lowres. I made for my sister...
Axel has a Heterochromia iridium option, or: two different colored eye options which I love!
And it's just overall, a very handsome lad.
You know.. I've played with surfaces in clothing and everything else but it really didn't occur to me to do it with character skins. I tried your idea and Ta DA! Thanks for the help. Now I feel like I'm looking at a live girl. Great job DAZ3D, Thorne, Sarsa.
Looking forward to what you got to share!
All you did by upping glossiness to 100% is turn the shine into one really bright small dot. Look on her right cheek just below the eye.
You should have gone much lower (say 22-25%) and reduced the specular strength as well.
If you look in my .sig below there's a link to my freebies and tutorials... in there is a "rough guide" to adjusting non-optimized materials in DS.
Oh Yeah, GREAT choice. In the M5 category, I'd have to agree with you about Axel. I really like the fact that this character included a lot of dailing morphs so that you could age him and create different looking characters. You can tell a lot of heart and soul went into this character. I don't know if there is any difference between the M4 and M5 version (I have M5) but that render you did looked amazing... What did you do to make that?
How did I miss this? Thanks Adamr001!
Some information about skin surface and settings that might be of help-
All skin has some sheen but in order for it to look realistic several things need to be going on. First is the brightness or strength of the shine on the skin. Glossiness is how "sharp" the shine is. A setting of 100% will give you a very tight narrow highlight. Ideal for they eye surface or a high shine metal that would get small points of highlighting. Human skin however has a very diffused shine so a less sharp setting is better. Ideally there should be a specularity map that was created to increase the amount of potential shine on the parts of the body that has tends to be oiler and it would be plugged into the strength setting for specularity. The strength should be used to control how much specularity shows in the final render. The T zone on the face and shoulders are examples of places where the human body tends to shine more and that would be highlighted on the strength map. Next the shine isn't solid like on the surface of a glass or ceramic cup. The bump map helps break up the shine so that it isn't as "smooth". Very few people have skin that actually appears rough on sight so the settings should be high enough to break up the shine without the skin looking rough. How far away the camera is from the skin is also a factor in how high you can go with a bump setting. How much specularity a skin texture can take will also depend on the base skin tone. A basic rule of thumb is that the darker the skin tone the more specularity it can take before it begins to get too bright in images. Lastly the lighting used will impact how bright the specularity is. With very bright lighting you may need to lower the strength on specularity in order to have the image not look "blown out".
My My a helpful tip.. I like you. Alright since I'm game to learn, I had a play with the adjustments as you just pointed out, I thought the results were pretty damn impressive. Thanks for your help...
Also, using Luxus or Reality might help to add a tad more realism :)
And Slosh has a good thread with skin settings on the forum.
LOL! My favorite character too!! Axel is wonderful!
LOL! My favorite character too!! Axel is wonderful!
Great render too. Thanks for sharing... any other characters? So, how do you feel about Nadia for v4 and Axel M5 as a couple?
My favorite base figure has always been Aiko3 and when it comes to her characters, Sylfie has always been my #1 choice.
However I have to admit that I have been impressed by the promos for the G2F characters, mainly Girl6 and Gia.
btw, DAZ_Jared made a video showing how they did the Gai promos if you are interested - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msw2KyQBlug
promos below are shown cause I like them
All this talk about Axel, I had to stop what I was doing and do a quick render...
I really like lanthe for V4...She kinda looks like me don't you think....LOL
This probably doesn't count nor what you probably had in mind, but my fave character is the Sasquatch! But as you can see I kind of bend the rules on what is traditional.
Seriously though. I'd have to give a nod to Axel for the guys also. Great all around guy character.
Great render too. Thanks for sharing... any other characters? So, how do you feel about Nadia for v4 and Axel M5 as a couple?
Axel is very versatile, and his skin fits well with lots of characters. Ryuu is also nice versatile character. He has some nice tats, if Nadia likes that sort of thing =)
I have attached a pic of Ryuu.
I also Like Gabriel for M5 and James for M5. I tend to dial a little of those characters into a lot of my renders.
Awesome Male-M3dia! =-)
My favorite is Sean for D5, as you can see by my avatar.
Oh, Thinking outside the box are we? I have to agree that for touching on what might be controversial ideas in art, The Sasquatch is a brilliant character and I love that it comes with varied skin tones for under all that hair. That along with the Gorilla, I love that one.
The other thing I like is that since I don't do horror, I get to have a 'creature' behave in a way that might not be consistent with with the Hollowieners!
Happy rendering and thanks for sharing everybody but what other character rates "best"?
Hey, I think its about time I've seen a fresh render from you... come on Mr. Show me what Sean can do.
Great render too. Thanks for sharing... any other characters? So, how do you feel about Nadia for v4 and Axel M5 as a couple?
Aww, that would be a no-no because mine is gay :)
Great render too. Thanks for sharing... any other characters? So, how do you feel about Nadia for v4 and Axel M5 as a couple?
Aww, that would be a no-no because mine is gay :)
I wonder who Axel would partner with then...??? (Hmmmmmmmmmmm)
LOL, you haven't seen my old luxrender of the M4 Version on MPE... ;)
(and no I can't link that)
Ryuu is nice too, had a time with all those morphs as I had to rework the eye area on all those morphs. The M5 version of Ryuu was slightly different morph-wise as I went with different Asian looks, particularly Thai, as that was the nationality of the reference model.
I'm always for anything clean and smooth. Especially when it comes to males. However, not many male skins are hairless, especially realistic ones, and the ones that are usually end up belonging to toony figures like Hiro. That's why when it comes to skins for Genesis, I almost always instantly go for Arashi for H5.
Ryuu is nice too, had a time with all those morphs as I had to rework the eye area on all those morphs. The M5 version of Ryuu was slightly different morph-wise as I went with different Asian looks, particularly Thai, as that was the nationality of the reference model.
I am very impressed with every render I use Ryuu in. He always stands out as a realistic believable character. You have immense talent, and I love your work. =-)
Wait....one of my characters made it into this thread???
Cool
Thanx!
Rawn
What, No Halloween render from the master monster maker himself? You know, If I did do horror, your "Slim Man" gets honorable mention for freaky characters. (Mad respect)
Hey, I wonder if Leon by Raw Art would be up for a tussle with Alex for M5? Or do you think he prefers Olivia?
Oh, Thinking outside the box are we? I have to agree that for touching on what might be controversial ideas in art, The Sasquatch is a brilliant character and I love that it comes with varied skin tones for under all that hair. That along with the Gorilla, I love that one.
The other thing I like is that since I don't do horror, I get to have a 'creature' behave in a way that might not be consistent with with the Hollowieners!
Happy rendering and thanks for sharing everybody but what other character rates "best"?
I really don't do Halloween either. I'm not much of a horror person in that respect. Thanks for mentioning Gorilla. I'll have to check it out. I'm a Planet of the Apes fan from way back. Hmmmm now that might give my age away lol.