Character Dial-Spinning Best Practices

Sevrin

So, sometimes I start with a character, but would like to add aspects from another character, like a jawline or something, or sometimes I want to just see what happens if I toss two characters together, and sometimes it looks sort of okay, and othertimes it ends up looking horrible.  

I was wondering if some experienced dial spinners would be willing to share any tips about what to do, and what not to do, in order to get a pleasing, or at least interesting looking hybrid character.  I'd be interested in both head and body spinning info.

Thanks :)

3Diva

I dial spin a lot of characters - probably spend far too long at it, but I find it fun. 

Basically whatever looks good to you is what is "right".  You definitely need a few morph packs if you want to do anything too far from the base mixing. Sometimes you add two characters together and it throws the jaw or nose so far out of wack, but you really like the rest of the face - having a few nose, jaw, and other morphs that you can dial in to "tame" those areas is helpful. Alternatively, if you like the dial spin but one or two areas are "bothering" you can spot fix those in a modelling program to make a morph that fixes those areas. Basic morph creation can be a bit daunting to learn at first, but once one learns how to do it, it can be really helpful and satisfying. 

outrider42

You could also try using Shape Splitter (formerly X-Morphs) to split specific parts of a morph from another. If you like a certain's character's nose, for example, you could totally use Shape Splitter to make a morph of just that nose and add it to your morph library. Its also great for splitting those characters that have head and body as a single morph (which I detest but thankfully is rare now). Its a very cool product to play with.

But yeah, like Diva said there is no right or wrong way to do anything, as long as you get to what you want it doesn't matter how you get there. I don't think there is any faster way if that is what you are looking for. I do think Rarestone's 200 shaping morphs are awesome. She made one each for male and female and they have a lot of unique and very specific morphs that nobody else has.

There is also a randomizer script product too. I do not have this myself, but it could be a fun thing to play with when you have no idea of what you want. It has some options in how you set it up.

FSMCDesigns

As pointed out, there is no 'right' way, only what works for you. I create my own characters all the time and rarely use any paid character sets out of the box. this product is great for creating unique characters with whatever morphs you have installed

https://www.daz3d.com/simtenero-randomizer

 

willowfan

I just 'play around' until I get an end result I like. I start with a Gen 8 base character at 100%, usually Charlotte, then add other character morphs at various percentages, then individual body and face morphs both positive and negative. I spend far more time fidddling about with a character than renders.

nicstt

Sevrin said:

So, sometimes I start with a character, but would like to add aspects from another character, like a jawline or something, or sometimes I want to just see what happens if I toss two characters together, and sometimes it looks sort of okay, and othertimes it ends up looking horrible.  

I was wondering if some experienced dial spinners would be willing to share any tips about what to do, and what not to do, in order to get a pleasing, or at least interesting looking hybrid character.  I'd be interested in both head and body spinning info.

Thanks :)

Best practices: find what works for you. It doesn't matter what others  think, if it does work for you.

I always (mostly) work on a bit at a time: nose, mouth, eyes, but will also work on parts of them.

I start with the head, then move onto face, then onto individual features; start large, go progressively smaller.

... Then I go back again.

I often use Simeneros Randomizer script as a start; sometimes I even like what it has produced. The reason I use the script, is that I suspect we all have a type we like, so this helps remove (or at least reduce) that bias.

I avoid using pre-existing character morphs, with the exception of when I'm creating familiy members, which is very rare.

sunnyjei

outrider42 said:

You could also try using Shape Splitter (formerly X-Morphs) to split specific parts of a morph from another. If you like a certain's character's nose, for example, you could totally use Shape Splitter to make a morph of just that nose and add it to your morph library. Its also great for splitting those characters that have head and body as a single morph (which I detest but thankfully is rare now). Its a very cool product to play with.

But yeah, like Diva said there is no right or wrong way to do anything, as long as you get to what you want it doesn't matter how you get there. I don't think there is any faster way if that is what you are looking for. I do think Rarestone's 200 shaping morphs are awesome. She made one each for male and female and they have a lot of unique and very specific morphs that nobody else has.

There is also a randomizer script product too. I do not have this myself, but it could be a fun thing to play with when you have no idea of what you want. It has some options in how you set it up.

I second that about the Rarestone packs. I've made a couple of really interesting looking characters and some that won't be seen for the safety of everyone's eyes- but had fun making them all. There is sooooo much there to customize- nose tip tilt, nostril arcs, cheekbones, eyelids, dimples, creases, face shapes, etc with nice pictures to give you an idea of what you'll be editing. I keep hearing good things about the Shape Splitter one and will definitely be checking it out as well. Personally I find that characters that are kind of similar or made by the same artist give me the best results dialed in less than 50%. It seems like every time I hit more than 50% blending different characters I start to get weird distortions  (face sucks in, face shrinks, weird angles, etc).

outrider42

sunnyjei said:

outrider42 said:

You could also try using Shape Splitter (formerly X-Morphs) to split specific parts of a morph from another. If you like a certain's character's nose, for example, you could totally use Shape Splitter to make a morph of just that nose and add it to your morph library. Its also great for splitting those characters that have head and body as a single morph (which I detest but thankfully is rare now). Its a very cool product to play with.

But yeah, like Diva said there is no right or wrong way to do anything, as long as you get to what you want it doesn't matter how you get there. I don't think there is any faster way if that is what you are looking for. I do think Rarestone's 200 shaping morphs are awesome. She made one each for male and female and they have a lot of unique and very specific morphs that nobody else has.

There is also a randomizer script product too. I do not have this myself, but it could be a fun thing to play with when you have no idea of what you want. It has some options in how you set it up.

I second that about the Rarestone packs. I've made a couple of really interesting looking characters and some that won't be seen for the safety of everyone's eyes- but had fun making them all. There is sooooo much there to customize- nose tip tilt, nostril arcs, cheekbones, eyelids, dimples, creases, face shapes, etc with nice pictures to give you an idea of what you'll be editing. I keep hearing good things about the Shape Splitter one and will definitely be checking it out as well. Personally I find that characters that are kind of similar or made by the same artist give me the best results dialed in less than 50%. It seems like every time I hit more than 50% blending different characters I start to get weird distortions  (face sucks in, face shrinks, weird angles, etc).

That doesn't sound right at all! There has to be a conflict between the characters causing that, like their shapes are somehow overlapping. I haven't seen this.

Take a look at the parameters tab and the current morphs with one of the problem morphs dialed in. Make sure the option to show hidden values is on. Now scroll through the parameters and look to see that other characters are not listed. The exception to this would be characters based on a Daz Original like Michael. If you see characters that don't belong on the list of used morphs, then that product needs to be fixed. This would be something to file a support ticket for.

In the short term, you can dial the extra character shapes out if you do see this, and they should look like they are intended to. There could also be other things causing it, which again, would be something to file a support ticket for. It may be as simple as characters sharing the same name. That's never good.

Gordig

sunnyjei said:

outrider42 said:

You could also try using Shape Splitter (formerly X-Morphs) to split specific parts of a morph from another. If you like a certain's character's nose, for example, you could totally use Shape Splitter to make a morph of just that nose and add it to your morph library. Its also great for splitting those characters that have head and body as a single morph (which I detest but thankfully is rare now). Its a very cool product to play with.

But yeah, like Diva said there is no right or wrong way to do anything, as long as you get to what you want it doesn't matter how you get there. I don't think there is any faster way if that is what you are looking for. I do think Rarestone's 200 shaping morphs are awesome. She made one each for male and female and they have a lot of unique and very specific morphs that nobody else has.

There is also a randomizer script product too. I do not have this myself, but it could be a fun thing to play with when you have no idea of what you want. It has some options in how you set it up.

It seems like every time I hit more than 50% blending different characters I start to get weird distortions  (face sucks in, face shrinks, weird angles, etc).

Do you happen to have Auto Face Enhancer installed?

Gr00vus

I always just work off the morph packs, I never start with a premade character, and don't use any amount of premade character in the faces I try to create.

It helps me to have some sort of reference or goal in mind to guide the shape - could be someone I knew, an actor, something like that. Having photo references approaching the desired result is helpful. I may not arrive at an exact likeness (sometimes I get pretty close), but it helps drive things in a more realistic direction.

nonesuch00

I don't dial spin alot because to make accurate results you need to:

a) have iRay Preview going on

b) navigate a sphere all around the character to make sure the geometry is the shape you think you dialed from every angle.

So that's a lot of work if you've not got an nVidia GPU that can iRay preview in the viewport really fast. And if you do have such a GPU, it's still a lot of work, just much faster.