Are we (daz/poser, virtual photography, stories, comics) such a niche today?

akmerlow

I'm getting more and more impression that in modern world, mainstream "3d art" is creating models from scratch mostly. Also "it's all about realtime 3D" for games or VR.
So it gives a look that nowodays "still render" format (like we mostly do) is something like "pure art" (as painting or drawing), i mean, something we do as hobby, for fun, or for experiments or expression of creative spirit.
Yeah i know that some of you use DAZ in actual job pipelines, and also there are fields of applications like "Book covers" etc.

However, i still feel, that comparing to e.g. early 2000s, less people are interested in making compositions, storytelling, being "a director". And outside of daz, similar vendor-based sites and deviantart groups, i rarely encounter usage of DS (ok, not counting "adult" creators on patreons). "Everyone and his cat messes with Blender".

Also, maybe, large chunk of casual audience were ate away from us with fun tools like Garry's Mod, Xnalara, etc. Like, people just making fanart, posing, stories in those and even in games like Sims instead of poser/daz.

And don't forget how popular 3d CG places (like CGsociety, ArtStation etc.) are 95% focused on accepting those, who are creating models or textures or rigging totally from scratch, but for some reason not those who set up scene with pose and lights and materials with "actors" (and Vickies and Michaels are actors or photomodels for us, haha)...  Some resources even will not accept your work if it doesnt have something "not premade". And some are hardcore enough to disregard any software with fractals or generation possibilities.

Meanwhile, i ran into some traditional artists who use DAZ in a way people used Poser in early 90s - as reference for 2d painting.

So, what are your thoughts on subject?

 

Also, please share stories of encountering fellow daz users (regardless of what other art they do) in unexpected places :)

Paintbox

In can comment in the case of CGSociety and Artstation, this is mostly because it is geared for jobs in the industry. Which means your excellent skills in DazStudio won't cut it in a studio that produces movies or animations. That is not to say that DAZ studio or its products don't have its place (in previz for one example) , but on the whole specific skills in specific softwares are much more valued.

It is different if you are an illustrator and use DAZ Studio as a tool or setup and go beyond the average render you can create. If you check out the "Art of the Promo" thread, you see some excellent examples that would be very useful in an illustrative setting, and I know for sure some folks on here are illustrative artists.

akmerlow

Yeah i spent the whole night today reading posts why AS is the way it is (almost zero social interaction, preferrably only finished and best works, real name/bio etc. etc.) and answer was "it's mostly a platform to help you find a job and/or keep important industry contacts".

Though i think that in late90s/early00s Poser was more used by "commercial" sphere, especially in Japan maybe. Idk.

 

But, i also pose a question about amateurs-hobbyists as well!  Though you may answer that they prefer something else due to budget reasons mostly (and why youth prefers struggling with horrible posing controls in Garrys Mod or inadequate content library with Sims' unofficial custom content, not even mentioning Skyrim, yet some use those games just for what we use daz sometimes - making a unique character, posing etc). Though i'm happy when i read that someone ended up with DAZ when trying to illustrate/recreate their D&D character, etc.

Artini

I am a hobbyist, so I am biased in one or the other way.

I use Daz Studio for recreation purposes and do not play games any more.

When I was younger, I have played a lot of games, as many as I could approach.

Now I am using Unity game engine and it suits better my needs - almost no limits,

what can be done in it.

I strongly wish, that Daz would release its bridge, from Daz Studio to Unity,

so I could use my purchased content from Daz 3D even easier in Unity.

alienarea

I started using Daz because I wanted to create covers for my albums as a hobby musician. By now I create better pictures than music, based on feedback.

I used to create stories on Deviantart, but pictures get copied without permission and posted elsewhere, so I started using watermarks.

The main problem is that due to upgrades in Windows, Daz and Nvidia drivers I cannot render scenes on GPU with 8 persons like I could a year ago.

The new Egyptian clothes are ridiculous on memory. I have to either buy a new computer soonish or stop.

And the quality of Daz characters, clothing and hair is decreasing, too much dForce.

IMHO, for example, Russel G3M with the Luthbel Desperado clothing is much better than the Holt 8 bundle.

Maybe I focus on creating better music ;)

akmerlow

I wanted to create covers for my albums as a hobby musician.

Interesting! Thanks for sharing your story. CPU-only is too slow? Just asking.

Now I am using Unity game engine and it suits better my needs - almost no limits,

what can be done in it.

I strongly wish, that Daz would release its bridge, from Daz Studio to Unity,

so I could use my purchased content from Daz 3D even easier in Unity.

In-game models through interactive license etc., yeah? A bit different from my initial question (which was more about static renders or videos). Yet, thanks for talking about how you use daz in your creative workflow!

plasma_ring

There's not a lot of visibility on it. I only found Daz by accident; I'd been running through a lot of different 3D options hoping to find a way to streamline art creation for my project, and it was only by chance that I saw a product promo image in a Google image search and clicked through. 

Most people I've talked to who are potentially interested in doing 3D seem to fall into two categories: either they're super interested in modeling (in which case, Blender), or they've never considered the idea that they could do 3D rendering that looks like this. I was in the latter group when I started; it blew my mind that this was possible and that I'd never heard of it. If you'd asked me what my unrealistic fantasy program would be at the time I was messing around with Adobe Fuse and Sketchup, I would've described something like DS--it just never occurred to me that it existed because it was never presented as an option in all my searching, and when I did find it I couldn't understand why I'd never heard of this tool. 

I spend a lot of time in fandom spaces where 3D rendering actually is a skill some people pick up, but they usually do it through programs like MikuMikuDance and Source Filmmaker. It's even pretty common for people to make elaborate portrait art and visual storytelling projects using their MMO characters and Sims like you mentioned. But DS is almost completely unknown there despite being basically the high octane version of that, and when I talk to folks about it they're scared to try it because it seems like it must be hard. In a way it seems too good to be true, even when it comes to just using the base character models as pose reference. 

One of the biggest things I think keeping DS from being more widespread--and something that frustrates me a lot--is that people who use it tend not to talk about using it unless they're part of the Daz community.  

I've gotten familiar enough with Daz assets that I recognize them in the wild pretty frequently. They get incorporated into professional 3D art projects, used in ads, traced over for mainstream comics, painted over for concept art and motion graphics...and if the people doing those things mention that at all, it's usually offhand. I've seen vendors on graphics asset sites selling packs of pose reference renders for concept artists, and the poses will all be the ones that come free with DS and the models used are base G8. There's at least one person who's gotten thousands of retweets on Twitter offering 3D pose reference, all of which is clay renders of G8 models--and in the middle of tons of people thanking them profusely for it, I never saw them mention that you can just download the program for free and make any pose you want. When I play Spot The Asset, it's always a little wild to see Daz Studio go completely unmentioned while the assumption from onlookers is that the assets were modeled from scratch.

Of course, no one is under any obligation to reveal their process; it just flabbergasts me since I'm 100% the person who never shuts up about DS and I'm constantly trying to do tutorial threads and encouraging the communities I'm in to pick it up and ask me any questions they want. It's a mindblowing program to me! It lets me put my weird ideas right onto the screen! I can't believe it's not known everywhere in extremely online creative circles. There are definitely barriers to entry; building an asset library is very costly and many of my friends are using old laptops or desktops that won't run it well if at all. But the biggest hurdle seems to be just informing people what's possible. 

Modeling and rendering are actually two different skill sets, but when I think about what I assumed rendering was before discovering DS, I realize I sort of classified it as the thing you get to do to show off your model once you've sculpted it. I was familiar with 3D animation, and I always liked high-res official renders of video game characters, but those still felt like an end product you reach after creating the model. Zero professional 3D modelers I've talked to at work have ever heard of Daz, and when I explain what it does it's just...totally baffling to them. Like, why would you want to just render things, a render isn't art on its own, it's just a nicely-presented image of your model. So when 3D artists are using premade assets and getting well known for their work, I kind of wonder if there's reluctance to talk about it because it might be perceived as cheating at 3D. Once you reveal you didn't make the model, it's kind of like, "Then why did you make a picture of it?" even if the picture is the only way anyone experiences your art.

I picked up a bunch of old Digital Art Live magazines from my work and my friends got to watch me yell for five hours ("Look at this! Everyone was using Carrara as an art tool! They're actually discussing Daz as a thing artists should pick up!"), but it was very surreal to see what professional attitudes were toward programs like this when they were brand new compared to now. I would love to find a way to talk about this on a large scale and frame it as being similar to game screenshots and cosplay and photography, or even doll collecting--things I think DS has a lot in common with--because it makes it less about doing 3D like the pros (even now my impostor syndrome addled brain balks at that--no I can't! That's magic!) and more about discovering a new tool to do the things they already love. 

The reason I started looking into 3D tools for my project in the first place was that one of my original worst nightmares happened: I turned 35 and suddenly my drawing hand is in really bad shape. I think about how all the people I know who want to get their ideas out but for many reasons can't do it through drawing; I know that if I hadn't found it, I probably wouldn't be making art at all. 

Galaxy

As far as I know Daz Studio does not create stories ,comics and probably most advanced AI will fail to create this kind of thing but DS only generate images or scenes for it if someone want to create.

Photography require a lot of different kind of skills. If photography never sale then why there is a big stockphoto market which also contain images that uses Daz Store characters etc.. Also I dont think your mentioned sites are stock image sites. However I don't have account there till yet. Deviantart is an excellent place to explore different things, also I have a account there.

 

Edit: Tried to correct grammar.

nicstt

akmerlow said:

I'm getting more and more impression that in modern world, mainstream "3d art" is creating models from scratch mostly. Also "it's all about realtime 3D" for games or VR.
So it gives a look that nowodays "still render" format (like we mostly do) is something like "pure art" (as painting or drawing), i mean, something we do as hobby, for fun, or for experiments or expression of creative spirit.
Yeah i know that some of you use DAZ in actual job pipelines, and also there are fields of applications like "Book covers" etc.

However, i still feel, that comparing to e.g. early 2000s, less people are interested in making compositions, storytelling, being "a director". And outside of daz, similar vendor-based sites and deviantart groups, i rarely encounter usage of DS (ok, not counting "adult" creators on patreons). "Everyone and his cat messes with Blender".

Also, maybe, large chunk of casual audience were ate away from us with fun tools like Garry's Mod, Xnalara, etc. Like, people just making fanart, posing, stories in those and even in games like Sims instead of poser/daz.

And don't forget how popular 3d CG places (like CGsociety, ArtStation etc.) are 95% focused on accepting those, who are creating models or textures or rigging totally from scratch, but for some reason not those who set up scene with pose and lights and materials with "actors" (and Vickies and Michaels are actors or photomodels for us, haha)...  Some resources even will not accept your work if it doesnt have something "not premade". And some are hardcore enough to disregard any software with fractals or generation possibilities.

Meanwhile, i ran into some traditional artists who use DAZ in a way people used Poser in early 90s - as reference for 2d painting.

So, what are your thoughts on subject?

 

Also, please share stories of encountering fellow daz users (regardless of what other art they do) in unexpected places :)

There are a number of projects I believe that one can use to create a 3D character; Makehuman, is one such and can be used in Blender, 3DSMax and others.

So folks can alter an original shape and make their own uniqie character; I'd want my character to look unique - I wouldn't care if I'd morphed one or made it as long as the licensing terms of any 3rd party character allowed me to use it in the medium I intended.

There are a lot of models for sale becuase they... well sell, not just Poser/Daz related. Even Blender has a lot.

WendyLuvsCatz

I first saw hobby 3D animation made using SIMS3 on Youtube myself before I got a computer, was watching on my Nokia95 which included unlimited YouTube app in my phone plan

this was before 2008

Once I got a PC I discovered iClone and honestly did not even know DAZ and Poser existed for another year, certainly nothing on YouTube hinted at it

I was looking at 3D modelling software and found Carrara5 on a magazine disc and that is how I discovered DAZ!!!

 

Artini

akmerlow said:

I wanted to create covers for my albums as a hobby musician.

Interesting! Thanks for sharing your story. CPU-only is too slow? Just asking.

Now I am using Unity game engine and it suits better my needs - almost no limits,

what can be done in it.

I strongly wish, that Daz would release its bridge, from Daz Studio to Unity,

so I could use my purchased content from Daz 3D even easier in Unity.

In-game models through interactive license etc., yeah? A bit different from my initial question (which was more about static renders or videos). Yet, thanks for talking about how you use daz in your creative workflow!

I create most of my videos in Unity, because it is much faster way, than anything else, I have tried.

For static renders, I prefer Daz Studio, because it is easy to use and I get what I need pretty fast.

 

akmerlow

Artini, i see.

 

WendyLuvsCatz, we all have different paths!

 

nicstt, makes sense. On the other hand, many those options appeared relatively recently...

 

Galaxy, also good points.

 

@plasma_ring, thanks for detailed reply.

Sketchup

Btw some people manage to do awesome models just with it.

it blew my mind that this was possible and that I'd never heard of it

Yeah for me it's very weird to feel how it's for others with that "discovering", cause i was introduced to Poser long, long time ago by someone in my family (who used it for storyboard / pre-vis), along with an early 2000s book called "creating an animated movie with a computer" that discussed Poser, C4D, Premier and more. So i "grew up" with it before experiencing 3DS Studio, Blender, etc. Even though i was on and off, abandoning for many years and mostly became a bit more serious when switched to D|S.

One of the biggest things I think keeping DS from being more widespread--and something that frustrates me a lot--is that people who use it tend not to talk about using it unless they're part of the Daz community.  
 

Yeah 

MMO characters and Sims

 Two-three years ago i felt that i'm a bit too tired of DAZ. Learning iRay, new tips and tricks, generational changes... Also specific points about daz/poser-related marketplace...

So i temporarly left and dived in unofficial modding subcommunities of Sims. Must say, some sides of it impressed me very much. Especially the ones that are around subjective tastes.
I mean, style of "products", themes etc. You know, as we're discussing in another topic about "V3-V4 era vs. nowodays", there is a connected thought... Plenty of PA make products that will most likely find audience, and targeted. Which may reduce number of niche/exotic stuff. So, to compare, because Sims' modding community is basically rotating about making freebies (if we dont count donations/patreons), their creators just do whatever they want. Which is why you can see stuff, that you almost never see in context of Daz products (or havent until lately). Tendency for freckle & mole skin (which wasnt popular in dazsphere until recent years i suppose), ultra trendy asian fashion and cosmetics, emo goth subculture stuff, amazingly cute interiors etc. etc. Though, i thought that another reason was different demographics. Like, most Sims' custom content creators are youthful crowd (which is why their vision is different from previous genereations), and also more galz than boyz in community (which also may explain this or that in style or taste). I was posting some examples here: https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/4625101/#Comment_4625101
HOWEVER, there were many downdides as well, like all those freebies/releases demanding much, much, much more other freebies to use (i mean, it's like having to get the whole pro bundle, if we speak in daz terms) and very often all those freebies were scattered around completely unintuitive tumblr blogs with crazy webdesign and often horrible navigation, and very often those blogs were dying within 1-2 year with all those freebies with them cause authors were asking not to reupload their creations, so you were having to ask douzens of people if, by any chance, they have those freebies and can share, etc. etc. Also, because 90% of "best" functional to use Sims in that way is done through usermade modifications, there were big problems with interface/uiux/installation like you cant preview skin unless choose it, and their "content library" will lag if too many installed, and to use custom sliders you need to know where you placed what, sometimes people had to place body sliders in head menu, and vice versa.. Very confusing, very unintuitive, very "DIY".

So when i went back to DAZ Studio, it was so incredibly comfortable and easy to use, can you even imagine still, when i wanna get some inspiration for "really modern fashion staff" or some "punk / not mainstream" creations, i take a look into what people create there. And some stuff is incredible, like interior/exterior design. Like this custom town.

 

There's at least one person who's gotten thousands of retweets on Twitter offering 3D pose reference, all of which is clay renders of G8 models--and in the middle of tons of people thanking them profusely for it, I never saw them mention

Oh, so maybe all those "anti-daz" biased people from Polycount forum etc. mostly encounter such "baddie" daz users, and draw their impression, heh (to addition with their "either you're modeller or go away").
But honestly, it's very illogical for me, why some people refuse to understand. I mean, stock photos exist so they can be sold to people who will use them, right? And all those models people are selling, some people will buy and use (including daz users). So for me it seems unnatural to be like those, who are snobbish at their potential customers...

and when I explain what it does it's just...totally baffling to them. Like, why would you want to just render things, a render isn't art on its own, it's just a nicely-presented image of your model. So when 3D artists are using premade assets and getting well known for their work, I kind of wonder if there's reluctance to talk about it because it might be perceived as cheating at 3D.

Yes, that bothers me as well.. And also why i ask in my opening post, if you have impression that overall, in "3d art", making compositions/stories through rendering & setting up a scene (whether all premade or not) is becoming much more rare than it used to be. And how it looks like "visible and loud most" are interested in sculpting etc.

People say that using samples in music making is also a "cheating". However you can be a good composer while not having a skills of playing on violin or drums yourself...

("Look at this! Everyone was using Carrara as an art tool! They're actually discussing Daz as a thing artists should pick up!")

If you saw some interesting articles that were touching what you discuss, could you tell what issue numbers were those? Maybe some will wanna ebay for them and read, haha.  P.S. also, i cant understand why anyone would "question" Carrara... but some people do ><.

similar to game screenshots and cosplay and photography, or even doll collecting--things I think DS has a lot in common with--because it makes it less about doing 3D like the pros (even now my impostor syndrome addled brain balks at that--no I can't! That's magic!) and more about discovering a new tool to do the things they already love. 

Well said! Btw, by dolls you meant BJD (ball jointed dolls)? There are really some weird and inspirational creations in that field as well (though i guess its closer to what people sculpt with zbrush etc).

And yes, imho if you use DAZ, no one can demand you to make "art". There is somehow difference between "art" and whatever you do as creative hobby, sketches, fun, i dont know. Which is why i never understood when people hate dA for fanarts or smth.

By the way, some people just use DAZ Studio as useful little rendering tool! Like, they model in Wings3D, CAD or something (maybe Hexagone) and then use D|S to set up materials , light, viewpoint... Some may rig their own character meshes. Etc. etc.

The reason I started looking into 3D tools for my project in the first place was that one of my original worst nightmares happened: I turned 35 and suddenly my drawing hand is in really bad shape. I think about how all the people I know who want to get their ideas out but for many reasons can't do it through drawing; I know that if I hadn't found it, I probably wouldn't be making art at all. 

Oh :( I think kyoto kid has similar story (?)

WendyLuvsCatz

my first modeler was sketchup before I found Carrara

Sevrin

IDK about you, but I'm a niche.

FSMCDesigns

I come from the gaming side of things, started modding a game years ago and found I like creating in 3D. Learned modeling in Gmax, then 3DSMax, went to work for an indie game studio. Left and went back to modding and creating original commercial content for the SIMS, Ubisoft, MS, etc. It was at this time I discovred poser and V3/V4. It was fun to play with, but since everything was premade, it never factored into any of my serious work I was doing outside of this community. Then another indie game studio and I had access to all the expensive industry toys, C4D, Rhino, Maya, etc and I discovered how much I LOVED unbiased rendering in Vray and I looked for suitable alternatives for Poser which lead me to the community created plugin for Luxrender which was tedious and had hit or miss results.

Then the game studio folded and I was without the expensive toys, but I was stilled hooked on Unbiased rendering. I had been struggling with coming to terms with DS over the past year and it was one of those apps that just never clicked for me. Then Reality came out for DS and I was determined to learn DS just so I could use Reality and Luxrender and I have been using DS ever since.

In all the commercial circles I was in doing 3D work, most never knew about poser or DS and the ones that did thought of it as a fun app to play around with and not something that would be part of our workflow mainly because it was all premade and easily recognizable as a DAZ or poser model. As for my uses for DS, I'm lucky to have a couple of publishers I sell imagery to at times and I have done some commission work off and on, but I never really thought of digital imagery as a sellable idea due to my creative modeling background and that I would never purchase digital imagery myself.

jjmainor

If you browse around the comic and graphic novel categories on Amazon, you find people are still making 3D comics. They still sell and chart.

Ivy

I was working in Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator & Flash ,  I only found poser6 when i was looking for a way to create a illustrations I just could not do in Photoshop and started  with poser for a 3d software, I shortly found daz studio about a year later because of Victoria & Micheal 4 So I bought the daz 3a software I think back then it was like $99 in 2009,  I have a tried a bunch of other 3d new software and apps but I just stuck with daz studio ever since. All I use daz for now is making  animations . I hardly render stills unless its for testing lighting for a animated scene

This was my newest animation I have released so far. kind of corny but still fun to watch.

Click pic to play . Best viewed in 1080HD

mwokee

I do commercial and fine art photography and digital art. My creativity has increased 10 fold by mixing photography and 3D. And I could do even more if the products were a wider range of concepts, more realistic, and didn't target mainly anime, gamers, fantasy, and comics.

nonesuch00

I originally bought Poser because I took a couple of computer graphics programming classes as a university senior. I was just interested in the math & computer programming aspect of it. Then I realized it would be fun to program video games using Poser content but I couldn't legally. Then I dropped it for a few years and then got interested again after the Unity engine was ported to Windows with the resultant boost in publicity that got them. I then started buying DAZ 3D Store content and bought their game developer license when I found out they offered it.

However, all that gave me a new problem. I'm just not interested in FPS and similarly innudated gaming genres to make as my own games and the animating and programming needed for a single person to make something original was simply too much work so I've been mostly wasting time doing other things until the HW & SW can have the capabilities I need to do something a one person hobbyist can make that I like content wise and quality wise. With these new 30X0 GPUs and the GPU productively software nVidia has designed and released for free to us that buy nVidia GPUs I finally feel confident I can do the entire job on my own. Well, I could before already and have for over 5 years now but I wanted something more complex with regards to animations I had available and now it's possible on a one man tiny budget finally.

duckbomb

I think that there is a negative 3D (or, more specifically, DAZ 3D) bias that makes it hard to successfully break into traditional artistic spaces.  Sure, I'm generalizing, there will always be exceptions to every statement, but I do believe this to be true. 

Is DAZ 3D a niche software?  Probably.  However, it's ALSO in it's infancy, all things considered, and as it grows and evolves hopefully we'll see more useage that leads to greater acceptance.

My opinions, obviously.

duckbomb

Sorry dp 

Masterstroke

We are a niche. That is my impression. Through all my life, I've met only maybe 5 people in person, who do CG art at all. none of those 5 were using Poser or DAZ studio. 3 of them have even never heard of Poser or DS.
 

WendyLuvsCatz

I have met 2

a girl at my work used Maya

my cousin who is a teacher and uses DAZ as it is free

I think he only uses it for reference though like Poser was originally used

fred9803

With regard to comics and storytelling, IMO DS is a bit overkill with its huge character textures and Iray when you're going to postwork your images into a comic-like appearance anyway. After I put comics together I'm thinking why did I spend so much time with rendering realism when I just postworked it away into a comic-style image. I suppose I need to reduce the texture maps and lower my settings to speed things up. I guess that's what the sensible comic-makers do.

Masterstroke

fred9803 said:

With regard to comics and storytelling, IMO DS is a bit overkill with its huge character textures and Iray when you're going to postwork your images into a comic-like appearance anyway. After I put comics together I'm thinking why did I spend so much time with rendering realism when I just postworked it away into a comic-style image. I suppose I need to reduce the texture maps and lower my settings to speed things up. I guess that's what the sensible comic-makers do.

Why do you think, you have to postwork it away? Having read a lot of comics during the 80s, that might have been in the Heavy Metal magazin, lot's of those old time comics almost look like todays DS renders.
E.G. Comic books by Richard Corben.

Galaxy

fred9803 said:

to speed things up. I guess that's what the sensible comic-makers do.

Yes, suppose a custom character is built from scratch within 1 month vs a similar custom character is created using morph within 10 minutes. Both will look similar.

The conclusion is if the creator is a comic maker  it is foolish  to not save time and create everything from scratch.

Due to limited lifetime of human life it is even unrealistic if he spend entire lifetime to create only one art or comics using every items created from scratch. If the creator is 3d artist only then it is reasonalble to create everything from scratch because this time his goal is create 3d assets only but not the end product for end users.

Galaxy

Even if he create everything from scratch, it will be copied from something real stuff. Even an idea is never original because he need to choose from existing basic ideas, e.g. sci fi, horror, action etc.

Conclusion is Only thing matter is the end result attached to his way of thinking.

Masterstroke

I made a comic, that took me 9 months to finish. If I had the skills and have created every item and character in it from scratch, it would have taken me more than 9 years.

akmerlow

fred9803 said:

With regard to comics and storytelling, IMO DS is a bit overkill with its huge character textures and Iray when you're going to postwork your images into a comic-like appearance anyway. After I put comics together I'm thinking why did I spend so much time with rendering realism when I just postworked it away into a comic-style image. I suppose I need to reduce the texture maps and lower my settings to speed things up. I guess that's what the sensible comic-makers do.

Maybe.

Personally, i always liked NPR (non-photorealistic rendering). http://www.red3d.com/cwr/npr/

My first introduction to it was with Poser and it's Sketch render options.

There are NPR solutions for D|S, like these

https://www.daz3d.com/pwtoon

https://www.daz3d.com/manga-style-shaders

https://www.daz3d.com/linerender9000

https://www.daz3d.com/sketchy-toon-edge-and-art-style-shaders-for-iray

While Carrara or Bryce have their own ways to do similar.