alien non- humanoid morphs?
cdemerit
Posts: 505
Hi All,
I'm fairly new to Daz 3d, but have been collecting a number of creature creator morph and characters for Genesis and Genesis 2. I'm working on a project that involves several aliens/monster type creatures. I really like the morphing tools that creature creator 2 has, allowing to mix/match several looks into custom creatures. However, I'm noticing one major issue, they are almost all based on the standard 2 arms /2 legs/ 2 eyes humanoid plan. while this is common in Startrek / Starwars, they are limited by the physicals of the actors. I'm looking for some non- humanoid looks. I came across one called Fly-Girl, which seriously jumped out as the kind of look I'm missing.
Can anyone point out a morph set or even single monsters that have multiple eyes, insect like features or such sets to look into.
Oh, not looking for any recognizable characters, unique or generic only.
Thank you.
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
A morph wouldn't be able to add extra body parts - for that you'd be looking at GeoGrafts or stand-alone figures.
Yeah, afraid you'll have to wait for specialist geo-grafted characters. I love creating exotic body plans, but the options are few and far between!
Fortunately, someone's apparently working on a way to give Genesis 2 more than one set of arms, like the Four Arms product for Genesis did. Not sure who it is or if it might differ, if at all (or even which gender).
If you're working with G2F, then I'd recommend the Succubus Add-Ons set - there's a pose pack which is designed specifically for it, so that you can choose to only pose the torso, if need be, which is fantastic. Otherwise the lower serpentine trunk encounters all sorts of difficulties. :)
There are, at least, a number of tails we can now choose from. More so if you're using Genesis, because of Easy Tails - but the same creator informed me they won't be working on a version for Genesis 2, because of how difficult the creation process was.
If you have a specific idea, you can maybe message Raw Art, who does excellent creature characters and sometimes takes suggestions on board. Midnight Stories, also and Sickleyield/Fuseling have been doing amazing work for creature morphs.
Zev's new tongue-controlling product is fantastic to helping with alien creatures, too.
Jo Lab has made some of the most astonishing creatures I've seen and has said they might possibly adapt some future projects into Genesis or Genesis 2 morphs, if the project is applicable. If you don't mind stand-alone beasts, I'd heartily recommend their Baryolax, because they recently gave a preview of what the expansion packs will include and it looks set to become one of the most diverse characters in the entire store! Additional arms, fins for the body and tail, horn arrangements... All sorts of new stuff.
Ant Farm is apparently starting to work on more extreme creature stuff, too. You could try asking them if they have anything planned along the lines of what you are seeking. They're who did Fly Girl (which only has a skin which covers the head - you have to cover the hands with gloves and such, if you want her to look like a complete original creature).
Right now, your best bet is to mix the G2F Creature Creator with the Succubus Add-Ons or the G2M one with Reptilian 6 and Roark 2.
For what it's worth, I also found Midnight Stories' Midnight Martians to have some perfect skins for mixing with creature creator stuff. When you're stuck with using the skins from 'conventional' human products, it just doesn't look right.
Thanks. I've been looking at some of the stuff mentioned , and hope to include it at some point. Thank you for the information on Baryolax, I love his look, and he has some really strong details, I'll definitely add him to the "list".
Basically, my project is still in the earliest stages of development, and as I know how I do things (Start off with a bang, then quickly fizzles out) my operational budget for this project is $0 at the moment ( don't want to invest hundreds to drop the project in a month or so) but can scrape together enough for a pack or two. I just need to make sure I get the best bang for my buck. Hopefully, I can get the project to a reasonable state that I can set up a Patreon account and can generate enough interest to buy some of the more interesting stuff.
My biggest thing is I want to avoid the 1960's startrek bodypaint most aliens, the 1970's Dr.Who bad rubber suits with plumbing parts, or the farscape puppets look. (also avoid recognizable characters, Thank you Startrek/Starwars for taking most of the looks already... /s)
Well, thanks again.
Really? I thought 'Farscape' managed to come up with some of the most exotic alien designs, in recent years. That multi-limbed thing Rygel was stuck in a prison with for an episode, definitely comes to mind.
Please don't get me wrong, They did do a great job and I do wish they didn't get cancelled so soon. However, Take someone who has never seen the show, don't let them see the credits, and I'm gonna guess most will recognize it as a Henson product. Most of the aliens worked well later on, but I think it was, as least for me, more about personalities and writing. The first couple times I watched it, I had a hard time getting past the puppet feel some of them had at first, and I prefer physical effects to CGI in shows/movies. There is something beyond the Story that's missing in the Starwars Prequels that the originals had, and I think it is things CGI still can't bring.
My main point here is my project isn't hyper realistic, yet I want to avoid the toonie nature of some daz characters.
The Antfarm has a number of awesome looking stand-alone alien figures you might want to take a look at. Here are a few that immediately come to mind:
http://www.daz3d.com/hookah-cat
http://www.daz3d.com/starman
http://www.daz3d.com/elorn (i REALLY like this guy)
http://www.daz3d.com/anu-naki
Rawart also has a few that might work for you as well:
http://www.daz3d.com/octogenesis
http://www.daz3d.com/the-gorgon
http://www.daz3d.com/bar-soomian
When looking for aliens, these two vendors are the FIRST place I look.
Good Luck!
-MJ
Anu requires V4.
Thanks for the suggestions... some great stuff out there... my biggest problem at the moment now is that I've become addicted to hunting for more pieces, and not working on the main project. I probably could get away with only using 5 distinct characters to get a good base down, and have enough freebies to build 30 or so unique characters, but can't stop hunting for more.
Ha... welcome to the Poserverse!
-MJ
Dariofish / HFS has a good number of non-humanoid morphs in the rendo store.
I've been wondering how long it was going to be before someone mentioned HFS. Yes, I've seen his work, and some of his stuff it at the top of my list. However, these are still humanoid looks, at least by my definition of humanoid.
The main problem is that people have a hard time envisioning non-humaniod body plans, and fall back on what we know when making aliens.
The dictionary definition of humanoid is a bit vague: Having a human appearance. I refined it some to mean having a human like body plan. Humanoid: Having bilateral symmetry, having typically 4 limbs and a head, bipedal locomotion, and having a recognizable face (2 eyes, nose, mouth) . a few extra bits here and there doesn't disqualify you from humanoid. major changes to the whole body need to happen.
Some famous Non-humanoids:
Jabba the Hut -Starwars
Darleks: With or without the shells - Dr. Who
Tholians - StarTrek
The Shadows - Babylon 5
Pilot - Farscape
The aliens from The Simpsons
Beholders - D&D
Moya - Farscape
Face of Boe - DR. Who
Any of the aliens in Starship Troopers
many of the aliens in the Green Latern Corps. (have one of the widest ranges of body plans- probably
Now things like Driders (human torso, spider body), Centaurs, and mermaids, are hybrids, and I'm not quite sure where they fit.
Thats why I didnt mention them. I am working on a Sci-Fi project as well, and I too hate the typical humanoid-styled aliens. Its so 70's Sci-Fi. So I understand your plight.
Jabba the Hut -Starwars
Darleks: With or without the shells - Dr. Who
Tholians - StarTrek
The Shadows - Babylon 5
Pilot - Farscape
The aliens from The Simpsons
Beholders - D&D
Moya - Farscape
Face of Boe - DR. Who
Any of the aliens in Starship Troopers
many of the aliens in the Green Latern Corps. (have one of the widest ranges of body plans- probably
Now things like Driders (human torso, spider body), Centaurs, and mermaids, are hybrids, and I'm not quite sure where they fit.
When doing projects in the Poserverse, these kinda aliens will be few and far in between. It just comes with the territory. So all you can do, is load up wherever and however u can, and use the typically styled aliens to fill in gaps.
Personally, I hate the re-colored humans as alien syndrome and avoid those like the plague. I actually prefer my humanoid aliens to be a little more extreme than just being re-colored (which is why i mentioned The Elorn). But with Genesis/Genesis2, they can take on more extreme forms and as such HFS really pushes Genesis' capabilities by coming up with some pretty nice looking alien shapes.
I use an older version of DS so Genesis and all its derivatives are not an option for me.
Here's another alien I was trying to find. I thought this guy was on another site, and i didnt find him there, but i recently ran across him.
http://www.ontarget3d.com/site/Products/369-insectoid-creature-for-poser.aspx
-MJ
Also, dont be afraid to use "monsters" as sentient life-forms. There have been a number of monsters I have seen people use to represent intelligent life-forms.
-MJ
Thank you, insectoid is very much the look I was looking for. I just need to find a couple more oddballs to round out the cast.
The Body paint alien does have it's place, just it has been so overused. Sexy Blue Zhaan, Pale Chiana, or green skin orion slavegirl can really add to a cast of characters, just thank you weekly TV series that need to make cheap creatures quickly, they are just too common.
I do plan on using a number of humanoid shapes, as well as a number of monsters from mythos such as satyrs, minotaurs, werewolves (wolf form non morphing) and various demons such as the succubus (under the guise that these things were actual ancient alien visitors to earth) my plan at the moment needs about 30 primary or strong secondary characters. I want no more than 3 of the to be "painted humans" and at least 3 preferably 5 or more non-humanoid characters with the rest being various morphs of the humanoid base.
As a fan of Scifi, who grew up in the 70's & 80's, I've watched a variety of scifi, and understand the vast proliferation of the humanoid alien comes mainly from the major factors of cost and someone had to wear the suit. Now that CGI is improving, do you think we will see more true non-humanoid aliens, or just more extremes to the basic humanoid form. I've been pondering this question today: How does someone relate to a creature that has no face or head? and the more I think about that the more I wonder if the real reason we see so few true non-humanoids is we simply don't know how to make them or interact with them. Even the list I put together of non-humanoids is largely made up of creature that have a humanish face.
Another thing I've noticed is that the more human a creature looks, the more likely it'll be friendly/non-hostile, where the more non-human it becomes, the greater the likelihood of it being hostile/enemy. I've been wondering if this is writers deliberately tapping the very deep primal fear of things that are different or subconscious and not really aware that's what they are doing. (granted this question can't really be answered, as I'm sure it's both)
Just kind of curious about your thoughts on these questions.
The beauty of being a writer, you can make alien relations whatever you want. But I would think it would depend on the level of exposure to those aliens. For example, if I walked outside, and saw a cat running in the snow, I wouldnt think nothing of it. However, if that same cat turned around and said... "Damn this snow is freezing my balls", i might react a little differently... for OBVIOUS reasons! (LOL! :lol: LOL!)
One movie that really demonstrates this very well is "Men In Black". Seeing "Agent J" (Will Smith) go from being completely oblivious to alien life to recognizing aliens all the time is very telling... and quite hilarious as he progresses thru the Men In Black trilogy.
Hope my opinions on this is of some help. Good Luck!
-MJ
Augmenting practical effects with CGI is going to be an increasing factor. There's nothing wrong with CGI effects, as a concept - it's jsut that most people don't even realise they're looking at them, when they are done right.
Look at the recent prequel to 'The Thing'. ADI's practical effects were intended to be augmented by CGI to show the transformation sequences, but the problem was, the way the production went meant that a lot of the incredibly impressive work they did wound up being completely replaced.
What's interesting is that CGI is often seen as a cheap way of making something spectacular. But what often happens is that the costs often result in a higher budget, because of all the reshoots and changes the production team wants (which has a big chance of happening, because the director rarely has a background in CGI and, therefore, doesn't realise which combination of lighting can assist it best). Practical effects can actually be cheaper, in the grand scheme of things, from that financial perspective.
Heh! I had completely the opposite view... :) The strength of 'Farscape was that it was both very much grounded in common sense approaches from characters, rather than techno-babble, along with the vast majority of its storylines being fairly mature and frequently dark in nature. There were many episodes I could never have imagined being green-lit for 'Star trek' and certainly, if ever allowed on 'Babylon 5', having to be watered down a great deal.
I'm a big fan 'Babylon 5', but it had a way of sometimes feeling a little superficial when it wasn't dealing with philosophy or politics (not as much as 'Star Trek', but even so). Especially after the Shadow War had climaxed.
It isn't often mentioned, but 'Farscape' also handled the horror genre particularly well, too. A lot of stuff got cut from terrestrial broadcast, like characters having their eyeballs literally scooped out of their skulls when being brain-washed, but made it to the DVD and Blu-Ray versions. You never found ST or B5 even attempting to go near territory like that. Even that B5 episode where Sheridan gets interrogated for 24 hours in real-time, while portrayed extremely well, kept everything in safely PG territory, with the possible exception of the interrogator having tricked him into eating poison/laxatives (can't quite remember which).
With that said, I did especially appreciate both 'Babylon 5' and 'Farscape' for not shying away from pointing out how things like poverty, political corruption and war will always be a part of life. Although, Crichton's method of resolving an intergalactic war was a lot more satisfying than the Vorlon/Shadow war's anti-climax. :)
MJ- since you clearly have more experience in writing, and this is my first real attempt, I was wondering how much time you spend world building before actually writing?
I've spent over 2 weeks now thinking about things like how many eggs a day are consumed on average, and just how much land is required to support said amount. This is important because everything is going under a shield dome, so I need to know how big to make the dome, or what industries would be high priority and which ones would be low, as well as how many people it takes to operate these industries, due to the limited population.
Some of these things may be very important, yet others, might never be included in the story at all. I'm starting to wonder if the detail I'm putting into the world building phase is actually good, or if I'm just stalling on the writing bit.
I love Babylon 5, I think it is still one of my favorite SciFi's for a number of reasons, but one of the biggest is that not all the alien races were at the same tech level. StarTrek, as much as I loved it, most races were about the same tech level, with a few notable exceptions, but most were equals. B5, each race was vastly different.
But to the point for which I am replying, Season 6 of B5 should never have been made imo. B5 suffered from a syndrome I see far too often in TV programing, in that a series has a defined start and end, and they come up with a great ending, but then because the show was popular, they try to continue it, and often what comes after doesn't work well. I just finished up "Once upon a time" . I'm not sure why I watched it, the writing was bad, but in season 3, episode 11, Storybrooke was gone, the people returned to the enchanted forrest, Emma and Henry are living happily in NYC with no memories of the Storybrooke, and Hook shows up at Emma's Door saying Emma needs to remember, and she slams the door in his face. When Henry asks "who was that?" Emma replys "I don't know, someone must have left the door open downstairs" (*cuts to black and credits*) The story was wrapped up nice and neat, and I thought this was a solid ending. Yet the continued, and what happened next wasn't good. I've seen this in too many shows. I would rather a beloved show ends at the ending, instead of trying to continue past it.
The major problem with B5, was that there was so much doubt over whether they would get renewed, they hurried to conflate a lot of storylines and completely changed a lot of what was meant to have taken place.
In retrospect, you can see how the Shadow War was meant to have lasted a lot longer, the Minbari civil war led to much greater things and so on.
To be honest, I really dont get into "World Building" much. I really think its a worthless, and unncessary practice UNLESS those details are pertinent to the story you're trying to tell. I come from the school of thought of letting your art tell the story. So unless its absolutely necessary AND relevant. "World Building " is a subject I tend to stray away from.
But like the details you mentioned, you set those rules. The dome can be as large or as small as you want it to be. It could be maintained by and 1000 man crew, or a single AI. You set the tone of your universe of how it operates. The thing is, it would help to be consistent. Consistency is the biggest issue for your readers. Not realism. When you make rules, just stick to them. Dont worry so much about being "correct".
I think you concern yourself with minor details, you will lose your audience because your talking about details they probably care very little about.
-MJ
In terms of series, Star Trek was awesome and undoubtedly my favorite. As it moved from TOS, it just got better year after year. I liked DS9 and Voyager the most of them all. To me, these two shows showed me how much you can do with so little. Although neither featured the vast array of aliens that i like and would have prefered to see more of, but i felt the stories were very well written, thought provoking/engaging, and entertaining. And in the end, thats what its really all about. Entertaining your audience.
-MJ
This is by far the biggest issue I'm having with Hollywood right now. More and more Studios are propping up weak stories with a lot of Flash/Bang effects. James Cameron's Avatar was a very pretty movie, but really lacked in the story dept. In 20 years from now, I doubt it will be remembered as much of anything.
Personally I would rather watch a southpark style animation with a stellar story than a weak story with Avatar level effects...
I would also advise you to check out some other works around the internet to see how they accomplish this task and you might get some inspiration/tips on what to do and what to expect. One webcomic that I thoroughly enjoy is called Merceneiress (http://merceneiress.com/). Its a Sci-Fi epic that I really like. I think the author is getting a little burned out as the site hasnt been updated in a while, but there's enough backlogged content to give you an understanding of what the story is about.
I think you will enjoy it.
-MJ