Modifying 3rd party models?
4mythings_43de7b50d0
Posts: 12
I apologize in advance. I've yet to even open Daz Studio, but I'm wanting to.
I'm in need of a high quality fantasy sword for a project and I'm seeing two really good packages in the store.
I COULD use them as is, but I'm wondering how hard/practical/doable it is to modify the objects the artist provides.
For example, what if I wanted to widen the sword blade and/or lengthen the hilt? Is that possible while still keeping the high quality textures they provide?
Or, what if I wanted to keep the blade texture but replace the hilt texture?
Is that possible? If so, is it something a novice could handle? Or, does it really take an expert artist?
ME: I'm brand new to Daz. Never used any 3D app. But, I'm proficient at Photoshop and After Effects. Not that those are similar, but it gives you, maybe, an idea of what I'm capable of learning.
Thanks for your help.
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
You can do simple modifications with DS, but DS is just a scene setup and render/animate program. To do serious modifications, you need an actual modeler like Blender, hexagon, 3DSmax, etc. If an object has a texture (UVMapped) then any modification of the actual mesh will affect the texture also
FSMCDesigns is right in that other apps are more powerful at changing things like swords, but given what you have asked is not that difficult, it may be possible to do this in DS.
For example you can quite easily hide the sword blade and the hilt. So the steps would be:
1) Load in 2 swords.
2) Hide the hilt of one sword and the blade of the second.
3) Resize the object that is the blade only in order to widen it.
4) Position the two objects together to make one sword.
Retexturing the hilt is even easier. Just locate the current texture of the sword, it is defined by a 2D image file, load this into Photoshop, and change it to what ever you want (whilst keeping within the boundaries of the original texture)
There are other ways of achieving the above as well, but DS is quite powerful and as you are new it may be easier to look into this first, before jumping into other more complicated modelling apps.
Thank you, both.
Havos, if I resize the sword and keep the texure the same dimensions, as you said, will the texture still map to the resized sword?
Havos or FSMCDesigns... IF I wanted to do more in a 3d modeler, what are some of the better ones that are also well suited to a beginner/dabbler?
The size of the texture will not change no matter what you do to the mesh, just the orientation of the area that is mapped to the certain area will change depending on how the area changes,
As for modeling apps, it really depends on you since all have different features and different user interfaces. Blender if very powerful and free, but has a difficult user interface for many and a steeper learning curve (like any app). Wings is also free. hexagon and carrara both do modeling and are sold here at DAZ.. Then you have more powerful, commercial apps like Lightwave, MODO, C4D, Maya, and 3DSMax, most have trials so to you can try them out, but steep pricetags for the final versions.
Thanks much!
Hi KallenP,
I recommend that to start with you get Daz Studio installed and play around with some of its basic features. First of all learn how to load a prop, and take a render of it. You get a fair bit of stuff for free, and there are thousands of free models you can install and play with. After this you can learn about changing textures, and manipulating/resizing parts of them. If you find that this is still not what you need, then you can look into modellers.
Some people will tell you that Zbrush is time consuming to learn.
I find with the help of video tutorials you may be able to create or modify the fist models after a few days and weeks of learning:
http://pixologic.com/zclassroom/homeroom/
"I COULD use them as is, but I’m wondering how hard/practical/doable it is to modify the objects the artist provides."
First, the most important ability you need is artistic taste. Software you can easily learn, but knowing what to do, what will work is difficult: it demands taste, experience, a good understanding of what you want to achieve.
anyway:
To edit textures: yes, you can do that with only DAZ and Photoshop. Not that difficult, just to navigate in the interface to know where is the texture file
To change the mesh: more complex, you will need to use a proper modeling software. I like Zbrush. DAZ has some features to tweak an object, but it's limited or too cumbersome to use. Try it anyway.
I would advise you to start playing with DAZ. It's a good tool to learn 3D.
-
You can easily change textures in daz.
Many props for DAZ (or Poser) are already cut in part, with texture for each part. For example, a good sword props will have a proper "hilt" part and a separate texture for the hilt.
It would be easy to edit it in Photoshop for example.
In DAZ, you select the prop, the sword by clicking on in the 3D viewport or in the tree of objects of your scene,
you go in the "Surfaces" tab (DAZ has many tabs, you will find them easily from the default interface), and you select the surface of the sword you want to edit, for example "hilt" or whatever the author choose to name it. A good prop will have many part and texture for easy tweaking.
Then, in the surface tab you will have all settings of the surface. and for exemple the DIFFUSE (it will affect main colors of the object) setting with its texture, often a .png file. You can browse from it, find the path, you can so copy it, modify it in whatever drawing software you want, save it with a new name, and in the Surfaces setting in DAZ tell it to use the new file.
Ideally, you would create a proper folder in the DAZ repository for your creation with your own name, to not mix with contents from third parties, but anyway, it's not important for just learning.
Then, DAZ will use the new surface.
THAT is totally doable with only DAZ and Photoshop, easy to learn and do if the props you got is nicely done.
-
change the mesh : making the sword longer or whatever.
I think Zbrush is very efficient for that. VERY. It's a commercial software, around $600. I truly think it worths the time to learn it. It's a very useful knowledge and will make you at least familiar with voxel sculpting.
Why Zbrush: thanks to its "goz" plugin, it simplify a lot to send and get back object from DAZ to Zbrush and reverse. You can create MORPH of your object without always export to a file, put the correct scale setting and so on. GOZ will use the settings DAZ expects automatically.
In ZBrush, I think, once you go after the shock of the unconventional interface :), it's easy to learn to use brushes to change the mesh. You can move the mesh to make it longer, or change shape, WITHOUT CHANGING the NUMBER of polygons of the mesh (very important).
Without adding or removing polygons in the mesh, the original textures (and UV maps) will be still useable and you will have nothing more to do to send it back to DAZ. Of course, if you stretch to much the mesh, DAZ will be forced to stretch the textures too, and it could lead to artefact or ugly textures.
More modifications, adding details, extending the mesh will ask you to learn about UV, creating new textures with more resolution, and it's over what I can tell you.
--
Of course, there is other softwares:
Blender is free and VERY powerful (it's definitely a software to consider, it's that professional), but in my opinion, Blender is too much technical, it asks you to really understand every part of what is modeling. It allows you to go in mostly all aspect of the job but it can be too much for learning 3D modeling alone.
--
I would advise to first play with DAZ. Daz is at its core about POSING the scene. But in fact, it has many advanced features allowing to tweak and even make some slight edit to the objects (by "DFormers" and others way). It's not truly its function, not that convenient to use, but it's there and it allows to learn technical stuff from a very productive environment (an object, a light, click render, POF a picture :) ).
It helps to understand the challenge of 3D modeling and why an other software is more specialized and useful.
Wow! Great stuff, guys. MUCH appreciated.
If you want to create some of your own props, you might also take a look at my program Shape Magic (http://shapemagic.com/index_sm.htm). It's free and can make a variety of props which can be imported into Daz Studio. You can create your own designs or use design files from my site. Most of the examples on my site were rendered in Bryce, but I recently started an Art Studio thread showing models being used in Daz Studio (http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/52508/).
Since you mentioned swords, I've attached some images of swords and knives made using Shape Magic. The curved knife is available as a .duf file which can be downloaded from my site (http://shapemagic.com/downloads.htm). There's also a tutorial on my site that shows how the knife was made (http://shapemagic.com/tutorial_curved_knife.htm). Note that among the images, the curved knife was rendered in Daz Studio, the others images are from Bryce.
Shape Magic is not a do-all modeler, but many have found it a simple way to get started with modeling and then advanced to moire sophisticated products.
Rich
NICE! I'll poke around in that. Thanks so much!
BTW, Carrara is a great app for playing around with your Daz content. You can open Studio and Poser files directly - all your props, scenes, figures, Genesis, G2 etc, and modify them in situ. Then either export the mod and import it back in studio (easy to make it a morph), or animate and render right in Carrara. If you're a PC+ member, Carrara is only $65 - that's just 2 Stonemasons!
Sure it's not as powerful as, say, Zbrush, Modo etc, but it's not a grand plus either.
I have to disagree, I feel that if one is wanting to get more into 3D, then learning a modeling app and how mesh works and how to understand and apply UVmapping is the core of all 3D IMO. Knowing what you would learn from actual modeling will help in understanding apps like DS and Poser better and not the other way around. DS and poser are more specialized in what they do and the formats they use and how it all works are just a smaller area in the whole scheme of 3D.
IMNSHO Blender is more of an all around 3D app than ZBrush and it is free. I agree with FSMCDesign that learning to use a modeling program will give you a better insight to how the products/content for Studio or Poser work so you can make more informed buying decisions.
Don't bother with Shape Magic, it doesn't give enough control over the mesh's edge flow / topology.
I have to disagree, I feel that if one is wanting to get more into 3D, then learning a modeling app and how mesh works and how to understand and apply UVmapping is the core of all 3D IMO. Knowing what you would learn from actual modeling will help in understanding apps like DS and Poser better and not the other way around. DS and poser are more specialized in what they do and the formats they use and how it all works are just a smaller area in the whole scheme of 3D.
For a total beginner, DAZ is reassuring. It allows to be productive (to create something) very easily and FAST. And it's empowering. But DAZ has also a lot of features and many technicals terms hidden inside its panels, like surfaces or shaders.
So, it's an easy entry in the field of 3D. It's BECAUSE daz is "smaller area in the whole scheme of 3D" and because DAZ/Poser are all about just using 3D objects, tweak them, put light, go to render, than I say it's a good tool to start. Blender for example forces you to KNOW what you are talking about before to be able to create anything. It's not very educational, it's pretty violent.
Of course, it does not remove the need to learn a proper modeling software or Blender, but my point is: DAZ (or Poser) first, then sculpting/modeling softwares second.
For a total beginner, DAZ is reassuring. It allows to be productive (to create something) very easily and FAST. And it's empowering. But DAZ has also a lot of features and many technicals terms hidden inside its panels, like surfaces or shaders.
So, it's an easy entry in the field of 3D. It's BECAUSE daz is "smaller area in the whole scheme of 3D" and because DAZ/Poser are all about just using 3D objects, tweak them, put light, go to render, than I say it's a good tool to start. Blender for example forces you to KNOW what you are talking about before to be able to create anything. It's not very educational, it's pretty violent.
Of course, it does not remove the need to learn a proper modeling software or Blender, but my point is: DAZ (or Poser) first, then sculpting/modeling software second. I will second that, Blender is extremely violent to a n00b.
Just trying to pause the tutorials on there website, so you can trace down where that button/menu moved to in the newer interface, well. Lets just say the pause is useless for that.
The Hexagon vids, at least I could save them and play them back on a player that has a faster-responding pause button. Still, You need to already know what the terminology is for the stuff.
Studio, and the Primitive, for starting out, really is the best for a n00b. It's simple, like legos, and fun like a coloring book. You can even use MS Paint to make textures to put on the cubes. So dishing out tons of $$$$ is not needed to get your toes wet.
As for a, you know what is what, and need a 3D object making software suite. I'm not there yet, nor do I really want to get into that as a 'Pro'.