Two questions completely dfferent. Opinions needed.

thenotoriousjed

I made a purchase on Feb 25 and got the coupon for 30% off a MM purchase. I have bought up a lot of content since starting in December for my comic I'm working on and a few other projects.

My first question is the Dreamlight sale that hasn't gone away - Is anything worth buying and Using with Studio 4.7? If I combine the sale and my 30% off I could get a great buy, but would I use or need any of it. Any users of these products your opinion is welcomed.

Second question - How many characters are needed? I've purchased several male and female Gen1 and 2 figures but the MM sale seems to be mostly characters and outfits of which few are interesting to me so far. Anyone have a thought on what is a good number to have in your library. I know it's all preference but how many different could I possibly need?

I want to purchase and the discounts are great, but I just don't see anything that has gotten me in an uproar. Where are the awesome creatures, why isn't the super-suit add on packs on sale and how about some awesome environments.

Steven-V

As for Dreamlight... Some Dreamlight stuff is quite dated and some of it may not work in 4.7. I have not tried much. The Dreamlight Skies work fine in 4.7, and I think they are probably worth it for the 75% discount price (I got them for that price). They are not, IMO, worth the full price or anything close to that -- they are just skies. You can get similar images for free from CG Textures. So they were worth a couple bucks, but I would not have paid full price for them.

I also have the Dream Lounge. It's nice enough. I didn't use it for much -- I only needed one part of it for one scene. If I remember, I had some problems with the way the mats on the TV rendered, but I can't recall exactly what the problem was or how I fixed it.

The only other Dreamlight thing I have gotten is the lighting tutorial. I thought it was helpful, but again, probably not worth the full purchase price. Probably the most aggravating thing about the tutorial is that more than half the examples they use are in Lightwave, not DAZ. Since I don't have LW, and since some of the features they use in LW are not even available in DAZ, I found this to be a bit frustrating and less helpful than it could have been. I got it on sale, as I recall, so it was worth sale price, and definitely worth 75% off if you are new to basic lighting principles. It's probably the best treatment of 7-point lighting I have seen. For 3-point, there are better free tuts on the web, frankly. Again.. worth the sale price, not the full price, IIMO.

As for figures... this will depend on what you are doing. I am making a webcomic myself, and it is a standard classical-style superhero comic, so I will need tons of characters -- supporting cast, villains, heroes, etc. I have, I dunno... a bunch of figures, and nowhere near enough. If you plan to do a large-scale comic with lots of characters then you will either need to buy a bunch of them, or plan to invest your time into doing a lot of morphing with dials and modding skin textures (because the morphs don't really help if you just keep applying the same skin to the different morphs -- it won't look like different people, or at least doesn't to me).

There are some characters who have multiple variants, e.g., the Johan character for Genesis has about a half dozen face shapes and body shapes. It only has one texture though. I use them for bit characters, or side characters who are only going to be in one scene, but I wouldn't use them for major characters due to the lack of unique skin textures.

So as for how many characters you could possibly need -- IMO, you need one DAZ character per major and minor character in your comic. You need 1 unique morph (without unique skin) per "extra" in your story (i.e., "red shirts").I would not attempt to work with anything less.

Your characters, however, can come from the same "figure." So for example, you can just use V6, and then pick all the different characters that have been made for her. You don't need to invest in Gia 6, Stephanie 6, etc. Personally, I like to do those, because each figure has some unique sculpting and the characters based on those figures are quite different from each other, so it makes things more variable. But you don't have to.

The other thing you're going to need is a nice varied wardrobe... it boots nothing to have 20 different unique-looking characters who all dress the same.

thenotoriousjed

steven.viscido said:

As for Dreamlight... Some Dreamlight stuff is quite dated and some of it may not work in 4.7. I have not tried much. The Dreamlight Skies work fine in 4.7, and I think they are probably worth it for the 75% discount price (I got them for that price). They are not, IMO, worth the full price or anything close to that -- they are just skies. You can get similar images for free from CG Textures. So they were worth a couple bucks, but I would not have paid full price for them.

I also have the Dream Lounge. It's nice enough. I didn't use it for much -- I only needed one part of it for one scene. If I remember, I had some problems with the way the mats on the TV rendered, but I can't recall exactly what the problem was or how I fixed it.

The only other Dreamlight thing I have gotten is the lighting tutorial. I thought it was helpful, but again, probably not worth the full purchase price. Probably the most aggravating thing about the tutorial is that more than half the examples they use are in Lightwave, not DAZ. Since I don't have LW, and since some of the features they use in LW are not even available in DAZ, I found this to be a bit frustrating and less helpful than it could have been. I got it on sale, as I recall, so it was worth sale price, and definitely worth 75% off if you are new to basic lighting principles. It's probably the best treatment of 7-point lighting I have seen. For 3-point, there are better free tuts on the web, frankly. Again.. worth the sale price, not the full price, IIMO.

As for figures... this will depend on what you are doing. I am making a webcomic myself, and it is a standard classical-style superhero comic, so I will need tons of characters -- supporting cast, villains, heroes, etc. I have, I dunno... a bunch of figures, and nowhere near enough. If you plan to do a large-scale comic with lots of characters then you will either need to buy a bunch of them, or plan to invest your time into doing a lot of morphing with dials and modding skin textures (because the morphs don't really help if you just keep applying the same skin to the different morphs -- it won't look like different people, or at least doesn't to me).

There are some characters who have multiple variants, e.g., the Johan character for Genesis has about a half dozen face shapes and body shapes. It only has one texture though. I use them for bit characters, or side characters who are only going to be in one scene, but I wouldn't use them for major characters due to the lack of unique skin textures.

So as for how many characters you could possibly need -- IMO, you need one DAZ character per major and minor character in your comic. You need 1 unique morph (without unique skin) per "extra" in your story (i.e., "red shirts").I would not attempt to work with anything less.

Your characters, however, can come from the same "figure." So for example, you can just use V6, and then pick all the different characters that have been made for her. You don't need to invest in Gia 6, Stephanie 6, etc. Personally, I like to do those, because each figure has some unique sculpting and the characters based on those figures are quite different from each other, so it makes things more variable. But you don't have to.

The other thing you're going to need is a nice varied wardrobe... it boots nothing to have 20 different unique-looking characters who all dress the same.

Thanks for the response. I've been picking up a few items to create unique characters and playing with the morphs, textures etc. I'm not sure how many characters will ever be in my comic. So far there is only four and one is a non-human.

The outfits I agree with and have attempted so far to purchase items that can be modified easily or have several options. Finding regular, not sex crazed or fantasy outfits is tough though.

atticanne

Wilmap has many, many regular outfits. Check out the General Freepository.

Steven-V

thenotoriousjed said:

The outfits I agree with and have attempted so far to purchase items that can be modified easily or have several options. Finding regular, not sex crazed or fantasy outfits is tough though.

Yes, this is actually a serious problem for me as well. My main character is a teenage girl (16) and several of the other major characters are friends who are her age (15-17), and I do NOT wan them looking sexy... but finding high-quality, nicely-designed clothing that is not overly sexy is not easy. There are certainly some good ones (the school uniforms are great, for example, and have lots of options), but if you decide to go "non-sexy" you are cutting your clothing options by 75% or more, it seems.

cecilia.robinson

When it comes to easy-to-modify items, I find those by Ravenhair very useful. But for everyday clothes... you can't beat Wilmap.