New here, hoping for some clarifications and advice!

StrangeFate

HI all,

After reading up all my brain could absorb in the afternoon, I thought it might help to get some confirmations or clarifications on some things. Things are clearer than mud, but not crystal either, yet. Most of the documentation I found seemed a bit dated with broken links or with Poser info mixed in... so things feel slightly muddy right now.

 

I have been in the video games industry for about 15 years now since about a year moved into a more contract based life style. In an effort to somewhat start moving away from Video games  I've been thinking about and dabbling into other areas and well, I was thinking about adding Daz content to my list of things I could do to replace some of the video game art income.

I have a lot of content, either done for work over the years that could be potentially modified to work here and lots of freetime projects, but I had some questions:

 

1. I work a lot in SubD for hipoly models. From what I gathered, SubD was added to Daz3D recently (?). Looking through the store, most items seem simple, almost more in line with video game mesh densities.
Aside from the increased rendering time with higher poly meshes, is there a reason SubD is discouraged or not recommended (compatibility with older software versions perhaps), or is it that most authors around here are more comfortable with regular polygon meshes ?
I have a hunch that mid-poly models would be ideal ? ...more definition than video games, but with some details still baked down into a displacement/normal/bump.

 

2. From what I understood so far, I should be able to export any of the Daz Characters in a standard pose if I want to model gear / clothing for them ?
This would include 3rd party characters (?) ...ie. I see a nice minotaur character in the store, buy it, export it, model gear for it in my 3D app, import and set up gear back into Daz, put gear for sale (after going through the QA process).

 

3. I understand that Genesis 3 is the only character that comes with the package (or needs to be purchased separately ?) which morphs any gear/clothes along with however you scale or shape the figure's body ?
Other than that, you need to manually adjust clothing if you make something for 1 male or female body mesh, and want it to work on another (?).

 

4. What would be the best body/character to do gear for initially ? Genesis 3 ? ...are others more popular ?

 

5. I imagine Daz material settings are comparable with that of renderers in regular 3D apps ? .bump, displacement, normalmaps (?) diffuse, SSS, emissive, alpha/transparencies / blending modes...

 

6. No vertex blending between materials I imagine. (Painting weights on a mesh that then are used to blend 2 materials together, typical video game workflow to paint dirt roads into grass etc etc).

 

7. Exclusivity... from what I read, if I sell something here, I wouldn't be able to sell it elsewhere (?). Would that only apply to the Daz content package that's on sale here, or do they claim the art too... as in, can I sell an item here in Daz's format but then sell the model and textures on turbosquid in other formats ? Or sell a textued lowpoly here and the hipoly elsewhere ?

 

8. ...And the 6 million dollar question, is it worth it ? 
I've done a fair amount of reading on it and I have a little experience with Turbosquid and similar 3D sites. We've used it for work and I spread 1 object through them many years ago that made me a few hundred bucks over.... 2 years I think, which equals slave labour salary, but was more fun than let's say... video games these days. Obviously, quality, quantity and niche play a role, but would you say the community is as healthy as one could hope for ? Is it worth it doing things for Daz (1 app) vs. sticking to Turbosquid that should have a broader clientele ?

To give an idea of what I'd like to do for starters:

-I've been designing and selling modular figures for 3D printing which could have their gear adapted and ported into Daz (Some fabrics are not modeled out because they were just placeholders for real fabric afgter printing and details I usually limit to what I think will print, as resolution is a bit limited for cheaper materials):

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/6427480/Alk/preview2a.jpg
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/6427480/Amazons/AmazonA.jpg
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/6427480/ConanGirl/ConanGirl2.jpg
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/6427480/NVC/preview4a.jpg
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/6427480/Thor/ThorWIP2.jpg
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/6427480/Skeleton-Base/Sheaths.jpg  (is there a good skeleton character ?)
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/6427480/Skeleton-Base/Slave.jpg
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/6427480/Skeleton-Base/SL01-Lich.jpg

Misc Gear...
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/6427480/MiscGear/2Snakes.jpg
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/6427480/MiscGear/Axe19.jpg
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/6427480/MiscGear/Hammer18.jpg
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/6427480/Skeleton-Base/TargesBucklers-1.jpg

And some 3D printed and painted samples (if you were curious).. They're painted with Acrylics:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/6427480/Alk/MAR_3213.jpg
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/6427480/Alk/MAR_3234.jpg
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/6427480/Thor/MAR_2807-WEB.jpg
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/6427480/StrayFox/WB-MAR_1911.jpg
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/6427480/DT/MAR_2679.jpg
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/6427480/ConanGirl/MAR_2964_WEB.jpg
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/6427480/ConanGirl/MAR_2958_WEB.jpg

etc etc

Beyond that, I'd be interested in porting my old and making new small Fantasy and Sci Fi art sets / buildings and dioramas. New stuff would be higher poly, rely less on typical video game tricks:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/6427480/Keepers/EggRoom2.jpg
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/6427480/Keepers/EggRoom1.jpg

 

Sorry for the long post... any suggestions, tips, answers, ideas, general wisdom on the subject etc would be very welcome.

Mario

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Richard Haseltine

1. SubD has been in DS for the whole of the DS4 run (which is several years), I can't now recall if we had it in 3. I don'tt hink there's any active discouragement of the use of SubD, though if you do want tot arget Poser as well as DS you need to bear in mind that Poser doesn't, unless it was added in the latest version, support edge-weighting (DS does, and will read it from an FBX import).

2. Broadly yes. I'm not sure which minotaur you are looking at, but if it lists one of the Daz figures as a requried product it is a shape for that figure and ideally clothing etc. should be modelled arounf the base (it is possible to subtract the effect of a morph from a shape before rigging, but the results of such a reverse projection will usually be less polished than an item modelled diectly on the base).

3. Genesis, Genesis 2 Female, Genesis 2 male, Genesis 3 Female, and Genesis 3 male are included with DAZ Studio. There are AutoFit clones included that will allow clothes for the preceeding gernation of the same sex and the current generation of the opposite sex to be converted, and the conversions can be saved and used as a basis for fuirther conversion. The store has other clone shapes, for going backwards or skipping generations. AutoConversion is not usually regarded as store-ready though, at the very least it needs tidying up.

4. The current geenration would probably be the ideal target, though there iss til demand for Genesis 2 content and at least soem demand for earlier generations.

5. Maps would be usable in other application, only the most nbasic settings will transfer though. DS can use MDL shaders in Iray.

6. No, but using a Sahder Mixer sahder it is possible to do alpha blending of materials.

7. I'm not sure - you would need to discuss that with PA support.

8. Not being a PA I can't really comment. The top vendors suport themselves on their PA income, but tothers may beed additional sources. It wil take a while, with multiples releases, to build a steady icnome in any event.

mjc1016

1. It's more of a 'catching up without overwhelming older hardware' type thing.  Most of the community is hobbyist and do not devote much monetary resources towards hardware that won't bog down under a higher poly workload.  There is also the 'that's the way it's always been done' factor in there, too.

2.  Pretty much it...but most often it is best to model to the BASE figure.   Most of the things like the Minotaur are just morphs for the base figure.   In some cases it does make sense to use the morphed figure, but it is more difficult (not impossible) to set up/rig/turn into a usable/salable product.

3.  Actually all 3 generations of Genesis come with the current version of Studio...and there are some morphs and basic content...not a lot, but enough to get most people started.

4. Genesis 3 is the newest (coming close to 1 yr for G3F and 6 months for G3M)  so support isn't quite as wide as the Genesis 2 based figures, which are pushing 3yrs old.   But that said, the bases or Victoria/Michael versions are the most popular  and would generate the widest content audience.

5.  Yes, materials are fairly standard....there are 2 included renderers, 3Delight (although many of the most recent features are not supported very well by the current shaders) and Nvidia's Iray (PBR materials do work in it).

6.   No, nothing like that...although some of that is lack of shaders more than anything else.

7.  Not sure exactly how exclusive the exclusivity is....a current PA would need to comment on that or you'd have to ask directly (not even sure exactly who to ask, but a properly tagged CS request should get to the right person...)

8.  Yes, some PAs do make a living at it...others (I'm working toward this one) as supplemental income or a way to make a little something off what they'd be doing for fun, anyway.  No, it's not a path to 'riches beyond imagining', but it can pay the bills.

PS: Love the shields, especially the one with the Celtic style horse.

StrangeFate

Richard, Mjc1016, thanks a lot for the responses. I think they give me a pretty good idea of things.

Good to hear it supports edge weighting, I do almost everything that way these days, although after sleeping over it, I'll probably go with a turbosmoothed/tesselated medium poly approach and bake displacement and normalmaps for it, that should help compatibility long term.

I prefer PBR these days so it's great to hear that works too. I imagine exporting PBR and regular maps would be the best choice here as some will prefer the one or other renderer.