Digital Art Zone

I’ve been given a description - if you can call it that - of a person and asked to make a render of him.  The description is “Middle-aged black-haired male of Mediterranean descent, otherwise nondescript.” (There’s nothing like a really detailed character description, and this is nothing like a really detailed character description… The character’s background hints at him being either northern or eastern Mediterranean, which helps a bit.)

Whatever I come up with, I’ll be expected to share the “recipe” (not the files themselves, just the list of ingredients) with some other 3D artists, at least one of whom uses Blender instead of Daz Studio or Poser. Thus, Genesis is out. Everybody involved does have Michael 4, though.

Are there any nondescript Mediterranean males for M4 out there already? If not, what textures and morphs (injection or dial-spun) would people recommend?

Hmmm…

The ‘middle aged’ is a sticking point…there aren’t that many middle-aged characters around, period.  So you may have to do a little extra morphing to get there.

But for ‘not pretty boy’, sort of ‘normal’ try these guys…

http://www.daz3d.com/shop/stefan-for-m4-and-genesis
http://www.daz3d.com/shop/shaw-for-m4
http://www.daz3d.com/shop/yago

(Personally, I think Stefan is the most nondescript out of the lot…Yago definitely is distinctive.  Hmm…Yago’s skin with Stefan’s face may just be about right…)

And you aren’t specifying Greek, Italian, Egyptian (technically, yeah, it’s Mediterranean…), so pretty much anything goes.  Just find a good texture set in the ‘right’ coloration or tweak one and add a little age…

The problem there is that although the characters you have listed have the nondescript bit going for them, they don’t really shout Mediterranean.  Skin needs to be a bit deeper toned yet a bit sallow, especially with dark hair.

Quite a degree of hirsuitness in mediterraneun types as well.  My 1st husbadn was of italian descent, needed to shave twice a day to avoid the 5 oclock shadow, and quite a bit of body hair as well.  My eldest son inherited those tendecies, so they are strong genetic tendencies, as they had to fight with celtic genes on my side.

Oh and another thing is noses, they do tend to have strong noses.

A nondescript description.  Is that an oxymoron?

For that sort of skin tone, I am partial to VanishingPoint’s free VC textures for the Gen3 DAZ figures, myself.  Doesn’t have to be Asian:  with the right morph set, I could probably do the Cherokee linguist Sequoyah.  Then either use Hiro (and Capsces’ Hitoro) or M3, with whichever morphs best suit the effect.

chohole - 05 November 2012 04:09 PM

The problem there is that although the characters you have listed have the nondescript bit going for them, they don’t really shout Mediterranean.  Skin needs to be a bit deeper toned yet a bit sallow, especially with dark hair.

Quite a degree of hirsuitness in mediterraneun types as well.  My 1st husbadn was of italian descent, needed to shave twice a day to avoid the 5 oclock shadow, and quite a bit of body hair as well.  My eldest son inherited those tendecies, so they are strong genetic tendencies, as they had to fight with celtic genes on my side.

Oh and another thing is noses, they do tend to have strong noses.

I think Yago is the closest skin tone…but yeah, getting the skintone is going to be half the battle.

mjc1016 - 05 November 2012 03:44 PM

And you aren’t specifying Greek, Italian, Egyptian (technically, yeah, it’s Mediterranean…), so pretty much anything goes.  Just find a good texture set in the ‘right’ coloration or tweak one and add a little age…

I didn’t specify because I don’t know.

Yes, this is a difficult one to figure out. That’s why I’m asking for ideas…

Eustace Scrubb - 05 November 2012 05:57 PM

For that sort of skin tone, I am partial to VanishingPoint’s free VC textures for the Gen3 DAZ figures, myself.  Doesn’t have to be Asian:  with the right morph set, I could probably do the Cherokee linguist Sequoyah.  Then either use Hiro (and Capsces’ Hitoro) or M3, with whichever morphs best suit the effect.

I’m partial to those textures myself; I just upconverted the male texture to M4 with TC2, and they had surprisingly little stretching on the head and armpit/chest, unlike other textures.

Actually, to get the skintones right, you could try the free rDNA Skintones for V4 from ShareCG (it’s only set of a diffuse tones preset; works on any Gen4 texture not just V4). It has a range of diffuse undertones, and as long as you don’t go too dark, it should help get the right tone on any skin. That way, you could try using Yago, if you wanted. I used it to make Soul Vampire from RDNA look ... well, not dead, mostly. I wasn’t really aiming for Mediterranean.

That said, allowing for the lack of specificity in the requirements, Yago may read as too old and too scarred for what they want. I’m guessing with that lack of information, a very strongly defined character like that may be a bit more than they’re looking for.

If you can use earlier generation figures and textures, Hong M3 by Vanishing Point would be a good texture, yes (although Hong himself understandably reads as distinctly Asian).

If you don’t mind spending a bit of money, you could also try ART Kieran from here (I think he works much better on David than on M3, meself), but again, you’d need to put the texture over an older character morph. Or, if you really need M4 and not earlier, you could try the texture from Santo International or Jepe’s Ian-Pierre, but both character morphs are far too young for what you need. For that matter, maybe Jepe’s Rodan 2 would work; he’s actually designed to be a bit older. (Then again, if you don’t already have him, that may be a touch more than you’d want to spend; I got him in the PA sale and didn’t remember the price.)

Or ... you could try Clifford from ShareCG or Kevin for M4 by the same person. They’re both older base characters to start with, so you can always just swap in a different texture, and you can always swap in darker eye colors from other characters, if needed. If you think those textures would work but are too fair, you can try using the Skintones on them.