Digital Art Zone

Hello all,

I downloaded DazStudio a long time ago and never got around to really learning much about it.  While I did monkey around with it a bit, I never really felt comfortable enough to buy anything, for fear of not knowing how to make use of it.  Now it’s several versions later I still feel lost and confused by the sheer number of items in the shop.  I’m looking for help to let me know what is necessary, what is useful and what is redundant when it comes to the new DazStudio 4.5.

What I’m confused about:

Genesis is not content but a new tool that’s part of DazStudio for morphing between targets?  Called shapes?
version 5 content, such as Michael 5 and Victoria 5, are all Genesis compatible?
Older content such as The Kids 4 Base is still DazStudio compatible but doesn’t make use of Genesis?
In the event that content is available as a Genesis shape (such as The Freak 4) then the older versions are not required?
Can DazStudio export to 3DStudioMAX and/or Mudbox using a format other than OBJ?  Preferably via an FBX format?

What I primarily use for 3D:

3DStudioMAX for content generation and animation
Mudbox for sculpting
Photoshop for everything 2D

What I hope to achieve by adding DazStudio to my workflow:

Base models for both male and female adults and children that can be used for sculpting in Mudbox
Muscle morphing to provide quick, broad variations in body shape and size
Facial morphing to provide quick, broad variations in appearance
Expression morphing to provide quick, broad variations in emotion
Ethnicity morphing to provide quick, broad variations in race
Simple posing for animatics, storyboards and/or graphic novels

Is all of this possible with DazStudio 4.5?

What I do NOT need:

I don’t need genitals, hair, clothing, textures, props or other objects.
Lights and rendering.  I have no intention of rendering directly from DazStudio.

What I think I need:

I realize much of the content below is available in bundles, but I’m trying to be specific so I don’t miss anything.

Basic People

Adult Male - Michael 5
Adult Female - Victoria 5
Babies - Baby for Genesis

Other People

Teens - Millennium Kids - Young Teens
Children - Millennium Kids- Preschoolers
Kids - The Kids 4 Base
Toddlers - Kids 4 Toddler

These are versions 3 & 4 content… is there nothing newer that covers these age ranges?

Morph Tools

Body variety - Genesis Evolution: Body Morphs
Head Varity - Genesis Evolution: Head Morphs
Muscle variety - Genesis Evolution: Muscularity
Ethnicity variety - Ethnicity for Genesis Bundle
Expression variety - Genesis Evolution: Expressions
Creature variety - Genesis Creature Creator Bundle

What I think might be very useful but may be redundant:

Adult Female 2 - Stephanie 5
Additional Female Bodies - Feminine Touch for Genesis
Additional Male Bodies - Manly Men M5

What I’m not sure I need:
V4 and M4 Shapes for Genesis
Gen 4 Iconic Shapes for Genesis
David 3 for Genesis

Are these necessary or is it now possible to create these using only Genesis with M5/V5 and body morphs?

Genesis is not content but a new tool that’s part of DazStudio for morphing between targets?  Called shapes?

There is a lot of content in your post, but I will make a start.

Genesis is very definitely ‘Content’, it is a brand new base figure which is unlike the previous generation figures.  It has completely different rigging, and even some different body parts.  The main point of Genesis is that it can be any figure you like, by using morphs which are designed specially for genesis (like the ones you have listed), or using ZBrush or similar to create your own.

Genesis can be a man, woman, child, gorilla, ogre etc etc.  The Iconic Shapes for genesis are just that, ‘Shapes’.  They make Genesis ‘look like’ the previous versions, but that is where the similarity ends.  Previous morph packages for say V4 or M3 will not load onto Genesis, because at the end of the day, the figure is Genesis and not V4/M4/V3/M3 etc.  Older morphs for these figures can be transferred by using the GenX plugin from the store with good success.

What you need to buy is really a matter for you.  I think the Evolution morphs ar very good, and would certainly give you a start.  The Iconic shapes also add a ‘clone’ to the Autofit plugin for people who want to use the clothes for Gen4 or even Gen3 figures, but is you don;t need clothing, you may not need this.

With ZBrush, I believe that you can do almost anything to Genesis to achieve character types.  I hope that helps a bit at least.

I should add, that Genesis is UV Mapped to take V4, M4 and Kids4 textures as well.

Feminine Touch for Genesis is not really redundant with the stuff you listed above it. It has 8 unique bodies and heads. They are a great time saver and I prefer a few of the shapes in this pack over the V5 and V5 supermodel shapes.

There isn’t Gen5 content for the younger age ranges yet from daz. . There are Genesis pre-teens over at Rendo.

Since you don’t have an interest in hair, clothing, textures, etc. and are only trying to give yourself shapes to work with, I’d say you probably don’t need any of the Millenium Kids or Kids 4 stuff. Adjusting the Genesis “child shape slider” mixed with other sliders and individual morphs of body parts will probably let you create a model at whatever apparent age you’re looking for.

It sounds like to me that you are interested in taking Genesis, the base shape, and morphing it into your own shapes as quickly as possible.

To that end, Michael 5, Victoria 5, and Stephanie 5, are all just shapes that you add into your shaping mix. For example, you could make Genesis into 50% V5 and 50% S5. That would create an entirely new shape that you might or might not like. That’s the benefit of the iconic shapes for Genesis as well from generation 4 and generation 3.

From what it sounds like you’re saying, I think you would find most useful the evolution and muscularity bundles. The ethnicity bundles can be useful for generic ethnicities, but you may want to modify it further to make it unique.

You may want to take a look at genesis body morph resource kits found here and Die Trying’s free 184 morphs that have been converted for Genesis at sharecg.

I don’t know if Millenium kids or the Kids 4 base is compatible at all with Genesis. That’s something to look into before you buy it.

GenX is super handy if you have generation 4 shapes/morphs you like and want to transfer them over into sliders. It can transfer the Gen4 expressions, for example. Very nice. That’s what I’m doing, since there are more expression morphs that I like for that generation.

Teens - Millennium Kids - Young Teens
Children - Millennium Kids- Preschoolers
Kids - The Kids 4 Base
Toddlers - Kids 4 Toddler

Considering your parameters I would absolutely skip these. Using already included morphs, basic kid for example, scaling and other current and potential juvenile morphs you should be able to do a wide variety of ages and shapes. You also could look at some of the characters available that have more child like faces. Some of those will include the large eyed fairy type characters. Adding them in small doses should help get a variety of children’s faces.

Also something to take into account if you’re getting some content bundles is the PC membership. It costs $30 for the first month, but every daz original (which includes most of the bundles) is 30 percent off right away. So that could be worth it.

There may be a Daz original sale at the end of the Snowball Savings sale. That’s been the pattern, and lately it’s been 50% off for everyone, which translates into 65% for PC club members. But there may not be a sale, we don’t know for sure. That’s just something to take into account.

And last, Thorne has Barliecorne on sale. If you buy her, you can get 50% off the genesis body and head morphing kits if you buy them at the same time. A great deal, and you probably won’t find one better. But that deal ends today at midnight, so you’ll have to move fast on it.

Barliecorne won’t be that useful to you on its own unless you end up using GenX. (To use GenX you’ll need V4, M4, H4, and A4, but you can get them and the morphs++ plus a bunch of other stuff that comes with a CD on this book. Make sure you get the one I linked to and not the 2nd edition, since the 2nd edition doesn’t come with content.)

larsmidnatt - 11 December 2012 08:20 AM

Feminine Touch for Genesis is not really redundant with the stuff you listed above it. It has 8 unique bodies and heads. They are a great time saver and I prefer a few of the shapes in this pack over the V5 and V5 supermodel shapes.

There isn’t Gen5 content for the younger age ranges yet from daz. . There are Genesis pre-teens over at Rendo.

I use FT all the time… it’s a great time saver for me.  The only thing that bothers me about them is that all the body shapes have nipples embedded… I haven’t got around to eliminating those yet…

wancow - 11 December 2012 02:09 PM

larsmidnatt - 11 December 2012 08:20 AM

Feminine Touch for Genesis is not really redundant with the stuff you listed above it. It has 8 unique bodies and heads. They are a great time saver and I prefer a few of the shapes in this pack over the V5 and V5 supermodel shapes.

There isn’t Gen5 content for the younger age ranges yet from daz. . There are Genesis pre-teens over at Rendo.

I use FT all the time… it’s a great time saver for me.  The only thing that bothers me about them is that all the body shapes have nipples embedded… I haven’t got around to eliminating those yet…

How do you eliminate the nipples? The only thing I know how to do is completely reduce their opacity in the surface tab…It would be nice to eliminate that step if you’ve got a way.

I’ve got a ton of nipple morphs so usually you can just spin some of them into the negative territory and that helps. But it takes a bit of trial and error for depending which nipple morphs you have and what nips your trying to reduce.

wancow - 11 December 2012 02:09 PM

larsmidnatt - 11 December 2012 08:20 AM

Feminine Touch for Genesis is not really redundant with the stuff you listed above it. It has 8 unique bodies and heads. They are a great time saver and I prefer a few of the shapes in this pack over the V5 and V5 supermodel shapes.

There isn’t Gen5 content for the younger age ranges yet from daz. . There are Genesis pre-teens over at Rendo.

I use FT all the time… it’s a great time saver for me.  The only thing that bothers me about them is that all the body shapes have nipples embedded… I haven’t got around to eliminating those yet…

Not 100% sure, but I think I’ve used the nipple morph in the DieTrying set, dialed in a negative direction, to remove the Feminine Touch nipples when necessary.

Edit: larsmidnatt beat me to it!

Scott-Livingston - 11 December 2012 02:55 PM

wancow - 11 December 2012 02:09 PM

larsmidnatt - 11 December 2012 08:20 AM

Feminine Touch for Genesis is not really redundant with the stuff you listed above it. It has 8 unique bodies and heads. They are a great time saver and I prefer a few of the shapes in this pack over the V5 and V5 supermodel shapes.

There isn’t Gen5 content for the younger age ranges yet from daz. . There are Genesis pre-teens over at Rendo.

I use FT all the time… it’s a great time saver for me.  The only thing that bothers me about them is that all the body shapes have nipples embedded… I haven’t got around to eliminating those yet…

Not 100% sure, but I think I’ve used the nipple morph in the DieTrying set, dialed in a negative direction, to remove the Feminine Touch nipples when necessary.

Edit: larsmidnatt beat me to it!

Thanks, both of you, for the quick reply!

I was actually going to do it in Hex… create an anti FTNipple morph

wancow - 11 December 2012 03:56 PM

I was actually going to do it in Hex… create an anti FTNipple morph

That’s a good idea.

Thank you all for your input.  It seems you have a very friendly and helpful community here.

@JimmyC_2009
I get it now.  I finally installed the latest version of DAZ3D and the Genesis starter kit.  It’s a new base model with improved Parameters and such.  If I understand you correctly, I don’t think I see a particular reason to get any older content that is not Genesis ready.

@larsmidnatt
I did like the presets for Feminine Touch, and Manly Men seems to offer a similar solution for the Male gender.

@asd000
I monkeyed around with the Basic Child sliders on the Genesis model today.  The 100% setting is appropriate for most children, but I think I’ll still want to look into getting Toddler and Teen shapes, to minimize my guess work with the sliders.

@sikeus
That’s right, I just need base shapes I can get into a sculpting program to minimize my workflow.  I do think the Evolution and Muscularity bundles would give me much greater control over the base to help minimize sculpting time.  And the Ethnicity bundle will allow me to get broad, generic racial features in place before sculpting unique features and detail.

Thanks for pointing out the Genesis Body Morph Resource Kits.  It look like those might give me greater control and reduce sculpting even further.  And the Genesis Head Morph Resource Kits seem useful as well.

As for DieTrying’s V4 Morphs for Genesis… does that require Victoria4 as well?  Between all the Genesis morph kits, I think I would be pretty well covered on variety, unless there’s something you think is unique about this addon?

As for GenX, I don’t care to use old gen4 content, so I’m guessing it doesn’t really apply to me.

@Khory
I think I agree.  As mentioned to asd000, I was able to find the Basic Child slider and it seems to serve the purpose.  I wish there was a Todder and Teen shape though.

@sikeus
Thanks for the heads up.  Unfortunately, I’m not quite ready to buy this month.  Just need to see what it’s gonna take to get this rolling.  Come New Year and with tax returns, I should be in good shape.

@wancow
I’ll keep that in mind.  Nipples may or may not be needed depending on the character I am working on.  Easy enough to adjust them in a sculpting program like Mudbox.

Again… thanks everyone for your input.  I think I’ll settle on sticking with the Genesis content and avoid too many legacy addons.  I recall monkeying around with Poser and DAZ a year or two ago, downloading some free shapes and morphs here and there.  I found that most authors paid little head to file structure and pretty soon my library was a complete mess.  I could never find what I was looking for, I was buried in folders of clothing and props that I didn’t need, and my OCD said screw it!

So, I think I’ll do:
Genesis Michael Victoria Combo Bundle which comes with the Head, Body, Expressions, and Muscularity
Ethnicity
Feminine
Manly
Creature Bundle

That should keep my library to a minimum, focusing mainly on morphing slider controls as opposed to large libraries of content.  I’ll think on Stephanie5 and Baby and keep my eyes open for some sort of Teenager and Toddler addons for Genesis.

I welcome any additional input and I’ll let you know what I end up doing come January!

It’s just that on the FT bodies, they’re an annoyance when applying clothing… I almost always turn nipples off or at least way down when I have clothing on my figure that’ll be deformed by a nipple.