Digital Art Zone

Hi all,

I am new to DAZ3D, and there are a number of questions I haven’t seen the answer to yet in the forums, so I hope that some people here can help me.

1. I have purchased Victoria 5 Pro and Michael 5 Pro in the hope that I would be able to create unique faces. I haven’t explored all the possibilities yet I assume, but how do you create a unique face in DAZ3D?

2. When purchasing items in the shop, there are always many more individual items than expected. For instance, I already have 365 items in my download list just by purchasing 3 or 4 bundles. As I work on PC, I assume that I don’t need to download anything that ends with Mac. But for example, if I consider the item Pure Hair, there are:

- Poser Companion
- Legacy
- DSON Core

Which one do I need? Or do I need all of them, and why are there 3 different ones?

3. Does any of you work in video games? I am looking to create the characters for my game in DAZ3D, and then export them in Unity with their animations. I also would like to use iClone 5 for its motion capture features. Anyone else trying to use this pipeline too?

Thanks in advance for your help!

1. The Victoria and Michael sets do not include multiple shaping morphs of the kind you need to make many different characters - the basic shaping morphs for Genesis and the Evolution Head and Body morph sets, which can be used on a base Genesis or on the Michael or Victoria shapes.

2. For DAZ Studio 4.5 you don’t need the Poser companion files, or the Legacy files. However, for some older items you may need the Poser and DAZ Studio installers (if, for example, DS users need to load the Poser figures or props and then apply DS-specific materials included in the DS installer). Personally I always download all of the Windows installers, so I can archive them against future need.

3. Remember that if your game is going to use 3D data you would need a Game Developer License

Thanks for your answer, Richard!

1. OK, thanks for the confirmation, I was not sure I looked correctly. Would you be able to tell me what is the best way to edit/adjust facial features to end up with a face that is unique?

2. I am not sure what you mean here… sorry but I JUST downloaded the program, and am starting. What is a Poser figure or prop? In the doubt, I will download all of them. But it seems that if I install the 3 of them, I end up with duplicates (or triplicates

3. Thanks for the reminder. I’ll check that if ever I do use DAZ3D stuff, which is far from certain at that stage, as I am mostly evaluating. It seemed much easier than creating a model and rigging it in Maya, but I am not sure yet that it is the way to go. I’ll figure it out.

Also another question:

4. It seems like there are a number of items that are meant to work with Genesis, Victoria 3, 4 or 5, or Stephanie, or whatever… What are the differences in concept between say Victoria 4 and 5, and would an item meant to work on Genesis actually work correctly on Victoria 5? I am asking, because in the Victoria 5 Pro package, there are items that specify that they are designed for Genesis (like body morphs for instance).

This should help Genesis is the Gen5 figure all version 5 figures like V5 M5 are versions of genesis. All genesis items will work on other Gen5 figures.

eric.lagel - 06 January 2013 02:10 PM

1. OK, thanks for the confirmation, I was not sure I looked correctly. Would you be able to tell me what is the best way to edit/adjust facial features to end up with a face that is unique?

Essentially, find the morphs for shaping the head in the Parameters pane, or use the Region selection tool to drill down to the face and look to the Shaping pane, and adjust the sliders until you get the result you want.

2. I am not sure what you mean here… sorry but I JUST downloaded the program, and am starting. What is a Poser figure or prop? In the doubt, I will download all of them. But it seems that if I install the 3 of them, I end up with duplicates (or triplicates

It’s very hard to give a hard-and-fast answer - if the Poser installer (with dpc in the name) is a lot bigger than the DS installer then you probably need both, if they are of similar size then the DS installer should be all that’s needed (the exceptions are mostly Platinum Club items).

Victoria 2….is second generation
Victoria 3   third
Victoria 4 fourth
Victoria 5 fifth and current generation….

For the most part, if it is a morph for V5, while it will mostly work, on the base Genesis it won’t look the same.  And if it uses the V5 UV mapping, then without V5, the skin won’t work…

Now the reverse is better.  Since V5 is a morph for Genesis, all the other Genesis morphs will work on V5…and all the UV mappings supported will work.

Thanks guys that helped.

I have now found the settings to adjust all facial features, and that’s pretty much really what I needed to find. Starting from Victoria, I am able to change her face to someone completely different.

I guess these are the settings that have been brought by installing http://www.daz3d.com/genesis-evolution-head-morphs.

Out of curiosity, are there more settings available for facial features?

There are morph packs available on the Daz 3D marketplace which you can buy fairly cheaply. They’ll expand your choice of sliders for morphing Genesis in various ways and aren’t limited to just the face either. Asian faces, for example. The Young Teens set also provides a younger look face and body with new textures and the Satsuki character also has some great new sliders you can make use of, as well as a beautiful new skin texture.

Browse the store. There are some great deals going on at the moment, so it might be the perfect time to bulk out your choices without emptying your wallet.

If you want lots of customisation options look at the Head Morph Resource Kits, http://www.daz3d.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=“Head+Morph+resource”&x=0&y=0

eric.lagel - 06 January 2013 05:25 PM

Thanks guys that helped.

I have now found the settings to adjust all facial features, and that’s pretty much really what I needed to find. Starting from Victoria, I am able to change her face to someone completely different.

I guess these are the settings that have been brought by installing http://www.daz3d.com/genesis-evolution-head-morphs.

Out of curiosity, are there more settings available for facial features?

http://www.sharecg.com/v/58198/gallery/21/DAZ-Studio/DieTryings-182-V4-Morphs-for-Genesis

Thanks, these links are pretty useful, the DieTrying182 stuff is amazing.

I am just in the process of grasping how the different models relate to each other, but is that true to assume that both Victoria 5 and Michael 5 are simply morphs of Genesis? If I dig into the folders where I have installed the DieTrying182 morphs, I have found a series of Morphs DSON files under the Michael and Victoria folders.

In other words, the morph sliders are all you need to change the face and body of the basic Genesis character to match any figure possible? It seems like all you need is the right set of sliders to achieve the results you want.

Are all characters sold in the shop a modified version of Genesis thanks to sliders?

short answer: yes and no.

Genesis is a figure Daz created that can be morphed into countless other characters.  It really is a work of genius on Daz’ part. 

http://www.daz3d.com/products/genesis/genesis-what-is-genesis

Without giving a full blown History lesson, prior figures of Daz were built as individual creations.  There were men, women, boy, and girl figures -each with its own set of clothes.  With Genesis, there’s one figure that (with the right morphs, which are often purchased) can be morphed into different characters, with basically one clothing set.  Older clothes can be used, but with mixed results.  There are about five generations of figures; you’ll want to stick with Generation 4 & 5.  Hair made for prior figures is usually not worth it.  OTOH, the “look at my hair” product is something I’m looking forward to getting.

So “Are all characters sold in the shop a modified version of Genesis thanks to sliders?” is a problematic question.  Look for compatibility. 

The Daz shop (and other shops selling Daz & poser content) still sells stuff made for older figures.  When evaluating a product on the DAZ site, just look for the word, “compatibility”  and it should spell it out for you.  Other sites - notably the sharecg site - will give you stuff made for other programs - poser stuff can often be made to work, but stuff for vue, & bryce usually isn’t worth the trouble.  On Sharecg, text search for the word, “format”.  Look for “daz”, and “genesis”  for morphs &  clothes.  For noncharacter props, (ie furniture,)  “.obj” will usually be the format you want.

If it’s for Genesis, it’ll usually say so.  If it’s made for a prior figure (such as Victoria 4, Michael 4, the kids 4) it can often be made to work, pretty easily, using “autofit” but it may not be perfect.  Hair made for prior figures is much less predictable.  There are ways to make even Generation 3 stuff work, bit that’s mostly for legacy purposes and since you’re pretty new, it’s probably not worth it for you to use the older stuff.

Thanks for your detailed answer, even if that means that compatibility problem is becoming much more important than I would have expected .

This helped quite much.