Do I have to purchase an 'Interactive Licence' before exporting a 3d model?
epicjohndoe8
Posts: 1
Hi, I'm kind of new around here and I'm currently learning how to use Daz 3D for game development.
I've got this 3D third person shooter project in Unity and paid for character assets/models from Daz.
What I'm having troubles with at the moment is that I'm on a tight budget and it's quite costly for me to purchase interactive licences for each and every one of my items.
So my main concern is,
do I need to purchase all interactive licences before exporting the models or can I export the models without purchasing and pay for it later?
The reason why this gets on my nerves is because I'm unsure that I'll be able to finish my project, and I might end up wasting alot of money from interactive licences since they're not refundable.
How does the system work?
Will Daz 3D monitor an indie game if their models are used? What if a character looks like he or she is from daz but it's actually an asset from the Unity Asset Store.
Do they mod the game and try to prove it some how? When does Daz ask if your using an interactive licence for every model so you can confirm it?
What are the punishments if one licence was forgotten to be paid?
Will Daz simply ask you to takedown your game because of copyright infringement or will they do something a lot worse?
The thing I find quite sad is that aparently there used be a Game Developer License that I would've payed for and it probably would've been a lot easier since the entire thing is already paid.
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Comments
The key part of the interactive licence is that it relates to purposes "which may require access to the CRT Content by the User’s customer during electronic execution of the User’s application".
Other than an addendum about making it hard for this third-party to reverse engineer the content, this addition is the only significant change to the interactive licence, which is otherwise almost identically worded to the standard licence.
If the assets are not being shared with anyone else, the interactive licence is not necessary. As long as it is strictly personal use and personal testing, use of Daz assets in a game engine is covered by the licence to "access, use, copy and modify the Content in the creation and presentation of two-dimensional animations and renderings" (and if use in game engines wasn't covered by that, then the Interactive licence would be useless for gaming, as that's all that the interactive licence gives permisson to do with re-distributed assets. Ultimately, what appears on a screen during gaming is a two-dimensional animation)
However, the moment any model exported from DAZ leaves your computer for someone else's use (even for testing purposes), you will then need the extended licence, as that other individual is otherwise not licenced for use of the content.
The best way to get an accurate definitve answer it to contact Daz yourself by filing a help ticket.
AFAIK this is not an accurate statement, this is not part of the useage of the interactive license. testing is not part of the interactive license.
I understand that such use of assets in a game engine is covered by the interactive licence, but what happens if you've exported a model with all licences payed and left out the one for your character's hair by accident.
Does the .fbx model file save details of all licences used?
~Edit: I'll be contacting Daz
AS I have already said, your queries cannot be answered definitively on the Forum, you need to ask Daz,
you asked "How would Daz deal with these sort of people?" The answer to that is in the ToS Scroll down to the bottom and read the last two sections.
Yea, I'll try contacting technical support.
well for my experience and what the support passed to me was which you only need to buy the "license" before you release the game for sell or public usage as long you are still in the "development" you can do whatever you are free to use any stuff, without have to worry about buy the licenses, i've only had bought some licenses during a "super license sales" where the licenses was like 70% less costing then during that time i bought some of the licenses i could but only due to the sales, otherwise you are free to use any daz asset outside daz and if is "for render" you can even sell, you only need the license if you are to distribut the stuff to others peoples have acess to the stuffs, but if you are just rendering or making animation outside daz you can do that but for game you just can free work and only buy the license when you are going to release the game or have "alpha or beta acesss to peoples" then is when you have to start to buy all licenses.
remember you must buy the license from the starter generation you are using, like if you are using the genesis 8 then before buy "any other license" you must buy the stater license product, while for render the product is 'free" to use any genesis character or morph you must purchase this interactive license first
https://www.daz3d.com/genesis-8-starter-essentials
then buy the licenses for each product you are buying, here a tip if you have bought any "bundle product" like victoria pro brundle 8 or michael pro bundle 8 or whatever other bundle, you only need to pay for the interactive license of the bundle it automatically make you don't need to pay for any mor for the licenses of the stuffs inside that bundle, for many bundles it can be a really price reduction, then when buy stuffs make sure to first pay attention to buy bundles firsts because it can reduce a lot the ammount of money you gonna pay for the licenses and only buy stuff you "really need".
here some tips from a fellow developer, becarefull with "cloths" and specially hairs, many really cool and awesome "outfits while looking awesome they are "too high poly to use in game unless you are going to have "few characters in the screen (like at best 3 to 4) at same time otherwise really try to find the "poly count of any outift you want to buy before".
the same goes specially for hairs, many daz hairs are "insane high poly" by insane i means 100+ vertices, specially "fibermesh" avoid it, any 'fibermesh" just forget, also the new "dforce hair and fur don't work outside daz then also avoid any dazforce hair or fur(outfits works fine), the most "low poly hairs" you can find more often in "old genesis" specially if they are from the "pure hair" series from genesis 1(generation 5), some "hairs from daz generation 6 pro bundles can be also "low poly" at last in a good number, some hairs from the generation 7 and genesis 8 can be low but are rare and most often if you look for "anime or cartoon style hairs, for "realistic hairs you need to dig a lot when using genesis 3 and 8, well the same can go for the others older generations but in they cases almost anything "outside" the generations bundles have a high chance to be high poly.
when comes to cloths i've ended found which the "best genesis to look for are", genesis 8 in general from the pro bundles, all pro bundles from old generations can be a "miss and hit", in the case of genesis 3(generation 7) they are most of the times miss and very high poly count.
but if you know how to do a proper retopology for the cloths and reduce the poly count and do the weight influence then you can use any cloth otherwise becarefull.
if you carefull look you can find some posts with "poly count" of some outfits and hairs, you can also ask the support for then pass the poly count but it can really take a lot of time, then maybe can be more fast looking here in the forum.
then my advices are :
avoid any dforce hair or fur based product
avoid any fibermesh based product
becarefull when buying outfits and specially hairs try to ask for the poly count before going buying stuffs here on forum or you can ending wuth some really amazing look stuffs but totally useless outside daz(if it's for game)
the most important license to buy first is the start license then the others you can buy later when you see a great deal
do not be like me and go in a "frenzy" buying stuffs because you can ending with a lot of disappointments and having to ask for a lot of refunds
daz have a police of refund if you buy anything you don't like or don't work for you, you have 30 days time to ask for a refund
some products come with a sor of "geoshell which outside daz is useless but in some cases they can give you a 'extra texture to work with" but in others they are useless, then any product purelly based on geoshell have a big chance to be useless for you, if the geoshell is just "part" of the product then it can be just a minor losing" but if it is the "main product itself" then becarefull and in any doubt don't buy it.
any other question i can help later.
honestly for game assets, you'd have been much MUCH better off going for more developer friendly sources like the Unity store.
Daz assets are stupidly high poly for example with VERY high res textures. Good for static renders, not so good for video games.
Interactive licences only make sense with pro bundles that include the licence for the whole bundle, otherwise they're dementially costly. I also agree with @Psyckosama that most daz assets don't fit for games anyway.
well to be fair high resolution textures is not that a big issue for game, at last for unreal, the only real issue are the high poly count, that is why today i'm normally being very carefull when buying stuffs, try to find the poly count of the things i want to buy and also what is matter is the "target" plataform" he want to work, if it's for mobile then indeed daz stuffs are terrible and too high poly, maybe even the base figure can be too high, then go for unity or maybe unreal store(you can use any stuff in the unreal store aslong it is not from epic game any asset or stuff from "regular sellers" can be used outside unreal), but if you are aimming for "high resolution characters and stuffs then you can use daz, aslong you know the poly count, like normally characters for game if you are aiming for middle to high end pc specs or for ps4 pro and xbox x you can have characters around 100k vertice count, (max being around 120k vertices) then if you know what to get you can have characters around tat for exemple this is oe of my characters fr game:
she is around 88k vertices which is a good number for any character here the male version:
he is around 86k vertice which still a good number.
the outfit and some pieces used are there:
https://www.daz3d.com/edward-8-pro-bundle - most of the armor
https://www.daz3d.com/orlean-s-armor-for-genesis-8-female-s - for the "under armor" chain mail top for both male and female
https://www.daz3d.com/throne-defender-armor-for-genesis-8-female-s - for the bracer
https://www.daz3d.com/olympia-7-pro-bundle - for the head piece
https://www.daz3d.com/bold-hair - for male hair (while the hairs in that pro bundle are low poly the outfits are high poly" then it's up to you buy the pro bundle or not
https://www.daz3d.com/d4m-faith-hair-bundle-for-genesis-3-female-s - for female hair this bundle come with 3 poly counts, a really low around 10k a middle around 20k and a high, you can choose between the middle and low to use, this product don't have a license but you can ask daz team to add the license(which i forget to ask specially since the ticket system is taking really a lot of time to get a answer).
the "orlean armor" both male and female , while in general have a high poly count, it's only due to "some pieces" if you take out the too high pieces in general the armor have a low poly count and you can replace the "high poly pieces" for "low poly" from others armors if you want.
the poly count in daz in general is a hit and miss, you have many really high poly stuffs but you also can find some "low poly stuffs" what's matter is the "artitst" from where that pieces they're coming.
all the daz original pro bundles come with a interactive license(at last all the daz characters pro bundle), bundles from pa artits can "or can't" come with a interactive, but you only need to open a ticket and ask daz team do add a interactive license if the product don't have it, then they add it, i've already did it a lot in the past, asked then to add interactive licenses in stuffs which i wanted to buy and they did.
then the only issue are stuffs outside daz original, some PA artists are without any doubts "bad" choices for stuffs, for exemple in my experience any stuff from Aeon Soul
https://www.daz3d.com/aeon-soul
they are normaly "high poly count" then avoid his stuffs
products from sixus media
https://www.daz3d.com/sixus1-media
normally are "good" having a poly count around 40k and 80k in some rare cases you will find a high poly stuff but in my experience that "high poly was one stuff from the outfit like a neck super high poly detailed then if you remove that neck then the outfit fall drastically in poly count.
another good artist for poly count:
https://www.daz3d.com/moonscape-graphics
this is a case of "hit and miss" most of his stuffs are "low from moderate poly count, you can stumble at some high poly but so far i've only stuck with few high poly stuffs.
daz can be good for game develop as long you are not aimming for "low ending machines or consoles(ps3 and low) or mobiles, if you are trying to work with middle to high end pcs and today consoles like ps4 pro and xbox x(the most top versions) then you can use fine daz stuffs aslong you know what are the stuffs you are using.
to be fair from the pro bundles if it's from genesis 3 and genesis 8 or generation 7 and 8, you normally only gonna use the outfits and characters textures and figures, the big majority of the hairs will be useless for game since they are in general high poly, but the price still wort than if you had bought each part and have to pay for each license.
from the genesis 1 and genesis 2 or generation 5 and 6 daz pro bundles you have a high chance to also use the "hairs" since most hairs are around 10 to 30k vertices which based on the total poly count can be usable.
outside daz main bundles you can find some "few hairs" low poly in general rule go for stylized or anime style hairs they have a high chance to be good enought.