Using Daz Studio for Game Models

sjaammons

I'm starting to learn Unity, and realizing how pricey it would be to hire somebody to make unique character models for a game.

I know there's a $500 license through Daz to use the program for game development, but I've gotten a lot of conflicting info about the exact legal rights, like if I also need to buy a license for each item or morph I end up using, any specific restrictions, ect.

Anyone got any good resources to get "Explain like I'm 5" answers to legally using Daz figures and clothing for game models?

Charlie Judge

sjaammons said:

I'm starting to learn Unity, and realizing how pricey it would be to hire somebody to make unique character models for a game.

I know there's a $500 license through Daz to use the program for game development, but I've gotten a lot of conflicting info about the exact legal rights, like if I also need to buy a license for each item or morph I end up using, any specific restrictions, ect.

Anyone got any good resources to get "Explain like I'm 5" answers to legally using Daz figures and clothing for game models?

Do you already have this license? As far as I know it is no longer available. If you already have this license it covers all the items where the artist is shown as DAZ Original. It does not cover tems that are solely owned by the PA and seperate licenses are required for them.

Under the current system licenses are only available for individual items and a seperate license is required for each item where the 3D mesh (or any part of it) is used in the game

Leana

There's no license required to use the program for game development, it's for using Daz content in your game that you need one.

Interactive licence needs to be purchased per product (or per bundle if they're in a bundle). There used to be licences which covered all products by a given vendor (well, there was one for Daz originals, and a few vendors had one too) before Daz introduced individual interactive licences, which is probably why you can find references to those kind of "bulk" licences too.

sjaammons

Leana said:

There's no license required to use the program for game development, it's for using Daz content in your game that you need one.

Interactive licence needs to be purchased per product (or per bundle if they're in a bundle). There used to be licences which covered all products by a given vendof vendor (well, there was one for Daz originals, and a few vendors had one too) before Daz introduced individual interactive licences, which is probably why you can find references to those kind of "bulk" licences too.

Oh so that license has been discontinued. Okay. What about using the base Gen 8 model and morphing your own figure? Obviously need a license for the morph, but what licence do I need for the base model?

So basically I need to buy a license for every figure, wardrobe, prop, hair and such that I use?

Charlie Judge

sjaammons said:

Leana said:

There's no license required to use the program for game development, it's for using Daz content in your game that you need one.

Interactive licence needs to be purchased per product (or per bundle if they're in a bundle). There used to be licences which covered all products by a given vendof vendor (well, there was one for Daz originals, and a few vendors had one too) before Daz introduced individual interactive licences, which is probably why you can find references to those kind of "bulk" licences too.

Oh so that license has been discontinued. Okay. What about using the base Gen 8 model and morphing your own figure? Obviously need a license for the morph, but what licence do I need for the base model?

So basically I need to buy a license for every figure, wardrobe, prop, hair and such that I use?

An interactive license for Genesis 8 base figures is available on this page: https://www.daz3d.com/genesis-8-starter-essentials

And yes you need the individual licenses for each item you use.

Ellessarr

yeah you need to be uy individual licenses for each product or if you are lucky you can buy the "bundle" licenses).

 

here another tip for a daz using game dev too.

 

becarefull when going for "outfits(cloths and armors) from daz, before going full berserker buying stuffs, try to find out the "poly count" of the stuffs" while daz overal have many "reasonable poly count" outfits and some hairs, overal most of daz stuffs are "too high poly count" for game and use the "decimator" from daz not work so well when comes to use the outfit outside daz and if that outfit is too high poly count, decimator can easy break the outfits weight paint influence and break animations if the reduction is too high(like reducing to less than 90 or 80%) you can start to have a lot of issues, then before buy a "cloth" try to find out the poly count, any outfit(not counting extras like weapons or others props) "above"100k vertices can be too big based on  the type of game, like if it's a game where only few characters will be used like the main and 2 or 3 maybe a outfit around 100 to 130k could be fine based on the "plataform you are aimming(like pc, ps4 pro, xbox one x), it's mobile or low ending machines, then no, in general outifts must be around at best 80k because you still have the character base and the hair and maybe some extras them overal a character from daz to be usable he must be around for a "overal" use like 30 to 60k vertices(polygons or squares) for more "top ending games or triple A then the character can be around 80 to at best 120 to 130k vertices(again if you are using few characters), be carefull or you can ending with a lot of "useless stuffs" which would cost you a lot of time and efforts to make useffull like do a "retopology and stuffs like that.

 

for hairs try to look for hairs between 5 to 30k vertices(based on the total poly count of the character)

 

avoid any "fibermesh or d-force hair or fur, they don't work outside daz or are insane high poly count like for a exemple a "eyebrow" alone being 80k polycount which is insane high for a game dev.

 

 

In other hand is good to see more and more peoples using daz characters and stuffs for gaming" it could maybe make the daz team look more to "our side" and be more "game dev friendly" in the future or try to make a "game dev sort of branch" with products more directed to it.

sjaammons

Leana said:

 

Ellessarr said:

 

here another tip for a daz using game dev too.

 

becarefull when going for "outfits(cloths and armors) from daz, before going full berserker buying stuffs, try to find out the "poly count" of the stuffs" while daz overal have many "reasonable poly count" outfits and some hairs, overal most of daz stuffs are "too high poly count" for game and use the "decimator" from daz not work so well when comes to use the outfit outside daz and if that outfit is too high poly count, decimator can easy break the outfits weight paint influence and break animations if the reduction is too high(like reducing to less than 90 or 80%) you can start to have a lot of issues, then before buy a "cloth" try to find out the poly count, any outfit(not counting extras like weapons or others props) "above"100k vertices can be too big based on  the type of game, like if it's a game where only few characters will be used like the main and 2 or 3 maybe a outfit around 100 to 130k could be fine based on the "plataform you are aimming(like pc, ps4 pro, xbox one x), it's mobile or low ending machines, then no, in general outifts must be around at best 80k because you still have the character base and the hair and maybe some extras them overal a character from daz to be usable he must be around for a "overal" use like 30 to 60k vertices(polygons or squares) for more "top ending games or triple A then the character can be around 80 to at best 120 to 130k vertices(again if you are using few characters), be carefull or you can ending with a lot of "useless stuffs" which would cost you a lot of time and efforts to make useffull like do a "retopology and stuffs like that.

 

for hairs try to look for hairs between 5 to 30k vertices(based on the total poly count of the character)

 

avoid any "fibermesh or d-force hair or fur, they don't work outside daz or are insane high poly count like for a exemple a "eyebrow" alone being 80k polycount which is insane high for a game dev.

 

 

In other hand is good to see more and more peoples using daz characters and stuffs for gaming" it could maybe make the daz team look more to "our side" and be more "game dev friendly" in the future or try to make a "game dev sort of branch" with products more directed to it.

Ok thanks for the heads up on the polycount, will need to look around and see about finding out an items polycount. Is there any way to reduce the polycount of objects easily or is that not an option?

Ellessarr

sjaammons said:

Leana said:

 

Ellessarr said:

 

here another tip for a daz using game dev too.

 

becarefull when going for "outfits(cloths and armors) from daz, before going full berserker buying stuffs, try to find out the "poly count" of the stuffs" while daz overal have many "reasonable poly count" outfits and some hairs, overal most of daz stuffs are "too high poly count" for game and use the "decimator" from daz not work so well when comes to use the outfit outside daz and if that outfit is too high poly count, decimator can easy break the outfits weight paint influence and break animations if the reduction is too high(like reducing to less than 90 or 80%) you can start to have a lot of issues, then before buy a "cloth" try to find out the poly count, any outfit(not counting extras like weapons or others props) "above"100k vertices can be too big based on  the type of game, like if it's a game where only few characters will be used like the main and 2 or 3 maybe a outfit around 100 to 130k could be fine based on the "plataform you are aimming(like pc, ps4 pro, xbox one x), it's mobile or low ending machines, then no, in general outifts must be around at best 80k because you still have the character base and the hair and maybe some extras them overal a character from daz to be usable he must be around for a "overal" use like 30 to 60k vertices(polygons or squares) for more "top ending games or triple A then the character can be around 80 to at best 120 to 130k vertices(again if you are using few characters), be carefull or you can ending with a lot of "useless stuffs" which would cost you a lot of time and efforts to make useffull like do a "retopology and stuffs like that.

 

for hairs try to look for hairs between 5 to 30k vertices(based on the total poly count of the character)

 

avoid any "fibermesh or d-force hair or fur, they don't work outside daz or are insane high poly count like for a exemple a "eyebrow" alone being 80k polycount which is insane high for a game dev.

 

 

In other hand is good to see more and more peoples using daz characters and stuffs for gaming" it could maybe make the daz team look more to "our side" and be more "game dev friendly" in the future or try to make a "game dev sort of branch" with products more directed to it.

Ok thanks for the heads up on the polycount, will need to look around and see about finding out an items polycount. Is there any way to reduce the polycount of objects easily or is that not an option?

"the only easy possible" way would be the "decimator" but as i told it can be a "hit and miss(more often a miss)" if you are reducing only a little like going from 100 to 80k then it could be fine but if you have to start to reduce more then the nightmare can start, you would need export the cloth to maya to try to fix the weight paint influence and maybe some broke bones.

 

the other option would be you having the iclone character creator 3 because this program have a much more "advanced decimator" the only issue would be you will lose "all the rig work done in the cloth needing you do it again, the third option would be do the "retopology but it would also means you have to almost rework the whole cloth(rigging), well then the best option is try to find and use only "low poly cloths and stuffs.

 

here a link for one post from me which does have a lot of poly count stuffs.

https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/370036/pro-bundle-little-help-info-about-outfits-poly-count#latest

 

i'm thinking in making a post for this with the poly count of stuff to help more peoples with the same issue.

 

the ending issue is which daz is a "render focused" site then for game while it have good stuffs it can be really complicated, at last when comes to characters aslong you still inside the genesis line of products you can use "any character" for game because they have the same base poly count all you need is do a proper bake for high resolution characters and things will be fine;

FSMCDesigns

Along with learning Unity it would be beneficial to learn a modeling app, like Blender also. Before DAZ, wannabe game developers had to actually model their own assets, ah the good ole days.

Ellessarr

FSMCDesigns said:

Along with learning Unity it would be beneficial to learn a modeling app, like Blender also. Before DAZ, wannabe game developers had to actually model their own assets, ah the good ole days.

well to be fair it can be good when you have a "good team" by good i don't just means skills but numbers, if you are "alone" or have like 2 to 4 peoples working (total) unless the game will be a very simple and basic it can be almost "impossible" or take really a "lot of time", because modeling assets for games is not the same as modeling assets for "render", you have much more steps and things to worry which make things take much more time and for a small team "time" is your big nemesis, aside low budget.

Padone

Also afaik you can use Poser content in games without additional licenses. So it may be a better option than daz.

WendyLuvsCatz

Padone said:

Also afaik you can use Poser content in games without additional licenses. So it may be a better option than daz.

only with the game developer version 

don't think Bondware continued that, Rendo does sell game licensed content though too

Ellessarr

WendyLuvsCatz said:

Padone said:

Also afaik you can use Poser content in games without additional licenses. So it may be a better option than daz.

only with the game developer version 

don't think Bondware continued that, Rendo does sell game licensed content though too

you sure because i saw the poser pro 11 and it's say for game too

https://www.posersoftware.com/

but renderosity have the one you talked

https://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/poser-pro-game-dev/106017

 

they are not the same??? 

WendyLuvsCatz

that latter one unavailable 

I would want to ask them first as I am really unsure since SmithMicro sold it what the rules are

scorpio

Padone said:

Also afaik you can use Poser content in games without additional licenses. So it may be a better option than daz.

Are you sure about that, are you referering to the content that comes with Poser I'm not sure if that is the case as now Poser comes with a lot more content than it did, for example the Hivewire figures.

 

Faveral

If what you want are characters, you can look at Maketafi.com, it's a company owned by DAZ that does specifically that, game characters.

FSMCDesigns

Faveral said:

If what you want are characters, you can look at Maketafi.com, it's a company owned by DAZ that does specifically that, game characters.

Even though I am all for alternatives to using DAZ content for game design, the Maketafi site is mainly for avatars for social apps like VRChat and not for overall game design.

The Blurst of Times

Create 2D sprites (i.e. do not use the assets themselves).

Don't use full 3D unless you really want to push it, like VR or something. Unless your storytelling demands 3D, why do it?

sjaammons

Ellessarr said:

FSMCDesigns said:

Along with learning Unity it would be beneficial to learn a modeling app, like Blender also. Before DAZ, wannabe game developers had to actually model their own assets, ah the good ole days.

well to be fair it can be good when you have a "good team" by good i don't just means skills but numbers, if you are "alone" or have like 2 to 4 peoples working (total) unless the game will be a very simple and basic it can be almost "impossible" or take really a "lot of time", because modeling assets for games is not the same as modeling assets for "render", you have much more steps and things to worry which make things take much more time and for a small team "time" is your big nemesis, aside low budget.

This right here. In  a perfect world I'd like to just stick to story and character concept art direction, but since I A. Do not have the money to hire a team for such projects, and B. Time is an even bigger foe than money as you put it, there's only so much I can (reasonably) learn to do myself, with the programming being a beast of itself, even with tutorials and basic unity game programming packs. 

Even if they aren't the best and will cost their own small fortune to license every single thing I use, DAZ (until I put it into practice to see if its a nightmare to use for what I want) seems like the best option for someone like me that's already taking on a lot of different hats in this process. 

Hopefully Daz figures can at the very least help me with HUMAN characters for my games. For unique monsters or such (I want to focus on horror games) I WILL have to bite the bullet and hire a professional when I come to that point.

alex86fire

If you want to purchase everthing you use in your game I think it will go really expensive really fast.

If you want 3d stuff in your unity game you would be better off getting the starter essentials interactive license, trying a few morph packs without interactive license and than getting the one you really like with interactive license and use it to create your characters.

For eveything else, I would recommend learning a 3d software. Blender is free and can be very good and easy to use to create props.

For clothing you can also use Blender, with a little more skill or I heard Marvelous Designer is easy to use and very good, not sure how expensive a license is for that.

For hair, Blender would be your best bet but it's not easy to do. You might need to purchase a few types of hair with interactive licenses as well. If you go the purchase root try to get the most customizable ones.

There are also plenty of sites that offer free 3d models. From props to clothes and characters, even hair, you should look at them as well (also check the type of license for each of those free models).

I am curious what kind of game you are doing in Unity that requires full 3d real time graphics, if you care to share.

sjaammons

alex86fire said:

If you want to purchase everthing you use in your game I think it will go really expensive really fast.

If you want 3d stuff in your unity game you would be better off getting the starter essentials interactive license, trying a few morph packs without interactive license and than getting the one you really like with interactive license and use it to create your characters.

For eveything else, I would recommend learning a 3d software. Blender is free and can be very good and easy to use to create props.

For clothing you can also use Blender, with a little more skill or I heard Marvelous Designer is easy to use and very good, not sure how expensive a license is for that.

For hair, Blender would be your best bet but it's not easy to do. You might need to purchase a few types of hair with interactive licenses as well. If you go the purchase root try to get the most customizable ones.

There are also plenty of sites that offer free 3d models. From props to clothes and characters, even hair, you should look at them as well (also check the type of license for each of those free models).

I am curious what kind of game you are doing in Unity that requires full 3d real time graphics, if you care to share.

Oh, that is more of a pipe dream than an actual plan atm. I'd LIKE to try and create a story-driven psychological horror game with characters, cutscenes of (decent) quality, and overall an indie love letter to the late 90s/early 2000s survival horror genre. But I'm well aware the limitations of a 1-man noob, and what it would cost to hire people who know what they're doing, hence looking for any feasible shortcut I can find, like making character models with Daz figures if possible. I don't need a AAA Resident Evil 7 character model, but something that I can animate for gameplay/cutscenes with some decent emotional range would be great.

Nah, I'm gonna start small, learn the engine (Unity), make use of freebie assets and a handful of Unity Store Assets to learn my way around such things, at least learn coding and level design. If needed I'll try to learn Blender, but time may not be on my side to do it AND code the games, but I will look into those options you suggested. ^^

Ellessarr

sjaammons said:

alex86fire said:

If you want to purchase everthing you use in your game I think it will go really expensive really fast.

If you want 3d stuff in your unity game you would be better off getting the starter essentials interactive license, trying a few morph packs without interactive license and than getting the one you really like with interactive license and use it to create your characters.

For eveything else, I would recommend learning a 3d software. Blender is free and can be very good and easy to use to create props.

For clothing you can also use Blender, with a little more skill or I heard Marvelous Designer is easy to use and very good, not sure how expensive a license is for that.

For hair, Blender would be your best bet but it's not easy to do. You might need to purchase a few types of hair with interactive licenses as well. If you go the purchase root try to get the most customizable ones.

There are also plenty of sites that offer free 3d models. From props to clothes and characters, even hair, you should look at them as well (also check the type of license for each of those free models).

I am curious what kind of game you are doing in Unity that requires full 3d real time graphics, if you care to share.

Oh, that is more of a pipe dream than an actual plan atm. I'd LIKE to try and create a story-driven psychological horror game with characters, cutscenes of (decent) quality, and overall an indie love letter to the late 90s/early 2000s survival horror genre. But I'm well aware the limitations of a 1-man noob, and what it would cost to hire people who know what they're doing, hence looking for any feasible shortcut I can find, like making character models with Daz figures if possible. I don't need a AAA Resident Evil 7 character model, but something that I can animate for gameplay/cutscenes with some decent emotional range would be great.

Nah, I'm gonna start small, learn the engine (Unity), make use of freebie assets and a handful of Unity Store Assets to learn my way around such things, at least learn coding and level design. If needed I'll try to learn Blender, but time may not be on my side to do it AND code the games, but I will look into those options you suggested. ^^

well if the "monsters" which you want to "use" for the horror game are in overal "humanoids" then you can still use daz characters, you can find plent of "zombies" ghosts and others "horror" monsters, based on daz characters which you can easy export to you game, if you need.

here while this topic is overal for "unreal" some of my tutorials and hints can be used also for others game engineers like maybe unit since they are some "basic rules for using characters from daz to game enginers, even the "normal bake" is a basic thing for any game dev.

 

it can help you in somethings:

https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/371856/a-using-daz-content-in-ue4-thread/p1

 

well good lucky wih your work, here another topic which maybe later can be good for you to use:

https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/311406/contents-in-unity-game-engine#latest

still small but later it can get better

 

as i told will be up to you, for me i'm sticking with daz for game is because while i'm having really many issues with to many high poly count stuffs(outfits and hairs) overal when i do find the good stuffs, they are really good and give a really good value back and more important they are giving a lot of options which so far i could not find in any other "characters creator" program, with daz i have much more "freedom" to work, specially with the characters, for exemple the "L.I.E. system here is perfect it's allow me to have a huge library of tattoos, make-ups, wounds and many others effects which i would lost a lot of time and effort creating or asking/hiring someone to me.

 

And again when comes to "price" really no matter how i look" no other site really beats daz in prices and sales, even with the interactive license if you have enough pacience you can buy the licenses for really low prices making many of the stuffs solds here much more affordable than any other place, my only real issue with daz is not really daz fault but my country and it's market situations, since for my country a single dollar = 4.10 reais(local currence) which is a really high value for me but with the "big sales" the price still better than any other place i saw ever.

 

the only issue is really which you must dig a lot to find what you want and in a 'poly count" good, but when you find everything become prety simple.

 

if you need any help can ask me i have a huge list of daz stuffs poly count from many daz stuffs(not everything but i have really a lot of then) and i'm happy to share with anyone in need.

 

again good luck with your work.

alex86fire

sjaammons said:

alex86fire said:

If you want to purchase everthing you use in your game I think it will go really expensive really fast.

If you want 3d stuff in your unity game you would be better off getting the starter essentials interactive license, trying a few morph packs without interactive license and than getting the one you really like with interactive license and use it to create your characters.

For eveything else, I would recommend learning a 3d software. Blender is free and can be very good and easy to use to create props.

For clothing you can also use Blender, with a little more skill or I heard Marvelous Designer is easy to use and very good, not sure how expensive a license is for that.

For hair, Blender would be your best bet but it's not easy to do. You might need to purchase a few types of hair with interactive licenses as well. If you go the purchase root try to get the most customizable ones.

There are also plenty of sites that offer free 3d models. From props to clothes and characters, even hair, you should look at them as well (also check the type of license for each of those free models).

I am curious what kind of game you are doing in Unity that requires full 3d real time graphics, if you care to share.

Oh, that is more of a pipe dream than an actual plan atm. I'd LIKE to try and create a story-driven psychological horror game with characters, cutscenes of (decent) quality, and overall an indie love letter to the late 90s/early 2000s survival horror genre. But I'm well aware the limitations of a 1-man noob, and what it would cost to hire people who know what they're doing, hence looking for any feasible shortcut I can find, like making character models with Daz figures if possible. I don't need a AAA Resident Evil 7 character model, but something that I can animate for gameplay/cutscenes with some decent emotional range would be great.

Nah, I'm gonna start small, learn the engine (Unity), make use of freebie assets and a handful of Unity Store Assets to learn my way around such things, at least learn coding and level design. If needed I'll try to learn Blender, but time may not be on my side to do it AND code the games, but I will look into those options you suggested. ^^

I would suggest maybe using other assets for the game itself and Daz for the cutscenes. Cutscenes are rendered stuff so you don't need the interactive license for it. This means you could have higher quality cutscenes with nice expresions and everything from Daz, while in-game you could use lower polygon models (freebies or cheap chars from 3d sites, just make sure they are rigged).

You should indeed first learn Unity and play around with it and afterwards see what you need.

I am sure you could find people that could maybe help you with some of the stuff in-game as well if you post on different game creation forums. Maybe try Patreon for support once you have some sort of game version.

sjaammons

alex86fire said:

sjaammons said:

alex86fire said:

If you want to purchase everthing you use in your game I think it will go really expensive really fast.

If you want 3d stuff in your unity game you would be better off getting the starter essentials interactive license, trying a few morph packs without interactive license and than getting the one you really like with interactive license and use it to create your characters.

For eveything else, I would recommend learning a 3d software. Blender is free and can be very good and easy to use to create props.

For clothing you can also use Blender, with a little more skill or I heard Marvelous Designer is easy to use and very good, not sure how expensive a license is for that.

For hair, Blender would be your best bet but it's not easy to do. You might need to purchase a few types of hair with interactive licenses as well. If you go the purchase root try to get the most customizable ones.

There are also plenty of sites that offer free 3d models. From props to clothes and characters, even hair, you should look at them as well (also check the type of license for each of those free models).

I am curious what kind of game you are doing in Unity that requires full 3d real time graphics, if you care to share.

Oh, that is more of a pipe dream than an actual plan atm. I'd LIKE to try and create a story-driven psychological horror game with characters, cutscenes of (decent) quality, and overall an indie love letter to the late 90s/early 2000s survival horror genre. But I'm well aware the limitations of a 1-man noob, and what it would cost to hire people who know what they're doing, hence looking for any feasible shortcut I can find, like making character models with Daz figures if possible. I don't need a AAA Resident Evil 7 character model, but something that I can animate for gameplay/cutscenes with some decent emotional range would be great.

Nah, I'm gonna start small, learn the engine (Unity), make use of freebie assets and a handful of Unity Store Assets to learn my way around such things, at least learn coding and level design. If needed I'll try to learn Blender, but time may not be on my side to do it AND code the games, but I will look into those options you suggested. ^^

I would suggest maybe using other assets for the game itself and Daz for the cutscenes. Cutscenes are rendered stuff so you don't need the interactive license for it. This means you could have higher quality cutscenes with nice expresions and everything from Daz, while in-game you could use lower polygon models (freebies or cheap chars from 3d sites, just make sure they are rigged).

You should indeed first learn Unity and play around with it and afterwards see what you need.

I am sure you could find people that could maybe help you with some of the stuff in-game as well if you post on different game creation forums. Maybe try Patreon for support once you have some sort of game version.

huh, an interesting idea, would get tricky as far as replicating the locations they're in from Daz to unity (aka lets say the cutscene happens on a helipad, and immediately switches to said helipad in game) so now I'm curious if I could import environments from Unity to Daz for cutscenes, but that's a bridge to cross when I know game deving 101. lol

And thanks for the advice! Hopefully I can get a simple starter game off the ground this Spring!

alex86fire

sjaammons said:

alex86fire said:

sjaammons said:

alex86fire said:

If you want to purchase everthing you use in your game I think it will go really expensive really fast.

If you want 3d stuff in your unity game you would be better off getting the starter essentials interactive license, trying a few morph packs without interactive license and than getting the one you really like with interactive license and use it to create your characters.

For eveything else, I would recommend learning a 3d software. Blender is free and can be very good and easy to use to create props.

For clothing you can also use Blender, with a little more skill or I heard Marvelous Designer is easy to use and very good, not sure how expensive a license is for that.

For hair, Blender would be your best bet but it's not easy to do. You might need to purchase a few types of hair with interactive licenses as well. If you go the purchase root try to get the most customizable ones.

There are also plenty of sites that offer free 3d models. From props to clothes and characters, even hair, you should look at them as well (also check the type of license for each of those free models).

I am curious what kind of game you are doing in Unity that requires full 3d real time graphics, if you care to share.

Oh, that is more of a pipe dream than an actual plan atm. I'd LIKE to try and create a story-driven psychological horror game with characters, cutscenes of (decent) quality, and overall an indie love letter to the late 90s/early 2000s survival horror genre. But I'm well aware the limitations of a 1-man noob, and what it would cost to hire people who know what they're doing, hence looking for any feasible shortcut I can find, like making character models with Daz figures if possible. I don't need a AAA Resident Evil 7 character model, but something that I can animate for gameplay/cutscenes with some decent emotional range would be great.

Nah, I'm gonna start small, learn the engine (Unity), make use of freebie assets and a handful of Unity Store Assets to learn my way around such things, at least learn coding and level design. If needed I'll try to learn Blender, but time may not be on my side to do it AND code the games, but I will look into those options you suggested. ^^

I would suggest maybe using other assets for the game itself and Daz for the cutscenes. Cutscenes are rendered stuff so you don't need the interactive license for it. This means you could have higher quality cutscenes with nice expresions and everything from Daz, while in-game you could use lower polygon models (freebies or cheap chars from 3d sites, just make sure they are rigged).

You should indeed first learn Unity and play around with it and afterwards see what you need.

I am sure you could find people that could maybe help you with some of the stuff in-game as well if you post on different game creation forums. Maybe try Patreon for support once you have some sort of game version.

huh, an interesting idea, would get tricky as far as replicating the locations they're in from Daz to unity (aka lets say the cutscene happens on a helipad, and immediately switches to said helipad in game) so now I'm curious if I could import environments from Unity to Daz for cutscenes, but that's a bridge to cross when I know game deving 101. lol

And thanks for the advice! Hopefully I can get a simple starter game off the ground this Spring!

You're welcome!

Keep us posted, for simple things, if I haveb the time I might help you with some stuff in Blender as well. For modeling hard surfaces I'm pretty good. Texturing, I don't really have the patience for.

As for getting stuff from Unity to Daz, you can import OBJ in Daz, just have to reassign materials but should not be a major problem. Only problem will be the render time of that animation, I imagine :).