How Do You "Bake" Character Morphs?
IceDragonArt
Posts: 12,727
in The Commons
I keep seeing this and am curious how its done. From what I understand if you want to sell a dial spun or morphed character, you have to "bake" that into? onto? tge character but I don't know what that means. Also, does this also apply to a new skin? Does that need to be "baked" as well?
Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
7533 S Center View Ct #4664
West Jordan, UT 84084
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2025 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
From what I've read, I think of Richard Hasseltine's and others' posts, I think you 'dial in the set of morphs as you want them' and then export as an object and then import that object as a morph. Then you do things like 'Set ERC' and 'Export as Morph Asset'.
Seems like to me though you'd want to do it in two steps sometimes - once for the head and once for the body. At least that's how it seems the DAZ Oiginals characters typical have a morph dial for 1) Entire character, 2) character head, & 3) character body.
I'm sure someone will be around later to correct me.
Interesting. And thanks for the reminder to do the head and body separately. Would totally have not even thought of that.
You import the object via that Morph Loader Pro tool in DAZ. If you look up the thread in the Commons that talks about using the Transfer Utility to move G3F to G38 it's a very similar process except you don't need the Transfer Utility part. There are 2 tutorial Redz has written on the morph transfer process in that thread.
I'd wait before proceding for someone that has more experience doing that then me to chime in.
I appreciatall the help I can get lol. I am not going to do this tonight, its 2 am here and the only reason I am still up is that the dog is terrified of fireworks and some a****** is still setting them off up the street.
I have the week off so am hoping to spend at least a day giving this a try. For personal use right now, used in conjunction with Skin Builder 3, and see what I can come up with.
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/6483/tutorial-creating-a-genesis-g2f-g2m-g3m-g3m-full-body-morph-for-daz-studio-pro-4-6-by-rkane-1/p1
That's what you want to know.
Specifically, the parts that answer yout questions pick arounds step 7. Not, the advice in step 6 about using odd letters to name yor morph is a bit unnecessary. Rather, especially if you are trying to make pro character, you would preplan the names of your morphs. Probably they would all have part of their name in common. If you character is called "Joe" you'd probably want all the morphs to have the word "Joe" in them somewhere. Knowing all your morps for the figure are names Joesomething or somethingJoe or SomethingJoesomething, you can just use the search box in the properties menu to filter out all morphs that don't have Joe in them.
Planning would mean doing this BEFORE importing (or even starting) to be sure that there's not already a character in you figure named Joe. Also, searching the Rendo and Daz Stores for charaters named Joe for your target figure, to make sure you aren't picking a name that has too many products attached to it already, and to plane how, if you choose to use Joe even if there are others, how you will name the figure so that it is recognizably your Joe, as opposed to someone else's.
Also, Step 23 for some reasone says "enter [...] an unique name for this morph as the product name." That's not how think about this. The product name is just what is says on the tin. The name of the product a group of assets belongs to. Victoria 8 is a Product. FHMVictoria8 would be a morph's name (or some such. BTW, that pattern is saying something like Full Head Morph, back to nonesuch's point about separate head and body morphs). Once you start saving bits of the character you are trying to sell, the important point is to always enter the SAME Vendor and Product names when asked. Again, plan ahead. Just like planning amorph name in advance, you'd plan out what you want the prodct to be called. You'd have it all writen down. Documented, if you will. This is no different from any other professional activity. You get much better results with a plan of action that at least covers the high points, possibly with a few notes to remind yourself why you maked the choices you made (in case the sitatuion changes and you realize those reasons no longer apply).
Thank you very much Singular Blues that is most helpful! And you are right, a plan is always helpful. I would have to map it all out anyway or I would most likely get lost halfway through the process lol.
Sonya, I believe if you are "dial spinning" a character, you need to save those morphs along with your new character via ERC Freeze. Then you list the product(s) you used as Required Products for your character to work. (Unless the morphs you are using are Merchant Resources.) A good example of this would be DarwinsMishap(s) William for Genesis 3 Male, If you have William, load him into DS and click on Currently Used in the Surfaces->Editor.
Maybe a mod or PA will come in and let us know for sure...
If you simply want to combine morphs into one morph...you dial up all the morphs you want..
Right click on the parameters tab and go into edit mode...
Right click on "actor" and select "create new property.....fill out the pop-up with the name you want to give the dial, and where you want the dial to appear...then press "create"
After creating this new property, right click on the new dial you made and click "ERC Freeze"..make sure all the elements you want are selected and press"accept".
Then your new dial will dial in all those other dials.
You can save this as any other new morph,...save as/morph assets
Yes. Baking in the sense of combining the sub morphs into one is, unless they allow that, a breach of the EULA. It also removes any links to correction morphs (adjustments to things like EyesClose, for example, to cope with a changed eye shape) or rigging adjustments. Making an ERC controller, as RawArt describes, is the better approach.
Okay I think I understand, and i will be going back to the thread on transferring 32F moprhs to G38 as well.
Although I'm a bit confused about the breach of Eula. For instance, I have a set of character moprhs that are merchant resources that say they must be baked into the character. I believe Skin Builder also says something along those lines. The character morphs are all based on the base G8F. So if its against the Eula to bake them into the character, but my merchant resource says I have to ? What do I do?
Or is that what using the ERC Freeze does?
When you use a product like the Genesis 8 Female Body Morphs to create a new character, you use the method RawArt outlined above. (Thanks, RawArt!) To bake those morphs into your character is a breach of the EULA for that product. (And any other product that isn't a merchant resource.)
Your merchant resource requires you to bake in the morphs so they cannot be used separately for any other character in your customers' runtime. If you don't bake them in, (make the character a single morph, or one each for head, body and full character,) you are in breach of the EULA for your merchant resource.
(Note: To be clear, I'm referencing the specific merchant resource Sonya is using. It's important to read the license for correct usage and restrictions of any merchant resource because they do vary.)
You can (almost) never share the base files that come with a product - the textures or morphs. For a standard product you also cannot share the base content mixed with other elements (such as a compound morph baked from several other morphs, ro a texture set painted on top of a character texture set); a Merchant Resource usually works by allowing you to sell new content made by compunding the merchant resource with other original or licensed content.
Okay, so just to be perfectly clear. I can take the base G8F and use ONLY the morphs from my merchant resource and bake those in, and that would be an acceptable character morph to do whatever it is I am going to do with it, for the sake of argument, sell it somewhere. However, I can NOT take the base G8F and use the Genesis 8 Female Body Morphs to make a character for sale, or use them in conjunction with my merchant resources to do the same if I bake them into the character. But I can use the Genesis 8 Female Body Morphs alone to make a new character morph if I use the ERC freeze and list the G8F female body morphs as a requred product.
I am obviously no where near having any thing for sale and that could be months down the road or never, but I do want to start playing with morphs, and even if they are just for personal use, I would like to go about it in the correct manner from the start so should I at some point decide I really do want to do something, I will not have to relearn anything since I will have it correct from the beginning.
Not to bake them, no - a preset to apply them is of course fine.
Okay thank you!
You gotta read the fine print. What you can do will depend on what rights were granted with what product. For the questions you've asked, the answers are generally accurate, but you really should read the aggreements that came with each item you want to use. Going from hobbyist to vendor is an upgrade in your legal target status, overall. Perhaps a minor one, practically speaking, but it's really not something you should do untilly you've got a solid idea of what you are allowed on a per item basis.
Better safe than sued. (Yeah, really Cease and Desist is more likely, but suits are never off the table in the American legal system. The only limit is "So silly, the judge got pissed off," and that's a moving target.)
Oh, no worries I always read the fine print. LIke I said, I would rather get it right from the beginning. Not knowing is not an excuse in a court of law. (my husband is self employed and I've been selling my lampwork beads for years, so I am always very careful about legalities). I will most likely start a spreadsheet of some sort to keep things straight.
Very helpful.
Getting Gino set up but previously I had set up a shaping file (INJ) and a remove file (REM) and while I can get the INJ file working as expected the REM file removed just Gino's face but the rest of the body remains engaged and I've tried every trick I can think of to get the REM file to work correctly. So I'm stuck with that little puzzle. I thought it would be as easy as saving out a Shaping preset with NOTHING selected. NOPE, the body stays! So there may be some connection to my newly made body dial slaving all the morphs I used to make up Gino's body shape (using the DAZ3D in house body shaping morphs).
Help?
Thank you
Richard
Never mind, fixed it... YAY!
Good thread, thanks for all the information, I'm posting so I can find this again later.