Before I Start - Can I Do This?
richard.morey
Posts: 0
Hi --
Before I download and starting trying to learn Daz I am curious if someone can tell me if what I want to do is possible.
I would like to start with a standard male human figure and then create four or five altered versions that would mimic the evolution of man for a simple animation I want to create. This would mean altering the shape of the head, the size of the legs and torso, the curve of the arms, the hunch of the torso, etc.
I have no real experience with 3D modeling so I'm hoping that Daz has built in tools or sliders to easily alter the figures as I need so that I can then export the ready to rig models for use in an app like Blender.
I am hoping someone can answer my question rather than me digging through documentation / demos or FAQs.
Thanks
Rich
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Comments
The application can certainly do that, the question would be whether there was suitable content - shapes that, alone or in combination, would give the look you want
Shapes altering and blending, fast rigging and posing, etc. are the strengths of Daz. You can animate the evolution of you figures on the timeline with nice transition, but if you wanna make it more complex and a faster rendering, exporting to blender is a good choice, as you mentioned.
There's Diffeomorphic DAZ Importer, a pretty good bridge for Daz+blender users.
DAZ Studio is probably the best tool there is for what you want to do. You will not find as vast and varied a marketplace for the assets you'll need nor a framework as good as Genesis to make it all work together anywhere else.
But...
If you plan to move beyond the simplest of animations or even be critical of simple ones, you will want to export your stuff to a real animation environment such as Blender, as @crosswind has said.
Thanks for all your comments. I will defintely animate in Blender because that is the tool I "know" (although I've only been using Blender for about a year.)
Does Daz include a male human that I can manipulate or will I have to purchase one seperately from the software?
Rich
Yes, Genesis, Genesis 2, Genesis 3, Genesis 8, and Genesis 9 all come with DS (the various Starter Essentials) and each has a male figure or shape.
Good luck, @richard.morey and pay particular attention to crosswind's advice: become proficient in the Diffeomorphic DAZ Importer. It is the most amazing tool, and the primary developer and the guy that advised with the superb materials conversion are both active in these forums.
Creating your character the way you envision in DAZ will be trivial; it's simply the best. Your results will ultimately depend on how well you can use Diffeo and Blender tools like Auto Rig Pro and Animation Layers.
Another thing I can suggest whole-heartedly is Pierrick Picault's "Alive" Blender animation course. I really thought I knew what I was doing until I was confronted with a true expert :) Certain things just never occurred to me until I got through it, and I really should go through it again, but you know, life.
Me too, indeed, have learnt a lot from his course! even if I'm not a true animator~ but really enjoy this course of building the skillsets
Daz has this for M4 and there's also versions for V4 and K4 - all of which the textures will work for Genesis 1: Basic Male, Basic Female and Basic Kid respectively - the UVs were made to match up*.
Clicking the image will take you to the product page, as will the links above.
A Carrara friend of ours has done a lot of primitive man work with this set. Either the
generation 4 figures or Genesis 1 can certainly give enough morphs to transition to various stages in between.
I remember when these first came out (and I bought them) - they were the first product I've owned that had Sub-Surface Scattering maps. Those were the early ways of doing that. The benefit of actually using M4, V4 and K4 would be the morphs that come with this. But Genesis 1 has a bazillion shapes available for it as well.
Let's say you do use Michael 4, Victoria 4 and/or Kids 4. Since the kit includes morphs that make them look this way, dialing those morphs down will automagically change them to modern Homo Sapiens.
Furthermore, ABAS can animate the shaders for you as well - but to actually switch texture maps gradually, you'd need to create a sequence of images between these and the new ones. Any image editor should make this job doable, but Project Dogwaffle Howler could actually automate the process for you. Both apps are very inexpensive - especially for all they have to offer!
If you go that route and need help, send me a PM and I'll step you through the process.
An M4 is still so expensive ?!?!?!
And I see no SSS effect from any of promo pics, render engine sucked at that time ? 
BTW, I wonder where MEC4D is now...
Her site is still up. And writing the above brought back memories that she sold DeepPaint there for free, just a tiny donation ($0.40) for web service. So I went there to check it out and... sure enough! Still there under "Software"!
One day I might just buy that. I'm nostalgic that way! LOL
Yeah, the SSS isn't advertised, but there are several maps in there. In fact, all the types of maps reside in separate folders. One map controls SSS Strength, the other SSS color. The Spec, Bump, and Base Color.
Maps like these can be really fun for building various effects in Carrara's shader room.
Carrara has been always mystic to me ~~
I love my DAZ 
I love your DAZ too!
It always used to just be my toolbox for helping me make things work in Carrara, or to make conforming items and such - again... for Carrara! LOL
Just last night I broke out my old Carrara Studio 3 Handbook and perused the wonderful nostalgic gallery images on the disc, along with the (now ancient) free trial software apps. What fun!
Even that old copy of Carrara has a lot going for it - Spline and Vertex modelers with Metaballs too! Carrara 8.5 Pro is AweSome!!!!!
Since I've started this journey into Daz Studio, I've really grown a lot of respect for this amazing 3d environment. Just before Filament and that whole 4.15 (I think it was) release. Now I'm REALLY having fun!!!