REPLY TO REXRED COMMENT#1 (RE: Hardware, Who, Why, DAZ): 

Hi RexRed,
Thank you for the kind welcome!
Excellent hardware considerations, Geez, I had a bad feeling about that (potentially burn out device components). I looked on eBay for great deals, but RTX was all very expensive at the 16 Gig or above level, and in perfect honesty with you, I was considering various Frankenstein DIY options lol.
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I'd like to learn more about creating morph dials and importing them into DAZ, (I'm definitely adding that to my long list of things to learn)!
=>I know nothing yet, I have not had a chance to learn how the software accomplishes these morph changes (I assumed it was perhaps scaling, warping, pinching and applying other complicated filters and scripts) to the 2D counterpart (e.g. base face map).
=>I'm not sure what "loading" means, do you mean modifying heads >50% in CARRARA or Bryce, then importing figures? I own these software packages, but have not started using them yet, I've got a lot of YouTube videos to watch about them first : ) .
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RE: Why DAZ or design
Well I could take you on a wild tangent of multiple loosely related reasons for design or DAZ, but like Forest Gump, I've sort of floated around to various websites, Tripped and Fell into "DAZ world" and realized I really enjoy it. Upon introspection, I think my joy comes from the fact that I neglected the Right Half of my brain for a long time (mainly engaging in a variety of Sciences over time)...Therefore, sifting through peoples creative works/expression has been really stimulating and is motivating my creativity. I really love the outer space and dragon content. Also, I believe my activities here will take my graphic design capabilities to the next level.
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TOP 5 REALISTIC REASONS (MOTIVES):
1. RE: DAZ, it's free (no annual SaaS agreements), I'm very careful not to incur too much cost unless there is a clear purpose (e.g. enhance business capabilities). Also, DAZ seems to be top notch software so far.
2. I build websites as one source of business revenue, (typically use GIMP to enhance images), and I ALWAYS DESIRE to capture website visitor's attention with amazing Hero's and other enhanced images...basically the (business intelligence driven) necessity of utilizing increased quality and quantity of imagery was discovered after a discussion with my contact at Yelp who stated that currently 80% of website visitors prefer to see a broad range of images depicting content, (rather than lots of words). I think DAZ can help me take image quality and design to the next level.
3. I have a paralegal degree, and I'm looking to add a freelance Graphic Design (for Courtroom presentation) income stream to my business (including images, audio and short videos).
4. I've engaged in a broad range of Data Science and Mind Mapping activities for ~12 years now, and pull certain content from the internet for research purposes (utilize databases and 2D plots). I tried to use Blender for a couple of years to add a third dimension to my activities, but it was too much of a pain (time consuming). I was hopeful I could pull data into DAZ, but have barely scratched the surface.
5. I have some technology, drafting and design education and experience as well, and generally enjoy exploring and testing a variety of software (I have a large database of free software, and website building tools). On this point, I need to explore options to import, export, and convert files between various 3D software packages. One goal I'd like to accomplish is that I have large mind maps in Tuft's Visual Understanding Environment 2D, that I want to import into a 3D environment.
Thank You

If the creator only provided a "head" morph then no, at least not directly. 
You'd need to split the head morph for that, with a tool like this one: https://www.daz3d.com/shape-splitter

Sorry, I couldn't get to here earlier, partly because I had given up on those morphs. I ended up having to just save the characters again (maybe they lost those morph dial settings, I can't say because I did not remember if I used any or not)
Once I saved the characters again it was fine. It was odd that it only appeared in some character scenes only but I am guessing that was only because I had used those morphs. Anyways, speculation aside, my content library was fine, there was no issues with it. And yes, I could see all of my assets in "Daz Studio Formats" section and "Content Directory Manager" had all my daz locations listed. As I said, the morph dials were set to quite low if they were even, as such it didn't make much drastic changes when they were lost. 

It's all fine now.

The antennae are separate, this could make a for a decent Andorian: https://www.daz3d.com/planetary-smuggler-hd-for-genesis-8-male

 

Unfortunatley not seperate and no pose controls, I've done a comparison between my hand crafted Andorian, i do like the Smuggler but leaning towards my own for more morph options

 

Actually they are. They're located under G8 male Anatomy Planetary Smuggler and have a bend, twist, and side to side parameter 

Sorry what I meant was that each antenna is not seperate and there are no movement type parameters to control the antenna separately i.e. you couldn't have the left one bent and twisted to the right and the right one straight

Like this?

Yes  mine seem to be fixed?? Could you screen shot the controls in Daz

 

EDIT: S'ok I found it -not the best hierarchy for those controls! :)

Hey there, yeah, you have to go to the actual antennae for the planetary smuggler but they do have poseability. I don't know how to make them bend from the main character or anything. Sorry about that. Hope you like them otherwise though.

Love both male and female versions, now we know there are those movements in the antenna only make it better! look forward to more products  if you take suggestions maybe something with a ridged nose morph like a bajoran? 

Thanks, I am slow and I sort of go where the "clothing" takes me since I have to put them in clothes for promos. I have been wanting to do my version of another race for years but not clothes yet.

A good synopsis info_b. It's also very hard for a face-on photo to generate depth data... length of nose, cheek/chin depth etc.

I would have liked Face Transfer to include a face profile option like the other software apps. to help with facial geometry.

Is there a way to create a setting option so that when I go to shaping tab and related, only select morph products are shown? Similarly, any way to elect to show only select shaders? 
I have a lot of installed content and am looking to get into creating custom characters for sale; it'd be very helpful if I can hide the assets that aren't merchant resources when working on an intended commercial project, to avoid accidentally applying any resources against its usage rights. I have too many morphs and shader sets to be able to keep track of which are merchant resources and which aren't without some automatic identifier or filtering. I would be able to go through my resources once to determine which are merchant resources or not, but it's too much to do every time I open Studio. Similarly, I'd prefer not to uninstall the non-merchant resources entirely, since I still like to use them for personal projects. 
Basically is it possible to create a filter or category to separate out merchant resources from the rest?

I don't understand why a PA uses displacement in Iray instead of an HD morph? Non-PA users can't create HD morphs, so they must rely on displacement and mesh SubD to get extra detail. Why would a PA choose displacement over HD morph? What am I missing?

The antennae are separate, this could make a for a decent Andorian: https://www.daz3d.com/planetary-smuggler-hd-for-genesis-8-male

 

Unfortunatley not seperate and no pose controls, I've done a comparison between my hand crafted Andorian, i do like the Smuggler but leaning towards my own for more morph options

 

Actually they are. They're located under G8 male Anatomy Planetary Smuggler and have a bend, twist, and side to side parameter 

Sorry what I meant was that each antenna is not seperate and there are no movement type parameters to control the antenna separately i.e. you couldn't have the left one bent and twisted to the right and the right one straight

Like this?

Yes  mine seem to be fixed?? Could you screen shot the controls in Daz

 

EDIT: S'ok I found it -not the best hierarchy for those controls! :)

Hey there, yeah, you have to go to the actual antennae for the planetary smuggler but they do have poseability. I don't know how to make them bend from the main character or anything. Sorry about that. Hope you like them otherwise though.

Love both male and female versions, now we know there are those movements in the antenna only make it better! look forward to more products  if you take suggestions maybe something with a ridged nose morph like a bajoran? 

Even a decent set of level 4 details for generic G8 characters would be great. The HD add-ons Daz releases for their characters are quite poor in general. The only one I really like is Charlotte 8. There are some nice skin creases incorporated on her around the groin area. Rune 7 also has a fantastic HD add-on, but sadly no way to transfer that to G8F. Syble HD by Linday https://www.daz3d.com/syble-hd-for-genesis-8-female has an excellent level 4 morph, but is made specifically for that character, but I just don't like the characters shape much. The HD skin folds under the asymmetrical breasts make the HD morph look odd on any another character. A set of level 4 details for things like palm details, rib, spine, and collar bones, knee and foot (especially sole wrinkles), and creases under the stomach that work well with (almost) any G8 would be great. Skin blemishes, pores etc can be left to bump/normal maps (speaking of which, AlFan does a nice set of displacement maps for G3F https://www.daz3d.com/ultra-detailed-displacement-maps-for-genesis-3-base-female that can be made into a decent set of normals for G8F using photoshop or similar for those looking for something to fill the gap).

You probably need to adjust the rigging to the new shape. I doubt it was done for the clone morph as it was not made to be used as a regular shape.

 

Thank you for responding. I've never rigged anything (going to google that next). Is there perhaps an easier button/tab I might have missed that I can just click and apply? Ideally I want to just move her head to a male body...

You probably need to adjust the rigging to the new shape. I doubt it was done for the clone morph as it was not made to be used as a regular shape.

A shaping preset will store the morph values but not the morphs, so those can generally be freely shared.

I love morph packs!  I know some merchant resources say not for use on freebies.  Is this standard now?  There use to be a way to package a character morph and the other person had to own the morph pack to use the character, but you could share the character morphs made with packs in this way.  I have never shared anything but I wondered if it would be possible to do this.  I'd rather not try to do skins or sell characters.  I am just enjoying learning to make characters and would like to share something.  The character morph with no textures, kinda bring your skin, seems like it should be doable.  But I'm not sure. 

I don't wish to be a merchant and sell full, skinned characters with handbuilt custom morphs.  Mostly I just play with the dials and worry about the skin I decorate for my own use.  The two morph sets I have now are Thorns and RareStone's and product by Zev, the 200 face morphs and shapeshift. but was looking at the EJ sets too.  Is this always going to me alone at home playing with stuff I bought and maybe sharing a render of my work? 

I like making shaders but I buy seamless tiles to work from and ofcourse, I'd have to bake the textures onto outfits so I wouldn't be sharing the tiles in the shader itself.  I am just not a money maker, I am a money disappearer.  Sharing seems like it shouldn't hurt me financially at least.  I like making stuff but trying to make money just gets me into debt some how, some way.  It just seems so risky to do anything at all with not wanting to mess up on what is or isn't allowed.  I'm not new, but I am new to actually getting anything actually done besides shopping I guess.

I find the morphs sometimes mix a lot of parameters into easy to use dials but many of the morphs affect the geometry in ways that the parameters do not. The geometry is a mesh and it can be deformed in unlimited ways. For instance, it is probably not possible to just use the stock parameter dials to take a Genesis 8 figure and turn them into a werewolf. This would take morphing dials instead. Many morphs use the parameter dials though not exclusively. Many morph dials are created in other programs and imported into Daz as animateable features.

I think maybe you've confused yourself — "morph dials" are "parameters". Every new set of morph data installed to your base Genesis 8 figure will add a new parameter dial to that figure. The parameter dial controls the morphing of the figure mesh. They're the same thing. There's no difference between the morphs for a character you buy in the store, and morphs built in to the Genesis figure.

I've been having very good results exporting via FBX and would like to get a better handle on the morph exporting rules. I'd like to be more selective as un-needed morphs increase the resulting object size (going out to Lightwave) and just add to an already long list to scroll through.

For example I've brought in an older bird asset. I can look at the shaping tab for one of the wings & see that it's using:

ERC [DeltaAdd]>LeftWingFold, but my choices in the FBX export panel has no Wings specific morphs. They do appear under the sbrm3 & adding that to the list sets them to export. Seems that you have to use the prefix listed in the Name column.

A better example might be for the Head.  I really don't need to export a number of unused morphs but don't know how to get selective in the Export Rules. Tried the usual wildcards w/o any luck.

Any care & feeding tips on how to do this if it's even possible?  Don't assume a vast knowledge about Daz morphs on this end either.

The antennae are separate, this could make a for a decent Andorian: https://www.daz3d.com/planetary-smuggler-hd-for-genesis-8-male

 

Unfortunatley not seperate and no pose controls, I've done a comparison between my hand crafted Andorian, i do like the Smuggler but leaning towards my own for more morph options

 

Actually they are. They're located under G8 male Anatomy Planetary Smuggler and have a bend, twist, and side to side parameter 

Sorry what I meant was that each antenna is not seperate and there are no movement type parameters to control the antenna separately i.e. you couldn't have the left one bent and twisted to the right and the right one straight

Like this?

Yes  mine seem to be fixed?? Could you screen shot the controls in Daz

 

EDIT: S'ok I found it -not the best hierarchy for those controls! :)

Hey there, yeah, you have to go to the actual antennae for the planetary smuggler but they do have poseability. I don't know how to make them bend from the main character or anything. Sorry about that. Hope you like them otherwise though.

Can we get your foot morphs somewhere by the way?

Hey Bluejaunte, I never really put them up for sale.  I would have to bone up on properly creating the morph in DAZ as a slider you can include in a figure.  I just Goz and morph away.  I then just import the morph via morph loader pro and set to 100%.  The nice thing about your characters is you can set the foot morph to neutral and apply my morph.  Saves me the trouble of having to do that myself in Zbrush.  My hats off to the PA's because its not just creating assets its also supporting them plus answering issues some may arise with a product.  I would imagine a morph would be something easy.

Hmm yeah if you wanted to sell some you'd have to make them into a full product with all the hassle that comes with it. Unless you put them on some third party site like Gumroad. Maybe I could buy some off you for use in my characters though?

Not a bad idea, I will see about Gumroad or something.  Its now just an .obj but I don't think I can share an .obj for a DAZ figure.  I'm glad you really like my work!

It is hard not to like your work - the images you presented looks extraordinary.

 

Thanks Artini!

Quick n' dirty test of Alawa. Love love love her! The bundle itself not so much but the character YES! (Note - I did reduce the boobage by 25% because I'm pretty over the vast majority of Daz characters having gigundoboob...been there still doing that and I see enough gigundoboob in real life kthanxitsnotfun)

Excellent.

I have only one (criticism?), I think the HD on the bra is too much; would she have so much indentation, considering both her build and athleticism?

If you've not put this in the gallery, I'd suggest doing so.

As someone who has worn bras for thirty or so years...yes. The band of a bra is supposed to be tight, as that is what bears the brunt of the weight...not the shoulders. Provided it fits properly. Unless she is made out of concrete, then it would smush whatever soft meat is there.

Glad you like the image, though! The soft body morph is actually provided by OOT's bra, so it's not something I made. When I have a chance to be lazy, I sure take it.

It would also be nice if a future Genesis figure played better with other applications, thus expanding their market.  

Couldn't agree more. I personally do transfer my characters to Cinema 4D to render with Redshift (plus all the other goodies of Cinema4D). Having so many more Render Engine choices and tools is great.

"I know many of you don't want to hear it, and wish it will never happen,[...]"
I want to hear it and I can't wait for it to be happening. It will need a morph transfer from G8 to G9though, in order to bring your own custom characters to the next level.

From what I understand, once the inner parts of the models are done (skeleton, muscles, fascia, etc) they should be transferable to other characters. So I don't think it will be unreasonable to have such tools.