What can I do with DAZ and what I can't. Really, really confused...
Hello everybody! I am a noob and peaceful so please don't feel offended by my naivity :-)
Since 4-5 days I've been trying to understand, what DAZ is and what it's not. It's not easy because of it's vocabulary :-) And the 6 official video tutorials on it - it's just not enough :-)
Let me post my conclusions and please kindly correct me if I am wrong :-)
I thought you could create a character with it. I believe now you cannot, all you can do is to get some clothes an change the parameters and may be some make up.
But you have no real control about face features. You cannot say like in Mixamo Fuse and most other character creators:
like "my character should have a big nose with small nostrils, small eyes, even smaller ears..." I have tried it without any success... Can you?
The face - the thing that makes the people looking so differently, this most valuable and important distinguishing feature - they just forgot about it... Dint't they?
IMHO it's useless without face features controls... Or is it some kind of deceitful marketing strategy? 
So I came to even crazier conclusions:
1. One have to create some generic characters with parameters (is that thing called morph?) outside of DAZ (me or somebady else)...
I really was impressed of models in DAZ ... but they weren't created in DAZ??? realising that I was a bit lost why would I then need DAZ anyway :-)
2. OK, I told to myself, you need DAZ to put clothes (which I also create outside DAZ - LOL). Correct me if I am wrong (I hope I am wrong - it would be so peety about 5 vasted dayz :))))
Just kidding :-) But, really what is it for? Can you create (or better - generate) characters in DAZ whithout to load them from outside?
3. Is it just renderer, where you can change some parameters using sliders?
4. The easiest way to enable face features controls is to buy a model (created by somebody) having those parameters (morphs?)
5. The most clothes must be bought, because creating them myself would make no sense of using DAZ (except I want to sell them)
- - -
Thank you for you patience :-) I am a software developer and see things differently - according to my wife :-)
Looking forward for your answers )))
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Comments
Your questions:
1) Well since I bought the male & female head & body morphs for Genesis 3 models I can't help you much but you need to buy those to easily morph DAZ Genesis 3 characters. That will cost you between $30 - $80 dollars depending on if you are a member of the Platinum Club Plus or those products are one sale.
Once you have those products you can really easily create different characters quite easily without a lot of modeling skills. You will need to learn how to edit and change textures though as they are an important part of the look of your characters.
You will still need to practice applying those morphs in different ways and learn to decide which ones look interesting and which do not.
Without the morphs, I think you are mostly limited to scaling the size of the nose, head, ears, and other basic face features bigger or smaller and while that can and is used to effectively caricature people because the same geometric relationship of the scaled face feature part is kept intact you cannot create new character faces because you cannot change the geometric relationship of facial features. So if the original DAZ face looks like Barrack Obama for example and you owned no morphs you could caricature Barrack Obama's face but you could not make him look like Hillary Clinton. Or maybe you can only scale the size of the entire head which is a simplified caricature technique.
2. Well you can buy clothing for the Genesis 3 characters. The Genesis 3 character do come with what amounts to one basic set of clothing and I think one set of underwear free. If you export them to an animation engine or a game engine you can export the clothing attached or seperate from the person models and then attach the clothing to the person models in the game or animation program. You cannot publish the work you do in a game engine though in 3D format without buying a DAZ 3D Game Development License. You can visit ShareCG.com and Wilmap.com and get free DAZ 3D clothing that is more to your liking or you can buy clothing in the DAZ 3D Store.
3. I'm not sure what you mean. The Renderer has basically 3 modes OpenGL, iRay, and 3D Delight (3DL). iRay is meant to render like real light though of course you can use cartoon style models in such an enviroment - eg Frozen the Disney movie is rendered with realistic light behavior (but didn't use iRay I think). 3DL as included with DAZ is meant to be a fast stylistic render like an accomplish ad copy artist might paint. OpenGL is the very basic renderer meant in the way it is here to preview.
4. http://www.daz3d.com/genesis-3-male-head-morphs-22924 & http://www.daz3d.com/genesis-3-female-head-morphs
5. You can buy clothing in DAZ or use free models from some people. Of course you can't resale either of those. You can model clothing in Blender or with Marvelous Designer ($550) with Marvelous Designer being the tool most prefer because it's designed for people that aren't 3D modelers. You still need to learn quite a bit about DAZ Studio, Marvelous Designer, and texturing/UVs and such though to make clothing.
Daz makes its profit by selling contents for Daz Studio. Without purchasing anything, what comes basic with the application is very limited.
There are generally two kind of people which Daz3D caters to.
1. Those who wish to save time by purchasing ready-made contents and use it elsewhere in their pipeline.
2. Those who don't know anything, or little, about 3D modelling (and more) but wish to get into 3D quickly in exchange of money.
In other words, you need to purchase contents in order to expand what you can do in Daz Studio. What you asked (face change) in the question comes from what's called "morphs". You need to have a clearer idea of what you want to do and purchase proper contents for it.
If you have the skills and time, you can achieve the same result in other 3D applications such as Zbush and Blender.
The base figures have been free as has been the program. Daz does run a store and has several morph packs that can be purchased to extend the shaping of the base figures. However, you will find that there are also a multitude of free morphs that the community makes available as well. You can search here, in the forums, through the Freebies forum as a start.
Studio also has tools, called DFormers, which can assist you in making some morphs. The Genesis 3 figures have a face rig which assist you in making expressions and can also do a bit of shaping.
If you check for sales, you can often get morphs at a much lower price as well. There have been sales where people were able to obtain them for 50% or less.
Daz is not a modeler, so it should not be expected to create things, imo. Most content is created outside of Daz in 3D programs; that is true. When people talk about creating characters in Studio, they usually mean using the different morphs available (free or purchased) to mix into a custom character. People utilize skins they purchase (you'll find free ones, too) as the same character can look very different in different skins. With these characters, people then use props, environments, lighting to create illustrations, portraits, animations. Again, these things are available at the Daz Store and there are ones people offer for free. And, has been suggested, if you can use 3D programs yourself, you can supplement with your own morphs and models.
I don't feel the program is useless even at its most basic. I think that is was different than you expected. I also think you didn't know what would be involved with what you wanted to accomplish. Take the time to ask questions as you have and look around in freebies, at the store and around the forums. Take a look at the contests that involve freebies. Those will give you a good idea of what can be done with things made by the community.
You can create characters with it. However the software offers only:
1. A Base Figure. (Genesis, Genesis 2 female/male, and Genesis 3 female/male)
2. A LIMITED amount of FREE morphs (these "morphs" are found in the "shaping" tab of DAZ Studio, and they change how the character looks.
In order to increase the character creation options, you need to BUY these "morphs". Think of it like... DLC for games. Or Cash Shop fashion items.
The DAZ store has over 400 possible parameters to alter for each figure INCLUDING full character presets.
Like I said - you CAN CHANGE THEM IN THE SHAPING tab.
But you have to PAY for these options in the shop.
Make sure to first ask around before buying morphs though - not everything will suit your needs.
Sort of.
You can either:
a) Create the morphs outside of DAZ.
b) Buy these morphs in the DAZ shop.
c) Find free morphs online. (quality may vary thoough...)
DAZ Studio is basically:
1. For POSING figures.
2. Creating Animations.
3. Rendering the final results (jpgs, pngs, movies, etc.)
4. Rigging and Weight mapping figures.
5. Assembling your scenes together.
It can also do a bit more than that. You can create surfaces in it, apply shaders, if I am not mistaken, create shaders and even extend functionality of DAZ with scripting.
https://www.daz3d.com/daz_studio
Scroll down on that site and you will see a software comparison chart.
It shows what each program does, compared to most of the popular 3D software around like Maya.
It also shows you the COST of each program.
Not a Model - buying MORPHS for a model.
Like I said - its like buying DLC for games. You want to have more customization options? Pay for it.
Unless you know how to create stuff yourself in external applications.
DAZ can pose/animate/rig/weight map and render things. However it has almost no modelling functionality.
You need an external program like Hexagon to create your 3D meshes like clothes, hair, etc. Then import it into the program.
DAZ Studio has a feature called "Transfer Utility". It makes creating clothes super easy for characters.
Happy to answer.
Hi,
Everyone!
Please help, i am a little confused. If i palce an order on Daz 3D, does it send plug in to you adress or can you just download them?????