How to create a 3D character from scratch
Magic Dragon 3D
Posts: 116
Hey guys. I'm watching great free Daz3D tutorials on YouTube and I'm learning more about the software every day, but I would like to know how I can create a 3D character (man or woman) from scratch and how to change the body type (thin, fat, tall, short and among others), skin tone, race, face shape, size and shape of the nose, lips, ears, etc. as if I were creating a 3D avatar! I looked for tutorials in this style on YouTube, but what I found was some people teaching how to customize a ready-made character, and not create it from scratch itself. Does anyone have any channel recommendations for a tutorial that teaches how to create a 3D character? I would be grateful if someone could help me!
Comments
To start "from scratch" you'd have to use the default's avatar shape. Or you could also start from a face/body shape that you already like coming from whatever male/female bundle, and from there you can move all vertices and shape the Genesis as you want using : morphs bundles. They'll add sliders to your Genesis and enable you some level of creative flexibility.
A few examples of those morphs bundles in the list below (often you'll find 2 bundles, male and female) :
Body Mixer Bundle for Genesis 3 and 8 Male and Female
Genesis 8 Male Body Morphs
Genesis 8 Male Head Morphs
People of Earth Faces (Africa, Asia, Europe, etc.)
RareStone's Face Morphs Collection (an excellent one with mostly well made morphs)
Shape Shift for Genesis 8 Male(s)
SY Unusual Features for Genesis 8
etc, etc.
P.S : You could also of course use Blender or ZBrush to make your own morphs.
Cheers.
It would be the same process.
Load a base figue, for example, 'Genesis 9' and then apply or dial in morphs and materials that you have purchased.
Some morph packages for daz studio will allow you to have quite granular control. For example, they will give you ability to tweak the Philtrum or some very small anatomical detail. Other morphs will be more broad, like making a character thin or muscular
You will be limited by the morphs you have access to.
The morph packages in the Daz3d store are powerful tools for creating custom characters, and with a bit of practice easy to use as they work within Daz Studio itself. As much as I enjoy using morphs I also find them a bit frustrating. Every character was a compromise, because the morph did not shape things the way I wanted. If you sculpt or model your own morphs you don't have those limitations.
If that interests you, take a look at these.
https://www.versluis.com/2018/01/how-to-create-daz-character-morphs-with-blender/
https://www.versluis.com/2019/01/how-to-create-daz-studio-morphs-with-zbrush/
Thank you for your answer! I thought you wouldn't be able to create your own character from scratch, but now I see new possibilities! Are these morph bundles and sliders paid or available for free within Daz? By chance, can I use a default model (male or female) Genesis 8/8.1/9 and create my own character from scratch by tweaking morph options to change the character's face and body?
I understood. I had this doubt because I watched a tutorial where a guy used a ready-made model and just changed the hair color and added new clothes and applied a pose but he hadn't explained about these sliders and morphs. Sorry for my ignorance, but would these morphs and sliders be something equivalent to what you do in Metahuman? It's because before venturing into Daz3D, I used and still use Metahuman Creator because it's a little easier to create ultra-realistic 3D characters.
I am not really familiar with metahuman process.
Im sure there are videos that show Daz Studio customisation process... Briefly, Daz Studio has vendors on multiple different marketplaces and these vendors make, among many other options for customisation, morphs that change the shape of the Daz Studio base figures. The morphs would be either character morphs that are full head and body morphs, body part morphs i.e., feet and hands, body composition morphs, individual muscle or anatomy morphs, granular detail morphs like wrinkles or chin dimples etc.
These morphs will generally be dials that range from 0% to 100% so you have control on how much of each morph to bring in at a time and combinations of morphs. The library of morphs users have access to depends on what they have downloaded. There are not very many useful morphs that come with the defualt Genesis 9 figure, for example. So the expectation is that to be able to fully customise figures using a large morph library, you will have had to download additional morph packages.
Like morphs, other custom options like skin textures and hair would also need to be downloaded to get a broad library of presets.