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Merchant Resources and Derivatives

suffo85suffo85 Posts: 177
edited March 10 in New Users

I've been picking up some merchant resources here lately in the hopes I can produce a few completely unique characters of my own, had a bit of a dumb question.

If I start with a Genesis 8 (or 9 I guess), base character from starter essentials, head over to shaping and start combining lots of sliders until I find a good unique look, and then combine all those morphs to be a single morph.. is that considered a derivative work?  If so, what are the sliders I am supposed to use to make unique characters that I could give to friends, or maybe one day if I ever get good enough at it to sell?

I've seen zbrush mentioned a few times, am I not supposed to be using any of the sliders in Daz Studio at all and supposed to say export a base character into something like Blender?  Zbrush isn't an option for offline systems, and haven't been able to find a good alternative yet.  I'm not ready to make anything yet, still in the process of gathering information and research. :)

Any guides or resources to go over would be great if someone has a few links as I'd really like to go about it the right way, and so I can better understand the do's and don'ts.

Post edited by suffo85 on

Comments

  • suffo85suffo85 Posts: 177

    The thought also occurred to me I might have to create the entire character, without exporting anything, somewhere else and then import and convert it to a figure in Daz.

  • Cris PalominoCris Palomino Posts: 11,418

    If the intention is to share, it has to be the type of file that requires the user to have the files needed to load the file on their computer. In that case the file you provide becomes like a recipe for the user having all the same ingredients you used. So they'd need the base you're using plus any of the shape files (whether they are ones that come with the base or they have purchased the same morphs as you used). If you create your own morphs from scratch on the base in ZBrush, then they just need to have those morphs. If for instance, you create the figure by loading a character first, like Michael, then they would also need to own that character. Morph merchant resources would also, in most instances, require that the user have purchased those morphs. Read the eula for the MR for what requirements to which you must adhere for sharing or sale. Some MR's, for instance, prohibit the use of their morphs in free characters.

  • suffo85suffo85 Posts: 177

    Cris Palomino said:

    If the intention is to share, it has to be the type of file that requires the user to have the files needed to load the file on their computer. In that case the file you provide becomes like a recipe for the user having all the same ingredients you used. So they'd need the base you're using plus any of the shape files (whether they are ones that come with the base or they have purchased the same morphs as you used). If you create your own morphs from scratch on the base in ZBrush, then they just need to have those morphs. If for instance, you create the figure by loading a character first, like Michael, then they would also need to own that character. Morph merchant resources would also, in most instances, require that the user have purchased those morphs. Read the eula for the MR for what requirements to which you must adhere for sharing or sale. Some MR's, for instance, prohibit the use of their morphs in free characters.

    Thanks, this clears up some for me.  I have read the agreements for the MR's I picked up, and am good with those. :)

    So exporting a base into an external program to work with would be the way for me to go to ensure I'm not using anyone else's works.  I wasn't even sure if I was allowed to use the starter essential base or not since it's a Daz3d creation.  This is all a ways off for me anyway, but it's good to know for planning.

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 101,113

    The zeroed base is OK, sicne it doesn't embed any morphs - when you sculpt that and create a morph from it all you are sharing is your changes. If you want to include other morphs then the way to do that is sculpt on top of them, then when you create the morph use the reverse deformations option (with the morphs still applied) to separate your changes as a new morph. You can create a master slider to set mutliple morphs at once, if you want people to be able to use the result in varying degrees. Aside from its being a derivative, a compound morph made by exporting and reimporting will lose all the automatic adjustments that make it work with other shapes (e.g making sure that the eyes and lips close properly, without gaps or overlaps) and which adjust the shape when the figure is posed so that the bones line up and the bends don't leave odd gaps or push the msh into itself.

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