Videogame/Media-Characters in DAZ - Ideas for a Workflow?

Ryselle-Ryssa

Hello there,

Fanart is a tale as old as time, and a train I want to get on. Looking through google and deviantart, it is of possible, the legal issues are discussed broadly (Do not monetise!) and so I wanted to start, question is how.

My goal is to work with DAZ Studio and to work with the DAZ Content. Nice for me, my goal is not to make a 100% copy with clothing and everything, I'm "just" looking for head and hair. There seem to be many ways to get a character vom A to B, and thats why I ask...

The following possiblities seem practical for me, but I want your suggestions as well

A: Facegen / Headstudio
Since you can get cinematic renders of most characters, or create them in another programm (i.e. just rendering the Zero-Pose in XNALara) it seemed plausible. But I literally found noone who tried this with Not-Real-Live-People. So either the community doesnt work with DAZ/FaceGen, or it was tried and didnt work.

B: Facemorphs
Since FaceFactory is cheaper, perhaps it is a saver way. I would load the obj in DAZ and tweak my face till it fits.

My "fears" are, that I encounter borders, when the figure I want to use is "too far of" from a human, i.e. because it is only a sculpt (example - not intended to be stolen or copied) or if it is to "anime-ish" (example).

Has anyone made experiences or does anyone has other suggestions?

 

WendyLuvsCatz

Zbrush

FSMCDesigns

If you are looking just to do fan art, you can always import .OBJs into Daz Studio and render. I do it all the time with assets from the games I legally own. I usually export them using dev tools and other apps in .FBX format, pose them in Max and then import into DS. keep in mind that the legality issues go beyond just money and selling. None of the 3D assets at DAZ can be shared in any way. The renders and images created are free to do whatever you want with them depending on the copyright of any commercial characters you use and how the studios feel about Fanart.

Facegen does a pretty good job of recreating famous people, just really depends on the source material.  The better the images used, the better the output

nonesuch00

FaceGen with the additional problem of you having to teach yourself how to create human texture sets (which I didn't do below you'll notice) to get the fanart looking enough like the originals to pass muster with very particular fans.

Also, sometimes with FaceGen it is difficult to find source photographs that will be good enough quality and with the all important neutral expression such that you get a good geometric likeness of the face you want to copy in FaceGen.

Here for example ranked in order of difficult of finding a good source photo. 1 being easiest and 3 being most difficult.

1) Demond Wilson

2) Redd Foxx

3) Lawanda Page

Both Redd Foxx and Lawanda Page were very difficult before I found just 'so-so' source photos to make their 'FaceGen' likenesses.

One advantage that you'll have is that since you are doing video game likenesses just move the character to front & center on your monitor as a bust shot, then a bust shot in profile for each of the left & right sides via screen capture utility or whatnot and then use those images in FaceGen. 

Some users in the forums are quite good at morph dialing but it takes a lot of practice and paitence and if you aren't already reasonably adept at pencil & paper drawing yourself you might have big troubles getting good at using morph dials to create realistic likenesses.