Do you use the characters as sold or do you make modifications to them?
Drogo Nazhur
Posts: 1,128
Do you use the characters as sold and originally offered or do you make modifications to them?
I typically blend several characters together in an attenpt to create a unique looking character.
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Post edited by Drogo Nazhur on
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Modify, modify, modify. I never use a character straight out of the box.
I tend to use characters as-is, because my images are focused primarily on storytelling - or, more accurately, joke-telling - and the actual characters are at best a tertiary concern. I've started to customize my characters quite a bit more now that I'm focused on animating an original story, but some of the characters are still just one character but now he's an orc, for example.
Also, good God, that's what George looks like at only 25%?!
I do the same modification on almost all of them. I prefer a certain body type.
If I'm doing a pixar styled animation, I'll modify the characters to have a more toon look. Otherwise a lot of times I buy characters in the store because they look like a specific character I want in a film I'm doing, so I don't really modify them that much, if at all.
Yes, modify. It's creative entertainment.
I don't use the characters at all. I buy them for their parts. And usually, I am buying them because of a can't-say-no deal on a bundle.
All my characters are the result of mixing both, store bought and self made morphs.
To create primary characters, I mix morph packs and small amounts of characters into head meshes I create or generate myself. I largely use single bodies with morph adjustments rather than roll my own, but I'm not averse to doing the latter when the fancy takes me and when there's a particular type of body that I want a character to have. I go for realism and the bodies in the Daz Store tend to be idealised, but they're also hidden by clothes so no biggy. Then again, I just bought a bunch of characters and morph packs elsewhere specifically because they're more representative of real body shapes and have natural asymmetry built in, so I'm probably going to start using them more often
For single use characters, I'll use full characters with the slightest tweaks or mix two or three together. For crowd or background characters, I use them out of the box.
I collect loads of characters - sometimes for textures or features that I can mix; most often so I have a large cast of extras for busy scenes without needing to reuse the same characters.
I never use as is. Characters in the store are just additions to the gene pool for me. When G3 was released I spent a lot of time creating the perfect female shapes for my tastes. I have carried these 4 shapes over to G8 and now G9 and use them most of the time. Creating my own characters is a big part of the creative process IMO.
Some I do, most I don't.
Characters like Kayleyss's G8F Michelle, Cherubit's G8F Milan and Mousso's G9 Red are to beautiful to mess with - it'd feel like a crime.
Most of the rest, yes, I do modify to a greater or lesser extent.
Regards,
Richard
I think those 25% is the percentage that is used of George and each of the others to create the character on top.
Yep! 1000% I never use a character as-is. I buy plenty of them, but it's because I like what they can add to my gene pool. When I'm creating a new character, I'll typically start with a base that's mostly what I'm going for and customize from there. So many characters mix really well with others. That's one of the things I like most about Daz3D. I can customize details to my heart's obsessive delight.
Mostly I alter them, even if only a little, but it is circumstantial. A lot of my art is either RPG PC & NPC portraits or fantasy/SF scenes, sometimes "starring" those characters.
If I'm trying out a new - or rediscovered - outfit, prop, etc., I just load a character. (If that test inspires me to do a full scene out of it, then I might start morphing.) Same for background people.
With main main characters, it depends. I got Topsy 8 because she was close to what I wanted to for one of my D&D PCs, a halfling, so very little changes were made. Many other main characters, I can tell you which figure/character I started with, but not how morphed they are or who they are blended with, (unless I look at the morph sliders in the scene file).
I rarely change their shapes and when I did, it's mostly to add some elements from the various morphs packs released by Daz: I don't really have an eye to blend characters in a way that look right and I think PAs would likely hunt me down with a vengeance if I did
I usually modify them at least a bit, but not always.
Technically this is Snow Queen 9 and Joan 9, heavily modified. I mostly buy characters for their skins, then mix and match little bits of them with various morphs.
I think the only character I've ever used unaltered is Angharad 8. There was just something about her character I adored.
It really depends-some characters look EXACTLY like what you need for a circumstance, but the true power and versatility of Daz is to mix and match to your content. The possibilities are endless!
I look at cgi content as tools and paints and whatnot to be mixed to taste and vision.
Any art has a lot of components and pursuits, and this is part of the art for me (which is no way a ding on people who prefer to focus on other elements; a photography isn't stitching together limbs to make a subject. ... usually)
I almost always modify human models. These days, I might use an out-of-the-box model as part of a blurred background, but that's about it.
1. No skin shader looks equally good in all lighting setups or render settings, so I'm tinkering in the Surfaces tab for about 98% of the renders I make with human figures.
2. Aging the figure.
3. Adding weight.
4. Reducing weight--Usually to make clothes fit better.
4. Adjusting facial features for better racial/ethnic realism. Up until Genesis 8, Daz and the PAs were very prone to churning out darker skinned models with typically Northwest European facial features.
5. Adjusting the model's shape after posing to address problem's with the figure's joint bends, especially the hips when the figure is posed as seated or running. This was a big problem with Generation 4 models, improved through the generations up to Genesis 8, then got worse with Genesis 9 (One of several reasons why I haven't moved to Genesis 9).
6. Adjusting head scale problems. Not uncommon for out-of-the-box models to load with disproportionately sized heads, so I adjust to a better proportion.
I even modify my own characters when I use them
Yes, I am sorry if I didn't make that clear. That one character is 25% of the characters listed below. I don't alway do an even number. I just used that for illustration purposes. Sometimes, I do 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 25, 25.
I started using DAZ studio about 20 years ago with Aiko3/hiro3. So I develooped a strong connection to these two characters. For that reason I usually create a custom body using the curent Aiko morph at around 60%, and then add the morph for the specific character I want to use to create a custom character. If the character already uses a strongly anime flavored shape I'll dial Aiko down, or up a bit if the main character shape seems to need it. I'll also dial other characters together to create a specific shape that I don't think I have anywhere. Very often I do this with the males if I'm doing a couples render, if I'm doing the female with a bit of anime shape I want the guy to be similar. And since they didn't actually DO a Hiro8, I have to tweak. In fact it surprises me that with G8 they didn't do any of the male characters that are a pair with the more popular older models except for Micheal8.
I've also been known to create alternate skins by using a darker skin from one character as the diffuse, and a lighter skin from another character as the translucency. Additionally I enjoy catgirl, bunnygirl, and foxgirl renders, and there I often combine the animal base skin with a human skin to create custom kitties. Sometimes for simplicity I use the catgirl skin in the translucency node, then I can dial the translucency up if I want more of the catgirl skin, or down if I want more of the human skin. Sometimes I'll do what I'm doing with a character now, use the diffuse strength node (in hidden properties) to add the second skin. These methods are a tad easier than using the LIE interface. But I will use that too sometimes. Though generally only if I'm trying to create a custom skin I expect to use a few times. In that case I'll take the modified skins from the temp folder and create a permanent folder in my runtime named after the two characters I combined, then put the "temp" skins in there and pull those for use in my character instead of the ones in the temp folder. But I only really do that if I want to keep that specfic skin combo. I also use MattyManx's Beautiful Eyes quite often, especially if the characters base eyes are just now showing in the render. Most characters have some gorgeous eyes that just don't show up in a render unless you do a close-up, so I'll use MM's BE to enhance them till they show in my render. Sometimes this means using a really tiny amount of emission to get them to pop.
I went mad with G2 and G8 and purchased a LOT of bundles. I figured extra characters, extra clothes, extra hair models and so on would give me a lot of choices. But I really overdid it with G8f. I have something like 200 different characters, and only used about 20% of them, so currently I'm trying to use as many unused ones as I can find. As I often do with clothing I tend to fixate on a few I really like and rarely every use any others. So I'm forcing myself to diversify.
The main reasons for me to buy characters, are to have morph and material resources and to have background characters, that will vanish in DoFs anyway.
I may start with a character that I think will fit my idea, then I start morphing, adding bits from other characters, more morphing, trying out different materials (from several characters), more dial spinning and in the end, I may have removed the original character all together.
I really don't know what the character will end up looking like when I start.
Depends entirely on what I'm using the character for.
Am I doing a series where the theme is the focus, a promo render where the character is basically a fancy clothes hanger, or I just need some background fillers? I'm absolutely using a character with no or few modifcations. My effort is better spent on what is important in the image.
Am I developing a character that is part of a story, or has just decided it would like a permanent residence in my imagination? I will be customising and refining that character until I would be very impressed if anyone could tell where more than one or two key ingredients originally came from.
The only time I ever use a character as-is is when I need a quick secondary or background character for a scene.
...the only characters that i will use "out of he box" are AIko3, the pre-genesis toon characters (like those by 3DU) as well as creatures/monsters .
Since the advent of Genesis when I look consider purchasing a new character, it has to add something special or unique to go into the "gene pool" that use for character development.