Poser Pro game dev released: licensing for DAZ figures?
dark_shneiderit
Posts: 52
I used to be on the old project from DAZ, for the decimator and the game dev license (which was not that successful), and when I saw that Poser did the same, I was a bit surprised.
Now the question is the same as in the past: from what I understand, having purchased a ton of DAZ stuff; the fact that I have poser Pro Game Dev does not allow me to use DAZ figures without a license...which means that I cannot grab M4, decimate him, animate him and put him in a game without also owning a license.
Do the owner of PP GameDev, need to purchase a game license from DAZ to use the DAZ figures? Or is Poser having some sort of agreement with DAZ (quite hard to believe, since they compete with DAZ Studio at that point)?
Clarifications would be very welcome
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AFAIK, you will have to buy a game license from DAZ to use DAZ products. This license only covers those products that are listed as DAZ originals. If you wish to use any products from PA's, you will have to buy a gaming license from each individual vendor whose products you wish to use. If the vendor does not offer a gaming license, then you cannot use their products.
DAZ is a separate entity and has no affiliation or relationship with Smith MicroSystems. There is no agreement. The license for Poser's Game Dev version covers the content that is included with that version of Poser. Read the Poser licensing agreement.
Yes, I thought so. They are competitors after all, and before DS, DAZ was the main supplier of figures for Poser (With Renderosity and RuntimeDNA of course), which was a mutualistic ecosystem....more Poser users means more buyer of DAZ products.
Since DS thou; they went a bit astray; SM started to make its own figures, and DAZ made its own application to pose its products. I would never imagine to see them doing a partnership to offer 3d content license for the game version of Poser; my question was more to find a confirmation about what I was already expecting :)
Now would be great if there is a way to contact people here on DAZ; artists that sell content; so you can get a per person license for game content...I don't need every single figure maybe, but just few items.
The positive thing is that now; people will finally start to put on DAZ, products that are more game friendly oriented (topology wise), to take advantage of the new Poser. products made for Poser/DS were never really meant to be used in a game engine; so the amount of work needed to fix them, is almost comparable to just make a figure from scratch. Now hopefully, things will change.
You can get game contents everywhere, but the flexibility to get new clothes and props, do all the prep work in Poser and export it for Unity, is a life saver for many...and DAZ has a ton of clothes for the characters, that cover plenty of genre and situation.
In a few cases, you can get a game license for a particular artist's products right from the DAZ3D store:
https://www.daz3d.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=game+developer+license
They aren't cheap. The one that doesn't list an artist is for the Daz Originals, including M4 and V4.
Yikes...the prices instead than going down went up :)
I am interested mainly in the DAZ figures, 3DUniverse figures and Stonemason....Probably it cost me less to hire a college student to make something with a similar style, compared to the cost for the licenses :)
Fundamentally the idea is interesting, but for that price I would consider it only if the assets are already cleaned up (decimation kill the topology), game optimized and tested in engine.
With a bit of work, you can output fuse characters that are not that bad, and it is just 99 dollars for as many as you want (too bad they do not have clothes); MakeHuman is free, as alternative.
Long time ago, the talk was to have 2 different prices for each asset, where the game asset was not only the same asset but an optimized one (and the price was in the 20-30% ballpark more than the regular poser asset). Probably looking at the amount of work needed, it was decided to just forget it and put a general license :)
Too bad; so much goodness that could be used....at this point even Poser GD is not that useful (no offense but their model are quite generic and not that interesting).
Try iClone pipeline
You can buy some iClone content from the Reallusion city marketplace with a game license for an additional price too
The Genesis figures could be made to work with very little trouble, I feel. Their topology is brilliant, and Genesis 1 in particular is fairly low poly so it wouldn't hurt much. You might pay considerably more here, but the figures are much nicer as a result.
My bugbear with the PP Game Dev is it doesn't give you much detail on what's actually included in the library bundle. '5Gb Library of 3D characters' isn't very descriptive, and given how... errm... ugly most of the SM models have been so far both in terms of appearance and topology, it doesn't fill me with confidence.
Topology might not be quite as important in a video game, but it helps immensely when applying animations.
For my part, I've always used either free assets or, more often, my own creations for games. I won't be developing the next Final Fantasy game any time soon, but I did have many of the assets created for an RPG I had been developing since before University. Sadly, it never got finished, and my dissertation was a totally different 3D block-pushing puzzle game. Still fun to develop, but nowhere near as ground breaking.
Game development is a lot harder when you're a solo programmer, artist and musician!
Thanks Wendy, will check iClone; but I doubt that they have the same amount of variety for clothes, figures and props.
Herald, agree. Keep in mind thou that you will never use any asset just "as is"; you need to decimate it; you need to clean up topology, you need to rig and skin it...this takes forever, and sometimes, it is not worth the hassle; because you need to do it for EVERY item that you import....20 clothes means 20 times the same pipeline, which you must do it by hand.
With the new Poser, I thought that this gets alleviated, since it does most of the work and retain the rig (besides I want to see the results of their decimation process, and see if in fact, the animation is still OK or you need to do some work on the topology to actually avoid pinching and other weird effect during animation). But if you factor this license cost, then everything goes out of the window, unless you are so rich that you don't care (and most indie are not), or you have a team with a sponsor that put the money...for an individual is already hard to buy just the engine and the basic software, then you end up with the meshes that cost more than the engine :)
The content in PP GD is the same as PP...their old figures plus James and Jessie; few strange ones like the mannequin and few of the 3rd party figures. It is 5Gb of stuff that mostly nobody uses; the variety of clothes and hairstyle is not enough to make more than few variation, so it is not useful at all.
I am fine making all on my own; that's what I am doing; but I am not as good as many pro here, that sell content; and I take forever to make even few clothes for a character; so with a decent amount of money (the upgrade from P10 to PP GD is just 250), I thought that the problem was solved.
Glad that I didn't purchase the application first, before realize that I was basically stuck with something not useful to me. It has strong points, but if you want to use anything beyond what is in their library, then prepare to be sucked dry :)
One day we will finish what we have in mind; you must not give up :D
Well, I do not have any interest in games but ...
if SM would release the sale of FBX import module being for poser pro 2012/2014 (I have pp2012), it would give me chance to use Autodesk FBX files in my poser, which I wanted for so long ....
they might well do so only sell the plugin
Hmm..A Poser version with a game license with Poser figures\library with hardly any shape morphs or content..Everybody's game is gonna look the same:) This gaming idea would really only work if they had a huge library of their own where they could dictate the licensing prices for cheap, but they rely on 3rd party, which could turn out to be pretty expensive. Also only a few vendors offer a gaming license as well.
The one thing I don't see in their specs is a Texture Atlas equivalent. Games don't usually use more than one UV set per asset, Poser/DS Content almost always does, so keep that in mind as you decide whether to spend your money or not.
As a moddler for game and animation I always sculpt and paint in extreme hd, to get uv and z details. I always must retopo several resolutions optimal for Poser, DS and realtime 3d render engines. So to me the value of purchasing figures for game is to aquire the artistic design not the practical nature. A quality project takes alot of effort and game devs soon realize there are no perfect off the shelf solutions.
With respect to lack of morphs on Poser canned figures is not a concern. Its the capability thats desired not so much the ready made assets. Game devs have lots of sources for game ready assets but...like you point out, been used before. Thats why this is compelling.
Note - Big limiting factor with most DAZ PA game licenses that crushes the value is that they are single use only. Not cost effective for 99% of indy projects. DAZ license does not have this limit. Kind of a wasted oppertunity. Im sure the sales data support that view.
I believe that people managed that case scenario years ago: any package export to collada; so you can transfer the files between fbx and collada and loose nothing in the process.
They packed some interesting features in the game version, but none of them is the game changer, unless you already have Poser and use mainly Poser (There are already software that does everything that this release of Poser does).
Zevo: in fact this is what used to happen with renders in P2-P3....all look the same; you could spot the models a mile away.
The point thou is that you don't just use the model as is...you customize it to a minimum; changing at least some parameters or textures, so when you export it is different enough to not let others think that you ar just grabbing standard assets and export them for games :) This is a problem that any application has to deal with...that's why few uses Fuse, because of the poor options available, and little customization (unless you consider 200 morphs that has limited capability to give you different characters, "plenty").
There is no really a one stop one click solution to make things different, without put a bit of efforts in it, and on top of that you must overpay for licenses...which is not sustainable for an indie. I always used poser for cinematic; never ever even consider to spend time on their geometry to make it viable for a game, since it takes less to make a generic human and customize, but you do the work once, and re-use it as much as you want.
If they were striking a deal to share income coming from models, with 3rd party dealers, and all was included in the box, or you could buy a one time license, say 300 dollars, to use whatever you own/previously purchased, then it would make sense; but as is now....out of luck.
Spooky, thanks for remind me of the DS plugin :) I am sure that now it works much better than how it used to be in the past. The problem is that it suffer of the same issues of the Poser decimator counterpart: it destroy the topology, which call for a cleanup, if you go very low on the decimation (and same goes for Mixamo decimator plugin...seems that the feature itself is what it is, no matter what algorithm you use). It is useful on a DS/Poser scene perspective, to cram more models in a scene and render faster, but for a game engine; it is of little help (unless you have high poly models in a semi-empti scene); that's why I abandoned that route and was happy to see Poser coming up with a single package solution (50 dollars upgrade from Pro, 250 from p10 or older pro version).
I am curious about textures too; for the number of textures; usually you want to use at most 4 textures to maximize the draw call, so the standard depends from the shader that you use.
You sculpt in high res to create the maps that you will use on the low poly model; with the models from DAZ you don't need that; you can just retopo and apply the original mesh on top as normal map, and you keep 90% of the details, reducing the poly count to probably 30% of the original (didn't try it, but if you decimate lower than 30% the models look not so good). If that feature would work, it would save you a ton of sculpting, since you can add details in the app directly.
Your requirements may not be what the majority of people has...most want something ready, with maps and textures (even rigged and animated), that you can just make it work in UDK, Unity or other engines, so the lack of hires mesh is not that fundamental (many vendors on the Unity store, even offer models with different LOD).
A triple A game developer do not use pre made assets anyway; they do everything in house, so they end up making anyway the high poly sculpt, retopo to make the med and low poly version and move on, so they are not a target either for this product or the game license.
To me, not being primary an artist, means that I need some application that makes my life easier; that has costs that are manageable, and the results are better than what I would obtain, doing it on my own. All the time spent playing with topology, is time taken from writing actual code; as much as I love to see nice wonderful models moving in a scene; if the logic behind is poor and not well planned; it will just be another AAA slideshow, and not a fun game :)
And my plan is not to spend thousands for licenses and assets, which may be used once, and then you need to modify them again...at that point a CG contractor is more effective and gives you IP on what he makes, which is a big plus if you are indie.
I'm not interested in games either, but just using the "hide polygons" command, I am able to reduce a fully clothed figure from 95Mg figure to 25Mg. Very useful when working with more than 1 figure in a scene. I am still messing around with poly reduction and baking characters, clothing and hair into 1 figure, but so far, I can certainly see potential. Lots of information packed into the GameDev Documentation addendum.
SM has upgrade pricing for all Poser users. I added gamedev to 2014 for $39.95 The upgrade from 2012 to 2014 GameDev is the same price as simply upgrading to 2014. So, upgrade to 2014 & SM tosses in GameDev. - You would end up paying less than what I did, in total.
If you are still on 2012, you really should look at 2014 - the "Copy Morphs From" command in and of it self makes 2014 worth buying. Not to mention the fitting room etc.
Good to know, thanks.
one more doubt:
does poly reduction will not interfere with the animation, and rendering in octane?
You sculpt in high res to create the maps that you will use on the low poly model; with the models from DAZ you don't need that; you can just retopo and apply the original mesh on top as normal map, and you keep 90% of the details, reducing the poly count to probably 30% of the original (didn't try it, but if you decimate lower than 30% the models look not so good). If that feature would work, it would save you a ton of sculpting, since you can add details in the app directly.
< Yeah, thats what I do and meant to word it that way. One HD texture & template made on the original UV, and then I use several techniques create lower and topo's for various outputs. I like ZMesher & Topogun. Decimate for games. Sometimes UV transfers botch and that stinks because I need to retex the retopo's >
Your requirements may not be what the majority of people has...most want something ready, with maps and textures (even rigged and animated), that you can just make it work in UDK, Unity or other engines, so the lack of hires mesh is not that fundamental (many vendors on the Unity store, even offer models with different LOD).
A triple A game developer do not use pre made assets anyway; they do everything in house, so they end up making anyway the high poly sculpt, retopo to make the med and low poly version and move on, so they are not a target either for this product or the game license.
To me, not being primary an artist, means that I need some application that makes my life easier; that has costs that are manageable, and the results are better than what I would obtain, doing it on my own. All the time spent playing with topology, is time taken from writing actual code; as much as I love to see nice wonderful models moving in a scene; if the logic behind is poor and not well planned; it will just be another AAA slideshow, and not a fun game :)
Check our Arteria3d note the About us .. does not get better value than this... ;)
And my plan is not to spend thousands for licenses and assets, which may be used once, and then you need to modify them again...at that point a CG contractor is more effective and gives you IP on what he makes, which is a big plus if you are indie.
Interesting site, really surprised they make any money with the sale prices i saw, their setup and their lax use restrictions. The forum really comes across as less professional asset providers and more mesh traders as well. Have you bought from them before? Some or their animals would be useful in a project i have coming up and save me a ton of time.
Interesting site, really surprised they make any money with the sale prices i saw, their setup and their lax use restrictions. The forum really comes across as less professional asset providers and more mesh traders as well. Have you bought from them before? Some or their animals would be useful in a project i have coming up and save me a ton of time.
Yes, and its all legit and original. He is a well known modeler and has large lines at RL.
He makes especially for real-time render engines and now a new 2d pre-rendered sprite line. He also models "requests" and on spec. Super nice and down to earth guy.
Arteria3D also does stuff for FPSshooter creator by The Games creators
An app I bought to make games but never did.
Looking at the mesh you certainly see the difference with DAZ figures, very low poly relying on textures inc normal maps.
The Skyrim mesh I extracted out of curiosity reveals the same thing.
Learning to sculpt and texture Unity assets is prob going to be more useful for most than buying DAZ content for games.
Keep DAZ for rendering the cut scenes.
I know Arteria, got a subscription with him.
His models are pretty good, and are also animated; Overall I've been using them for few projects and they look good.
The problem is that, like all the mass produced assets; either you customize them or all your games looks the same :)
Wendy: AAA mesh are quite different from DAZ mesh; it is a matter of performances and compromise with details. I am into anime/manga style, so for me the greatest learning experience has been to look at how people like at Bandai, model and texture. Also if you look at low poly assets made with Metasequoia, you can see how these artists are able with few poly and a lot of experience, to make outstanding mesh.
Indeed, DAZ material is awesome for cut scene or CG animated, but for game assets; there is no easy button sadly.
I still hope that someone will open a site like DAZ, but selling clothes and textures for Fuse; that would be rather interesting (look at what DAZ did :) )