Why use custom characters?

marble

kyoto kid said:

...that's another reason why I stopped at G3 as I I spent a lot of time (and money on various resource content) developing a number of characters (as well as rebuilding them following a drive crash a few years ago).

Didn't care to go through all that again.

I say that with every new generation but, predictably, I now have more G8 products than I had for G3 so I don't listen to my own advice. However, G8 has been around for a long time now and I can't imagine what G9 would bring that G8 with a good set of morphs and add-ons doesn't have right now. I only recently started buying G8M (I switched to G8F a long time ago though) products and characters and I can't say that I have noticed a big difference other than the fact that there are some more interesting characters available for G8M.  I would rather see development in dForce and other physics plus a better animation timeline than a whole new generation of Genesis (how may generations before "Genesis" becomes a misnomer since it indicates an original or beginning, doesn't it?).

Sci Fi Funk

I'm with first bastion on this one. I tell stories. I don't enjoy fiddling for hours trying to get a character just right. Instead then I am my own casting agency. With a large selection of characters to choose from at least one of them will match the look I want. I do enjoy narrowing my choices down (I keep a hires headshot of each character in a folder) until I get closest to the original idea in my head. It's fun!

juvesatriani

Shapemorph  is very important for me since I`ve trying hard to make my output as stylized as possible . So shape for gene pool over material sets /texture maps . the exception will be Transfer Map tools

I rarely rebuild my character to next gen because mostly they have extreme stylized morph which (at least for me)  works better in old genesis lines .  

But for normal girl renders I would go into recent Genesis lines and doing morph editing via Photoshop Liquify in postwork rather than in DAZ studio itself

Torquinox

Well, then, I like being a casting agency.  I've not cared much about switching a figure from one generation to another. They're all viable. You can render plastic-looking g8s and decent-looking m4/v4 . I happen to have a ridiculous variety of morphs and fixes for v4, so she gets a lot of use. But I also seem to have a shocking amount of stuff for the later generations - At least, I'm always surprised when I go through my library. "Oh, look at that! When did I get that? Cool!"

 

Frankly, I've no idea how folks like Cybersox ever really know what they've got or how they find anything.

jd641

I buy the core characters mainly as high quality starting points for mixing morphs. Usually I dial the face morphs down to 60 or 50% which still gives them enough of their specific look but allows other morphs to really change how they look without distortions in the mesh. Most of the g8 core females imho take mixing morphs so well, but those base starting points they provide are key to a lot of my characters.