Creating custom characters

acharyapolina

Hi, I'm an PA and am interested in creating a custom character to sell. I would love to start learning about what is involved in the process as well as what I can and can not use in the Product. Can anyone tell me about any tutorials I can look up or any resources I need to be looking at, buying? I'm a beginner in character creation.

Thank you 

crosswind

Hi, acharyapolina

I'm a in-depth user of DS rather than a PA. I'd just like to share some info. with you:
- AFAIK, there's no end-to-end tutorial of making Daz character product up to now but only "fragmented" tutorials in the store and youtube. And most of them are only for beginners, or intermediates at most. There're very very few PAs wanna share all knowledge base and make end-to-end tutorials.
- as making Daz character product involves the process and techniques of character design, sculpting, morphing, texturizing, figure setup, rigging, morphs correction, ERC links / Properties setup, assets and Presets setup, so on and so forth... it could be a long workflow depending on the genre of characters, and the software you use...
- Since you're an experienced PA in buiding Env. Props and Werables..., you've already known well about most of the processes as above-mentioned, so strengthening the domain knowledge / techniques of sculpting, morphing.. will be a good start. Then go for making your 1st character.
- I have quite a few PA friends who specialized in various domains. One of my tricks is : chatting with them + learning on youtube + lots of lots of experiments in DS. The youtube channels of Josh Darling and SickleYield helped me a lot years ago. Self-learning is the primary way... not really necessary to buy fundamental tutorials. Like this example - https://www.daz3d.com/how-to-create-a-new-custom-daz-studio-character, ; most of the techniques in this tutorials could be searched and found on youtube....

The above is just for your reference. Hope to see your 1st character soon. Good luck !

acharyapolina

Thank you so much crosswind for your input, it is very much appreciated. I will look into what you have said more. Thanks :)

acharyapolina

I think I need to Clarify something. Currently, I'm only trying to learn how to sell some character morphs that create a new character on Genesis 8 Female. So I am only trying to sell the morphs, not the character. and I'm wondering what the laws are for selling character morphs, and character texture maps that go with making the new genesis 8 female look different.

Thats what I need to know right now. 

crosswind

If so, that'll be much easier. Generally speaking :
1. You can customize the head / body shape of the character by using sculpting software or morph packages, import the shapes as head and body morph separately with Morph Loader Pro (Reverse Deformations + Delta Only !), as well as make corrective morphs as needed.
2. You either texturize the character skin in external software or buy merchance resource of texture products like this https://www.daz3d.com/raw-skins2-pbr-merchant-resource-textures-for-genesis-81-male . Set up properties on skin surfaces, as well as saving material presets.
3. Save the asset files and well organize the user-facing files in product folders. Pack them for sales...

You may refer to EULA in here - https://www.daz3d.com/eula#general_license

acharyapolina

Thank you so much Crosswind, you have been a lot of help. Very much Appreciated!

crosswind

acharyapolina said:

Thank you so much Crosswind, you have been a lot of help. Very much Appreciated!

No problem ! My pleasure. 

G3Renderworks

I just started doing this on renderhub as a noob. I may at some point make a video of the process but it should be a lot easier for you since you can already make other stuff. I'll add to what crosswind said on the outside chance that you're not aware of any of it:

• You can't use the high resolution mesh for your morphs. Set your figure to base resolution prior to export and I recommend using the dev load version so there are no extras attached. (this may not apply to you since you sell on daz already)
• You're limited to sculpting/modeling tools that don't alter the mesh. Basically you can move stuff around but if the poly/vert count doesn't match up the morph won't load. I tend to stick to inflate/deflate, smooth, and grab brushes.
• Remember to zero out any morphs that might be active before export unless they're a merchant resource or you plan to make them a requirement.
• If you use blender, export the obj at 1% and then import it back at 100% when you're done. I'm not sure if you have to do this for other software.
• Your figures have to be the same size in order for morphs to work correctly. This excellent video was recommended to me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07OA8hl99Pk
• Check the individual terms for merchant resources but so far what I've seen is that you have to rename any textures you use and stuff like eyebrows/eyelashes have to be morphed, exported, and brought back in so it doesn't contain any of the morphs used to create it. Then you use the transfer utility to apply them to the figure.

 

 

acharyapolina

Thank you G3Renderworks, That is all great information. I will put it to good use. Much appreciated! 

G3Renderworks said:

I just started doing this on renderhub as a noob. I may at some point make a video of the process but it should be a lot easier for you since you can already make other stuff. I'll add to what crosswind said on the outside chance that you're not aware of any of it:

• You can't use the high resolution mesh for your morphs. Set your figure to base resolution prior to export and I recommend using the dev load version so there are no extras attached. (this may not apply to you since you sell on daz already)
• You're limited to sculpting/modeling tools that don't alter the mesh. Basically you can move stuff around but if the poly/vert count doesn't match up the morph won't load. I tend to stick to inflate/deflate, smooth, and grab brushes.
• Remember to zero out any morphs that might be active before export unless they're a merchant resource or you plan to make them a requirement.
• If you use blender, export the obj at 1% and then import it back at 100% when you're done. I'm not sure if you have to do this for other software.
• Your figures have to be the same size in order for morphs to work correctly. This excellent video was recommended to me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07OA8hl99Pk
• Check the individual terms for merchant resources but so far what I've seen is that you have to rename any textures you use and stuff like eyebrows/eyelashes have to be morphed, exported, and brought back in so it doesn't contain any of the morphs used to create it. Then you use the transfer utility to apply them to the figure.

 

 

G3Renderworks

Here is the video if you are still looking for info: https://rumble.com/v46c9cn-tutorial-creating-custom-characters-in-daz-studio.html

FSMCDesigns

G3Renderworks said:

• Check the individual terms for merchant resources but so far what I've seen is that you have to rename any textures you use and stuff like eyebrows/eyelashes have to be morphed, exported, and brought back in so it doesn't contain any of the morphs used to create it. Then you use the transfer utility to apply them to the figure.

 

 

One thing to keep in mind, most if not all the merchant resource3s i have seen for skin textures require heavy editing /modification in order to be used for a commercial product (most don't allow for free products). So any user that uses your method can't just take a merchant resource skin and apply it as is and sell it.