I was right there with you back in February when I started messing with Daz. Probably with the same "Wha???" expression. I'm definitely more technical than artistic. There's still a lot I don't know, like surface shaders, uv mapping, and on and on. For our games, there's not much more that we need to know to make something decent. If Iwant to make something photo-realistic (and Daz can do that with 10+ hour renders) I would need to know a lot more about the technical stuff and really detailed adjustments to the 20 or so settings on lights and 30 or so settings on skin materials. In general though, There are only a couple here and there that I adjust, and most of what I do is using default values on everything but lights, and only change a couple things on the lights, like shadows, light color and intensity, and samples on Uber lights.

Don't let all the settings bury you. Most of it you can ignore, especially at first, and still turn out some great images.

Wolfschadowe

Wolfschadowe wrote:I was right there with you back in February when I started messing with Daz. Probably with the same "Wha???" expression. I'm definitely more technical than artistic. There's still a lot I don't know, like surface shaders, uv mapping, and on and on. For our games, there's not much more that we need to know to make something decent. If Iwant to make something photo-realistic (and Daz can do that with 10+ hour renders) I would need to know a lot more about the technical stuff and really detailed adjustments to the 20 or so settings on lights and 30 or so settings on skin materials. In general though, There are only a couple here and there that I adjust, and most of what I do is using default values on everything but lights, and only change a couple things on the lights, like shadows, light color and intensity, and samples on Uber lights.

Don't let all the settings bury you. Most of it you can ignore, especially at first, and still turn out some great images.

Wolfschadowe

Yeah, I have no artistic talent whatsoever. I struggle with stick figures. I'm able to understand the AdventureCreator engine well enough, and am a really good writer (or so I'm told), but it's the visuals... The visuals! D: Well, that and trying to find good materials that are free. It's hard navigating sharecg and especially rendrosity for the proper materials, since they don't seem to have them organized well.

Well, I more or less thought up of what story I want to make, so while I'm trying to work against my anti artistic instincts I'll try making the game sans visuals in that.

Well, I more or less figured out how to put the things in the right places, so that's good.

Only problem now is that I can't seem to find any good free hair or clothing to decorate her with... Do you guys buy each and every hair and clothing piece? Because I don't have 100s of dollars to spend ;-;

Also, I almost have the intro mapped out in adventure creator... so yay.

regarding hair, mylochka over at sharecg has a lot of free hair for daz characters. Here's the link to his gallery
http://www.sharecg.com/pf/full_uploads.php?pf_user_name=mylochka

Regarding clothing, good free clothing items for V4 and V3 are readily available at renderosity and sharecg, you just have to hunt for it.
Another site that has lots of free clothing is evilinnocence.
http://www.evilinnocence.com/free-stuff/clothing.html

You can also find free clothing at content paradise http://www.contentparadise.com/
and most digital creations http://www.most-digital-creations.com/freestuff.htm
If you can be specific about what you want, I can probably help you.

very respectfully,
fleet

Thanks for the links, I appreciate them. But I myself have never been the best at fashion so I don't know how well I could dress up girls, haha.

If you want to help me find some good hair and clothing, I am looking for a shoulder length blonde hair and a short, feminine but tomboyish black hair (kind of like Videl from Dragonball Z if you need an example). If not, I could probably find that... eventually.

But what I really need is ideas for clothing... Because my girl is shy, I want her to not be provocative, but still be visually appealing... Again, not too fashion oriented here.

Dress them any way YOU like. It's your project. You make them appear pure or wanton. If you make it pleasing to you it'll probably be fine for the majority of us.
Keep your armor nearby... Some have little tact (guilty), some I fear are just mean. If changes are needed someone will tell you. PLEASE keep in mind you CANNOT make anything that everyone will like! You'll drive yourself crazy if you try!
Lou

Superawesomemans wrote:Thanks for the links, I appreciate them. But I myself have never been the best at fashion so I don't know how well I could dress up girls, haha.

If you want to help me find some good hair and clothing, I am looking for a shoulder length blonde hair and a short, feminine but tomboyish black hair (kind of like Videl from Dragonball Z if you need an example). If not, I could probably find that... eventually.

But what I really need is ideas for clothing... Because my girl is shy, I want her to not be provocative, but still be visually appealing... Again, not too fashion oriented here.

Try the items at mamomamo's site for visually appealing but not provocative:
http://mamomamo.candypop.jp/Freestuff/CCP002.html

For short black hair and long hair, check out kozaburo's site.
http://digitalbabes.jp/dload1.html

Ok, you're right. I think I'll be able to at least make the girl. Then it'll just be a matter of posing them correctly.

Also, one last thing. When you do backgrounds, do you render them yourself or do you get premade pictures?

Superawesomemans wrote:Ok, you're right. I think I'll be able to at least make the girl. Then it'll just be a matter of posing them correctly.

Also, one last thing. When you do backgrounds, do you render them yourself or do you get premade pictures?

I've done both, but I prefer to render the backgrounds myself. By doing so I can use the lighting and shading available in DAZ. Note that finding free background DAZ and Poser scenes is not as easy as finding free clothing and hair.
If you decide to use pre-made pictures, I suggest you to find royalty free pictures. Most photos you find on the internet are copyrighted.

Here's another good place for links to free hair.
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewthread/447/

Welp, thanks to all your help I more or less got a girl who I think is suitable... maybe lol. Obviously her clothes would change during the game and eventually be removed, but for now this is what I got. What do you think?

http://i.imgur.com/cPy6p4B.png?1

Superawesomemans wrote:Welp, thanks to all your help I more or less got a girl who I think is suitable... maybe lol. Obviously her clothes would change during the game and eventually be removed, but for now this is what I got. What do you think?

http://i.imgur.com/cPy6p4B.png?1

If your story has a modern-day setting in Europe or North America, I personally don't see any problem with using that model.
As LRM said, "... It's your project. You make them appear pure or wanton. If you make it pleasing to you it'll probably be fine for the majority of us. .." He also said, " PLEASE keep in mind you CANNOT make anything that everyone will like!..."

Wow, this threat is a treasure pile. Will pillage through it soon.

Superawesomemans I read through this tread today and I wanted to confirm that the back grounds are the most time required part of what I do. Yes it can be expensive to purchase items, but I do purchase some of the stuff you see in any of my rendering. I have been doing this for a little while now and I have built up a bit of items you might say. When I first started I scoured all the free sites I could, I took as much as I could see fit and catagorized it to my back up hard drive.
Now about purchasing, I would say rarely pay full retail for items, For example my latest purchase total came to $ 20.46 for 4 items. They were all on sale at renderosity at 50% off, but as a registerd member I get discount notices in emails, I applied my lasted dicount which was 15% if I spent more than $ 20.00 or in this case $ 3.07 which brought the total to $ 17.39. so roughly $ 4.35 per item. I'm just saying to buy it as best you can. I by some things because I want to know that the vendors that make this stuff will stay around so I hope it helps them a little. Lord knows I have no idea how to model like they do.

I re-use stuff all the time in scenes, I re-texture them change the color. I mix and match to make scenes and to dress my characters. Here is a render with the top from 3d-age and a bottom from Hongyu.



If you need a back drop perhaps I can help you. I don't think its a problem if I give you a rendered backdrop, but due to copywrites I can not give content away. Let me know what you are looking for.

For free backgrounds, after registering at renderosity, check out the pages at
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/freestuff/index.php?section_id=381&&page=1

There are 18 pages of free environments and backdrops. The section is Poser, but most will work in DAZ. There are some completely furnished rooms, some complete town (street) scenes, and other background scenes.

Just out of interest, has anyone migrated onto using Genesis 2 / Victoria 6 models? I have found them better to animate and pose but there is a real lack of content, especially adult content.