DAZ 3D

[caterpie]

I have just ran into this posing/rendering software and was looking it up and keep finding information that greatly repeats its self. I was just wanting to know basically:

 

Is it any good?

 

Can I convert blender files into it?

 

Do I need all the components I found on the site?

 

Does it do anything else besides poses?

[LHammonds]

I don't have answers for most of your questions since I do not use it but I have seen an article recently about a related product...Poser. It was used for animation in a feature-length film made by a single person.

 

Article: Star Trek: Specter of the Past

 

You can see his move on his channel here: TNPiR4002

[caterpie]

I don't have answers for most of your questions since I do not use it but I have seen an article recently about a related product...Poser. It was used for animation in a feature-length film made by a single person.

 

Article: Star Trek: Specter of the Past

 

You can see his move on his channel here: TNPiR4002

 

Well, I looked up Poser and all I could find was a 30 day free trial of it. I will defiantly watch the work you mention (star trek fan ^.^) and see if I can figure out this new program.

[LHammonds]

I had downloaded DAZ Studio 2.3.3.50 way back in 2008 and grab the few freebies I could find (about 17 starter packs).

 

I just couldn't "get into it" and eventually forgot about it.

 

I knew Blender well enough and simply did not see much point in messing with DAZ unless I was building stuff to sell through DAZ. But DAZ is such a specific portal I decided that I'd be silly to limit whatever I made to sells through just DAZ. Besides, I'm fairly sure you can import the OBJ files into DAZ that Blender spits out.

 

I also know that you can export DAZ content and import it into Blender which can make its way into Bethesda mods. I know this because I have banned several people for doing just that with content that was not "free" :blink:

 

EDIT:

 

Can I convert blender files into it?

If you didn't figure this out already, you still need Blender to open the .blend files and then export to OBJ format for DAZ to use.

 

Do I need all the components I found on the site?

You really have not said "what" it is you hope to accomplish other than you just found it and want to know what can be done...which doesn't tell us what YOU want to do with it. Are you wanting to create mods with it somehow? Are you just wanting to create scenes for posing and renders? etc.

[dragonbird]

Daz has three main software products, and sells 3D content. The content is mainly in the Poser format, which use OBJ files for the base models. In general, the content they sell can't be used for gaming because of licence restrictions (you can't use in any way that would allow an end-user to extract the mesh), but there are some products available under special "gamer" licences.

 

On the software, it's unlikely that Daz Studio would be that useful for anyone working with their own models. It's primarily for Poser-format models, for people to create 2D artwork or animations. It probably can import from blender, but there would be very little point, and you'd need to re-rig any boned model. It isn't designed to be either a modeling or texturing tool.

 

Daz Studio was originally designed to be a competitor to Poser. If the features of this type of software are of interest, I'd recommend Daz Studio these days - it probably passed Poser in terms of capability about a year ago, and Daz seem to be very committed to extending it, unlike Poser which has tended to stagnate in recent years. The only disadvantage of Daz Studio is that it relies heavily on plug-ins for extensibility, and these break at times when there's upgrades.

 

Bryce is a very old product that Daz bought a few years ago. It's useful for creating backgrounds, but I can't see much other use for it in a gaming/modding environment. It does include some modeling capability, but has no rigging.

 

The most useful software product from them, for most gamers/modelers, would be Carrara. It has full modeling and texturing capability, and is fairly easy to learn (compared to Blender) and very cheap (compared to, say, 3ds Max). Again, it has a good roadmap for future growth. It has rigging but I'm not sure how well the rigging can be exported, so if this is important it's best to check on their forums first.

 

Most content sold in the Daz stores can be used in any software that will take Poser-format or OBJ files. However, as mentioned above, there are licence constraints that severely limit its use in gaming unless it's bought under the gamer licence.

 

I'm very familiar with Daz, but less so with the needs of modders, so my apologies up-front for the gaps in the info above. I've used Carrara extensively, but for animations, not modeling or game-related.

[caterpie]

Well, I was thinking about the posing part of the software, I have seen a lot of posing mods for oblivion and was wondering if this would be a type of software to use to make them for people with little experience in blender. I also was wondering also for the landscaping tool if you could export a piece of land (and apply a texture you made) to make scenery that might be nice to look at (a floating island or something). I was reading about how this was simple to use and learn and was thinking if it would be a good idea. After all, I just started on blender and don't know too much yet.

[Loktyre]

Poser is certainly among the best choices for posing, and rendering out decent scenes.

 

You may look at Renderosity for more information, help, and a gallery that is mostly composed of Poser renders.

 

I use Poser for creating human faces, and export the .collada data into Maya. Poser supports, and exports to Collada. This format will hold onto texture, and material data as well as rig data.

 

Poser also exports to OBJ, and since OBJ is universal you can open it into other programs that support obj, and also support .nif import and export.

 

As for landscaping... Bryce, Vue, and Terragen. These are the three I would recommend, Vue coming highly recommended. Vue supports cross work pipelines between 3DS Max, Maya, XSI, and Poser.

 

Using game content in, and using poser content in Oblivion, F03, NV is possible as far as I know. As stated, the only thing stopping you are license restrictions on content from within the Poser Library. You can import OBJ, and texture data into Poser and can apply it to characters made inside of Poser.

 

Be warned... Poser's rendering isn't exactly it's best feature. I'd recommend finding a way to import all data into Poser, and exporting it all to Collada or FBX back into a third party application such as Blender, Maya, 3DS Max, XSI. Then rendering from there.

Edited May 18, 2011 by Loktyre

[dragonbird]

I was just about to reply when Loktyre posted, and was going to ask what export format you guys would need :)

 

All Daz software is unreliable on Collada. If that's what you need, I would agree that Poser is probably still better.

 

I'd agree that Bryce is a viable option for landscapes. I haven't checked out the features in the latest version of Bryce, but I think that most people would consider Vue better. (Bryce has a large fanbase, but despite being a big supporter of Daz, I've never rated Bryce highly).

 

Carrara is a good all-round tool and has a better render engine than any of the other Daz products or Poser. Again though, export capability may be a weakness if you need anything more sophisticated than OBJ.

[caterpie]

Well, I got DAZ so I could make some of my own animations for my own mods since I already made a mesh for a mod, I did a little bit of animation on blender and was wondering if I could do it on this any faster.

[LHammonds]

I do know of someone that took the vanilla Oblivion female body, imported it into Daz, made some adjustments to make her look like a body builder and exported it back to Oblivion.

 

I asked the author if he'd create a basic tutorial on the process but don't know if he ever did.

 

Found it. The author is Tigersan

 

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