Best assets to start off with in Daz3d?

[mmfcjf]

Hello all,

I am exploring making my own visual novel, and as I scan through the massive amount of assets available for the program I figured it would best to lean on the experience of those who've already done this.

What would you recommend as the most important assets to get as the foundation to making a game?

There seems to be a number of genital assets for male and female. Is one better than any other? What about sex poses and animations?

Appreciate all thoughts, feedback and links.

 

[Deleted member 1121028]

Get your skins right from the start (fonctional SSS, correct shading, decent maps).
Keep in mind good looking skin doesn't have always the best promo shot.
Babina (who use Uber shader) and Victoria 8.1 (who use PBRSkin shader) are good places to see how cool skin are made.

In term of mesh realism (imho), Daz genitals>NGV8>the rest (not fan of caricatures, some people love it).

Animation is a whole subject in itself. Google how basic animation are made to try to get the gist of it.

 

[MissFortune]

What would you recommend as the most important assets to get as the foundation to making a game?

TL;DR: Models > Gens > Environments > Hair > Clothes/Props/Poses should be the priority.

When it comes to Daz assets, try them before you buy them. Always. The PAs do a good job of promoting the bright spots and hiding the not-so-bright stuff. Non-Figure related things you might want: ManFriday's RenderQueue, MeshGrabber, Look at Me, Scene Optimizer and Ultimate Skin Manager (for the lazy) by the same PA.

Models/figure (as no_name already touched on. Colm Jackson, Bluejaunte(sp?), Victoria 8/8.1, Mousso, are pretty good places to start.) > genitalia (NGV8 work on almost every figure, but not all Daz figures come with gens. Dicktator/XY are comparable, just use whichever looks better to you.) > Environments (Fugazi1968/Ironman are bar-non the best on the Daz store. Stonemason, too, just make sure you have a rig capable of using it. Tesla3dcorp and Polish are hard to go wrong with as well. TruForm (on Renderosity.) has a lot of great stuff, as well. Again, need a beefier rig for his stuff.) > Hair (outoftouch, AprilYSH, WindField, and Rarestone/Nirvana stuff if you can find it are nice (Rarestone is Ravenstone now, iirc, and no longer on the Daz store. I believe she's on Renderosity.) as well. Propschick has some decent hairs too. > Clothes/Props/Poses (Hard to go wrong with clothes on the Daz store. They're all pretty good when it comes to the newer stuff. You'll gather props with the more environments you get, and poses are tricky. You can do them all yourself, but it can take a while. Zeddicus's poses are the only one's I'd really buy, though I use

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and

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a fair bit.)

You're going to run across these one-click packages that do all the lighting for you (somewhat), and while there's nothing inherently wrong with them, you're better off learning how to manually light scenes in Daz via Spotlights, Pointlights, and Emissives before you start using the aforementioned packages. You'll have far more control over the lighting, and the knowledge of knowing what lights and what style of lighting will look best for the scene. I will recommend

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, though. Makes your life easier for bigger scenes with lots of small lights, or even godrays.

As far as animations go, there are premade ones (Stimuli and AnimArts), but they aren't exactly cheap (specifically AnimArts) and in the former's case, overused. You're better off looking at some tutorials and see if you can get your head around it. But as mentioned, it's a whole different beast, especially with Daz. Learn the tool itself, and then come back to animation later.

 

[Deleted member 1121028]

I did play few porn VN last week and definitely some amateur get 'trapped' into terrible skins.
Someone should write "Daz skin 101 do or don't" to identify fucked up patterns .

 

[myuhinny]

Another thing that many DEVs should have is a back up storage container so they can put everything there so if something ever happens with their computer the game will not get nuked because of lost assets. I bought a 8 terabyte one last year to store all of my stuff on.

 

[Sakrilas]

Another thing that many DEVs should have is a back up storage container so they can put everything there so if something ever happens with their computer the game will not get nuked because of lost assets. I bought a 8 terabyte one last year to store all of my stuff on.

Totally. Every few days I backup my DAZ stuff into an external hard drive.

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is an amazing application to do this sort of thing.
It takes a few minutes to synchronize everything, totally worth it.

I did play few porn VN last week and definitely some amateur get 'trapped' into terrible skins.
Someone should write "Daz skin 101 do or don't" to identify fucked up patterns .

I would love to learn more about Skin Selection, I don't know anything about those, I just put skins I think look nice.

 

[myuhinny]

I mostly just use it for games and DAZ assets. Though I did set up folders and separate them. Hair here outfits here. Then inside those folders I made another folder and named them image folder and each file I opened I pulled the image out renamed them and added what body type each was for. If it didn't have a image file I would search the internet or where I got it from to get a image of it.

This way I can open the folders on my external drive and cruise through the photos to find the ones that I want to use it also helps if I forget what one is called or looks like.

 

[Sakrilas]

Anything you recommend? Been looking for a backup drive, but all the reviews I've seen on the bigger 8TB+ ones just seem to be getting shit on. Have my eye on the Seagate FireCuda 8TB HDD currently.

I realize you're not asking me, but I hope you won't mind if I chime in too, since this is also an area I have interest in.

Instead of a single large HDD, have you considered getting multiple smaller ones in RAID?

The redundancy brought by the RAID setup makes it much less likely that you'll lose / corrupt data. It also increases read efficiency.

You must be registered to see the links

For the sake of full transparency here, I haven't tried using this setup. At the moment my backup is done in a single 3TB HDD. But I am considering moving towards having a NAS in my home.

 

[MissFortune]

I realize you're not asking me, but I hope you won't mind if I chime in too, since this is also an area I have interest in.

Instead of a single large HDD, have you considered getting multiple smaller ones in RAID?

The redundancy brought by the RAID setup makes it much less likely that you'll lose / corrupt data. It also increases read efficiency.

You must be registered to see the links

For the sake of full transparency here, I haven't tried using this setup. At the moment my backup is done in a single 3TB HDD. But I am considering moving towards having a NAS in my home.

I don't mind at all. I looked a bit into it (had a friend recommend it as well.) before deciding on the one large HDD route. It's just a bit out of my price range/more than I'd be comfortable spending on something I'll be pulling out once every couple of weeks. Thanks, though.

 

[Deleted member 1121028]

I would love to learn more about Skin Selection, I don't know anything about those, I just put skins I think look nice.

Textures apart, most common redflag is skin that uses PBR/Specular as base mixing (more likely to be genesis 3 skin), 9 out of 10 shader part will be terribly outdated. Or any skin that use mono SSS mode and has greyscale map slotted in translucency (completely outdated). Translucency weight under .75 is generally self defeating (as UberShader is a pseudo PBR workflow based on translucency for SSS; would argue it's the main show). Some creator overplay their hand with specularity layers like enabling gloss + dual lobe + top coat + .. = ???, 99% case you need dual lobe and a top coat. Some also uses specular map for roughness one (and it's very common :s). Then wrong transmitted color values, by far the fastest way to broke a skin SSS as it's not just a color (you learn the hard way lol).

Not this is in order to milk the best you can from any skins and something that looks good on most conditions.

 

[Sakrilas]

Textures apart, most common redflag is skin that uses PBR/Specular as base mixing (more likely to be genesis 3 skin), 9 out of 10 shader part will be terribly outdated. Or any skin that use mono SSS mode and has greyscale map slotted in translucency (completely outdated). Translucency weight under .75 is generally self defeating (as UberShader is a pseudo PBR workflow based on translucency for SSS; would argue it's the main show). Some creator overplay their hand with specularity layers like enabling gloss + dual lobe + top coat + .. = ???, 99% case you need dual lobe and a top coat. Some also uses specular map for roughness one (and it's very common :s). Then wrong transmitted color values, by far the fastest way to broke a skin SSS as it's not just a color (you learn the hard way lol).

Not this is in order to milk the best you can from any skins and something that looks good on most conditions.

Oh wow, thanks again no__name , you've been giving me so many great advices, I really appreciate that!

 

[Incorrigible]

TL;DR: Models > Gens > Environments > Hair > Clothes/Props/Poses should be the priority.

When it comes to Daz assets, try them before you buy them. Always. The PAs do a good job of promoting the bright spots and hiding the not-so-bright stuff. Non-Figure related things you might want: ManFriday's RenderQueue, MeshGrabber, Look at Me, Scene Optimizer and Ultimate Skin Manager (for the lazy) by the same PA.

Models/figure (as no_name already touched on. Colm Jackson, Bluejaunte(sp?), Victoria 8/8.1, Mousso, are pretty good places to start.) > genitalia (NGV8 work on almost every figure, but not all Daz figures come with gens. Dicktator/XY are comparable, just use whichever looks better to you.) > Environments (Fugazi1968/Ironman are bar-non the best on the Daz store. Stonemason, too, just make sure you have a rig capable of using it. Tesla3dcorp and Polish are hard to go wrong with as well. TruForm (on Renderosity.) has a lot of great stuff, as well. Again, need a beefier rig for his stuff.) > Hair (outoftouch, AprilYSH, WindField, and Rarestone/Nirvana stuff if you can find it are nice (Rarestone is Ravenstone now, iirc, and no longer on the Daz store. I believe she's on Renderosity.) as well. Propschick has some decent hairs too. > Clothes/Props/Poses (Hard to go wrong with clothes on the Daz store. They're all pretty good when it comes to the newer stuff. You'll gather props with the more environments you get, and poses are tricky. You can do them all yourself, but it can take a while. Zeddicus's poses are the only one's I'd really buy, though I use

You must be registered to see the links

and

You must be registered to see the links

a fair bit.)

You're going to run across these one-click packages that do all the lighting for you (somewhat), and while there's nothing inherently wrong with them, you're better off learning how to manually light scenes in Daz via Spotlights, Pointlights, and Emissives before you start using the aforementioned packages. You'll have far more control over the lighting, and the knowledge of knowing what lights and what style of lighting will look best for the scene. I will recommend

You must be registered to see the links

, though. Makes your life easier for bigger scenes with lots of small lights, or even godrays.

As far as animations go, there are premade ones (Stimuli and AnimArts), but they aren't exactly cheap (specifically AnimArts) and in the former's case, overused. You're better off looking at some tutorials and see if you can get your head around it. But as mentioned, it's a whole different beast, especially with Daz. Learn the tool itself, and then come back to animation later.

I just wanted to say - I have this comment bookmarked, and as someone that is just coming to grips with Daz, and taking my first steps into making a VN, this post is irreplaceable in the value I'm getting from it as I go hunting for assets. So thank you so much!

 

[MissFortune]

I just wanted to say - I have this comment bookmarked, and as someone that is just coming to grips with Daz, and taking my first steps into making a VN, this post is irreplaceable in the value I'm getting from it as I go hunting for assets. So thank you so much!

Glad it could help. There's a few things that've changed with G9 and such, but nothing you'd likely need to worry about if you're just starting. Ghost Lights have gone through what feels like a few dozen changes in regard to how they work. You'll likely want to make sure that the ghost lights you're using are compatible with the version of Daz you're using.

Kind of just my opinion, but there's really less skin issues with G8.1/9, though specifically G9. The quality of skins across the board have gotten better. However, I still tend to stick with Daz Originals when it comes to skins. There's quite a lot of diversity when it comes to skin colors and types with the Daz Originals, and with some Translucency Weight (or the G9 version of the aforementioned skin manager) adjustments, you'll have even more. But kind of a moot point if you're not using G9, obviously. Though, the Daz Originals part still very much applies to G8/8.1 (just with less options, like the ability to use female skins on male models).

Good luck with your VN.

 

[Incorrigible]

Glad it could help. There's a few things that've changed with G9 and such, but nothing you'd likely need to worry about if you're just starting. Ghost Lights have gone through what feels like a few dozen changes in regard to how they work. You'll likely want to make sure that the ghost lights you're using are compatible with the version of Daz you're using.

Kind of just my opinion, but there's really less skin issues with G8.1/9, though specifically G9. The quality of skins across the board have gotten better. However, I still tend to stick with Daz Originals when it comes to skins. There's quite a lot of diversity when it comes to skin colors and types with the Daz Originals, and with some Translucency Weight (or the G9 version of the aforementioned skin manager) adjustments, you'll have even more. But kind of a moot point if you're not using G9, obviously. Though, the Daz Originals part still very much applies to G8/8.1 (just with less options, like the ability to use female skins on male models).

Good luck with your VN.

Damn, so you reckon as someone starting out now that G9 is the way to go? I was kinda exclusively 'collecting' G8 assets because I thought that they'd have a bigger library, and also read somewhere that different gen figures don't interact too well.

Definitely super overwhelmed with everything there is to learn, collect, and assemble at the moment, so when my brain is fried I download assets and build my collection, but am slowly working my way through the Daz Masterclass by Jay Versluis on the official site.

Main issue right now is knowing what to do with everything I've collected

 

[MissFortune]

Damn, so you reckon as someone starting out now that G9 is the way to go? I was kinda exclusively 'collecting' G8 assets because I thought that they'd have a bigger library, and also read somewhere that different gen figures don't interact too well.

Definitely super overwhelmed with everything there is to learn, collect, and assemble at the moment, so when my brain is fried I download assets and build my collection, but am slowly working my way through the Daz Masterclass by Jay Versluis on the official site.

Main issue right now is knowing what to do with everything I've collected

Not necessarily. Which generation of model you go with should generally be dictated by both your hardware and the models you like the look of. Using a mix of 8/8.1/9 is always an option. Nor should you restrict yourself to just one. Autofit works on 99% of things aside from some hair assets and the odd clothing asset. G9 and newer environments will swallow your VRAM, so it's something to think about. 8 and 8.1 are still more than good enough for games, just be selective about the models you're buying for G8 itself if you're not going with Daz Original stuff. There tends to be a lot of variance from vendor to vendor.

Think about Daz, or any software really, like learning how to drive. You aren't going to learn how to parallel park the same day you first press on the gas pedal. It's a step by step process. Learn one thing at a time, get good/comfortable/competent with it, and then move onto the next thing. It helps keep things in focus so you don't lose yourself in everything else.

Just keep at the tutorials for now. Jay is a good start, so is Parmy for very beginner stuff. I tend to point people (to the point of sounding like a shill.) toward Dreamlight's 8-Point Light Set series when they start looking into lighting. He uses real world lighting logic in Daz scenes, talks about what those techniques are, and then applies them. He's also got a paid subscription service for deeper stuff (you could basically just pay for one month and then download everything), but when or if you need that is something you'll need to decide when you get to that point.

You must be registered to see the links

, and

You must be registered to see the links

.

Just a little not for the tutorials, I recommend following them first and doing what the video shows to get a grasp, and then try it yourself with a new model/scene/etc. Applying it yourself to a new scene is going to plant it a bit more firmly (think of it like writing a word you spelled wrong five extra times).

 

[Incorrigible]

Not necessarily. Which generation of model you go with should generally be dictated by both your hardware and the models you like the look of. Using a mix of 8/8.1/9 is always an option. Nor should you restrict yourself to just one. Autofit works on 99% of things aside from some hair assets and the odd clothing asset. G9 and newer environments will swallow your VRAM, so it's something to think about. 8 and 8.1 are still more than good enough for games, just be selective about the models you're buying for G8 itself if you're not going with Daz Original stuff. There tends to be a lot of variance from vendor to vendor.

Think about Daz, or any software really, like learning how to drive. You aren't going to learn how to parallel park the same day you first press on the gas pedal. It's a step by step process. Learn one thing at a time, get good/comfortable/competent with it, and then move onto the next thing. It helps keep things in focus so you don't lose yourself in everything else.

Just keep at the tutorials for now. Jay is a good start, so is Parmy for very beginner stuff. I tend to point people (to the point of sounding like a shill.) toward Dreamlight's 8-Point Light Set series when they start looking into lighting. He uses real world lighting logic in Daz scenes, talks about what those techniques are, and then applies them. He's also got a paid subscription service for deeper stuff (you could basically just pay for one month and then download everything), but when or if you need that is something you'll need to decide when you get to that point.

You must be registered to see the links

, and

You must be registered to see the links

.

Just a little not for the tutorials, I recommend following them first and doing what the video shows to get a grasp, and then try it yourself with a new model/scene/etc. Applying it yourself to a new scene is going to plant it a bit more firmly (think of it like writing a word you spelled wrong five extra times).

Thank you so much! I'm definitely going to keep at the tutorials and also try to get a practical understanding of what my computer can handle by testing things out. I have a 4060 16GB so not bad, but definitely not a 4090 or a 3090 and a bit more limited in the VRAM department.

I'll definitely do the Dreamlight tutorials too (both the normal ones and the adult ones). I work full-time, so I'm chugging along and trying to do a couple of hours a day of Daz.

Thanks again for all the value you provide! I really appreciate it. I've also been watching some of the BTS stuff (I watched the Terminator art bash) on your YouTube channel and everything I've seen has opened my eyes so much more!

 

[MissFortune]

Thank you so much! I'm definitely going to keep at the tutorials and also try to get a practical understanding of what my computer can handle by testing things out. I have a 4060 16GB so not bad, but definitely not a 4090 or a 3090 and a bit more limited in the VRAM department.

I'll definitely do the Dreamlight tutorials too (both the normal ones and the adult ones). I work full-time, so I'm chugging along and trying to do a couple of hours a day of Daz.

Thanks again for all the value you provide! I really appreciate it. I've also been watching some of the BTS stuff (I watched the Terminator art bash) on your YouTube channel and everything I've seen has opened my eyes so much more!

It's not going to be the fastest rendering card by any real metric, but for Daz, VRAM is king. 16GB is plenty for 90% of what you'll do, especially if you do a little optimizing to your scene. It should be able to handle most of what you'll be doing - and you'll likely know when or if an upgrade is necessary. Even with a 4090, I rarely clip 20GB in Daz (Blender is a bit of a different story, though.), and that's usually with several 8.1 models in the scene with little to no optimization. With a slower GPU, it'd be apt to optimize a bit more to speed things up.

I feel you on the full-time. Still doing it myself alongside the VN. Just pace yourself and set realistic goals, and if you plan on opening up a Patreon/SS/etc., just be transparent. Players will be more patient when they know what's going on.

 

[Incorrigible]

It's not going to be the fastest rendering card by any real metric, but for Daz, VRAM is king. 16GB is plenty for 90% of what you'll do, especially if you do a little optimizing to your scene. It should be able to handle most of what you'll be doing - and you'll likely know when or if an upgrade is necessary. Even with a 4090, I rarely clip 20GB in Daz (Blender is a bit of a different story, though.), and that's usually with several 8.1 models in the scene with little to no optimization. With a slower GPU, it'd be apt to optimize a bit more to speed things up.

I feel you on the full-time. Still doing it myself alongside the VN. Just pace yourself and set realistic goals, and if you plan on opening up a Patreon/SS/etc., just be transparent. Players will be more patient when they know what's going on.

That's great - yes, I remembered reading about VRAM when I was buying the PC, and while I couldn't spring for a 4090, I tried to maximize VRAM.

Ha, definitely not easy with the full-time, but yeah, just taking it one step at a time, letting a story percolate in my head while I get up to speed with Daz (and writing a little bit when I'm all 'dazzed-out'), and working through it all. I've written code in one form or the other for the last 15years so I don't think Ren'py will be the hardest to pick up. Been reading some stuff on screenwriting, story structure, etc. too. I'm treating it as a hobby mainly, and not really looking at it as a source of any (real) income, so I don't think I'll get disillusioned or anything.

Edit - Oh, and one quick question - with Dreamlight's tutorial program, he's got 3 tiers at different prices - would you recommend the highest one? Or is the middle one fine? It's $20 vs $50, so just trying to be smart about it because that difference could then mean I can get the adult membership too (although I'm inclined at this point to get the non-NSFW first, learn, and then when I'm comfortable start learning the adult stuff)

 

[coffeeaddicted]

I realize you're not asking me, but I hope you won't mind if I chime in too, since this is also an area I have interest in.

Instead of a single large HDD, have you considered getting multiple smaller ones in RAID?

The redundancy brought by the RAID setup makes it much less likely that you'll lose / corrupt data. It also increases read efficiency.

You must be registered to see the links

For the sake of full transparency here, I haven't tried using this setup. At the moment my backup is done in a single 3TB HDD. But I am considering moving towards having a NAS in my home.

A great tool to just know how good you HDD, SDD is, is this.

You must be registered to see the links

You don't want your drive to suddenly die and not knowing beforehand.

 

[osanaiko]

coffeeaddicted is right, in a way: make completely sure you have a backup strategy, ideally automated, and ideally off your computer (into cloud).

additionally, knowing how to use GIT is also handy, because in combo with the backups it can save you from human error. To a non-software person it might seemd intimidating, but actually the basics of GIT are not that hard to pick up, especially if you are working alone and therefore don't need to worry about branches/merges.

Another tip: some people do renders and then write story. some write story and then do renders. IN many ways the first one can be easier because of the limitations in creation of exact scenes/looks. Sure, Daz has a lot of content, but is not unlimited in what is available. So it can be easier to make scenes from the assets you have, and then change your story minor details, than it is to try to turn an existing details novelette into 3d images. No need to struggle with finding/crating the exact imagery if you have flexibility to change stuff.
Having said that, it's important to know your overall plot, and details of the major scenes and characters. But also taking inspiration and allowing your imagination to flow from the images and visual assets can work well.