What is better for character creation and animation, which is less expensive?
What a pile of… On daz3d marketplace pages they don’t even include poly count for the models
So far my research tells me that Iclone is not as bad as I thought
Daz 3D is worse in my opinion. Just the base genesis models’ gamedev license costs ~ 100 dolllars
So, NO. DAZ3D IS NOT FREE. Just to use “free” model in your game, you have to pay 100 dollars. And then you pay ~+50 dollars for each asset you buy to be used in your games. So, I think I will just stick to Mixamo Fuse haha
I would recommend reading the link below about dealing with Daz3D
Sorry for posting a link to unity, but under such circumstances, we as a gamedev brotherhood unite.
https://forum.unity.com/threads/warn…orph3d.502755/
Hi Dudester01, how you going with iclone? morphs and animatios are easily import in unreal?
Daz Studio is an application. Genesis 3 is the base frame work from which all products with in the Genesis base makes us of and both is available as a free download. The only time you need a license extension is if you plan to included the “purchased” assets as downloaded in your project however if you make a derivative or a original character, or product, off of the Genesis 3 base it’s your property as to fair use. In a lot of ways Genesis is the same as the Epic base character and you can add more functionality via the purchase of fair use assets in the same way you make purchases from Epic’s marketplace.
Iclone on on the other hand you need to buy 3d Exchange and pay a export license even if you just want to export to say Maya, 3ds Max or blender for the purpose of 2d rendering where with Daz Studio fair use is extended off the shelf for any type of 2d rending requirements but only pay the “interactive” license.
Which to go with though depends on your needs but like all products the fair use rights gets confusing and the first step of making a “informed” decision is to read the EULA as well as understanding the difference in scaled fees, just like making Epic marketplace purchases, so the only real advice between the two would be to read the fine print first
If you search the forums I’ve posted my opinion more than once but as to costs for our project Iclone gets expensive real fast due to hidden costs, like per seat licensing, as compared to our upfront costs using Genesis 3 and the continued improvements on Epic’s end to make Unreal 4 a lot more direct compatible with the custom requirements of Genesis framework.
That’s not to say that there are not issues but in our experience Daz Studio and Genesis is the cheaper solution over the long run if your team also includes the creative art skills and development on Unreal 4 continues to improve cross platform compatibility in the area of fidelity of asset.
First, this is a gamedev forum, hence, daz3d will be used for games. It’s not like Epic character.
Epic character is free. Genesis is ~100 bucks.
All you get is a naked character? Is that even character creation app? Or buy ton of assets and then be able t customize?
Then if you want to get some customization for the character, some clothes, hair, you need to go to their marketplace and pay ~40 for each piece + export fee, which is about ~50.
Genesis 3 is free and only pay 100 bucks, interactive license, if and only if you distribute the Genesis 3 “base” form with textures with your project referred to as CRT Content.
Genesis 3 is once again is a framework on which other works can be based on so as to the question which would be better for character creation, Iclone or Daz3d, Daz3d is a better fit as to “that” description as to a creative result .
With in the EULA this comes into effect as part of the interactive license requirement.
IF you use the Genesis 3 framework to create original works or a derivative based on the G3 framework assuming that the edit of the CRT asset does not represent in anyway the original CRT based form it’s “YOUR” property do do with as you please and there are tones of examples with in the creative commons that demonstrates “free” or if you wish you can sell the original works or derivatives as you see fit with out restriction or additional fees.
Tricky to understand because Genesis is a “framework” which other works can be based on and there are many resources in where you can get working assets for free, like you can get free stuff off of the Epic market place, and if "free’ matters to you then there is almost an unlimited resource pool as to 3rd party offerings that fall under the Creative Commons Zero licensing of assets that makes use of the Genesis framework, which there is 4 versions based on the need, and one could build up a vary nice “runtime” library of fair use assets.
As a side interest even Iclone makes use of the G3 template as you don’t have to pay a licensing fee no matter the use be commercial or for private use.
Sorry if I’m not being clear as I’ve been using DS since day one as a means to create unique character to animate with out having to build characters from scratch and the only note to end on is DS and Genesis will do what you ask of it as to a need. DS is not designed to be used for video game, like Blender is not just designed for doing video games but rather it’s Unreal 4 that has made it even possible to even start considering adding it to the character pipeline and to that end I’ll be more than happy to explain “options” based on questions that is best served first by ignoring that there may or may not be a fee involved.
Things have to be in context to even begin to make sense. 
I have some experience in Daz Gen8 ppl. They are very well done, good textures, skinning and morphs. Each character comes with many customizations, so from the base character you can make very different looking people. There also are many different clothes in Daz shop. When you need to fit clothes to characters, transfer morphs to clothes, etc. Daz Studio is doing very good job. You can use it with your own clothes too. It’s probably the strongest point of Daz.
Gen8 people have max 8 influences per vertex, except few points on the face, like UE.
Daz eyes don’t look good in UE, you will need to replace them with UE eyes.
There is not much low res hair available in shop and the hair dosn’t use textures required for UE hair shader.
Daz Gen8 uses Dual Quaternion skinning and UE doesn’t support it, which may be a problem. It will work but may look ugly. Also, Daz corrective morphs are calculated based on DQ skinning.
Daz skeleton have 5 joints arms (shoulder bend -> shoulder roll -> elbow -> forearm roll -> hand) and UE skel have roll bones as leafs. It may be a problem if you need to use IK controls like 2 bones ik. Same for legs.
Also, there is no roughness in textures, but it can be approximated from spec.
I’m interested how is iclone compared to that. Especially, which skinning it uses, how many bones in arms and legs.
Not sure about Genesis 8 but by the looks of it it’s an update to Genesis 3 that allows for better backwards comparability with in the Genesis framework but we have been using Genesis 3 for a few years now and since 4.15 there has been some major improvements in rigging solutions as well as materials and skinning that there is no longer the issue to haring to export to 3ds Max first to correct for weighting problems
IK is IK and UE4 calling it 2 bone IK is more of an indication of how many bones are in the IK chain as to the needs of the Epic rig that is not a limitation as to the ability to add constraints required for the more complex HIK or Maya’s FBIK type solution. That’s to say even though Epic does provided an IK solution it’s use is more general as to the typical twist bone configuration as compared to Epic’s rigging solution which was originally designed as to the unique requirements of games built and designed by Epic Genesis’s configuration is typical where Epic’s is unique.
Epic has already begun to address this problem by adding support that allows joints to be locked but has yet to add the ability to constraint the parent child parent child relationship of the G3, as well as others,that uses this typical configuration but our coders have been able to build constraints that creates 2 bone IK type solution using the G3 rig.
As is G3 contains about 180 bones which also includes joints necessary for creating facial animations using cluster shaping which has a much lower work load and is the direction I think Epic is heading as Paragon character are using the cluster configuration rather than morph targets.
Sharing some general testing stuff.
Not work safe.
And
The first was a test to see how fast a procedural lip sync solution could be hooked up and the second tests cross character comparability with out the need to retarget animations.
Going back to the original question though is comparing Daz Studio to Iclone is only a comparison as far as the need to have a resource that could be used to create player models but is kind of like comparing a spreadsheet to a word processor. If you need to add numbers then a spreadsheet is the thing, if you want to write a book then the logical choice is a word processor. In this case Iclone is an animation tool and Daz Studio is a visualization tool.
So
With in context if the need is to create a custom character from scratch then DS is the logical choice as it has the tools necessary to accomplish this task where Iclone solves the problem by importing assets made using Daz Studio into their application. A better comparison to ED would be Poser, Fuse or even Make Human which of course you can also import into Iclone.
. . .
Sorry, I don’t understand this point, could you please clarify? I’m very interested in animbp IK for stuff like dynamic foot placement, but I could not find anything except overpriced ikinema that could properly handle Genesis skeleton. Basically, you need IK with constraints (bend bones should not roll, roll bones should not bend), which is not available in UE right now. Or it is available?
As a ready to use out of the box IK solver no UE4 does not have this available except for the 2 bone solution that has “some” abilities built in but not at the same level of complexity as 3ds Max or Maya or even Blender.
But
You do have access to some basic constraint solutions or can make your own that duplicates some of the more common drag and drop constraints available in most if not all 3d applications that supports custom rigging requirements.
Some of the basics.
What is an IK solver.
As you see IK is IK and solves for “any” number of bones with in the IK chain Since I did not do our IK I can assume that it was done the same way as I would have done for the need of a 2 bone blend in a 4 bone limb would be to use the limb solve, the ease way, or constraint the the bend and rotation to the parent but allow it to roll freely. One such feature is the look-at where the target would be the next parent in the joint.
The faster solution of course would be to just relink the parent child configuration of the G3 RIG to match Epic’s configuration and you can then make use of 2 bone IK solver with out any messing around but personally this is a feature issue that Epic should “fix”
I would suggest that you should brush up on character rigging in general as the basics are there
Overall though G3 is just another rig that’s has a degree of complexity that makes it useful in any give situation or need, that is not just limited to video games, but in no way adds obstacles as to unique needs and requirements and there is some clear indications since the release of UE4 that Daz3d is putting some focus into the needs of video game character design.
All in all though it’s just another character design program that really does not solve the “real” problems that needs to be solved but that’s a different subject.
Sure daz new license can get expensive but iclone has a much higher cost to start.
iClone
You buy Iclone - $129.00
If you plan to use you things in anything outside of iClone you need the 3Xchange pipeline (NOTE 3dXchange pro will not let you export models)
Both tools together cost $549.00
Crazy talk for lip sync = 150
That is 549.00 just to get started. Keep in mind if you buy any other assets; cloths or characters you will need to pay a license fee to use them as well
Daz
Software is free
The follow list will allow you to make characters of any age from child to adult male or female (hair and clothing would need to be bought or made
cost total
Gen 8 license - 100 100 100
Mimic live (for lip sync) 50 cost + 50 license (NOTE iClone also sells lip synce as an add on) 100 200
decimator - to lower model poly count - 100 + 50 license 150 350
Ageing morphs bundle for both male and female 39.00 + 50.00 license 89 439
grow up morphs for g8 male and female = 28 + 50 78 517
Male body morphs = 20 + 35 55 572
Female body morphs 20 + 35 55 627
Male head morphs 20 + 35 55 682
Female head morphs 20 + 35 55 737
(NOTE daz offer platinum club membership that greatly reduces prices)
So final total
Base iClone = 699.00
Daz with gen 8 license = 737
Now before someone come one here and says DAZ is 38 more, that is not the case. That 38 dollars covers you making male or female characters any age with an endless number of looks for both face and body.
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I’ve used both and more 3d character generating programs and I have to say that Fuse and mixamo is the easiest for a non artist.
Daz is too high poly to be used in games
iClone is very expensive, but it does have a lot of good things going for it. You can have 3DxChange for import and export, iClone for animating, Character Creator for character creation, and probably CrazyTalk to get real live faces into Character Creator.
Mind you, these needs to be **PIPELINE **editions. The others will barely cut it.
If you have the capital, it will cost you up to $1500 one time payment, which is NOT bad if you are a serious developer.
iClone suite would be the better choice, if you don’t want to use Fuse and Mixamo.
This is true for Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 where their use is better served for Vis or even feature films and if one takes the time to read the user stories is rather impressive. 100k+ and off power textures did require a lot of work to even make the output usable so DS has a history of not being suitable for use in video games. Not getting into details Daz3d has always had a history of being interested in developing assets for video games but in most cases it was the game engine that created limitations of how assets had to be made to fit the engine and where things have changed is Unreal 4s tendency to not introduce limitations as as to polygon limits or texture resolutions…and a lot more
After Unreal4 was released is when things on Daz Studio side of things started to change as hard code issues were no longer a problem so to update to a more solid pipeline Daz3d introduced the Genesis 3 framework which included the following features.
Base G3 character model at a 32k tris count (16k Polygon) By comparison Epic’s base rig is 42k tris count so as a starting point G3 is actually 10k “less” than what would be considered the acceptable level. The count can even be further reduced if say for example only a talking head is needed with clothing added as a component of the character and when exported only material or textures used as to material ID’s are include Of interest additional assets can be harvested like hands for VR or full arms for 1st person
Genesis 3 supports “both” morph targets as well as cluster shaping so as far as facial animation goes is mocap ready so in most cases and need one only needs to create the target shapes and hook it up to some device using a relationship constraint.
Genesis 3 makes use of power of 2 textures rather than the odd order used by G1 and G2
Genesis 3 uses a similar stacking order similar to the stack in 3ds Max so if you bake the base character the morph targets made for the base G3 model will be adjusted to make use of the applied morphs. Make a new character you do not need to make a new target.
The following is just my opinion but based on things that I’ve noticed since all of the buggy stuff was fixed in 4.15 and Daz Studio update to 4.10
Epic has been adding foundation building features that at the moment do not seem to be in a usable state with out a much more complex framework build on top of additions. Being able to directly drive lip sync or using characterization has been available in apps like MotionBuilder as well as Maya, and to some extent even Blender so my opinion of adding retargeting features built into Unreal 4 makes no scene unless added as a necessary addition as to foundation building
Not getting into details as the the base concept is work in progress.
There is this
So with that along with a few other e-mails which I’m not comfortable posting there is a lot of movement in just the past year that has improved a much better cross platform compatibility between Daz Studio and Unreal 4 as a 1-2 combination that until the big thing happens would solve a lot of the major issues of making a AAA character equal to Hellblade possible and should at least be on one’s must watch list.
After all Daz Studio is free and Genesis base is free and any information as to the two that is more than a year old is out of date.
I seen that bundle but doesn’t that include Mocap tools? I didn’t list that one becasue I didn’t think people would use that to much
do i need the unreal link for iclone? It is very, very expensive. I dont know were you get 700 dollars then, then its more like 1600 dollars or 3000+ dollars.
Right now there is Poser 11 Pro at a cheap price. The software was acquired by Bondware from Smith Micro. They have a $99 upgrade offer from older versions even the Poser Debut. You can buy sealed original Poser Debut DVDs on eBay at very cheap prices in the $10-$20 range … old stock from some sellers.That is the cheapest way to buy the sofware right now.
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I was just looking over Iclone and there seems to be a lot of hidden costs they conveniently don’t tell you about upfront.
It looks like for everything you’d ever normally want to do with 3d assets you actually need to spend several hundred dollars more to buy the plugins to enable you to do so.
Daz3d is so much cheaper for sure especially if you become a Prime Member and are patient. They give huge discounts very regularly and lately even on the interactive licenses too,
I’m in the process of figuring out the whole process of using Daz as a starting point for creating custom characters to use in Unreal both as game playable characters and also in creating animations.