Morphing male characters - What to buy

ferdinandbusch13

Hello, I just started DAZ yesterday and I'm very impressed. The overall concepts are quite easy to grasp, but I've got a question regarding what to buy in order to create variations of the standard Gen8 male, in order to create characters with African/Asian features.

As you can see from my screenshot, I've got a bunch of "morph" packs in my shopping cart, but I've got the feeling I would need only two of those (probably "Genesis 8 Male Body Morphs" and then one of the "Male Head Morphs"). However, I'm a bit confused, as some of these morph packs mention other character packs. Do I need to have purchased these other packs before I could make use of the morph packs, or will I be able to morph the look of the standard Gen8 male into a character with more Afrian/Asian features immediately, no matter which morph pack (either "Genesis 8 Male Head Morphs", "Genesis 8 Male Head Morph Resource Kit 2" or "Shimuzu's Elite Head Morphs for Genesis 8 Male") I purchase?

I think I need a better understanding of this, as the structure of what you need to "own" before you can make reasonable changes to the base character isn't quite clear to me.

I've been using Adobe Fuse quite a bit in the past and that app allowed you to morph your character into whatever you wanted from the get go. So DAZ Studio obviously works different, but I would just like to know the least expensive way to get to the same functionality :-D

Thanks for your help :-)

Richard Haseltine

None of the sets in your screen shot require additional products, though the Shimuzu set does list character textures which can be paired with the shapes to give the results shown in the promo images - you can, however, use any texture set you like. Another set you might look at, also with no dependencies on others, is https://www.daz3d.com/people-of-earth-faces-of-africa-genesis-8-male . None of these include textures, though, and although ti is fairly simnple to darken skin using the Surfaces pane the results are less than ideal so you would probably want to look at some characters to give you suitable skin maps.

Paintbox

For a basic understanding, there are two main components (simplified) to a character in Daz Studio.

Shape is one. So when you load in a basic G8M (male character of the latest generation) , it is morphs that make it into the unique shapes. Morphs move the surface to come to the shape of a new character. Furthermore the detailing of the shape can be more or less defined by it's subdivision level (which you can control in Studio and if the morph supports it) The base morphs you describe are more than fine to start with, as it gives you a wide range options to make new characters. You can always buy a distinct character, or certain morph packs if you need a certain style or facial feature you don't have yet.

Skin is the second. So the surface of the character. Some are more stylized, some are very realistic. If you buy a character, you can use its skin with all the morphs in your library, giving you more versatility in creating your own character. Or you can use a character out of the box and don't tweak it all. It's all possible.

 

AgitatedRiot

This one. Icons - Best of Genesis 8 Males and Females | Daz 3D

ferdinandbusch13

Thanks Richard and Paintbox! That clarifies it and gives me the piece of mind that the sets I might be buying there will help me in creating more distinct characters :-)