Whoa, those are both gorgeous pieces! What program/materials did you use for these?
Welcome to Daz 
Looks great.
In terms of mats, the best I’ve found for male are Torment, Wolfgang and Michael 8.1. For female, Angharad, Honni, Vix Some examples below of all those ones. Wolfgang might be too old and specific for what you’re looking for, though, but he’s still one of my favs. The last one is Torment.
Also, product rec… SY Breast Helper, so you don’t have the clothing vacuuming into the chest region. Works magic. There’s also skin manager plug ins, so you can take any of the realistic ones above and change the tones of them to anything, including fantasy stuff
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This is some of the earlier works off of:
Back before they got a few of the art styles to make mostly clear faces.
Work:
I beleive the verbal prompt for both contained stained glass, because that gives some interesting pics.
So the faces were off another program where I was trying free faces (and I cant remember which with as much as my kids shut my browser pages sonetimes on computer), and I had to redo the hands, then square up the frame. For the dragon/lizard, it had some proportional issues, and the scaling wasnt consistent (90% good, easily), so all that took was warping and cutting.
This is off of porn pen … when you get a clean face shot off their generations, they are really clear to work with, need little editing, ecept for warping if you need to slightly change thw angle or face shape. I don’t usually recommend people dealing with it because it generates some very graphic porn shots and isn’t usuer prompt friendly at all, so youre scanning though ither people’s generations for anything useful. But there’s clearly people paying money to get better controls and making classic “fantasy artwork” on it.
I do have a website for alterong faces that I want to tey to pull back up and work with a bit, but that’s got less to do with these shots.
But anyway, this is so you can get a shakedown on Dream’s art filters. Dream is usually very good at filtering out graphic content, but that is available through paying for their services. So its the other end of the specturm on…issues.
Low refrence use, prompt Goddess
Buliojourney v2 (SP? Can’t see the first wltter on my phone.)
Realistic V2
Horror Cutout v2.1
Thr Absurd v2
Foral v2, Horror v2, Spectral v2, Ink v2
Dreamwave v2, Horror Cut v2.0, Poster Art, Mystical
Dark Fantasy, Vibrant, Toasty, The Bulio Cut
The Cut, Gloomy, Anime v2, Watervolor v2
Blues, Impression v2, Figure v2, HDR
Spectral, Comic, Soft Touch, Splatter (one missing)
Realistic, Flora Abstract, Diorama
And it starts losing around here…
Last 16 make no choherant sense of anything.
And as far as editing is concerned, i donlsot all of it through Gimp.
Thanks for the info. Daz is proving to be an expensive hobby. I’ve spent about $200 AUS on assorted assets so far…And let’s not talk about the PC upgrade cost…
3rd party 3D assets have revealed a new perpetual nuisance with Daz-3D…The content library’s stubborn refusal to understand how sub-directories work…I tried to organise my various acquisitions into file categories and sub-categories only to be greeted with a shopping list’s worth of missing file warnings when I next opened Daz. In the end I just moved all the asset files into the root directory and created an unsightly mess in the Daz content library window. But it works now (sometimes).
I’ve also noticed that mixing skin and eye textures from different character presets is not advisable. In my first image above, Dov’s fingernails turned dark brown. Could be fixed by importing a new character and starting again, but I didn’t have the patience. While creating the second image, both Dov and Freyja’s eyes turned opaque white. Fixed eventually by trial and error (finding a Iray texture that worked)…And I don’t know what’s happening with Freyja’s breasts (or her coffee-infused eyes) in the second image, might be a body morph conflict (3rd party and Daz Store mix)…A test render also gave Dov a severely sunburnt neck. Fixed by resetting the Asher body morph and skin tones, and then adjusting his physique (applying other morphs) in the sliders menu.
Oh, the Daz Store morphs I used for Dov in the second image are Vince HD (body, with ‘bodybuilder’ slider adjustments) and Asher HD (skin and head), and also Ajay hair (needs replacing, something closer to military regulation). I may stay with Daz Store assets for future Freyja character experiments, scaled down to teenager size.
But for now, more rendering awaits…
My PC hasn’t been upgraded since I bought the silly thing a few years back apart from doubling the RAM, so can’t comment to that… but yeah, it’s a money pit. I’m several grand in, but I stopped buying anything a while ago after they started shilling NFTs and lootboxes. Word of advice? Never, ever, ever buy anything that’s not 70% off unless you’re very, very desperate. The premium membership is worth it if you can get use out of your coupons.
Funnily enough I’ve only ever had issues with Daz assets! There is a content wizard thing for 3rd party stuff I hear a lot of good things about.
It’s perfectly fine to do this The only issue would be using g3 mats with g8 sometimes, or trying to combine uber+PBR. Uber + PBR can give less-than-good results. The same can be said for trying to use g8 specific Geoshells on g8.1 - that’s a world of pain.
Is this the image with her reading from the book? If so, that’s just how Daz works. Daz clothing conforms to the body, which results in vacuum-sealed boobs. SY Breast Helper is a Godsend for this. There’s plenty of additional products out there to assist in making clothes sit more naturally, but I love SY Breast Helper!
One thing I wish someone would’ve told me about when I started is the Denoiser. You mentioned about noise above, and Daz’s built-in Denoiser works incredibly well now. This lovely lady took about 10 mins to render out on my pc (2070 super, 32GB ram, GPU render only, Denoiser starting at 3). She still had some noise present, but it’s minimal enough that I don’t care. You can let it run for longer if you’d prefer!
Yesterday I blew another $80 on Daz Store assets. Clothing and hair for Genesis 8 / 8.1. And this morning I realised, in my eagerness, I failed to notice the absence of body morph compatibility between the mercenary clothes set (immediately reminded me of the Strike Back theme song, yoink-worthy for that alone), and the Vince and Asher bodies (used for Dov). More slider tuning awaits…I’m only buying assets when they’re on sale, and I’m always using Tokens when available (Digital Photography might prove the cheaper hobby)…The real Daz challenge will be to get a positive return on these investments.
Oh, I tried to fix the noise issue in Daz the same way I’d fix it in photography (reduce ISO, adjust aperture (f/stop), increase shutter speed) but no effect. The Daz Denoiser (used in the reading render) had some improvement. Post editing in Photoshop might be the best solution, to preserve / enhance skin texture* and item detail and remove pixelation.
*Ironically, the second test render I made with Daz (before I knew how anything worked) had great skin detail.
All free assets. Wish I could remember the model type / setup.
You know the photograph is in focus when you can count the pores on the model’s skin ~ (unknown author) quote about portrait photography.
I found a Content Wizard in the Daz Store. Might be a future acquisition, when I next have an abundance of tokens. I just read a possible issue with 3rd party content is the way its compressed into / extracted from .zip files, creating the wrong file directory formats. Not sure if this is the cause of my issues. Might just go with the CW.
My new system includes a 12GB 3060,** 32GB RAM (5200Mhz), AMD 7700, and Daz is (mostly) installed on a secondary (motherboard-mounted) M.2 SSD…Why does Daz insist on installing onto the primary C: drive…? My previous system had 4GB Graphics, 16GB RAM, and a AMD 1500. Not Daz / Stable Diffusion capable. Oh, do not run Daz-3D renders and Stable Diffusion image generations at the same time. Your graphics card will not appreciate it.
**I learnt of the 4060’s imminent launch two days after I ordered my new system. A little annoying, however the 4060 12GB isn’t available in Australia (yet), and apparently the 4060s are not overly impressive (compared to previous models).
Well, I might be able to ease your worries a bit. The morphs are, for the most part, irrelevent. I don’t think I’ve ever, in my many years with Daz, actually used any of the specific character morphs. Unless you have a very distinct morph such as the monsters for g8 (like the dragon morph), or EXTREME morphs (think exceptionally wide, not natural, huuuuuuge boobs, massive stomach, just things you don’t see IRL). When a product states “top for Dain” or whatever, it just means it’ll come with the dials to make it fit very smoothly, not that it can only be used on Dain.
The one you linked is for Genesis 8 males, but comes with a Dain morph (you will need to apply the morph once the clothes are on the model). I absolutely guarantee you 10000%, those clothes will look perfect on Dov without any tweaks.
As you explore with Daz, you’ll probably amass a huge amount of morphs and won’t use out-of-the-box characters like that. You’ll be dial spinning for days! Think 35% Dain, 18% Torment, 56% Muscular, 62% veins… blah blah. You just want products for the right generation.
You can use older/newer assets on whatever generation (so you can use a genesis 3 female top on a genesis 8.1 male, for example) but it is a bit tricky to make it work. I advise sticking with Genesis 8 or 8.1 assets, and using a Genesis 8 or 8.1 model. One thing to note is that Genesis 8 expressions will NOT work on 8.1 out of the box, and same the other way.
Just an exmaple XD Left is Gou Luk, loaded with the Gou Luk hair, materials, full outfit 1. Second is Gou Luk with all the same, just with Gou Luk dialled out (completely removed) and replaced with Vidora. Works as expected!
Yep, the clothes worked fine. However the shirt from the Strictly Business outfit’s* shirt had clipping issues with Dov’s chest (couldn’t accommodate the model’s muscles). I guess not many CEO’s do weighted push-ups each day.
*
Another story character, a baroness brat called Krista, insists Dov should wear tailored clothing only…To match her preferred style, and to set a good example for Freyja…Future renders / chapters to follow.
Oh, this video left me wondering if I should invest any more cash in Daz-3D assets, or just buy stocks in AI companies. (Very much not financial advice / recommendations.)
Hey, just a heads up. Daz’s summer sale is on at the moment. There’s a nice 60% discount on Plus if you buy 2 debut releases.
Edit: you can do creative Daz maths. It’s been a while since you could do that. You need 2 debut/spotlight/whatever releases. There’s a selection of 3 releases that get discounted VERY heavily once in the cart. Both of these can be used to bring the Daz+ total down by 60%. I’d advise sticking away from genesis9 if you already have some gen8 things, and it appears most of the new stuff is, sadly, g9 
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Certainly a different type of art from usual
I caved and bought the Daz membership today. At that price I couldn’t not, and it does mean I should, in theory, get free stuff every month with the coupons. I have to make my money back somehow, right? XD So I put together some render bundles. Rhea I’m particularly proud of, because her outfit is actually ANCIENT and I managed to modernise it, add physics etc. Looked really great! Babina is all g8, but still, super pretty imo
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Good Lord, I don’t like editing in this much depth.
Starting Point: AI generation…
Final enough without some warping for minor issues I don’t wanna deal with no more, lol:
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I did a fanart
Just binged The Storm Crow and it turns out giant elemental crows are right up my alley. Now I’m off to read the sequel .
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That is just so good
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Thank you~ :>
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Pandas!
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Wow, these are AMAZING. I love the iridescence, and just how much life you gave them.
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