Messing Around in 3D - and failing

[KrustyTheSailor]

I think your work is great so far. Mastering these tools takes years.

I use ZBrush for 'big' morphs like body, hands, and feet. Later versions of Poser also have a Morph tool included, but this is mainly for touch-ups like smoothing, fixing joints, very pose-specific fixes.

[Skalla-Grimm]

Actually, if you use Daz's Genesis figure I'm aware of three werewolf morphs, not including one for Anubis . I haven't tried the new Lyacaon one, but the others aren't quite what I want for a werewolf so I still use Victoria 4.5 and the Creature Creator. The exception is when I want to show legs going digitigrade, then I use a close-up of the Anubis morph in action. I did this both in the "Silver and Gold" comic and the "Fenrir's Curse" animation. All of those morphs are by RawArt, and it's probably not a coincidence that like his Dog World fur textures - they're for V4.5 but compatible with Genesis. Oh, and his Fox textures come with a fox head morph that I usually dial in some. Remember, you are allowed to combine morphs!


I primarily use Daz Studio 3.5 because I find it easy to use, definitely easier than Poser. Poser has strand hair native to it and has some other tools that make it a bit more powerful, but I decided that none of that matters if I have trouble with basic navigation of the scene. One of those tools lets you graph the splines and movements of the figure, and that is useful in diagnosing weird animation behavior. I don't use DS 4.6 because as mentioned above I don't care for the Genesis werewolf morphs, the interface is new and thus strange and scary, and because it taxes my laptop more. The newest version may work better for you, and since it's free it can't hurt trying it again. There's an online guide for it somewhere, but I learned mainly from experimenting and trolling advice forums.

The surface options are definitely intimidating in Poser. Daz Studio is simpler, and after all the time I've spent messing with it I know maybe half the stuff in that screenshot means.

I see exactly one thing I think you need to fix, and that's the hair when you show the close-up of the ear growing. I wouldn't worry about anything else (OK, if it were me I'd try hard but fail and still worry about everything else ). As for the 2 years of practice, do remember that it was six months before I showed any of my work publicly, and that "Odd" is attempt number three of that scene. I really would advise trying some still scenes so that you can practice and have some instant gratification.

[Akrystos]

I've stuck with Victoria since I don't like those werewolf models either. I didn't know about Anubis since I only checked out morphs compatible with Victoria. I'll have a look into that one, thanks!

About what software to use, the choice has just been made for me:



I have no idea what caused it, but it's the third time now and just reinstalling doesn't work. I have to reinstall my whole computer for it to work again, and since my project files are in a hidden folder visible only to Poser I think it's best to start over with Daz Studio.

Although as far as I can read online Daz Studio has no dynamic cloth built into the system, although there seems to be a plugin for sale (anybody has any experience with that one?). That's a bummer since dynamic cloth was one of the things I had researched a lot about.
Hair is also something I liked about Poser. I never found body textures satisfactory on their own and liked the idea of adding "read" hair on top of them.

Oh well, at least Daz may keep working

[GenYun]

I use the dynamic plugin constantly. It breathed new life into Daz for me.