What about Daz? (Patreon)

So some of you have probably read about my trials and tribulations with Poser, heard me complain about it on Stream, or have talked with me (through messages) about my thoughts on getting into 3D.

Regardless of where you heard it, I believe it's no secret that I am very frustrated with Poser. Or it might be more accurate to say that I'm frustrated with Smith Micro, who no longer owns Poser. I do feel like Bondware (the new owner of Poser) is really trying. Some stuff they are doing better already, and some stuff is still falling by the way side. But they've literally only had like 3 months to get an entire department together to handle their new purchase (Poser).

Anyway, I'm just saying that I'm not actually frustrated with Bondware. Not at all. But I am still having issues with Poser. So I imagine some of you are thinking, "Geez dude! Why don't you just switch to Daz? You've talked about it for like 2 or 3 years."

Well you aren't wrong. Lol!

I've considered switching to Daz so many times, and for almost as long as I've used Poser. So we're talking several years here. So what's holding me back?

My first concern is content. Now thankfully almost all of my content (like 99%) uses Victoria 4.2, which is actually a Daz model. So the model herself should work, and most of her clothes. Where it gets complicated is the materials, like the different skins I have on different characters. I'm not 100% sure that all of those skins would work in Daz. Certainly not the Poser-version of them, but I may be able to load the base skin and then apply Daz's special iRay Uber Base Shader that converts basically any material to iRay (which is Daz's rendering engine).

But let's assume that the materials aren't that difficult to work around, then the next issue is morphs. Morphs are what let me modify the lady's bodies into such wonderful forms. Now the main morphs that I use are actually all Daz morphs from Daz for Daz's Victoria 4, so those are also all fine just be default. The next worry is "Amazing Body Morph" from Boobrepli. That is the main morph I use to get such large breasts and buttocks. However, there is a Daz version of that morph. I just haven't tried it or used it yet.

So at this point, it sounds like most stuff would actually translate over fairly well. And if you are thinking that at this point, then you'd be right!

Here is where it gets complicated:

I also use a few Magnet Sets, and those will not work in Daz at all. Here are the magnet sets:

Xana and Naika:  https://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/?ViewProduct=78502 

Easy Breast:  https://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/?ViewProduct=74617 

Easy Buttock:  https://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/?ViewProduct=82720 

The three ladies in my July 4 comics all use Xana and Naika. They use that magnet set almost exclusively to get their slim and stacked figures. Then on top of that, almost all of my models end up using Easy Breast and Easy Buttock at some point. 

As soon as I need to make hips wider or rounder, make breasts wider, move breasts around, change breast size independently of one another, or anything more complicated than just increasing the Amazing Body Morph, then I usually use those magnets. And those magnets won't work in Daz.

So that is the main thing preventing me from moving to Daz. More specifically that is what prevents me from just porting TNBD 2 (or any comic) over to Daz. I could load most of the sets, load the models, and many of the morphs would work, but not all of them would which would mean the characters would just look different.

Now really all that means is that it's not easy to translate any existing comic into Daz Studio. Please note that I didn't say it's impossible, just difficult, and I don't really have the skills to accomplish it quickly. It would take me a long time and a lot of work to convert existing comics over to Daz.

However, nothing stops me from doing new stuff with Daz. So that is kind of the challenge or issue with moving everything to Daz Studio. It's not impossible, but it would take a long time, and I need to be producing for you guys while I'm trying to do those conversions.

Also, everything would look different even if I did manage to convert it all.

So what are your thoughts about that? Would you care that all the models would suddenly look different? 

Let me know!