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Pic 157: Updating Ariane and Rachel to Daz Studio
🕑 Added 2024-05-31 21:00:03 +0000 UTC
A little experiment to end the month of May. Could I create new Ariane and Rachel characters to use in Daz Studio. These would be Genesis 8.1 based characters, the current models are based on Victoria 4.2 which has gotten way outdated.
I have done experiments multiple times in the past, and have learned a bunch of lessons. Lesson 1: the new versions of characters will not look like the old ones, but should have all the major traits you associate with the characters so you can recognize them.
Step 1: Try and make exact duplicates first.
This is guaranteed to fail spectacularly, but it is important to try to learn what you're dealing with.
First thing, you need Genesis 8.1 characters that look like the original 4.2 characters as much as possible. For Ariane I found a character named Lacey who is pretty close.
Putting Lacey next to Ariane and adjusting everything I could to make them identical worked pretty well. The only problem was the eyebrows. Lacey's eye brows looked too thick like Lucy Hale. I found another character with the correct eye brows and the result is pretty damn close.
Rachel on the other hand was a complete disaster. I know Rachel is based on DMR Ella which also had look of a synthesis of Angelina Jolie and Scarlette Johanssen. So the 8.1 model I used was Sharon which has the same traits, but the attempted match looks way wrong, eyes are off, eye brows are off, nose is way off and mouth and face shape look awful.
Step 2: Simplify your duplicates to take advantage of the new model's good attributes.
This basically involves taking your "duplicate" and put it next to the original model you based it on, and see where you can improve things.
In Ariane's case, I did NOT want to tinker with the eyes and eyebows. They are perfect the way they are. But I favored just using the nose and mouth of the original model. Arianes lip's are thin, but Lacey's look good. The only real "off model" move I made was to give Ariane bigger cheek bones, which Victoria 4.2 can't do.
For Rachel I had to go back to the drawing board. I reloaded the Sharon model, and immediately realized one problem is that Rachel's hair does not work on her. So I loaded something in the ballpark, longish with a model style to it. Now this time instead of duplicating Rachel, I want to note the most important differences. Color is one. Sharon needs blue eyes, brown eyebrows, and strawberry blonde hair. Second key shape problems: Rachel's head is rounder, and boobs are bigger. Only made those key differences to get this:
While these old school hair styles still kind of work, they have their flaws, so I picked new styles that kind of work for the top picture. The proportions are still off but that is where I failed on attempt one, lets leave it with these changes.
So new Ariane and new Rachel.
Ariane's hair is very different, but that is in part because I don't have many long black hair styles right now. I decided I wanted hair that has a "wet" mode and a "dry" mode and found this pony tail hair on sale. Ariane has had a pony tail in the past and it works, so she got her hair based on what's on sale.
So what do I do with these? I'm thinking of doing "Ariane in Paradise Remastered" using these Daz characters. I really think Ariane in Paradise is a really great high quality AVN with "meh" pictures, and I want to spice it up. I'm not making a new game like the last two were, in fact this should be more accurately called Ariane in Paradise 2.0, and will be distributed as an update, rather than a new game.
Most of the AiP sets work in Daz Studio too as I recently learned sending Relay there, and I could really improve the camera work in a remastered version. I started fiddling with this idea, and really started getting excited about it. It is also helping me learn Daz Studio a lot better, because I've been fumbling around with it a lot making pictures then later learning a technique I've should have been using instead.
I don't want to stop Dating in a World on Fire to do it, but I'm kind of stuck on the writing side. Every game I make, I get a "eureka" moment in writing where I really understand where the game is going, and that hasn't happened yet with DiaWoF, and taking a break always helps. I started DiaWoF as a new project because I need a new project, but I'm stuck in a creative loop I'm sure I'll resolve, but need something else to work on. Been looking into other AVNs lately and noticed I'm well ahead of the curve in making stuff, and everyone takes lengthy breaks.
Meanwhile, Ariane in Paradise is supposed to be the most visually stunning of my games, but being the oldest to get a new makeover, it's probably the least visual stunning. I'm thinking of doing all the images in 1440p, too.
Let me know what you think of all of this. Really could use some constructive feed back.
Comments
Ariane Barnes
Thanks. I'm slowly starting to figure it out. I started with the promise that this was going to be a dating sim in a futuristic world, where the future is just background, and now thinking it shouldn't be. Which leads to the question, what do I want to say? My non-gaming blog posts have been about AI, and about creativity, and that these two things are incompatible, and I'd be interested in doing a plot about that. The hard part being what is the player supposed to do? I want players to have a choice in their role, and their attitude toward the topic. This video is helping: https://youtu.be/kI2Kt__xuiQ
Tora Productions
As for not feeling it on writing the new game, yeah. :-( As you saw, I'm having trouble there too. Not that this helps, but we're all counting on you getting it figured out. DiaWoF is an exciting premise for a game. If brainstorming with another writer would help, don't hesitate to reach out on DIscord. --Tlaero
Tora Productions
I'm continually impressed that you do both the writing and the images for your games. I have it so much easier since I have such a great partnership with Mortze. I'm fairly useless when it comes to images, but it DOES look like the new Ariane is the younger sister of the original one. Definitely not underage, but younger. I don't know WHY I think that, though. I think moving to Genesis 8.1 is going to end up serving you well in the end, though.
Ariane Barnes
Thanks. Oddly your thoughts mirror my own. Ariane does indeed look a little younger and I have no idea why. Hopefully she is not thought of as "underaged" younger, because I don't want that. I'm starting to think that her face is proportionally larger to her head by a little bit and maybe we psychologically think of that as young, or that could be the hair style she is using.
LB876
My first thought was that Ariane looks way too young. But the more I look at the pictures, I'm wondering if a lot of my problems with both of them is that there's so much more fine detail with the new models. The older ones are "softer", which creates a bit of a "dreamlike" look. The increased resolution of the new models creates what feels like a harshness. But, of course, that could just be because the old ones are familiar and, as Garth Algar said, "We fear change". I still don't think new Rachel's face is the right "shape", though. Something looks off to me, but I can't articulate exactly what it is. Not sure any of this is in any way helpful.
Ariane Barnes
I know about the watermark. Finding the right texture and putting it on is harder in Daz Especially when the entire face changes when you apply make up . Is her eyes farther apart? Looks like it in the first picture I guess, but I think the cheek bone increase might have unintentionally fixed it. I kind of already did 100 pictures already, too late to change now. Changing models always changes looks permanently in some way. The original Vicky 3 model was designed to look like Audrey Hepburn. The 4.2 looks more like Victoria Justice. I keep seeing glimpses of young Anne Hathaway in the new 8.1.
Beryl Liam
Oh? In that case, I'll definitely put my Ariane in Paradise playthrough on hold 🤠Personally, I think Rachel 8.1 has overly prominent laugh lines. Somewhere between test1 and test2 would strike a better balance. Ariane 8.1's eyes look slightly further away from each other than 4.2's, based on the banner pic, at least (Daz Studio). Maybe it's just me. Also, I miss her beauty mark 🥺 In the end though, I'll always enjoy your artistic vision for your characters 🌟
