Which has greater potential, DAZ or Character Creator?

AdventDestiny

This is a question that I have to seriously consider, mainly because I have hopes to one day become a professional creature and character designer, maybe even an animator if time allows. But since I'm starting from scratch, I need to find some tools to make my creative career just a little bit easier. One big tool I'm looking for is a means of quickly creating a base human character, which I can then export into another program [Blender, ZBrush, etc.] to modify, enhance, and ultimately animate.

I already have DAZ 3D [it is free, after all], but I can already tell that with just the default options available its ability to realize an original character is limited, requiring multiple purchases to get all the tools and options I feel will be needed. Then I look at iClone 6's Character Creator, which appears [haven't actually had a chance to try it yet] to be much more well structured with character design, but to get what I actually need, I'll need to effectively spend over $800 [half of which will just be for the 3DExchance program needed to be able to export models in and out of iClone 6].

So the ultimate question is, in the long run which would be a better investment, whatever amount of micro-transactions for DAZ 3D, or a all in one payment of over $800 for iClone 6?

Defunct

AdventDestiny said:

I have hopes to one day become a professional creature and character designer

I would just stick with zbrush + blender(or whatever other suite) and study anatomy If you want to become a professional character & creature designer. And since you've got moneh to spend I hear Scott Eaton's anatomy courses are good.

slosh

To be honest, most character artists in the industry will frown upon the use of programs like Daz.  If you want to be a professional character artist, make everything from scratch, learn proportion and anatomy rock solid on your own.

musashidan

AdventDestiny said:

So the ultimate question is, in the long run which would be a better investment

Creating characters from scratch, learning human/cloth anatomy, learning the full workflow/pipeline, sculpting as much as you can, and then studying some more anatomy.

Seriously, if you're intent on becoming a character artist then forget about Daz, or what you might think are shortcuts. There are no shortcuts. Hard work is your best investment. 

antweiler

Yes there is no way around learning anatomy (sculpting, life-drawing...), you will need these skills for stylized characters. If you need relieable 3D reference for realistic anatomy and proportions, i would look into 3D scanning, rather than DAZ or Poser, etc.. There are cheap or free models and programs available, for anatomical research you dont need super highrez scans.