I'll fix my ugly character models, if I learn how to, and if I must, I guess.

I put a lot of work into getting Dawn right. She needed darker skin. She needed to be cute enough to carry a game. I am so inexperienced with Daz 3d that I don't know if I could actually replicate her model. I've copied the model onto every drive I own just in case something happens to my computers. I really lucked out getting her skin darker and that the default skin has makeup applied (because I forgot makeup).

Unfortunately, due to poor planning on the writing, she isn't the first character model you see in the game. You get Kusi and Grandma Daisy. Just the worst. This is because the stubborn idea where I think I want to add more love interests and story lines later. It is also due to the defaults and limitations of DAZ 3D. I could spend money on minoritized features for my models. They do exist, it isn't like daz can't make black people. My main resource is time, so that is the currency I spend.

Without spending money, you can make white men and women in Daz 3d. You can mess with the settings to make the texture and shaders lighter or darker. There are tutorials that I tried to follow to make the white skin darker. But in practice it doesn't look right. (I'm a baby). 

I used face-transfer a feature where a photo of a person is applied to model. I liked this idea because it meant that a new skin would be generated and I wouldn't have to play with sliders. And bonus, I'd get a unique looking character that won't just show up in other games. The skin tone changes to match the picture but it can apply to the model in some funny ways.

These problems are all compounded because every model looks terrible in the partially rendered positioning phase of modeling.

Kusi can't look down or right. Something about the way the face was applied made the limiter that keeps models from looking like demon possession victims just maxed out. I stopped playing with it when I got all of the Kusi assets I needed for chapter one and I couldn't have quit fighting it faster. It was frustrating.
Then there was the eye thing. I didn't quite get to the understanding the eye thing. It's shaders or iray or something.

Grandma Daisey works a bit better. There are still some of the face transfer quirks. I think she couldn't really smile that well and her teeth kept popping out when I opened the mouth. But I actually got compliments on Grandma Daisy. "She looks like an old person!" That boosted my confidence. She looks okay while rendered. Daz 3d accelerates at beautiful young women. Older women or old women in grandma's case kind of don't work. So, a better model might come around but I am less willing to throw away the work I have done with her.

I was hesitant to lead with these character models but we lead with the story needs first, I white knuckled my way through play testing them and tried to make the writing as good as possible, and I covered all the promotional material with the good character models.

I want to fix it but my main priority is finishing the game and focusing on what I am best at.