I've been eyeing the DAZ dragon for a while now but it sure is spendy. There are a lot of great textures and add-ons available and it looks pretty cool. What I want to know is how easy is it to work with? How morphable is it? With a few exceptions, most of the ones I've seen look pretty much out-of-the-box, except with regard to texture. If I try to make it shorter and sturdier looking, will I "break" it? Are there any other decent dragons out there? I've been looking around and I'm also thinking about Michael Lane's Adult Hatchling Dragon, which appears to be a better model that the DAZ one, although less expensive.

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/softgood.ez?Who=the3dwizard

You might take a look at my Drago and Puff in the marketplace. I think they will give you an idea of what can be done with the DAZ3D dragon. Also traveler had some free morphs for the dragon but I am not sure if they are still up on his site.

Attached Link: http://dragonfactory.3dmenagerie.com/

I've gotten just about all the dragons and dragon morph kits that are available. All have their appeal. If you have a specific look in mind that none of them approach, you might find the DRAGON FACTORY worth a look. - It's has a "build-Your-Own" approach.

You'll find more textures and accessories for the original DAZ dragon than any others, and bloodsong's Dragon Factory CD is great if you want to build it yourself, but here are some alternatives:

Anton's Storybook Dragon : DAZ
Anton's Dragon Skeleton : DAZ
Mock's Dragon : Renderosity Marketplace
PhilC's Dragon : Renderosity Marketplace
blbarrett's Sea Dragon : Renderosity Marketplace
konan's Ultimate Dragon : Innuendo Software
PhilC's original dragon freebie : Fantasy 3D

Whoops, left one out.

Valandar's Land Dragon : here in Free Stuff, with pose sets by Greybro and KattJ

Sorry for the oversight, Valandar!

Attached Link: http://dragonfactory.3dmenagerie.com/

If you're serious about dragons and want something that doesn't look like a Disney character, you should get Dragon Factory. I bought this a while back and cannot advocate it highly enough. It's more expensive than the Daz dragon, fair enough, but for your $80 you get ridiculous customizability, hundreds if not thousands of different dragons, and props (like horns and wings) that you can use on your Poser people. The models are well constructed and really fun to work with, and exquisitely morphy. In about three hours I went from a standad head to a Geigeresque horrorI doubt the creator would recognize their mesh. It's really incredibly good and well worth the price.

Valandar also has a new dragon that should be ready to be released to the marketplace soon.

Valandar's looks great.... I can't wait I never liked Daz's fantasy dragon.. just looked too goofy... but the Adult Hatchling is great.... Some excellent morphs for it... not a lot out third party wise since its so new but really, excellent model. If I had 80 bucks lying around I'd get the dragon factory though. Anz

what about the hatchling?

Well there's a preview of the new dragon with his preliminary new texture (wing "arms" not textured yet) about to be posted to the Product Showcase forum... he'll have about fourteen or fifteen different head props (horns, crests, spikes, etc), and four different conforming figures for the back (armor plates, stegosaur plates, spikes, and a spiny fin). Give me a few weeks...

I was assuming that Hiram knew about the hatchling, since he was aware of the adult version.

But just to be thorough ....

Michael Lane's Hatchling Dragon : DAZ
Michael Lane's Adult Hatchling : DAZ

Drat. I messed up the link to konan's dragon. This one should work.

konan's Ultimate Dragon : Innuendo Software

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?ForumID=12413&Form.ShowMessage=578779

Ah, here's the forum entry in the showcase forum with the latest Poser-rendered image of the Dracos Titanicus... the texture just needs a bit more detail, but the bumps maps are done. So are all the props.... now to start work on the CR2's... Now, that's a link to a thread in the Product Showcase forum, so if you don't wanna go to the new, wonderful forum, just don't click the link. 8-D

Thanks for the tips, guys. I was actually awaare of most of whats out there as I've been shopping around. The Ultimate Dragon was new to me though. the3dwizard: your sets are one of the things that kept me interested in the DAZ dragon. Your textures are beautiful; you do wonderful work. I was mostly looking for critiques on customizablity and product integrity: overall usefulness and satisfaction. I'll probably go ahead and get the DAZ dragon, but I'm going to save for the Dragon Factory. (unless temptation gets the better of me first! Sincere thanks to everyone who has answered!

If you decide to get the DAZ Drgon, there is a remapped version that will get rid of the stretching of the textures across the arms, legs, face, etc. It uses 3 textures so if you are not too good with texturing then you should hold off on it. My site for it is down, but if you IM me with your email I will send it to you (no texture. Below is one I've done with the VIO6 Dragon Remap and a texture I've done for it. Many thanks to Viomar for making the VIO6 Remapped Daz(Zygote) Dragon possible! TMG

Most of the dragons have various "atmospheres" associated with them. If you want a good basic dragon which can be morphed, fiddled, and added to to make lots of other distinctive dragons, then DAZ or Dragon Factory are the way to go. There are lots of poses as well as textures for the DAZ beast, but they may be applicable to any critter with equivalent body part names. If you have a specific purpose or place or mood for your beast, you need to clarify your needs before purchasing. Some dragons are cute; some are massive man-eaters. Some dragons have a decent wingspan; some will never get off the ground. Most dragons would be fine in a lair, the sea dragon is beautiful in water, but I haven't seen a single oriental rain dragon coiling through clouds. Some dragons are ugly and fearsome; others are cuddly and rounded and more suited to cartoons than historical fantasy. Carolly

Well, I went and got the Adult Hatchling at DAZ; it had the closest look to what I wanted for now, and I'm impressed with Micheal Lane's style (next is the plant pixies, I have an animation in mind!). So here is the result after about an hour or so of tweeking. I wanted to do a kind of punched-up, 3D version of the Welsh flag.

Here is the traditional flag.

Instantly recognisable as the Welsh flag, and not IR as the Adult Hatchling (at least to my inexperienced eyes).

I LIKE your Welsh Flag-Dragon! (Add a tankard to his fore-claw & would he be a Flagon-Dragon?LOL ) That's wonderful work. If you ever have time to post a description of some of the "tweaks" I'd love to see it! (I've got to spend more time on my Adult Hatchling, He doesn't look nearly THAT adult :-)) Beauty!

Ow! Next on the list is a Palace Chalice! Mostly I just increased/decreased the Y or Z scale of a few limbs, decreased wing size, cranked up the bony-ness on the face and so on. The texture is the one that ships with it, re-worked in PShop; turned up the contrast on the bump map. I need to add the spines on the back of the neck, but I have to make a trans map so the ones on the tail don't show up (for those who might not know, he comes with a spines prop, but they go the whole length of his back). Also want to add horns to the nose and elbows.

That really looks good! Great Work! TMG