Loving Daz Studio!

245

Comments

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,574
    edited January 2023

    Dartanbeck said:

    This hair is wonderful (special to me because it does such a great job of looking and behaving like the real Rosie's (my wife) hair) and I haven't seen anything close to it yet - not for simulation/animation that actually looks good in motion. The closest thing I found was my own Carrara dynamic hair, which I also really like if it was more stable to render smoothly. Shader-based, it tends to twitch due to the curliness of it. 

    Here's my Carrara hair

    Just to clear things up, that first line in the above statement is referring to Linday's Classic Long Curly Hair, not my Carrara hair, which I like, but not as much as this. I'll try and get some example videos up on YouTube soon.

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  • IvyIvy Posts: 7,165
    edited January 2023

    Dartanbeck said:

    @Ivy

    That example video is from years ago. That's Carrara dynamic hair, which won't fall out on you ;)

    This is the dForce hair I'm using now. It's not strand-based so it doesn't fall out either. I love this hair!

    I have it but i don't use carrara pro. I just could never grasp use it for animation. & because daz does not offer support for Carrara anymore is one of the reasons I stopped learning it

    Also thank you for pointing out that the hair falling is with strand base hair.  I had never thought of that stand base hair being the issue. I never have issues with hair falling out with Poser dynamic hair or daz dynamic hair using the clothing plugin for dynamics. But they are rather cumbersome to use compared to deforce hair.     Hmm strand base hair.  I wonder how to fix that seeming strand-base hair is what daz offers for dforce.

    I have had some pretty good success use conforming hair & add dforce modifiers to parts of the conforming hair I want to simulate.  which give me good results for ponytail hair sets.

    IMO hair in Daz Studio is one of the hardest things to get to look right or natural when you animate it. and your results have been very good

    Post edited by Ivy on
  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,574

    In the above video (Simulation - Animation - Compositing Workflow Demo) we can see how I modified the aniBlock data using default morphforms that come with the Daz figure.

    My Anim + dials are based on that idea.

    There came times when the basic morphforms just weren't enough, so I began with my Posture Shift dials, which basically rotate the lower chest, upper and lower abdomen opposite each other as far as they can go without changing the angle of the jaw in relation to the ground. Then I saved them each to work in their negative values, again - as far as they can go without changing that head angle.

    So Posture Shift Twist also keeps the head facing the same direction - only the mid torso twists. Posture Shift Side to Side keeps arms and head parrallel to their original angle, etc., 

     

    Some aniBlocks and/or animated PZ2 files would crunch the chest too much or just the opposite. Posture Shift Fwd and Back can often fix this across the entire animation with a single dial.

     

    When that wasn't enough, I added separate dials getting individual with the joints. I also made things like Arms Twist which has been So Helpful for things like GoFigure's Martial Arts moves, where the arms are always intersecting with the body. And Crouch aniBlocks were working great except that one foot would leave the ground (probably due to the difference in my figure's shape) for too long - just looked weird with her crouching with the hide foot up in the air. Adding some Shin dials made it super-simple to fix this. 

     

    Using GenX2 I added a bunch of facial morphs and left them in their Generation X2 slot on the figure. I can use those if I want, but instead I used them to make my own Anim + dials on the Head pose section of Genesis 3. It still needs those morphs, but they're controlled with my own dials.

    Speaking of which, if we find that we're constantly combining two or more morph dials, we can do that and make a single dial that does that for us. This is what my Anim + dials are all about - and Daz Studio makes it So Easy to do!

  • WendyLuvsCatzWendyLuvsCatz Posts: 38,220

    I export my mesh leaf opacity mapped hairs to ultimate unwrap 3D and create a root shading domain /surface 

    I set the simulation value on that surface and the scalp to zero

    I also set the rest to 98% not 100% to make it more bouffant less clothy

  • IvyIvy Posts: 7,165

    Great tips guys

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,574
    edited January 2023

    Being a Daz 3d customer and figure user for years, it's easy to take Daz figures for granted. 

    Daz Studio is finely crafted by the fine folks who make these amazing figures for us - and there's a Lot to that. I'd like to share some appreciation to these incredible artists.

     

    Daz 3d's very first human figure: Millennium Woman took the Poser world by storm! Posette and later Judy looked like 3d people, but Millennium Woman was Amazing! 

    Victoria 2 and Michael 2 improved this line and, by then there was an amazing amount of addons available in both morphs and conforming cloth and hair. Textures and poses and props too.

    Generation 3 massively improved upon this and 4 took leaps and bounds forward, making a whole new way that clothing and hair followed the figure and the shapes we dialed up (or down). Generation 4 also allowed us to pick and chose which morphs we wanted on a per-character basis, using the new INJection system.

     

    Generation 4 was so celebrated that I'm pretty sure that it still holds the world record for being the most popular commercial human figure on the market. That said makes the next generation even more impressive:

     

    Genesis! A new, permanent name for codename Unimesh. New skinning, SubD cage technology, the introduction of 'clones' to enable the new (released together) Daz Studio 4.0's Auto-Fit, Genesis was an incredible new figure, and is still very useful and fun to use to this day! 

    The previous INJ system was replaced with a new database system. All morphs get installed to the database, and Daz Studio only uses them if we call them up. Brilliant!

    At the time I was testing the new Carrara 8.5 Pro beta, which brought Genesis in along with other changes that I simply could no longer live without - so I finally uninstalled Carrara 8 Pro - I just couldn't use it any more. Genesis got so many cool shapes, I couldn't stop collecting them. I was still firmly planted with Generation 4 for Rosie and Dartan, but Genesis made my monsters and background people so much fun to create.

    I made this fun little demo before 8.5 was completed using one of the last beta versions

    Daz Studio was also changed from three or four pricing tiers (free, Intermediate, Advanced and Pro, if I remember correctly), to just offering Pro for Free. But it wasn't the same Pro. For this installment Daz 3d had the foresight to buy up the incredible CCTs (Content Creation Tools) previously sold separately, along with many more bells and whistles, and include them into Studio Pro... for Free - not to mention all of the new advancemnents (including the new database and Smart Content). 

    Well I'm here to tell you that the word "Free" is no longer synomynous with "Simple" or "Bottom of the Barrel". 

    This new Daz Studio was packed with everything an artist needs to create a full-blown figure from 3d mesh to fully rigged and textured right under the hood. Perhaps Studio could do this before (not sure - I was So into Carrara) but certainly not to this extent - and certainly not for free.

     

    Any part of the process from rigging to scripting to building brand new shader types, blending them, etc., etc., etc., all right under the hood. 

    But even better, the casual user doesn't have to be put to pains by trying to understand any of this - let's make the interface so we can put whatever we want wherever we want - and make the default layout something simple for new and general purpose users to understand and use - absolute Genius!!! 

    Generation 6 comes out as Genesis 2 Male and Genesis 2 Female, breaking the mould of the Genesis Unimesh for all sexes. This made it much easier for content creators to make stuff for their targeted sex. But beyond that, Genesis 2 is packed with improvements from the previous generation. All Daz figure releases are leaps and bounds ahead of what came before - even though the casual observer often only notices the obvious.

    Daz 3d went forward at lightspeed when they released Generation 7 - Genesis 3 males and females. This one completely broke Carrara compatibility so I couldn't use it until now. I did see the release notes on the figure, however and I love how Daz 3d was stepping deep into professional cinema! They deserve it - making such amazing figures for so long - and along with that being incredibly affordable and supportive to their peers... us.

     

    Genesis 3 came out with something we haven't seen before in a Daz figure - facial bones. Sure, we had facial bones, but not like this. Genesis 3 expressions can now be made by maneuvering joints, the same as moving and arm, leg, finger or toe. Use the facial rig to shape an expression and store it as an expression dial. This process is exactly what I do to create my own Anim + dials - and it's magical. 

    I'm not going to get into them here - partly because I'm writing from memory here, but Genesis 3 brought a Lot more changes and advancements to the table than just that - and that was Huge! New rigging for better joint shaping in poses (without the need for multitudes of corrective morphs), streamlined geometry, relying more on HD morphs for added detail if needed, just to name a few.

    By this time Daz Studio has grown along with all of this and became more powerful with more tools and features - and the first software to incorporate nVidia's incredible render engine: Iray!

     

    Genesis 8 was another Massive leap forward and held its ground as the lead Daz Figure for a lot of years, only to be improved by 8.1, which again was a huge leap forward - especially for professional cinematic use!

    Now there's Genesis 9, whose all-new rigging is much more in line with how professional cinema CG artists expect to work. It might be a headache for those of us who have collected animation and pose data for previous generations, but the incredible support artists premiered at Daz 3d are hot on the move getting us all squared away with that.

    And, by now Daz Studio has seen a lot of additions and improvements and also now has bridges to the major professional cinematic software solutions. Bravo!

     

    Daz Premier Artists have also made available an immense slew of new tools we can add to Studio to do the things that we've always wanted to do but either couldn't, or just didn't know how to by digging under the hood. I'm often too busy with my animation work to be bothered with trying to learn a whole new trade - so I usually prefer to buy these tools rather than develop them myself. And then there's a Daz 3d Communtiy (you folks) who offer up amazing tools and features for free!

     

    OTOY made the beautiful move and made a free tier of OctaneRender just for Daz Studio users - and it's Awesome!!! Check out how accessible Valzhiemer has made this for us!

     

    I know that there has been a lot of controversy about the company, Daz 3d over the years - a lot of changes, heatbreaks, and troublesome times. A lot of the people no longer here I considered close friends. Still do. But one thing that hasn't changed is that Daz 3d pushes forward into the future of CG goodness, and they bring us with them. Over all of these years they've been good to us, the community. They were awesome to me as a PA! (had to drop out due to family health issues - products now available freely at my site

     

    When I first joined Daz 3d - more than ten years ago I became a Platinum Club (now Daz +) Member and that has literally brought gold to my doorstep. Even when times are hardest for me, I can always rely on Daz+ artists to cheer me up with a freebie. Thanks to all of you for all of these great things. It's fun to see more artists joining this wonderful club of giving... of gifting.

    Thanks Daz 3d and all of you who are a part of this amazing journey!

    I Love You All!!!

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  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,574

    My very first (and only) movie I made using test renders as I was figuring out how to animate, texture, light and render in Carrara

    Jonny Bravo made a video tutorial on how to use the aniBlock Importer for Carrara. I noticed he had some other Carrara videos, so I watched them. Not knowing how to join individual clips together - or even what a movie editor was yet - I contacted him and started asking questions. As a result I ended up getting a 30-day trial of Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum. 

    To try it out, I used this pile of successes and failures to put something together.

    I still have that same version of Vegas as well as Corel VideoStudio Pro, but mostly use HitFilm Express (just for some individual composities and effects) and DaVinci Resolve with its powerful Fusion and Fairlight Studio built in.

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,574
    edited January 2023

    Earlier I mentioned that I'm trying hard to stay within my 6GB RTX memory as I decorate Urban Sprawl 3 to become more of a Cyberpunk style environment.

    When I started, I mostly just added lights and a few extra props from Polish's Cyberpunk Back Alley Bundle. Well I think that bundle also adds some extra presets for the building as well, because they're all dolled up with lights and such.

    I started off replacing a few select buildings, hiding the originals. In the end I decided to delete and replace them entirely, since I have the original huge scene I created saved separately.

    Wow... what a difference! The camera angles aren't exactly the same, but it's the same location

    Before

    After (Same Render Settings)

    Post edited by Dartanbeck on
  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,574

    That's just a small part of it, but I went around the entire car chase route and swapped a few choice buildings here and there, just to create the effect. Renders really fast, too!

    Being such a bleak future scape, I may also remove most, or possibly all of the trees and replace them with data terminals and such.

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  • @Dartanbeck

    Have you ever investigated Houdini at all? Someone like you who is clearly extremely creative in finding solutions and equally clearly not afraid to turn dials and pull levers just to learn what happens, it would seem like Houdini would be heaven for you because, well, literally everything in Houdini is a dial or a lever.

    I say this because I too love Classic Long Curly Hair, my primary protagonist uses it with a few settings in Blender to make it a bit kinkier. For that reason, it is hell to simulate, as you already know. dForce utterly failed, Blender's old hair dynamics failed even worse, and the new hair sim isn't done yet. But Houdini nailed it with no adjusting at all, like that's what it was made for (which, of course, it was).

    Just wondering...

     

  • GordigGordig Posts: 10,060

    Seconding Houdini.

  • Gordig said:

    Seconding Houdini.

    Nicely done, @Gordig.

    And there are three very important metaphors we can learn from in what I just saw.

     

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,574

    My biggest problem with things like Houdini and other big softies is the fact that I am utterly poor. We have to save up each year just to keep my Daz + account active.

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,574
    edited January 2023

    So, I've added my groups of LoRez people. Using Instances I have over 400 people animated within the city

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  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,574
    edited January 2023

    Now to run a chase through all of this!

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  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,574

    Truly folks, I'm happy with the software I have. 

    Linday's hair simulates pretty darn nice for me. After a whole lot of experimenting with this and that, it turned out that using Linday's advice pays off the most. After all, he did put a Lot of time into setting it up.

  • GordigGordig Posts: 10,060

    Dartanbeck said:

    My biggest problem with things like Houdini and other big softies is the fact that I am utterly poor. We have to save up each year just to keep my Daz + account active.

    Houdini has a free version.

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,574
    edited January 2023

    Cool! With Rosie in her Nemesis, being chased by Corp Soldiers in their Piranha, I'm coming in at 5.8GB on my RTX, so renders are speeding along!!!

    I like to work optimized, so since we barely see her, Rosie and her gear are all set to base mesh resolution, and the gear we'll never see has been omitted.

    Pretty jazzed at how well the Pirahna works using Linday's Awesome system! Limitations? Perhaps. Imagination!

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  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,574
    edited January 2023

    Gordig said:

    Dartanbeck said:

    My biggest problem with things like Houdini and other big softies is the fact that I am utterly poor. We have to save up each year just to keep my Daz + account active.

    Houdini has a free version.

    Cool. I recall looking into that. Not sure if it's because I'm not a student or what. But I realized that the free version wasn't going to cut it for some reason.

    Daz Studio Pro, with all its amazing bells and whistles is free! I paid full price for my Carrara 8.5 Pro upgrade and have never been disappointed. Back then I was still chiseling stone - heavy overtime six days a week. Now I'm only drumming, which brings in enough to keep itself going. 

    Seriously, I am no longer interested in the whole 'figure out how to get my stuff to work in software that it doesn't work in' solution. That's why I'm here instead of still being in my beloved Carrara. But I really come to life when I get to hop back into Carrara!!! I really love that software - like it was designed specifically for me! Well, Spooky and I became fast friends, and I was rather punctual with my beta test reports. So I guess, in a way, Carrara does work how I want it to. 

    Still, thanks for the heads up! I do really appreciate it! Houdini Rocks!!! 

    I'm overjoyed to have Fusion! Daz Studio + Carrara + HitFilm + Fusion + Resolve and Fairlight makes for a great workflow for me! My brother got me a killer new bass guitar and amp for my birthday - it sounds mean, deep, and wonderful! Gonna use that to write my soundtrack and my singer's Gretsch and Orange amp (unglued raw power sound) along with my thunderous drums to fill it all in. I'm having the time of my life right now!

    My cool little rescue Podenko, Chicha, keeps me happy and healthy walking forever along Lake Michigan every day, too. That helps! Set my render folder, Ctrl+R, and take her for her walk. What a Blast!

    Chicha-roo, my Strawberry Kangaroo!!! She's so sweet! 

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  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,574

    Gordig said:

    Seconding Houdini.

    That is Really Cool, Gordig! Bravo!

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,574

    I ran a test sequence car chase without Rosie in the car before I started the whole Cyberpunkizing of US3, and just those few times when it's clear that there's no driver drove me to make sure she's in there, just doing some subtle motions to get along.

     

    It really gets fun when I shoot inside the car with her driving - which means that I have to animate her driving the car, then remove the car's aniBlock to keep the car from moving so fast, simulate the soft-body physics, the shirt, and the hair, add the aniBlock back onto the car and render. 

    The cool part is that I can then render her and her gear at full resolution, because I run the same camera again within the city - separately, so when I render her inside the car, I don't need the city in the scene.

    This city is massive for a DS scene. The five city blocks of US3: One in the center and one at each pole, then I fill in the blanks with Instances. The really cool thing with instances is that, when I cyberpunkize the main block, the instances auto-update immediately. 

    I must say - I'm really impressed at how nicely Polish's work fixed my city so quickly. And I've always been impressed with Predatron's work - those LoRez people can be a blast to work with, and they're very light on their feet! I have a really cool sequence of Rosie kicking the crap out of a LoRez Masked Super Hero! He does put up a fight, but....

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,574
    edited January 2023

    When my articles about my adventures in Daz Studio get under way, I have some cool tricks with outdoor scene - using ThePhilosopher's iReal Ocean Water system to replace water planes. Makes all the difference in the world - but there are a few tricks that make it much better. 

    I've also become a huge fan of Andrey Pestryakov, making such beautiful landscape material. Something I did myself in Carrara, so I never really looked twice before. In Iray, these things are truly delicious!

    This one has the iReal Ocean water animating through it. The animation looks awesome!

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  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,574

    Oh... forgot. There's no sky in that image. Please keep in mind when I'm posting images that I am an animator who likes to composite stuff together in Fusion. Think of it like how Illustrators use Daz Studio to make parts of the image and Photoshop (icky, bad word!) for the rest.

    Sorry. Adobe and I had a parting of ways when they started their subscription model. Now I use Affinity Photo if I want to do that sort of work, but I'm really fond of the artistic animation properties of Project Dogwaffle Pro - Howler! The developers and whole team associated with them are Amazingly Cool!!! 

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  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,574

    Here's a Carrara render I did using my own Daz 3d product: Carrara Environkit - Woodlands, which came with the water already set up to animate. Although my scene building techniques have changed quite a bit since then, I still like using my EnvironKits to start out. Ahhh... those were some fun times! I created my first Daz 3d product while I was nervously waiting for my daughter to get a kidney transplant. That didn't go so well - had to take it back out after she died on me seven times. But she's still doing okay - getting dialysis every other day though.

    My product, Starry Sky for Carrara, however, did really well IMHO. Never knew there were that many Carrara users out there! :)

    ...and an image made using Starry Sky for Carrara

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,574

    Reminiscing about my Daz 3d PA days

    Mike Moir was also a Daz 3d PA, and he sponsored these fun group collaborations

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,574

    52 frames done already on Piranha vs Nemesis! Woot!!!

    Love my RTX!

    Love my Iray!

    Love my Daz Studio!

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,574
    edited January 2023

    Ivy said:

    Dartanbeck said:

    @Ivy

    That example video is from years ago. That's Carrara dynamic hair, which won't fall out on you ;)

    This is the dForce hair I'm using now. It's not strand-based so it doesn't fall out either. I love this hair!

    I have it but i don't use carrara pro. I just could never grasp use it for animation. & because daz does not offer support for Carrara anymore is one of the reasons I stopped learning it

    Also thank you for pointing out that the hair falling is with strand base hair.  I had never thought of that stand base hair being the issue. I never have issues with hair falling out with Poser dynamic hair or daz dynamic hair using the clothing plugin for dynamics. But they are rather cumbersome to use compared to deforce hair.     Hmm strand base hair.  I wonder how to fix that seeming strand-base hair is what daz offers for dforce.

    I have had some pretty good success use conforming hair & add dforce modifiers to parts of the conforming hair I want to simulate.  which give me good results for ponytail hair sets.

    IMO hair in Daz Studio is one of the hardest things to get to look right or natural when you animate it. and your results have been very good

    Sorry, I missed this one.

    I don't know if strand based hair was the culprit, but if it's falling off - or looks like it is, I have that feeling. Probably in the settings of the hair or a weight mapping issue or something.

    I have the Dire Wolf bundle for Daz Dog 8, and I love how the strand-based hair turns out with that. Simulated quickly and looks fantastic, I think. RawArt's Snow Beast too.

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  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,574
    edited January 2023

    Those things above were all part of my getting to know Daz Studio. First stop: Get some stuff and try them out

    My "Thanks Daz 3d" articles for 2021 really marked the beginning of my adventures into Daz Studio.

    I already had Linday's hair, but now I needed to collect some Iray products that I've been avoiding since Genesis 3 didn't work in Carrara

    Seriously. Sales like this really help me to learn and grow. The products are amazing and many PAs enjoy giving advise, instruction, even the occasional tutorial along with their products. I Love That!!! 

    To help illustrate how much I like this kind of thing, check out the User's Manual I made for Starry Sky. Even just a peek and a scroll through will show how much effort went into giving customers the most I could give them. My other kits too. Nice User's Manual to help folks learn if they want to.

     

    About the image: This was made using stuff I bought at the sale, and couldn't wait to try them out.

    HH Wyvern, Magix101 Iray Worlds and expansion, and Andrey Pestryakov's Medieval Lands

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  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,574
    edited January 2023

    My Daz Studio page is still set up as a learning guide for myself and my readers. It contains a plethora of the links I've been using to get this far - stuff that gets me excited, stuff that tantilized me about DS, and stuff that I feel I need to learn!

    The FREE OctaneRender page gives me (and others) the links for OTOY to get started along with having a convenient landing page for Valzhiemer's wonderful tutorials

    Early Rosie 8 test. I love this character, but Genesis 3 seems to work smoother on my aging system. Poor thing runs wide open every day - I just can't help but render!

    This one was done in OctaneRender

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  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,574

    I haven't used OctaneRender since I disabled the plugin when I didn't have internet. It's not easy doing this stuff when you're living in absolute poverty. I just do the best I can.

    One day I should fire it back up - but I loathe the thought of having to stop again over something that keeps happening over and over. That's why you don't hear from me for long periods of time.

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