Does anyone have any good tips for a starter

sierraburns693

hello Im new to 3D can anyone help me get started with some good tips please?

FSMCDesigns

Hi and welcome! So what are you looking to achieve with Daz Studio and 3D?

First off, I would recommend not spending money till you have a good idea how it all works. There is plenty to play with using the various essentials and starters and also freebies. I would also recommend staying away from using smart content and connect. Either install things manually or use DIM and locate what you want to load thru the content library. learn the file paths and where files are located since this will help with troubleshooting issues and help with installing non DAZ content.

lastly,. ask questions. There are plenty of users on the forums that can usually help.

Gordig

What do you want to do? If you're just looking to pose and render, like a lot of users do, you should look at posing references and real-world lighting and cinematography/photography tutorials, because those will help you get realistic poses out of figures and light them effectively for good renders. If you want to do animation....honestly, look elsewhere, because DS isn't very well optimized for animation, but Daz content is great to use in other programs once you understand the workflow for your chosen program. Again, the kind of advice that will help you will depend entirely on your objectives.

lilweep

sierraburns693 said:

hello Im new to 3D can anyone help me get started with some good tips please?

Learn some basic terminology and the concepts they reference, e.g.,:

UV, UV map, texture, shader, normal map, SubD, geometry, mesh, topology, ray tracing, etc

If using Daz Studio, learn the Daz terminology, e.g.,:

Figure, Prop, bone, rigging, posing, material preset, shader preset, character preset, wearable preset, morph, etc.

 

I dont know if there's any good glossary reference or anything, but even if you dont learn them outright, you will pick them up in time anyway. 

 

For the 3D software you want to use, watch a bunch of tutorials on those software on youtube, like Daz Studio, Blender, Marvelous Designer to watch how people use them and what's possible.  If starting out in 3D, Daz Studio is probably a good entry level software. Blender also, since there's lots of support and video tutorials for it, plus it's free.

SofaCitizen

Already plenty of good advice. I would just add that if you are using either Daz Central OR Daz Install Manager (DIM) - which you probably should - then do not log into your account within the Daz Studio application itself. Doing that is only required if you want to use Daz's built in installer (Daz Connect) and will cause conflicts with assets installed via other means if you have it connected.

Secondly, watch the tutorials in the masterclass here: https://www.daz3d.com/community/masterclass

There are of course other good tutorial videos on Youtube to help you get to grips with various things.

frank0314

Here is the Daz Youtube channel with a lot of beginner tutorials https://www.youtube.com/@Daz_3D

ShelLuser

With all due respect but that's way too broad of a question I think. Daz Studio is seriously extensive and things could go into either direction. I mean, is this about Daz Studio itself, the rendering process, the market place?

Meh, but then again....  let's just DO THIS :)

Daz Studio

At the risk of coming across as a fanboy: if you stop to think about all the features which Daz Studio ("DS") provides I think it's very interesting to see his being presented for free. Yah, sure, it's also a sales model (important detail!) but seriously: do not underestimate this environment!

• Make sure to become familiar with both the smart contents pane as well as the so called "Content Library" pane, both are equally important. Trying to apply an accessory meant for Genesis 8 onto Genesis (1)?  Impossible with the smart contents pane because of its filtering but no bother at all with the content library. Of course there's more: sometimes stuff doesn't end up in the smart contents section, sometimes you may want to look up all the assets of a product and sometimes...  you want to rely on 3rd party contents which you need to install yourself. => content library pane.
  • For example: find "Genesis" in the smart contents pane, right click, and check the "Show asset in..." area...
• DS is like elastic: everything can be customized! Press F3 (or use the pulldown menu: Windows => Workspace => Customize) and you can just do it all... keyboard shortcuts, toolbars, even the pulldown menus themselves!  Just be careful not to overdo things if you're new, make sure you know what you're messing around with!
• 3rd party contents: Trust me: some day you'll be going here as well. With all due respect to Daz3D but there's more than just their marketplace. If you're going there: don't dump your new stuff into existing places. Instead create a new folder somewhere, then use that as your new 3rd party library. This helps you keep an overview, it will prevent your library from clogging up and keep things manageable.
• Add your own categories! => For example, I do a lot with Genesis base figures, in many cases that's how I start. I mean, when I'm creating poses it doesn't matter what character it's meant for: the Genesis generation is all that matters. As such: Figures => Genesis is a category in my setup (know what? I'll share a screenshot).
• Old doesn't imply obsolete!! => I cannot stress this one out enough: yes, Iray is an amazing render engine and the stuff you can squeeze out of that is sometimes mindblowing. Some of my older sceneries honestly suddenly looked... frickin' amazing, when all I did was change render engines. Thing is though: 3Delight is still an amazing engine and you should not underestimate the things you can learn from using it.
  • However... this also applies to the figures in the Daz store. Genesis 9 is the new hot deal but trust me: that doesn't mean older generations suddenly have no value anymore. Even up to this very same date (time of writing but... I don't see this ending soon) I'm still more than often using Genesis; so the first generation? I'll do you one more: some of my renders ("elsewhere") featuring Genesis 3 can sometimes still go through the roof where appreciation is concerned. That's also kinda old stuff ;)
• If you're serious about this stuff: consider getting a "3D editor". Daz provides Hexagon, very dated but also very capable. Even free of charge it seems?. And it's natively supported by DS through a "bridge" => "Send to Hexagon".
  • Bias goes into effect here for this item: There's also Blender, also free of charge but with a bit of a learning curve too. To be fully honest I never liked this product myself, but that doesn't mean I can't appreciate it's amazing potential. My personal favorite though is ZBrush. Commercial software, very expensive and I'm not even sure how long it will remain available as a perpetial license vs. a subscription model. I've been using this critter for 3 years now and I'm still learning stuff; there's pretty much nothing I can't do here!
  • Much cheaper but also seriously useful: Daz Bryce.  This isn't the kind of "3D editor" I had in mind with my main point above, but this critter is priceless when it comes to creating backdrops. Clouds in the sky? This fractal generator can still blow your mind to this very same day, even in combination with Iray (provided that you know how to use the whole shebang and set up proper lighting and all....). I'm serious... My start menu for 3D? => Daz Studio, ZBrush and Bryce 7. Followed by Photoshop organizer.
• Instead of buying texture packs... maybe consider Substance Painter? ;)

Render process

• 3Delight can give you way more freedom and options than you may realize!
  • Lighting is a very important part of your rendering process, and 3Delight can help highlight all of this. Because it's a lot easier to apply lighting and then almost immediately showcase their effect. Yah, I'm the nut who actually set up a red, green and blue lightsource ("spotlight"), aimed them in the same general direction of a 3D primiate I placed, just to see what would happen. Then I added a figure in between....
• Don't always accept standard presets: at the very least go over the properties to see if you understand what's happening there.
• Filament is an awesome render engine but ... if you just select it in your viewport you will probably get met with oversaturated objects. Solution: Create => New filament draw options node. (remember my "DS is elastic" comment earlier? Nothing is stopping you from adding this option to, say, your toolbar?).
  • If you do go here: pay specific attention to "Environment intensity scale" as well as "distance scene light scale".
• White dots in your Iray render usualy indicate lighting issues. Either go over your render settings or... add more light sources.

Daz marketplace

• Don't trust promo pictures!  You more than often do not get what the pictures are showing you, be sure to go over a product contents section and try to veriry that you understand what you're grabbing.
• Daz Central isn't the only option to install stuff...   many people rely on the Daz Install Manager for example. Simply put: if you want your software to reside on drive C and your content library on D... you'll want DIM.
• Please keep this in mind: older does not imply worse! When Genesis 8 hit I soon had a field day with several Genesis ("1") assets because they dropped so much in price... And yes, you will come across assets which were build for "RSL" (Renderman Shader Language; used with 3Delight) which may not properly work with the modern MDL ("Material Definition Language", specific for NVidia's Iray). So then there's this thing called Substance Painter, available on the Adobe website for rent but also on Steam for purchase with a perpetual license. Once you got your fingers behind that you'll never bother with a texture pack again. And it can go as simple as to just drag & drop materials to "make it work" towards applying several layers in order to customze stuff into the most detail possible. Maybe even fully converting RSL based assets into MDL.
  • Also don't be afraid to experiment... I made some of my best "ghost renders" by simply (ab)using the lack of support for MDL and just put an RSL asset into my scene. It rendered pure white with a bit of variations and... it looked pretty cool despire that it wasn't meant to be used this way.
• With all due respect to Daz3D (<= they deserve it IMO!) => 3rd party marketplaces exist and they also often sell awesome stuff.
• And yes, I am going here: if you're looking for proper / useful anatomy...  on the Daz 3D marketplace you need to grab Pro bundles for their Genesis assets (other than Genesis 9 I think, with all due respect I'm ignoring 9 for now). The assets are useful, but you may want to focus on "other places" if you need more detail.
• Speaking of bundles: sometimes it helps to check the individual parts. Are you sure you need all of the items? Maybe you can save money there.
• And speaking of saving money: this hobby isn't cheap, try to build up a pose of your own (no: not using morphs!) and you'll see how much time and effort it'll take. Now imagine building 3D assets yourself! If you're new to Daz3D and want to build up a nice collection then I strongly recommend using Daz+. I also strongly recommend to keep taps on all this and to make sure that you're still in your "buying spree year / moment" when you re-evaluate your subscription. You might notice I don't have such a subscription right now myself but trust me: when I build up my library I had, and put it to good use too! It's definitely worth noting.
• Last but certainly not least: Free doesn't imply useless advertisement junk. But it can be!  Always make sure that a freebie doesn't rely on "other items", this often happens on the Daz marketplace. But there are also plenty of freebies up for grabs "out there" on the Internet and yah: all easily implemented into your smart contents pane if you'd want to (there's a reason why I mentioned NOT to underestimate the insane amount of usability of DS despite it being provided free of charge!).

And there you go!

My take on getting started in the wonderful / awesome world of Daz3D / Daz Studio. Thanks for reading, I hope this could be useful!

For context sakes, this is what my setup looks like, I'll bet you don't have a 'Genesis' section ;) =>