Using daz for reference drawings, are there settings that make this easier?

heisdave

I have previously used daz to create characters for a digital project, but now I want to try to create characters and settings that i will use a reference drawings.

So ill render, print, then trace using a light box. Has anyone done this before and are there any render settings that will assist with this? thx

nattaruk

There are several specialist render tools available eg https://www.daz3d.com/linerender9000 or https://www.daz3d.com/sketchy-toon-edge-and-art-style-shaders-for-iray that render directly to line art which may do what you want without the manual labour of tracing on a light box.

heisdave

Thank you, I'll check those out!

TomTomba

I don’t know if my recommendation will sync with your aesthetic goals, drawing facility and the time you have available, but I find I’ve had better results by keeping things simple in Daz.  

That means fast, OpenGL renders or even just screen shots which I’ll then port into Photoshop or Clip Studio for reference.  Often, I won’t put clothes or hair on my figures, as I’m using them as reference for basic proportions, placement, perspective etc..

I’ve found that tracing reference can lead to stiff looking figures and poses, so instead I’ll look at the reference and make a gesture drawing beside it, add Andrew Loomis like construction cylinders and then eventually build up the details and contours in a traditional analog process.  (Though I’m doing this on the computer, I could be doing this on paper.)

While I’ve toyed with using Daz or photoshop plugins and filters to create clearer contours, I find it’s often just as fast or faster, and looks better if I do it myself.  So I guess that’s my longwinded answer to your question.  If you can, keep your renders simple in Daz.

What I’m not getting through this process is lighting reference.  I make the lighting up myself and paint it in.  I guess I could have the computer chugging through a nice iRay render while I’m off drawing, then use the result for painting reference, but I’d have to budget time for the set up and tests of the lighting, not to mention the render.

Anyway, I hope that’s somewhat helpful, and I wish you the best with finding a process that works for you!

JazzyBear

Consider dialing up the muscularity and vascularity a bit to help with placement.

As for iray and even 3dl renders use LOTS of light usually from 2 front angles to get SOME shadow definition. This will make iray render much faster as will draw dome.

semperequstri

Here's what I've done since the early days or Poser and now using DAZ Studio instead for my graphic novels.  I set my scene in DAZ Studio with figures and props, etc.  My figures are unclothed, but with the muscle morphs and height settings I need. To this day I cannot get my head around setting up lights so I "borrowed" the set up I was used to from Poser by exporting a plain pz3 file. A quick import into DS and a save as a scene preset and there are my basic lights. I don't use the lights in DS to dictate my final shading. But having some kind of a light set up makes the figure's muscularity easier to see. It also helps to better deliniate the props in the scene.
 

 Once the scene is set how I want it, I use the snipping tool  ( Windows 10) to grab an image without bothering to render in DAZ Studio. The image is placed into Adobe Illustrator for sketching, final line drawing work , speach bubbles and lettering.  When that is done, I export to Photoshop for coloring and shading. The finished image is saved out of Photoshop as a jpeg and added to the story folder (My stories are one image/page and thus not like a traditonal comic book)

Before making the leap to an all digital workflow I used to print a copy of my final scene and use it to transfer a guide onto illustration board. I would use a thick charcoal pencil to blacken the back of the printed image. Then I'd tape the image onto the illustration board and transfer the outline of my image onto the media. After that it would be pencil drawing, inking with rapidograhs and coloring with colored inks. 

MickyMac23

Can draw a stick figure on a Daz model or a side reference to draw from.

sid

It depends on the style you're going for, but like TomTomba I'd generallary recommend doing a gesture drawing beside the Daz render, then overlaying to check proportions. You'll get more life into your illustration that way.

The Daz figures are rarely anatomically correct, particularly once out of the A-pose. I usually supplement with photo reference, which I'll take myself or study muscle and skin folds from pose reference packs, or sets of 3D scans I have. If you're supplementing with photography, make sure you keep an eye on lens distoration (you'll need to consider this in your Daz camera set up as well). I'll collect multiple face reference photos from online. https://anatomy4sculptors.com/ https://www.artstation.com/anatomy4sculptors is outstanding for understanding what you're seeing in a reference, I can't recommend highly enough.

I particularly like Daz and Blender for sorting out composition, and for setting up lighting reference. Helps me a lot with colour once I worked out how to do lighting. There's some quirks with things like subsurface scattering you might need to take into account depending on level of realism.

Daz is almost unusuable for fabric drape, but I can get a lightting reference, and then take reference photos for the fabric folds with the closest lighting I can get. Hair is difficult.

Masterstroke

heisdave said:

I have previously used daz to create characters for a digital project, but now I want to try to create characters and settings that i will use a reference drawings.

So ill render, print, then trace using a light box. Has anyone done this before and are there any render settings that will assist with this? thx

Have you tried the cartoon shaded draw style from the top down menue. Doesn't support trans maps, but it would be acceptable for tracing. 

MimicMolly

I used to work off the render, either 3Delight or Iray. And the render was usually unpresentable because I only needed the model to get the basic shape of the character. That way it could be consistent at various angles. Before DAZ (and currently) I reference off of photos. 

This sketch was made before FilaToon was released, which is also helpful and free for DS 4.23. Referencing off of DS did help me improve a lot these past 12 years.