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@Halcon Bluesky, sounds like a good way to get familiar with everything. Glad you seem to be up and running again and working on some new renders :) There are definitely some good videos out there to help explain a few things so hopefully they help put an end to your confusion.
After you have finished that you should perhaps try your hand at one of the challenges/competitions here? I have done a few now and while some of them are not quite masterpieces they have caused me to have to broaden my horizons a bit which will be good for future renders. For instance, I did one in the freebies forum which forced me to hunt around the internet for free assets instead of just looking through stuff I bought. Some of those that are non-Daz items get imported as static white objects and so I needed to learn a bit about using the geometry editor to split up parts of the object into different surfaces so I could colour the relevant parts correctly and also learn a bit about custom-rigging as I had a bucket with a fixed handle in the upright position (defying gravity) but I wanted it rotated down to the side instead.
@SofaCitizen, Hunting around to get some more freebies? jeez, some of them require some registration to get them, but there is someting I don't like, some of them are not the quality you expect with the items found in the Daz Store.
I would like to try in the freebies competition later, as I try to follow with the tutorial, sometimes the results are somewhat partial.
So this means I am stuck because some of the things that want to do aren't perfect, I have noticed that when working with G1, G2 and G3, some elements fit well, but others not, hair is a bit problematic.
but going with G8 is a lot more harder.
Some renderings can take several minutes, I noticed the difference between computers of different processor types (intel Gen 10 and 12) when I borrowed one computer from relatives.
It will take me some time to build up the know how to get around, an uphill battle I hope to get over.
@Halcon Bluesky, yes, that is true. While the items in the Daz store are not always perfect (mainly with metadata) they generally are a very good standard so you know what you will get. With the freebies it's a bit more of a wide range with what you can get. However, there is still some great stuff out there just some of them will require a bit of work to make them suitable for Daz - particularly regarding the size and materials and also if you want them to be rigged etc.
I think also, learning how to optimise the scene is also a good skill to learn - but not until we are much more familiar with other things. Obviously, the power of the hardware available to you is a big factor into how important this becomes but in general terms worrying too much on early optimisation is not a good idea. Presumably, like me, this is a hobby for you and so waiting a little bit longer is not the end of the world? The very last render I did was pretty basic and was completed in around 2 or 3 mins but one of the ones prior to that took almost 2 hours to complete. For now this is not a problem, just a little bit annoying if I have to re-do it a few times due to spotting that I have missed something or an item has accidentally fallen through the floor etc. However, in the future it may become more important and so I have a handful of optimiser plugins in the wishlist for later consideration.
You should definitely keep at it tho. I get what you mean about being dissapointed that you are not always able to produce the images that you want to but we all improve with practice. You can always put one idea on hold and try something a bit different or something a bit simpler and eventually when you go back to that more complicated idea you will be more skilled/experienced and have more chance of brining that idea into reality :) I do have quite a few ideas in my head that I have had to move about a bit in my head and bring other things to the front if I feel they require more skill/experience than I currently have.
@SofaCitizen, well I have been trying to do some renders, I have not been happy with the model placement, the lack of extra environments is frustrating.
Sure you have mentioned some Daz items do not have metadata, it just happened to me when I was working, the Smart Content pane got one item grayed out; I rebuilt the metadata and nothing.
Then, when right clicking the item in question, I had the opportunity to fix that, because I was worried I needed to install it in Daz Studio, even thought this item was installed in DIM.
In other instances the model I had been working tried to move to a different position, the hair did not stick to that model, even when rotating the figure it did cause me some problems. I had to close the program and did not save the work.
Daz Studio is a very interesting program, but not easy to work with as is suppossed to.
Yeah, if you are mainly staying with the free content for now you may struggle if you are after specific environments. However, if you have a look at the Freebies section of Renderosity there are some there you could try out. You'll have to deal with manually installing products but that might be a way to grow your library a bit while you are still getting to grips with everything.
For the hair not moving with the model, it sounds like it was not parented to it. If the hair is shown alongside the figure (instead of inside it) within the Scene tab then you can fix it by setting the parent to the model. I have knocked up a quick image to show this.
@SofaCitixen, thanks for the tip, I will try to see how it goes next time around.
Now I thought my problem was fixed, look at this.
This one is shown in DIM, but not in DS, hope soemone can have an idea and tell me what do do to fix it.
I went to another place to get some free stuff, RHub I can't figure out where to place the items I got it.
@Halcon Bluesky, well, there are several things there:
Firstly you are logged in via Daz Studio and so Daz Connect can get involved and cause confusion by adding duplicates. I have found the best way to work is to stay logged out within Daz Studio and just use DIM to install things. I had some greyed out products like that and it was because Daz Connect's configuration was overriding DIM configuration. I had to forceably uninstall and remove those products and reinstall via DIM. That might be something for you to look into.
Secondly, you have A-Z sorting in that tab and yet "Always Smile for Genesis 3 Female(s)" is at the end? Looks pretty odd to me. What do you get if you do a search for "Always"? It should look like this - see attachment
For the third party products, there are a variety of ways you can go about getting them into DS. Personally, I use Content Wizard but that is a paid product so that may not work for you. You can manually install them but you do need to use a little bit of care. Regardless of the route you use I would recommend adding a separate library for non-DazStore stuff. I learned that lesson when I accidentally replaced an important folder instead of merging the contents!
EDIT: Here is some instructions for manually installing stuff from another recent thread:
@SofaCitizen, well I don't know exactly how it goes now, for the item in the screenshot, I have had to instll via Daz Studio.
also I am looking for some videos, to give me a better understanding of Daz Studio, so I gather the info and try to do my best.
I hope there is more freebies available, cause I need to practice more, at the moment I can't buy anything, lets see if some bargains appear later, I may buy some but not all, wish I could buy plenty, alas my budget took a hit with some essentials spending.
@SofaCitizen, I followed the info you have provided, I don't know what happened, it probably did not work as expected or I have messed up with that.
How is going for you, any progress with Daz Studio?
@Halcon Bluesky, one thing I may have forgotten to note is that if you install products manually, as per the method above, then this will not add them to the Smart Content - only via the directory in the Content Library tab.
If you put them in a separate place from your Daz Store content then make sure that location is added as a Base Directory in the Content Library tab under DAZ Studio Formats. Hopefully, then if you navigate to that then they will show up and open correctly in Daz Studio. You can then add them to the Smart Content by right-clicking, selecting Categorise and then checking the relevant item in the category tree. I am not sure but this might make them show up in the "Files" part of Smart Content but not the "Products" section - since there is no actual product. You CAN make a product by selecting some items, right-clicking and choosing "Make Product from" but I don't know how you would combine items from different folders using this method.
As stated, I gave up doing it manually and use the Content Wizard product to install them myself and so there are definitely gaps in my knowledge of the manual method.
How far did you get? Do the items show up in DS but do not work or are they not there at all? Is there any error messages?
As for my progress, I would say a little stalled this week as I have been busy with other stuff - but also procrastinating a bit on my latest render. Need to get that done this weekend tho because the other ideas are starting to pile up behind it :P
@SofaCitizen, well not that much.
I have tried to make some renders, some did got a nice result, but not as I had expected to
.
When I tried to move the character, it did move ok.
The problem started when I tried to position the arms to waist level or twisting a bit the arm to have an angular pose, this caused a mischief with other parts of the body, the hair did not stick to the head, the back view in one view did not show as in previous attempts
.
Others renders, had the the background missing, I could use a graphic program like GIMP, Paint.net or any other program to fix that if I could, (but Daz Studio would not take credit) if I werer to submit a render to a freebies contest, cause it has been modified in another program
.
I am not sure if I will re-install again and see if everything goes well, as I believe something is not working right or maybe some other items are needed to make the render looks more polished and at least believable to post to the gallery.
Not that I want a work of art that may hang in a museum, but something that may give me more satisfaction to keep going.
Also I have downloaded Blender, I understand this program is good, but some people says is complex same as Hexagon is, which I have not tried yet.
@SofaCitizen, did you saw the new freebies?
These come handy when I am trying to expand my possibilities.
I have read some other people want to have some free content, just recently I went to see what is all about that; I prefer more the content Daz gives as freebies rather than going to places that no inspire trust.
I can't post anything yet, but I will keep trying.
Painstaking I try to gather more info how to overcome the limitations I have now.
I have done some average renders, these were not satisfactory, too simplistic I think.
I believe I must excel on something that may have more visual appeal, more significance.
The work you did is good, because you did have got some environments at hand.
in my case it would be tempting to place some background picture to fill up the space where the character has nothing but a transparency that needs fill up with something at hand.
Have you used anything apart of doing the renders in Daz?
@Halcon Bluesky, well you should keep going at it and eventually you will get better at things. Practice makes perfect. It is a bit frustrating when your renders do not turn out as you wish but sometimes you can still learn from them so not always a completely bad thing. Plus you can always go back and change something - either straight away or maybe come back to them a bit later - and make them better.
There is nothing wrong at all with rendering something with a transparent background and then completing the image that you want to make in a 2D editing package. Daz Studio and GIMP are just tools - it is the final image that is the important thing and how you get there is up to you.
I havn't used anything other than Daz Studio for renders so far. I mean I have done some texture/graphic work in Photoshop and Illustrator on things that I have then brought into Daz to apply to surfaces and I have used Blender to import/export a few things. I am far too clueless to do anything of note in Blender and also not smart enough to look at a render and figure out how to improve it with Photoshop filters. Perhaps that will come in time.
As for your troubles, I am not sure you should be re-installing Daz yet again. Most solutions do not require such a drastic measure. For example, your posing issue - if you grab a limb and move it about to do the posing then you do need a very steady hand or need to make use of the pinning feature to lock other limbs in place. It would probably be more beneficial for you to look into some posing videos to learn how to pose using the sliders and PowerPose - and perhaps Puppeteer to create a pose that is a mixture of several stock poses.
For the hair, you should check again that it is indeed parented to the head as that would be the first place to check.
For the background missing, is it the HDRI or a backdrop? If it is the HDRI then check that "Draw Dome" is enabled in the Environment section of the Render Settings. Some assets apply their own Environment Settings and so even if you have it turned on once it may get switched off by something you have loaded since.
It's always worth looking for answers to specific questions as there is often a simple explanation. You should not look to keep re-installing Daz constantly otherwise you'll have no time left to actually work on any renders :)
I saw some very interesting content yesterday, now this content is gone
The last time I got some I did not looked into one content, I thought is an old lady, lokking in the page I was wrong, I hesitated about that; but now nothing! just useless cartoons characters.
@SofaCitizen, I got one render, I believe is quite good, maybe some cosmetic detail, that I can't figure out, but for staarters, it looks good to me.
I don't know if posting it into the Gallery or wait if there is a freebies contest.
The scene is just pretty simple, I used two models instead of one.
Please let me know.
@Halcon Bluesky, it would probably be best to make those changes you are considering and then post your render to the gallery. The Freebie contest has a new theme each month and so there is no guarentee that your render will match that theme - also the rules do state that it should be a new render. So when September rolls around you can take a look at the new theme and if it lines up with any ideas you have you can use that to make a new render especially for it.
@SofaCitizen, I will wait for next month.
Have you bought a bunch of items lately? or you are waiting if there is an opportunity to get the best supposed bargains?
Wish this could be good enough, at the moment there are some items on sale, some are at 30% others 50% and few a bit more.
However, I find no incentive to get those, and before you mention the plus membership, that's useless to me, I do not plan to spend like crazy, I would say is cheer madness, unless some people can get something out of that, which I am thinking is too difficult to recoup the shopping spree.
@Halcon Bluesky, yes to both buying questions - there was a bunch of stuff discounted to $1.99 yesterday so I grabbed loads of things that looked cool and I may or may not use in the future :) I haven't worked out the numbers but I guess if you are not spending much right now then it is probably not going to be right for you. For me I believe it has definitely worked out as I do take advantage of the savings and extra discounts.
If you are not looking for very specific things you can probably grab plenty of free assets to make renders with. And then when circumstances allow you can buy other things you need to fill in the gaps where you cannot find a free version.
Pardon me for jumping in... if you sit on the bluff above SLC with a pair of binoculars, those lines of armored trucks that come and go from "DAZ Central" all day and all night are filled with (1) hair products to be added to the store catalog, and (2) going out, bitcoins that will be deposited in DAZ's offshore (and soon to be off-planet) accounts.
Just kidding. Hair is THE big category. This is where you get to spend the most money.
I also noticed that the string "Surface Tool" (and its attendant Pane) do not seem appear in this thread.
In DAZ Studio, changing the *color* of something on or beside Product or Object "X", is often done by clicking on any of the optons or choices for that item. But you can also select the item or a section of if in the Scene Pain (sorry - "pane") with various Tools. Tools are listed at the top usually, eg: File, Edit, Create, Tools, Window etc.
Again if you have purchased or otherwise acquired some hair (sometimes hair is free - this is where they see if you're paying attention) then there should be some material (that's sort of a word for "coloring") choices. One you've clicked on the your hair or any other Surface (with a capital "S") options that you got (and in the case of hair, the hair geometry has been fitted to your figure M/F, the color and other attributes CAN be changed. SOMETIMES the product creator or Published Artist (PA) will split hair colour into a separate set or sets of choices that you have to pay extra for if you want them, but in many instances you can just select hair in the scene with the Surface Tool, and then in the Surface Pane you'll have things that you can do with it - you can change the color if you want - perhaps not in any elegant way, but it CAN be changed - or you can browse for and apply some pre-made shader.
Now skin "tone" is a tricky term here - for me it leans towards tone mapping which is another ball game being played in a different city - but if you buy an additional character package for your base character then that product will like as not include some skin tone or color choices. For example there could be a premade product called "Wet, Tanned, Bare Skin etc. Options" for Michael or Victoria "X"... but technically speaking you could also click on your unclothed figure in the Scene Pane and from there slide over or up to the Surface Pane, and you'll have options for "Base Color". In the rawest sense of this, your figure may literally be green, white (as in Titanium White or RGB 0,0,0) red, black, brown, purple or even scales or polka-dots.
To get to understand the choices you should go for a basic figure (Genesis, G2, G3, G8* etc.) and having made that choice, get an appropriate Michael or Victoria figure to match. These will come with "skin" texture sets that can be further modified with BUMP and normal and displacement mapping and lighting an so on. It's where you'll get the really subtle stuff going - although you can also tint or otherwise alter your supplied skin texture sets using an image editor like Photoshop or GIMP or Corel Graphics Suite etc. Just be sure to save your version of the textures under a separate, easy to remember filename... I usually make use of key-strings like "modified" or simply "my version".
Here are a couple of starter articles about fiddling with the surfaces of things in addition to just changing colors.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Displacement_mapping
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bump_mapping
I had another thing to mention which is the DAZ Store and its search conventions - as this will also affect what extras and accessories you will come up with and when, on your exploratory journney.
P.S. Some image editors (I'm not sure if GIMP includes this) will optionally spit out BUMP and Normal maps for your textures. All of them will of course allow darkening or lightening and alterations to various tints and hues.
*.Genesis 8 figure sets are generally more feature rich and have higher resolutions and morph options than their predecessors... your results may vary. I have been using Genesis 3 a lot to make "life" drawing reference images on an older computer that still runs Windows 7.
@Roman_K2, well, there are so many hairstyles aboute that I guess it's only natural that there are so many in the store. I imagine you are correct about the hair colours tho - I have purchased quite a few of the hair texture addons in the past and didn't really think about whether I could change them manually at the time. So now I sit with more such assets than I really need given how slowly I am getting round to actually making renders so I will probably try and make use of them over time. For others that have not spent the money it would certainly be wise to investigate ways to customise the things they do have as you have said to maximise the variety you can get from them.
In most of the things I have done so far, the details of figure/model has largely been irrelevant - both in terms of the hair colour and also with them placed far enough away that I haven't had to worry about skin texture. I am yet to make a serious attempt at a portrait or something like that where the skin texture becomes more prominant and perhaps the hair and colour choices are also more relevant to how the final render will turn out. This style of image also requires more skill in getting the lighting just right too which is another area that I need to improve.
There is certainly much to learn and many ways to do things - either spending the money, utilising freebies, getting creative with options and combinations or a mixture of all those.
@Roman_K2, You said "Pardon me for jumping in..."
On the Contrary, you are welcome to give your opinions, suggestions and so.
I love when there is a community of users that can help with their advice to others.
Daz Studio is a very impresive software to let produce fabulous 2D/3D illustrations, the harder part is for those who have never used it.
That's when things get complicated where trying to create something requiere a bigger effort to understand the way the program works.
I have tried to see some videos, I had to get the transcriptions so I can understand what is being said, for another part, not all videos clearly explain the techniques to be used, no close-ups.
When using the parameters pane, some values to be input in the controls to have a good work done.
If using the mouse when clicking some parts of the figure, to have a desired position, that's can wreck havoc things.
I have a long way to get a better grip of the software, I still keep going, I haven't trown the towel.
@SofaCitizen, you got a nice avatar image, did you do that or have you found a place to get that?
I am still looking for something to put into my profile image.
Thanks, I have just added it this evening :)
I made the 2D version a few weeks back as it is traditional to "sign" your art when posting it. That was just made using a font and then converted to outlines and tweaked a bit in illustrator. Today I took that file, saved it to an SVG and then imported it into Blender. Took me a while to figure out how to make it 3D - needed to convert the objects from a "Curve" into a "Mesh" before extruding the faces out. My first attempt was a bit of a disaster since despite looking perfect in Blender when I bought it into Daz the 3D mesh had "cracks" in it and warped into 2 "filled in" blobs. Got that sorted with a bit of trial-and-error and so was then able to throw a bit of red paint on it and render it in Daz.
@SofaCitizen, I wanted to add a picture of a halcon, I am worried the image may contravene the Daz forums tems.
I don't know if any picture is available without worrying too much about this issue.
After all is just an small rectangular pic I need, otherwise I will leave the way is at the moment.
Oh, your name isn't taken after the plane?
In general terms I would imagine that any profile picture would definitely need to follow the rules of posting other images - even if it is quite small.
@SofaCitizen, the name "halcon" is of a bird that inhabits in the mountains, halcon in Spanish, Falcon in English, this should not be confused with an eagle as this kind of bird is a bit more different.
You can google it and have a better info.
I got a gift card for my birthday, an small amount, I used to buy a few items.
one of these https://www.daz3d.com/victoria-8, is part of these bundles
https://www.daz3d.com/victoria-8-starter-bundle
https://www.daz3d.com/victoria-8-pro-bundle
when I tried to use it, it says it needs others characters as well, but these are not included neither in the one I got and the other two bundles I have mentioned you.
That means it has to be bought separately
In other words, I got a half-baked product, I am not in a position to spend more, unless it would make sense or be really at a bargain price.
As I told you before, the + membership does not make sense to me to join in (only for those who can make money out of selling their creations can benefit most)
At this rate, the only thing I need is some freebies to keep trying harder and make it possible to work with the program, I have no need to go somewhere else to get that.
@Halcon Bluesky, that doesn't sound right. I have Victoria 8 and she should not require other characters - only the Essential Basics G8 Female package that comes free with Daz Studio. Is that installed correctly on your system? If it's not working perhaps try reinstalling that to see if it fixes it.
I don't see a reason why an image of a bird would be against the Daz forum terms so if you put together an image that you like you should be fine to use it.
Oh, and Happy Birthday :)
@SofaCitizen, my birthday has been 3 months ago, it happened I was given a gift card, with an small amount.
So I took the opportunity to buy something I liked most.
There was something I don't know if went wrong, but this was either the figures or the poses or materials.
I will look again and post an screenshot
I will try to put the bird image, if there are no problems I will that
@Halcon Bluesky, ahh well I don't think poses would give you that error since even the ones that are designed for specific figures do not actually depend on them they just might not work exactly right on other figures that share the same base. I have accidentally bought stuff that does depend on a different base product that I didn't have - it's pretty annoying when that happens but I guess you just have to be carefull when adding stuff to the cart.
Hopefully if you take another look then either the error message or the logs will help work out where the issue is.
Nice avatar icon :)
@SofaCitizen, I cropped the picture to show the bird head only and a subtle effect with Paint.net.
If making one, would take me an eternity with either Hexagon or Blender.