Help with terminology and file versions?
Blastedlabs
Posts: 60
Hi, I did some 3D studio max back in 2000-2005, but I'm basically starting fresh here and don't really understand exactly what I'm getting into. Here's my questions.
1) Genesis, M4, morphs... Are the characters just better defined versions of Genesis?
2) I see there's Michael 4 in the store, Michael 5, and a lot of the items I'm looking at require M4, but one requires M3. Are these updated versions, or actually parallel versions?
3) If they are updated versions, should I get M5 to use with all the M4 items...?
4) Daz3D has the best store, no doubt about it. I don't even understand how these other sites have made it to 2013 with their lousy search tools. With that said, there's a few Renderosity exclusives I want to purchase. If they work with Poser, how good are my "chances" that it'll work in Daz Pro 4.6? 50%? 95%? 99.9%?
5) My goal is to create 2D images, like backgrounds for computers, with some touch-up in photoshop. What would be my "last step" in Daz3D before moving it to Photoshop?
6) Why did the background image not show when I rendered the scene?
7) What's the best tutorial(s) to start out on?
THANK YOU!
Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
7533 S Center View Ct #4664
West Jordan, UT 84084
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2024 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
The Daz 3D figures have been released in generations. So Victoria and Micahel, then came V2 and M2 , V3 and M3, and then Gen 4 V4 and M4, also K4 (kids 4)
Each generation has had it's own wardrobe.
Then came Genesis, in DS 4. Genesis is a base figure which can be male, female or even child. WIth suitable morphs it also become other things.
V5 and M5 are characters for Genesis.
Genesis does have the ability to use V4 and M4 products, as far as skins and clothing is concerned, although some clothing can be a bit troublesome .
Morphs to make Gen 5 look similar to gen 4 ie V4 and M4 need some extras to be purchased. (the gen 4 shape morphs for genesis)
As far as Renderosity products working with Genesis, that depends on how the products are made. If they use textures that rely on the nodes in the Poser Mat room, then they will probably not work, as shaders are different for Poser and DS. However if they have JPG textures then they will be usable in DS but will need some tweaking to get them to look right.
5) The last step should be saving the scene, then rendering, then saving the render. (This means you don't lose everything, or the last x hours of work, if the render crashes.) It's a not uncommon mistake with people new to DAZ|Studio to only save the scene or the render but not both, then wonder what went wrong. Once you have the saved render, go ahead with your postwork.
6) This suggests you've saved the render as a .png image. Your background is there, but the image viewing program isn't letting you see it — it's in part of the image file called an Alpha Channel (just like the Red/Green/Blue channels in an ordinary image file) and, by default, the Alpha in a png file is transparent. Check your viewing program for an option something like "make alpha channel transparent" (that can be turned off), or "flatten image" (which will remove the Alpha Channel; use with care, you might want to keep it). Note that saving the render as a .tiff image also gives you an Alpha Channel, the other image formats don't.
In general V4/M4 cloth will work on any Genesis figures through autofit, including, but not limited to, V5/M5. Shoes usually don't work very well, and it sometimes takes some fiddling to get good results.
V4/M4 clothes actually sometimes work better on Genesis then they do on V4 or M4, ie the autofit does a better job of dealing with poke through when posing characters.
If you are talking about clothing products, it is usually a question of whether the materials work in DAZ Studio. Some products at Renderosity say they work and are supported in DAZ Studio. You need to read the description carefully. If they only mention Poser, then you may well have difficulty with them in DS.
I have seen a few products that say things like "should work in DAZ Studio." This means that haven't tested it but it uses simple materials that should work in DS. However, they probably will not support usage in DS.
I have also seen products that say they will not work in DS unless you tweak the materials and use in DS is not supported.
Renderosity offering of Genesis clothing is pretty weak compared to V4/M4, but most of the V4/M4 clothing works at least as well on Genesis as they do on V4/M4.
There are also some dynamic clothes in the DAZ store designed to work only in the Poser Cloth Room, these will not work in D|S. The same goes for hair; Poser has a Hair Room, although I'm fairly sure there are only a handful of these in the store (most of them are in other stores or freebie archives).
Most other clothes or hair should work acceptably in D|S, although as mentioned watch out for Poser-only materials, and read the description very carefully.