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
- Use the polygon tool (glows yellow when selected - see top menus) and left click in the right side box to draw points outlining a flat pattern around figure's hips and legs.
- Use the editor tool (glows a little) and right click on the center line. Choose symmetrical or symmetrical with sewing depending on what doing. I chose symmetical with sewing. Mirror appears.
- Use the segment sewing tool (2nd little sewing machine icon glows a little) and left click an edge and a matching edge that should be sewn together.
- Caution - When you select an edge there is an upper half and a lower half denoted by a perpendicular icon when you hover your cursor over the edge. When clicking matching edges, make sure you click matching upper and upper - or lower and lower - on your chosen segments.
- If you forget, and the sewing is crossed and screwy, don't panic. Go to the editor icon, right click on the segment, and reverse the sewing.
-
- To get back panels, use the editor icon again, select both front panels, copy and paste (control C and Control V, or use the top menu for copy and paste).
- The new panels will be on top of the old. Hold the shift key and translate them to the right or left of the panels box (right side), just so can see them. Doesn't affect the left side. Can slide matching panel to other side if desired (back right with front right and back left with front left).
- In the avatar box (left) right click in the empty area and choose a directional camera (right or left). Still using the editor tool, select the back panels and the manipulation tools will appear (translate/rotate). Pull the back panels behind the avatar.
- Problem - the back panels are inside out (normals face the wrong way). Solution - right click on each back panel and reverse (flip) the normals.
- Use sewing tools to select matching front and back segments and sew them together. Remember how to match, and how to correct. Don't close off the holes for the torso or legs.
Drape!
- The downward arrow in the upper left of the interface is the simulation button. Click it, or use the space bar, to start the simulation.
- MD does its magic, sewing the pattern together around the avatar, shrink wrapping, and draping.
- I've made these pants very tight, and the crotch droops too much. Not going to worry about it right now. These screenshots are just demonstrating the workflow.
- Leon has some simple pants.
Retopology
MD uses a triangled mesh by default. The current version (I am using version 9) has some basic retopology tools.
- use the retopology tools (looks like a square grid) to left click and place points on the flat patterns on the right side.
- to connect points, click each in turn.
- it turns blue when you cover an area with four connected points.
- after you have covered everything with quads, right click on the pants in the avatar room to bring up the menu.
- I chose quadrangle.
- Use the tab for mesh display (display tools running down left side of interface) to see the wirframe view.
- The pants now have quads instead of triangles.
- In the properties tray (right side lower menu), can adjust the mesh density by changing particle distance. I lowered from 20 to 10.
Exporting and UVMapping
- Use file export. There is a Daz Studio preset. I also chose weld and thin. I only exported the pants, not the avatar. There is an option to export both the avatar and the cloth.
- If desired, can load the model in another program for uvmapping. The panel edges are preserved in the retopology process, making it easy to find useful seams, if desired.
Importing to Daz Studio
- if you have used the Daz Studio obj presets all along, you should be able to import the pants easily using the same preset.
- The simple pants fit Leon in Daz Studio.
- The pants are ready for all your transfer utility / weightmapping / JCM joys.
Ghostlights for Indoor Scene Tests
Posting some very crude proof of concept tests. Modeled a lamp. Made a companion mesh for the lampshade. Test is related to using the second shade mesh as a ghostlight.
Lamp and Shade OBJs attached in a zip file. Lamp and shades are untextured.
Lamp model
Mesh for ghostlight shade 1
Mesh for ghostlight shade 2
...
...
Test 1 - Simple enclosed scene. No ghostlight. Single point light placed inside lamp model inside shade.
...
...
Test 2 - Same scene. Mesh lampshade ghostlight placed outside lamp model around shade. No single point light for bulb inside.
...
...
Test 3 - Same scene. Mesh lampshade with both a single point light inside shade and a mesh lampshade ghostlight outside shade.
I am attaching a version of the test scene. See zip. I deleted any object with shaders and replaced with an object with a base shader. The lamp and ghost lampshade are simple obj imports. Free for any use but don't redistribute the mesh.
I would be grateful for any feedback and help on emissive settings and other parameters.
Here I've changed the color of the lamp shade (not the of the ghostlight mesh that surrounds the lampshade). Also point light inside shade.
Very cool stuff Diomede!!!
Back to the Beginning!
Will be starting another tutorial-per-day for April, because, well, the virus thing. Am going to start with several introductory Daz Studio or case study Daz Studio tutorials. As someone used to another program, I've had a lot of trouble getting used to very simple things, in part because I don't use Studio enough to get used to where things are.
Daz Studio Foundations and Essentials
by Esha and Digital Art Live.
This morning, I watched the first half of this introductory webinar. You might look at my post count and think, "why is he doing an intro Studio course"? Wow, I am so glad I got this. Coming from another program, I just could never find things in the Daz Studio interface. Funny, because it is created to be so user friendly. But for simple things I'd be looking in the edit tab and they'd turn out to be in the create tab. I'd be using a rotate tool to bend limbs, getting frustrated when the tool would hop off to select another bone, unaware of all the different options for posing.
Esha does a great job, as always in this first half of the course. Very well organized. Starts with installation, which wasn't an issue for me. She goes into the layout options, how to save a custom layout, and how to transfer a custom layout if you change computers. She explains nodes, groups, and nulls. This might all seem too simple for experienced Studio users, but there was definitely some useful things in there for me. She then creates a sample scene and walks through some common issues (as I said, several of the various posing options were news to me). She discusses some basic camera information (eg. depth of field). Well done. Will report back when I finish the second half and do a test scene.
I should do the tutorials I own too. I didn't finish some of them and didn't even begin the others
.
When I switched from Carrara to Daz Studio I had some troubles too. Took me some time to use Daz Studio more than Carrara. Iray was a game changer for me ; until then I would keep doing "serious" renders in Carrara! Lighting in 3Delight was my main problem.
Thanks for the comment, @xmasrose. Iray wasn't a big draw for me for two reasons. First, I generally preferred stylized renders (claymation) to photoreal. Second, my machine wasn't up to it. Since then, I've replaced my machine and gotten more serious about modeling. Hope to do more Iray and see what the fuss is about. Will be asking you for tips, I'm sure.
I finished the second part of Esha's Foundation tutorial with DAL. Very glad I did this. As one would expect, there are quite a few functions of Studio I just didn't know existed. I started a tutorial by Val Cameron of Dreamlight but I'm not finished it yet. Vicky and a monster.
https://www.daz3d.com/vicky-7-and-monsters-video-tutorial
Awful test render of a dress and wrap I modeled for G8F. Needs textures. Just the headlamp from the perspective view.
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/400551/free-dress-long-dforce-skirt-and-dforce-shoulder-wrap-untextured#latest
very nice
sample science article
Geoshells - First Test - A Superheroine or Superspy Suit
Looks like a great tool, but I have no experience with it. Here, I tested creating an opacity map for the torso material zone to exclude the head and neck. I used Carrara to paint an opacity cutout directly on a G8F dummy. Could do it in an image editor, but then it can be difficult to see how it lines up with the model. Here are the steps.
- You can use any program that allows painting on models. In Carrara, I loaded the free G8F-for-Carrara character that Misty very generously offers for free at that other site that rhymes with monstrosity.
- I chose the actor level and clicked the 3D paint tool in upper left corner. Carrara gave me a warning and thats OK. Carrara opens up the 3D paint menu tab where the shader channels and maps are. No map yet.
- I clicked the triangle next to color to open it up and then clicked the magic wand icon to create a new map
- Another warning, shader will be changed and thats OK
- Can choose one material zone or all, for this it is nest to just choose the torso because that is the only zone I want to change in Studio. Doesn't matter for this example, but good news, can paint across eams in Carrara.
- Choose a name and file location. Note default is tof format. Found best to accept that uncompressed then change format to jpg in image editor later
- Settings check. Use uncompressed.
Now for some actual painting
- select the tool tab at the top of the properties menu (upper right)
- turn on symmetry and set to X (unless you dont want symmetry)
- choose brush color, in this case black 000 because creating an opacity map to hide part of the torso of the geoshell
- reduce the size of the brush to taste, but I set down to 03
- set the hardness/softness of the brush, I set to zero for a hard edge
- paint the torso material zone black on the back of the head and the neck
Save and Adjust
- save by return to tab for color area and the map
- right click on the map on the right side of the color channel
- save the tif file
- for optional adjustments, can load in image editor. useful for making sure the seams really meet or other adjustments to taste
- I saved the tif file out of the image editor as a jpg with new name - not sure if necessary
In Studio - load the painted maps in the opacity strength tab of the geoshell
- started up Studio and loaded a default G8F
- used the creat menu to create new geoshell for G8F, accepted the defaults
- In the surfaces pane, set the diffuse to blue for the arms, legs, and torso and nails areas (set to Iray uber but may already have been)
- Set opacity strength to 100 for arms, legs, and torso and nails
- Note that the back of the head and neck are also blue, but I don't want that
- For torso material zone, click the opacity strength and load the saved map created earlier. See the head and neck adjust as per painted map.
- Correct other Geoshell areas - the geoshell opacity strength should be 0 for the face, mouth, etc. that you want to retain the figure's maps.
Other adjustments to taste and a test render
- just for fun, I loaded a map to the bump channel for the arms, legs, and torso of the geoshell
- I loaded some heair and applied a pose and did a test render with G8F default and default lighting
Test render of Delilah character with one of the leather shader presets
Marvelous Designer Resources
If you have an interest in using Marvelous Designer to make clothes for Daz3D figures, I highly recommend youtube tutorials by Lori Griffiths. She has a sewing background. She improved my understanding of how pattern shapes (blocks) on the right side of MD translated into garments wrapped on the avatar on the left side of MD. Very clear discussion.
I've added a Marvelous Designer section to the link list on the 1st page of this thread. The link list includes several authors. This one by Lori is the best explanation of how sewing concepts translate to MD clothing models.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLJNsrzqu2s
Ultra Scenery by Howie Farkes
Early experiments - This is my 3rd scene build with Howie Farkes Ultra Scenery.
Ignore the lighting and be impressed with the landscape. Howie has a real winner.
Ultrascenery can use custom heightmaps.
Here is a workflow with a custom heightmap.
- I created the following in another program and saved as a jpg file.
-I started Daz Studio and checked the render settings to make sure instances optimization was set to memory, not speed.
- Under the script IDE tab, I used File Open and navigated to the ultra scenery script. DIM placed mine in the Environments Landscapes Ultrascenery folder
- The Scrpit screen says it is encrypted - No big deal, just hit execute
- Ultra Scenery menu comes up
- Under heightmap tab use the browse button and load the map
Once the heightmap is loaded, time to choose the other environment components and build the scenery
- features tab, have choice of none, road, river, and pond
- ecology tab, pick various grasslands or woodlands
- when it comes to build the scenery, you can uncheck some scene elements to exclude dandelions from a grassland, for example
- when it comes to build the scenery, there is an option to limit the build to only what the camera sees. Note that if you choose this you must choose between moving the camera and rebuilding scenery
- click build and wait, depending on your system and choices it may take a while for all of the incances to be created and placed.
- when it is finished building the white screen remained but there was a message at the bottom summarizing how long it took, etc.
- return to Viewport tab - in my case it appears like nothing but worry not, because of my custom heightmap the 0,0,0 was above my camera.
- raised my camera vertically and added an HDRI sky
- adjust render settings - remember to make sure that instances optimization is set to memory, not speed
- add whatever details you want, and happy rendering
UltraScatter Pro by Howie Farkes - Holy Moly!
Exploring UltraScatter Pro was my self-imposed goal for this year. Can't believe I waited until May to dive in. This is so awesome. I will do a terrain set walk through in the next couple of days. Meanwhile, here is my first experiment. I tried to create a custom terrain and limit the scatter to just the lower slopes.
I purchased ZBrush. I may post some WIPs and similar trials in the coming weeks.
hope you pick it up quicker than I did
and I am just so angry right now I could explode
I watch Reddit post videos on Youtube often and just saw one about something absolutely horrible I won't even share
(just a person reading posts about it on Reddit not the videos)
stuff that is monstrous animal cruelty YouTube doesn't take down
I immediately thought of you with your Carrara tutorials and their crappy misguided moderation