Another newbie!
seags1955steven
Posts: 0
I've installed everything correctly (I hope) and I have been partially successful in creating some renders of "barefoot dancer" DAZ studio is truly impressive! I would soon like to purchase Stephanie 6 or Stephanie 6 pro. Being a newbie I don't want to make the sort of mistakes which may to the more experienced appear obvious. In fact, I even hesitate in asking! OK , here goes, which is best Stephanie 6 or Stephanie 6 pro? Does Stephanie 6 pro contain Stephanie 6? Assuming I purchased one or both of these, will I then be able to install them in exactly the same way, and as easy as I did recently with the DAZ STUDIO 4 and 13 other items? Is there any thing I need to do before, during or afterwards? I admit I am a little confused with the word "poser". How do I avoid purchasing something which can only be used in Poser?
I have a book called "FIGURES, CHARACTER, AND AVATARS (The official guide to using Daz Studio to create beautiful art) By LES PARDEW. It was published 2009 and came with a disc containing, DAZ STUDIO 2.3 , CARRARA 6 PRO, HEXAGON 2.5.
What I would like to know is, is there any merit in installing the last 2, Carrara and Hexagon. I don't have any product serial numbers for either of these, and I also wouldn't know how to find them ( I bought this book second hand about 4 years ago)
I hope someone out there can answer my probably obvious questions. A big thank you in advance.
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Comments
That is a LOT of questions in 1 post!
I'll leave much of it to others more experience, but the basic difference with Steph 6 and the Pro bundle is with the Pro bundle you get Steph 6 and a bunch of other stuff. Look under the What's Included and Features tab of any product in the store to get more info.
DAZ 4.6 COMES WITH things you can experiment with without purchasing anything. You might want to do that just to see if DAZ is something that makes you smile :-)
Things are easily installed if you use the DAZ installer which should have come with DAZ Studio 4.6. After your purchase, you will see a Download and Install button. Click it and it should launch the local installer on your computer. Just follow the prompts.
Many products include Poser content WITH the DAZ content. You can choose to install the Poser content (PS) or not.
Look up Carrara and Hexegon via the products page (upper right corner - Search). After reading their descriptions, you should be able to tell whether you want to use those programs right now.
People in this forum are very helpful. I do try to search out my own answers to save them time but searching a forum can be a learning curve in and of itself.
Good luck!
Stephanie 6 is the latest morph for Genesis 2 Female (G2F). It includes the figure, a unique UV set and textures for her. The bundles include various different outfits and hairstyles for the figure, with the Pro version including the Genesis 2 Female genetalia which is only available by purchasing a Pro figure bundle and is not sold separately. As she is a morph for G2F, any Genesis 2 Female clothing or hair will fit her just fine.
Daz Studio can read the majority of Poser content, so much of what is in the Daz store will work fine in Daz Studio. The only exception to this is that materials in Poser format will not work fully in Daz Studio and are generally converted to the Daz Default material in a very basic manner. This means that materials which are intended for Poser might not look their best when rendered in Daz Studio.
Carrara is a useful tool if you plan to do animation. It's a bit like Daz Studio in some respects but has a lot more features. Hexagon is a modelling tool which can be useful for creating figure morphs or custom props.
Can earlier versions be used with Stephanie? Just wondering if they are form specific or if any of the previous female avatars can also be used with 6. If previous version add-ons can be used that would eliminate a lot of the confusion I have. Can this file be used with that file, or are they incompatible...things like that. Otherwise it seems like you concentrate on Michael 4 and ignore/avoid anything beyond that. However, if the can all work together, I can see a lot more uses from it.
Here is how it works...
Generation 4 can only use the Morphs for them and they can only use the morphs made for the Figure. V4 and M4 are base Gen4 figures and in this example only the V4 Morphs++ work on V4 and only the M4 Morphs++ work on it or any of their other shapes like A4 S4 H4 F4 and so on.
Genesis 1 can only use Morphs made for Genesis 1. Unless a user CONVERTS the Gen4 morphs to it using Gen X.
Genesis 1 is the Generation 5 figure, all Gen 5's are Genesis 1 such as V5 M5 S5 and so on.
The New figures V6 M6 S6 and such are Genesis2Female or Genesis2Male and just like before the Morphs for G2F only work on G2F (mostly) and the same for G2M. At this time there is NO Gen X to convert morphs to the Gen6 figures but it is being made I have read.
Michael and Victoria 4 both use older technology, which means they're far less flexible than the newer generation of figures in terms of how you can alter their appearance. Because the newer figures like Genesis and Genesis 2 use weight mapping, bends are much more natural and don't require a dozen fixes as you needed with Generation 4 figures.
Perhaps most notably, any clothing item designed for Genesis will automatically fit the figure regardless of what shapes you dial in. Some extreme morphs might require a few manual tweaks, but you could take a shirt or dress designed for an adult and fit it to a child without needing to do anything differently. Additionally morphs can be more easily combined, allowing you greater customization over the final result.
To take Genesis 1 as an example. The figure can be either male or female, a child or elderly. It initially comes with a female, male and a child morph all of which can be applied as necessary and in varying quantities. You could make a toddler by maximizing the child slider, or a teenager by applying a much smaller amount. You could give two siblings a familial appearance by mixing in morphs used by their 'parents' so that they actually look related.
Genesis 2 expands on that idea by giving you higher detail figures with better rigging and more gender specific anatomy. The catch here is that there are now two figures, one for male and one for female. Child morphs are a separate purchase, but give you more control than the basic child morph of Genesis 1. The gender split has left a few people divided, but has the advantage of making it easier to develop for the figures as well as giving you access to far greater levels of detail than we had before.
With the recent addition of 'high-density' morphs for the Genesis 2 figures, which give you the an incredible 1.3 million polygons of detail on your figures but the without the increased overhead while working on your scene, they've never been more intricate.
Now, for some other advantages.
Genesis 1 is compatible with Victoria 4, Michael 4 and Kids 4 skins and clothing, so you can use a lot of your older content with the new characters. A few items with rigging are known to 'break' due to the autofit process, but there are handy workarounds for most of them.
Genesis 2 is compatible with Victoria 4, Michael 4, Victoria 5 and Michael 5 skins and clothing. The former two require additional purchases but in my experience work a lot better than they did for Genesis 1. Genesis 1 clothing fits almost picture perfectly on Genesis 2, and hairstyles are also compatible from the previous generation as well. It is also possible to fit generation 4 clothing without an additional purchase by first fitting the item to Genesis 1, essentially giving you access to K4 outfits.
With all that backwards compatibility, Genesis 2 is head and shoulders above the competition, giving it arguably the largest wardrobe selection of any figure to date. You're free to continue purchasing M4 outfits safe in the knowledge that they will work fine on the latest figures.
Hexagon is a program with which you can create your own polygon models (like clothing, objects, figures).
Carrara is in many ways similar to DAZ Studio, but also is more powerful in many aspects. Carrara also alows you creating your own models and figures, and animate them.
Both programs are worth buying, but also, both programs have a learning curve.
You can use Genesis 1 in Carrara "as is", though other figures work fine, too, so you can use most of the content you bought for DAZ Studio in Carrara, too.
I was thinking the User meant form as in body shapes. And that was all I addressed.
This was all very useful! I will experiment with the stock version at first. I'll join the platinum membership and when I feel more comfortable I'll get Michael 6. I'll look forward to the full body spectrum but am extremely happy that most clothing already designed will work with the latest model.
One other quick question. I searched through pistols and there are very few revolvers. Are there more available, or do I need to try and learn how to make them? I'm interested in the western style Colt pistols, more interested in Getting a Remington 1858 model.
There are a couple of revolvers in the store, search using 'revolver' without the quotes.
You could also try Google, there are lots of hits there for Colt pistols. You could also try ShareCG which has lots of free itmes for both DAZ Studio and Poser (most Poser items will also work in DS)
A big thank you to Mckinnan and Herald of Fire! I shall follow your sage advice and practice with the free stuff for a while. Stepnanie 6 pro sounds like a worthwhile purchase for the near future.
It's 2 steps forward and I step back at the moment as far as the learning is concerned, but I'm progressing and it's enjoyable and interesting.
I am finding the posing a little difficult at the moment, especially the use of power pose. Is there an easier way of posing or is it just a case of more experience required?
.cr2 and .duf, what are these?
Rendering in low or high, what's the difference? I've done this twice on the same scene and figure and apart from a larger file size they both appeared identical.
THX
CR2 is a Poser File Format for Characters, and will appear in the Poser Runtime folder under Figures. DS can open these as well, and you will find them under Content Library > Poser Formats > My DAZ 3D Library > Figures.
I am not sure what you mean by rendering in High or Low? Are you referring to Mesh Resolution in the Genesis characters, or the Quality v Speed slider in the Render Settings pane?
Thanks JIMMYC_2009
I was referring to the "Quality v Speed slider in the render settings page". Still a mystery.
I am still practising with the free stuff at the moment, with some success. I have looked at the galleries and seen some fine work there which I am aspiring towards, and I have noticed figures with pretty authentic skin textures. Would you know how I could make skin textures similarly authentic from using the free stuff?
THX
The first ones, 1, 2 and 3, are not 'true' renders, but just use the OpenGl facility provided by your graphics card. In other words, what you get in your finished render is much the same as you see in the viewport.
Option 4, 3Delight is a true render, and uses raytracing to simulate the lighting and textures. Any of the images that you see in the Gallery, will almost certainly be done using Option 4, the 3Delight render engine supplied free with DS.
There is a lot to learn about rendering, lighting being probably the most important, followed by using the Surfaces pane to get the betst from your textures. Realistic skin textures are achieved by good lighting, good textures, and good use of Bump or Displacement maps in the Surfaces pane. You could Google Bump and Displacement to see what they do.
It really is a vast subject, and can take a long time to master. There are many free video tutorials in the store here, by Dreamlight, and you should do a search for these as an excellent start.