Back after 10 years

stacy_19201325_fa4e2e7e4e · May 2016

I've pretty much been out of the rendering game for most of the last decade. I d/l'd the new DAZ Studio and wow, I barely recognize it. Nothing I have is newer than V4, and I'm ok with that, I don't really need to load up on new products yet. I see everything is all about the new Iray technology. Anybody have advice or recommendations for a quick-start to be able to use it? Maybe a human skin preset, and a light preset, from which I can tweak and branch out? I'm a little lost on where to start, and would prefer not to spend 2 months reading about it just to start from scratch!

3Diva · May 2016

Welcome back, Stacy! I'm pretty new too. Been using Daz Studio for less than 2 months. It's a LOT OF FUN, I'm finding.

From what I see you can still use V4 (I see a lot of great renders in the galleries using V4). I'm finding her to be pretty good for rendering too, I have V4.2. I bought that figure because I kept seeing a lot of freebies for her, so figured it would be a great place to start since I'm on a tight budget and can use all the freebies I can get. :)

As for Iray, it works great on just about any figure. I did this image with V4.2 rendered in Iray with the settings posted by FlorentMoon on DeviantArt.

Here's also a great discussion post about Iray.

I hope that gives you a place to start. I recommend just experementing and seeing what come up with. I've found some really interesting tutorials on youtube as well. :)

stacy_19201325_fa4e2e7e4e · May 2016

I checked out the skin surface link you gave. How do I even get it to say Shader: Iray Uber? When I click on a skin texture in an existing scene and go to the shader editor, it says Shader: OmHumanSurface. They don't even have the same boxes to adjust.

MN-150374 · May 2016

For the DAZ Studio Basics (and the 3Delight Render Engine) I would still recommend this Video Series: http://www.daz3d.com/help/help-daz-3d-video-tutorials

For more Video Tutorials, especially about Iray, take a look at the DAZ3D Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/WWWDAZ3DCOM/videos

Richard Haseltine · May 2016

stacy_19201325_fa4e2e7e4e said:

I checked out the skin surface link you gave. How do I even get it to say Shader: Iray Uber? When I click on a skin texture in an existing scene and go to the shader editor, it says Shader: OmHumanSurface. They don't even have the same boxes to adjust.

Right, that's an older 3Delight shader - you need to apply the Iray uber base shader which will replace it while keeping most of the settings as a basis for refinement. If you go to the Presets tab of the Surface pane with the skin surfaces selected you should find it under \Shaders\Iray as I recall.

stacy_19201325_fa4e2e7e4e · May 2016

Richard Haseltine said:

stacy_19201325_fa4e2e7e4e said:

I checked out the skin surface link you gave. How do I even get it to say Shader: Iray Uber? When I click on a skin texture in an existing scene and go to the shader editor, it says Shader: OmHumanSurface. They don't even have the same boxes to adjust.

Right, that's an older 3Delight shader - you need to apply the Iray uber base shader which will replace it while keeping most of the settings as a basis for refinement. If you go to the Presets tab of the Surface pane with the skin surfaces selected you should find it under \Shaders\Iray as I recall.

Thanks, I found it! I saw in another thread that I'd have to uninstall/reinstall some default resource package, and then I could see the iray shaders. Boy, I thought I had this well figured out way back when, but things have changed a LOT!