3D Software Help and Assistance. Ask Away.

[CherryPopKelo]

Just a question, since you mentioned "game". Are you lowering the figure polygon count, and THEN try to edit the shape, in-game? If that's the case, you should consider to first work on a high polygon model, on blender, or maya, or whatever software you're most comfortable with, and then lower poly-count, otherwise the low polygons won't be enough for a smooth geometry. And, if the details are subtle enough, you can bake normal maps from the high geometry, and use them to add that extra bit of detail.
Apart from that, the base DAZ figures, from Victoria 3 and onward would be a decent mannequin to work with. And, if you do the morphing within DAZ, or Poser, you'll have the geometry pre-made for exactly what you'd want, from said character archetype. Rigging may be an issue, depending on the engine you are using, and, that's beyond my league I'm afraid.

The game is a renpy game, the idea was to build a environment and a base character that i can customize to fit all the body models. i was following the basic tutorials off of youtube but got to the point where i had a good model but adding the female assets just was not working. I think for now i will upload so DAZ characters into blender and render the scenes i want on there. this may have to do as place holders for the demo until i start getting donations to pay for better assets

 

[galora]

Things have gone much better once I found the viewport! Thanks again.

Another question about installing CC. Many items come with a separate zipped file for 'Templates'. What do I do with them? EX: IM00058225-01 is for CAPRICE HAIR. This is loaded and ready to process with the DIM.
There's a 2nd zip file with the templates named 'Templates_58225_CapriceHair'. Do these load with the DIM also, or does it need to be opened and installed manually?
There's no folder in the 'My Daz Library' for these. Should there be?
I'm still VERY new to DAZ! When loaded, will the templates show up under Smart Content of do I need to expand my knowledge database a little further?

I'm not sure but will surely be corrected quickly, still take it with a grain of salt.

My understanding is that you don't need the templates. The reason you get them is to test your setup, if it doesn't look alike your doing something wrong.

Again not sure, new to DAZ as well but remember seing something along those lines in some tutorial.

Edit : Sorry missed part of the content, you must have noticed when installing new content manually that sometimes the folders you add don't exist yet (apart from those specific to the content). Basically you have a "ghost" file structure, followed by the DAZ install manager and the content creators that doesn't have to be physically present as long as those folders remain empty.

When you do add content that relies on that folder structure it will add the files. I generally ignore what I'm adding completely and have not encountered any problems as of yet

Again new to this...

Edit : Oh forgot the last thing, many of the things I've installed without the DAZ Install Manager, don't appear in the smart content folder. I don't mind per say, but I've understood from other users that this depends on the content creator adding the correct categorisations.
I imagine (pure guesswork here) that the manifest files have something to do with this

 

[Powerline75]

Things have gone much better once I found the viewport! Thanks again.

Another question about installing CC. Many items come with a separate zipped file for 'Templates'. What do I do with them? EX: IM00058225-01 is for CAPRICE HAIR. This is loaded and ready to process with the DIM.
There's a 2nd zip file with the templates named 'Templates_58225_CapriceHair'. Do these load with the DIM also, or does it need to be opened and installed manually?
There's no folder in the 'My Daz Library' for these. Should there be?
I'm still VERY new to DAZ! When loaded, will the templates show up under Smart Content of do I need to expand my knowledge database a little further?

The templates are basically UV-maps, that you only really need and want, if you want to make your own textures for the hair. Otherwise, they're not of any use whatsoever. And, you can store them, in any folder and tree directory, DAZ won't look for them in any circumstances

 

[galora]

The templates are basically UV-maps, that you only really need and want, if you want to make your own textures for the hair. Otherwise, they're not of any use whatsoever. And, you can store them, in any folder and tree directory, DAZ won't look for them in any circumstances

Alright I was gloriously wrong.

Have you done it? Is it worth doing?
And this applies to every template I threw away? So for clothes and so on as well?

 

[Powerline75]

Alright I was gloriously wrong.

Have you done it? Is it worth doing?
And this applies to every template I threw away? So for clothes and so on as well?

I have tried a few attempts. Is it worth doing? Well, that depends on how skilled you are in photoshop (or any image editor of choice). I am not THAT good.
Yes, if there are templates with a package, they are, if not all the time, 99.9% of the time, UV-maps there.

 

[Xavster]

Anyone have any clue how to fix this

I checked the settings and can't seem to make this work.
Using DAZ iray rendering, 2000 iterations but for all my efforts I can't seem to fix the hair.

This is the iray drawstyle preview I get.
View attachment 749305
and here the actual render View attachment 749298

The issue you are facing with this asset is that it wasn't designed to work effectively with a side profile. You can however make it look more opaque by increasing the relevant hair surface cutout opacity to values greater than 1 (eg. 2, 4 etc). I know it sounds weird, but trust me it works. Only change the surface for the fine hairs and not the cap surface within the hair asset.

Im trying to fix this all day, but still didn't got into solution..
I hope everyone can share something on how to fix this noises-rendering.. View attachment 745059

I hate to tell you this upfront, however with an AMD card, Daz3D really isn't a good option from rendering, due to it's reliance on the nVidia ray tracing engine. If you are however willing to persevere with CPU rendering, you can produce reasonable images in ~200 iterations. To achieve this though you have to use a rapidly converging light setup. The 2 best known alternatives are HDRI and 3-point lighting. The power of using a HDRI is usually underestimated as a lighting option as people are unaware of the ability to use

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which would allow the HDRI to be used in the scene above. To clean up any remaining fireflies you should use the Intel Open Image Denoiser 1.2 (note that the nVidia version of this will not work on your PC).

You will likely have to compromise on image quality, however you can produce clean images using the denoiser. Skin surfaces will however look fairly artificial however if you are unable to run sufficient iterations.

PS: The main tip I would give to anyone that is struggling to get images to converge is to learn more about lighting. Simpler is better and if you aren't using HDRI's at all, you are missing out on one of the most effective lighting methods available.

 

[Deleted member 1121028]

The issue you are facing with this asset is that it wasn't designed to work effectively with a side profile. You can however make it look more opaque by increasing the relevant hair surface cutout opacity to values greater than 1 (eg. 2, 4 etc). I know it sounds weird, but trust me it works. Only change the surface for the fine hairs and not the cap surface within the hair asset.

I could be very wrong, but I remember having that exact same bug in one of my very first render with an old gtx1060. But it's so so long time ago I don't really remember the workaround (and never got that bug again). In my memory it was about a spotlight or the camera angle, I'm not sure. Moved one of them to few degree and it rendered correctly, IIRC (!).

 

[NotSure142018]

Total Daz noob here with some questions.

I'm working on a scene with 3 characters, who move throughout several rooms and several positions. Right now, I have about 50 files for this one scene, with each one containing the whole environment, all 3 characters, etc. with a camera posed by hand and just using the camera headlamp for light. Obviously, I'm doing many things wrong and need to go edit this mess. I'm going to set up 3-point lights, but don't really know how to do that in an efficient way. If I limit myself to a few camera angles, can I save the lights and import them in a way that will keep their position and intensity, relative to the scene?

Also is it better to render the characters in the environment, or render them separately?

Is there an easy/more efficient way to save multiple scenes that really only have different poses? Right now I have each one saved as a scene file, but I feel like that's not the best answer.

Are render settings saved on a per-file basis? Can I change my default render settings somewhere? And if so, how will that affect my already-created files?

 

[Powerline75]

Total Daz noob here with some questions.

I'm working on a scene with 3 characters, who move throughout several rooms and several positions. Right now, I have about 50 files for this one scene, with each one containing the whole environment, all 3 characters, etc. with a camera posed by hand and just using the camera headlamp for light. Obviously, I'm doing many things wrong and need to go edit this mess. I'm going to set up 3-point lights, but don't really know how to do that in an efficient way. If I limit myself to a few camera angles, can I save the lights and import them in a way that will keep their position and intensity, relative to the scene?

Also is it better to render the characters in the environment, or render them separately?

Is there an easy/more efficient way to save multiple scenes that really only have different poses? Right now I have each one saved as a scene file, but I feel like that's not the best answer.

Are render settings saved on a per-file basis? Can I change my default render settings somewhere? And if so, how will that affect my already-created files?

First, a little advise. Set cameras, per location, so you can switch between them with ease, and just reload your characters, to fit the camera view.
Now, to the questions. I'll try to answer each, as I read them, although some answers may fit to more than one question.
a) You can indeed save/load light sets for each location, or parent the lights to a primitive, so you can move that around, pulling the lights along with it. A light rig of sorts, if you like.
b) You can save partials from a scene as light presets, or pose presets, and so on, so you can load those instead of merging a scene to an existing one. "Save as..." lets ou choose if you save a scene, a light preset, and so on.
c) Yes, they are, if you have set your render settings along the scene, and, yes you can change your render settings, from the basic canvas size, to the finest, more complicated value in the multitude of options. If you notice on DAZ's UI, there's a camera icon with a cog. This opens the tab, or popup window, for the render settings. On it, you have presets, editor and advanced tabs. editor lets you mess with the settings. Almost ALL the settings, with some bits left for advanced, but, for the majority of cases, you won't need to get into the advanced tab. It will NOT affect your files, unless you save the scene files after you change render settings on each. BUT, you can save the render settings themselves, and just load them for every scene you have prepared for rendering.

 

[Xavster]

Total Daz noob here with some questions.

I'm working on a scene with 3 characters, who move throughout several rooms and several positions. Right now, I have about 50 files for this one scene, with each one containing the whole environment, all 3 characters, etc. with a camera posed by hand and just using the camera headlamp for light. Obviously, I'm doing many things wrong and need to go edit this mess. I'm going to set up 3-point lights, but don't really know how to do that in an efficient way. If I limit myself to a few camera angles, can I save the lights and import them in a way that will keep their position and intensity, relative to the scene?

Also is it better to render the characters in the environment, or render them separately?

Is there an easy/more efficient way to save multiple scenes that really only have different poses? Right now I have each one saved as a scene file, but I feel like that's not the best answer.

Are render settings saved on a per-file basis? Can I change my default render settings somewhere? And if so, how will that affect my already-created files?

As you have become aware it is generally better to create the scene environment first and then go about creating the individual frames for the overall scene.

I presume the lighting is indoors, hence I would recommend you go with emissives. Whilst 3-point lighting when done well will render faster, it is really only intended to light a central focus point. In relation to using an emissive, I would create a primitive sphere of about 0.5m diameter and luminescence of about 2000 kcd/m2 and place it in the middle of the room at about 2.5 elevation (you can make invisible by setting cutout opacity to almost zero - 0.00001). This will light up all of the room background and also partially light the characters. Add additional emissives to suit. Once you have a lighting setup that you are happy with, then you can save all of the emissive lights as a scene subset and load them into the remainder of the frames. You can achieve better results with HDRI + Interior Camera + Emissives, however it takes significant practice to get the knack of this technique.

With 3 characters in the scene you may run into VRAM issues, however these can be resolved by reducing texture map sizes using Scene Optimizer and if you run into geometry VRAM issues you can reduce the subdivision level and render subdivision level. Below is a render I did last week using similar techniques and scene optimising. All these characters were fitted into 8GB VRAM. Note the in game scene has pole dancers overlayed on this background.


As far as creating a number of frames you can do this as an animation where each successive frame is completely different to the previous one. It's a bit of a double edge sword though, as a change to one frame can have unintended effects on other frames due to the way animation works. You can make every frame a keyframe, however this blows out file size and pretty much defeats the purpose. I typically use this method when there is subtle changes between successive frames.

The render settings are saved with the scene, hence if you make a change to the settings you will have to change all of the others as well. From where you are try to tweak the emissives to get the result you want without adjusting the render settings. Note that you can save cameras as well via a scene subset.

 

[NotSure142018]

Thanks for the replies, both of you! Xavster, how do I make a primitive emit light?

 

[Powerline75]

Thanks for the replies, both of you! Xavster, how do I make a primitive emit light?

You're welcome.
On the prim's surfaces tab (with said prim, or ANY object, or even character, selected), browse through the surfaces, to find the one you want to act as an emissive light source. Find the emission tab, and change the color from black to white, or any bright color. As a rule of thumb, the darker the color, the less that surface emmits, and black is more or less the "off" switch.
If you feel creative, you can use an image on the emission color option, instead of a solid color, and get a fancier light for your scene.

 

[NotSure142018]

You're welcome.
On the prim's surfaces tab (with said prim, or ANY object, or even character, selected), browse through the surfaces, to find the one you want to act as an emissive light source. Find the emission tab, and change the color from black to white, or any bright color. As a rule of thumb, the darker the color, the less that surface emmits, and black is more or less the "off" switch.
If you feel creative, you can use an image on the emission color option, instead of a solid color, and get a fancier light for your scene.

I made a sphere, and moved it to where I want it. Went to Surfaces, Presets, added Iray Emissive. Went to Editor, Emission. Changed the color to white, cranked up the luminance to 2000 kcd/m2. It looks white but isnt adding any light to my scene. Emission Profile says None, but I'm not sure how to fix that (or if that's even the problem).

 

[Xavster]

I made a sphere, and moved it to where I want it. Went to Surfaces, Presets, added Iray Emissive. Went to Editor, Emission. Changed the color to white, cranked up the luminance to 2000 kcd/m2. It looks white but isnt adding any light to my scene. Emission Profile says None, but I'm not sure how to fix that (or if that's even the problem).

You appear to be making the correct changes. Have you tried rendering the image as emissives will not show up as preview lights? Note that I did the following to create the light in the set I am currently creating (see spoiler).
- Add Primitive Sphere (0.5m diam)
- Surfaces \ Emission Color --> White
- Luminance --> 2000
- Luminance Units --> kcd.m^2

Spoiler: Test Render

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When rendering also make sure you set the environment to Scene Only or Dome and Scene.

Note:
Emission Profile = None

 

[NotSure142018]

Ahh, that's the problem then. I do most of my editing on a potato laptop and render overnight on a desktop. I'll try tonight and see what happens

 

[cnwolf]

Any expert have an idea why some head and body morphs that i use don't apply at all?
I tried the character Catherine HD for Genesis 8 (

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)

But somehow it only applies things like the skin texture and body height, but the character still looks like the standard genesis 8 female. I had this issue with a few characters. Am i missing a required product? I think i should have all the usual body and head morphs for genesis 8.

Pictures below:

Spoiler: no morphs applied

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[recreation]

Any expert have an idea why some head and body morphs that i use don't apply at all?
I tried the character Catherine HD for Genesis 8 (

You must be registered to see the links

)

But somehow it only applies things like the skin texture and body height, but the character still looks like the standard genesis 8 female. I had this issue with a few characters. Am i missing a required product? I think i should have all the usual body and head morphs for genesis 8.

Pictures below:

Spoiler: no morphs applied

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maybe something went wrong during installation, did you try deleting and reinstalling it?
btw, I'm curious, what's that "thight vagina" morph you got there? xD

 

[cnwolf]

maybe something went wrong during installation, did you try deleting and reinstalling it?
btw, I'm curious, what's that "thight vagina" morph you got there? xD

I tried to reinstall it now, didn't help

tbh i have no idea, came probably from something else as a package that i installed

 

[recreation]

I tried to reinstall it now, didn't help

tbh i have no idea, came probably from something else as a package that i installed

I don't have the character, so I can't really help, but maybe it needs a morph that isn't specified on the page, I'd have a look in the Daz forum.

 

[NyqueIgrol]

I tried to reinstall it now, didn't help

tbh i have no idea, came probably from something else as a package that i installed

I have some HD packs. Most of the time there are multiple morphs in the packs. The HD morphs are containing only the details, and they have more morphs for the rest. Look after Catherine Head for example or Catherine Basic or something like that. Hope this helps.