Tutorial Tool Any tutorials for Poser 11 or Daz3D

[Tanwise]

To any Devs, or anyone at all, I've been trying out a trial of Poser 11 and Daz3D, and first of all I'm completely new to these. Every single tutorial I've found is several years old and for the wrong version or is for the current version but jumps from the extremely basics to the advance material. Point is I'm hoping someone can give me some newbie tips or direct me to some tutorials that show me how to create basic poses, expressions, putting clothing outfits on the 3D characters, and putting more then one character in a scene.

I don't know if that's to much to ask for, but I've been trying to figure this out off and on for a couple weeks and so far I've only figured out how to add a single character in the scenes and move the camera angles around.

(before anyone thinks I must be a clueless idiot, I want to mention that I have been able to use 3D modeling program (to an extent) in the past, but those were different programs and I no longer have access to them.

So anyway, could anyone provide any help.

 

[thengineer]

There's actually a really good guide for everything you're asking pretty much, built right into daz! If you open Daz Studio and look in the bottom right corner, there should be a "Select a Lesson..." bar. Click it, then click "Guided Tours", "I - Getting Started", and finally, start with the lesson 1 and just do all of those by order. That's actually how I learned, and it just took me a few hours to pretty much learn all the basics. There's a lot more to learn, but the basics are there. Let me know if you are unable to do any of those tutorials!

 

[Tanwise]

OH.....MY....DAMN!!!! (Slaps palm to forehead) "Groan"! THANK YOU!! I'm embarrased to say that I became so frustrated that I COMPLETELY overlooked that! O,k, wow, lol, I'm going to get right on that.

By the way, one last question if you don't mind. This may have an equally simple solution, but, where would you suggest going online to get good cute attractive female 3D characters? Like the nextdoor neighbor college girl look, that has that cute innocent sexiness quality.

That may be a little to specific, but if you happen to know of any, I'd be equally grateful. Because this is one other area I've been having trouble finding (the models that come with Daz3D that I've looked at all have an "experienced" appearance to them), either models look blantantly like porn stars, or out of a fantasy realm, or completely bland. I don't mind paying a bit of money for a good character, but until I really know what I'm doing, I'd rather not spend much.

There's actually a really good guide for everything you're asking pretty much, built right into daz! If you open Daz Studio and look in the bottom right corner, there should be a "Select a Lesson..." bar. Click it, then click "Guided Tours", "I - Getting Started", and finally, start with the lesson 1 and just do all of those by order. That's actually how I learned, and it just took me a few hours to pretty much learn all the basics. There's a lot more to learn, but the basics are there. Let me know if you are unable to do any of those tutorials!

 

[thengineer]

Well, there are a LOT of characters in daz3d.com, which is the official store for daz3d items. There are a few other stores, that one in particular has a little bit higher standards, so I tend to use it more. You should learn to navigate the store to find the items you want (it's not hard). For instance, in your case you'd want to look at this

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and just scroll through until you find models that you think meet your needs. It's always hard to know how they will actually look once you plug them into daz, but just remember: if they can make a model look good, so can you! A lot of times, though, people can't use the models to the best of their ability, and the models that look good on the store will end up looking dull on your screen. The difference between some people's renders and the professional looking ones is mostly a matter of lighting and composing the image, and changing render settings.
Anyway, I'm not trying to promote piracy, but if you don't know if you're going to like the model until you use it, you could pirate it just to try it, and if you'd like to use it in renders, just delete the pirated version and buy it. It would be very costly to just pay for a ton of models and end up using just one, so this way, you get to experiment before you buy and you still support the 3d artist who created the model!
I just want to reiterate that what makes a model look good or bad is your skill, in 90% of the cases. Therefore, your next step once you learn the basics should be to use the models to their full potential. For this, I recommend jumping right into lighting after you've completed the daz3d tutorials. As a brief summary, most people use HDRI, which is essentially a sphere around your scene that lights the environment according to the colors emmited from each part of the sphere. This replicates what would happen if you were a model and you went outside (or even stayed inside), which means it adds a lot of realism. However, usually you'll want to bring focus to a certain element in your render (like a female character), and for that you'd want to use a three-point lighting. I don't want to overwhelm you with information, but yeah, try to use HDRIs as well as a three-point lighting, where your fill light can be your HDRI in some cases. This may sound confusing, so just look up a few tutorials on lighting, as I believe it's very easy to learn, and makes a HUGE difference! This will set you apart tremendously, as long as you learn it well. So learn it, and a lot of other things you'll learn along the way.

 

[SvenVlad]

There's actually a really good guide for everything you're asking pretty much, built right into daz! If you open Daz Studio and look in the bottom right corner, there should be a "Select a Lesson..." bar. Click it, then click "Guided Tours", "I - Getting Started", and finally, start with the lesson 1 and just do all of those by order. That's actually how I learned, and it just took me a few hours to pretty much learn all the basics. There's a lot more to learn, but the basics are there. Let me know if you are unable to do any of those tutorials!

I was trying to figure it out why my scenes were so dark. Your tip to see the Daz tutorial really help me out. First tip was to change the exposure value. Really improved the brightness of the scene. Thanks.

Is there any topic where I can ask for help?

 

[thengineer]

I was trying to figure it out why my scenes were so dark. Your tip to see the Daz tutorial really help me out. First tip was to change the exposure value. Really improved the brightness of the scene. Thanks.

Is there any topic where I can ask for help?

I'm not sure if there's anything on here, but there's a daz3d official forum where you can ask questions (I've never asked anything there, but sometimes google searches lead me to threads there). If there's any question in particular that you have, feel free to ask me, though I'm not an expert by any means

 

[Tanwise]

Hey "Theengineer" just wanted to say thank you again! I know the tip you gave me was a basic one, but even so it's really helped me out. I still can't believe I had overlooked the guided and interactive tutorials. But now that I've been working through them, I'm really starting to get the hang of adding and posing models.

It will probably take some time before I'm really adequate with using the Daz software, but I'm off to a better start now.

Thanks!

 

[thengineer]

Hey "Theengineer" just wanted to say thank you again! I know the tip you gave me was a basic one, but even so it's really helped me out. I still can't believe I had overlooked the guided and interactive tutorials. But now that I've been working through them, I'm really starting to get the hang of adding and posing models.

It will probably take some time before I'm really adequate with using the Daz software, but I'm off to a better start now.

Thanks!

I'm happy I could help! Yeah, it does take some time, and it often takes some frustration, but that's how you learn. You can sometimes spend hours trying to accomplish just one goal and fail, which is really frustrating. But at the same time, you're learning what works and doesn't work, so even those moments of failure are a good learning experience. Good luck on your journey!

 

[awan17]

IS Daz need the good spec for render?

I try rendering something, but it takes a long time.

 

[thengineer]

IS Daz need the good spec for render?

I try rendering something, but it takes a long time.

What are your specs, and how long does it take to render?
It's totally normal for renders to take hours, depending on the render quality you wish to achieve. If you have something like a $400 4 year old laptop, you're probably going to need better specs. But even something like a gtx 960 is a pretty good starting point, you definitely don't need anything better than that to start making renders.

 

[awan17]

What are your specs, and how long does it take to render?
It's totally normal for renders to take hours, depending on the render quality you wish to achieve. If you have something like a $400 4 year old laptop, you're probably going to need better specs. But even something like a gtx 960 is a pretty good starting point, you definitely don't need anything better than that to start making renders.

Low end. Still can process but make my laptop lagging.

 

[thengineer]

Low end. Still can process but make my laptop lagging.

That's totally normal, I never use my computer while I'm rendering, I just wait for it to render and do something else.

 

[awan17]

That's totally normal, I never use my computer while I'm rendering, I just wait for it to render and do something else.

What your spec ? How long for rendering?

 

[thengineer]

What your spec ? How long for rendering?

I have a GTX 1070, and the rendering time really depends on the scene. It can be 1 hour, it can be 10. It's ready when it's ready.