This post is not about making awesome DAZ renders. I’m not in a position where I can give good artists tips on how to become great artists. This post is intended for newbies making their first steps with Daz and lists some of the most common mistakes I see new Daz users do, mostly mistakes I made myself.
1. Careless positioning.
2. Long female hair positioning - could related to the previous post and to bullet #7 below. Watch where that long hair is going. Hair is not supposed to go into the character's back or breasts. If a girl is lying on her back, gravity will pull her hair back. Watch the ponytail or long bangs, make sure they conform the way you want before you start using the hair piece.
Tip 1: the shorter a character’s hair is, the easier your life will be.
Tip 2: don’t choose a hair only based on how it looks on a standing character. Play with it a little before you decide and make sure it has all the morphs you need. Long hair with very few morphs is asking for trouble.
3. Expressions - less is more. It’s always better to leave your character slightly less expressive than slightly more. Hideous, insane grins or angry scowls do wonders to cringe your players. When talking about "uncanny valley", bad expressions are the main culprit IMO.
Tip: avoid dialing expressions to 100%. Always try to reduce the dial just a bit more until you can’t dial it down without losing the expression.
4. Out of the box setups - how many games did you play that use
Tip: When I use a set, I always try to change it so it doesn’t look like a copy of others. I take out some objects and replace them with others. When I use a cloth or hair I try to change the material from the default to something different.
5. Clothed big tits - Daz doesn’t handle clothed big tits gracefully, turning the mammaries into gross “tit socks” if you just put the shirt on the girl and increase boobs to the max. There’s no easy solution for this. I tried two commercial products and am not happy with the results of either.
Tip: For beginners I think the best solution is to use clothes with “big breast” morphs included. Remember to actually reduce the girl’s breasts size if you want to use a “big breast” morph included with a cloth. I created my own doc which helps using Daz simulation. It’s cumbersome but it works on most clothes and most breast sizes. I’ll post it if anyone’s interested.
6. Taking clothes off - another place where Daz will screw the new artist over is when the story requires characters to take off their clothes. In an adult story, undressing is an important erotic moment as it symbolizes a breakthrough in the relationship but Daz can be very harsh about it and there are very few solutions for showing a character taking off his or her clothes.
Tip: For beginners, there are two main solutions to this problem IMO: using clothes with built in undress morphs (like Nirvy’s) or addressing the undressing aspect story wise. Either way, games where the characters are suddenly naked or the horrible “blowjob through the guys’s jeans” are disconcerting to the players. I also try to show some discarded clothes after the characters took them off to show continuity.
7. If you can’t solve it, hide it - this is the most important tip IMO. If you encounter a problem you can’t solve don’t insist on the original sexual position or camera angle. If the tits are looking hideous in the camera angle you wanted to use, change the angle and hide them. If the girl’s hair defies gravity when she is fucked in doggie style, don’t hesitate to change sexual position until you find one which agrees with the hair solution you use. Don’t insist on a setup which leaves the problem you couldn’t solve in the frame, find a creative way of working around it, even at the price of not rendering the image as you originally intended to.
1. Careless positioning.
- Fingers - make sure fingers are not penetrating flesh or walls.
- Feet - on the ground, neither floating above it nor sinking in it.
- Clothes - skin not peaking through the material.
2. Long female hair positioning - could related to the previous post and to bullet #7 below. Watch where that long hair is going. Hair is not supposed to go into the character's back or breasts. If a girl is lying on her back, gravity will pull her hair back. Watch the ponytail or long bangs, make sure they conform the way you want before you start using the hair piece.
Tip 1: the shorter a character’s hair is, the easier your life will be.
Tip 2: don’t choose a hair only based on how it looks on a standing character. Play with it a little before you decide and make sure it has all the morphs you need. Long hair with very few morphs is asking for trouble.
3. Expressions - less is more. It’s always better to leave your character slightly less expressive than slightly more. Hideous, insane grins or angry scowls do wonders to cringe your players. When talking about "uncanny valley", bad expressions are the main culprit IMO.
Tip: avoid dialing expressions to 100%. Always try to reduce the dial just a bit more until you can’t dial it down without losing the expression.
4. Out of the box setups - how many games did you play that use
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? Using “out of the box” setups increases the chances of “game deja vu”, reducing the immersion of your players.Tip: When I use a set, I always try to change it so it doesn’t look like a copy of others. I take out some objects and replace them with others. When I use a cloth or hair I try to change the material from the default to something different.
5. Clothed big tits - Daz doesn’t handle clothed big tits gracefully, turning the mammaries into gross “tit socks” if you just put the shirt on the girl and increase boobs to the max. There’s no easy solution for this. I tried two commercial products and am not happy with the results of either.
Tip: For beginners I think the best solution is to use clothes with “big breast” morphs included. Remember to actually reduce the girl’s breasts size if you want to use a “big breast” morph included with a cloth. I created my own doc which helps using Daz simulation. It’s cumbersome but it works on most clothes and most breast sizes. I’ll post it if anyone’s interested.
6. Taking clothes off - another place where Daz will screw the new artist over is when the story requires characters to take off their clothes. In an adult story, undressing is an important erotic moment as it symbolizes a breakthrough in the relationship but Daz can be very harsh about it and there are very few solutions for showing a character taking off his or her clothes.
Tip: For beginners, there are two main solutions to this problem IMO: using clothes with built in undress morphs (like Nirvy’s) or addressing the undressing aspect story wise. Either way, games where the characters are suddenly naked or the horrible “blowjob through the guys’s jeans” are disconcerting to the players. I also try to show some discarded clothes after the characters took them off to show continuity.
7. If you can’t solve it, hide it - this is the most important tip IMO. If you encounter a problem you can’t solve don’t insist on the original sexual position or camera angle. If the tits are looking hideous in the camera angle you wanted to use, change the angle and hide them. If the girl’s hair defies gravity when she is fucked in doggie style, don’t hesitate to change sexual position until you find one which agrees with the hair solution you use. Don’t insist on a setup which leaves the problem you couldn’t solve in the frame, find a creative way of working around it, even at the price of not rendering the image as you originally intended to.
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