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Don't worry too much about those delayed "AHA!!!" moments — I've been using D|S since its very first beta, even before D|S1.0 came out, and I've been getting an "AHA!!!" at regular intervals ever since. Sometimes for features that have been in there, well hidden, all along.
I'm rather fond of Predatron's lights for ds on sale right now for 6.95 I use these quite a bit
http://www.daz3d.com/predatron-ds-lights
I have found that Jeremy Birn's book on Digital Lighting and Rendering is indispensible for understanding lighting techniques and terminologies, as well as other subjects like texturing (bump maps and the like), composition, and lots of other stuff. The book is not specific to any particular platform, and it is not hard to figure out where to look in the DAZ Studio interface for the 'knobs' that control the things he describes (like shadow bias). The book is, alas, not at all cheap - $41 at Amazon; lots of colored pictures and examples - but probably the best money I have spent on this hobby to date. DAZ3D really ought to sell it in their store, and discount it for new customers
I've been using DS since Version 3, and not a weekend goes by where I don't learn something new - and with every shader or plugin I buy, there's even more to discover!! (bug eyed face)
Once I stopped thinking of DS as a toy (and it hit V3Advanced), I started to sit down and try t o learn to do Real 3D Stuff(tm) with it, and it has a lot of hidden depth. The lack of a decent manual is definitely a wrench in the works, but YouTube totes and user tutorials help fill the gap in somewhat (although a nice, incremental directed learning path would help newbies a great deal).
Hrck, I write complex software for a living and DS keeps surprising me, so don't feel stupid. Just smile at your new discovery and go on to the next one! (big grin)
I actually have that book. Right now, I'm looking at some things that I might want to do in order to help me better understand lighting. A friend of mine suggested getting a Digital SLR and taking a class on studio lighting --which I am seriously considering doing. I think books and tutorials are great for specific purposes, but nothing beats learning the basics from someone who knows what they're doing. I think understanding how to use lighting with a camera will really help you develop --even if they don't directly transfer over 100%.
I basically want to illustrate a story with images, but I noticed that all of my renders were coming out looking the same. I'd never really looked at the lighting controls and I bought the Light Master course when it was on sale. I'd put it on the shelf for a number of weeks because I just didn't have the time to sit down with it until this last weekend. Then Pow! you have this moment where you see a real difference in the way your work comes out.
I was working on this one render and you can really see the difference. The first one is the one with the default lighting, which was kind of how I was doing things from day to day. You can see all the detail, but it didn't really evoke as much. I added the default lighting but to be honest, it still wasn't exactly the kind of picture that really jumped out at me. Now I was just monkeying around and added four point lights and it really looked a lot different. It's not all there --but it's definitely a step in the right direction.
That's what I meant when I started this post. It was just that little Aha moment that opened up new directions and things to try.
Heartily seconded. The content is invaluable and the writing style is accessible. My knowledge of lighting has improved from "horrible" to "ok, but you could stand some more practice" mostly because of Birn's book.
I learned how to light from Jeremy Brim's book and from taking an online classes in using DAZ Studio from Visual Arts Academy.
I periodically reread Brim's book and found that it is the best resource to learn lighting.
He also has sample scenes, a 3D Glossary, and other things on his website.
http://www.3drender.com/
Visual Arts Academy has two DAZ Studio classes and those were big helps as I got a structure on how to lean to use the software.
One of the most helpful classes was to read some information on lighting, render a scene using preset lights, and render it lighting it how ever you wanted. The purpose o the exercise was to explore the preset lights that were provided and to see that they were an example of bad lighting if you examined them.
One thing I have noticed is now I see stuff with bad lighting and digital coloration that just looks bad and not realistic and I think that is what is being taught in the schools too after seeing the work of most recent graduates who specialized in CGI. I've also notice a large number of instructors to use the same bad lighting and colorization techniques in their own work.
Anyway, I think I learn something new every time I use the software, and I would really like a good PDF or printed manual. Printed is preferred as working and using a PDF guide is very slow since I'm often having to switch between the PDF
Here's something I just learned: one can mirror-reverse an object in Daz Studio!
A perfect example, that's something I discovered by myself years ago, but I don't think it was ever mentioned in the manuals (back in the pixellated mists of time when D|S had a manual) and it's only rarely mentioned in the forums. But it's a very handy trick when you need it.
What I currently do is a quick mockup of my set in DAZ 3 with compatible figures and objects (not EVERYTHING since my sets tend to be highly detailed with tons of "clutter") and create the light dome using LDP2, then delete everything but the light dome and lights, and save as a scene and merge it in DAZ 4 with my real scene. Sometimes i have to reopen DAZ 3 and try again but often I just need to do minor tweaks. LDP2 is pretty much the only reason I have DAZ 3 still installed.
..I've came up with a way to use the Azure Skies skydomes in 4.6.
I basically create a large sphere (large enough to contain the scene) turn "Cast Shadows" off, adjust the Y transition coordinate so that the ground plane lines up with the spheres "equator line", then apply the skydome map I want for the scene. Granted this doesn't include the lights, but it seems a lot simpler that building two separate scenes.
The skydomes work fine with UE. just make sure the sample rate is set at 128 (the same sample rate Cloud 9 uses) and the occlusion colour is set to white.
Here is an example:
This is done with a 1,000 M diameter sphere.