Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
7533 S Center View Ct #4664
West Jordan, UT 84084
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2025 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
...I have to watch every Zloty I spend. Currently holding off on any purchases (even though Larsen's Magnus Manor would work so well for scenes in the story line) as I am waiting for Ness' store to go on sale so I can get the Townhouses that have been on my wishlist.
I hear ya Kyoto... I really slashed my wishlist the other day. I have 1 month left on my membership and I'm grabbing everything that I REEEEEEALLY want before it ends... There are a few things on it that I have my fingers crossed for.. winks... Wishing us BOTH luck ;)
...at least you still can get the 50% off during the Catchup sale in case yo see something to missed.
after 9 pages the question is: Kyoto Kid, do you feel the same way NOW after reading all this support of everyone? :-/
I hope not, at least all this reading had a positive effect on me!. :lol:
btw, very touching the video of the 97 years old MS Paint guy , very inspiring for me when I was about to give up to Zbrush, now I can feel that I CAN DO IT!, it's difficult but not impossible.
Well Kyoto, one thing I can suggest to you is don't feel you are a loser when it comes to the contests and such. If you lose a contest or challenge due to the winners not being chosen accordingly, that is not your fault.
You're a member of PFD and Deviant Art so you have seen my images, and you know I deal mostly with free stuff, with the odd time I can afford to buy something. I try different tricks and sometimes end up with a happy accident. You saw my accident for getting that oily sheen on skin and how I did that. I find I have better luck if I don't follow someone's tutorial and just play around with dials and add things you normally wouldn't and mix and match a lot of things. (In case you are unfamiliar with my name at PFD it's Faeryl Womyn)
I removed almost everything from my wishlist here and at Rendo and only have the items I want bookmarked instead, as a result, more things I want end up on sale when I have money instead of sales ending just before payday. Leads one to question sales policy.
On the upside, I think Daz is a great program and now I am learning Hexagon, thanks to the generosity of putting them up for free like they did and for such a long time. I agree with many that they need to improve their programs, fixing bugs and all before putting out a new versions. Daz is not the only one doing that, nor is it only 3D programs that fall into this. Seems each year that goes by, technological stuff is being pushed on everyone and much of it is poorly put together and slow with the fixes, if any. The market is getting worse and prices are getting higher. The downside to this is people do not want to spend money on inferior products, so spend less, with less money to operate with, they are making even worse products. This was very evident about a year or two ago over at Rendo and here, the quality of products that ended up in the stores seemed to have dropped, it lasted for a few months and then picked up again. It's like suddenly everyone got lazy or were riding on their good name to pass off inferior items. (Bare in mind I am speaking in generalities and don't really mean everyone.)
I remember winning one challenge not because my image was great (it really was not all that much to carry on about) but because I had done a really good job on lighting and the shadows were very good. Another contest I had entered, my image was good, it was very good and I am not tooting my own horn, it's what others have said, it was for a Halloween contest and I followed the theme. The winner was some next to naked chick standing on a rocky out corp. Pasties would have covered more then that outfit. I didn't enter another contest for almost two years because of that, so I can understand the let down.
Today, I don't let what happens in contests get to me. Win or lose, I consider myself a winner simply because I got an image out that others can see and comment on, either to tell me how good or bad and to get pointers to improve. I actually get upset if I don't get a comment, even a bad one, as that tells me no one is really looking at it.
I do art mostly for myself to relax and unlease the frustration that is bottled up in my day job in a creative way. Entering competitions just sounds like more stress that I can do without. I get more than enough stress from my day job. However I have entered some competitions and came second in two but I did them more for fun and the competition themes were in line with my interests anyway that made it easier.
There are a lot of legally free 3d models all over the internet made by others that you can use in your artwork. I often go to sharecg to get free models. But I only buy 3d models that are on sale. As a hobbiest I don't expect any return on my investment so keeping to a budget is important. With all the Daz current sales I'm in 3d heaven and my credit card is in financial hell. lol.
Anyhoot Kyoto Kid do you have a gallery where we can view your art? If yes then you should put a link to it under your signature section. If you join deviantART then we other hobbiest/artists can view your work and provide some constructive critique that hopefully will improve your chances in competitions.
Another thing Daz could do for hobbiest is make a 3D Bridge for The Gimp as a plugin for Daz Studio. The 3D Bridge for Photoshop is good plugin for Daz Studio however Photoshop cost a small fortune. Or maybe one for PaintShop Pro which is a poofteenth of the price of Photoshop.
Ok, I'm going to give you a small fraction of what can be done. All of these images were done with Daz and Gimp.
http://bowski-productions.deviantart.com/art/Lady-of-the-Lake-368357717
http://hal001.deviantart.com/art/Strigoi-the-ancien-vampire-312940241 (this is also a promo image here in the store)
http://greta-heron.deviantart.com/art/The-spirit-of-Pandora-154448656
http://dkmarcos.deviantart.com/art/Ireth-Runas-298506848
http://adzojan.deviantart.com/art/Shavennah-227078772
http://dkmarcos.deviantart.com/art/The-Assassin-374178695
http://cyberalbi.deviantart.com/art/Girl-tree-transformation-treegirl-TF-magic-art-4-323358270
http://ohnehandslady.deviantart.com/art/Lost-freedom-168247878
http://lemonwithpepper.deviantart.com/art/Hunt-277393425
Hey Vaskania great gallery you have at deviantART. I just left a comment on your render "Black Dragon Princess - Angle 2" and tagged it fave. I have Photoshop 7 I bought many years ago (as part of Creative Suite 1) . I use the Gimp for some of the features my old Photoshop doesn't have. It's great that the Gimp can use Photoshop brushes now.
Hey Vaskania great gallery you have at deviantART. I just left a comment on your render "Black Dragon Princess - Angle 2" and tagged it fave. I have Photoshop 7 I bought many years ago (as part of Creative Suite 1) . I use the Gimp for some of the features my old Photoshop doesn't have. It's great that the Gimp can use Photoshop brushes now.
Thanks. :)
I started with Gimp, but I sinced moved on to Photoshop CS6 when they had a buy CS5 and get CS6 free on release deal that I couldn't pass up. My daughter now has the CS5 (before anybody decides to jump down my throat regarding licensing.. she's a minor and in my household).
I do still have Gimp installed though for the sole purpose of helping people find ways of doing Photoshoppy things in Gimp, or to help convert a tutorial from one to the other.
/edit
Here's another guy you just 'might' have heard of ;) that uses Daz/Gimp.. Direbunny: http://direbunny.deviantart.com/gallery/
I've awwed his stuff for a long time now.
Kyoto Kid- start your own Art Studio thread here, if you want to go to another site to do that too, fine, but the Art Studio section is VERY active and if you ask for help/ critiques you'll get some good advice, and also compliments on what you're doing that catches someone's attention. I'd love to see your work in one place :)
Cathie
Oooo. Nice artwork. I notice he also uses Paint Tool SAI. I've seen quite a few members at deviantART state they use that tool. Anyhoot I think it all boils down to creativity. Certainly the tools help. But being bold and willing to experiment goes a long way.
...I actually have an account ad DA (under the same name). there's a lot of development work for the characters in my storyline dating back to when I started in this five an a half years ago with only V4 and the Teen Ashley character.
I agree, it is about time Daz supports more "affordable" software besides Photoshop, ZBrush, and even Optitex.
A Daz - GIMP bridge would be great, however part of the deal of course has to do with the developers of GIMP. I actually put that idea up on the GIMP forums a while ago but have yet to receive any reply.
I would also like to see a Daz - Blender bridge as Blender is light years beyond Hexagon or Wings in what it can do (and a tonne more stable than Hex).
...I think I actually may have one relating to the development of my story and the characters that I started a while back. Guess I kind of forgot about it.
I too would love to see this. Some of the same hurdles as GIMP, I think, but it would be a wonderful thing.
Found your dA gallery kyotokid. Nice artwork. If I had to critique anything I would say the lighting. Or more exactly the light & shadow play. The lighting looks too even throughout, and even though you have great compositions, the figures don't seem to pop out in most. Sometimes adding a little depth of field helps. Anyhoot having said all that I think your two latest images "I'll Always Be Here for you" and "I got your little toy..." really do stand out. BTW I've tagged one as a fave.
and if you didn't know how old he is or any thing else - no body would vote for him .
lets be honest .
I did stuff like this years ago .
Here's a disabled guy that draws by holding the tool in his mouth http://larime.deviantart.com/
One can say, if no one knew he was disabled, his artwork would not be good enough to be noticed.
Or that he labels every submission with, "I'm a disabled artist - I draw with my mouth." as a way to draw more attention to his work.
Or that Top Cow is using the guy's disability as a gimmick to promote the comic book.
But none of that changes the fact that the guy is writing and drawing a comic book, something most aspiring writers or aspiring comic book artists just talk about rather than actually doing it.
Looking at the 2013 Stonemason Catalogue Contest, what I noticed is that the winner Laticis only has 252 posts in the forums.
The Community Choice first place winner was Isiko who has even less, 179 posts in the forums.
If someone is typing a post in the forums, that's time not making art.
The most common advice successful artists give aspiring amateurs is to put in the time making art. Not the amount of time going into a single piece, but the overall amount of time making more and more art. Then make some more.
Found your dA gallery kyotokid. Nice artwork. If I had to critique anything I would say the lighting. Or more exactly the light & shadow play. The lighting looks too even throughout, and even though you have great compositions, the figures don't seem to pop out in most. Sometimes adding a little depth of field helps. Anyhoot having said all that I think your two latest images "I'll Always Be Here for you" and "I got your little toy..." really do stand out. BTW I've tagged one as a fave.
...thank you.
Yeah I agree about the lighting and as I mentioned I feel this may be one of the issues. When I use IBL (UE),it tends to make things look a bit flat and dull as I have a lot of trouble with shadows looking good. The last two also used extra linear point lights to help accentuate the characters a bit more, again more "cinematic" than "realistic". I think that linear point lights were one of the better additions in 4.5/4.6 as they allow you to set the falloff. I wish the same could be done for spotlights but for now, that is only possible with the UberSpotlinght kit (which I do not have).
I haven't played with DOF that much as I don't particularly care for blurry backgrounds especially if there is something happening in them. Again, to me that is more photographic than painterly. As you have noticed I do use AoA'a atmospheric cameras and they are incredible. The one of the two girls used the vignette setting (along with a bit of softglow in GIMP) while the one of the gal in black leather with the car employed the Volume camera at a distant setting to capture the light beams coming through the windows.
Maybe I'm just not getting the hang of using UE. I've read through tutorials and followed the steps, but no matter what I try, after rendering, scenes still tend to come out flat and bland looking with washed out or indistinct shadows. I also cannot for the life of me get the Uber Area Lights to work and the online tutorial really didn't help much. I notice that with some light sets like Lantios and Cloud9 there are HDRI sets already provided, however I have no idea about how to create these for specific settings on my own.
This the big reason why I miss LDP. as the play between light and shadow with it was more distinct. I hope to get that back when the Advanced Ambient Lights set is released.
Sure, rub it in.
/hangs head
:P
Sure, rub it in.
/hangs head
:P
Ok . . . . . take a look at my post count.
...and what if you are doing so while waiting for a render process to finish like I do?
I have two systems running, my notebook for online stuff and the workstation for my projects.
Install content on your notebook and practice setup, composition, executing new ideas, etc. ? ? ?
...nah that's only 32 bit and 4.6 barely would run on it. Its graphics chipset doesn't even meet the optimal OGL requirement for the application and there are no further driver upgrades available.
These lights can be really tricky to use, here's two tips and forgive me if you have already encountered this. The first is that the side that releases the light is the "bottom" for the flat lights, so the Y arrow should point away from your subject.
The second is that if you use falloff, you need to crank the intensity up really high. Like 2500% or higher. For the tube lights you need even more. I have a tube light with normal falloff working as a neon light right next to a wall and its at 3600% intensity and is starting to look right. And samples are like everything, and generally only start to look good above 32.. I usually go with 64. Try some ridiculously high settings and see what you think of them.
...thanks I never knew they had to be turned up so high. Also didn't realise for the flat ones, only one side actually was the light emitter (that was not mentioned in the online tutorial). I tried the using the tube lights in one set I was working with to replace the florescent tubes in several light fixtures because for some odd reason the lights provided were designed only to work in Reality/Lux. Not going to wait a couple days for a render to complete.
Yeah they are kind of weird, but they can be quite lovely when they work. I spent a good bit of time with trial and error with them after I similarly found the reference materials to not explain them well enough. If you leave falloff "off" then the intensity doesn't need to be quite so high, but still higher than anything else, in the 600-800% range... though of course the falloff is one of the neat things about them. Also, if you start to play with the numbers to adjust the falloff, then god help you, it can be very hard to figure out what they are doing. I generally either use them with default falloff "on" (which is basically "realistic") or with falloff "off" if it's for a portrait or something where I just want the soft light and shadow and don't care much about the light going all over. In any case, they take some playing around with, but I do like them a lot when I get them working right.
Yep I agree LDP was the best. I did many of my early renders with LDP in DS3. I did snatch up Light Dome PRO - R when it was on sale recently but haven't had a chance to really use it. Still sitting in my downloads waiting to be installed. Too many things happening in my life at the moment.
On the subject of your renders turning out "dull" KK, in your Render Settings do you have Gamma Correction turned On, and Gamma set to 2.2?
(I found a major leap in "pop" when I finally remembered to turn that setting on X).
I'm sure you've seen Szark's tutorial for UberArea lights but I'll link it for those that might have missed it. Like you I'm still having problems getting these lights to do what I want them to do but I keep plugging away and eventually I'll get it.
For a basic portrait style lighting setup using UberEnvironment lighting I started with IamUman's Realistic Lights in Daz Studio over on DA. This gets you a pretty good base for your standard portrait head shot but you can also apply the same principles to other lighting. The one thing to note is if you add a UE2 light you'll want to tone it down as well as adjust most of your other lights down some to avoid washing everything out.
Since my art background is mainly photography I tend to look at lighting in Daz the way a photographer does. One thing I've been playing with on my own is trying to use the one light ideas taught by people like Zack Arias. Basically you take the available light and add a single flash to create your image. Again this works well for portrait or single subject style images. There is a decent quick tutorial over at Tuts+ called 10 Ways to Shoot Stunning Portraits With Only One Light. I've only been playing with this for a few weeks now but I see the potential.
Of course, with DS we don't have "available" light to start with so we have to provide something. I've been using a UberEnvironment to be the ambient light and a spotlight as my "flash". Also, since the light from a 3Delight render doesn't behave as it would in the real world I occasionally have to throw in a specular or fill light to simulate the bounce effect of some of those setups. For these you just have to tweak and render until you get the look you want.
This is probably my best test shot so far and it's really a simple lighting setup. Rendered with AoA's fog camera and no other postwork.
If you want to know the light settings I've listed them on the DA page for the image (http://aminn.deviantart.com/art/Foggy-Fountain-Blue-391457441)
I put the finishing touches on finished renders while a new render is going. I tend to almost always have 2 or 3 images I am working on at a time. When I only want to work on one image at a time then I leave the computer and do chores, which is fairly rare ;)