Need a DAZ Tutor to work with me over the phone...very frustrated
I finally have had to come to the conclusion that I need someone to walk me through the basic and intermediate understanding of how to use DAZ. I have tried the tutorials and for the most part do not find them very helpful.
i am willing to pay for someone to tutor me on an hourly basis over the phone.
I have been experimenting with DAZ Studio for years and every time I think I have gotten to a level of competance and understanding I run into a brick wall and eventually give up.
I love Bryce because everything is intuitive. You can assign textures to Bryce objects easily because there are so many excellent presets. I have tried to use presets for Materials in DAZ and they never seem to work. I like the posing presets because you can just click on them and see the results instantly. I click on the Materials for characters in DAZ and nothing happens. And using the dials for diffuse, specularity, etc are even more confusing.
Probably three of four hour sessions would be enough to get me to the point where I can be productive. One thing I would like to be able to do is take a Kids 4 character ad and duplicate the look and feel from the ad and do the same for some scene ads also.
I have a children's book project I am working on and the main character is a 5-7 years old. The DAZ ads look great, but trying to duplicate the face textures is beyond me. Trial and error is just not working. There are probably some really simply things I do not understand. I want to be able to modify the character using morphs.
If anyone is interested, let me know via this thread and we can figure out how to talk over the phone.
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I finally have had to come to the conclusion that I need someone to walk me through the basic and intermediate understanding of how to use DAZ. I have tried the tutorials and for the most part do not find them very helpful.
i am willing to pay for someone to tutor me on an hourly basis over the phone.
I have been experimenting with DAZ Studio for years and every time I think I have gotten to a level of competance and understanding I run into a brick wall and eventually give up.
I love Bryce because everything is intuitive. You can assign textures to Bryce objects easily because there are so many excellent presets. I have tried to use presets for Materials in DAZ and they never seem to work. I like the posing presets because you can just click on them and see the results instantly. I click on the Materials for characters in DAZ and nothing happens. And using the dials for diffuse, specularity, etc are even more confusing.
Probably three of four hour sessions would be enough to get me to the point where I can be productive. One thing I would like to be able to do is take a Kids 4 character ad and duplicate the look and feel from the ad and do the same for some scene ads also.
I have a children's book project I am working on and the main character is a 5-7 years old. The DAZ ads look great, but trying to duplicate the face textures is beyond me. Trial and error is just not working. There are probably some really simply things I do not understand. I want to be able to modify the character using morphs.
If you want to assing materials, you first have to select the item, then go to the surface tab, select the item there, too, and then you click on the shader preset. It is important to make sure you have covered all three steps, because it will not work otherwise.
Also. Have you looked at the free video tutorials here on the website? If no, give them a try. :-)
From my own experience, I know that tutoring on the phone can be extremly frustrating. I hope you'll find someone who will be able to help you. :-)
Thanks! I know working over the phone can be frustrating, but at this point, unless I can find someone locally (I think I will try Craigslist), it is my only option. What I want to be able to do is duplicate the picture in the ad when I buy stuff, but I do not seem to even get close.
That's true, it's best if you have someone sitting right next to you, to see what you are doing. I'll keep my fingers crossed for you. :-)
Well, it's possible that the images were not rendered in DAZ Studio, or that they were rendered with the LuxRender engine. LuxRender looks quite different, as it simulates light differently from 3Delight, but it means more work in setting everything up, (not to mention, more learning), too.
Most images seem to use Depth of Field, which is a setting you need to activate at the camera. If you are not familiar with it, check out: --> http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/29477/
It needs a bit experimenting, but once you get the hang of it, it will make a huge difference.
I am pretty much a noob myself, so I understand the frustrations of not being able to get the image done that you have in your mind.
By the way, a good start might bee looking at the "ready to render" scenes you have in DAZ, like "Fiery Genesis" or "Barefoot Dancer". From there, you can learn which settings give what result. Then you can try using the settings on your own scenes, and see how tweaking changes the result until you get close to what you want. It will require many, many test renders, though. :-)
I actually took your advice and began to figure out some of the relationships of the various windows and starting have some fun with morphs, getting the mats to work and so on. I think the key is understanding how the screens all work together and change automatically. DAZ, in the end actually did a pretty good job after all in making these connections between objects. I just did not see it until you mentioned it. Thanks! I have made a quantum leap forward. Now, the only problem is, that I want even better results! I will not be satisfied until I can duplicate the ads. After all, I bought the product because that is the result I wanted. I wish that DAZ would have presets for every sample in the ad screens so that all you have to do is click to actually get what you see in the picture and then insist the all vendors do the same. At least you have a starting point. Of course, the problem is that there are so many packages that you often need to produce the results. But the solution there is to have a trail like breadcrumbs between products so that if you want the exact settings for the picture in the add you buy the products and click on that special box in each to get the result you want. Bryce does that for it many rendered surface textures, for scenes, and even objects that you buy. One click and you have a marble statue.
You can get the marble statue with one click in DS, too. :-)
It's good to hear that you made some progress. :-)
One thing I did was creating my own Categories listing, so I have each item, shader and pose just where I will actually find it, rather than somewhere in the depth of DAZ and Poser content folders. For example, I put each M4 hair (a prop) and its hair colors (a pose) into one subcategory "Hair - M4 - HairName". Now, when I apply the hair, I just have to select the hair, then go to the surface tab, select the hair there and apply the hair color. It will take some time to set it up, but it's saving tons of time afterwards.
I understand your wish to easily be able to get the result you see in the ads, but like i said, they might not even have used DS, but maybe Poser, or a different render engine like LuxRender. Also, you have to keep in mind that postwork does make a lot of difference in many images.
One thing you will have to invest time into is learning how to properly make use of the light types, and how to light a scene in DS.
For example, when you load a light, the default setting is that the shadow is switched off. So, one of the first things I do is select the light and set the shadow to "on", usually selecting the raytrace version. When I started with rendering, and didn't know about the use of lights, my results were very poor.
Ambient light gives you the nice, soft light and shadows, but it takes a while to learn how to use it properly.
You might want to look into Age of Amours' Products, like http://www.daz3d.com/advanced-daz-studio-light-bundle or InaneGlory's Photo Studio http://www.daz3d.com/inaneglory-s-photo-studio-point-and-shoot (more at http://www.daz3d.com/inaneglory) to make the lighting process easier, and get good "instant" results.
As for poses, I often use one of the base poses as starting point, and from there, do the fine tuning in the Posing and Parameter tab. If you select the head of the figure, for example, you can dial in some basic expressions in the Parameter tab. That way, you can get just the expression you want.
:-) Feel free to share some of your test pictures. I'm sure that you will get feedback to help you track down the problem points and give you ideas on how to get to the result you want.
Hi,
yes, some implementations on DAZ (or is it the 3Delight renderer?) are really mysterious.
I have a setup of a house and the rooms should be illuminated by the daylight entering through the windows only. So after some first frustrating UE2 installations, I sat up a test. See the attached pictures.
To guarantee that a once shaded ray isn't getting alive again, I sat the max trace distance to a very high value, respectively as I learnt later, simply to 0.
The first picture shows the result. Even the really first front of the sidewalls is almost dark. Why? There must be enough rays from at least an angle of 90° hitting it.
In the second picture additionally I allowed diffuse scattering (indirect lighting with soft shadows). Now suddenly there is that much light.
Where does it come from. The walls are that dark, so it never can be bounced from them. The ground is rather dark. Was it God who said, it should become light and it became light?
If there were centers near the box generating diffuse rays, where are they in the first setup?
I really can't agree to that implemented behaviour of that kind of lighting tool.
Yours
Andy
Thanks for your help! I guess maybe there is no quick and easy way to get the information I need. but this is a start. One question on your pictures, Andy. I seems basic, but how did you setup the sand and background blue. And if I wanted that blue to be a real sky, how would I do it? I know that there are background products like Ccylorama that I can use, but you have tons of light (leaving out the box), the kind of light I would like to have in my scene. In Bryce, you start out with a blue sky and select the ground plane and make it sand and your all set. If I knew just how to create a man standing on a beach with loads of light that would be fantastic because then I think I would have a better understanding of how lights work and to set up my scenes. Also, it would improve my renders dramatically.
Also, in Bryce, you would need to put a light object inside the box to illuminate it which is very easy, just drag a light from the light objects on the Bryce menu and locate it inside the box. In DAZ, this does not seem so easy -- at least not intuitive.
I bought Asian Court and was very confused about how to move around and see the domed structure from the outside. But it turned out that by zooming out you in a sense go through the wall or the dome of the structure and find yourself outside (like an out of body experience). When you want to come back inside, you zoom in past the walls of the dome and then you can pan inside the courtyard and look up the dome. It is amazing once you understand it, but there were no instructions. It was not at ll intuitive. In Bryce, the camera starts outside of the structure, zooming does not help you. You have to do more complex things with a camera to be able to go inside a structure.
The DAZ handling makes it much easier t get incredible shots inside the dome and circling 360 degrees looking up at the dome from the floor.. But I discovered how it worked by accident. I also recently discovered that the entire domed structure was closed until you hide the various parts of the structure (in the scene tree). Suddenly walls disappear and windows and archways look out to the outside. I was amazed at how easy you can take camera shot from inside a structure with all the wall pieces hidden (clicking on eye in the submenu object) making the disappear. Suddenly there were pillars and window arches that were completely open to the outside. Bryce has nothing like that that I have seen. But I still am stuck not being able to create the kind of light that you did with your simple sand and box scene.
Hi,
the background is very easy, because it is the default background color DAZ offers whaen you choose the basic layout called "Hollywood Blvd". Go to the menu "Window" -> "Workspace" -> "Select Layout..."
But with "Edit" -> "Backdrop" you can insert own pictures as the background for your scenes.
The sandy beachground is derived from a product called "Rolling Planes". Here I took the sand textures. But I modified it by exchanging the colored sand texture in "diffuse" against only a suitable color. And I also modified the bump-texture and placed it into displacement. Now the sand riffles are really 3D.
The light in the demo pictures is only a special setup for my tests with the ambient light UE2. For outdoor scenes I normally choose a more simple setup which shows the 3D characteristics of the actors better then that ambient light over here.
My sun is a distant light which I pose in x- and y-direction. To illuminate the shadow zones I normally apply a seperate weak distant light to my camera (like an auxiliary flash in real photography). That's all.
I hopethat helps.
Andy
Thanks! I will try this tonight and let you know how it goes.
You know I realized something over the past few hours that I forgot -- using the forums is the best way to learn. I have just got back into 3D modeling and rendering a few months ago in a big way because I am working on a couple of children's book illustration projects.
Yes, the forum is the best.
I myself started with DAZ only some month ago and tried something from time to time.
Most I learnt by trial and error. The rest I learnt here in the forum. Here's always someone who can advise.
:coolsmile:
So: Thumbs up!
Andy
Not sure if I am misunderstanding this, but if that was the "Maximum Trace Distance" setting of the UE2 light, then it determines the distance in centimeters it still takes occlusion into account. If you dial this really high, then you may get quite a dominant occlusion, which could be ok under certain circumstances if the UE2 is your only light source. For purely (or mostly) indoor scenes a very high "Maximum Trace Distance" is usually very detrimental. Usually I got the setting at around 100 / 150 at most with the UE2 being a minor supportive light (for ambience) and let e.g. a distant light (or point / spot lights) deal with the dominant shadow(s). See e.g. the thread by adamr001 as for UE2 settings:
Learning UberEnvironment 2 Return To Topic
Hi renpatsu (??),
yes of cause, I know that.
And yes, you misunderstood the setup.
Although the base of the scene is indoor, the light setup is outdoor.
In my case I need the normal diffuse daylight we have all around our houses. And once this diffuse daylight from the outside entered a room, it illuminates (diffuse) the ceiling, the walls and the floor near the windows and fading with the depth of the room.
Using max trace distance shorter than the max distance of two opposite walls in the room causes new light illumination on the ceiling, walls and floor, which is absolutely wrong.
But on the other hand: Using the necessary high value for "max trace distance" prevents most of the outside light entering the room. As you see in the first picture of my previous post. This behaviour of UE2 is completely wrong, too.
To cover all this, I allready described in a different thread, that I use UALs instead. These are placed in the level of the windows and imitate the diffuse entering daylight almost perfectly.
But !! Using UALs with the necessary high sample rate causes very very long render times.
Therefore -> I'm still looking for alternatives.
Andy
Sorry, this might be too much derailing, I am still not getting your experiment though ;) just judging from the scenes.
In essence in the first image you got occlusion dominating the indoor scene, which is what I would expect if "Maximum Trace Distance" is set to a high value, so yes, I'd expect a dark room for most part, depending on how much geometry is around the parts the darker - though it also depends on the IBL used. Anyway, if you got a link to your thread I can chime in there :)
Edit: And a '0' might be a corner case due to equations used, like e.g. glossiness on a surface tuned to 100%.
Hello, I've been where you are and understand the frustrations. I can help you with quite a few things that you sound like you need. The one area that I am still having my own issues with is getting the lighting just right. Fabrics tend to come out looking plastic in some instances. So I would be willing to help you if you would like assistance with loading the base figure, adding the character, changing up the face, adding the hair, adding the clothing, adding a background, posing the figure, adding lights. That stuff I can do. Making fabrics look like fabrics correctly by manipulating lights or surfaces is out of my current level of skill.
Most of the time when I run into issues with how the renders turn out with Daz I fix them in Photoshop. Tweaking the rendering dials tends to cause renders to take so long that it's just faster and easier for me to improve the final image in Photoshop rather than wait 10 hours for a render.
If you are interested, please contact me at kmcclard@cableone.net.
duplicate threads merged