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© 2025 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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I just made a restore head pose to remove expressions. It sort of depends on how it is made.
There is also Ultimate Zero, which has the ability to restore lots of things back to default... .Although you may find some unpleasant suprirses. Such as I found someones's character imbedded in one of mine, even though I had none of his elements dialed in. werid.
I haven't asked for a refund for Ultimate Zero, because it can be useful for some stuff, but I wouldn't suggest it for that purpose: it's slower than "restore default pose" and, at least in my tests, it leaves the expressions sliders on.
If you try that freebie I've linked (that sadly doesn't work on expressions), it's instantaneous!
Restore default pose, on the other hand, is crazy slow on big libraries.
Yeah, I pruned my library and all restore functions are optimal. So time constraints aren't an issue
I will said like nothing has said before:
LenioTG: THANKS!, for your guide.
now, I just buy Bundles and utilities, but always open to other products like your guide made me rethink priorities, Thanks again!
There's still older hair for sale that doesn't use the vertical UV mapping that's a prerequisite for all of those shader packages. Some of it is pretty unique and it would be unfair to dismiss it just because of age. I recently bought an old V4 ponytail to kitbash because nothing new looks quite like it, only to discover that it's mapped horizontally. Universal shaders simply don't work on it, I'll need to make custom maps based on the shader I decide to use on the other components in the style and if I change my mind about color or tiling or literally anything else, I'll have to make a whole new map.
With that said, I completely agree that in general it makes more sense to invest in universal shader sets. There's such an amazing selection of universal options for a good 95% of stuff, both new and old. The caveat is that buying style-specific expansions is still the right/only choice for some products, but you probably won't know until you get a look at the maps. Buy the hair first to find out, you can always come back for textures.
It's very different. I don't get purple banners, except when Daz releases new bundles full of old content and undervalues the bits I already own, so it's almost always cheaper just to buy the individual items that I want if I need them right away. Even with three or four things, the per-item price usually doesn't work out well since I don't get all the extra discounts, because I don't buy enough bundles, because I don't get good discounts, because I don't buy enough bundles... People talk in the character release threads about these cheap bundles in their carts, but those same bundles in my cart are $60-70+ after any discounts from owned items or add-ons (but not including said add-ons). One of Tara's was over $100! Daz was puffing on something that day, and I passed. I did so much math during the Tara event and the numbers were never in my favor.
Of course there are exceptions, like when Ashan 8 debuted during the summer PC+ event. $28 for the Ashan 8 pro bundle (people with banners paid closer to $22), and $10 for all three of my add-ons combined, including one of the loveliest characters I own (Ytar). Eleven out of twelve items in the pro bundle were highly relevant to my interests (buff male mages, paladins, and clerics). I paid around $2.55 for each wanted bundle item and a little over $3 for each add-on, none of which were discount filler. Fifteen items, fourteen of which I actually desired. Plus, Daz was handing out a free G8 pro bundle when you bought Ashan's.
Then the event ended, bundle prices skyrocketed for those without the banner benefit, and I stopped buying them except when a heavy discount was offered as an incentive. To be fair, that got me an even better deal on Valentino 8's, I wanted eleven out of thirteen products and at $20 for the pro bundle (after tax) that amounted to $1.82 each.
Many times I’m not interested in the bundle at all, but if it comes with several incentives like free products, store credit, gift card discount, etc... then it can be a great deal! I had no intention of getting the Twosret bundle but after cart jenga, it ended up completely free, even adding extra store credit to my account while giving steep discounts to many items I did want with the right stacking. I look at the Daz store as a crazy strategic game and if I can’t get a good deal, I just dump the cart and wait for a future sale (that sometimes could be the following day!)
It really depends on the banner. Usually it's "owning a required number of qualifying items", but "qualifying item" can refer to different things, for example "any pro bundle from that generation" (in which case not purchasing recent ones won't prevent you from qualifying), "one of the N most recent pro bundles", "previous generations of that character", or even specific items.
It definitely varies a lot. Some people seem to get every one, and others (usually those who own fewer bundles) just get them when they're advertised as a sale incentive for something they bought. I only own five Genesis 8 pro bundles right now because of that and often joke about how one day I'll finally have accumulated enough through various sales and giveaways to get a purple banner... and that will trigger Genesis 9 to drop and I'll have to start all over again, lol. Part of me wishes I'd used the Icing coupon on pro bundles, and I'd buy a couple today if it could be used again, but I needed other things.
I did get one purple banner, now that I think about it. I'm pretty sure it was an advertised benefit tied to Ashan 8, 20% off of the pro bundle for the next character release. No indication of who that might be, naturally; I seem to remember it turning out to be Kayo. There was (and still is) literally nothing of use to me in that bundle, and since the PC+ sale had ended it was 20% off a much higher starting price. So I passed.
Haven't gotten one since, apart from a rather insulting pittance on Tara for already owning something like 35% of the bundle. I would have bought the bundles for Scar, Celani, and Twosret if they'd given me purple banners for them, but they didn't and so I didn't.
This is exactly the approach I take.
I would add that, when counting the desired items, I only count the items I really want. I don't count items that I would use if I have them, but don't have a particularly strong need for.
You're welcome Zilvergrafix! :D
Thanks, I didn't know that!
@LenioTG I feel so honoured you mentioned me, thank you so much :)
It's my pleasure to have the chance to use your beautiful figures! :D
Thank you very much for the effort and explanations, I agree with most of it.
I am using Daz since 2015, and these are some things I would add as useful (i.e. I use them a lot):
Bone doctor for converting poses
https://www.daz3d.com/bone-doctor-pose-control
My favorite G8 female character
https://www.daz3d.com/ly-zara-hd-for-genesis-8-female
My favorite G8 male character
https://www.daz3d.com/dylan-for-michael-8
My favorite jungle
https://www.daz3d.com/jungle-construction-kit
My favorite HDRI
https://www.daz3d.com/dry-mud-desert-iray-and-add-ons
FYI, it zeroes the expression sliders if you have "Zero Properties" checked.
Now, that's VERY useful, thank you RiverSoftArt! :D
Yes, like this is fast, and that's what I hoped to achieve in the first place!
It could be faster in the script loading phase, but it's probably faster than manually zeroing the sliders in the end.
You're welcome @alienarea! :D
I've wishlisted the HDRI!
Because there are so many older products in the store that still look like they should be fantastically powerful but have been replaced by better tools or broken by a newer version of DS, just having a recent list of things people have good experiences with would have been enormously helpful when I was starting out. I did forum research but it was really easy to fall down a hole (the forum search is imprecise and I have ADHD).
I'll definitely be passing this guide along to some folks I know who are interested in the program, thank you! :D
Thank you for your kind words plasma_ring, I'm glad you're finding it useful! :D
Dunno if anyone has mentioned this yet, but my favorite lights the Cake One Click N Render HRDIs. They really are one click, then just rotate the dome to taste. Nice to have a subtle neutral backdrop with the dome on plus great lighting if you turn it off and do composites.
https://www.daz3d.com/click-n-render-ibl-set
When I first used Victoria 4, I wish somebody had told me don't get the Elite Body Shapes because nobody is going to support all three. And you can create very similar shapes with Morphs++, which you're probably going to need anyway. I guess non-standard morphs don't matter as much now that the clothes follow whatever shape the character is. But I think telling people what not to buy, and why you shouldn't buy it, might be more helpful than telling them what to buy. Or at least equally helpful.
You do not need the original product if you just want to use the HDRIs of the Dry Mud Desert Iray Add-On. The Sunset HDRI had the best light for soft portraits IMHO.
Two things to add that are not from the Daz store:
Paper Tiger's Quick HDRI Lighting Vol. 2
- it is easy to use and renders fast
DxO Photolab (www.dxo.com)
- I bought this a year ago for postwork, the NIK collection of filters is included. It is not a subscription product like photoshop and I'm very happy with it.
Appreciate the shoutout. Yep, been doing product showcases going on seven years, with wonderful forum members contributing their experiences with the products and providing renders. We all make sure to emphasize it is our opinions and tell what we like, and if we don't like an aspect of it. :)
I like having a thread with just the products referenced in a tidy list,wishing the thread much success!
That's a great set, I use it! :D
You'll find the not to buy section before the to buy one! :D
I love this also and use it very often!
Thank-you very much for writing this! I've been using Daz for almost a year and wish I'd learned all of this a long time ago. It was very helpful.
You're welcome hwgs1971, thank you for appreciating it! :D
The area where I've felt like I wasted the most money was on tutorials. I've purchased a few more than I care to admit, and only one was worth the money. I started buying tutorials because Youtube videos only go so far. I'm curious if you have opinions on which tutorials are worthwhile,
I've never bought a single tutorial!
My learning process has been "trial and error".
I used to browse the forum a lot (and there are many experts here), and I always chat on Discord with other Daz Studio creators.
Sometimes, if I need something specific, I google it, I look for videos on YouTube or I just try to come up with a solution myself!
So, I'm not the best person to express an opinion about paid tutorials!
What surely is true, is that Daz, even if it's an easier software, requires more work to learn, due to lack of resources, compared to software like Blender, where the Blender Guru channel alone can give you a pretty great start (and no, the Daz YouTube channel is useful, but it's more for beginners).
I had actually opened a Daz Studio tutorial channel myself a while back, but then I noticed my time was much more well spent on creating content myself, and I was sick of comments about my pronunciation: I get it, I'm not a native speaker, no need to point that out. So I closed it!
There are a couple of areas where I have not been able to improve. One is file types. There are many options under File > Save As. I only figured out Scenes and Scene Subsets. I'm sure there are many useful things you can do with other file types, but how? Where do you learn? That's why I bought tutorials. For example, I have been working on a scene that has 15 different scene subsets (so far). I just found newly released hair and clothes in Daz Store that fit the story I am trying to tell much better. Also I want to remove some LIE settings and remove some rings from a character. Now I face the task of opening and making the same modification to 15 different scene subsets, one at a time! Surely there is a more efficient way. Like in Visual Basic programming, you have a class object and changes to the parent cascade down through the child. I purchased a tutorial that promised to help you learn how to write comics. While overall it was good, they did not even mention these file types. How disappointing. Another area is organizing objects. My scenes exceed my 2080ti's 12 GB graphics card so I have to manually hide and unhide off-camera objects every time I change cameras. Surely there must be a more efficient way to do this, like marking them as being visible per camera. (Yes, I do use Groups.) I've purchased a dozen tutorials and none have helped with these basic workflow tasks. Haven't found YouTube videos that help explain this either.
I've been a SQL and Visual Basic developer for 25 years and just found an interest in 3D modeling as a hobby last year. There is SO MUCH MORE to this than my real job. You have to understand photography, some physics, lighting is a skill all to itself, etc. That's why I have a ton of respect for graphic artists. It requires a rare skillset of art, science, and engineering. Learning this is going to take many years, that is obvious. After I get good I may try making YouTube videos myself. All I want is one that goes through each toolbar menu item and explains what it does. That's such a basic and fundamental thing, yet I have not found any tutorials or videos that do this.