GUIDE - What To Buy On The Daz Store?

LenioTG

hwgs1971 said:

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.

There's no rush hwfs1971!

You can start with Daz channel, with WP Guru and with Sickleyield on YouTube!

No need to use every setting and menu, just keep in mind what you actually want to create, and do that, looking for stuff as you need it! :)

WendyLuvsCatz

maybe should add nothing new in the first 24 hours 

lisablue30

Im just setting up my new computer with Daz and i love your list of sugestions. I wish more people would come up with their own to help newbes like me get off to a good start and not waste money we don't have.Thank you very much.

anonrexamous

glad i found this thread, really helpful for sure.  Although when it comes to poses, is it really better to buy poses already made or simply pose figures yourself?  i can see how it can save time, but the cost also adds up buying pre-baked

MoreTN

Thank you so much for this list. Some really interesting products to go away and research further.

Galaxy

anonrexamous said:

glad i found this thread, really helpful for sure.  Although when it comes to poses, is it really better to buy poses already made or simply pose figures yourself?  i can see how it can save time, but the cost also adds up buying pre-baked

Poses are very useful for saving time. You can always modify a pose. I learned a trick or tips from this thread which I want to share. You can use the Ctrl key to apply pose to a particular area such as hand, feet, upper, lower etcetera.

richardandtracy

And you can get a good range of poses for free. I would really recommend Bbarbs, Itazura and OneSix on Renderosity for really top notch free poses. I am not far enough removed from mine to have an objective view of their quality, but I do quite a few too. If nothing else, they will get you close to the pose you want quite fast, and then you can tweak it to the last custom shape you need.

Bendinggrass

This is a great discussion.

Thank you, everyone.

mding

Thanks for this very helpful guide, and also thanks for the many helpful comments continuously adding to it! I learned a lot!

paulawp (marahzen)

I just ran across this thread. I haven't had time yet to read the whole thread, but thanks for taking the time to create this.

FP

One of the best things they could add for new and old people is a rating system for purchased content. I've little reason to buy a figure with a 2 star rating and 80 purchases.

caravelle

FP said:

One of the best things they could add for new and old people is a rating system for purchased content. I've little reason to buy a figure with a 2 star rating and 80 purchases.

I have also wished for such a system, but I see that it also has its disadvantages. After all, you may be one of the few who like a certain product and can use it. If you don't buy it because 80 other customers thought it was not worth the money, it's your bad luck. 

It has happened to me quite a few times that I have seen a character, mostly featureless looking young women, at the top of the hot list and wondered what the heck they were doing there. Was I supposed to buy this character only because there were enough i….s who thought she was great?

BandoriFan

I already have a system based on different things plus I'm still buying PC parts so I can actually use more than 1 figure for heavier settings or figures that have fur

Here is a note I wrote in my Wishlist:

"Prioritize Top 20, no exceptions unless bundles are over 70% off. Buying something to get deeper discount permitted.

For the list it’s Bundles, stuff for characters I made up, hair, poses, settings, and mermaid stuff in that order past top 20"

 

So I have a top 20 list, mermaid list, top 40 hair list, top 50 medieval fantasy list, top 50 space sci-fi, and top 25 steampunk and there is overlap especially with characters 

Yes poses are worth buying since they are experts at it and it doesn't take too much work using them as a base. Trying to pose on your own makes everything look too stiff 

anonrexamous

Galaxy said:

anonrexamous said:

glad i found this thread, really helpful for sure.  Although when it comes to poses, is it really better to buy poses already made or simply pose figures yourself?  i can see how it can save time, but the cost also adds up buying pre-baked

Poses are very useful for saving time. You can always modify a pose. I learned a trick or tips from this thread which I want to share. You can use the Ctrl key to apply pose to a particular area such as hand, feet, upper, lower etcetera.

In that case, what about products like "Around Me Poses and Expressions".  It comes with a Dual pose essentially for characters conforming together (there are other products like this as well), but having a heck of time finding tutorials on how to conform characters for these specific poses.  not sure if i'm even using the right phrase.

FunDi

You are a hero for posting all this, I got a hang of the ecosystem super quickly

fake.introvert2

Dear LenioTG,
i doubt you are still reading this thread but i would like to thank you for your guide!
Im gonna fanboi over you a little bit if you dont mind.

Im very new to Daz Studio! So far i just installed it, did some inbuild tutorial and googled about it for 4 days :D And i must say - THIS guide is very useful to me. Its so useful in fact that i decided to subscribe to your patreon for a few months to make a point that some people really like it very much and i really respect you spending your time on making it. It turned out though that i wasnt able to do that - maybe you disabled your patreon?

I usually dont really speak out on forums. Im more of a lurker, but seeing all replies to your guide and how i feel it was overall received made me want to pitch in.
I am a complete noob - which is exactly who this guide is targeted towards. I dont understand a lot of technical things you guys talk about. But i can tell you how it looks from my perspective.

My recent "research" told me that i shouldnt buy compulsively on DAZ Store, and to not expect to get paid really. Instead to just focus on what i need, it mentioned ways to get free/(and "free") assets and to do that for fun/pleasure instead of money. These tips are useful but they did lead me to downloading a lot of freebies and getting overwhelmed very quickly. Why? Because as a noob i dont know what i "need". I realized i was just downloading randomly without knowing what it is, how to use it and if i even need it. There was no structure to speak of. Looks hot? aright ill download.

What i needed is exactly YOUR GUIDE - a list of assets that someone actually uses, that is not bloated to oblivion like mine. And that would provide a good "playground" in DAZ Studio to learn/play around in.
You may think that its nothing much, but you would be wrong. I googled quite a bit and let me tell you - most "guides" are not helpful. Im used to learning from online courses that are comprehensive(paid ones) but i didnt really find anything like that. Resources about DAZ are fragmented. There is no roadmap or breakdown with many videos that are following logical path of progression. Your guide also is not quite that but its a good start - i can get most of what you mentioned and then learn these tools one by one. Its truly more than any guide did for me so far and i can feel energy and thought that went into making it.

I cant really be certain for many negative replies to your guide (because i dont understand a lot here) but i have some ideas:
1. they may have valid feedback - in best case;
2. they may have agenda aka sell assets so they dont look kindly to you recommending others / being frugal;
3. they may have big egos, so they downplay the guide but what they themselves offer is 1-2 sentences of generic advice or none;
4. they may have bought stuff they really shouldnt and they dont feel validated when someone points out its not needed;
5. they may be too lazy to match you on the same level of effort in reply so they just half-ass it;

To make myself clear - noone oves me anything and dont have to provide me resources. Im actually surprised there are kind people who provide these for free. During "research" i saw quite a lot of self advertisements and lack of comprehensive guides. Im doing it just for few days and i had a situation where one youtube channel that was very informative removed his channel and all videos he provided dissapeared. I thought: fair enough, maybe he moved on or maybe decided to not groom a competition. Which i can understand - apparently its tough to live off this work. I can totally see myself hoarding knowledge as well, why give it to others? But you didnt do that.

Thank you for going against this trend LenioTG!
PS: i expect most people to view this post as negative, but if someone is willing to help - can someone recommend me some paid, high quality guide? Thanks!