The Complete Guide to DAZ Studio 4 by Paolo Ciccone

contedesfees

This book was published in 2013 and 350 pages long and claims to be comprehensive, although it's obviously dated. Never the less, it's the most recent volume I can find. Is any one familiar with it? Can someone please give me a frank review, favourable or otherwise? I really would like to develop competence with DAZ Studio and I'm working in the dark. Thanks to all.

robertswww

@contedesfees A 2013 book about Daz Studio will definitely be way out-of-date. Trying going here: http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/software/dazstudio/4/start

Then, under Documentation you will find the link to the current DAZ Studio 4.x User Guide

There are also many good how-to videos on Youtube and you could start with the Daz channel here: https://www.youtube.com/user/WWWDAZ3DCOM

Daz 3D Tutorials:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC38T95wHAxyCrOO6b1tD7Nw/playlists?view=50&sort=dd&shelf_id=7

Chohole

Paolo Ciccone is the vendor also known as  Pret-a-3D     who sold Reality as a 3rd party app.  He made Reality Open source  in 2019,   so gives you an idea how out of date the book is going to be.

Leana

contedesfees said:

This book was published in 2013 and 350 pages long and claims to be comprehensive, although it's obviously dated. Never the less, it's the most recent volume I can find. Is any one familiar with it? Can someone please give me a frank review, favourable or otherwise? I really would like to develop competence with DAZ Studio and I'm working in the dark. Thanks to all.

It it was released in 2013 then it was written for DS 4.5 or 4.6, which means before DS included features like Iray render engine (added in 4.8), dForce clothes (4.10), strand-based hair and dForce hair (4.11), Filament (4.14) and probably many more things.

contedesfees

@robertswww, @chohole, and @Leana. Thank you all very much. You're all quite correct, none of the topics that intrigue and baffle me will be covered in that seemingly attractive volume. I've always relied on RTFM, pulling out the manual was my go-to methodology. Apparently, there's no way to learn DAZ Studio but the hard way.Still, you've saved me $60.00 and I thank you for it.

margrave

contedesfees said:

@robertswww, @chohole, and @Leana. Thank you all very much. You're all quite correct, none of the topics that intrigue and baffle me will be covered in that seemingly attractive volume. I've always relied on RTFM, pulling out the manual was my go-to methodology. Apparently, there's no way to learn DAZ Studio but the hard way.Still, you've saved me $60.00 and I thank you for it.

If you really want to spend sixty bucks learning Daz Studio, you could always shell out for the tutorials they sell. I think that's probably the most "authoritative" way to learn it.

contedesfees

Tutorials, @margrave, are what I call "learning the hard way." I'm a retired technical writer and manuals describing how the software works are my idea of "The Bible."

margrave

contedesfees said:

Tutorials, @margrave, are what I call "learning the hard way." I'm a retired technical writer and manuals describing how the software works are my idea of "The Bible."

When it comes to Daz Studio, learning the hard way means cobbling it together from forum posts and Youtube videos. That's just how things work in Dazneyland.

alexhcowley

I have a copy of this book which I bought some years ago.  It's a decent primer on DAZ Studio but is nowhere near comprehensive and, as noted above, it's way out of date.  Also, the author wastes about sixty pages describing the use of a third party render engine which most of his readers are going to have no interest in whatsoever, especially with DAZ now supporting Iray.  

Cheers,

Alex.

nonesuch00

The free step-by-step interactive built-in tutorials included with DAZ Studio are probably the best thing to teach you how to use DAZ Studio in a way that 'create an artistic render' customers want to use DAZ Studio. 

For tutorials on how to use DAZ Studio in ways that a content creator does you probably want to learn Blender 1st and DAZ Studio 2nd and do so very much via Blender.org (costs monthly sub for most tutorials)/CG Cookie (costs monthly sub for most tutorials)/YouTube searches. Note: the more often free old 2.7 tutorials are more than enough to learn Blender 2.8 & 2.9 as using the new Blender 2.8/2.9 GUI is not a big deal if you know how to use Blender 2.7.

Lighting sets by the PA Colm Jackson (Render Studio, Render Studio  Production Sets, Render Studio 2.0, Render Studio 2.0 Production Sets, Cinematic Light FX) are probably the best way to learn lighting in DAZ Studio (and elsewhere) if you study how he put them together. Those will set up back over $100 but if you are patient and in the Platinum Club you can get them over 50% and even 80% discounted very occasionally. 

StratDragon

most Nvida cards released at the time the book was published are no longer usable for Iray. that's what happens.

contedesfees

@margrave, @nonesuch00, @alexcowley, @StratDragon.  Thank you, one and all. I'm very grateful that you took the time to reply. Good advice all round. "Dazneyland." I liked that one.

margrave

contedesfees said:

"Dazneyland." I liked that one.

For $9.95, you can own it.

contedesfees

I just got it! There is a "DAZneyland" and it costs $9.95. Jeez. What a slowpoke I can be.

Leana

contedesfees said:

I just got it! There is a "DAZneyland" and it costs $9.95. Jeez. What a slowpoke I can be.

It was an April Fool's day freebie long ago.