How long does it take you to dress a scene?
cdemerit
Posts: 505
So I'm into Day 4 of building and dressing a scene, and I'm only about half way done. Of course I'm new and the first two days were basically figuring out how to build the base set, and of course wasting a lot of time on things that could be done in five minutes,and a couple props needed major rework.... but still.
So from scratch, how long does it take you to build a set and dress it out?
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
It really depends on what you want and how much you put in your scene. I can pose and dress a single character in an hour if I have an idea of what hair, clothing and pose I want. On the other hand, if it's a scene like a ball with many dancers, that may take quite a while. Especially since for large scenes I spot render rather then trying to fit everything in all at once.
Edited to add: I don't model, so if you are also talking about making your set from scratch, you'll add even more time to your set up.
Depends on the scene, I never use the body morphs from any character package, so if the scene requires a certain type of body morph that i don't have saved, it can take me awhile to create the perfect figure for the scene. As for the interior/exterior, depends also. I tend to try things like this out first so I can have an idea how each works for later when i am building a scene. i also make lots of my own props in 3dsmax, so if I need something I don't have saved, it will take me longer while I model it.
When i first started, it would take a few days to get scenes built, but now I can do it much faster, especially since I save as many presets as i can for future use.
It all depends on the scene, the pose needed, and so forth. A lot also depends on camera angle. A close-up of a face will require a lot less fiddling of the scene itself than a distant shot will require.
However, because I am doing a web-comic and most of my scenes are panels, and I am trying to get about a page a week done, it cannot take me 4 hours to dress a scene (unless it's a scene for a splash page), or I would never get done with it. I put enough details in it and get things arranged so that they are "good enough" and then I stop and start taking renders. The lighting, camera angles, etc, are probably never going to be perfect as a result, but as long as the images serve the story, then they are doing their job.
did you set up your lights yet ? :cheese:
i used to do lights last. nao i drop a few primitives around the scene-to-be and set up lights First :lol:
Wow, I've never thought of doing that. I always do the lights last, too.
yep, lights last here also, can't imagine doing them first as that is the most important part IMO and easier to reposition than scene parts..
Some interesting points made here that I would like to explore.
FSMC, you say you don't use any character morphs. I'm interested in why. Can you go into this a bit more?
Misty, I'm interested in your idea of doing some lights first. Lately I've been adding a key light for each character that I add, one for the face if it's a close shot, for the body if it's a medium-to-distant shot, or for the legs if it's a tall girl (sorry; I gotta be me! :red:). I do this before I move on to the next character in the scene. Yes, these lights always need to be rejiggered to eliminate shadows and so forth created by characters added later, but starting with at least one light per person seems to help me.
Now I'm not a lighting genius or anything, but I have decided that I don't like dark, low-contrast scenes with no key-lighting because they seem flat and unfinished (to me). I see a lot of them that are so dark that the viewer can't tell the difference between the black, grey, or brown elements. Yet I see a lot of these in the gallery. That's weird, right? Or it it just me? Does anybody know why so many people post all-dark renders?
Sure, when i first started with poser i used to inject the full characters, but they rarely ever looked like what i saw in the promos, well mostly the bodies. Once I got a better understanding of how it all worked in poser, I started playing with the dials and made my own body shapes. Still, I was not getting the desired look i wanted, so i found out how to do morphs in external modelers. Due to quite a few nude art classes and working in the adult entertainment field I had certain looks/shapes I was going for in the figures I used in my work, plus I wanted my figures to be unique so I spent a fair amount of time with V4 and created several FBMs that I still use to this day with Genx and genesis 1 and genesis 2.
I enjoy the figure creation process as much if not more than the rest of it. With Genx, my custom morphs, all the genesis 1 & 2, gen 3 and gen 4 morphs, the possibilities are endless.
i do like using custom face morphs and i am always on the lookout for those that are not dial spun. To this day my fav is JKings Bianca.
As for your lighting questions, I use unbiased rendering and while a nice even, well lit scene is nice, you rarely see that in real life unless it is a photoshoot, so I like to explore dramatic lighting with various light sources when i can, hope that helps
I can understand this... This "set" that I've been working on, now has over 100 hrs or work into it, and I'm still not done. I expect 15-20 scenes will be needed, and who knows how many more before my project is done, so I'm trying to put as much detail into this set now, so I only need to line up the shots in the future. However, I've been having more fun building the set than actually working on the main project.
The dark renders can be the result of too bright screens. I know that when i render something at ma PC, and the look at it at my laptop, it seems to be too dark, too, though it looks perfectly fine at the PC screen.
I have Reality, but right now am focusing on getting better with 3Delight. I think it's a very good rendering engine and would like to develop my skills there. Eventually yes, Reality, and then maybe on to Octane someday. For me, all learning is good learning. The keylight thing for me is only a starting point when I'm building a scene. Eventually I'm sure I'll modify my workflow, especially as I learn new skills.
Thank you for the background!
Oh wow, this is similar to people who mix music on little speakers. They end up overcompensating for the missing bass, so often their mixes have too much low end when played on bigger systems!
I'm getting a calibration kit soon for screens, printers, and (eventually) for TV screens. Soon, all of my screens will have consistent colors, white balance, and brightness. And then maybe I'll have to go back and fix some of my old renders. :red: