Documentation Center artzone:pub:tutorials:dazstudio

D-Form Tutorial: A Coronation of One

2011-11-01T17:42:15+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

D-Form Tutorial: A Coronation of One

We’ve used D-Formers to create a horn or two on the figure’s head, but D-Formers can also act in more subtle and efficient ways. For instance, in this tutorial, we’re going to use only one D-Former to create a “crown” of sorts on our figure’s head. We’ll do this by using the Spline Editor, and by tweaking both it and the D-Former in real time to achieve the results we want.

Let’s begin by bringing a figure into the scene… Victoria 3 RR LE (which is included in the DAZ Studio package) is a good place to start. Load her up and let’s zoom in on her head in a position where we can get a good look at her scalp.
Now, let’s select the head and attach a D-Former to it (remember to call up the D-Form Tab first, by selecting View > Tabs > D-Form.) Select Create New and name the D-Former “Crown”, which is the name we’ll be using in this tutorial.

TIP! Sometimes the Base and Handle may show up over-sized or off to one side, depending on the figure. Always position and scale the Base and Handle for convenience by manipulating the Base, and not the Handle. The Handle will scale and follow the Base accordingly without deforming the mesh.
Position the D-Former Base off to the side of the head the same way you did in the previous tutorial, using the XTranslate slider in the Parameters Tab, so that it isn’t in the way.
You can also scale the Base and Handle down a bit. Select the Base, then scale it to whatever position and size feels most comfortable for you. (In this case, we scaled the Base down to 60%, and moved the X-Translate slider off to the right by 16.0 You’re more than free to scale and place the Base to taste, however, as this will not affect the deformation at all.)
Now we can begin to position and shape the field. Select Crown_Field in the Scene tab (it will be a child of the Head node) , and move it upwards (Y-Translate) until the affected vertices are all up in the scalp of the figure, just over the eyebrows. On Victoria 3 RR, this will place the Field at a Y-Translate slider setting of around 182.43.

TIP! The more precision you use in positioning a D-former, the better your results will be, especially on the more subtle deformations. To achieve this, using the sliders in the Parameters Tab is usually the best way to go. You can always adjust the sensitivity of each slider as well for even more precision, though this is rarely necessary.
Now, let’s get some deformations going. Select the Handle (named Crown in the Scene tab), and pull it up by moving its Y-Translate slider up by a good distance (we settled on 17.0 for this tutorial). You’ll notice that the head now looks rather cone-shaped, but we’re going to fix that by using the Spline Editor.

Before we edit it, recall that a spline is a single-line representation of any area at a given distance from the center of the field. Right now, the spline is set so that the field is strongest at the center and weakest at the outer edges. What we’re going to do is modify the spline to do the opposite: We’re going to make the center of the field weaker than the edges, so that we can get the results we’re looking for.
With the Crown_Field selected in the Scene tab, click Edit Spline in the D-Form tab. The D-Form Spline Editor opens. Position the Spline Editor off to one side of the viewport so that you can observe the effects while you edit the spline.
Within the Spline Editor, verify that Crown_Field is selected in the D-Former Field drop-down menu. It should already be there by default since it is part of the only D-Former in the scene. Also, verify that the Action is set to Move.
Since there are already two points along the spline that we can manipulate, we’ll use those first. Select each point in turn and move the higher one down and the lower one upwards, so that the spline looks a lot like the figure below.

You’ll also notice that our head has now deformed accordingly (the Viewport updates each time you move and release a point.) It looks more like what we want to achieve, but it needs a bit more tweaking.
We’ve moved the two points on the spline as much as we can at the moment, so let’s add more points and manipulate those. In the left side of the Spline Editor, switch to the Insert Action mode. Click once directly on the spline at a point in between the two points already there.

TIP! If you have a hard time seeing the points on the spline, you can always make the Spline Editor window larger, which will also magnify the points along the spline and make them easier to see.
Now, switch back to the Move Action mode and move that new point down a bit. You’ll see two things: the rim of our “r;crown” will square itself off a bit more, and a slight depression is created in the center of it. The spline will now look a bit like the figure below.

TIP! The currently selected point along a spline will always show up in red, as in the example above.
Let’s work on the outer edges of the crown a bit… Using the same method just described, insert another point onto the spline, but this time place the new point on the spline as far to the right as possible and move it up just a little. The results will improve the shape of the crown even more.

One thing you’ll notice is that the center of our crown has risen a bit, but this will be fixed later. This is because the spline is affected as a whole whenever you move a point on it. The spline always tries to intersect the points that define it, so a change on one point will subtly change its whole while keeping its current points fixed on the graph.
We’ve now reached a point to where we’ll have to modify the field directly to improve our results. We’ll come back to the editor and use it, but we won’t need it at the moment. Click Accept on the Spline Editor dialog, and make sure the Crown_Field is selected in the Scene tab.

TIP! It is always a good idea to use your working camera and ’r;take a spin’ around an object being deformed once in awhile. This way you can see the whole effect, and not stumble into any nasty surprises later.
With the field selected, move and scale the field to something resembling the following values:
- Y-Translate: 182.43
- Z-Translate: -0.30
- X-Scale: 1650%
- Y-Scale: 1650%
- Z-Scale: 2050%
  
  As you can see below, this will smooth out our crown, and make it near-vertical along all sides.
Now let’s open up the Spline Editor again, and do something about the top. In the spline editor, Insert a new point between the two points towards the left of the spline, then Move it and its neighboring points as shown below. Exit the Spline Editor by clicking Accept.
Let’s put in a bit of a depression in the center of it. In the Scene tab, select the D-Former Handle (it will be named Crown.) Adjust the Handle a bit (we used the Y-Translate slider to bring it up to 14), and notice in the figure below how we have a decent-looking crown now.
Test-render the results.

Now all we need do is save the results as a morph on the figure. If you want to keep this morph, be sure to save the figure as well.
Select Victoria’s Head in the Scene tab. Then from the D-Form tab, select Spawn Morph. You will be prompted to give the new morph a name (call it CrownHead), and select OK. The new morph appears in the Parameters tab near the bottom of the morph list. You may have to scroll a bit on complex nodes such as the head.
You can now delete the D-Former and your morph will be safe. If you want to keep the morph, save the figure under a separate name.
Now all that remains is to create a render using our new morph. All we did to create the final image was the following:
- Pose the figure.
- Give her skin, lips, and pupils a greenish tint (by changing the Diffuse Color of these surfaces to a light bluish-green in the Surfaces tab.)
- Finally, create a small green-patterned backdrop in any image editor. Import that into the scene, then render the scene using the default light.

D-Form Tutorial: Creating a Head Morph

2011-11-01T17:42:15+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

D-Form Tutorial: Creating a Head Morph

Let’s begin by doing something simple and relatively useful with the D-Former. We’ll start by taking a default figure and giving it a horn. This will require a single D-Former, and is fairly simple to perform, but it will give you an idea as to how to use this rather powerful tool in an easy way.

First, load a figure into an empty scene. Make sure it has no hair, since we’re working on the head (the hair will only get in the way.) Clothes and other accessories are up to you, though if your computer isn’t very robust, you’ll find that loading just the figure will make things easier on your system resources. In our example, we are using the Aiko 3 LE figure shown below.
Now select her head in the Scene tab and use the Frame and Rotate controls (in the viewport and camera controls) to get a good close look at her forehead. With her head selected, choose View > Tabs > D-Form to open the D-Form tab. Dock it or leave it floating as you desire.
Then, click on Create New and name this new D-Former “Horn” as shown below. Click OK to create the D-Former.

You’ll see the new D-Former appear, with the field encircling the head, but the Base and Handle hidden inside the head (at the Field’s center.)

Obviously, it’s going to be pretty hard to manipulate the D-Former while the Handle and Base are buried or half-buried inside the figure’s head (as seen in Aiko’s case), so let’s bring them out to where we can see them.
Select the Horn_Base (our D-Former base) in the Scene tab (it will be a child of the head node), and move it out to a place where you can comfortably see it. An X-Translate setting of around 17 should be fine. Adjust the camera as necessary, to achieve results similar to that shown in below.

TIP! Sometimes the Base and Handle are not buried inside the node, but may show up over-sized and off to one side of the node. You can always position and scale both Base and Handle for convenience by manipulating the Base, and not the Handle. The Handle will scale and follow the Base accordingly without deforming the mesh.

CAUTION! Sometimes the Base and Handle are not buried inside the node, but may show up over-sized and off to one side of the node. You can always position and scale both Base and Handle for convenience by manipulating the Base, and not the Handle. The Handle will scale and follow the Base accordingly without deforming the mesh.
Now let’s shape the field into what we need it to be, and position it. Select the field in the Scene tab and change its size and shape so that it resembles an ovoid resting on the figure’s forehead, as shown in the figure below.

The Field settings used on this Aiko 3 figure (in her default position) are as follows (all settings not listed were not changed.)
- Y-Translate: 160.43
- X-Translate: 9.76
- Y-Rotate: 1.25
- Scale: 23%%
- X-Scale: 1800%
- Y-Scale: 1400%
- Z-Scale: 2400%
These do not have to be exact figures, but should help in positioning the field to where we need it. If we were to move the Handle now, the results would look strange, to say the least. So, let’s position the Handle and Base so that the mesh will pull at a decent angle out of her forehead. Select the Base and rotate it forward along its X-axis (in our case, we set the X-Rotate value to 50 degrees.) The Base and Handle will now look something like the figure below.
From this point, we can begin to deform the mesh. Select the Handle (the object called Horn in the Scene tab, which is beneath the Horn_Base), and begin to move the Y-Translate slider in the Parameters tab. (we set ours to 25), and watch the Handle move and the horn grow. Your results should look similar to the figure below.

If you want to see the results without all those vertices being lit up, select the figure’s head in the Scene tab. The results will now look a little like the figure below.

TIP! Deforming a mesh will also deform the textures that are applied to it, so any moderate to extreme mesh deformations should be done with this fact kept in mind.
You can (if you wish) save the results as a morph (which makes things easier on your computer). Select the head in the Scene tab, then click Spawn Morph in the D-Form tab. After you create the morph, you can delete the D-Former and simply use the new morph in the Parameters tab.

TIP! When it comes to multiple D-Formers in a scene: The more D-Formers you add to a scene, the more resources your computer is going to require. It is usually preferable to save each as a morph and then delete the D-Former if you’re only using one D-Former to create the morph. When handling multiple D-Formers in one scene, it will also be easier to manipulate them if you shut off visibility on each D-Former as you finish positioning it. You can do this by selecting the D-Former elements and shutting off visibility on each in the Parameters tab, or you can do this more easily by clicking the small eyeball icons to the right of each element within the Scene tab.

DAZ Studio 3D Basics: Cameras

2011-11-01T17:42:15+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

DAZ Studio 3D Basics: Cameras

A brief explanation of the camera system in DAZ Studio.

Shows camera movement and view options in DAZ Studio. A good introduction to 3D controls.

Download the video (larger version).
Click on the thumbnail below to start the video on YouTube (IE users may need to click twice).

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DAZ Studio 3D Basics: Content

2011-11-01T17:42:15+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

DAZ Studio 3D Basics: Content

A brief tutorial on loading different types of models. Shows the content library and how to load and parent models in DAZ Studio.

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Layered Image Editor

2011-11-01T17:42:15+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

Layered Image Editor

A tutorial using makeup layers in the DAZ Studio Layered Image Editor Plug-in featuring Ryan Bouche and published artist Ann0314.

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Level of Detail (LOD)

2011-11-01T17:42:15+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

Level of Detail (LOD)

A brief description of the LOD feature in DAZ Studio 2.0, featuring Victoria 4.

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DAZ Studio 3D Basics: Overview

2011-11-01T17:42:15+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

DAZ Studio 3D Basics: Overview

A tour of the DAZ Studio interface and the activity tabs.

A brief overview of the layout and functions of DAZ Studio with Josh Darling and Ryan Bouche.

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DAZ Studio 3D Basics: Posing

2011-11-01T17:42:15+00:00

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DAZ Studio 3D Basics: Posing

A brief overview of the 3D posing tools in DAZ Studio with Micquelle Corry and Ryan Bouche.

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Puppeteer Animation in DAZ Studio

2011-11-01T17:42:15+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

Puppeteer Animation in DAZ Studio

A demonstration of the Puppeteer tab as an animation and posing tool.

Chad Smith gives a demonstration of the Puppeteer tab in DAZ Studio 1.7

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DAZ Studio Basics: Quickstart Tutorial Step 1

2011-11-01T17:42:15+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

DAZ Studio Basics: Quickstart Tutorial Step 1

Step 1 in the Quickstart wizard in DAZ Studio 2.1. Learn how to load models into the scene and onto figures.

View the video on YouTube.

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DAZ Studio Basics: Quickstart Tutorial Step 2

2011-11-01T17:42:15+00:00

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DAZ Studio Basics: Quickstart Tutorial Step 2

Step 2 in the DAZ Studio 2.1 Quickstart wizard. Learn what the posing tools do and how to load a pose on a 3D Model

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DAZ Studio Basics: Quickstart Tutorial Step 3

2011-11-01T17:42:15+00:00

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DAZ Studio Basics: Quickstart Tutorial Step 3

Step 3 in the DAZ Studio 2.1 Quickstart wizard. Learn how to change background elements and prop models in a 3D scene.

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DAZ Studio Basics: Quickstart Tutorial Step 4

2011-11-01T17:42:15+00:00

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DAZ Studio Basics: Quickstart Tutorial Step 4

Step 4 in the DAZ Studio Quickstart guide. Learn how to change the lighting in a 3D Scene.

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<table border='0' cellpadding='0' align="center"> <tr><td> <OBJECT id='mediaPlayer' width="640" height="525" classid='CLSID:22d6f312-b0f6-11d0-94ab-0080c74c7e95' codebase='http://activex.microsoft.com/activex/controls/mplayer/en/nsmp2inf.cab#Version=5,1,52,701' standby='Loading Microsoft Windows Media Player components...' type='application/x-oleobject'> <param name='fileName' value="http://documentation.daz3d.com/studio/videos/quickstart/step4.wmv"> <param name='animationatStart' value='true'> <param name='transparentatStart' value='true'> <param name='autoStart' value="true"> <param name='showControls' value="true"> <param name='loop' value="true"> <EMBED type='application/x-mplayer2' pluginspage='http://microsoft.com/windows/mediaplayer/en/download/' id='mediaPlayer' name='mediaPlayer' displaysize='4' autosize='-1' bgcolor='darkblue' showcontrols="true" showtracker='-1' showdisplay='0' showstatusbar='-1' videoborder3d='-1' width="640" height="525" src="http://documentation.daz3d.com/studio/videos/quickstart/step4.wmv" autostart="true" designtimesp='5311' loop="true"> </EMBED> </OBJECT> </td></tr>   <tr><td align='center'> <a href="http://documentation.daz3d.com/studio/videos/quickstart/step4.wmv" style='font-size: 85%;' target='_blank'>Launch in external player</a>  </td></tr> </table>

DAZ Studio Basics: Quickstart Tutorial Step 5

2011-11-01T17:42:15+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

DAZ Studio Basics: Quickstart Tutorial Step 5

Step 5 in the DAZ Studio 2.1 Quickstart guide. Learn how to add morphs to a model and then see your first render with the included 3D models.

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<table border='0' cellpadding='0' align="center"> <tr><td> <OBJECT id='mediaPlayer' width="640" height="525" classid='CLSID:22d6f312-b0f6-11d0-94ab-0080c74c7e95' codebase='http://activex.microsoft.com/activex/controls/mplayer/en/nsmp2inf.cab#Version=5,1,52,701' standby='Loading Microsoft Windows Media Player components...' type='application/x-oleobject'> <param name='fileName' value="http://documentation.daz3d.com/studio/videos/quickstart/step5.wmv"> <param name='animationatStart' value='true'> <param name='transparentatStart' value='true'> <param name='autoStart' value="true"> <param name='showControls' value="true"> <param name='loop' value="true"> <EMBED type='application/x-mplayer2' pluginspage='http://microsoft.com/windows/mediaplayer/en/download/' id='mediaPlayer' name='mediaPlayer' displaysize='4' autosize='-1' bgcolor='darkblue' showcontrols="true" showtracker='-1' showdisplay='0' showstatusbar='-1' videoborder3d='-1' width="640" height="525" src="http://documentation.daz3d.com/studio/videos/quickstart/step5.wmv" autostart="true" designtimesp='5311' loop="true"> </EMBED> </OBJECT> </td></tr>   <tr><td align='center'> <a href="http://documentation.daz3d.com/studio/videos/quickstart/step5.wmv" style='font-size: 85%;' target='_blank'>Launch in external player</a>  </td></tr> </table>

Sub-Division (SubD)

2011-11-01T17:42:15+00:00

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Sub-Division (SubD)

A brief description of the Subdivision options in DAZ Studio 2.0 featuring the Millennium SubDragon. Instruction provided by Tony Bradt, DAZ 3D Creative Services Manager.

Download the video (larger version).
Click on the thumbnail below to start the video on YouTube (IE users may need to click twice).

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Video Tutorials

2011-11-01T17:42:15+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

Video Tutorials

DAZ Studio Quickstart

DAZ Studio 3D Basics

Animator Plugin Tutorials

Animator Tutorials: Animator DAZ Studio PlugIn

The Timeline Tab in DAZ Studio

2011-11-01T17:42:15+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

The Timeline Tab in DAZ Studio

The Timeline Tab is a simple tool for basic animation in DAZ Studio. It works on the widely-used principle of key frames, common to many 3D applications.

This article shows the very basics of the timeline tab in DAZ Studio

First, open the Timeline Tab. Go to VIEW –> Tabs –> Timeline.

You'll see the basic features of the timeline which include the arrow for the point along the timeline and the basic play buttons at the bottom (loop, go to beginning, play or pause, and go to end).

The timeline has advanced features also. To see the advanced features, click on the 'Active Tab Options' button in the upper right corner. In the little menu, choose 'Advanced.' Now you can see the advanced features.

You can use these features to create and delete key frames. Each key frame marks the position of a part of the figure at a specific point in time on the timeline. The animation then 'extrapolates' the movement of the figure or node between the two points. For example, if there is a key frame for a cube resting in the middle of the scene at the beginning of the timeline and a second key frame for the cube resting in to right of the middle at the end of the timeline, the software will make the cube move from the first key frame to the second key frame over the period of time. This the basic principle behind key frame animation.

Key Frame Tools

To add a key frame, select the figure or node to animate. Click the + key icon to add the key frame.

To delete a key frame, the figure or node with the key frame and the point in time, must be selected. So if you have a key frame from the head at the third frame, you must have the arrow at the third frame and the head selected. Then click the x key icon to delete the key frames at that point.

If you are not sure where a key frame is, you can use the skip or jump to next key frame icons. They look like keys with arrows on them. One points back and the other points forward. When you click on the button, the timeline arrow will jump to the next point where there is a key frame.

Introduction

2011-11-01T17:42:15+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

- Ordered List Item

======Animating Falling Snow====== * Unordered List Item

Author: ctown4life

Tools Needed

DAZ Studio
Any image editing program (such as Photoshop)

Support Files

Planes.zip

Introduction

Animating Falling Snow in DAZ Studio

for Mr. Finnegan's Giving Chest

Illustration 3: Jake runs through the alley

Of course there were a variety of ways we could have created the falling snow for this scene. Not only did we want our falling snow to look convincing, with variation and depth, but we also wanted it to be versatile enough to be used in several different illustrations. We needed to be able to manipulate the snow easily and in real time, according to the art direction for any particular illustration. To accomplish this we choose to animate the snow. This allowed the Art Director to find a specific frame best suited for the final still image. Ultimately we achieved our goal using a few tricks and tools that are all available within DAZ Studio.

The following tutorial will show any DAZ Studio user how they can easily accomplish the same results.

An Adobe PDF version of this tutorial is available at www.givingchest.com - Behind the Scenes.

Step 1 - Create Planes

This is just a fun preview of the falling snow inside of DAZ Studio that we are going to create.

Explanation: To animate falling snow in DAZ Studio we will create several planes to which we will add opacity maps. We will use DAZ Studio's D-Form plug-in to manipulate the snow. And in the end we will animate several of these objects.

There are several plug-ins that you may have received when you initially downloaded DAZ Studio 1.0. We will use the D-Form plug-in and the Primitives plug-in.

If you don't have those plug-ins or DAZ Studio 1.0, you can download them from www.daz3D.com. You can still finish this tutorial without any of these plug-ins, but you will need to find workarounds.

ALSO, if you don't have the Primitives plug-in, or a 3D application for creating planes to import into DAZ Studio, I have attached a DAZ Studio scene file to this tutorial that already has 9 planes ready to use. Simply download the file and unzip it. (File found right above the beginning of Step 1, it's called “Planes.zip”)Let's get Started

1.Create a plane by choosing Create – New Primitive on the menu bar. Under Type, choose Plane and make sure Divisions is on at least 8. see image02

Tip: If you do not have the New Primitives plug-in, you can always import planes from another 3D application if you have one.

Scale and rotate the plane so you get about the same result as the plane shown in the image03 example .

Redo the process so that you have about 9 or 10 identical planes fairly evenly apart from each other as also shown in image03.

Step 2 - Parenting the Planes

2. Parent the planes together by selecting all of the planes but one (Plane 2 – Plane 9) and then drag and drop onto Plane, or the one that you didn't select. see image04

Rename Plane to Snow Planes, or something fun like that.

Tip: When you place objects under other objects as we did above it is called Parenting. Parenting is a good way to organize and work with content in your scene. The highest object in the group ('Snow Planes' in our example) is referred to as the parent. The objects under the parent are referred to as the children. The children will always follow the parent. Meaning if you translate or rotate or scale the parent, the children will do the same. see image04

Step 3 - Painting the Opacity Maps

3. In a painter program, like Photoshop, we will need to make an opacity map that will later be placed on the planes that we created earlier in DAZ Studio.

Tip: The opacity map will tell DAZ Studio which parts of the geometry to show and which parts to hide. When creating an opacity map, remember that anything black will not be seen (not renderable), and anything white will! Grays will result in a transparent object proportional to the value of grey.

4.To get the effect of snow we will need a map of mostly black, with a bunch of random white spots.

- see image 05

Save the file as a JPG and put it in a logical place on your hard drive.

Tip: When making maps, whether they be for texture or opacity or whatever, it is generally best to do them in increments of 64 X 64 pixels.(i.e. 128 X 128, 256 X 256, 512 X 512, 1024 X 1024, etc.)

The higher the resolution on the map the higher the resolution on the final render, but keep in mind higher resolution maps take up more resources and can potentially cause things to slow down.5. Back in DAZ Studio, open the surface editor, Windows – Surfaces. In the top right corner click on the right arrow and make sure the Show Surface List is checked on. - see image06

In the left column, select any one of the surfaces of the planes.

Now under the Advanced tab, scroll down to Opacity Strength and click on the down arrow next to the Opacity Strength Percentage Bar.

Select Browse for image and browse to the folder where you saved the opacity map you created earlier. Select the file, and press open.

- see image06

Tip: DAZ Studio allows you to set windows anywhere in the interface. Select the tab Surfaces and try dragging it around to different parts of the screen to see how it sets itself inside different windows. It can be placed in several different locations. Choose the place that works best for you and leave it there if you'd like.

Notice if you have placed it next to another tab, you will have to select the other tab to toggle back and forth between the two. This tip can increase your optimal workflow. Repeat the process so each plane has the opacity map as its source for opacity.

Tip: you can also use the copy/paste buttons found on the bottom of the Surfaces window. - see image07

Click in order: red, blue, purple, yellow.

Step 4 - OpenGL

6. In the top-left corner of your viewport next to the camera selection button, click on the right arrow and select Texture Shaded. - see image04

Tip: DAZ Studio is Open GL, which will allow us to see all of the texture and opacity maps in real time without rendering. This is a huge benefit and will also result in optimal workflow.

Tip: In the same drop down you can find the option to change your background color, I changed mine to black to be able to see the snow better.

You should now see something like image08.

Step 5 - Create snowCam

7. Now we want to parent the snow to a new camera for a convenience we will use later on.

Make a new camera by choosing Create – New Camera under the menu bar. Rename it to something logical, such as 'snowCam'.

Under the camera selection pull down, choose the camera you just made, you should now be looking through that camera.

- see image09In the viewport spin your camera until you are pretty much looking straight at the snow. Dolly in so you are close to the first plane.

- see image10We need to offset the planes so we don't get such a uniform look. Translate the planes so each is in a little different x, y, z location. Now is a good time to play around with the initial look of your snow, feel free to play around with the location of each plane, bring some closer to the camera, or farther, until you get the look you want.

Make sure the planes farthest away from the camera do not end inside of the renderable viewport, bring them closer to the camera if you need to. - see image10_b

Step 6 - Create D-Former

In your Scene window, parent SnowPlane to snowCam.

- see image11

Because we have parented, anytime we decide to change the position of the camera in our scene the snow will follow.8. Now we need to set up some deformers. (If you don't have the D-Formers plug-in, skip this chapter and go to number 9)

Start off by selecting ALL of the planes. (the children and the parent)

Goto Create – New D-Former on the menu bar. In the Scene window it should have created a D-Former_1_Base, a D-Former_1 and a D-Former_1_Field, unless you changed the name. We will use all of these.

- see image12

Tip: D-Formers are a powerful tool and can yield some great results. On the menu bar under Windows you can find a D-Form window. This window will give you more tools for D-Formers such as adding nodes, editing the splines, and even spawning morphs for you figure. We will not use those tools in this tutorial, but they are worth learning.

Step 7 - The Timeline

9. We will first animate the Snow falling. On the menu bar go to Windows – Timeline. Set the values as you see in image13 for: Total, Range, and FPS.

Make sure the playhead (large red triangle pointing down, see image13 red circle) is on frame 0, we are going to set a key on it. Let me explain a few tools found on the Timeline. See image14.

1. Loop – when you press play (7) it will loop the playback.

2. Add Key – will add a keyframe to the frame the playhead is on.

3. Delete Key – will delete the keyframe of the frame the playhead is on.

4. Playrange Start – will bring the playhead back to the first frame in your range.

5. Skip to Previous Keyframe – will go to the next keyframe to the left of where the playhead is.

6. Step to Previous Frame – will move the playhead back one frame.

7. Play – will play the animation in the range.

8. Step to Next Frame – will move the playhead forward one frame.

9. Skip to Next Keyframe – will go to the next keyframe to the right of where the playhead is.

10. Playrange End – will skip the playhead to the last frame in your range.

I will refer to several of these next

Step 8 - Animate the Snow Planes

We are now setup to animate the snow. Select Snow Planes, or the planes 'parent' in the Scene window. (at this point you should still be looking through snowCam)

Translate Snow Planes up so the edge of the snow is visible.

-see image15

Add a keyframe at frame 0 on your timeline. (button number 2 [add key] from image14)Move the playhead to frame 600, the last frame in your timeline. Now translate Snow Planes down so the edge of the snow is visible.

Notice: Here we won't have to add a keyframe since we created one on the first frame. Because we have translated our object Snow Planes, the last frame holds a different value for the translation. So DAZ Studio will create a keyframe for us. Keep this rule in mind, if you already have a keyframe and you translate, rotate, or scale your object, it will set a keyframe where ever your playhead is. If you're not paying attention this could add more animation then you may want.

- see image16

Scrub (move) your playhead across the timeline to see if the snow moves. If it does you're on track, if not, go back and figure out what you missed.

Step 9 - Animate D-Former part1

Now we are going to animate the D-Former Field, so select it in the Scene window. Under the Parameters window set the Opacity, found at the bottom, to 100%. This will allow us to see what we are doing.

Let's get into a different camera view. Under the select camera pull down choose your perspective camera.

Scale the Field so it is about 2 or 3 times larger than all of the planes. It should look something like image17.

FYI: All of the dots represent the vertices of the geometry. The more red a vertex is, the more the field will influence it. The more yellow, the less the field will influence it.

Make sure the playhead is at the beginning of the timeline. (button number 4, [Playrange Start] from image14). Translate the D-Former Field so that its origin is behind the camera.

- see image18

Also, make sure you don't go too far, you still want the last plane to be inside of the field. The vertices farthest from the camera should be yellowish.

Step 10 - Animate D-Former part2

Move the playhead to the last frame on the timeline (button number 10, [Playrange End] from image14) and translate the D-Former Field so that its origin is on the far side of the planes.

- see image19

Notice how everything has also translated down, this is correct and good. We will now animate D-Former_1. Select it in the Scene window.

Also, let's go back and look through the camera we created, snowCam.

Make sure the playhead is at the beginning of the timeline. (button number 4, [Playrange Start] from image14).

Translate D-Former_1 to 100 on the Z-axis. Look in the Parameters window under the Z Translate dial to get it accurate. (or you can right click and type in the value 100)

- see image20

Add a keyframe at frame 0 on your timeline. (button number 2 [add key] from image14)

Move the playhead forward so you are on frame 200. And translate D-Former_1 back to 0. (or type the value in the Z Translate dial) A keyframe will be made automatically by DAZ Studio.

- see image20

Move the playhead forward so you are on frame 400. And translate D-Former_1 back to 100.

Move the playhead forward so you are on the last frame (button number 10, [Playrange End] from image14) and translate D-Former_1 back to 0.

Step 11 - Customizing and Final Notes

TA DAH!!! We're Done, scrub the playhead across the timeline or press the Play button and watch your beautiful snow blow in the wind.

Feel free to play with the values of the keyframes we made. For example, if you want it to feel windier simply change keyframes 0 and 400 from 100 on the Z Translate to a much higher number, like 200. Also, to get a less uniform look, change the location of your keyframes (by deleting and re-adding on a different frame). You could also add new keyframes on different frames.

Save the file as 'Falling Snow' or something like that, and in the future when you have a scene you want to add snow to, simply open this file and there ya go. Scrub the timeline until you find the perfect frame for your scene and your set.

The falling snow that you learned in this tutorial was made to meet the needs of a specific still image. Although it has proven to be versatile, the animation is still rough. If your final product was an animation rather than a still image, you would want to spend more time refining it.

We hope you enjoyed this tutorial and behind the scenes look at

the making of Illustration 3 in

Mr. Finnegan's Giving Chest

Please visit www.givingchest.com for more on Mr. Finnegan's Giving Chest.

Animation with Poses using DAZ Studio

2011-11-01T17:42:16+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

Animation with Poses using DAZ Studio

Author: Gary_P

Tools Needed

DAZ Studio
DAZ Troll or another figure

Introduction

Animating with DAZ Studio is a great way to get started in the world of 3D. I have been animating in Poser for a year now, and I like DAZ Studio much more. Is it the OpenGL, or the ease of moving body parts? I don't know. I only know it is my choice of animating programs.

In this tutorial I am going to show you how easy it is to animate a character without touching any body parts, using only stock poses, and the new DAZ Troll.

Step 1 - Setting up your screen

The first thing you want to do is set up your screen.

Open the Windows menu and choose Timeline or just press Ctrl+6.

Now move your cursor to the top of the timeline window until it turns into a 4 way arrow. Click and drag the timeline so it docks to the top of the screen like this.

Now bring in the character you are going to use.

Since I just got the DAZ Troll, I'm going to use him, but you may use any character you like.

In this animation, my character is going to stretch his arms in the air like an angry Troll.

Then he is going to bring them down and crouch and go into a fighting position.

Step 2 - Animation Background

First a little background. In DAZ Studio you can animate anything in your scene.

This includes any objects, lights, and cameras.

Every item in your scene has different settings or parameters that can be changed to produce an animation. You may also animate any object's scale, rotation, translation, and shape. You may also animate any of your light's color, position, and intensity.

Creating an animation means making only small changes to an object over time.

An Animation is created by assembling a lot of individual images also known as frames. When a series of frames that vary slightly from one frame to the next are displayed one after another, very quickly, your eyes see them as movement.

Step 3 - The Animation Timeline Window

The Animation Timeline window looks a bit scary at first, but it's not as bad as it looks.

Along the top is the slider control, or the scrubber. The scrubber is used to quickly find specific points within your animation.

You simply click and drag the Scrubber to navigate your animation.

You also use the scrubber to mark out the individual frames in your animation.

Frames are points in time where you set the pose. Let's say we want our character to lift his arm. We set the current frame position to 1, pose him with his arm down by his side, and set one of the dials on the right side of the screen. This sets what is called a key frame.

Then we set the current frame to a higher number like 30 and pose him with his arm over his head, which sets another key frame.

When the scene is rendered, DAZ Studio will create 30 individual frames (or pictures) numbered from 1 to 30 with our character's arm in positions from his side to over his head.

This process is also called tweening, because DAZ Studio is creating the frames in-between the key frames.

Rendering is a fancy word for a program's ability to create your scene, calculating all of the textures, shadows and lights, and producing a finished image.

Because DAZ Studio uses OpenGL, we can see the actual animation without rendering, and then render it when we want the finished product.

At the lower-left is where you set the total number of frames.

Next to it to the right is the Range. This sets up the From and To frames on the upper top portion of the timeline.

It's like zooming in on the timeline. Let's say we are working on a big animation, and the timeline is set from 0 to 510 frames (17 seconds).

In order to see the individual frames, you could set the range from 0 to 90. This would not change the total number of frames, just the frames that are viewable on the timeline.

Next to the Range is the Current frame. You can type in a number here to move the timeline to a frame, or slide the slider to that frame. Next to it is the time code display. This displays the exact time of your animation in hours, minutes, seconds, and milliseconds.

Next to the time code display is the FPS, or Frames per Second. Animations typically run anywhere from 15 to 30 frames per second. This means that it takes 30 frames of pictures to create one second of animation. It's no wonder that animation companies have super computers that do all their processing overnight.

Next over to the right is the loop button. If you turn this on, your animation will continuously play until you press the stop button.

Next over to the right is a button for deleting keys at the current time. This deletes any key frames on the current frame, depending on what body part you have chosen. For example if you have moved an arm at frame 25, and also moved a hand at frame 25, then selected the hand, and pressed this button, the key frame for just the hand would be deleted.

The next buttons are really easy.

They are (from left to right):

Skip to Beginning – this sets the timeline to the first frame.

Skip to Previous Keyframe - this moves the timeline to the previous keyframe you set.

Go to Previous Frame – this steps back one frame.

Play/Pause Animation – this starts and stops the animation.

Go to Next Frame – this steps forward one frame.

Skip to Next Keyframe - this moves the timeline to the next keyframe you set.

Skip to End – this sets the timeline to the last frame.

That's it for the controls.

Step 4 - Animating our Troll

Click your mouse on the Orbit Camera button and drag your viewpoint around so you can get a good view of this guy.

Well, this is not a very good pose to start off in. He looks more like he's getting ready to take off and fly then growl and fight, so we'll tweak him a little.

I'm going to show you how to cheat big time on animating this guy.

In the pose library, you will find DAZ Troll. Scroll down to the pose called Standing and, making sure the figure is selected in the main window, double-click on the Standing pose.

Now Mr. Troll is set to begin and it only took us a second to set this pose. I use this technique for Vicky and Mike all the time.

Now to figure out how long it would take him to move his arms up into a roaring position. I went out and bought a cheap stopwatch. I paid under 10.00 USD for it, and I torture my wife with it all the time.

But you can use yourself, or your friends for this. Set the timer, and see how long it takes for your subject's body to move into a position. Too long and it looks like he's stuck in time. Too short and he looks like the Son of Flash.

We're going to use one second for him to bring his arms up to a roaring position. Then we are going to use another second for him to move into a fighting position. Set the Total frames to 60, being 30 frames per second, times two seconds.

And while you are at it, please set the Range from 0 to 60 also.

Set the time slider to 30 for the first second.

Scroll or move to the pose that says ROAR!!!. This will set Mr. Troll to the arms up roaring position we want.

It is useful to note here that we now have a small animation and we did not have to move a single arm or leg by hand.

We could just slide the slider to 60, and choose the pose called Crouch, but BEFORE WE DO, let's think about this for a second shall we?

What will happen if we do this? Mr. Troll will go from a standing position to raising his arms and immediately bring them down to a fighting position. Looking like he just had a great stretch and yawn, he's ready for battle. Nope, that is not what we want here.

We want him to hold his arms over his head for a full 2 seconds.

Step 5 - Adding Frames

Wait! We already set up our timeline, right? Yes, and no.

DAZ Studio is so easy to use, that we can extend and retract our timeline as many times as we want to.

Note, that if we retract it, then we'll lose the frames past the point of retraction.

Let's set our timeline to 120 (30 times 4), and also set the Range from 0 to 120.

Now set the current frame to 90 and choose the ROAR!!! Pose.

Hang on a minute! We just did that. Yes, and we need to do it again because if we don't, then Mr. Troll will just take longer to bring his arms down to his sides.

Confused? I thought so. It took me a while to get this down too.

Please let me explain how this works.

At frame 0, start the pose.

At frame 30, raise your arms. So the arm raising will take place from 0 to 30. Great.

At frame 120, go into a Crouch. So the Crouch will take place from frame 31 to 120. No! That's not what I wanted.

Ah! Get the picture? Here is the correct order:

At frame 0, start the pose.

At frame 30, raise your arms. So the arm raising will take place from 0 to 30. Great.

At frame 90, raise your arms. So since there is nothing to do, I will stand still with my arms raised. Great.

At frame 120, go into a Crouch. So the Crouch will take place from frame 91 to 120. That's what we wanted.

Ok, now let's set our frame pointer to 90, and choose the ROAR!!! Pose.

Now we will set our frame pointer to 120 and choose the Crouch pose.

All finished. Click the Skip to Beginning button, and then play the animation by clicking the Play button.

Step 6 - Fixing Things

What's wrong with him?

He's raising his arms, then stretching out his big gut, and then going into a Crouch position. Well unless he's in a beer belly show off's, this is not what we want. What happened?

This is called an Anomaly. Something in the sea? No, it's a fancy name for a glitch in the system.

My dictionary calls it a deviation or departure from the normal or common order, form, or rule.

There is nothing wrong with DAZ Studio, or your computer. It's the software thinking for you again.

So how do we get rid of it? I have not figured out a perfect way yet. This happens in Poser also.

We'll try setting out timeline to 60, and choose the ROAR!!! Pose. Now it does not look so bad.

You can pin the pose even more rigidly by applying the ROAR!!! pose to frames 31 and 89 instead.

Step 7 - Finishing Up

So there you have it. A full animation that only took about 10 minutes to make, using some stock poses.

Like I said at the beginning of this tutorial, you could have used Michael, Vicky, or any other character for this.

I chose the DAZ Troll because I think he is very cool.

The only thing to watch out for, is when the character moves from one pose to the next and moves one body part through another. The figure's arm or hand might move through its belly.

But that's another tutorial.

Any questions or comments please IM me here at DAZ.

Happy animating!

Quick walk cycle using Puppeteer in DAZ Studio 1.7

2011-11-01T17:42:16+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

Quick walk cycle using Puppeteer in DAZ Studio 1.7

Author: Korvar

Tools Needed

* DAZ Studio 1.7

Introduction

Puppeteer allows you to create interesting animations by smoothly changing between keyframes using an intuitive mouse-based interface. This tutorial is going to show how to use Puppeteer to create a simple walk cycle that can be slowed down or sped up, even made more realistic or exaggerated, easily and on the fly. More complex versions of this technique can be used to get your characters dancing, to a rhythm you choose!

Step 1 - Enter Walter

For this tutorial, I will be using Walter, from the 3D Starter Pack, but you can obviously use any character you like. Start a new DAZ Studio scene, and load up Walter (by default, in Figures - > DAZ Characters).

Step 2 - The Contact Pose

The first thing to create is the “Contact” pose - the pose where the front leg is furthest forward, just as the heel makes contact with the ground.

You can either pose Walter using the image as a guide, or use the following values:

BODY: yTrans -9.58

Left Thigh: xrot 9.33

zrot -10.00

Left Shin: xrot 49.86

Left Toe: xrot -45.00

Right Thigh: xrot -40.00

yrot 2.87

zrot 6.87

Right Foot: yrot -9.74

Left Shoulder: xrot -50.00

yrot -70.00

zrot -50.00

Right Shoulder: xrot 50.00

yrot -70.00

zrot 50.00

Step 3 - Add a dot

Once you're happy with your pose, bring up the Puppeteer tab. Make sure the “Edit” option is checked, then click somewhere on the grid to place a dot. This dot represents the pose you have just created. When in Preview or Record mode, as you drag the mouse pointer over this dot, the character will assume the associated pose.

One of the things that makes Puppeteer so powerful is that you can place these dots anywhere you like - customizing the interface to the particular animation you're creating. For the purpose of this tutorial, put it a little to the left, as shown.

Step 4 - Second Contact Pose

Now it is time to create the other passing pose - when the other leg is in front, and the first leg behind. We could go through all the same setting up process as before, but it's quicker and easier to use the Symmetry function. Make sure you've got some part of Walter selected, then go to the Parameters tab, then click on the triangle at the top right corner. Select the “Symmetry…” item from the menu that pops up.

Nodes: Root

Propagation: Recursive

Direction: Swap Left and Right

Trunk Nodes: Mirror Y|Z Rotations

Once you have done that, add another dot to the Puppeteer grid, to the right of the first one.

Step 5 - The Passing Pose

Now we are going to create the “Passing” pose - that moment in the walk half-way between the two Contact pose, where the legs pass each other.

Again, you can use the image as a guide, or use the following numbers:

BODY ytrans 1.58

Left Thigh xrot -45.36

yrot -1.15

zrot -8.10

Left Shin xrot 80.05

Left Foot yrot 4.99

Left Toe xrot -21.89

Right Thigh xrot -14.69

yrot 1.07

zrot 8.19

Right Shin xrot 25.61

Right Foot xrot -9.21

yrot -4.74

Right Toe xrot -4.50

Left Shoulder xrot 2.65

yrot 3.25

zrot -69.26

Right Shoulder xrot -2.65

yrot 3.25

zrot 69.26

Once that pose is done, place a Puppeteer dot, between and below the two Contact pose dots.

Step 6 - Mirror the Passing Pose

Mirror the pose again, the same as in part 4. Place the fourth and final Puppeteer dot above the others, to form a little diamond.

Step 7 - Preview

On the Puppeteer tab, click the “Preview” radio button. While in Preview mode, you won't be able to change the pose dots - instead, the pose dots will change your character's pose.

To animate Walter, click and drag somewhere in the diamond of pose dots. As you move the mouse with the mouse button pressed down, you should get a feel for how this changes Walter's pose. Basically, as you move the mouse pointer closer to a dot, the closer Walter's pose matches the one stored in that dot. When the mouse pointer is between two dots, Walter's pose will be a blend of the two poses.

So, how to make Walter walk? The way the pose dots are set up, anti-clockwise circles will cycle between the poses in the correct order for a walk cycle.

By varying how fast you make your circles, you can vary Walter's speed. By making your circles wider or narrower, you can change how exaggerated the walk is. And most importantly, you can make these changes in real time.

Step 8 - Record

Once you've practiced a bit, you'll want to actually record a take.

Click on the “Record” option on the Puppeteer tab. This acts like the “Preview” option, except that as soon as you click on the main Puppeteer grid, DAZ Studio will record, stopping only when you'release the mouse button. Keyframes will be added to your animation as required.

If you're unhappy with the result, you can undo what you've done by clicking on the triangle at the top right of the Puppeteer tab, and select the “Clear Layer Animation” option.

When you're happy with the results, you can render your animation.

Step 9 - Next Steps

This is a very simple setup for a walk cycle. You can refine this easily enough, by adding more poses, in-between the four already created.

Instead of manually posing Walter, you can use the Preview mode to find the pose you like, then switch back to Edit mode to create a new dot. Arrange the new dots to create an octagon of pose dots.

You can load an audio clip - for example, some music - using the Audio item in the Edit menu. As you can vary the tempo of your walk on the fly, you can easily match Walter's walk to the right tempo.

The real power of Puppeteer is that you can set it up the way you like, to match your own style or the needs of you particular project. If you don't like anti-clockwise circles for your walk, you can set it up for clockwise circles instead. You can alter the position of the pose dots, and the distance between them, to match what works for you.

The possibilities are endless!

The DAZ Studio Timeline Explained

2011-11-01T17:42:16+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

The DAZ Studio Timeline Explained

Author: ByteMe72

Tools Needed

DAZ Studio 1.0
DAZ Studio Base Content

Introduction

This tutorial assumes that you have read the DAZ Studio manual and practiced the introductory tutorial presented there. You should be comfortable with the basic DAZ Studio interface before proceeding. This tutorial will expand on the information presented in the manual, in relation to animation. By the time you have completed this tutorial, you will have a basic grasp of how to produce motion in your characters, objects, and scenes and how to control that motion.

Step 1 - THE PARTS OF THE TIMELINE EXPLAINED

The image above shows the DAZ Studio Timeline, which can be opened by going to the Windows menu and selecting “Timeline” from the options presented. Alternatively, you can press Ctrl+6 (Command-6 in Mac OS X) to make the Timeline visible. Like any other pane in DAZ Studio, you can maneuver the pane anywhere you like on screen, or even “dock” it in place (such as at the top of the screen). Click on the bar along the top of the Timeline to drag it around.

The Timeline has two tracks: the Playrange Track in the top half and the Frames Track in the bottom half (most of the names in this tutorial are of my devising based on typical industry terms; DAZ may later write a proper manual with different names). The Playrange Track shows you how many of the total number of frames (in the entire animation) can be accessed in the Frames Track. The Frames Track allows you to actually select a specific frame (within the range specified). The reason for this is simple: your animation could be huge (potentially in the thousands of frames if you had enough memory and a fast enough computer). If all you had was the Frames Track, the Timeline would be so crowded with frames that you would have a hard time finding and selecting the one you want. By using the Playrange Track, you can “narrow down” the number of frames displayed in the Frames Track in order to make it more manageable. Using the Playrange Track in this way also limits the number of frames played when you preview the animation in the View Port, as will be described shortly.

The red triangle in the Frames Track is the Timeline Slider control (I usually just say “Timeline Slider, ” or sometimes the “Scrubber”). The Timeline Slider marks the frame you are currently working in. You can move to a different frame by clicking and dragging the Timeline Slider to the new frame (this action is called “scrubbing” by some people, hence the nickname “Scrubber” for the control itself). Alternatively, you can just click in the Frame Track at the point you want to go, and the Timeline Slider will jump to that frame.

Below the Frames Track are some information fields and controls that you can use to control various aspects of the Timeline and the animation in general. From left to right, they are as follows:

Total: This field displays the TOTAL number of frames in your complete animation. When you create a new empty scene, the Timeline defaults to 31 frames total (just over a second at 30 Frames Per Second). You add more frames to an animation by simply typing in a new larger number in this field and pressing RETURN. At the present time, adding new frames always appends them to the END of the animation. There is currently no way (that I know of) to INSERT frames at the beginning or into the middle of the Timeline.

Range: These fields display the start frame (left field) and end frame (right field) of the range currently displayed in the Frames Track. Please note: Frames are numbered starting at ZERO. So for a Timeline that runs from 0 to 30, you have 31 frames total. You can adjust the range of frames by simply typing in new values into the appropriate fields and pressing RETURN. You can also change the range by clicking and dragging on the black triangles in the Playrange Track. The left triangle sets the start frame of the range, and the right triangle sets the end frame of the range.

Current: This field just tells you which frame number the Timeline Slider is currently on. You can jump to any frame you want by typing in that frame number and pressing RETURN.

Time Code Display: This field displays the current time code in hours:minutes:seconds:frames. You can not directly edit this field; it just tells you what the current frame's time code is at the current frame rate.

FPS: This field displays the animation's current Frames Per Second (FPS). That is, how many frames are played back per second. North American Standard television signals are played at 29.97 FPS. Many animation programs (including DAZ Studio) just use 30 FPS as a close enough approximation. Most European broadcast standards (such as PAL and SECAM) use 25 FPS. Films traditionally use 24 FPS. A lot of web video (for bandwidth reasons) use 15 FPS, which is widely considered to be the minimum for reasonably smooth video. Some applications, such as Flash, do use lower settings (10 or 12 FPS) but great care must be taken to prevent jerky motions. DAZ Studio defaults to 30 FPS, but you may enter whatever number is appropriate for you final output. Bear in mind that this setting applies to the entire animation and will not vary even if you add new frames. If you start the animation at one setting (say 30 fps) and later change your mind and alter the setting (say to 15 fps) DAZ Studio will do it's best to modify the movements of your scene and objects to match. However, I would advise against changing the setting once you start. Decide at the outset what FPS you wish to use and then stick with it. If you end up changing your output media (say from web video to broadcast video) then use a proper video editing package to do so. A safe bet is to always work with a higher setting than you need and then down sample later as desired.

Loop Button: This button toggles looping on and off for the animation. If looping is on, the animation playback will jump back to the first frame of the range and start over again when the end of the range is reached. If looping is off, the animation will stop at the last frame and the Timeline Slider will jump to (and stop at) the first frame of the range.

Play Button: This button previews the animation in its current state (subject to the Loop Button's setting and the range set in the Playrange Track). The animation is previewed in the View Port (see the DAZ Studio manual for an explanation of the View Port). How smoothly the animation is played is dependent on many factors, such as the complexity of the scene, the complexity of the animation, how fast your video card is, how much memory your computer has, and how fast your computer is. Obviously, a slow computer with little memory and an old, slow video card will not display as fast as a new fast computer with the best video card money can buy. However, the playback seen in the View Port is just a preview. No matter how jerky and otherwise unacceptable the preview may seem, only a final render to a video file will truly show you what you have. The preview should be used as a guide and a “spot check” to make sure your animation is on track (pun intended).

Create Keyframe Button: This button creates a keyframe at the current frame. A keyframe is a point at which some important motion or other change takes place. Keyframes are the basis of animation, and proper use of keyframes can make or break an animation project. Keyframes are usually set at the beginning and the end of a motion, and DAZ Studio automatically fills in the changes in between. More on this later.

Delete Keyframe Button: This button deletes a keyframe. Note: It does NOT delete the frame itself, just the keyframe setting on the frame.

Playback Control Buttons: This cluster of buttons behaves much like a VCR to control the playback of the animation preview. In order from left to right, the buttons let you jump to the beginning of the Playrange, jump to the previous keyframe, jump to the previous frame, play/pause the animation, jump to the next frame, jump to the next keyframe, and jump to the end of the Playrange. All of these actions are relative to where the Timeline Slider is located (i.e. pressing the Play Button when the Slider is on frame 15 will start playback at frame 15).

Step 2 - SIMPLE KEYFRAME ANIMATION

Now that you know the parts of the Timeline and what they do, let's go ahead and play with keyframe animation. Start with a new, blank scene and bring in the Dragonfly (go to the Content tab, select the DAZStudio folder, select the Animals folder, and double-click on the Darter DragonFly). The Dragonfly will default to the bottom of the View Port. Go ahead and position the Dragonfly somewhere in the upper left of the View Port, as shown above. Now open the Timeline and place the Timeline Slider on frame 15. Any changes you make to the scene now will be recorded on frame 15, and DAZ Studio will automatically fill in frames 0 through 14 with the appropriate motion. For example, position the Dragonfly at the bottom middle of the View Port. Then click on the Create Keyframe button. This will create a keyframe on the current frame. Now, click and slowly drag the Timeline Slider back to frame 0. You will see the Dragonfly smoothly return back to its starting point in frame 0. Now click the Play Button and watch the Dragonfly and the Timeline carefully. You will see the Dragonfly move from the upper left to the bottom middle over the course of frames 0 through 15. From frames 16 through 30, the Dragonfly will stay put at the bottom of the View Port (because you haven't yet specified any motions for it during those frames). When the Timeline Slider loops back to frame 0 at the end of the animation, the Dragonfly will jump back to its starting point. Go ahead and stop the animation by clicking on the Play button again.

Now position the Timeline Slider on the last frame (frame 30). Position the Dragonfly at the upper right of the View Port. Now click on the Play button and watch the Dragonfly. It should move in a “V” shape across the View Port repeatedly.

Stop the animation and place the Timeline Slider on frame 15. Remember that we created a keyframe at this position. Click the Delete Keyframe button to delete that keyframe. Now play the animation and observe the difference. Since you've deleted the keyframe at frame 15, the Dragonfly no longer moves to the bottom of the View Port. Instead, it just proceeds directly from its starting position in frame 0 to its ending position in frame 30 (directly across the View Port).

This is keyframe animation in a nutshell.

Step 3 - NOTES ABOUT KEYFRAMES

There are two very important properties to keep in mind about keyframes. First, keyframes are not marked or shown in any way in the Timeline. When you performed the steps above you should have noted that there is no visual cue pinpointing the location of keyframes. However, the control buttons DO allow you to jump to the previous keyframe and jump to the next keyframe. Also, it should usually be obvious from watching the animation preview in the View Port where the keyframes are: any frame where there is a major change in motion or other attributes of an object.

Second, keyframes apply to specific OBJECTS in the frame, or sub-parts of objects. In the Dragonfly example, we moved the entire Dragonfly because the entire Dragonfly was selected by default. We could also have selected individual parts of the Dragonfly (such as the wings, for example) and made keyframes of their positions as well. Go back to the Dragonfly as we left it above. At frame 7, frame 15, and frame 22, position and set keyframes on each of the Dragonfly's wings (expand the Darter DragonFly in the Scene tab, select each of its four wings in turn, and adjust the “Bend” parameter by about 10 or -10 units, depending on which side you're on and how you wish the wings to beat). Now preview the animation. The Dragonfly is now moving AND BEATING IT'S WINGS as it flies across the View Port. This is an example of an “Animation Cycle” and is addressed further in another one of my tutorials (Victoria 3 Walk Cycles). If you wish, you could go back to frame 15, select the WHOLE Dragonfly in the scene tab, and move it back to the bottom of the view port. The wings would still continue to beat INDEPENDENTLY of the settings on the rest of the body. Likewise, you could then delete the keyframe on the Dragonfly's body (at frame 15) and the keyframes set on the wings would still be there and unaffected.

As far as I can tell, EVERY object in a scene (including lights and cameras) can be keyframed. This means that not only can your objects be moving through a scene, but the cameras and lights can be moving too.

Step 4 - TAKING THE NEXT STEP: POSES AND THE TIMELINE PART II

Click on the “Clear the Scene” icon (or select “New” in the File menu) to create a new blank scene. Then go to the Content tab, open the DAZStudio folder, open the Scenes folder, and click on the Faerie Forest folder. Double-click the icon labeled “Faerie Forest DAY” to load that scene. After a few moments, you should see something like the image above. Switch to the Scene tab and make sure “Victoria 3 RR LE” is selected (click once on her name if it is not already selected). Open the Timeline and type 61 into the Total field. This will add 30 new frames to the Timeline (notice that the Playrange Track changes to highlight only frames 0 through 30, and how the Range fields show that as well). In the Frames Track, move the Timeline slider to frame 30. Switch back to the Content tab and find the poses for the Faerie (look in DAZStudio > People > Victoria > Poses > Faerie). Double-click on the pose named “Climbing” to apply it. Now use the Parameters dials (or the Translate Tool) to move the Faerie into the upper left portion of the View Port. You should now have something that looks like this:

If you scrub the Timeline now by clicking and slowly dragging the Timeline Slider around, you will see the Faerie not only move in space (“translate in space” is the proper nomenclature) but she will also change her body pose as she moves. DAZ Studio is smart enough to shift and adjust every part of her body appropriately from the start pose at frame 0 to the end pose at frame 30. When you applied the pose at frame 30, a keyframe was automatically set for EVERY PART OF HER BODY involved in the pose.

Step 5 - TAKING THE NEXT STEP: POSES AND THE TIMELINE PART II

Let's adjust the Playrange Track to show our entire animation. Either drag the right Playrange marker all the way to the right, or just enter 60 into the right Range field. Either way, you will now be able to access the additional 30 frames of the animation that were added in the step above. Now place the Timeline Slider on frame 60. In the content pane, apply the “Cast Spell 02” pose. Use the parameters dials or the Translate Tool to move the Faerie into the middle left-hand portion of the View Port. You should now have something that looks like this:

Now preview the animation (notice that since we've selected the entire animation in the Playrange Track, you will see the entire animation from frame 0 to frame 60). Since we now have 61 frames total and the animation is being run at the default 30 FPS, the total animation should be about 2 seconds long. If your machine is not fast enough to preview the animation smoothly, just “scrub” the Timeline by dragging the Timeline Slider along. The resulting animation isn't bad at all, for the amount of effort put into it. Using preset poses helps save a great deal of time, since otherwise you would have to do all the posing yourself. Furthermore, if there's something you don't like about the in-between frames (commonly called the “tween” frames) you can always create new keyframes in the problem spots and adjust the movement or positioning of the various elements of your scene.

Step 6 - RENDERING TO VIDEO

So far, we've just been previewing the animation by watching it in the View Port. Even on faster machines, the animation is unlikely to be smooth. To REALLY see what you have, you must render the animation out to a video file. To do this, bring up the Render Settings dialog by going to the Render menu and selecting “Render Settings…”

First, choose whatever render settings you wish in the Speed section. I find that on the appropriate hardware, OpenGL hardware renders are both fast and very high quality. For the ultimate quality, use the 3Delight software renderer. Just be aware that the software renderer could take a LONG time to finish, since you are producing 61 WHOLE PICTURES for your video file. Basically, use whatever settings you might normally use for your stills. Refer to the DAZ Studio manual for more information regarding the quality settings and the Advanced tab. In the Style section, I always leave it set to normal (the cartoon setting only works with certain video cards and is used in specialized applications anyway).

Second, in the Dimensions section you can choose the frame size for your video. DAZ Studio defaults to using the View Port size, but by using the drop-down menu you can set other sizes as desired. For the curious, DV video streams (as used by many video editing programs) are typically 720 x 480. However, to maintain proper aspect ratios I often use 720 x 540 and let the video editor do the aspect translation for me.

Third, in the Timeline section check the “Make Movie” radio button. DAZ Studio usually defaults to outputting whatever the Playrange Track is set to. You can override that and directly tell DAZ Studio what range you wish to render. This is useful for rendering only subsets of very long animations. For our purposes, just make sure the whole animation (from 0 to 60) is set.

Fourth, in the “Render To” section select the “File” radio button and then use the button marked “…” to choose where you want the video file and what you wish to name it.

Click the Accept button and then render the animation like you would any other render (i.e. click on the Render Button or select “Render” from the Render menu or use Ctrl+R/Command-R). Now go get some coffee. Maybe a lot of coffee, depending on how fast your machine is. You may even wish to let it render overnight, if your machine is REALLY slow. DAZ Studio will give you a progress read-out in the status bar at the bottom of the screen. Eventually the render will finish, and what happens next depends on what kind of system you have. On a Windows computer, you will be asked for a Codec setting. Codecs are outside of the scope of this tutorial, but lots of information can be had by Googling around. I typically use the No Compression setting, and use other software for my editing and compression needs. Once that has been set, the file will be compressed (or not) and saved as you specified. On a Mac OS X computer, DAZ Studio defaults to PNG compression automatically. This is a good choice too, as it is a “lossless” codec that retains full quality. You can then use whatever video compressor you wish (I use Quicktime Pro on both platforms with excellent results).

Open up the video file and play it on your favorite video playback tool. If you used the No Compression option in Windows, be aware that the video file could be HUGE. You would be well advised to go ahead and compress it with something like Windows Media Player or Quicktime Pro (say using the MPEG-4 codec or the like) and THEN watch it. The video will play much smoother.

You now know about as much as there is to know about the Timeline. It is a simple tool without many of the features found in more advanced animation tools. The reason is simple: DAZ added this feature very late in development and has been focusing its resources on making sure the rest of the program works correctly. It is widely expected that as DAZ Studio progresses, the Timeline will pick up more features (such as, ahem, visible keyframe markers…) and tools for vastly improved animation. I really look forward to that day. I hope you have enjoyed this tutorial and learned something useful.

Glitter Snow

2011-11-01T17:42:16+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

Glitter Snow

Author: Ruri ruri

Tools Needed

* DAZ Studio

Support Files

*Trans.zip

Step 1: Creating the weather prop

Using DAZ Studio, create your scene with your chosen props and content. You then will create two cube primitives.

Scale them larger than your scene. Make sure your camera is outside the cube.

Step 2: Adding the map

Open the surfaces box from the view menu. (View, Tabs, Surfaces) Select the cubes in the list of surfaces. Download the support file and extract it to a folder. Load it under opacity in the Surfaces box.

Make the diffuse 100% white. Set the Ambient and Specular to any two different bright colors depending on what you want. The Specular and Ambient strength should be set at 100%.

Step 3: Add a light

Add a distant light.

Don't worry about posing the light it doesn't really matter but you are free to add whatever lights you need for your scene. There should be at least one distant light.

Step 4: Rendering

Open the render setting Box. Go to render next to the view menu and click on render settings. A box will appear on the screen with two tabs at the top, General and Advanced. Click on Advanced. Check the circle that says: Use software 3Delight.

Then Click on the General tab. The render style should be normal.

Here is a finished picture

Step 5: Animating it (Optional)

If you want animated snow/ glitter then go to the view menu, tabs, and then timeline. There should be a total of 31 frames and the Range should be 0-30 click on Frame number 30.

Now select ONE of you cubes in the scene. Go to Parameters under rotation there should be an X, Y, and Z. Make Y rotation any number between 100-900.

Step 6: Rendering the animation

Open up the render setting box. Make sure you are on the General tab. In the section before the bottom there should be a section called timeline. Fill the circle next to make movie Start frame should be 0 and the end frame should be 30. Then in the bottom section should Say Render to. Click Movie File. You can change the name of your movie in you want. Now go ahead and render.

Camera Parameter: Focal Length

2011-11-01T17:42:16+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

Camera Parameter: Focal Length

Author:robert952

Tools Needed

* DAZ Studio

Step 1 - Definitions - the basic stuff

You need just a bit of theory on lenses. Don't worry, nothing heavy like refraction properties, diopter measures, and calculated light loss; just some definitions.

Focal point: When you set a photographic lens' focus ring to infinity, the place behind the lens (inside the camera) where light rays converge to a point is the focal point. This point of light touches the film plane to expose the image to the film.

Focal Length: The distance from the center of the lens to the focal point is the focal length of the lens. This means a 50mm lens (considered a normal lens) is 50 mm long. A 200 mm lens is (you guessed it) 200 mm long. Mirrors, refraction properties of glass and modern technology change the real length of some lens, but this is the background to help understand how a lens is measured. Focal length is the parameter that you can adjust in DAZ Studio.

Field of view: The area viewed through a lens is the field of view. A short lens has a wide field of view and, conversely, a long lens has a narrow field of view. Your eyes are considered to be about 35 mm and you see a more or less panoramic view as you look around. When you look through a tube (such as a paper towel roll), you'reduce your field of view to some small portion of your surroundings. Long lenses 80 mm and longer, do the same thing: reduce your field of view.

The magic comes into play since the long lens magnifies the image you see in the narrow field of view, and fills up the view finder, and, of course, the image onto the film. You see the object or scene as a close up (telephoto) view.

Step 2 - How this works - 50 mm (default) lens

The previously defined three factors when combined give the photographer a choice in tools he needs for different situations. When you want to take a picture of your Cousin Ned, you would probably use a normal 50 mm lens and be within a few feet of him when you take his picture. But in order to get the picture of the blue bird perched on the bird bath, you have to keep your distance (so you don't scare the subject away) and need a long lens (100 to 400 mm). Both subjects will fill the image area to produce a normal size picture.

To see how this works in Studio, we'll set up a scene with one or two objects.

Create a new file and add a fairly large object such as a wall or building. (I used DM's Garden Corner. I added Emotiguy and a resized ground plane for interest).

From a top view with your object(s) selected, zoom out so that you can see the whole grid. Next, adjust only the Z-axis of your main object. Move (translate) the object to the top of the grid. (If you want to type in the parameter, set the Z-axis translate to around -1874. Be sure to note the negative sign.)

Still in the top view, select the Default camera from Scene Tab and translate it along the Z-axis down to the bottom of the grid (translate factors X=0, Y=105, Z=2001). You might want to save this scene so that you have a 'playground' for further experimentation on your own with other settings and positions.

Use the Default Camera in the view port and look at the scene. Emotiguy (and wall) is a bit far away and should look a lot like this:

Step 3 - How this works - 400 mm lens

Now, be sure you have the Default Camera selected in the Scene Tab. Change only the Focal Length parameter to 400 (for a 400 mm lens).

IN your view through the Default Camera in the viewport, you should see Emotiguy (or subject you selected) much larger in the image as in the second render below. Note that your field of view is reduced to smaller area around the wall.

Step 4 - Why not just move the camera?

Well, you could since Emotiguy isn't camera shy. But, there's another phenomena that occurs in telephoto (long) lenses.

It's called by some, foreshortening, others say compression. In essence, the foreground and the distance between the objects appear compressed. This comes from the fact that you'reduce the field of view as the image is magnified.

Here are two screen shots, not renders, so you can see the grid.

If you want to recreate the scene, pick an object with a strong vertical structure (I used pedestals) and put three of them in the scene. You may find it useful to name them Object 1, Object 2 and Object 3. The Move to Floor' level option proves useful to make sure the objects are all on the floor plane.

Keep the objects the same size either with no scaling factor or the same scaling factor applied to all three objects.

Locate the objects as follows:

Object 1 at X= -72, Y= 86, Z= -42;

Object 2 at X= 29, Y= 86, Z= -744;

Object 3 at X= 130, Y= 86, Z= 1443.

As before you may want to save this scene as a different file. Then you can change various settings and move the camera around to experiment with different viewpoints and focal lengths.

When you look through the Default Camera (in its Default position), you see a normal perspective view as in the picture below.

Note the grid compresses as it disappears towards the horizon and the apparent size of the objects diminishes normal perspective view.

Now, by typing in the parameters, change the position of the camera by setting the Translation factors to X= 19, Y= 105 and Z= 9600. Your objects will seem far way. To correct the situation, change the Focal Length parameter to 1000. The image should appear as below.

The objects appear to be about the same size and the grid is almost non-existent (highly compressed). That's the compression factor illustrated. Even though the items are separated in our virtual space, they appear close together in the image. And all you changed in the image was the Focal Length parameter.

Step 5 - Use this to our advantage

You can use this compression to your advantage and compose a scene without having to move the camera a lot. And without having to rescale the objects. And still make the scene look dramatic. The effect is called 'forced perspective' - a photographic technique that makes objects appear farther or closer, larger or smaller, than they really are.

For this exercise, I recommend you type in the parameters' values as it is quicker than moving the objects and camera with the mouse. Also, using the top view and looking down on the scene will let you build the scene without seeing what it really looks like until the scene is completely built. Looking through the camera and discovering your scene is part of the fun of this exercise. You also get a sense of the distance between objects from the top view.

Create a new file (this will also reset the Default Camera to its default settings and position). Since we are only using two objects, add both to your scene. You will place them in the scene using the parameter sliders.

Add to the scene your favorite large creature (I used Allosaurus). Add in Emotiguy (or other figure). Select each item from the Scene tab, including the Default camera, and type in their respective Translation and Rotation parameters as follows.

Allosaurus/Creature: X= 0, Y= 0 and Z= -1997 (No change to rotation)

Emotiguy: X= 0, Y= 0 and Z=1250 (No change to rotation)

Camera: X= 111, Y=147, and Z= 2048 (and for a good angle: Rotation parameters of X= -1.0, Y= -4.0 and Z= 0. Be sure the Focal Length is at the default 50 mm setting.

Save the scene again for future experimentation.

Look through the default camera in the viewport. Emotiguy isn't too worried. Allosaurus is 'way back there'.

Now, switch back to the top view. Trust me; working from this view and then looking through the camera is worth the effort. Do not change anything with the characters' positions. Change only the Camera parameters as follows:

Translate parameters: X= 55, Y= 175 and Z= 13057

Rotation parameters: X= 0, Y=.23 and Z= 0 (Note that this is very close to the Default parameters.)

Focal Length: 1000mm

Now, look through the camera and see how poor old Emotiguy appears to be in mortal danger.

You have just used forced perspective. All we did was use a trick of photography with our virtual lens to change the perspective to the scene. Ok, so I changed the poses. But Emotiguy is the same size; the Allosaurus is still huge. With the forced perspective, Dino appears to be very close to putting a bite on our hero.

Step 6 - Wrap up

You should now have an understanding on how the Focal Length parameter of a camera lens can be used. By moving the camera away from the scene and applying a long lens, you can foreshorten the distance between objects (forced perspective) and add a dramatic flair to your composition.

Use the scenes you created in this tutorial and experiment with different focal lengths and view points to see how they affect the scenes.

Positioning of objects away from each other also allows more specific lighting of each object. This can help you add even more drama.

Good Luck with your new found knowledge.

Camera Parameters: F/Stop and Depth of Field

2011-11-01T17:42:16+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

Camera Parameters: F/Stop and Depth of Field

Author:

robert952

Tools Needed

* DAZ Studio

Support Files

* FStopSupport.zip

Introduction

While there are some basic tutorials around for the F/Stop and Depth of Field, I felt that a different approach would be useful. Instruction manuals and books on photography usually illustrate how different settings affect your image. I took that same approach for this tutorial. To assist your learning, there is a support file so that you can experiment and follow along with this tutorial and apply the exact steps outlined. I will use this file throughout this tutorial. The file is nothing spectacular, just a variation on the famous (or infamous) 'faerie tutorial' of the manual. Of course, the role of the faerie will be played by the ever so versatile Vicky and our well trained dragonfly joins the scene. Vicky is dressed and posed for the scene and lit with a spotlight on her face and a distant light overhead. Everything is locked except for the Camera controls of 'Main View' so that you don't inadvertently move something. Feel free to unlock anything you want to play with during your learning experience. You can always reopen (or download another copy) of the file. You may find it useful to follow the examples for of this file. Or you can easily create your own and follow along using the appropriate parameters from your composition.

Step 1 - Some Definitions and Theory

As I learn about DAZ Studio, I find it helpful to tie what happens in the software to real world items. For those who find such background useful here are some definitions and theory around the Depth of Field and F/Stop controls.

F/Stop: In the real world, F-Stop (or F/Stop) is a ratio (which is why it is written with a slash) of the length of a lens over the size of the aperture letting the light through. A lens of 50mm length with an aperture opening of 25 mm has an F/2 setting. If the aperture is smaller, say 10mm, then the F/Stop is 50/10 or F/5.

Focal Distance: The distance from an object or point you are focusing on through the lens to the film plane of a camera (or focal point). In Studio, you cannot actually focus on an object like you can with a real world camera. The next section covers this critical parameter in using Depth of Field to your advantage.

Depth of Field: All lenses have a depth of field where the subject and items in front of and behind the subject are all in what is called the 'range of acceptable focuses. This range of focus (where everything is in focus) falls 1/3 of the distance in front of the subject to 2/3 the distance behind the subject for any given F/Stop. This area is the Depth of Field. Anything outside of that Depth of Field becomes out of focus and appears fuzzy in photographs (and, we'll see, in your 3D renders).

Putting this all together allows a photographer (and DAZ Studio artists) to control how much of a scene is in focus. Increasing the F/Stop increases the depth of field within the focal distance. The higher you set the F/Stop the more of the scene that is in focus. The figure below should help put this together for you in general terms.

The important issue is that as you increase the F/Stop to a higher number, the greater the depth of field and the more elements are in focus in your scene.

Step 2 - Distance in DAZ Studio

When you render in DAZ Studio with no Depth of Field everything is in focus as you can see from the render below. From her fingertips to the wing in the background, every point is in focus. So, distance is not critical.

But, to use the Depth of Field options, you need a decent idea of where your focal point falls in the scene in relation to the camera. You have to have a Focal Distance that is a specific distance from your camera.

Using a 'Null Point' and a bit of math, you can determine the Focal Distance to a point in front of your camera. The standard 'Windows' calculator is all you need since it has a square root key (sqrt).

Any two points in a 3D space have coordinates:

Point A = (Ax; Ay; Az)

Point B = (Bx; By; Bz)

Calculate the difference between each respective coordinate (dX = difference of X coordinates and so forth).

dX = Ax – Bx

dY = Ay – By

dZ = Az – Bz

Then, Distance = the square root of (dX * dX) + (dY*dY) + (dZ * dZ)

(To be clear of the math required, I thought it better to show the math instead of simply saying 'dX squared' above. The '*' means multiply.)

I created a Null Point (using File Menu: Create/New Null Point) and placed it at Vicky's nose:

X = 7; Y = 169; Z = 28

All renders are from the camera called 'Main View' at coordinates:

X = 75; Y = 133; Z = 85.

Applying the math:

dX = 7 – 75 = (- 68)

dY = 169 – 133 = 36

dZ = 85 – 28 = 57

(Note: the negative sign for dX goes away in the next step, so don't fret over it.)

dX squared = 4624

dY squared = 1296

dZ squared = 3249

The sum of the above 'squares' = 9169.

And the square root of 9169 = 95 (rounding off the fraction part to get a whole number that's close enough for our need.)

Now, let's apply that number.

Step 3 - Applying F-Stop

Now before we get too far along, let's decide what we want to accomplish in our image. Our original scene is Vicky (in the role of the faerie) and a dragonfly. We want to create an image where there is a visual relationship between Vicky and friendly insect. We are going to use the Depth of Field to do that. (And, of course, we want to learn how to use the tools we have in Studio.)

Select the Main View camera in the Scene tab. Once that is done, you will find the camera controls at the bottom of the Parameters tab. There are five controls for a camera.

The first control (Perspective) should be left on.

The Focal Length represents the lens. We will use this 'normal' 50 mm lens for our image.

The next control turns on the Depth of Field of our camera and the rendering software. It is a toggle, clicking on it turns it On and Off. Be sure it is 'On'.

Focal distance is the central focusing point of our image. Click the number field and type in 95 (the Distance we calculated earlier).

F/Stop is the last control. The default setting of 22 is a good starting point for our image.

Now, render away. And you will get the following:

The software (as expected) rendered Vicky's face in sharp detail. The out of focus wing in the background adds depth to the image as does the blurred hands in the foreground.

Our dragonfly is a bit out of focus and we want to bring him into focus. But before we do that, let's look at a couple more renders to see what the F/Stop does with different settings.

Let's open up a couple of stops and use F/Stop of 11.

Well, if we wanted a tight relationship between Vicky and the dragonfly, this render isn't going to do it. But, we do see less focus on her wing (which could be a good thing) and a lot less focus on the dragonfly and her hand. That's want I wanted you to see.

So, one more render at F/Stop of 64 and we get'

An image that is almost the same as that with no Depth of Field. Her hand is a bit out of focus but not by much. The lesson here is that there is a point of diminishing returns on the higher depth of field which for this exercise is around F/Stop 64. (Also, in the real world, there is an infinity mark on a lens that falls over the highest F/Stop for that lens.)

But, let's return to original thoughts for the image.

Step 4 - Getting to our final image

The intent was to create a visual relationship between Vicky and the dragonfly. The first attempt at F/22 and Distance of 95 was not too far off for a first attempt. So, let's look at that one again.

We want to bring the dragonfly into focus more. There were three ways to achieve our desired goal: change the F/Stop, change the Focal Distance, and a combination of both.

Let's do the first and change the F/Stop to something more than 22 and less than 64. So, let's try F/Stop 45. For those with a photography background, you'll note I use the standard settings' old habits are hard to break. You can use any value for the F/Stop you want in Studio and are not tied to the real world.

But at f/45, we get this result:

Hmm-not bad. But the background wing seems a bit too sharp and the dragonfly needs to be sharpened up some more.

So, for this final render let's move the Focus Distance forward a bit to a point between Vicky and the dragonfly. Let's also adjust the F/Stop. No math, just a guess as to where might it just 'seems' right. After all, we're artists and allowed to do that kind of thinking.

I picked distance of 80 (15 cm closer to the camera) and F/Stop of 40.

And this meets my objective quite nicely. We could play with the settings more. But, by now you see what you can do with Depth of Field.

Step 5 - A couple more examples and wrap up

As I said early in the tutorial, you can use depth of field to draw attention to a specific part of your image.

You can use depth of field to add mystery to your image.

In the above image, we see our talented faerie dancing in the forest. Adding a foreground figure and blurring the focus adds depth to the image' and mystery. Who is that watching her? Does Vicky know she has an audience? Is there danger lurking?

Also, as one final example, you can use soft focus to save some post rendering work.

In this image, I created the candle flames using a couple of conical primitives with a point lights inside the primitives. Of course, they look unrealistic.

I could do some post work on the flames in Paint Shop Pro or Photoshop. But I can also improve the image with Depth of Field control. Using the same steps as shown in this tutorial (create a Null Point near Vicky, calculate the distance from camera to Null Point and applying the factors to the camera controls) I made the flames softer, as well as blurring the foreground and background).

So, you see the power of the camera controls and how they can help you with your DAZ Studio compositions. And you'll find this methodology works whether you want to focus on an object in your scene or a part of the anatomy of your favorite figure.

Have fun with your new found knowledge.

Create a Face Camera in DAZ Studio

2011-11-01T17:42:16+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

Create a Face Camera in DAZ Studio

Author: Calalene

Tools Needed

DAZ Studio

Introduction

This tutorial will guide you in making a Face Camera in DAZ Studio. You can use the same steps to create a camera for any body part you wish.

Step 1 - Creating a New Camera

You need to have DAZ Studio open, and your figure of choice loaded into the new scene. I am using V3. Now, go to the “Create” menu, and choose “New Camera”.

This brings up the “Create New Camera” Dialog Box. (See Figure 2) There is a text box (that probably says “Camera 1” in it) where you can type in a new name for your camera. I called mine “Face Cam”. When you've typed the new name, click “Accept”.

Step 2 - Set your new camera as the active one

Now, we need to select this as the active camera. There is a drop-down menu box at the top of your workspace that right now says “Default Camera”. Click on the small arrow at the end of this box, and a list of different cameras pops up. The last one in the list should be our new Face Cam. Click on it.

Step 3 - Aiming the Face Cam

The Face Cam is now the one we are looking through. The view should be the same as the default was. We will change that view now. Go to your “Scene” tab, and open all the hierarchy for the figure (V3, in my case.) Select the Head.

Now go to the “View” tab, and first click the “Aim At Selection” tool (it looks like a red and white bullseye), and then click the “Frame Selection” tool (it looks like a red frame.)

Step 4 - Parenting the Camera

Next we need to make sure the camera stays with the head when we move and pose the figure. Go back to your scene tab, select “Face Cam” again, and drag it down to the “Head”. This will “parent” the camera to the head, so they stay together.

Step 5 - Saving the Camera Preset

It would be somewhat of a pain to have to go through all these steps every time we create a new scene, so we'll save this as a camera preset. This allows us to load up this same Face Cam any time we wish. Go to your “File” menu, and choose “Save As…”, select “Camera Preset” as the type.

A dialog box will open, you'll want to choose the “Save Selected Camera” option. Next, you will get the standard Windows file browse box, so you can choose where to save the file. I saved mine in Content > Cameras.

Step 6 - Loading the Camera in a New Scene

The next time you start a scene, and want to load in this Face Cam, go to your “Content” tab and find where you saved it, and double-click the “Face Cam” icon. The preset will not automatically parent the camera to the figure's head, you will have to do that yourself. Also, if you're using a different character than the one you used to create it, you may have to adjust the camera up or down a bit to center the face view. (The camera preset remembers the position of the camera, not what it was “looking at”.) Alternatively, you can make a separate preset for each figure, following the steps outlined here, and name them appropriately.

Look through their eyes - Precise camera and light placement

2011-11-01T17:42:16+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

Look through their eyes - Precise camera and light placement

Author: Porter

Tools Needed

DAZ Studio

Introduction

DAZ Studio allows you to position cameras and light sources almost anywhere in your scene. By precisely placing cameras, and by parenting the cameras to various items, you can gain a much greater degree of control over your rendering. This tutorial will demonstrate some tricks for easy and accurate placement of cameras. These same techniques can also be used with lights.

A simple spherical target object for use in this tutorial can be downloaded for free from my web server, at: http://www.polyhedrongroup.com/tutorials/Look/ball.obj

The sphere is one I made, and it's free for all rendering uses, commercial or personal.

DAZ Products Used in making this tutorial :

DAZ Studio

Victoria 3.0 Base

V3/M3 Head and Body Morphs

Trixie (character textures and morphs)

Aila hair

V3 and SP Clothing Pack

Step 1 - Set up your targets

Set up a scene in DAZ Studio containing a figure and an object for the figure to look at.

I've provided a simple sphere prop for this tutorial, but the target can be any selectable object, such as their thumb or another figure's head.

If you use my sphere prop, use the Import command on the File menu to import the OBJ file. That will give you an untextured sphere named 'ball', which you can position and color as you choose. To get it the size I used in my tutorial, reduce it to 75% of the original size.

Step 2 - Add a camera for the target

We will start by placing a camera at the target object's position, and aim it so that it is looking at the figure's right eye.

Select the 'new Camera' button, or select 'New Camera' from the Create menu.

Call this new camera Target-Cam.

Step 3 - Aim camera at eye

Select the Target-Cam as the source for the active viewport. The menu for this should be in the upper left corner of your viewport area.

3a: In the Scene window, click on the figure's right eye. (You may need to expand the view to locate the eye.)

3b: Click on the target icon in the View window. The view in the viewport for the Target Cam should now center on the figure's right eye.

3c: At this point, the 'Orbit Camera' control in the View window will allow you to alter the 'Target-Cam' camera's position, while keeping it aimed at the figure's eye.

Step 4 - Line up Target Camera

Roughly aim the figure's head and neck so it's looking at the target object. The exact alignment isn't critical. Then select the right eye again, and use the 'Orbit Camera' control to rotate the 'Target-Cam' so that the target object is between the camera and the figure's right eye.

Use the 'Zoom Camera' control to get close to the target. Adjust the position a bit more accurately. You should still see the markings for the rotate or translate tool, indicating where the eye is behind the target. Then zoom forward, slowly, moving the camera through the target. Stop just as the camera gets past the far side, and gives you a clear view of the figure's eye. Note that as you go through the sphere, you see the inside of the sphere.

The Target-Cam camera should now be at the same location as the target object, and aimed at the figure's right eye. We will use this camera to precisely adjust the camera we are about to add to the figure's right eye.

If you want to parent this camera to the target object, you can at this point, but it isn't necessary, unless you intend to have several figures looking at this same target.

Step 5 - Get inside their head

In this step, we repeat what we did in steps 2, 3, and 4, above. But this time, we name the new camera 'R-Eye-Cam'; and the target we point this new camera at is our target object, instead of the right eye.

As we move the camera forward, through the back of the figure's head. pause a moment. You should see something that looks like this:

It's sort of gross, but that is what the inside of Victoria's head looks like. Due to a quirk in the way DAZ Studio renders lights, you can still see inside there. Note that you can clearly see the round eyeball and the iris and eyelids of both eyes, as well as the control symbol that is still centered on your target. Move the camera slightly, centering that control symbol on the iris of her right eye, and then slowly move forward, until you get a clear view of your target object.

You may need to adjust the position back and forth a bit, until you're just far enough forward that you don't see bits of eyelid or eyelash. Don't be too picky. It's going to move again in the next step.

Step 6 - Parent and fine tune

In the Scene window, make sure that 'Parent In Place' is selected on the Active Tab Options. That's the little triangle in the corner of the window, that drops down a menu. With that selected, drag the R-Eye-Cam's scene list item to the right eye's scene list item, and let go. The R-Eye-Cam should parent to the eye, becoming an item listed under the eye.

Select the R-Eye-Cam in the Scene window's list, and open the Parameters window. Change the translate and rotate settings, as shown below.

Your camera is now pointing precisely where the right eye is looking. If you look through the eye camera now, you'll probably see that it's slightly off target. You can now look through that camera, and adjust the head, neck and eye positions, using the sliders for 'Up-Down' and 'Side-Side' for the eye, and 'Bend', 'Twist' and 'Side-Side' for the head and neck, to aim the eye exactly where you want it. You can look back through the target cam to verify the line of sight.

Step 7 - The other eye...

If you'really want to go all-out, you could repeat the process again, placing a third camera in the left eye. That would allow you direct the eyes so that they get 'cross-eyed' if the figure is supposed to be looking at a very close object.

However, for most renders, it's sufficient to look at the parameter settings for the right eye, and duplicate the 'Up-Down' and 'Side-Side' settings on the left eye. Here's the result, as verified by the target camera. Her eyes are locked on target.

Step 8 - Extra-Applying this to lights

Extra Credit: Everything that I just taught you about positioning a camera can also be used with a spotlight or a distant light. Using the 'Orbit Camera' control while looking through these lights aims the lights. Point lights can not be selected or controlled in this manner.

A spotlight can be selected as the active viewport, just like a camera. What you see is the area they will illuminate, based on the spread angle setting for the light. Smaller spread angle equals a tighter focus - more of a close-up.

When you select a distant light as the active viewport, you see from the angle that light is coming from. The 'distance' will always be far enough away to see all of the objects in the scene.

Step 9 - Extra-Parenting cameras to lights

There are times when you might want to parent a cameral to a distant light. You might ask “Why? If I can look through a light, why parent a camera to it?”

I'll tell you one good reason. A parented camera can zoom in and out, and you can't do that while looking through a distant light.

Place the 'center' of your distant light where the figure is, create a camera, and target it on the distant light. Then position it so the view is the same as the one you see through the distant light. This camera can now zoom in and out on the same line of sight, which can be handy if you're placing a shadow mask between the light and the scene, as I do in my 'Shadows 1' Tutorial.

Simple Camera Rotation Setup

2011-11-01T17:42:16+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

Simple Camera Rotation Setup

Author: NathanB

Tools Needed

* DAZ Studio

Step 1 - Pre-setup

This is useful when rotating your figure is not an option; such as when you have a background in your scene.

It is a good idea to have your scene set up, and the figure or figures you wish to have the camera rotate around already in position before you begin. For this example v4 was used.

Step 2 - Creating a Camera and its Rotation Point

The first thing needed is a point to rotate around. It is best not to use a part of the figure. Creating a rotation point can be accomplished by the use of a Null.

Nulls can be generated in Studio using the “New Null” button in the button bar, the option in the “Create Menu”, or DAZ Studio can generate one during the creation of a new camera.

This tutorial will use the “New Camera” option to create the rotation point.

Click the “New Camera” button, found in DAZ Studio's button bar. An alternate link can be found in the “Create” Menu.

This dialog should appear.

Title the new camera whatever you wish. The title “Rotating Camera” was used in this example. Make sure to check the option called “Create a Persistent Point At Target (Null)”

Step 3 - Parent the Camera to the Null

After creating the new camera notice that it has its Parameter setting to “Point At” the new Null created. as shown here.

If you opted to create a null separately, you will need to change the camera's Parameter to “Point At” your null manually.

The new camera and Null will appear in the Scene Tab. Find the camera, click on it, and drag it over the name of the Null. This will parent the camera to the Null. The reason for doing this is to have the camera tied to the Null's movement.

The icon for the camera will position itself below the Null as shown here.

This positioning denotes that it has been parented and will now move in conjunction with the Null.

Step 4 - Position and Adjust Null and Camera

Now adjust the position of the Null using the Translate widget, or move it using the Parameter Tab. The new camera should move with it. Once the Null is approximately where you think it should be, change your view to look through the new camera.

Use the camera controls to move the camera into the desired position and adjust the null if needed to produce the desired position.

Step 5 - Rotate the Null

Open the Timeline Tab. For this example 30 frames were used at 30 FPS. This creates a very fast animation. The FPS and the number of frames will determine how fast, and how many times the camera will rotate in your scene.

The Y rotation on the null was set at zero in the first frame.

A keyframe was added at frame 30 where the rotation was intended to end and the rotation on the null's Y axis was changed to 359.

Use the preview in the timeline to see how fast the rotation is set at. If the animation was intended to rotate the camera multiple times, make sure to add a keyframe for each time the Y rotation is changed on the null.

New characters for DAZ Studio using DAZ Studio alone!

2011-11-01T17:42:16+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

New characters for DAZ Studio using DAZ Studio alone!

Author: purple_mug

Tools Needed

* DAZ Studio

* Morph Loader

* MorphToCR2 Script

* Text editor

Support Files

* Null.zip

Introduction

Modeling a new character for DAZ Studio from the ground up can be a long process made all the more complicated by the need to rig the figure for movement in Poser. But why do all that work when you already have native morphing figures for which it's all been done? Combining parts from different figures, countless new characters can be yours all rigged and ready to go.

Step 1 - Preparing for the quest

Before attempting this tutorial you should be thoroughly familiar with the techniques for manual editing of a DAZ Studio .CR2 file detailed in the tutorial “Original DAZ Studio content from DAZ Studio alone!”

If you have not yet purchased Morph Loader from DAZ it will still be possible to follow the tutorial to create characters but with limited functionality.

MorphToCR2 is a free script written by DAZ member DeltaX15 and may be downloaded from …

DS Scripts: MorphToCr2

For the android figure in this tutorial the head of Victoria 3 will be combined with the D-Brat robot, a free figure from DAZ.

D-Brat robot

Step 2 - Modeling (one for the price of two)

Combining two figures and setting extraneous parts to invisible or transparent is a well known technique which many are familiar with from creating the centaur in the “Making a Centaur in DAZ Studio - No other software needed!” tutorial by Porter.

Effective as this technique is visually, it can be wastefully heavy on memory and resources especially as a large percentage is devoted to body parts that don't actually contribute to the scene at all. By creating a fully functioning prop from specific body parts this inefficiency is reduced and, more importantly, a fully customized figure is just a few clicks away at any time.

In a new DAZ Studio scene load D-Brat and Victoria 3. In the Scene tab, turn off Victoria's visibility then restore visibility for the head only in the hierarchy tree. If you wish to include one or both of Victoria's eyes in the model (I chose to line up D-Brat's eyes to show through the empty sockets as it gives a more hollow, artificial look) turn on visibility for those also. Then move the eyes so that they are looking to the far left - you'll see why later!

If you wish to add any items to the head such as hair, hats, horn props etc. now is the time, but make sure that you parent the items to the head instead of using any “fit to” option. Exporting at a later stage will fail if the head is not registered as a single integrated object.

Now select Victoria. D-Brat should not be moved from the default origin at any time. All adjustments should be made using the V3 figure. Begin with yTrans to drop the head into the neck ring of D-Brat. If you are not using Victoria's eyes, then D-Brat's eyes should be visible through the eye sockets.

With zTrans, adjust the position of the head so that it appears to be integrated with the visible parts of D-Brat. The default sizes of the two heads happen to mesh well but, as long as only Victoria is affected, you can scale, morph, and generally use any tool that takes your fancy at this stage to get the exact look you want.

Color changes, if required, should also be made now.

Step 3 - Exporting geometries

When you are satisfied with what will be the default android model, delete D-Brat from the scene and double check that all extra items are parented to the V3 head and only items to be included are visible. Export android.obj to a folder in Runtime\Geometries with the usual settings …

[If you don't have Morph Loader, go to Step 4]

It is now time to consider what morphs you want to retain from Victoria's repertoire for use by the finished android. The null.CR2 file includes 10 morph channels at present so that will be the limit for now. However, remember that all head motions (bend, twist, side-to-side) will be inherited from the parent D-Brat in the finished model. Also morphs in Victoria 3 and any other items, such as hair, that you have included can be combined to produce a new single morph for the android figure.

The choice of Disgust and a combined Sh Sound/Nose Wrinkle as example morphs is not intended to suggest that there are any limits here. Any morph that affects the head (and eyes if you've included them), plus those of other items attached, can be transferred singly or in combination. You have carte blanche because you are working on what is currently a tabula rasa!

For each morph that you want the android to carry, set the involved morphs in Victoria 3 to the limits that should represent a 100% morph in the new figure.

(This is where those of you who are using Victoria's eyes will thank me for suggesting that you set the default position to far left as this means that you can now choose to look to both left and right in a single morph!)

Export the head to a new, appropriately named, OBJ file (eg. androidDisgust.obj, androidShCombo.obj), then return all morph settings to default for your figure (that won't always be zero so make sure you keep a record of the default settings you chose!) Repeat the procedure for each morph you want to include in the android.

Step 4 - Creating the .CR2 file

When you are sure that you have all the exports you need, clear the scene and go to your text editor. If your exports included anything other than the Victoria head part, first open each of the OBJ files and ensure that all groups listed are named 'head'.

g xxxx - > g head

Open null.CR2 and save as android.CR2 in an appropriate folder in Runtime\libraries before editing.

Complete “figureResFile :Runtime:Geometries:” with the folder and file names for your default OBJ file and replace all instances of “bodypart” with “head”.

Now for the bad news. Victoria 3 uses 32 different materials, all of which are included in android.mtl, and though not all of them are needed for the head, that is still 12 material sections to be created and sets of values to be transferred (SkinHead, SkinScalp, Nostrils, Eyesocket, InnerMouth, Lips, Lacrimal, Eyebrows, Teeth, Gums, Tongue, Eyelashes) with another 8 if you included eyes (LCornea, LPupil, LEyewhite, LIris, RCornea, RPupil, REyewhite, RIris), to say nothing of those needed for any additional items.

The good news is that these may be searched for and copied in full from the .CR2 files for Victoria 3 and other included items (where they exist!), then simply pasted into android.CR2 in the material section with no particular order required. Phew!

If, for any reason, you are transferring material settings manually, you will need to take note of an additional setting in some materials, such as Eyebrows, where there are transparency settings to be considered. In the .mtl file this setting is recorded in “d” (default value 1), and in the .CR2 file in “tmin” and “tmax” (default value 0). The formula for transferring values is tmin and tmax = 1 - d. So for Eyebrows

d 0.1 - > tmin 0.9, tmax 0.9

Having set-up android.CR2 (and checked for any case sensitive errors!), save and go to DAZ Studio. Find android in the Content tab and load it to check for errors and omissions. If all is well, exit the text editor.

[If you do not have Morph Loader, go to Step 6]

Step 5 - Importing morphs

Using Morph Loader (Edit menu), select and load each of the morphed head exports you made in Step 3.

If you wish to test the morphs, do so now.

Find and run MorphToCR2 in the Scripts folder.

You should be able to see all the morphs you loaded in the left hand file list. If not, make sure that “Active Only” is unchecked.

Select all the morphs and click the “Transfer — > ” button which should move them all to the right hand file list.

In the “Donor CR2” box, browse to and select android.CR2, then click the “Export” button.

You should now find android-New has been added to android in the content folder. Load this and confirm that all the morphs are now automatically included in the figure. If all is well delete android.CR2 (or rename it android.crx or similar if you may have some use for it in the future) and rename android-new.CR2 android.CR2.

Step 6 - Showing off

The full poseable, morphing V3 Android can now be included in any scene in just three short steps.

Load D-Brat

Load android

Parent android to D-Brat's head (click and drag android to D-Brat)

But that's only the beginning of the fun. With this simple technique at your fingertips, why not give Michael a lion's nose, the morphing python a human head or a set of dog's legs, replace Victoria 4's feet with an eagle's talons or give Emotiguy the body he never had?

And now you're comfortable with editing OBJ and .CR2 files who knows what you might come up with next?

Putting One Figure's Head on Another's Body in D|S 1.8

2011-11-01T17:42:16+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

Putting One Figure's Head on Another's Body in D|S 1.8

Author: eallenmail

Tools Needed

* DAZ Studio 8

* 2 figures [1 donor and 1 recipient]

Introduction

For this example, I will transplant an M3 character's head onto a V3 body. [I want to create a character that is the mother of the M3 character, and I want to keep the familial resemblance without trying to recreate the M3 morphs in V3 by hand.] Remember - throughout this project, save often!

Step 1: Prepare head donor.

Open D|S. Load donor figure, a.k.a. the figure whose head you want to take off and move to another figure. You can either create a new donor figure from scratch and save it all alone as a scene preset. Or you can load an existing figure. I loaded an existing figure, an M3 character, for the donor.

Zero the donor's pose. This brings the donor back to a default position, making it easier to work with.

Remove donor's clothes. You won't be seeing them in the completed figure, and loading them up will just eat more memory. So get the donor naked.

If your new figure is going to have a different skin mat than your donor, change the donor's skin mat to match the recipient's. I changed the M3 character's original mat to the V3 Makeup mat comes with the V3 high-res texture maps sold here at DAZ. [Incidentally, V3 mats experience some slight gapping at the seams when used on M3, but we're only showing the head of the M3 donor, so the gapping isn't really visible or problematic.]

Step 2: Get head donor ready.

If your new figure is going to have different hair, glasses, earrings, hats, etc. than the donor, remove items from donor's head as appropriate. Or just make them invisible. Either way, you'll be able to match up the donor's head with the recipient's body more easily with less in the way.

Make it so that only the donor's head is visible. You can do this quickly by going to the Scene tab and double-clicking on the little eyeball to the right of the donor's name. This makes the entire donor figure invisible. Then it's very simple to go down the hierarchy of body parts to head, right eye and left eye. For each of these body parts, click the eyeball which is to the right side of the body part's name. [The eyeball should be closed to represent invisibility.] The eyeball symbols should open back up. You now have the donor's head suspended in midair, waiting for a body.

Step 3: Prepare recipient.

Load the recipient's body. Leave it in the zeroed position. Here's my M3 donor head over the V3 recipient's body, but the recipient's head is in the way. [Don't put a mat on the V3 recipient's body yet. You'll see why in Step 10.]

Make the recipient's head invisible. In this case, we're removing the V3 recipient's head so that the M3 donor's head can fit on top of the neck. To do this, go to the Scene tab and find the V3 recipient's name. Go down the hierarchy of body parts to head, right eye and left eye. Click the eyeballs to the right of each body part's name so that the eyeballs are closed. The V3 recipient's eyes and head should disappear, leaving a neck stump.

Step 4: Put the donor and the recipient together.

Move the M3 donor's head down onto the V3 recipient's neck stump. There is no simple way to do this. Either use the Translate tool to drag the head in the view window, or use the Translation sliders under the Parameters tab. For characters with very similar construction, such as M3 and V3, you probably don't need to use X-Tran, just Y- and Z-Tran. Move between different camera views and zoom levels to check your work often. There is no body mat on the V3 recipient's body so that it has an obvious color difference from the M3 donor's head, which makes it easier to see how the head positioning is going.

Fine-tune as necessary. You will most likely see some gaps between the V3 recipient's neck stump and the M3 donor's head. The most obvious gaps on this example are under the jaw and at the sides of the neck behind the ears. You can see one of these gaps where the arrow is pointing in the illustration. There are a few ways to deal with the gaps. A) You can scale and/or reposition the M3 donor's head as needed, usually by reducing Z-scale and X-scale a tiny bit. B) You can scale and/or reposition the V3 recipient's neck as needed, usually by increasing X-, Y or Z-scale a tiny bit. C) You can ignore the gaps if they will be covered up by hair, or if they will not be seen in your render. I've chosen to ignore the gaps for this example.

Once you are satisfied with the position of the M3 donor's head, parent the M3 donor's head to the V3 recipient's neck stump. Go to the Scene tab and select the M3 donor's name. Drag the entire M3 donor figure down the V3 recipient's body part hierarchy to the V3 recipient's head. Drop the M3 donor figure here. The hierarchy in your Scene tab should now look something like this [see associated illustration].

Step 5: Finish up.

Apply a mat to the V3 recipient's body that matches the M3 donor's head map.

Apply morphs; add hair, clothes, accessories, etc.

Save and use your new character in a scene.

Step 6: Go forth and head-swap!

This basic process isn't limited to gender swaps. You could transplant Aiko 3's head onto V3's body for a more realistic look. You could put the Mil Dragon's head on the Mil Horse using the same principles. Heck, you could even put the Mil Dragon's head on V3's body [with some scaling and tweaking, of course]. The only limit to head swaps is your imagination.

NOTE: When posing a hybrid character like the one in this example, you may need to pose the V3 recipient's body and the M3 donor's head separately. For example, let's say you have a sleeping pose, with lying body and closed eyes that you want to put your hybrid character in. If you select the V3 recipient's body and apply the lying pose, the hybrid character will lie down, but the eyes will remain open because the M3 donor's head is not affected by poses applied to the V3 recipient's body. In such a case, you'll need to pose the M3 donor's eyes separately.

Credits for tutorial illustrations: Donor figure is DAZ's Michael 3, with DAZ's Wedge 2.0 hair and DAZ's V3 Makeup map. Recipient figure is DAZ's Victoria 3.

Using Duplicate Figures To Simulate A Bodysuit Or Outer Skin

2011-11-01T17:42:16+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

Using Duplicate Figures To Simulate A Bodysuit Or Outer Skin

Author: pazzazzu

Tools Needed

* DAZ Studio

Step 1: Starting Off

Start a new scene, don't change anything. You can always merge what you make into something else later on. Load your Figure. Change the Name to Inner [Whatever]. This will be the character or figure. I have chosen V3 (Free from DAZ). I called her 'Inner Girl'. Using the Scene Tab, click twice (with a pause between clicks) on the name of the character to change the name.

Step 2: Load Outer Figure

Load the same Figure again. This must be the exact same figure as above, no new morphs or whatever. Change the Name of this second figure to Outer [Whatever]. I called her/it 'Outer Girl'. This will be the outer skin.

Step 3: Zero Figures

Zero Figure Pose for each figure using the arrow to the upper right on the Parameters menu to access the Sub Menu (Red Circle on Picture). First use the Scene tab to select a figure such as “Inner Girl”. Then select the Parameters tab. Using the arrow mentioned above, select Zero, then Zero Figure Pose. Use this procedure to Zero both figures.

Step 4: Fit Outer to Inner

Fit the Outer figure to the Inner figure by choosing the Fit To on the parameter menu for the outer figure (Blue Oval on picture).

Step 5: Optional: Assign Inner Figure MAT

OPTIONAL: assign a MAT texture to the Inner figure however you want. This way it has skin color. I am using Teresa Texture from DAZ. Make SURE that you only apply a MAT pose, and not any INJ poses or morphs.

Step 6: Assign Displacement Channel Inner Figure

On the Surfaces Menu for the Inner figure assign a completely black JPG file as a map to the Displacement channel of all the material zones of the Inner Figure (Red circle). You will need to make this file with a separate application.

Step 7: Make Displacement 200%

Change the Displacement % to 200%. You can play with this % later. Leave the other numbers +0.1 and -0.1 alone. The Blue area indicates how you can make this greater than 200%; caution should be exercised if this is done since fingers get really thin when you do this.

Step 8: Make Displacement assignments

Make this Displacement assignment for all the Material zones of the neck and lower. You should leave the head alone; that can always be reduced by a slight percentage later if needed. When you do it to the head, strange things happen'… You will need to pick and choose amoung the tree entries to accomplish this objective. Avoid “gum”, “nostril”, etc.

Step 9: Outer Figure Textures/Opacity/Bump/Specular

Apply textures, bump, displacement, specular, transparency, ambient, and diffuse to the Outer Figure as you want. I used a very nice sci-fi bodysuit texture from mattymanx. Feel free to use a MAT pose to accomplish this. However, make sure that the displacement of the outer figure is never negative; it should never be inward. The best way to accomplish this is to leave the settings alone, and only use maps that are 50% gray and lighter. That way all the polygons are pushed out, not in. If you push it in, then they may hit the Inner figure.

Step 10: Outer Figure Opacity of Unwanted Areas

Set the opacity of all the areas that you don't want the Outer figure to cover to 0%. That way they will not obstruct the view of the Inner figure below. I have done this for all the zones above the neck (eyes, head, teeth, etc). Set the opacity for the other areas to whatever you want. I have used an Opacity map as well for the non-head areas.

Now the view on the screen will be weird because the displacement maps are not represented. Don't worry-they will look good when you render

Step 11: Pose Inner Figure

Pose the Inner figure

Step 12: Add Lights and Render

Add lights and Render. Feel free to mess around with the amount of displacement of the Inner Figure for a tighter or looser fit. If you look at the picture, you see a faint aura around the edge-that is the space between the outfit and the character.

You can play with morphs, but use morphs equally amounts in both figures or you will have 'poke through'.

You can move the Outer Outfit outward using a white displacement map in the same way that the Inner Character was moved inward. I have done this (200% using a white jpg image) for the final picture.

Making a Centaur in DAZ Studio - No other software needed!

2011-11-01T17:42:16+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

Making a Centaur in DAZ Studio - No other software needed!

Author: Porter

Tools Needed

DAZ Studio
DAZ Mil Horse
DAZ Victoria 3

Introduction

My artwork often calls for figures from mythology or fantasy, or for anthropomorphic characters that combine animal and Human characteristics. This tutorial shows how I used DAZ Studio, by itself, to combine the DAZ Mil Horse and Victoria 3 figures into a single poseable Centaur figure for use in my renders. The resulting figure is NOT seamless. It may require some position tweaking and post-work after you pose it to make it look just right. But it produces some surprisingly nice results.

In these examples, I used the Victoria 3 base figure, without any head or body morphs. If you have the morph add-ons, by all means use them to achieve a better fit. But you don't have to have them. I've also used this technique with Michael 3, with good results.

On the DAZ Mil Horse, I used the default build and body shape. You can, of course, play with the morphs on the horse as well to get a more pleasing result.

All of the illustrations in this tutorial have no post work, other than scaling them for use here.

Step 1 - Set up Horse and Human

Open a new scene, and add the DAZ Millennium Horse and Victoria 3. Texture both the horse and Victoria as you see fit, and add hair to Victoria. I tried to choose a hair style that was close to the horse's mane and tail for color and texture. If you're doing a female Centaur, don't forget to select the 'Mare' setting on your horse! You don't need to pose them, and in fact, it's best to leave them in their default poses, and just shift Vicky's X position to one side, so that the figures don't overlap.

If you plan to apply morphs to change Victoria's or the horse's body shape, do this now. I wouldn't put any clothes on the Human part that cover more than a halter top at this stage, since you'll want to see the body as you set up the figure.

Step 2 - Scale the horse down

The horse is too large in proportion to Victoria. So we will reduce the size of the horse to 80%. Use your own artistic judgment for this ratio, depending on the figures you are merging and how you have morphed them. You want the horse's chest to be about the same width as the Human's hips. This ratio will also put her head only slightly taller than a normal V3 figure once she is a centaur.

Step 3 - Make parts invisible

Next, we will make the horse's neck stand up straight, and make the horses head and Vicky's legs invisible.

Do an 'Expand All' in the Scene palette.

In the Scene palette, highlight Neck 1. In the Parameters palette, set Bend = -40, .

In the Scene palette, highlight Neck 2. In the Parameters palette, set Bend = -13, .

In the Scene palette, highlight from 'Neck 3' to 'R Ear' on the horse, selecting all the parts of the head and the uppermost neck section. In the Parameters palette, click on the 'Visible' button to set it to 'Off'.

In the Scene palette, highlight both of Victoria's legs, from thigh to toes. In the Parameters palette, click on the 'Visible' button to set it to 'Off'.

Don't worry, Vicky. You'll get new legs in a moment. Four of them.

Step 4 - Position the parts

A classic centaur shows the Human part's navel just above where it merges with the horse's chest. We're going to angle Victoria's hips and buttocks back somewhat, to get that to submerge into the chest. The horses neck will get scaled smaller front to back, so it fits inside Vicky's chest and abdomen, and merges with her back.

The exact settings you need here are a matter of trial and error, depending on your figures and morphs available. But what we need to do is to adjust the scale and position of Victoria's hips and abdomen and of the horse's neck so that the two figures seem to merge into one. Here's a starting point:

Horse:

Neck 1 yScale = 80%

Neck 2 yScale = 60%

Victoria 3:

Hip xrot = 15

Abdomen Bend = -15%

Right Buttock Bend = 30

Left Buttock Bend = 30

Select the Victoria 3 figure, and move it so that she overlaps the horse's neck. You want to position Victoria so her navel is about in line with the horse's spine, and flush with the front of his neck. (The horse is translucent here, so you can see how she fits within it.)

Step 5 - Parent human to horse

So now, Victoria is a Centaur. Almost. Right now, if you posed the horse, the Centaur falls apart. You need to parent the Human portion to the horse's neck, so it moves as one figure.

In the Scene palette, collapse anything you don't need to see, and set it up so you can see the V3 figure's main entry, and the horse's 'Neck 1' part. Make sure that 'Parent Items in Place' is checked in the options for the Scene palette (Small triangle in the upper right of the palette).

Then drag Victoria's main Scene entry to the horse's 'Neck 1' entry in the Scene palette. This should parent Victoria to the neck, making her items list between Neck 1 and Neck 2 on the horse.

Step 6 - Rename and Save

I renamed the horse's main entry to 'Centaur Female', and I named the human part 'Centaur Girl Half'. I also renamed the clothing she was wearing, to indicate it's hers.

Now, save this scene, to merge later into your scenes that need a Centaur figure. I have a folder in my DAZ Studio content area for completed character figures that I have created, and I use the Scene palette's 'Save As' button to save them there for easy re-use.

And here is your finished Centaur!

Step 7 - Pose and render

Your Centaur girl is now ready to use. Create a scene around her, or add her saved file to an existing scene. Pose the horse part first, then pose Victoria.

When you pose the horse, Victoria's body will move with the neck. You may need to readjust the horse's Neck 1 and Neck 2 parts to get it right.

When you pose Victoria, beware that some pre-set poses apply an offset to the position of the figure itself, or to the figure's hips. This can cause the figure's upper body to pop out of place. If this happens, do an 'undo'. and note the current position information for Victoria 3 and her hips. Then re-apply the pose, and re-set the position information from the earlier settings. this should put her back together again.

Here's a render done with the figure we just built. There is no post-work here. It's all DAZ Studio. (For how to do the dappled shadows in the sunlight, check my Shadows tutorial).

Exporting DAZ-Figures with all textures to MotionBuilder

2011-11-01T17:42:16+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

Exporting DAZ-Figures with all textures to MotionBuilder

Author: meryadoc

Tools Needed

* DAZ Studio

* FBX-Plug-in for DAZ Studio

* Photoshop (or other graphics program)

* Autodesk MotionBuilder (PLE or full Version)

Introduction

If you import your *.fbx-file in MotionBuilder you will often recognize some mistakes in your models textures. Imported characters from DAZ Studio have unnatural eyes, the eyelashes and/or brows are black and flat or invisible and the hair looks flat and not very naturally. The reason for this is a different method of using transparency information in MotionBuilder and DAZ Studio or Poser. MotionBuilder gets its transparency information from the alpha channel of the texture files. DAZ Studio and Poser use transparency maps in separate *JPG-files. Both, the transparency map and the alpha channel, use simple grayscale maps to define whether a pixel of a texture is transparent or not. Black color means the pixel is fully transparent, white means the pixel is fully visible. Grey colors lead to a partial transparency of the corresponding pixel in the base texture. Since the information in the alpha channel is the same as in the transparency maps you must only create an alpha channel in the base texture file and transfer the transparency map to the alpha channel. At last you have to change the shader in MotionBuilder, since the default shader does not calculate and show transparency at all. This tutorial will show you one method of how to do this. It works with the free PLE (Personal Learning Edition) of MotionBuilder, but there should be no difference to the full version.

Step 1 - Configure the FBX-Export

First load/build a scene of your choice in DAZ Studio.

Then click File – Export and choose FBX 6.0 as export format. Choose a directory and file name for export and click save. In the following menu with the FBX-Export-Options choose the following options:

Click Accept and save your FBX-File.

Step 2 - Transfer transparency maps into the alpha-channel

In this next step you will create an alpha channel in the texture files and copy the transparency map in this new channel.

You'll have to do this with all textures in your scene using transparency maps. The FBX-Exporter-Plug-in has created a separate folder with copies of all textures. So you should find the textures easy.

Which textures have to be adjusted depends on which textures in the exported models use separate transparency maps. This differs from object to object. Mostly you can identify the transparency maps by an additional 'T', 'Trans' or 'Tr' in their file name. If there is no base texture for a transparency map or you are missing a transparency map for a base texture, refer to the hints mentioned below.

If you use human models like Victoria from DAZ you'll have to take a look at the following texture files for adjustment:

- Lashes

- maybe Eyebrows

- Eye textures (eye surface, pupil, iris, sclera, cornea, tear); not all of these textures use transparency, so you won't have to manually adjust all of them. If you're not sure, refer to the surfaces tab in DAZ Studio and look if the textures contain a transparency map or not.

- Hair

- maybe some parts of clothes and props

The steps to create an alpha channel and transfer the transparency map are as follows:

- Open the base (colored) texture in Photoshop. (Note: You can use any other program that supports alpha-channels and saving Targa-Files. The following steps will then be a little different, but similar.)

- Click Selection – Select All (or press Ctrl + A with the textures window selected)

- Click Selection – Save selection as

- Leave all options in the next window as they are and click save

- Photoshop now creates a new channel for the texture file called 'Alpha 1' (the others are RGB (for Red, Green, Blue))

- Switch to the channels tab and click the 'Alpha 1' channel to work with it

- Open the transparency map file

- Click Selection – Select All (or Ctrl + A with the transparency maps window selected)

- Press Ctrl + C to copy the map to the clipboard and close the transparency map

- Switch to the Alpha 1 channel of your base texture.

- Leave the channel options as they are and press Ctrl + V to copy the transparency map from the clipboard to the Alpha-channel of the base texture

- Click File – Save as and save the file as a 32-bit *.tga file with Alpha-Channel and without file-compression

- Repeat these steps with all texture files that should contain transparency information

Step 3 - Import your FBX-File in MotionBuilder

Start MotionBuilder, Click File - Open and open your exported FBX-File.

In MotionBuilder you'll find all imported textures and texture-areas in the textures folder in the Navigator window.

Step 4 - Swap textures

Open the Texture settings of the first texture you want to adjust by double-clicking on it in the Scene browser. In the Image Preview area you should see a preview of the current used texture image. By selecting either the RGB or Alpha radio button you can preview the RGB or the Alpha channel of the loaded image. The Alpha channel preview should actually show complete white (this means the texture appears not transparent in rendering).

Click on the Media menu under the image preview and select 'new media'. Browse for your new texture *.tga file and click apply. In the Image Preview area switch the radio-button to 'Alpha'. You should see your new transparency map for that texture in the Preview window.

Repeat this step for all textures containing transparency information. Some texture areas on a model use the same texture file. You have to apply the new texture to all these areas.

Step 5 - Apply a lighted-shader to your model

You will recognize that your objects appearance in the Viewer window seems not to be affected by the new textures. The transparency is not visible at all.

The reason for this is, that the default shader of MotionBuilder doesn't affect the alpha channel with the transparency data. You will have to apply another shader..

To do so, open the template folder in the Asset browser. Open the shader folder and drag a Lighted Shader asset *) in the Viewer.

Drop it on top of the selected object and a contextual menu appears. Select 'Append' to add this shader to the existing shaders on your model or 'Replace All' to use the new shader instead of all other shaders applied to this object. (Note: You will have to detach the default shader manually (see Step 6))

In the Navigator window open the Shaders folder and select the new created shader named 'Lighted'. Open its settings by double-clicking. In the Transparency Type menu of the Shaders settings select 'Accurate Transparency'.

You can adjust the transparency value of the shader by the transparency factor slider. Normally you will leave it at its default setting of 1.0.

*) Instead of the Lighted shader you can also use a Flat shader asset. The Flat shader colors your object with a flat color that is unaffected by the lights in your scene.

Step 6 - Deactivate the Default Shader

Still your model will still not show any transparency effects. This is because the Default shader of MotionBuilder is still activated on your model and so the new Lighted shader cannot produce proper results.

The default-shader cannot be deleted, but you can detach it from your model. Expand the shaders folder in the scene browser and right-click Default Shader. Select 'Detach Shader from all objects' from the contextual menu.

You can also select an object in the scene browser, right-click the default shader and select 'Detach Shader from selected Objects' in the contextual menu. So the default shader will remain on all not selected Objects in your scene.

Step 7 - Work with MotionBuilder

Your model should now use the correct transparency maps on all adjusted textures.

Although this tutorial used a human model as an example, you can use this method for all imported 3D-objects that use transparency maps.

Import Poser Dynamic Cloth into DAZ Studio

2011-11-01T17:42:16+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

Import Poser Dynamic Cloth into DAZ Studio

Author: ChipChop

Tools Needed

Poser 5
Or Poser 6
DAZ Studio

Support Files

Introduction

DAZ Studio can quickly render images using the OpenGL render engine. This is ideal for creating quick animations, but DAZ Studio currently lacks a cloth simulation.

With the help of a little python script included with this tutorial, I will show you how you can use Poser 5 or 6 to calculate your cloth dynamics, and import that into DAZ Studio for a fast render of your dynamic cloth.

(You could also import these files into other applications that support Poser file imports, but not Poser Cloth Simulations.)

Step 1 - Create your Poser Scene with a Cloth Simulation

First, create your scene in Poser. I've created a simple scene with a high-res square, a cube, a cone, and a ball.

Go into the cloth room and setup your simulation. In this simulation, I'm going to clothify the square, and drop it on top of the other objects in the room.

Calculate your simulation, preview it, and make any changes. Once you are satisfied with the simulation, you're ready to continue.

Step 2 - Convert your simulation to Morphs

Go to the frame that you want to convert. Select the prop that has the simulation applied to it. Make sure that the Dynamics parameter for the prop is set to 1 (This will automatically be set when you calculate the simulation).

Select Objects- > Spawn Morph Target from the menu. This will create a morph target on the object that will look like the current simulation.

Name your morph something meaningful - in this case, I'm calling this morph Dyn_Frame_15 for Dynamic Frame 15. I know that the morph came from my dynamic simulation, and was on frame 15.

Set your Dynamics parameter to 0.0, and your new morph to 1.0. The prop should be back in the same shape as in the cloth simulation.

Step 3 - Automate the task

Now that works great if you only care about one frame. To convert ALL of the frames of your current poser scene, you can use the python script included in the zip file.

First, select your prop that has the cloth simulation attached. Select File- > Run Python Script… from the menu. Find where you have placed the Dyn_to_Morphs.py script, and click on it.

The script will now take and step your prop through every frame of your current scene, and will create a target morph for each frame. It will then set the Dynamics parameter to 0.0 for each frame, and set the appropriate newly created morph to 1.0 for the correct frame. Check your new Morph-ified cloth simulation, and save the file!

Step 4 - Import into DAZ Studio

Now open up DAZ Studio. Click on File- > Import in the menu.

Select the poser file you just created with the morphs for each frame.

Your poser scene is now inside DAZ Studio, where you can preview the animation. Feel free to tweak the camera and materials to your liking.

Step 5 - Render your movie

Select Render- > Render Settings from the menu.

Set your render size.

Select Make Movie.

Select Movie File, and select the target location by clicking on the “…” button.

Click on Render.

DAZ Studio will now start rendering. You can see the progress by watching the status bar in the lower left hand corner, and by following the frame indicator.

When the rendering is complete, DAZ Studio will prompt you to choose a compression codec for your movie file. You can also choose uncompressed. DAZ Studio may not be able to use all of the codecs you have installed, so if one doesn't work, try another.

Step 6 - Play back your movie!

Now play back your movie in your preferred player!

Using DAZ Studio's OpenGL rendering will greatly speed up your animation creation, and now you can use Poser's Dynamic cloth inside DAZ Studio!

Importing DAZ Studio Content Into Mojworld 3.0

2011-11-01T17:42:16+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

Importing DAZ Studio Content Into Mojworld 3.0

Author: gmon

Tools Needed

DAZ Studio
DAZ Gorilla LE
Mojoworld 3.0 Pro/LE

Introduction

This tutorial is an introduction to importing content from DAZ Studio into Mojoworld 3.0. It focuses on selecting, setting up and exporting content with DAZ Studio. Then selecting a planet and a specific location on the planet in Mojoworld 3.0. Loading, resizing, repositioning imported content are then dealt with. Then adjustments of camera view, rendering and, finally, saving your imported model as part of a planet file itself.

Step 1 - Setup Content Ready For Exporting From DAZ Studio

Load Gorilla LE into DAZ Studio and set it up as you wish.

Step 2 - Exporting From DAZ Studio

Go to File > Export and save to OBJ file as if you were exporting to Bryce 5. Mojoworld will read the obj format OK. For ease of access later, I saved the Gorilla LE to my GorillaLE sub-folder which I'd setup in my DStudio2MJW folder.

Step 3 - Choosing A World To import DAZ Studio Content To In Mojoworld 3.0.

At this point, you can close DAZ Studio. Then launch Mojoworld 3.0.

When Mojoworld initially launches you are presented with a default empty planet. From here you can create a planet from scratch, but for our purposes we will be using a pre-existing planet file. To access a pre-built planet, go to File > Open Using Browser.

This will launch the Library Importer - planets folder. Using the browser option the planets are visible as thumbnails. Left clicking once on a particular thumbnail of a planet will launch a larger view and description on the left side of the browser window. Double left-clicking or selecting OK in the top right of the browser window will launch your selected planet.

Step 4 - Finding An ideal Location For your DAZ Studio Content

With the selected planet now loaded, you will see a Real-time-render (RTR) which is less detailed that a photo-realistic (final) render. Standing still in one location can improve the viewing quality though. The RTR is mainly for exploration and is produced using your Video Card. The photo-realistic rendering is produced using your pcs CPU.

There is also the smaller Zip renderer in the upper left corner. This provides a much smaller but photorealistic preview. Right clicking in the zip renderer will also enhance the preview render.

To move around in Mojoworld there are many options. The two I'm highlighting in this tutorial are RandomCam and Jognav. Both of these can be accessed via the strip of tools along the bottom of the main view window, the RTR view

The randomCam is a a fast easy way to move between locations on the planet. Clicking on the 6 dice face will transport you rapidly to random locations on the planets surface. Clicking the 2 dice face will show random views in the same basic location. Clicking the + will add views to a stack of possible locations which can by accessed later.

Great for rapidly exploring a planet and getting an idea of the general terrain and views. Plus the store Cam views option mean you can continue to look for better locations even if you find somewhere that is sort of OK.

The second way to explore the planet surface is via the jogNav this is a directional control pad which when you right-click and hold down on a directional arrow in the jognav. This allows you to go forwards, backwards, left and right, according which arrow you've selected. Click > hold on the cross in the centre. In the top arrow position this you circle vertically forwards and round. The bottom arrow position and you circle vertically backwards and round. Click > hold on the left arrow position and you rotate horizontally sideways to the left, Click > hold on the right arrow position and you rotate to the right.

Theres also an altitude control to the right side of those other controls. Click > hold on up arrow and hey presto you ascend. Click > hold on the down arrow and you descend.

For quick altitude adjustments there also a 10 km autojump option and a 2m auto-jump option.

These controls allow you to navigate and select direction and height you want travel and view from.

The arc above with two lines on is also control for adjusting camera angle so you can use that to zoom in and zoom out the view.

Using the Jognav you access locations by manually directing movement across the planets surface. Using the Randomcam you access random locations at the virtual roll of a dice.

Whichever method you choose when you've found an ideal location for importing your DAZ Studio content to, its now time to move on.

Step 5 - Importing DAZ Studio Content Into Your Chosen Location.

To import your model into Mojoworld 3.0. From the CREATE > primitives selection area on the left. Chooose the teapot. Not to make a cup of tea, but to import your obj.file. Right Clicking on the teapot will highlight it in red and will also launch an import window. Obj is an automatically supported format, so simply find your import content and rightclick to select and then click Open. This will initiate the launch of your import into MJW 3.0.

Step 6 - Loading DAZ Studio Content Into the View.

You should see a set of cross-hairs and the words 'Drag in RTR to Place Object'appear in the main view window (RTR). Right click and hold down the mouse button, then move the mouse to introduce the mesh into the scene. Moving your mouse forwards will increase the size. Moving backwards will decrease the size. At this point its a good idea to make sure you load the Import large enough to be easily visible in your scene. You can resize and reposition later.

Step 7 - Using Transforms Tools To Fine-tune Your Imported Content In MJW 3.0.

With the model loaded, you will probably need to make some adjustments. You should see the new content with a purple bounding box around it. In the centre you should also see an X. Right clicking on the cross and holding you can quickly move your mesh around locally.

On the left is a group of tools called Transform. The first three:

the box

the circle with three arrowed lines

the dot with a three-quarter arrowed circle around it

These are the tools we'll focus on.

Right clicking the 'box' icon will activate the resize option. This is achieved by way of either grabbing a corner of the purple bounding box which should have lightbrown cube in it, or moving your mouse to one of the faces of the bounding box which should change to a yellowy colouring. Clicking on the corner and moving allows for resizing of the whole mesh. Using a face allows you'resize along the x, y or z co-ordinates.

Clicking on the 'circle with three arrowed lines' will active the movement option. and a three pointed gizmo should become visible (similar to DAZ Studio) Click/grab one of the pointy lines and you can move the imported content in the x, y or z direction. Basically forwards-backwards, side to side, up and down.

Clicking on the 'dot with three quarter circle around it' will provide access to rotational control again similar to in DAZ Studio {except only applied to the whole model not individual parts as in DS}

Step 8 - Adjusting Camera-angle Using A Second Option On The JogNav

When you have your content positioned where you want it you can make adjustments to your camera view using a second option on the JogNav. This only becomes active when a mojo-primitive, light or model is present. Clicking on the centre of the imported content here, so that the purple bounding box is visible, makes that your current selection and activates this new option.

Now a new camera icon appears in the jognav at the bottom of the Viewing screen. You can now change the function of the JogNav by clicking on this camera icon. This changes the way the jog nav operates so that it becomes centred on the selected object. Using the Jognav now, movement is around the object. This can produce excellent new perspectives and views and allows you to fine tune, even further, the final view that your render will show.

Step 9 - Simple Rendering

This is a simplified approach to rendering in Mojoworld 3.0 Pro or LE. There are other more advanced approaches, but this is the way you will initially find easiest and most obvious to use.

So, with your preferred planet loaded, location identified, DAZ content imported and viewpoint finalised. You can now render your image.

This is done at the top above the RTR view. The render itself is started by clicking on the camera icon there. The render setting is selected via clicking on the arrow and three lines next to the camera icon. This launches a stack of options with 5 render quality settings displayed in the centre. These range from low to maximum. Low through to normal are automatically rendered without shadows and therefore are faster. However, your imported content may look odd or out of place, without shadows to ground it into the scene. High and Maximum settings have shadows on. They take longer to render but provide higher render quality and your imported content will look more at home as the shadows help integrate there.

Rendering directly via the low to maximum settings selection will output an image 857×523 pixels in size. (The resolution settings can be altered but for ease in this introductory tutorial I decided to go with the pre-set default)

This will launch a new render window in MJW 3.0. When the render finishes theres an icon in the render window which has been described before as 'a pile of pancakes' …lol.

When clicked, this will open a save render dialogue box. Here you can save your image in various formats: JPEG, PNG, BMP, etc. The general preference is to save as PNG and for posting to galleries online - convert to JPG after postworking.

Step 10 - Saving Your DAZ Content On A Mojoworld Planet File.

Finally, once you've gone to the effort of setting up content with DAZ Studio and loading it into Mojoworld. You might as well save the content within mojoworld itself, so you can easily re-use it later. To do this click File > save As and then in the new Library Exporter - Planet window choose your own name for your saved planet. You also get to save the last rendered image or do a new image. so you have a viewable thumbnail which will make accessing that particular planet easier with the browser used in step 3. You can also save a description too. So can add notes for yourself to remind yourself of the planets content when you view it again later.

Theres lots of other details for importing and using content. However my intention here was to provide you with a basic sequence from selection/setup of content in DAZ Studio to final render and then saving content on a planet in Mojoworld 3 Pro/SE.

I hope this has provided you with a primer to get you started using DAZ Studio and Mojoworld 3 together.

Happy modeling and rendering!

Importing DAZ Studio Scenes into Cinema 4D

2011-11-01T17:42:16+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

Importing DAZ Studio Scenes into Cinema 4D

Author: kennez

Tools Needed

DAZ Studio
Cinema 4D8.5 (May work in earlier versions)

Introduction

DAZ Studio is a fine application, but sometimes you need that little bit extra to make an image really special. Cinema 4D can help you create that special image, thanks to it's support for things like HDRI, as well as caustics and volumetrics.

This tutorial will show you how to bring your D|S scene into C4D for lighting and rendering.

NOTE: This tutorial uses C4D 8.5, but these techniques may work with older versions.

Step 1 - DAZ Studio

Load your scene into DAZ Studio, and set up the materials as you want them (not essential, but good practice. This also allows you to render from D|S properly at a future date if you'require)

Step 2 - Exporting from D|S

Goto File > Export and save your OBJ file. Studio will copy all of the textures over for you.

Step 3 - Importing into Cinema 4D

Load up C4D, and import your OBJ file, using File > Open

The C4D scale is different from the D|S scale, so scale the object up.

Create a NULL object, and make all imported objects children of the null. Then, scale the null up by about 200%

Step 4 - Materials

Select your first material, and apply the correct texture map to the Color channel.

Also, make sure you apply any transparency maps to the Transparency channel of the material.

Adjust any other settings to your requirements.

Loading Poser 6 content Into DAZ Studio

2011-11-01T17:42:16+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

Loading Poser 6 content Into DAZ Studio

Author: akura

Tools Needed

DAZ Studio and Poser 6

Introduction

Ok when it asks for the .pmd file, find it, it's in the character folder, it will recognise it. Then if it asks if you would like to find the OBJ/.obz file hit Skip, then reimport the scene, then when it asks you to find the .pmd file again, find it and then DAZ Studio will not ask for the obj file the second time and the OBJ file will load automatically.

Step 1 - Import your file

Load your Poser 6 document.

Step 2 - Find the .pmd file.

It well ask you to find the .pmd file fo your character. Click Locate.

Step 3 - Load the .pmd

Open the .pmd file. After you find it. It's in the Poser 6 Character folder in the Runtimelibraries folder.

Step 4 - You are done.

You're finished importing your document.

Step 5 - Now render your scene.

This is the finished rendered Poser 6 scene in DAZ Studio

I hope you guys learned how to do this. Thank you. Got any questions, my email is gothica.inc@gmail.com

Using Poser (DAZ) Content in DAZ Studio

2011-11-01T17:42:16+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

Using Poser (DAZ) Content in DAZ Studio

Author: Vicky Tolonen

Tools Needed

DAZ Studio
V3 Base+add-on packs

Introduction

This tutorial will take you through the step-by-step process of finding and installing Poser content for use in DAZ Studio and the basic steps of using that content in DAZ Studio.

Step 1 - Installing Content to DAZ Studio

When you download Poser content from the DAZ site you should save it on your computer in an easy to find location. (You'll want to save this somewhere permanent in case you ever need to reinstall the content.)

After the download is complete you will need to double click on the installer icon to begin the installation process. As the installer is running, you should come to a screen similar to this one. (Older products may have slightly different installation screens.) Please select DAZ Studio from the drop down menu as that will be the application you will be using the content in.

You will also need to make sure your Destination Directory is set to DAZ:Studio:Content folder.

You should then see the installation starting.

Note: Some older installers will get into a “loop” when searching large hard drives. Click Cancel on the “Searching for Installed Components” stage to stop the Search, and Browse to your Content folder instead.

Step 2 - Finding Content in DAZ Studio

Once DAZ Studio is installed, the first thing you should do is set your Poser content Directories. To do this, click on your Edit- > Preferences (PC) or DAZ Studio- > Preferences (Mac), and choose Poser Content Directories from the drop-down menu.

Click Search to have DAZ Studio search your entire computer for Poser Content. You can also manually add your DAZ:Studio:content folder to your Content Directories from here. If you have Poser 4, 5, or 6, you can also add content from them here. You can also create different Runtime folders to organize your content.

For example, you can have all of your Victoria 3 items in one Runtime, and all of your Michael 3 items in another Runtime. Make sure to add the folder that contains the Runtime, otherwise DAZ Studio will not read the content correctly.

For instance, if you have a DAZ:Victoria:Runtime folder, you should add the 'Victoria' folder to your content directories.

Once you have added your Content directories, close and reopen DAZ Studio.

After you'reopen DAZ Studio, you should have a Content tab (Windows- > Content), usually on the left side of your DAZ Studio interface.

In your Content tab, your content will be organized in a similar way to how it would be in Poser. Clothing, sometimes hair, and scenes, will often be in your Figures folder. Note: When you are looking at a Poser-content folder, Figures, Hair and Props contain actual things that can be loaded into your scene, while Pose, Face and Hands contain things to modify the item you currently have selected in your scene(i.e. MATerial Pose Files apply MATerials to your Figure). Lights and Cameras create new lights and cameras for use in the scene.

If you have multiple Runtimes, you will see them all in your Content tab. (The items are, by default, organized by how the program handles them.)

Step 3 - Creating Your Scene--Loading Figures

You can now start creating your scene.

For this scene, I will use V3 and some of her accessories. To load V3, go to your Figures- > DAZ People folder, and double click on the icon that says Victoria 3 SAE.

After you do this a progress window will pop up which shows you the progress of loading the Victoria 3.0 figure into your document window. Once Victoria is completely loaded the progress window should disappear and you will see Victoria 3 in the document window in the default pose.

Now you need to add clothing to V3. In this scene we will use her Bikini, so go to where the bikini figure is located in the content tab, which is Figures- > V3 Morphing Clothes. Then just double click on the V3 Bikini Full SR1 to load it into your scene.

Note: Clothing can be in a wide variety of folders, so you should check your ReadMe to find out where it was installed.

To Fit the Bikini to V3 so that it will move with her when you pose her, just select the Bikini in your Scene tab (Windows- > Scene), and then go to your Parameters tab. Near the bottom of the General section in the parameters tab, you should have a Fit-To button. Click on that and choose V3 SAE from the drop down menu. The Clothing is now Fitted to V3 and will stay with her as you pose her.

Step 4 - Creating Your Scene--Texturing Figures

You can also change textures of the Bikini, and of V3, to make them more interesting and life-like. We already have the Bikini selected, so we will start with that.

In the Content Tab, go to the section called Poses and find the MAT V3 Clothing folder. In there, you will see a series of different designs for the Bikini. These are called MAT Poses, short for MATerial Poses, and are meant to change the Materials settings of that particular figure (the bikini).

Material settings affect the look of an item, such things as the color of the bikini and how shiny it is. Choose the MAT Pose you want to use, make sure the Bikini is still selected, and double click on the MAT Pose icon to apply it to the bikini.

You should now see the design you chose applied to the Bikini.

Now we want to change Victoria 3's skin texture so that she doesn't have that plastic look. We will use the V3 Universal Texture Maps for this example. To do this, select V3 SAE in your Scene tab then go to your Poses- > MAT V3 Maps HI folder in the Content Tab.

In this folder, you will see several items, including the actual skin texture MAPs, and some skin and eye colors. You need to apply the actual MAPs first, either !V3Natural Hi PP ( to give V3 that natural look) , or !V3Make Up Hi PP (to make her look like she is wearing a bit of make-up). ('Hi' means the textures are high resolution–they take a little more computer resources to use, but the final render is nicer, especially for close-ups.) In this scene we will make V3 look natural, so double click on the !V3Natural Hi PP file.

You may notice that there are a lot of files that are named the same except some have a P4, a PP, or a P5 at the end, which stand for Poser 4, Poser ProPack, and Poser 5 respectively. The P4 version of the material does not work in DAZ Studio and the P5 version can sometimes be difficult, so you will always want to use the PP version of the file.

Step 5 - INJecting and Using Morphs

To change the shapes of one of the DAZ Generation 3 figures, such as V3, you will usually need to inject specific morph target(s) into the figure using the Morph INJection/REMoval technology.

In brief, select the Head of the character (if it is a Head Morph), or the Body of the character (if it is a Body Morph). Then, double click on the morph target(s) INJection file that you want to use, which can be found in the Poses section of the Content tab. Once you have done this that specific morph target(s) will be listed under the Parameters tab, when you have the body part that the morph target corresponds to selected in the Scene tab. Then all you need to do is change the values of the morph dial to see a change in your character.

Later, if you decide that you do not need a specific morph injected into your character, you can remove the morph by clicking on the Morph Target's REMoval file, which is also located in the Poses section of the Content tab.

Here you can see V3 with the HdAsian Morph set to 100%

and the V3 Smile1 morph set to 100%

Note: Some characters have their Expressions and Morphs already loaded into the character. In these cases, the Expressions or Morphs do not need to be INJected.

Step 6 - Loading Hair as Hair Files (Sassy Hair)

Now we want to add some hair to the character.

Hair comes in two types. One type of hair is a Hair Prop, and is loaded from the Hair folder in the Content tab. The Sassy Hair 2 style is an example of this. To use this hair on V3, double click the Sassy Hair 2 S3P icon in the Hair folder to load it into the work area.

After that, select the Sassy Hair in your Scene Tab, and drag it onto the Victoria 3 SAE- > Head listing(also in the Scene Tab). This Parents the hairstyle to V3, so that it appears as below.

Now, with the Sassy Hair selected in the Scene tab, go to your Parameters tab and set the Victoria3Fit dial to 100%. The Sassy Hair will now be Parented to Victoria 3's Head, and be Fitted into place.

Step 7 - Loading Hair as Figure Files (Maria Hair)

The other type of hair is a Hair Figure, which is loaded from your Figures folder. In this example, I'm using the Maria Hair for V3. If you want to use this hair instead, select the Sassy Hair and delete it using the delete key on your keyboard. Then go to your Figures- > DAZ Hair folder, and double click on the Maria Hair icon.

Hair from the Figures folder works in the exact same way as Clothing, so you would select the Hair in your Scene Tab, go to your Parameters tab, and select Fit To- > V3 SAE.

Step 8 - Tweaking Hair pt1

Now the Maria Hair is a very nice hairstyle, but right now it looks rather dull, even after you render it. This is because DAZ Studio handles materials quite a bit differently than Poser. Poser content must sometimes be tweaked to look the way you want.

To tweak the materials of an object you will need to open your Surfaces tab (View- > Tabs- > Surfaces), and go to the Advanced tab.

Select the Maria Hair material (it only has a BangsL group) from the Surfaces drop down menu.

Step 9 - Tweaking Hair pt2

Now change the Diffuse Color to White, and the Ambient Color to Black by clicking on the little colored button under the name.

Now when you render your image the hair will be a lovely strawberry blond!

Step 10 - Adding Backgrounds and Posing

You can also add other figures and props to a scene.

For this scene, we want to add a background of the beach. To do this I chose the MPCycBeach figure which would be located in the Environments folder in the Figures section of the Content tab.

Double-click on the MPCycBeach icon, which then loads the Multiplane Cyclorama, with the beach texture, into the document window.

The next step would be to pose your figure. For this example we will use one of the basic poses that come with V3. Go to the Poses folder in the Content tab. The poses that come with V3 are located in a folder called !DAZ's Victoria 3.

For this example we will use the V3 Reclining pose. Make sure that V3 is selected in the Scene tab and then double click on the pose icon to apply the pose to the V3 figure.

Step 11 - Working with the Camera and Fixing the Hair

You will probably want to customize your Camera angle to focus on V3, especially for those close-up renders. To do this, select your Camera from the Scene Tab and use the X, Y, Z rotation, and translation dials. You can also use the View controls to customize the camera angle (pg 3, DAZ Studio Quickstart Guide).

Usually, for close-up scenes, you will want to adjust the camera Focal Length for a more realistic appearance. The default Focal Length in DAZ Studio is 50. For the purposes of this tutorial, we will change it to 85, which will help keep the image from distorting when doing a close-up shot of Victoria. You can change the focal length by selecting your Camera in the Scene tab, then changing the Focal Length in the Parameters tab.

Sometimes, when you pose your character, your Hair will deform because of the bending of the character's head and neck. Different Hairstyles will require different adjustments. In this case, the Maria Hair deforms around the Right Shoulder area. To fix this, you will want to select the Right Collar of the Maria Hair from your Scene tab. Then, in your Parameter tab, double click on the words 'Front-Back.' This will open the Properties of this parameter. Click on Respect Limits to turn them Off. Now set the Front-Back parameter to around -265, and the right collar will straighten out.

Step 12 - Lighting-Lights and Lighting Models

DAZ Studio comes with its own default global lighting. For a more realistic scene, you will want to add and adjust your own lights.

DAZ Studio allows you to create Point, Spot, and Distant lights. In this case, I ended up using one distant light to light up the entire scene, and two spotlights to brighten up V3, and some dark spots on the beach.

You can adjust the lights by selecting them in the Scene Tab, and spinning the Parameter dials. You can also select your Lights from the Camera drop-down, to view your scene from the perspective of the Light's origin. This helps you to position the lights where you want them.

Now you will notice that the skin has some odd highlights on it. This is because the default Lighting Model for most Poser-imported items is 'Plastic.' To change this, go to your Surfaces tab, and select the various V3 Skin parts (You can multi-select by Shift-Clicking on each item).

Then go to the Surfaces tab, and change the Lighting Model to Matte (I prefer this over Skin). I also changed the Hair and the Cyclorama to Metallic, just for fun.

Step 13 - Create and Enjoy!

And that's it! We've now gone through loading, texturing, adding hair, adding backgrounds, lights, and tweaking poses and surfaces.

It's impossible to show you all of the different things you can do with DAZ Studio, because there are quite literally hundreds of possibilities! So feel free to use the information I have provided in this tutorial to have fun with DAZ Studio, and experiment with your creativity!

Importing Props into DAZ Studio

2011-11-01T17:42:16+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

Importing Props into DAZ Studio

Author: JGreenlees

Tools Needed

DAZ Studio
Your prop obj
Your texture files

Support Files

none

Introduction

You've created a prop and you want to provide it to the world or a few friends, but you aren't sure how or what you need. This tutorial will guide you through the process of creating your DAZ files, what to grab and how to package it for giving away or selling

Step 1

Create your model in your modeling program. Uvmap it and assign materials. There are plenty of tutorials on these so I won't go into them. So we will assume that you have done the hard part already and are now prepared to create your DAZ Studio prop files. You are going to import your prop into DAZ Studio. Choose File>Import to do this. Locate your prop file then select it.

Note: Make sure you avoid generic names. Whether it is an object name or a texture name . Things like box.obj and box.jpg. Make each name unique. Even numbers won't work box1.obj try something that will set it apart. Your initials even. jlgbox.obj or jlgbin.obj

Step 2

You will see the next window after you select your prop.

Poser and bryce usually have the same scale. What I normally do is cut the scale in half or in forth's depending on the modeler I have used to create my prop in. Play with this to get the best setting for you.I use the default settings.

Step 3

Your prop will import into DAZ Studio. As you can see my prop was a simple box. I imported three and then linked them together. If you have a scene that takes several different props parent them to one that way if someone wants to move them around the can grab the parent and not lose the others. Next you want to apply materials using the surfaces tab which you can find under View>Tabs>Surfaces

Step 4

Assign your maps. However make sure your maps are in the DAZ Studio:Content:Runtime:Textures directory Or your poser Runtime:Textures directory If you place them anywhere else, studio will hard code the path and when someone tries to use your file they will receive errors. Also by having the files there it will be easier for you to package your product or free item. Adjust your texture maps, bump maps, transparency maps and other settings to get the proper look. Once done you are ready to move on to saving your prop

Step 5

To save your prop you will want to go to File>Save as>Scene. Be sure to name your prop appropriately, avoid generic names.

Name your folders. In this case since this is a simple box set I have named my folders I start at the DAZ Studio>Content>Props>BoxSet. My scene name I would call BoxSet Alpha for the first of a series. Click save to save the scene in .daz format. This will generate three things. The scene file a .png thumbnail of the scene and geometry folders. If I was to package this item for sale I would want to grab all of those plus my texture folder

Step 6

Now to package everything because I want to share this with a friend I need to grab everything So I will look in these folders and grab certain things.

the data folder. I will grab the folder BoxSet and put it in my packaging folder under the data folder I create there Props>BoxSet I would grab this folder and put it under props in the packing folder I created Then I would grab my textures and put them under the folder that I created as well Runtime>Myfolder>Mytextures.jpg

Zip it all up and now I can give it away and my friends can use it!

Basic Lighting in DAZ Studio

2011-11-01T17:42:16+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

Basic Lighting in DAZ Studio

Lighting is probably the most important element for any render in DAZ Studio. There are plenty of plugins and light presets to help you get the perfect look. The truth is that good lighting is actually very easy when you understand some basic principles. A good lighting foundation means that your renders will look better and that you’ll get more power out of the cool plugins and shaders in the DAZ 3D store. Here are some easy to learn tips that Melmoth taught me.

Writer's Note: This article includes a 'specularity' light. It turns out this is not necessary, unless you are using the WorldBase Extreme Dome. If you are not using the WorldBase Extreme product, then exclude the specularity lighting.

KINDS OF LIGHT IN DAZ STUDIO

Multiple lights and shadows are essential to proper lighting. There are different kinds of lights you can use in Studio. These are:

Point Light
Distant Light
Spotlight

Each of these types of light has a different function. A Point Light is a light that radiates in all directions from a specific point where it is located. The light fades out over distance. A Distant Light is light that goes in a single direction and radiates as if from a plane throughout the whole scene. Distant light doesn’t fade over an extent of space. It is the same strength everywhere in the scene, but unlike a point light, it only points in one direction. A Spot Light, as the name suggests, is a light from a specific point in the scene that shines in one general direction, like a flashlight beam. The Point Light and the Spot Light do not have infinite distance. The Distant Light does have infinite distance in the scene and is probably the easiest to work with for this reason. Since this is a basic tutorial, we’ll only be using the Distant Light.

To start off, open a new, empty scene in DAZ Studio (FILE –> New). Place a figure or primitive into the scene. I will be using Victoria 4.2. For this tutorial, Victoria 4.2 EZ is equally effective and if you’d like to follow along you should use either Victoria 4.2 or Victoria 4.2 EZ.

CREATE THE FIRST DISTANT LIGHT

Now we’ll add a light. This light will be the main light. To do this, go to CREATE –> Distant Light.

A menu will open with a name for the light. We’re going to make other lights and we want to be able to identify which light is which quickly in the Scene Tab. Let’s change the name of this light to ‘Light Sun.’ In this tutorial, all the lights will start with the word ‘Light.’ This will make them next to each other in the Scene Tab and therefore easier to find and look through. Press ‘Accept’ and Studio puts the light into your scene.

You’ll see Victoria 4.2’s appearance change from the neutral, diffuse lighting that is the default in a new DAZ Studio Scene to the effect of the single Distant Light.

PARAMETER SETTINGS

Let’s change the settings for the “Light Sun.” This will be the main light in the scene. Select the “Light Sun” in the Scene Tab. Then look at the settings in the Parameters Tab (VIEW –> Tabs –> Parameters). Use the scroll bar on the side to scroll down to the bottom.

It’s best to use shadows with all lights. Let’s change the Shadow Type to ‘Deep Shadow Map.’ To do this, click on the drop-down and change from ‘None’ to ‘Deep Shadow Map.’

Since this is the main light or sunlight, we want crisp shadows. Let’s leave the ‘Shadow Softness’ on 0.0%.

The ‘Illumination’ should be kept to ‘On’ as this is a full light.

For this tutorial, we’ll keep the ‘Color’ to the default white. You could however change it to a very slight yellowish tint to duplicate the color of the sun.

We’ll leave intensity on 100% since this is the main light.

Our settings now look like this:

POINTING THE LIGHT

Distant Lights give light of equal strength in a single direction throughout the whole scene. For this reason, it’s not necessary to move a distant light away from the default position on the ground in the middle of the scene. As long as the light is pointing in the same direction, you can put it anywhere in the scene and there will be absolutely no change in the lighting effect. Its direction is important. Its location is irrelevant.

Let’s point the light. The default direction is simply in the same direction that the camera by default is pointing which is into the eyes of the figure when it is first loaded. This isn’t very dynamic, so we’ll want to change it. I used to use the transform bars on the Parameters tab to pose lights. It turns out there’s a much better and easier way to do this.

Go to the ‘View Selection List’ drop down and click on it. You’ll see ‘Light Sun in the list.’ Click on it to select it.

Now you’re actually looking in the same direction that the distant light is pointing. It’s very easy to point the light by using the ‘Camera Orbit Tool.’ Another great thing about this is that you don’t even need to see the Distant Light icon in the scene. It could be hidden inside of a prop or figure. It doesn’t matter, because you can always find it in the Scene Tab alphabetically listed with the other ‘Lights.’ There’s never a good reason to move a Distant Light from the default location. That’s just more hassle and work when you can use the Scene Tab to find it and the View function in DAZ Studio to point it.

Hold down the mouse button (left for those who need to know that) on the ‘Camera Orbit Tool’ and move your mouse around.

Choose a direction. In this picture, I have chosen a direction pointing from above front onto Victoria’s right side. You’ll notice that the perspective is distorted when viewing as the light.

Now you can change back to the ‘Default Camera’ and check the lighting.

SPECULAR LIGHT

We want to create a specular light for the ‘Light Sun.’ Go to CREATE –> DistantLight. Name the new light ‘Light Sun Specular’ and press ‘Accept.’

You’ll see that Victoria brightens up. There are two full lights shining on her right now. However, this second light is supposed to be a specular light. Let’s change the properties for it. Select ‘Light Sun Specular’ in the Scene Tab. Then go to the Parameters Tab and scroll down to the Shadow and the other properties.

Change the Shadow Type to ‘Deep Shadow Map.’ Then let’s change Light Illumination to ‘Specular Only.’ The brightens decreases noticeably. This specular light and the other ones we add will help the lighting define the subject and add realism. Shadow softness is not important for a specular light, so we’ll leave the softness setting on 0%. This is the main specular light, so we’ll leave it on 100% intensity.

Now we have these settings for ‘Light Sun Specular.’

Let’s point this light. Change the view selection to ‘Light Sun Specular’ and use the ‘Camera Orbit Rotation’ tool. Since this is the specularity for the ‘Light Sun,’ we’ll want to have this light point in the same or nearly the same direction as ‘Light Sun.’ You can compare the directions by changing from ‘Light Sun Specular’ to ‘Light Sun’ in the View Selection. Adjust the ‘Light Sun Specular’ direction so that it is the same or nearly the same as ‘Light Sun.’

Now change back to the ‘Default Camera.’ You may not see much of a difference, but the specular light will be an important component when you render.

You can see that the lighting is actually somewhat harsh. In real life, light is usually coming from many directions. In an outside setting, light from the sun can reflect off just about anything in the surroundings. Usually this is primarily the ground. To simulate this effect, we’ll add some more Distant Lights that we’ll call “ambient.” Ambient light is essentially reflected light.

AMBIENT LIGHTS

Create the first ambient light. Go to Create –> DistantLight. Name the light ‘Light Ambient 01’ and press ‘Accept.’ This light will represent ambient light reflecting off the ground. This light is of much less intensity than the sun itself. It’s just a reflection. We’ll set the Shadow Type to ‘Deep Shadow Map.’ We’ll set the shadow softness to 50%. As a rule of thumb, ambient lights should have some softness if their intensity is more than 10%. Illumination should be just ‘On’ as this is a regular light. We’ll leave the color on white for this tutorial. We could change the color to have a very slight green tint to simulate the ambient light from a grassy park. Finally, let’s change the intensity to 20%. Here are the settings:

Let’s pose ‘Light Ambient 01.’ Change the view to ‘Light Ambient 01’ and use the ‘Camera Orbit Rotation’ tool. Let’s point the light so that it is coming nearly straight up and a little towards Victoria 4.2 like this.

Change to the ‘Default Camera.’ You can see how the relatively sharp contrast between dark and light has been softened. The main shadows and lighting are still present for definition, but the other details of the figure are a bit clearer.

Just as we added a specular light for ‘Light Sun,’ we will add a specular light for ‘Light Ambient 01.’ Go to CREATE –> DistantLight. Name the light ‘Light Ambient 01 Specular.’

For this light, let’s have: Deep Shadow Map, Shadow Softness 0%, Illumination: Specular Only, Color: white, Intensity: 20%. Then change the view to ‘Light Ambient 01 Specular’ and use the ‘Camera Orbit Rotation’ tool to point it. It should point in the same or nearly the same direction as ‘Light Ambient 01.’ Change back to ‘Default Camera’ to see the status of the lighting in your DAZ Studio Scene.

For even more realism, you can add more ambient lights with accompanying specular lights. Let’s add a second ambient light. We’ll call it ‘Light Ambient 02.’ We’ll give it the same properties as the first ambient light and have it point from below towards Victoria’s left side.

Follow up with ‘Light Ambient 02 Specular.’ Use the same properties for this light as for ‘Light Ambient 01 Specular.’ Point this light in the same direction as ‘Light Ambient 02.’

Now change the view to ‘Default Camera’ and check out the scene. It’s starting to look even better. Let’s add one last pair of lights (ambient and specular). You guessed it—this one will be called ‘Light Ambient 03.’ It will have the same properties as ‘Light Ambient 01’ and ‘Light Ambient 02.’ We’ll point this light from below at Victoria, but this one will be directed towards Victoria’s right side to balance the other ambient lights. Follow up with ‘Light Ambient 03 Specular.’ Use the same properties as the other two ambient specular lights and point it in the same direction as ‘Light Ambient 03.’

Now check the scene by changing back to ‘Default Camera.’ At this point in the tutorial, we’ll stop adding ambient lights. We could add one or two more ambient lights and specular lights from above to represent light reflecting from the open sky. If we did choose to do this, however, we wouldn’t see a difference in the preview. DAZ Studio only calculates lighting for the first eight lights in the preview. The additional lights beyond the first eight would definitely be used in the render, but they would not show up in the preview. This is because the preview is in real time and additional lighting computations would slow down the preview.

RENDER

Now make a render of your simple scene (CTRL + R). DAZ Studio computes the shadow maps for all eight lights and then renders the scene. Now you can compare it to Victoria 4.2 in a scene with no lighting (or the default, diffuse lighting). What a difference! The lit Victoria 4.2 has a sense of drama and realism. The unlit scene is flat and prosaic.

Your render will not necessarily look exactly the same as this one since the directions of your lights will not be exactly the same.

SUMMARY

Create, Set, and point main Distant Light
Create, Set, and point Specular light to accompany main Distant Light
Create, Set, and point first ambient light
Create, Set, and point Specular light for first ambient light
Create additional ambient lights and specular lights for each as needed

CONCLUSION

You can see that there are still some heavy shadows in the render. We could have added eight instead of just three ambient light pairs and had them set to intensity of 15% or 10% for a broadly spread ambient light. We could have also increased the intensity of the specular lights for more definition.

Now you have a taste for the power of effective lighting in Studio. You can experiment and create just the look you want for your magnum opus!

Disco Lights

2011-11-01T17:42:17+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

Disco Lights

Author: Ruri ruri

Tools Needed

* DAZ Studio

Support Files

*Trans.zip

Step 1: Creating the ball

Create a sphere Primitive by clicking here

Once you have your sphere go to the surfaces box and set up the settings like down below. For the diffuse color download the support file and load it there.

When all the settings look the same as the picture you are done with the Ball. (ADD A REFLECTION MAP TO MAKE THE BALL GLOW EVEN PRETTIER)

Step 2: Lighting up the Ball

Create Ten spotlights then click in the top left corner of the active view point and select Front view.

Align the ten lights around the ball like in the picture then change from front view to left view. Make ten more spotlights and line them up around the sphere. You picture should look same as this

Select the individual lights and make them different colors. Should look like this.

Parent the lights to the ball by selecting them in the scene box and dragging them unto the ball. (In min I parented the lights to each other first you don't have to do that)

Step 3: Disco Room

To create a disco room create a cube primitive. Make sure it's a lot larger than the ball.

In the surfaces box set the diffuse for the cube to be the same as the Sphere. Make sure the ambient is a very dark color.

Step 4: Animating it

Open the timeline by going into the view menu then tabs select timeline.

On the timeline select the 30th frame

Then select your sphere. In the parameters box set the rotation to randomly high numbers.

Step 5: Rendering It

Open the render settings box by going to render next to view and click render settings. make sure your settings look like mine:

When they do go ahead and render … Here is a still image render of the disco ball and room.

Making Magic Glow and Shine

2011-11-01T17:42:17+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

Making Magic Glow and Shine

Author: Que Arres

Tools Needed

* DAZ Studio

Introduction

Have you ever rendered a scene in DAZ containing magic that just didn't… well, sparkle? This simple tutorial will help you fix that! In this method, I will be making the Throwing Ball from DAZ's Magik Poseable and Conforming FX Figures glow with inner light.

Step 1 - Set Up the Scene

Simply put, set up your DAZ scene as usual. Here, I have Kit the sprite admiring one of his spells. I've made the background gray so that I can see what I'm working on better. There are no lights in this scene yet.

One important thing to do here is TURN OFF THE SHADOWS FOR YOUR MAGIC. The magic will be giving off light, so it shouldn't have a shadow of its own.

Step 2 - Add Your Lights

If you're using a saved lighting set or a preset, load it now. If you load it afterwards, it may delete the light you'll be adding to make the magic glow, forcing you to start over again. For my scene, the magic will be the primary light source, so I only add an ambient light (i.e. distance light) to brighten the scene. It has the following settings:

This is the render now:

Not much different than the first, but it's a little brighter. Notice how the magic looks dull and flat, not shiny. These last few steps are the key to making it glow.

Step 3 - Make It Shiny

Go into the Surfaces tab and select the magic's surface (for me, it's magic_dust_1). Go to the Advanced tab and scroll down to the Reflection option. Choose the Reflection Color you want to make your magic shine (since I want a fire-like effect, I make mine yellow) and set the Reflection Strength to 100%. Also, set the Lighting Model to Metallic (under General). Here's how mine looks:

If you were to render it now, the magic would still look dull, and you probably won't be able to see the reflection color you chose either. Don't worry; it'll be important soon.

Step 4 - Adding the Inner Glow

Here's the heart of the magic: the glow. Create a Point Light and place it as close to the center of your magic as you can. This may take a little patience and practice. When you have the light placed where you want it, turn the shadows on and set the color to what you want. I used orange.

Now, render your scene.

Now that's shiny!

Step 5 - Finishing Touches

Tweak the lighting and other intensities until you get the desired results. It might take a little experimentation to find the right settings for your scene. I was going for a darker look, so I changed my lighting a bit (added a third light and changed the color of the ambient light as well as turning on shadows for it) and dropped all the light intensities to 50%. I changed the shape of the magic (transparency map) and dropped its reflection and ambient intensities to 50% and its opacity to 25%. I also made the background black. Here's my final render:

Have fun making your own scenes light up!

Shadows 1: Creating a dappled sunlight effect in DAZ Studio

2011-11-01T17:42:17+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

Shadows 1: Creating a dappled sunlight effect in DAZ Studio

Author: Porter

Tools Needed

DAZ Studio
Photoshop

Introduction

Professional photographers often use shadow mask 'gels' with their lights, to duplicate in the studio the effects of light that is being patterned by something in the environment, but which is out of the picture, such as sunlight that is coming through a Venetian blind, or filtering through the branches of trees overhead. In this tutorial I will demonstrate a method for creating your own 'shadow mask gels' for use in DAZ Studio, which you can use to create a dappled sunlight effect, like sunlight filtering through a leafy canopy above the subject. The DAZ Studio rendered images in this tutorial have no post-work, other than to crop and scale them.

Compare the two pictures below.

The image on the left is nice, but the background implies she's sitting in a densely wooded area, while the light shining on her looks like she's in an open clearing. Adding the shadow mask creates a more realistic effect, like she's actually under a canopy of tree branches.

Requirements:

DAZ Studio

Adobe Photoshop 4 or higher (or any similar 2D graphics application)

A digital camera (or a regular camera or suitable picture, and some way to scan the photograph)

Any flat prop

Resources:

A picture of tree branches:

http://www.polyhedrongroup.com/tutorials/dap-shadows/treeJPG

Finished shadow mask:

http://www.polyhedrongroup.com/tutorials/dap-shadows/TreeMaskJPG

Free OBJ file for a large planar object:

http://www.polyhedrongroup.com/tutorials/dap-shadows/Canopy.obj

Step 1 - Creating / selecting a suitable photograph for the mask

You have a scene in DAZ Studio like the one above, and you want to add the effect that there are leafy branches overhead, between the subject and the sun.

Examine the scene. The background environment shows broad-leafed trees, with fairly dense branches and leaves. It's apparently a sunny day, with the sun high in the sky. Looking at the tree trunks behind her, the sunlight is coming in at a fairly steep angle from the left. The scene's 'distant' lighting for the figure has been set to match that, with a less bright 'fill' spotlight from the right, to keep the shadows on the girl from being too dark.

Keep this environment in mind when taking or selecting the photograph to use for your shadow mask. Your picture should be of a similar environment. I went into my back yard and shot several pictures with a digital camera, looking up through tree branches at a similar angle, behind which was a clear blue sky. I chose a sunny, cloudless day, so it would be easier to make the mask. Here's a half-sized image of the picture we'll be working with. (You can download the full-sized image from the my references links.)

Step 2 - Selecting the sky

We want a uniform amount of light to come through where there are no branches. So we will use Photoshop to select all the blue sky, and delete it.

Open the image in Photoshop. Use the 'Eyedropper' tool to select a part of the sky that is about the mid-point of the shades of blue in the picture.

From the Select menu, choose 'Color Range'. Set the “Fuzziness” setting as high as necessary to select most of the sky areas. Click on OK to select the sky.

Step 3 - Removing the sky

With the sky selected, you can simply press the delete key, and the area selected will turn white.

Depending on the software you use, the selected sky area may turn to transparent instead of white. This does not matter. The object is to get the sky area a uniform white color, and if it's transparent, it will become white when you save it to JPG later in this process.

Press Ctrl+D (windows) or CMD-D (Mac), or chose 'None' from the Select menu, to de-select the current selected area.

Step 4 - Drop to grayscale or bitmapped

We don't need the color information, since we're just creating shadows with this image.

On the Image menu, select 'Mode', and choose 'Grayscale'. Click on OK to discard the color information.

I preferred to use this grayscale image for my shadow mask. It seems to make a 'softer', more natural shadow. For a harsher shadow, go to the Image menu again, select 'Mode', and choose 'Bitmap'. Choose a 50% threshold, and click on OK to discard the grayscale information as well. You may want to save both versions, and experiment with which you like best.

Step 5 - Invert to a photographic negative, and save image

We will be using this mask to create a transparency map. Right now, the image shows white where the sky is. Transparency maps are black for transparent areas, and white for opacity. We need to turn this image into a photographic negative to do that.

Photoshop has a simple tool for this. On the Image menu, select 'Adjust', and choose 'Invert'. The image is now like a negative, and looks like this:

Save this file as a JPG image (I used the name TreeMaskJPG for the file), and quit Photoshop. (You can download this full-sized image from the my references links.)

Step 6 - Add a shadow mask screen to your DAZ Studio scene

Open your scene in DAZ Studio. For my example, it's a single Distant Light that will be casting the shadows of the leaves and branches that are above the figure. We want to interpose a plane between that light source and the figure, which is transmapped to allow light through only where there are no leaves or branches.

Select a planar object and add it to your scene. Any flat object will do. If you don't have something suitable, I created a planar object that's large and already a suitable distance above the floor plane for most scenes. You may download it for free, at http://www.polyhedrongroup.com/tutorials/dap-shadows/Canopy.obj . Since this is just a very simple OBJ file, you'll need to use DAZ Studio's 'Import' command to add it to your scene. It creates an object called 'Canopy', with one surface material zone, called 'default'.

Step 7 - Transmap the plane.

In the Surfaces palette, select surface of the 'Canopy' object, or whatever planar object you will use for your mask.

Set the Diffuse color=Black, 100%.

Set the Opacity 100%, with your ' TreeMaskJPG' file that you just created as the transparency map. (There's a small triangle next to the opacity setting, for selecting the map to use.)

If the object has a specularity, ambient, reflection or refraction value, set them all to black, 0%.

You should now have a partially transparent planar object in your scene.

Step 8 - Position your mask

Position the planar shadow mask between your light source and the subject, so its shadow falls where you want it. You may need to adjust the size and position to get it to look right. I've found it is usually best to position the plane just above the visible area of your scene. If you select the light source as your viewport image, you can check to make sure the mask is in the right place. Unfortunately, DAZ Studio won't let you move objects in your scene from a viewport that is displaying what a light is pointing at.

One easy way to adjust the position is to set a camera (other than your main camera) at the same angles and rotation as the light source, so the camera is pointed at the subject, with a line of sight parallel to the light source's rays. Then you can use that to adjust the plane's position.

Step 9 - Set

Make sure your light source and the plane for your shadow mask are both set to cast shadows. I found that for my light source, a shadow softness value of 0.5, and a shadow bias of 5 to 7, worked well for leaf shadows.

Render your image. It should look something like the sample below. You will almost certainly have to adjust the size and position of the mask to get a good effect, and to get the shadows to fall where you want them. But with a little practice, you should be adding realistic shadows in no time.

Happy rendering! I hope you found this information useful.

Shadows 2 - Creating a rear-projected shadow in DAZ Studio

2011-11-01T17:42:17+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

Shadows 2 - Creating a rear-projected shadow in DAZ Studio

Author: Porter

Tools Needed

DAZ Studio

Support Files

Shadows_2.zip

Introduction

One of the most basic theatrical lighting tricks is to project a shadow on the rear surface of a translucent cloth panel, to be viewed from the other side ' the 'shadow on the window shade'. I was quite surprised to find that this simple effect can't be done by normal methods in a 3D Rendering application. I turned to the other users on the DAZ forums for assistance in finding a way to do this, and another user, Nocturne, developed an initial solution that is both simple and effective. This tutorial is based on the method that Nocturne developed in response to my thread "The light on the window shade... or not", and was written with Nocturne's kind permission and assistance. My thanks to Nocturne, Questor and all the others who contributed to that thread. This tutorial is dedicated to each of you.

Note: You must do the render using 3Delight. You can not see the effect in OpenGL previews or renders.

Step 1 - The Goal

We want to simulate a rear-projected silhouette of a figure on a translucent surface, by illuminating a flat translucent object from behind with a spotlight. Here is a simple example. The figure is in front of a wall that consists of a single polygon, set to white, 50% opacity. The light is a distant light, set to cast shadows, aimed level with the ground plane and at a -15 degree angle to the wall.

The left side of the illustration above is as viewed and rendered from the back - the side that the figure and light are on, while the right is as viewed and rendered from the front side of the wall – the intended viewpoint for the finished render. As you can see, in this case her shadow's feet should touch the ground plane. But when viewed from the front, there is no shadow. What you're seeing is the backlit figure herself, through the partially transparent wall.

Step 2 - The Problem

Unfortunately, 3D rendering applications only create a simulation of a shadow, by calculating where the shadow should be when it strikes the nearer surface of a polygon. If light can pass through the surface, it again calculates the shadows on the nearer surface of the next polygon that it strikes. Under most circumstances, this is sufficient to simulate the normal behavior of light in casting a shadow, and requires far fewer calculations than a more realistic method would require. However, it also means that there is no shadow on the far side of a polygon for us to see.

Step 3 - The Solution

As it turns out, for a translucent surface, the solution is fairly simple. Merely place a second translucent surface parallel to the main one, and on the same side as the light, and make that surface a mirror. You will want the mirror and screen surfaces to be fairly close together, to reduce distortion. You are, in effect, placing a half-silvered mirror on the far side from the viewer. Light travels through the mirror, creating a shadow on the back of the screen. The mirror then allows the viewer on the front side to see the image of the shadow that is on the 'back of the window shade', reflected in the 'mirror'.

Step 4 - Set up your screen

For this tutorial, I have provided a 'Wall.obj' object that you may import to use as your screen. It has three separate material zones – one each for the front, back and the edges. I created this prop, and you may freely use it in your own renders, personal or commercial. Position the wall where you want your screen, size it as you wish, and set the ZScale of the wall to a very thin setting. I used the wall as it imports into the scene, and changed the ZScale to 1%. This makes a screen about 8' high, 8' wide and 1/10“ thick in DAZ Studio. (Alternatively, you can use any two parallel planar surfaces for this effect.)

Use these values in the Surfaces Palette for the surfaces of the Wall object:

Note that in DAZ Studio, you will have to double-click on the “Reflection Strength” title in your Surfaces palette to set the max limit and the value for Reflection to a value greater than 100%. You need to set the reflection value and it's max limit to 1000% in order to make up for the light loss of passing through the partially opaque surfaces.

Step 5 - Aim light(s)

Position a camera near, but not on top of, the light source(s) for your shadow, and make sure the shadow falls where you want it to on the 'back' of the screen. You can look at this with the OpenGL preview, and don't need to render it. You could also use the spotlight itself as your 'camera' to see what it is aimed at and where the light will spread. In the Parameters palette, set the brightness to 100% for the spotlight, and turn 'Cast Shadows' on.

More than one light can be casting shadows on the screen.

Step 6 - Render in 3Delight

Position your camera on the viewer's side of the screen, the side opposite to the light, and render using 3Delight. You can not see the effect in OpenGL renders or in the OpenGL-based preview. After you do your 3Delight render, it should look something like this:

The white spot was added as post-work, and is where the spotlight is, aimed at the figure.

Step 7 - Another Example

The sample below was created by Nocturne.

This was the first really successful render made with this technique.

Step 8 - Comments

Some comments and observations.

Because the back side of the screen is a mirror on both sides of that plane, it may also reflect light at whatever is behind the 'screen'. This won't matter much if your light source is roughly perpendicular to the screen, and may even allow you to use fewer lights to illuminate the back area. But if the light hits the screen at an angle, it may cause a bright reflected beam of light illuminating a place where you didn't intend to have a light.

You can use a color other than white for the diffusion color of the screen surface, and can even texture the screen surface with an image, to make it look like cloth or a window shade. Just remember that darker colors or surface textures will tend to make the shadow less visible.

You can not turn specularity off for the mirror layer. A value of 0% on specularity causes the mirror not to reflect.

I found that in practice, screen layer opacity values less than 90% don't work well, because the mirror layer ends up also reflecting the scene on the viewer's side of the screen. Other than that, you can experiment with other values for the opacity of both surfaces, which will affect the contrast and brightness of the shadow and the light around it.

You can also do this technique with a non-flat projection screen. For example, try projecting the shadow onto the inner face of a translucent hemisphere, by using a reflective hemisphere that is slightly smaller, with the same center point, parented inside it. I tried this, and it worked fine.

Happy rendering! We hope you found this information useful.

Shadows and Outlines

2011-11-01T17:42:17+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

Shadows and Outlines

Author: Ruri ruri

Tools Needed

* DAZ Studio

Introduction

This is a cute way to make little outlines for not so complicated pictures.

Step 1 - Shadow Figures

We'll start with these since they are easier. Load a figure into the scene. Don't add props because the focus is on the figure of a person so you probably don't need clothes. Open the surfaces tab located in the view menu, tabs, surfaces.

In the surfaces tab click on the arrow in the top right corner and select Show Surface list from the drop down menu.

Step 2 - Surface Settings for the Shadowy Figure

Select your figure from the surface list. Set the diffuse, glossiness, specular, and ambient strengths to 0% percent. Set the opacity strength to 100% like in the picture below.

Step 3 - Rendering the Shadowy Figure

Pose your figure. Click on Render in the drop down menu select Render Settings. as seen bellow.

In the render settings box at the top there are two tabs. Click on the advanced tab. As shown in the picture click on Use Software 3Delight.

Now click on the General Tab. In the drop down menu by Render style click on Normal.

Now you can go ahead and render.

Step 4 - Outlines

Load a figure into the scene. Pose it and open your Surfaces box (If it's not already open) Set the Diffuse, Specular, and Ambient colors to white and their strengths to 100. Set the glossiness to 100%. as seen bellow.

Step 5 - Rendering the Outlines

Now open the render settings box as before and select cartoon in the menu where you select normal. Now you can go and render the picture.

Volumetric Lighting in DAZ Studio

2011-11-01T17:42:17+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

Volumetric Lighting in DAZ Studio

Author: Gary_P

Tools Needed

DAZ Studio

Support Files

floor.zip

Introduction

It's no secret that I love DAZ Studio, so I am always looking for ways to stretch its capabilities. In this tutorial I am going to show you how to create volumetric lighting and fog in DAZ Studio. At the time this tutorial was written, DAZ Studio had no built in way of doing volumetric lighting like some of the other high end programs, so I'm going to show you how to fake it.

Step 1 - Create Camera

Once you have the hang of creating these scenes, you may set the scene up any way you wish, but for the purposes of this tutorial I have included my exact settings so your picture will look the same as mine.

Start up DAZ Studio and create a new camera, or if you have DAZ Studio set to create a camera on a new scene, set your camera's dials to:

Translate X = 0.5 Translate Y = 110.0 Translate Z = 430.0

Rotation X = -2.0 Rotation Y = -1.0 Rotation Z = 0.0

This will place a camera in the correct place for viewing.

Select this camera for viewing by choosing it from the View Selection list.

Step 2 - Create the Floor

Let's start off creating a floor, because if you don't have any objects for the light to shine on, there will be nothing to see.

Go up to the top of the screen and click on the Create Primitive.

You did get this plug in when you got DAZ Studio right? If not, then it is in the free models section of DAZ's website.

Let's create a floor for our light to shine on.

Create a Cube primitive 10 ft. units. This will serve as our floor.

Select the cube and set its Y Scale to 1%.

Remember to select the cube in the Scene and not the Camera.

Now let's texture it so it looks like a floor. I have included a floor texture that I made if you would like to use it. It is called floor. Catchy, huh?

Select the floor cube and click on the Surfaces tab. You may have to make the tab visible.

Click on the part of the tree that is labeled Default. This will select the default texture.

Open the texture dropdown next to diffuse Color.

Choose Browse For Image.

Load in the floorJPG texture from where you saved it.

Now the cube looks like a cement floor.

Step 3 - Create the Spotlight

Now it is time to create our light.

Go up to the top of the screen and click on the Create Spotlight button.

Accept all of the defaults.

This will create a spot light in the exact center of the viewport, on the floor, and pointing straight at the back of the scene.

For this tutorial, I will tell you where to position the light.

Select the spotlight and set your light's dials to:

Translate X = 87.0 Translate Y = 130.0 Translate Z = 20

Rotation X = -60 Rotation Y = 90 Rotation Z = 0.

Set the light's Spread Angle to 32, and its Intensity to 100%.

This is important, as the light needs to match the cone perfectly, or the effect will be useless.

If you would like to save some time, you may turn off shadows for the spotlight.

Render the scene.

It does not matter at this point whether you have shadows turned on or off as this is only a test render to see where the light beam will fall.

Step 4 - Adding a Cylinder and a Point Light

There are two things wrong with our rendered picture:

#1 is you cannot see the actual light source.

#2 is there are no volumetric lights in the scene, and I promised you there would be.

Let's fix #1 first.

Go up to the top of the screen and click on Create Primitive.

Create the cylinder with Height, Diameter, and Segments all equal to 1.

Leave the Sides set to 8.

This will serve as our light source.

Select your cylinder and set your cylinder's dials to

Translate X = 103.0 Translate Y = 157.0 Translate Z = 20

Rotation X = -60 Rotation Y = 90 Rotation Z = 90.

Render your scene.

What? Can't see the new cylinder light? Too dark?

We can fix that. Point light to the rescue.

Go up to the top of the screen and click on create a Point Light button.

Set your point light's dials to:

Translate X = 90.0 Translate Y = 135.0 Translate Z = 70.

Rotation X = 0.0 Rotation Y = 0.0 Rotation Z = 0.0

Set the point light's Intensity to 50% so it is not too bright.

This will position the point light so you are able to see the cylinder that will be the light.

Render now. Ah! Better.

Step 5 - Volumetric lighting anyone?

But where is the volumetric lighting I promised?

Ah now comes the good stuff.

Go up to the top of the screen and click on Create Primitive.

We're going to create a Cone to be our fake light beam.

Create the cone with Height = 7, Diameter = 3, Segments = 1, Sides = 12.

This will serve as our light source.

Select your cone and set your cone's dials to:

Translate X = -4 Translate Y = -28 Translate Z = 20

Rotation X = 0.0 Rotation Y = 0.0 Rotation Z = -30.

Cast Shadows = Off.

This will make the cone invisible to the light rendering engine.

Now let's texture it so it looks slightly foggy. You don't have to do this but you do have to change the Opacity. You can reuse the included a floor texture that I made if you would like to.

Since you are only going to see a ghost image, it is fine for this purpose.

Select the cone and click on the Surfaces tab. You may have to make the tab visible.

Click on the part of the tree that is labeled Default. This will select the default texture.

Open the texture dropdown next to diffuse Color.

You will see that the floor texture is already loaded. Just choose it from the list.

Set the Opacity to 3%

Set the Ambient Color to all white (255 255 255).

Turn off Cast Shadows if it is on. This will hide the cone from the light rendering engine.

Step 6 - Rendering Time

OK, time to render. What do you think?

Ooooo, Ahhhh.

You may adjust the cone and the spot light's spread angle to suit your preferences.

Step 7 - How about some Fog?

You may need to switch to your Perspective View camera for this.

Create a Cube Primitive 12 ft. units. This will serve as our fog.

Select the cube and set its Z Scale to 1% to make it thin.

Set your cube's dials to:

Translate X = 0.0 Translate Y = 0.0 Translate Z = 200.0

Rotation X = 0.0 Rotation Y = 0.0 Rotation Z = 0.0

Cast Shadows = Off

This will make the fog wall invisible to the light rendering engine.

Texture it floorJPG the same as we did for the others.

Set the Ambient Color to all white (255 255 255), and set the Opacity to 5%.

You may change this to determine how thick you want your fog to be.

Ideally, you would use a cloud texture for this.

Here is what the scene looks like from the Perspective View.

Switch back to your default camera and render.

What do you think?

There are many more things you can change to make this look even better, and I can't possibly cover all of them, but feel free to contact me if you have any problems.

Happy rendering!

Adding Lip Color Layers to Textures

2011-11-01T17:42:17+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

Adding Lip Color Layers to Textures

Author: poconopixie

Tools Needed

* DAZ/Studio

* Paint Shop Pro

* Photoshop

* The Gimp

Support Files

* V4LipColors_PaintShopPro.zip

* V4LipColors_Photoshop.zip

Introduction

This tutorial will show you how to use those PSD lip color files to add new lip color to character textures and apply them in DAZ/Studio. This tutorial assumes you have a working knowledge of your graphics program. I am using Paint Shop Pro X, but the steps should be the same or similar in Photoshop and The Gimp. A layered lip color file has been provided with this tutorial and includes 10 lip colors perfectly placed to copy and paste onto Victoria 4 head textures.

Step 1 - Opening your files

To start, open the included Lip Color file in your graphics program. Also open the head texture of your choice. For this tutorial, I am using the Victoria 4 Standard Resolution texture, which can be found here:

/runtime/textures/DAZ/characters/milwom/V4/V4StFaceMJPG

Of course, this tutorial can be applied to any character and texture.

The provided lip colors are for a 3000 x 3000 texture, so be sure to resize the file to the applicable size of your texture. The above texture is 2048 X 2048, so I have resized the file to that resolution for this exercise.

Step 2 - Copying Lip Color to the Texture

All of the lip colors are placed on layers and are positioned to need very little, if any, fiddling when pasted on your texture. They have also been masked so that there are no harsh lines and look more natural. Find a lip color you like and be sure the layer is selected. Now hit “Ctrl C” on your keyboard to copy the layer. Then, select your head texture and paste the copy as a new layer on your texture.

Now save the texture with a new name to the same folder.

Step 3 - Using your texture in DAZ/Studio

Open DAZ/Studio. Load your figure and the texture. In this case I am loading Vicky 4.1 with her standard resolution texture.

Click on the Surfaces tab and locate the “Lip” surface. Select it and then click there arrow next to the image name under “diffuse”. See screenshot. Browse for the image you saved and select it. The new lip color will be applied.

Step 4 - Render

And here's a render of Vicky with her new lip color.

Basic Coloring

2011-11-01T17:42:17+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

Basic Coloring

Author: Nikkiflinn

Tools Needed

* DAZ Studio

* Victoria Base

* Props as desired

Introduction

This is basic tutorial on a basic scene set-up that I use. Most of you already know this stuff, but for those of you that are just starting on DAZ Studio I hope this helps you in learning how to use the program.

Step 1: Load an Image

First you will need to load a figure. I started with Victoria because she is part of the included content for DAZ Studio. To load Victoria, go under content on the left hand side and click DAZ Studio. Under there, find People and click on Victoria. Now she should appear underneath as a thumbnail. Click on her and she'll come up as naked figure.

Step 2: Create A Pose

I suggest giving her a pose first. I used the gun I downloaded from the Free Products Archive for a prop. The hair I used is also part of the included content for DAZ Studio. To create a pose like the one here, click on the Parameters on the right side of the screen. Make sure you're in Power Pose mode (Alt-Shift-P). Now move the mouse above the part you wish to pose. It should have a three dimensional box of yellow around it now. Now click on it and the box will change to grey.

If you want the Parameters to this pose, contact me via email at Nikkiflinn@yahoo.com

Step 3: Managing Surfaces

After you have finished creating the pose change from Power Pose mode to the Surface Selection Tool (Alt-Shift-M). Right Click the icon and click on Line Up. This should cause a tab to appear in the right hand side beside the Parameters selection, called Surfaces, which you should then click on. A menu of the different body parts should then come up, as well as the parts of the hair and whatever props or clothing accessories you have up.

Step 4: Changing Colors

Now make sure you've got the Surfaces set to Advanced. We'll start with the hair. Click on the hair as a whole or the separate parts, depending on how you would rather do it. Now look under the Advanced tab and you should see a section marked Diffuse. Under that will now be a set of three numbers in a rectangle. Click between the numbers and a color chart will come up. Click on the color you want and add it to the custom colors then click OK.

Use this to change any part you want. Play around with the gloss if you want.

Step 5: Highlights

For highlights as seen on this model, click on the Victoria base mesh in the list. Beside the rectangle will be a tab arrow. Click on it and a menu will come down. Under browse for image will be the suggestion of None, which is what you want to select. This will give you the highlights you want. You can also change the color for different color highlights.

Step 6: Final Product

Now add some clothes and lighting and your image is finished!

Bleaching Black Hair in DAZ Studio

2011-11-01T17:42:17+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

Bleaching Black Hair in DAZ Studio

Author: JenX

Tools Needed

* DAZ Studio

Introduction

This is just an easy way to change colors of hair without having to buy new textures ;)

Step 1: Load it Black!

Load the hair, and use a MAT Pose to color it Black.

Step 2: Surface Change!

Select the Material Zones for the hair.

Change the Diffuse Color to a light yellow/brown. I used 225 240 198

Step 3: Specular Change!

Change the Specular Color to a light muted brown. I used 223 211 186

IMPORTANT. Make sure Multiply Specularity Through Opacity is ON. Otherwise, you'll get square ends

Step 4: Ambience Change!

Change your Ambience color to light beige. I used 255 241 219. Up the Ambient strength to 18%

Step 5: Specularity Change!

Here, I add specularity to the hair, usually 100% with a refraction index of 1.38. Works great on skin, too Wink

Use the Skin shader

Step 6: Render and Finish!

Create an Outfit From the Default Skins

2011-11-01T17:42:17+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

Create an Outfit From the Default Skins

Author: Bluemusic

Tools Needed

* DAZ Studio

* An image editor such as Adobe Photoshop

Step 1: Opening the Skin

Begin by opening your image editing software. I used Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.0, but any program will do.

Next, open the skin file for one of your characters. Navigate to your DAZ directory. Once there, find a folder called 'Runtime'. Within here, open the file called 'textures', then 'DAZ', then 'Characters'. From here, choose which character's skin you would like to use. I choose Aiko 3.0. There is a skin file that looks like the image. Open it up.

Before doing anything else, go to Save As in the File menu and save your version of the skin with a different name. DO NOT SAVE OVER THE ORIGINAL!

Step 2: Starting the Outfit

The main part of the body is circled in the above drawing. This is where you are going to paint the bulk of your new outfit, as it includes the neck, torso, arms, and legs. However, it is easy enough to paint over the hands if you like, too,

Step 3: Painting the Base Color

I will be making a sort of body suit for this tutorial that is made mostly of one color.

The easiest way to get everything to be this base color is (in Photoshop) to use the magic wand tool to select all of the white area between the objects, then use the lasso while holding the alt button to deselect unnecessary body parts that you do not want to be painted. Then, create a new layer and use the paint bucket to fill the selected area with your base color.

Step 4: Adding Details

I find the easiest way to add details over the base color is to change the opacity of the base color layer so that you can see where on the body you are painting. Paint on the base color layer all of the details of the outfit, which in this case are some coloring, a badge, a belt, and stripes on the sleeves.

Step 5: Saving The Finished Skin

Once you are satisfied with your skin, bring the opacity of the painted layer back up to 100%. If everything looks good, then go ahead and save your skin. For the file type I suggest jpeg, as that is what the default textures in DAZ are saved as.

Step 6: Applying the Skin

Open up DAZ and add your character of choice to the scene. I used Aiko 3.0.

In the Tools menu at the top of the screen, choose 'Surface Selector'.

Select one of the surfaces you will be applying your skin to, such as the torso. Next, go into the surface editing tab (View menu > Tabs > Surfaces). Under the 'Advanced' tab, the first option should say 'Diffuse'. Next to the diffuse color, there is a little arrow. Click it and select 'Browse…'. Find your skin and choose open.

Repeat this step with every portion of the character's skin you wish to apply the outfit to.

Step 7: The Finished Product

This is the finished, applied version of my skin. You may find that certain details don't lie exactly where you want them to. Just adjust the details in your image editor and reapply the skin until you get it just right.

Step 8: A Little Bonus

The wonderful thing about using these skins is that they can be applied to any character, not just the one that you made it for. Sometimes the skin tones don't quite line up, but simply take it back into your image editor to correct for that and resave it as a new file.

Now, not only can Aiko wear her outfit, but so can Hiro, Victoria, and Michael.

More Color Choice

2011-11-01T17:42:17+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

More Color Choice

Author: chupa

Tools Needed

* DAZ\Studio

* Photoshop

Introduction

Have you ever had a great piece of clothing or armor that you loved the texture but wanted to change the color, say to a light blue, so off you go to your surfaces menu you change the diffuse color. Lo and behold the item in question gets darker and the color is NOT what you wanted, this is because the texture that came with the item already has a color added to it, so by adding the color you want all you're really doing is altering the already existing color. Well this is how you can fix that, and bring greater options to your color choices from now on.

Step 1: The Dreaded Item

I just recently got a really nice High Fantasy outfit for V3, I love the texture on the breast plate.

Yet when I went to change the color to a light blue, I got this monstrosity.

As you can see the only part of the breast plate that went to the color I wanted was the medallion on the front, a challenge? Well I set off to fix this, and on finding a way I decided to share the process with the community.

First what you want to do is load that dreaded item that you want to change (I'm using the Edana Breast Plate) now go to your surfaces menu, if you don't already have this docked somewhere, go to 'VIEW', 'TABS', then 'SURFACES' feel free to move this off to one side if you want.

Once that is open highlight the part of the item you want to change (some items have several parts) as I have in the above image and then click the advanced tab, just below 'DIFFUSE COLOR' there will be a drop down menu that has the applied texture listed (circled in red).

Click this and select the option 'BROWSE FOR IMAGE', what this will do is take you directly to the folder that holds all the textures for this item.

Find the name of the texture that was listed under 'DIFFUSE COLOR' (in my case it's Dplate), right click on this then select 'OPEN WITH' and choose your favorite graphics program, I happen to be using Photoshop so I'll explain the steps for this program, but almost any graphics program will have the same options.

Step 2: Getting Started

Once you have the image open, go to 'IMAGE', 'MODE', then 'GREYSCALE'.

You should get a pop up like the following image asking if the color information should be discarded, just click OK.

Step 3: Almost done

Now go to 'IMAGE', 'ADJUSTMENTS', then 'BRIGHTNESS/CONTRAST', move the contrast slider to the right as far as you can without losing too much detail (this will vary from item to item) I set mine to +85.

Once that is completed, under the 'FILE' menu select 'SAVE AS' (NOT, I repeat NOT 'SAVE')

Now make sure you enter a name you will know (I called mine DplateLIGHT) and save the image as a jpeg.

If you are using Photoshop you'll be asked what quality to save the image at select 'MAXIMUM' from the drop down menu and click OK.

Step 4: Ahhh, Color!

Now that's done close your graphics program go back to DAZ/STUDIO, open the surfaces menu again, 'VIEW', 'TABS', then 'SURFACES'. Now highlight the item you wanted to change, click on the drop down button under 'DIFFUSE COLOR' (red circled button in following image)

Now select 'BROWSE FOR IMAGE' and open the image that you just made, now back in the surfaces menu just above where your new texture is listed, click the strip with the 3 numbers in it and pick the color of your choice, ahh now isn't that better.

I really hope you can find some use for this information, I tell you it's opened up a great many possibilities for me, which have helped to provide inspiration for me to create.

Thanks for your time, now get out there and explore the possibilities!

Chupa

Platinum Blonde or White Transmapped Hair in DAZ Studio - how to

2011-11-01T17:42:17+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

Platinum Blonde or White Transmapped Hair in DAZ Studio - how to

Author: Nocturne

Tools Needed

DAZ Studio
Transmapped Hair( Sassy Hair 2) and a Character using it( Aiko 3)
Some 2D texture/image editing program

Introduction

There are likely many ways to get hair to look brighter, including simply using a lot more light to shine on it or applying some ambient light to the hair itself to add to any illumination it receives from lights.

DAZ Studio allows you to exceed normal limits and therefore gives you some artistic or technical freedom to tackle issues in other ways than usual.

What we will do in this tutorial is use one such degree of freedom to achieve our goal of having very light hair colours without any additional lights and without any ambient colour set on the hair.

The benefit is that you save time when moving your character around or just changing the surrounding, because now you do not have to carefully adjust some lights to just illuminate your hair and nothing else.

The other benefit is that you also avoid the “glow in the dark” effect ambient light set to the hair would give you in dark surroundings.

Our model for the demonstration will be the lovely Aiko3 sporting the fashionable SassyHair2.

This tutorial will assume that you are familiar with the D|S interface in order to avoid having multiple small graphics just showing where to click - that said, the major steps will be shown to be as unambiguous as possible.

DAZ Products used in this tutorial:

DAZ Studio beta 0.9.23.1

Aiko 3

Sassy Hair 2

to get the look on the pictures:

Aiko3Xpress - Jaw Drop

International Beauties Maps and Morphs - MakeUp Type 1 Rust PP

Rei for Aiko 3.0 - eyes

WarriorClass for A3 - collar

Step 1 - Loading the scene.

In order to give you a scener close to the one in the illustrations, some parameters will be provided - it is not necessary to use those exact settings for Aiko and the camera, but it may help you to get a start point.

You could also load some other character and transmapped hair, but that will make it a lot more difficult, especially if you use a different hair model.

In any case, you should have the camera pointing at your characters head( Aiko will be used from now on) and sufficiently close to it to see what is going on.

Start D|S, load Aiko 3( leave limits on), load Sassy Hair 2

If you want to stay close in look:

Turn Aiko to yrot = 15.( Select Aiko 3 in Scene, then adjust yrot in Parameters).

Set Aiko neck to Side-Side = 5 and the head to Side-Side = 4.

Set the right( left) eye to Up-Down = -8( -8) and side-side = 12( 11).

Set the “jaw drop” expression( Faces - AikoXpress - jaw drop),

the MakeUp( Pose - MAT Aiko 3 Ethnicity - MakeUp Type 1 Rust PP)

and eyes( Pose - MAT Rei Aiko - eyes_blue),

load the collar( Figures - A3WarriorClass - Collar).

Select Aiko's head, then, inside “View” click the “Aim-at-Selection” icon and after that the “Frame Selection” icon.

If you just loaded Aiko and the hair, you should see about this:

If you did load all the above, it should look close to this:

Aiko insists we go on with the more beautiful version.

Step 2 - We load a hair texture and render.

The hair is already blonde in the viewport for all we can tell, but there is an even lighter hair colour available with the set, so we go and fetch that now.

Load hair texture( Pose - !MAT Sassy Hair 2 - Map Blonde Lt).

Now we set our render settings to software render - note that none of the advanced settings “should” affect us here - so we just accept our choice.

As you can see from the illustrations they where done using a 1:1 aspect ratio, but it is up to you.

This is a good moment to point out that we do not have any light in the scene!

This is on purpose, as thereby the default light will provide the illumination.

OK - let's do a render.

This is about what you should get:

Step 3 - Hmm, where did our blonde go ... ?

As you can see, the render is not really resembling the light blonde that we did have before any more.

Ok, so far all is normal, now comes the one important change !

We will try to get back some of the light we have lost !

To do this, we will go to “Surfaces”, and in order to see more we'll press the tiny arrow in the upper right corner and check “Show Surface List”.

In the illustration above, you can also see that I closed all trees except for the “figureHair” tree on the left side, you should do that as well for an easier view.

Use the mouse to highlight “Inner” just below and the first component of “figureHair”, press and hold the shift button on your keyboard and click on “Wild”, the last component of the hair, you can release the shift button again, and should now see all 5 components of the Hair being selected on the left.

Select the “Advanced” tab on the right hand side, so you can see all the possible adjustments.

Double click on the word “Diffuse Strength” to bring up a “Parameter Settings” window like the one illustrated below.

Toggle the “Respect Limits” button to “no” and enter a 200 into “Value”( not into “Max Limit” as we want to keep our interface as it is for now).

Press “Accept”, you should then see 200.0% for “Diffuse Strength”.

While we're here, right-click into “Glossiness” just below, enter 100 and return there, some motivation for that later on.

You may have already noticed the hair to be much lighter by now in the viewport, so lets do a render and see.

Step 4 - Yay, blonde again - more, please.

Aiko should now look like this.

… *whisper* …

Hmm, she wants more blonde, ahww, well, lets try - and learn something doing so.

Go back to “Advanced” in “Surfaces” and just( right click and) enter 300 into “Diffuse Strength” this time - we already told D|S we do not want it to check limits there.

( Make sure all 5 components of your hair are still selected!)

OK, on we go, another render.

Step 5 - Uhmm, yeah, its nice, but I want it different.

… *whisper* …

Hmm, still lighter and not so bright, dear? - Uh, oh.

Ok, time to discuss the limits of this, as we were already approaching them at the 300% setting( notice: Using differently built hair will have the limit at a different value).

The more we “amplify” the light coming from the hair, the more it will tend to reach the maximum possible limit - white - and once larger areas reach this value, we will loose detail and just get coloured areas.

In addition to that, we will also enhance the underlying colours as long as no clipping( white) occurs, so we do not get any “washed out” or “subtle” colours or structured white itself this way.

This is where we leave what can be done in D|S alone, so I'll make some more comments here before we start modifying a texture map.

I stated somewhere above to set “Glossiness” to 100, that is to switch it “off”, one could also change the Lighting model to “matte” for a similar effect, and that is indeed a good choice.

The major reason is this: We already strongly amplify light for the hair, because we want to get a crisp, light colour, but what we most likely not want is the dreaded “clipping”, making us loose detail and get way overexposed spots.

That said, any light we add to our setting, and especially strong but small highlighted areas such as produced by glossiness will give us trouble.

The more adventurous of those reading this may want to try out what happens for artistic purposes though.

Step 6 - Texture map editing.

Please note that I will tell you what changes to make, but not exactly how to make them, as most likely you will be using a different software to change the textures than I am.

Open your favourite 2D image editor, and load the 2 maps that we have been using all along so far:

Runtime:Textures:DAZ:Hair:SassyHair2

SPS2CapBlndLtMJPG and SPS2StrndBlndLtMJPG

The first one is for the Skullcap( the lowest or closest to the head layer), the 2nd one is for all the other components of the hair.

What you're going to do is to change the saturation and lightness of the maps.

What I did for the next render was to use “Image - Adjust - Replace Colour” in Photoshop 6 and add 23 to saturation and 42 to brightness( no, these are not “especially tested values”, but rather from “Illuminati” and “The hitchhikers guide to the galaxy”).

I suggest you name your maps with what you did, so mine get a “_s23_h42” appended to their filename.

Now, we go to the Surfaces again, press the “Crtl” button and hold it, then click on Skullcap, then release “Crtl”, if all went well, we should now have 4 of the 5 entries( all but Skullcap) selected, if not, you can click on one of them and then ctrl-click on the 3 others to make it so.

With the 4 components highlighted, go to the right and click on the button just above the word “Diffuse Strength”, it should have the name of the texture map we have used so far on it.

From the dropdown menu, select the first, “browse for image”.

Browse to your newly created textures and select the one with “Strnd” in its name.

Fine, now select the Skullcap component on the left and then set the other texture map with “Cap” in its name here.

If you make a render at this point, it will look a bit like this:

Hmm, you vagely remeber me stating that 300% was approaching some limit, dont you?

So, lets set that back a bit, for fun( and because I intent to use it later) we'll select 222 as our value of choice now.

!!! Select all 5 components before entering 222 into “Diffuse Strength” !!!

Render again.

Step 7 - A small wish.

:D Aiko is happy now.

Yes, what is it dear?

You want me to try to make a cool white for you to show off.

Ahww, well, OK, just for you, sweetie.

Ok, back to work.

Now, in theory, you can get a “white” hair look by using a grayscale map, however I did not achieve the desired result that way.

I also happen to like some blue reflecting from white( or black) hair, so I'll take a different route here.

I'll again use the original light blonde texture as a starting point, and I'll also again use “Image - Adjust - Replace Colour” to adjust saturation and brightness, but this time I'll adjust the hue as well.

The values used here are 169 hue, 15 saturation, 80 brightness.

I got a big smile and Aiko is gone showing off her new look.

Time for me to go as well before she comes back … ;)

I hope you find this tutorial interesting and somewhat entertaining.

Have fun testing the limits and expanding them.

Kind regards,

Nocturne

Playing With Shaders in DAZ Studio

2011-11-01T17:42:17+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

Playing With Shaders in DAZ Studio

Author: JenX

Tools Needed

DAZ Studio

Step 1 - Getting Set Up

If you've been using DAZ Studio since the beta-testing stage, you're no stranger to the Surfaces palette. But, have you'really played with every option you've got? I'm going to show you in this tutorial that not all of what you see is what you get. Sometimes, what you see in the Open GL preview pane will be something completely different than what you'll get in the 3Delight render.

First using the free Primitives Plug-in for DAZ Studio create a sphere. It doesn't matter what size you make it, just make a sphere ;).

Step 2 - Surfaces

Now, chose the Advanced tab in your Surfaces palette. We're going to want to be doing some playing.

Step 3 - Specular

For now, leave the Diffuse Color tab alone. We're going to play with everything else first. Take a peek at your Specular Color tab, and pick a nice, light color. I picked a nice, pale purple.

Step 4 - Ambience

We'll leave the Glossiness and Specular sliders alone for now, and just pick colors. Go to your Ambient Color tab, and choose a nice bright color. Perhaps a nice bright green or pink. I chose a neon green.

Step 5 - Diffuse

Now, go back up to your Diffuse Color tab, and pick a deep color. I've picked a deep blue. You'll notice that your sphere is now sort of colored in with your Ambient color.

Step 6 - Test Render, and You

Try a quick test render, and see what color it is now. Your Diffuse Color has taken over!! And you can see the use of your specular color! Now, we have to figure out which Lighting Model to use. What you use is your own preference, but I prefer Glossy Metallic or Skin when doing these Shaders. The trick with coming out with cool shaders is playing with colors. Don't be afraid to make something crazy. Crazy is good. Crazy colors can create something beautiful. Have fun, and remember, what you see isn't always what you get ;).

Simple Velvet In DAZ Studio Using DAZ Default Shader Presets

2011-11-01T17:42:17+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

Simple Velvet In DAZ Studio Using DAZ Default Shader Presets

Author: KerWar

Tools Needed

* DAZ Studio

* DAZ Default Shader Presets

The links below tell you how to get to the 'DAZ Default Shader Presets':

https://artzone.daz3d.com/wiki/doku.php?id=pub:tutorials:dazstudio:studio-toonshaders&rev=1217475704 http://free.daz3d.com/free_weekly/detail.php?free_id=249

Introduction

With a little bit of tinkering, DAZ Studio is capable of a great many thing, many of them quite simply and easily done. I'm going to show you a method of making basic velvet shader presets using only the DAZ Studio Default Shader Presets. The effect will resemble that of a deep, rich velvet. I'm going to use the dzSkin shader because it provides an option for Subsurface Scattering (SSS), and that's what is going to help me mimic the look of velvet.

Step 1: Set up your scene as desired.

Step 2: Select your materials and apply the shader.

In the “Scene” tab, select the prop or figure you want to apply the shader to, then open the “Surfaces” tab and select the surface(s) you want to apply it to.

In the “Contents” tab, navigate to where you have the folder Shader Presets and its subfolder DS defaults. Choose “dzSkin” and double-click to apply.

Step 3: Choose your colors.

Start by setting the Diffuse, Specular, Ambient and Subsurface Sheen to all the same color. The color you select is the color you want your velvet to be. In this case I wanted a dark red, and so I chose 255, 0, 0.

*NOTE*

Choosing from the very top of the color picker window will result in “cleaner”, more vibrant velvet.

Leave your Subsurface Scatter color black (0, 0, 0). Set the Thickness at 0.050 and the Index of Refraction at 1.45.

Step 4: Adjust your settings.

Go back up to your Diffuse Color and open the color picker. Move the slider all the way to the bottom until your highest number in any one of the Red, Green and Blue boxes is 10 or less. Your selected color should now look almost black. In this case my color was (8, 0, 0). Make sure Diffuse Strength is at 100%.

Repeat this for the Specular Color. Change the following settings as shown:

Glossiness - 90%

Glossiness Linear Adjustment - Off

Specular Strength - 30%

Multiply Specular Through Opacity - On or Off (doesn't matter in this case)

Step 5: Rendering time.

At this point, your selected surfaces will appear bright and “flat”, meaning no visible signs of highlights or shadings. This is normal. Your settings should look something like the ones in my image. What we have done, in a nutshell, is use bright colors for the Ambient and Sheen settings to create the edge highlights, and very dark colors for Diffuse and Specular to create the depth and richness, but you can't see this yet. So on to the render…

Step 6: Voila!...Velvet!

*Note*

Experiment by using Opacity maps to make “burnt-out” velvet, and Bump or Displacement maps for patterned velvet effects, as I've done here.

And there you have it…quick and easy velvet effects in DAZ Studio.

Have fun!

Volumetric Eyelashes/Mascara effect in DAZ/Studio

2011-11-01T17:42:17+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

Volumetric Eyelashes/Mascara effect in DAZ/Studio

Author: Gerardo Alvino

Tools Needed

DAZ/Studio

Introduction

“VOLUMETRIC EYELASHES TUTORIAL” will help you, in few steps, to create a volumetric effect for the eyelashes of your characters, with the use of the DAZ/STUDIO Displacement Strength map option; using the Trasparency Map for the eyelashes material.

(Also You can use this Tutorial with other 3D programs that support the Displacement map option: POSER 5, Cinema 4D, 3D Studio Max…ect.)

-It is important for the use of this tutorial for your model to have the eyelashes material group to be able to

apply the trasparency map.

Magically grow the eyelashes volume and be able to add several styles of eyelashes to your characters: glamour mascara style, wild style, color mascara style……

Let's see how.

Step 1 - Open DAZ/Studio...

Open DAZ/Studio

Import Your favourite DAZ figure (V3 Figure in this tutorial) from the Content panel, or open Your favourite close-up face POSER scene PZ3 …

Create a face camera (optional, but it's a suggestion to follow this tut.) :)

Import Your Fav. Mat/Texture as usual and a Trans Map for the Eyelashes, that has a good resolution (the effect depends on the quality of the transparency map.)

Go to SCENE TAB (on the right display side) and select your Actor/Character.

Go to SURFACES TAB LIST, scroll and find your character (blMillWom_V3, in this case) and select the eyelashes material from the list.

Step 2 - Set up the parameter slider...

1. “Displacement”.

Click on Displacement Strength botton (usually listed with “None”) and choose your transmap(TransSticky for me) from the little list (or browse for a new one) and set (Pc_Right click) the slider at 50%, for a medium effect.

2. “Opacity”.

Set the “Opacity Strength” slider at 100%.

You can also set the Opacity Strength slider from 25% to 75% for a lower effect.

I suggest not modifying the value of the “Maximum and Minimum Displacement slider” from the default one, to prevent unpleasant results.

Step 3 - Colors Eyelashes Set up...examples

In the BASIC SUB-TAB check the opacity-strength and also choose the colors of the Eyelashes Trans.

Step 4 - Set up the Render Options, examples final effect

***IMPORTANT***:

In the “RENDER OPTION” from the DAZ/Studio scroll men', be sure to check the Bump/Displacement box and the Opacity setting.

In DAZ/STUDIO, as in most 3D programs, the effect of the Displacement Strength is visible only after the Render is done.

Render examples (also on M3 and SP).

Good Work and Happy Renders

jeriko Gerardo Alvino ITALY

How to Make Custom MATs for DAZ Studio

2011-11-01T17:42:17+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

How to Make Custom MATs for DAZ Studio

Author: OniDrEvil

Tools Needed

DAZ Studio
Existing Model with MAT files
Image Editing Program

Tutorial Link

http://hubpages.com/hub/How-to-Make-Custom-MATs-for-DAZ-Studio

Description

A texture MAT (or MAP) file is used like a skin on 3D models in DAZ Studio. Once you locate these 2D files you'll be able to create your own custom skins for personal use. In this tutorial I direct you where to find the files and how to go about editing them and applying them to your 3D models. Some experience with DAZ Studio and Image Editing programs is required. This tutorial is hosted offsite and can be found at the link above.

Sample Image

http://s3.hubimg.com/u/3167954.jpg

A Basic Visual Guide to DAZ Studio

2011-11-01T17:42:17+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

A Basic Visual Guide to DAZ Studio

Author: guy_david

Tools Needed

DAZ Studio

Introduction

Welcome to the DAZ Studio basic visual guide. Let me guide you through the basics of adding a model, giving her hair and some cloths, posing her and changing her expression. So - open up your Studio and let us begin :)

Step 1 - Telling our Studio where to find things

First of all, we need to tell our studio were to find everything. We do that by entering the preferences window, clicking the “Add…” button, finding our Runtime folder and pressing the “OK” button.

Once we done that, we can brows our “Content” tab and choose staff from there.

Step 2 - Adding a model and giving her some clothes

Now - lets choose something from the “Content” tab. I'll choose my copy of the Victoria 3 model by finding her in Libraries - > DAZ People and double clicking on her. Now we have our model on our screen, ready to pose for us.

First of all, lets find her some cloths. Again, you can find them in your “content” tab and insert them by double clicking.

Step 3 - associating our model with her cloths

It's important to associate the models cloths with the model, or else, when we try to pose her, the above would happen…

As you would notice 1n the above picture, our model has moved to a new pose, while her cloths stayed in the same place. You associate the model with her cloths in the “Parameters” tab. That window is empty until you choose something in your scene. On your “Scene” tab, choose a piece of clothing:

Now, on the “Parameters” tab, chose your character model from the Fit To drop down menu:

Step 4 - Giving our model some hair

Now we'll find some hair for our model in the “Content” tab:

Don't forget to associate the hair with the model, the way you associated her cloths. Here is what she looks like now:

Step 5 - Posing our model

Now, let's choose a pose for her from the Pose folder on the “Content” tab (see image above). I chose the V3 Backturn for this example:

Here is what she looks like now:

Step 6 - Adding some morphs

The Pose folder on the “Content” tab also contain some morph files. A morph can change our model in various ways. There are morphs that change our models body, her face, and various other aspects of our model. Lets add some morphs to our model, by selecting her and double clicking a morph add. You can recognize them by the plus sign:

In order to select a morph, we must select the part the morph would associate with. All the models are made out of bones, and we must select the right bone to use. In my example, I selected the head bone:

Step 7 - Using a morph to make our model smile

Morphs appear in the “Parameters” tab. If the drop down menu on the top of the tab says “Ungrouped”, change it to “Morphs”. I'm going to play with the SmileOpen morph (see above). I'm going to turn the dial on that morph all the way up:

Look - our model is smiling:

Step 8 - Giving our model some lipstick

Now, lets end our lesson by giving her a new lipstick. On the “Surface” tab, make sure that “Show Surface List” is selected. You might have to make that tab wider to see the list.

Note - nothing would show up below the Basic/Advanced tabs until you choose something from the Surface List. Choose the lips of your model in the Surface List, then click on the color on the Color | Diffuse option:

Your default color picker should open up. Choose a bright red color. Here is our model with red lipstick:

This concludes our lesson for today.

Good luck :)

Creating Thumbnails In DAZ Studio

2011-11-01T17:42:17+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

Creating Thumbnails In DAZ Studio

Author: Dandrea Design

Tools Needed

* DAZ Studio

Introduction

If you search through the tutorials you will find several tutorials for creating thumbnails in Poser and DAZ Studio using multiple programs, but I will show you how to do it just using DAZ Studio

Step 1: Where are my Thumbnails

Have you ever wondered where your thumbnails are while working in DAZ Studio or Poser? Well, Here we will show you exactly how to fix that problem using only DAZ Studio. As you can see here I have no thumbnails in my MAT folder for the Baby Doll Hair for Aiko.

Step 2: Loading Your Models

First since this is a hair prop I will Load Aiko and the Baby Doll Hair.

Then as this is also going to be a custom thumbnail that I have to look at I will set up my photo lighting.

As I have chosen the MAT files for the Baby Doll Hair I applied the proper MAT file to the scene at this point.

Step 3: Matching the background

If your using the standard color set for DAZ Studio then you should go to the drop down menu next to your viewport control menu and select Background Color.

Select one of your custom color boxes so that you can always get a nice background. This step will make you avoid having to set transparencies in the render and the need for another program.

Set the RGB to 60, 60, 60. This is the color of the background of the standard DAZ Studio Content Panel. Now click the “Add to Custom Color” button and click “OK”

Step 4: Setting the thumbnail size

Now go to your render settings (Ctrl+Shift+R in Windows)

In the Dimension preset drop down menu click the Square (1:1) setting

Thumbnail images must be 91 pixels by 91 pixels square so place those numbers in the pixel dimensions boxes

Step 5: Rendering the image

Once you change your render settings you will have a square in your scene that has a 1:1 in the corner. Now center whatever it is your trying to get a thumbnail for in that box (in this case the Baby Doll Hair)

Once it is complete rendering your image what you see is exactly what your thumbnail will look like so make any adjustments you may think it needs and re-render if you want to.

Step 6: Saving the render

Go to File - Save last Render and change the save file type to PNG.

It is very important that you have the exact same file name as the item that you are creating the thumbnail for.

Step 7: The finished product

As you can see in this image we still don't have the thumbnail. DAZ Studio doesn't auto refresh the content window so you need to change content folders and go back to it.

Now we have the proper thumbnail for our MAT file for the Baby Doll Hair.

This will allow you to create thumbnails for items that don't have them and to create custom thumbnails for your collection. I hope this helps you all out and have fun being different.

Beginners Guide for Dealing with Poke Through

2011-11-01T17:42:17+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

Beginners Guide for Dealing with Poke Through

Author: JonnyRay

Tools Needed

* DAZ Studio

Introduction

So you've got Vicky all dressed for a night on the town. Then just as you're ready to hit 'render' and create your masterpiece, you notice that her shoulder is showing through her dress. She can't go out like this! What are we to do? This tutorial is designed to help the new user understand what your options are in dealing with this phenomenon known as 'poke-through'. As in her shoulder is poking through her dress. I'm going to give some general techniques for doing this and provide some pointers toward more advanced options as well.

Step 1 - Do Nothing

Want to know a secret? Many of your favorite images you've seen have poke through all over the place. You just don't see it from the final render angle. Before you spend a lot of time getting the back of Vicky's skirt to cover her behind, think about whether anyone but you will know. Kind of a bummer when you spend 2 hours getting it to look just right, then realize that it didn't affect your image at all.

Step 2 - Scaling

One of the often overlooked options is to use the scaling. Sometimes just a 1% change can push the mesh of the clothes up and over the surface of the skin, without deforming the clothes too much. This will only work for minor poke-through, however since it's easy to make the clothing look too big.

To use this, select the clothing object in your scene, then use the Scale slider to increase the clothing's size.

Also consider scaling in just one dimension (xScale, yScale, zScale). But be VERY careful with that since it's easy to distort an object that way.

Also, rather than scaling the entire clothing, you may be able to get the result you need by expanding the Scene tab and only scaling the part of the clothing where you have an issue. Too much of this will distort the clothes, though, so watch the overall look of the clothes.

Step 3 - Magnetize

If you're using Vicky 4, don't forget the Magnetize option for her clothing. To use it, have the clothing on Vicky (use the Fit-To Victoria 4). Then with the clothing object selected, run the 'Magnetize to V4' script by double-clicking on it. For DAZ Studio, you only have to use the first one in the list. The other numbered magnets are for Poser users.

Step 4 - Standard Morphs

Most clothing will have at least some support for the standard full body morphs (young, voluptuous, fitness, amazon, etc.). Some may also support more extreme morphs (pregnant, full bodied, pear shaped '). Selecting the clothing object will show you if the designer has built support into their object for these morphs or not. However, that may be deceiving as mentioned in the next topic.

Body Part Specific Morphs

One thing to watch for, if you select the clothing object and it doesn't show any morphs on the Parameters tab, that doesn't mean there aren't any. Expand your Scene tab and expand the clothing object and select different body parts. Sometimes you'll find that the shirt which looked like it was without morphs actually has quite a few if you select the Chest node in the object, for example.

Fix Morphs

Sometimes a designer knows that their clothing may have key problem areas dealing with certain poses. Often they'll include 'fix' morphs for these issues. For example a shirt may have problems with the strap not tracking to the skin when Vicky raises her arms, so the designer may add a 'right strap up' fix morph to handle it. These can spare you a great deal of grief if they're available!

Step 5 - Hidden Morphs

Did you know that in some ways the morphs you see are like the tip of an iceberg? There are hidden morphs in many objects. To be able to see them:

1. Go to your Parameters tab

2. Click on the triangle pointing to the right which is next to the Parameters Tab

3. Choose Show Hidden Properties

Be careful, though, there may be a good reason why the designer didn't show those morphs. There are no guarantees about how using them may deform your clothing in ways you didn't intend. However, sometimes you can find that adjusting the 'young' setting just for the right shoulder takes care of your issue.

Step 6 - Hide the Body

The body suit looks great, but .. well .. Vicky seems a bit too buxom for it. What's the fastest way to deal with this? Simple. Turn her chest invisible by doing the following:

1. Expand the Scene tab and the character's parts to find the body part you want to hide

2. Click on the eye to the right of the body part name to turn it invisible.

After, you can adjust the body suit to the shape you wish her chest was. When you render it, nobody can tell the difference! This only works in cases where the body part is totally covered by the clothing in question. If there is any transparency, etc. you'll have to use another method. This is VERY handy for toes that are poking through boots, though.

Step 7 - Bend and Twist

Ok, so we talked about morphs on a body part of the clothing object, but did you realize that you can bend and twist and pose it just like you do Vicky? There are times when just a bit more (or less) bend in the right thigh of a skirt will take care of the issue without any of the morph fiddling, etc. To get there, do the following:

1. Select the Scene tab

2. Expand the clothing to find the part you need to adjust

3. Select the 'body part' of the clothing you want to move

4. Use the Bend, Side-to-Side, Front-to-Back, Twist, etc. sliders to move that part of the clothes

This can be especially helpful when using poses where Vicky's legs are crossed and the clothing didn't really expect to ever be bent that far.

Step 8 - D-Form

So those are the basic ways to handle the issues. But what if you STILL can't quite get there? Well, that's where a tool like the D-Form plug-in comes into play. There are some excellent tutorials here at DAZ about how to use this plug-in. But to summarize, in essence you use a D-form to manually deform the mesh of an object. So you can add a D-Form to the chest of a shirt and pull it out from Vicky's chest. You can imagine how flexible and powerful this can be! You are also allowed to have multiple D-Forms for the same piece of clothing. So you can adjust the area over each breast individually and then add another for pushing in the back of the shirt to form more closely to her body. For most DAZ Studio users, D-Form tops the list of plug-ins they can't live without.

Step 9 - Third Party Tools

There are also other tools which can help with clothing issues. For example, the V4 Magnet Fits (available here in the DAZ store) adds fit options for body types that the clothing designer may not have implemented. And Netherworks (http://www.netherworks-studios.com/) has a tool which allows you to copy morph channels from your character to your clothing. These are definitely treading into an advanced area where you'll need a learning curve and some patience to get things to work right, but they can be invaluable tools to have in your toolbox when nothing else is working.

Creating a Handle for Simple Eye Movement

2011-11-01T17:42:17+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

Creating a Handle for Simple Eye Movement

Author: KKRawal

Tools Needed

* DAZ Studio

Step 1 - Create Eye Control

Open DAZ Studio.

Create- > New Primitive- > Cube

Size=2, dimention=2 (cm)

Click on Accept

Again

Create- > New Primitive- > Cube

Size=2, dimention=2 (cm)

Click on Accept

Now you got 2 Cube

Scene Window:Select Cube_2 and drag under Cube

Now Cube_2 is child of Cube

Step 2 - Create Rotation

Parameter Window: While Cube_2 is still selected

Change Value X_Translate=25

TimeLine:Total Frame=12

Scene Window: select Cube

TImeLine:Goto Frame 0

Parameter Window:Z_Rotate = 0 and Click on + on the TimeLine

TimeLine Goto Frame 11

Parameter Window and Change Value Z_Rotate=360 and click on + on the TimeLine

Now Select Cube_2 and Click on TimeLine and you will see that Cube_2 is rotating in

circular motion.

Step 3 - Load Character

Goto Content and Select Preteen Vicki

Content- > > DAZ People- > Preteen Vicki

You can select any figure you like.

Click to Import in the Main Window.

Put some hair on head and clothes on her body.

Main Window- > Front View

Step 4 - Settle her posture

Change her figure as you wish.

Step 5 - Change View

Change View

Main Window- > Left View

Step 6 - Move Eye Control

Move Eye Control

Scene Window- > Select Cube

TimeLine Goto Frame 0

Parameter Window

Change Value: Y_Translate= 135

Z_Translate=200

Parameter Window:

Select Cube , Visible=Off

TimeLine:Goto Frame 0

Select Preteen's Head

Change the Morph as you wish, Time Line:Click on +

Goto Frame 11

Change the Morph as you wish, TIme Line:Click on +

Step 7 - Control Eyes

Scene Window:

Select Preteen's Right Eye and Left Eye

Step 8 - Point At and Final

Parameter Window: While Right Eye and Left Eye both are still selected.

Select Point At:

Select Cube_2 and click on Accept

Run the animation.

Now change the view according to you test and render.

Your Character's eyes are now rotating.

Enjoy Rendering

Creating Blankets with the D-Form Plug-in

2011-11-01T17:42:17+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

Creating Blankets with the D-Form Plug-in

Author: Ruri ruri

Tools Needed

* DAZ Studio

* D-form Plug-in

Step 1: Creating the Planes

Open up your DAZ Studio. Import a person or animal of your choice. Put them in a laying pose.

Then create two planes. The first one should be longer than the person. The second one can be as long as you wish. Create a new plane by going to the Create menu and selecting New primitive.

A small box should appear in the center of the screen. Click on the drop down menu to change from cube to plane.

change the settings of your plane here. The divisions should be set to a high number like 100 so that the blanket has a nice smooth look.

Step 2: Placing them correctly

Move larger plane up so that it's right under the models belly. If the model is lying on its side move it right under the smallest part of their side. Here's an example.

You can move things up and down in the PARAMETERS box. The top area in the picture below is the Translation. The Y translation will move object up and down.

Step 3: Creating D-formers

Look under the model to see how many place they poke through. That's how many D-formers you'll need. Open your D-form box buy going to the view menu, tabs then D-form.

Click create new at the top of the box. You must have the bottom plane selected in order for it to be affected by the D-former.

Step 4: Changing the affected area

Make your D-formers only affect the pokethroughs. You can do this by selecting the D-former Field. (The blue box out area in the

Scale it smaller a move it to that it only covers a poke through. Scale is also found in the Parameters box. at the bottom.

here's an example of what your bottom might look like after you've place a d-former on each poke through.

Step 5: Covering up the pokethroughs

To cover up you pokethroughs select the D-former. The red boxed area in the picture.

Translate the D-former on Y. Bring it down to cover up the poke through. This is what yours might look like after you've covered up all the bottom pokethroughs.

Step 6: The top plane

For the top Plane do as you did with the bottom and cover you the poking through areas. (Tip: when you are moving you D-former field it's going to go off the sides of your plane but don't worry that's good.)

Step 7: Making the sides glide down

To make the Side glide down like real covers at night Create Two more D-formers for the top plane. Put one Field on each side.

Scale the field so that red area doesn't look like a semi-circle but a straight line like in this picture.

Here's a finished picture.

Creating Dishes with DAZ Studio

2011-11-01T17:42:17+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

Creating Dishes with DAZ Studio

Author: Ruri ruri

Tools Needed

* DAZ Studio

* D-form Plug-in

Step 1: Create a primitive

Open up DAZ Studio. In the Create menu Select New Primitive.

In the New Primitive Box Click on Sphere in the drop down menu.

Set the settings of you sphere. Make sure it's small has a large amount of Divisions (about 100)

Step 2: Get a good View

Zoom in and get a better view of your sphere. Use the magnifying glass in the top right hand corner of the active view point.

Get a good view like this.

. Open your D-form Box. Open it by going to View, Tabs and D-form

Step 3: Create a D-former

select your sphere. Click create new at the top of the D-form Box.

then click OK on the box that appears in the center of the screen

In the scene box click on the plus sign to expand it.

Step 4: Flatten

Select the sphere and open the parameters box by going to View, Tabs then Parameters. Change the Y scale in the parameters box to 5%

Now in the scene box select D-former Field

set the D-former field Y Scale to 10000

Step 5: Creating the bowl

Now select the D-former

and translate it on Y in the parameters box.

Step 6: Flatten the bottom

Select the D-former. In the D-form Box click on Edit Spline.

When the spline box opens click on Insert in the side of the box. Insert a few at the top.

Then click move (right above insert) Move the points to make a smooth curve

. Now you have a bowl.

Custom morphs in DAZ Studio with D-form plug-in

2011-11-01T17:42:17+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

Custom morphs in DAZ Studio with D-form plug-in

Author: Kattey

Tools Needed

* DAZ Studio

* D-from plug-in

* Morph To CR2 script by DeltaX15

Introduction

D-form is powerful tool and should not be underestimated. While generally it can be used to custom shape the models in DAZ Studio it also has more powerful functions. With help of this plug-in and the script made by DeltaX15 this tutorial will show how to make custom morphs and save them in the character. As a model for this tutorial I choose Spuggles (which is freely available at DAZ Free Models Archive). As nice a model as it is Spuggles has no many shape morphs to speak about so we will fix that with help of the D-form plug-in.

Step 1 - The creation of right horn

Choose the Spuggles character and zero it by clicking the small arrow button at the Parameters Tab (usually right-top corner) then press “Zero figure”. This seems to have no effect at Spuggles but it will come handy when you will deal with other models. The zeroed position of the figure will make the process of the creation of the morphs more comfortable.

At the beginning we will create the Horn Morph for Spuggles' head. Right-click at Spuggles at the area of Head and Select Spuggles: Head or use the Scene Tab (usually located at left of the screen) and select Head.

Activate the D-form Tab and while the Head is selected click on the “Create New”. Name it D-former_Right. This will be our right horn.

Now when you will notice that under the head we have a D-former.

The D-former itself consist of three parts: the Field part, which defines the how big the area affected by morph, the Base part which defines the point and direction of applied D-former and the D-former which define the morph itself.

In order to make the Horn we will need to adjust all three components.

At the beginning the Spuggles head covered by yellow and red dots. The color in that case define how big the area which will be affected by morph: the red dots show the areas which will be more affected, the yellow dots show the area which will be less affected, the area without dots won't be affected at all.

For the horn we don't need to affect the whole head so chose the Field component of the D-former and scale it down to 25%. You will lose the view on the D-former for a moment but don't be afraid.

Now, chose the Field component and move it up and left and a bit back by entering the Translate coordinates -25/130/10 for X/Y/Z accordingly. In general case you moving the D-former Field in the point where the Field component will affect the area of desired morph.

Chose the Base component and enter the same coordinates for it, so the Base will appear in the center of Field area.

Now we will change the angle of Base component to make our Horn not strictly vertical. Chose the Base and change the Z-rotate Property to 50.

After that select the last component D_former_Right (the D-former itself) and move it up and a bit back to create a horn. I used 35 for Y translate and -15 for Z translate properties.

Now we have our horn.

Step 2 - The creation of the left horn

To create the left horn again select the Spuggles' head and again create the new D-former. Name it D-former_Left. Now, the both horns should be symmetrical to look nice. The hard way to do so would be to move all three components of new D-former at the right by entering the new coordinated for Field, Base and D-former but there is an easier way.

Select (in the Scene tab) the D-former_Right Field and press Ctrl+C. Then, select the D-former_Left Field and press Ctrl+V. The new Field will “vanish” but only because this procedure will apply the same scale and translate coordinates as for D-former_Right Field so they will be viewed as the one field. To move the new Field in desired position symmetrically select the D-Former_Left_Field and change the minus of X Translate coordinate to the plus so you will have 25. It will automatically move the D-Former_Left_Field in the symmetrical point at the other side of the Spuggles head.

Repeat the process with the Base component. Here you will need to change to the opposite not only the X Translate coordinate but also Z Rotate Coordinate. Just change plus on the minus and minus to the plus so you will have 25 for X Translate coordinate and -50 for Z Rotate coordinate.

Now just use the same process the copy-paste the coordinated of the D-former_Left itself. In that case you won't need to change anything.

Here our left horn.

Step 3 - The making of morphs

So everything is looking nice but those D-former spheres tend to mess with workflow so we are going to get rid of them and spawn the morph for Horns which also will allow us to change the length of the horns smoothly.

Select the Spuggles' head and open the D-form tab. If you want the morph be a part of the head only leave the “Create Root Control Parameter” unchecked, otherwise check it.

Press “Spawn Morph…” to create a morph. If you got a message “None of the selected nodes have a DForm applied. Nothing to spawn morph from” than make sure that you selected the Spuggles' head and not some other part of the body.

After that the system will ask you to enter a unique Morph name - in that case just enter “Horns”

Now you can delete the both left and right D-formers.

At the first glance it seems that we deleted the whole our work too because the Spuggles' head went back to normal. But just select the Spuggles' head (or the Spuggles at whole if you checked the “Create Root Control Parameter” before) and in Parameters tab you will see you morph. Increase the value of the morph and the horns will appear.

Step 4 - How to save the morph

There are a two ways to save the customized character in the DAZ Studio. The first way is to save as scene the whole character and Merge it with you future work any time when the new, improved Spuggles will be needed.

The other way is to use a free script called Morph to Cr2 written by DeltaX15 and available at the DAZ Studio Freepozitory: Morph to Cr2

Download and install the script by unzipping it in your Studio/Scripts folder. Do it without closing the Studio itself (otherwise you might lose the character) and wait a bit for new script to appear.

Navigate to the Studio- > Scripts folder and find the Morph ToCr2 Script. Make sure that your Spuggles is selected as a figure.

Double-clicking at the script icon will bring the script menu.

By default the script will show only active morphs (i.e. those morphs that have value bigger different from zero). To see all morphs just uncheck Active Only option at the left of the tab. Find the Horns morph and transfer from left to right.

If you want to have all previous morphs in the new figure you need to transfer all previous morphs from left to right but remember that you can't redistribute new CR2 with other people morphs without their given permission.

After transferring all morphs select the donor CR2 and output CR2 by browsing to the old CR2 (in that case it's Content/Runtime/Libraries/Character/Spuggles/Spuggles DS.CR2 and the program will generate new CR2 name and path automatically. You can change the name of new CR2 if you wish.

Press Export and wait a bit. The time of waiting depends from complexity of figure and number of transferred morphs.

After that you can delete you previous figure and navigate back to the folder with Spuggles. You will see the new default thumbnail with name like “Spuggles-DS new”. Click on it and bring the improved Spuggles back. If you transferred all old morphs into the new character you will be able to access them as well as the Full Body Morph of the whole Spuggles or just a morph for separate body part depending from your chosen options.

Now you can freely use improved character instead of previous one.

Do not forger to create a thumbnail for new character as explained in the tutorial “Creating Thumbnails In DAZ Studio” By Dandrea Design.

Step 5 - The last note

For purpose of the tutorial I made another morph called “Belly” which gives Spuggles an ample belly. It needs to be noted that in this case I created two separate D-formers both for chest and hip areas because each D-former can only affect one body part. I scaled and rotated the both D-formers (all three parts) in the same way, placed them just one above another, and moved the D-formers (third part) in the same direction at the same distance (you can do that by selecting both D-formers with Ctrl at the Scene tab).

After that I spawned two separate morphs for the chest and the hip area and combined them in the MorphToCr2 in one Full Body Morph.

Here is our Spuggles :)

How to make a soft pillow with D-Form

2011-11-01T17:42:17+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

How to make a soft pillow with D-Form

Author: Ruri ruri

Step 1: Create a Sphere

Open DAZ Studio and create a sphere primitive. To create a new primitive go to the Create Menu then New Primitive

Click on the drop down menu and click sphere.

Set the diameter at least one ft. or one meter. Set the divisions to a high number.

Step 2: Flat like a pillow

Select the sphere. Change the Y scale to 30%. (You can change that from the parameters box) Open the parameters from the view menu, tabs, then Parameters

. Then change the Y scale of the sphere to 30%.

Step 3: Create the D-formers

Open your D-form box (Located in the view menu, tabs then D-form)

The top of the box should say Create New.

Create 4 D-formers (When this box pops up click okay)

Step 4: Placing the D-formers

Select a D-former Field. (In the scene box click on the plus sign next to the Sphere to expand)

Translate it on Z and X. (From the Parameters box) Move the field to the side. Like in the picture.

Move each of your four D-former fields to cover a side. Here is what they look like all selected.

Step 5: Pulling out the corners

Now Select the D-former. (In the Scene box under

D-former Field, The plus sign next to D-former Base)

Select D-former. In the Parameters Box Translate the D-former on X and Z. (Move it away from the pillow)

Step 6: Create the indent

After you've done Step 5 with all the corners create a 5th D-former. Move the Field up a little bit. (Translate on Y) and Scale it just a little smaller. Then Select the D-former and move it down to create an indent.

Lever and Lid - moveable parts

2011-11-01T17:42:18+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

Lever and Lid - moveable parts

Author: atoxic

Tools Needed

* DAZ Studio

Introduction

A box with a lever. which can be pulled, and a lid which can be opened and closed, is constructed using the features of DAZ Studio. The same technique can be used where ever other items in a scene shall move relative to each other.

Step 1: Lever with Primitives

Open DAZ Studio and start in an empty scene.

Select 'Create a new Primitive' from the toolbar and create a cube, size 1 m.

Select 'Create a new Primitive' again and create a cylinder, height 0.3 m, diameter 0.5 m.

Use controls on the parameter tab to move cylinder to the side (out of the cube).

Move cylinder 1 to the side and rotate it around the z-axis (90 degree) so it can be placed at the side of the cube.

Create another cylinder (cylinder 2, height 0.8 m, diameter 0.1) and move it so that it intersects with cylinder 1.

Create a third cylinder (cylinder 3, height 0.4 m, diameter 0.2)and position it on top of cylinder 2.

Step 2: Center of Rotation

Now select 'Create a new Null' from the toolbar.

The null can be renamed to axis (click on name in scene tab and change it there) but this is not necessary.

Select the null in the scene bar and move it (symbolized by the blue/green/red crosshair) to the center of cylinder 1 by using the x, y, z controls on the parameter tab.

(Null may be hidden under the cube and becomes only visible if you move it to the side)

Step 3: How to assemble the Lever

In scene tab click on cylinder 3 and hold down left mouse button while dragging cylinder 3 on cylinder 2.

(Parenting cylinder 3 to cylinder 2 by drag and drop)

Select cylinder 2 and drop it on cylinder 1; select cylinder one and drop it on the null.

Finally select the null (axis) and drop it on the cube.

Now cylinder 3 is parented to cylinder 2 which is parented to cylinder 1 which is parented to the null (axis) and this is parented to the cube - the whole system is now one unit.

Step 4: To Move and To Adjust

Select the null (axis) in the scene tab, go to the parameter tab and choose x-rotate: the lever can be moved.

Double click on the x-rotate control with the right mouse button.

The panel for the control opens.

Click in the field 'name' and rename x-rotate to

“UP/DOWN”, set Min.Limit to -55, Max.Limit to 15 (those values between which the lever should operate) and set Respect Limit to YES by clicking.

Click on Accept.

Be aware that some changes in the parameter tab, e.g. the new name of x-rotate may only be active if you close and open the tab again.

To avoid that unused controls are moved by accident, double click each one with the right mouse button, opening the control panels, and set Hide to YES by clicking.

If you open the panel the next time all the unused controls are hidden.

Step 5: Alternatives

Now the lever can be placed somewhere in the scene (by choosing the cube and moving it around with the controls) and is ready for action.

With cylinder 1 in the center of rotation the same effect would have been accomplished using the center of the cylinder (its null coordinates - and another axis y or z because the cylinder was rotated in Step 1).

Also is it possible to move the center of a primitive with a script ('Move Origin') which I find very helpful.

But a New Null allows independent rotation and/or translation of the single parts of the object.

Step 6: A Moving Lid

Create a new cube (1 m) and select it, use y-translate to move it on top of cube 1 and scale it down with Y-Scale to 12%.

Create a new null (can be renamed, e.g. 'hinge') and move it to the edge where the cubes met.

Parent cube 2 to the new null (hinge) and parent the null to cube 1.

When the new null ('hinge') is selected, cube 2 can be moved up and down like a lid, using x-rotate on the parameter tab.

After renaming the control and hiding all unused handles, lever and lid can be used independently.

Making Tracks with Align Ace

2011-11-01T17:42:18+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

Making Tracks with Align Ace

Author: Crescent

Tools Needed

DAZ Studio
Align Ace
Primitives (Free Section)
Armor Train (Free Section)

Introduction

Please note: Because the D|S workspace is customizable, the screen shots shown may be slightly different from your set up. The best workspace set up is the one that you're comfortable with.

Step 1 - Starting the Scene - Creating the Rails

Load the Armored Train into the scene. When the train loads, the train faces the camera. This means that it lies on the Z Axis. The grid lines that go crosswise are the X Axis. Knowing this makes it easier to figure out which dials to use when moving and scaling items. One thing I do when working on a scene is rotate the viewport about 45 degrees so I can see the X and Z axis better.

First we'll make the main rails that the train moves over.

1) Click on the 'Create a New Primitive' button.

2) Select the Cube, 3cm in size, with 1 Division.

3) Go to the Scene tab and select the Cube. Double click on the name and change it to Rail1. Hit the Enter key so the name is changed.

4) Go to the Parameters tab.

5) Move Rail1 to 8.6 on the X axis. (You can right click on the number for XTranslate and type the value in.) This centers the rail under the left wheels.

6) Elongate the rail by setting the ZScale to 30000.

7) The rail looks a little too tall. Change the YScale to 50.

8) Repeat Steps 1-7, but name the cube Rail2 and set the XTranslate to –8.6.

9) Go to the Surfaces tab. Select the Rail1-Default and Rail2-Default materials. (If you don't see the materials listed, click on the right pointing arrow past the Surfaces tab and select 'Show Surfaces List.')

Click on the drop down arrow by the Diffuse Color button and select 'train_a' in the drop down list. (It's a nice, rusty texture, so we might as well use it for the tracks as well. You can make the rails darker or lighter by adjusting the Diffuse Color.)

Step 2 - Preparing the Planks - Plank 1

The main rails are done. Now comes the fun part – making the planks. The trick is to get one plank correctly sized, then load all the other planks into the scene and let D|S and Align Ace do the grunt work for you. (Why position 20 objects one at a time when a few clicks of the button will do the work for you?)

Since the rails are 17.2cm apart (both are 8.6cm away from the center point, one in a positive direction, the other in the negative direction, so that's 17.2cm total) the plank will need to be wider than that to look correct. (Railroad planks extend past the rails.) For true realism, you can look up the exact measurements of the rail planks. For this render, we will be creating boards 35cm in width.

1) Load a cube that's 35cm in size with 1 division.

2) In the Scene tab, name the cube Plank 1. (If Plank1 is difficult to see in your workspace, go to the Surfaces tab and change the Diffuse_Color to something with good contrast, such as bright blue.)

3) Change the YScale to 5% and the ZScale to 10%. The planks need to be under the rails, so set the YTranslate to –1.8. (When trying to line things up, don't forget about the 'Frame Selection' tool in the View window. It's incredibly useful for zooming in on an object so you can see what you're doing.)

4) Looking closely at the train, I can see that it is partially inside the rails. Select the train and set the YTrans to 1.25. Now it's on top the rails, not inside them.

If you zoomed in on Plank 1, you can quickly zoom back out by selecting the train and using the 'Frame Selection' button again.

Step 3 - Creating and Aligning the Other Planks

1) Create 20 new cubes, all 35cm in size.

2) Go to the Scene tab, click on the first cube, hold down the Shift key, then click on the last cube. This will select all of them at once.

3) Set the YTranslate to –1.8, the YScale to 5%, and the ZScale to 20%. (This gives them the same attributes as Plank1.)

4) Go back to the Scene tab, hold down the Control key, and click on Plank1. Now it is selected with all the newly created planks.

5) We'll want the planks to start from one edge of the render window to the other (or beyond.) Go to the Parameters tab and change the ZTranslate to 135 to move all the planks to one edge of the scene. (Depending on the size of your screen, you may need to adjust the ZTranslate value accordingly.)

6) Click on the Windows menu at the top and select Align. The Align tool window will appear.

7) The train is pointed forward on the Z Axis, so that is the axis the planks need to be distributed. Under the Z Axis section, click on the box and select 'Stack : Behind (-Z).“ Click on the box for spacing and set it to .2 m then hit Apply. Now all of the planks are spaced out .2 meters from one another, each one further back on the Z axis, extending all the way across your scene. (If you had moved the planks to the far end of your image, you could have used “Stack : In Front (+Z)” instead.)

8) Are the planks too far apart for your tastes, or not far enough? You can just go to Edit: Undo Align and the planks will all line back up by the first plank so you can try a different amount of spacing.

9) Go to the Surfaces tab and select all the planks. If you have a wood texture, select Browse and locate the image on your hard drive. Alternatively, you could load the train_a texture for the planks and using a brown color for the Diffuse Color. (If you had changed the color of Plank1 earlier in the tutorial to make it easier to see, don't forget to change the Diffuse Color for it now that you're done, otherwise you may end up with one plank that is very different looking from the others!)

Step 4 - Voila!

Here's my finished version with lighting and a backdrop added to the scene.

Original DAZ Studio content from DAZ Studio alone!

2011-11-01T17:42:18+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

Original DAZ Studio content from DAZ Studio alone!

Author: purple_mug

Tools Needed

* DAZ Studio

* A text editor (not MS notepad!)

* File Null.CR2

Support Files

* Null.zip

Introduction

DAZ Studio is not intended to be a content creation program but many people would like the opportunity to try their hand at making 3D models and using them without first having to invest in an expensive modeling application. With a little patient file tweaking using only a text editor, it is possible to make models and assign them to a CR2 file which will mean that they can easily be included in a scene without using import! In just a short time a dumbbell for your strongpersons to show off with, just the first of a variety of props you can build, will be yours.

Step 1 - Building the dumbbell prop

Open a new scene in DAZ Studio and select the New Primitive tool.

Create two spheres of 50cm diameter and a cylinder of 5cm diameter and 90cm long.

Move the two spheres to an equal distance either side of the origin (xTrans)

zRotate 90 the cylinder, xTrans to position it between the spheres, and yTrans to position it level with the centers of the spheres. Adjust as necessary to ensure that the ends of the cylinder are contained within the spheres and do not protrude.

Once everything is in position go to the Scene tab and parent the two spheres to the cylinder by clicking on their icons and dragging to release them on the cylinder icon. If you want to rename any of the parts at this stage (Cylinder to Bar, for example) then go ahead.

Step 2 - Adding color and exporting the geometry file

Add a little color and shine to the completed object by going to the Surfaces tab. These are the settings I chose. Feel free to use your own but restrict yourself to Diffuse, Specular and Ambient color changes only. Don't add texture images of any kind at this stage.

Now export the new prop to \content\Runtime\Geometries\dumbbell\ (File menu > Export) as dumbbell.obj using these settings.

This will now be the geometry file which DAZ Studio will read every time the dumbbell is loaded so, if all is well, the DAZ Studio scene can now be discarded.

Step 3 - Hand crafting the CR2 file

First catch your text editor! Unfortunately Windows Notepad does not always format Poser/DAZ files correctly and is therefore not an advisable choice. There are many freeware plain text editors available however so go download one if you haven't already.

As with any sensitive data files make sure you have back-up copies available of all that will now be opened. The edits are fairly straightforward but better safe than sorry!

In the text editor, first open the dumbbell.obj file, and be amazed that it contains perfectly readable text looking just like this …

Search the file for the letter g as a whole word.

This should turn up three entries which read something like “g Sphere”, “g Bar” etc. depending on what you named the three parts of the model. These correspond to the three groups in which the geometry data is stored. As the dumbbell will be a single prop with no moving parts we only really need the one group so carefully replace each “g xxxx” with “g Bell”. This file is case sensitive so check that it is exactly as indicated. Save the file and close it.

Now open null.CR2, the file supplied in Null.zip above, and immediately Save As dumbbell.CR2 in \content\Runtime\libraries\dumbbell\. Null.CR2 is a specially prepared empty CR2 file which forms the template for any single part object to be made into a native DAZ Studio figure so carefully avoid editing it directly!

You should now be seeing this …

There are just two simple task to be completed. Firstly, finish off the line that begins figureResFile so that it reads ..

figureResFile :Runtime:Geometries:dumbbell:dumbbell.obj

Then replace every instance of “bodypart” with “Bell” the name given to the single group remaining in the OBJ file.

When loaded, the CR2 will now link to the geometry file and identify the Bell group as the 'Actor' which can be manipulated. Save dumbbell.CR2 then go back to DAZ Studio. Find the dumbbell folder in the Content tab and there is an icon for dumbbell just waiting to be double clicked and loaded into the scene for you to admire.

Don't Panic! You didn't make a mistake. It really is all white at this stage but you didn't waste all that work giving it that nice colored finish in the original modeling.

Step 4 - Restoring former glory

In exporting the original model the Write Surfaces (Write Material Library) option was selected so the necessary information is out there. It just needs to be transferred to the CR2 file.

Return to dumbbell.CR2 in the text editor and search for “material Preview”. This section of the file is a template for storing texture information for a single 'material'. Fortunately the values don't need to be culled from memory. Alongside dumbbell.obj in the Geometries\dumbbell folder find dumbbell.mtl and open it in the text editor.

Note that a material has been created for each of the three parts of the original model. At present, there is just a single material entry in the CR2 file so select, copy, and paste twice immediately below the original to make a total of three.

Be careful to get the exact selection shown and not to displace any of the existing brackets in pasting. Now transfer the necessary values for each material from the .mtl file to the .CR2 file as in this example:

newmtl Default_Sphere_2 > material Default_Sphere_2

Kd 0 0 0 > KdColor 0 0 0 1

Ka 0 0 0 > KaColor 0 0 0 1

Ks 0.6 0.6 0.6 > KsColor 0.6 0.6 0.6 1

Ns 1 > NsExponent 100

Note that Ns is recorded on a scale of 0 to 1 in the .mtl file corresponding to a scale of 0 to 100 for NsExponent (eg. Ns 0.6 = NsExponent 60).

Save dumbbell.CR2, return to DAZ Studio and load a new dumbbell to see it in all its hues.

If all has gone to plan, why not make the dumbbell 'officially' part of your content by replacing the generic DAZ icon with a thumbnail image using the very handy but entirely free Render Thumbnail script?

Download: RenderThumbnails.zip

Simply set up the scene in DAZ Studio with a square format and use the script to save dumbbell.PNG to the \libraries\dumbbell\ folder.

Step 5 - To infinity and beyond!

You now have all the tools and skills necessary to model with primitives and produce DAZ format props without ever needing a 3D modeling program. But the fun doesn't stop there. Using exactly the same techniques a prop can be made out of an exported body part from any one of the figures you use every day in DAZ Studio. And why would you want to do that? Well that's a whole new tutorial!

Putting "non-smart" props on a figure symmetrically [mirroring positions]

2011-11-01T17:42:18+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

Putting "non-smart" props on a figure symmetrically [mirroring positions]

Author: eallenmail

Tools Needed

* DAZ Studio 1.8

Introduction

If you're making your own simple props by exporting OBJs, you might have a hard time positioning them. Maybe you want your figure to have matching bracelets on each wrist, and you have the left one in the perfect position, but you just can't get the right one into position. Or you've made a custom cat ear prop for a half-human, half-beast character and gotten one ear into position, but the other ear isn't cooperating. This tutorial will help you put non-smart-propped props in matching positions on either side of a figure.

Step 1:

Load your desired figure, in this case, V4. If the figure is not in the zeroed position, zero the figure.

Step 2:

Load the prop that you want to duplicate and mirror the position of.

In this example, it's a primitive, a torus [or ring shape] to serve as a large, tacky earring. To create the torus, I go to Create > New Primitive. Type = Torus. Major diameter = 5 cm. Minor diameter = 3 cm. Segments = 24. Sides = 12.

Step 3:

Position the prop in the desired location.

In this case, I put the earring [torus] on V4's ear lobe with the following settings in the Parameters tab: X translate = 8.57. Y translate = 159.9. Z translate = -1.37. X rotate = 90. Y rotate =-90. Z rotate = 8.34.

Step 4:

Parent the earring to V4's head.

Do this by going to the Scene tab and dragging the name Torus down V4's hierarchy onto the name head. Save your whole project.

Step 5:

Make V4 invisible by going to the Scene tab, then clicking the eyeball to the right of the Victoria 4.1 name. The eyeball will close, making the whole figure invisible.

Step 6:

Now just the earring [torus] is visible. Export the earring as an OBJ by going to File > Export.

Browse to the appropriate location where you want to save it, and type in a file name. [I saved mine in my V4 runtime, in the Geometries folder, in a subfolder called Custom, as the name earring.] For Basic settings, I used the following: Preset = Custom [1 unit = 1 cm]. Scale = 100%. Do Not Export Invisible Nodes should be checked. Weld figures should not be checked. In Advanced, check Write UV Coordinates, Write Groups, Use Node Names, Write Surfaces, Write Material Library, and No Map.

Step 7:

Now make V4 visible by going to the Scene tab, then clicking the eyeball to the right of the Victoria 4.1 name. The eyeball will open, making the whole figure visible.

Step 8:

Import the OBJ you just exported by going to File > Import.

Browse to the location of the OBJ, and open it. For settings, use the following: Preset = Custom [1 unit = 1 cm]. Scale = 100%. The following should be checked: Read Vertices, Read Groups, Read UV Coordinates, and Read Surfaces.

Step 9:

The imported earring will appear in the same position as the parented earring.

To move it into a bilaterally symmetrical position on the other ear, go to Scene tab. Select the name earring. Now change the following setting under the Parameters tab: X scale = -100%. You now have a second earring in a bilaterally symmetrical position in the other ear!

Step 10:

Parent the second earring to V4's head.

Step 11:

Adjust the surface settings of the matching earrings as you want.

Step 12:

Again, this isn't just for primitives.

You can do this for, say, braid props to give a character a Pippi-Longstocking-like hairstyle, or full trays that a waiter is carrying in each hand, or character ears for bestial figures - all sorts of things!

Simplifying Complex Background Props in DAZ Studio

2011-11-01T17:42:18+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

Simplifying Complex Background Props in DAZ Studio

Author: eallenmail

Tools Needed

DAZ Studio 1.8
Bookshelf prop with various book and plant and knickknack props on it
Adobe Photoshop [or comparable image editor]

Introduction

A complicated background prop, such as a shelf full of various books, uses a lot of geometry information, as well as texture files. Such a prop adds realism and detail to your renders, but takes up lots of memory, lengthening render time. Using D|S' Export as OBJ and Collect Maps features, you can reduce the impact of complicated props on your system, speeding up your renders. We'll be using a set of full bookshelves in this example, but this also works for dolls, messy desks, garages full of stuff, you name it!

Step 1 - Before we start, here is an important note.

The whole point of this tutorial is to take a bunch of single props with their own OBJ files and high-resolution textures and turn them into one OBJ with lower-resolution textures. You will not be able to move the individual parts of the resultant OBJ, but that is okay…it is just a background prop.

Step 2 - Open D|S and the full bookshelves.

If the full bookshelves are part of a scene file with other elements, delete all elements except the full bookshelves. Then save the full bookshelves as their own .daz file. If the full bookshelves are in their own scene file, great!

Step 3 - Look at the scene tab just to see what you are dealing with.

As you can see, there are about 30 separate props on my full bookshelves. Some may be poseable characters with bone information; some may have morphs; all of them have textures, most of which are high-resolution. But, since we are just making a background prop, we do not need said bone information, morph information or the high-resolution textures. So we will simplify what we have.

Step 4 - Export the whole thing -- that is, the full bookshelves and their contents -- as an OBJ.

Go to File > Export. Name the OBJ and browse to an appropriate location. [I am saving mine as “marksbooks.obj” in my Sets runtime > Geometries > Derived. I created the folder named Derived.] Make sure that you save the file as a Wavefront Object type.

Step 5 - Your Basic export settings should be as follows:

Preset = Custom

Scale = 100%

Do not export invisible nodes = should be checked

Weld figures = should not be checked

Step 6 - Your Advanced export settings should be as follows:

Swap y and z orientation = should not be checked

Write UV coordinates = should be checked

Write normals = should not be checked

Write groups = should be checked

Use existing groups = should be selected

Use node names = should not be checked

Use figure names = should not be checked

Use surface names = should not be checked

Write surfaces = should be checked

Write material library = should be checked

No maps = should not be selected

Collect maps = should be selected

Convert maps (for Bryce) = should not be selected

Step 7 - Once you have exported your OBJ, close out of D|S and open up Photoshop [or comparable image editor].

Browse to the location of your exported OBJ. In my case, the location is Sets > Runtime > Geometries > Derived. In the folder with my exported OBJ, marksbooks.obj, there is a Maps subfolder.

Inside it has copies of all the texture and transparency map files used in the making of your OBJ – that is, the textures of all the books and other things filling up your bookshelves.

Step 8 - Reduce the size and quality of all textures in Photoshop [or similar].

In Photoshop, I do this by opening each texture in turn and going to Image > Image size and reducing the size of each texture so that it is between 15 and 30% of the original size. The smaller the prop, the more I reduce the texture size. I also save the texture file as a medium or lower-quality JPG, rather than a high-quality one.

Step 9 - Once all textures and transmaps are reduced in size, reopen D|S.

Open the scene in which you want to place your bookshelves OBJ. Then go to File > Import and browse to the location of your OBJ. Your Import settings should be as follows:

Preset = Custom

Scale = 100%

Swap Y and Z orientation = should not be checked

Read groups = should be checked

Read UV coordinates = should be checked

Read surfaces = should be checked

Read material library = should be checked

Step 10 - You now have a simplified background prop that looks realistic and adds depth to your renders without hogging memory or render time.

Remember that you cannot move the books off your bookshelves OBJ, and the bookshelves are not made for super close-ups, but they will do fine as background furniture. You can follow the same principles on other programs and other props besides full shelves. Like I said, you could make a bed full of stuffed animals, a display shelf full of knickknacks, and an attic full of treasures…whatever you want. And, with this tutorial, the complex prop doesn't have to be a memory hog.

How To Create (and save) Face Morphs For Beginners

2011-11-01T17:42:18+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

How To Create (and save) Face Morphs For Beginners

Author: CD_2007

Tools Needed

* “DAZ” Studio

* Poser Format Exporter

Introduction

This is my first tutorial that I have put together for the newest members of the Poser Community. In it, you will learn how to create a face morph and save it as a .pz2 file for future use.

Step 1 - Load The Figure

Load the desired figure that you wish to use for this tutorial. I have chosen my character “DAZ RAIDER Maddie” to use.

Step 2 - Create Desired Face

In the “Parameters” Tab, adjust the dials for “Head”, “Face”, “Eyes”, “Nose”, “Lips”, etc.

Step 3 - Select The Head

Now you will select the head of the figure which will allow you to use the “Poser Format Exporter”. (To use the Poser Format Exporter, you must have the figure's Head selected).

Step 4 - Open The Poser Format Exporter

In the “Content” tab, click on “Studio”. Scroll down to (and click on) “Scripts”. Choose “Utilities”. Double-Click on “Poser Format Exporter”.

Step 5 - Choose Filename And Location For Saved .pz2 File

You will need to set the “Path” (where you want the .PZ2 file saved to), otherwise it will be saved to C:\Program Files\DAZ\Studio. You will also need to name the file to be saved, otherwise it will be saved as .dazgenerated.pz2

I created a folder specifically for all of my .pz2 files in “My Documents”

Step 6 - Save The Face Morph

In the Poser Format Exporter, set the “Nodes” to “Selected”. Now all you have to do is click on “Accept”. Having done so, your Face Morph will be saved as a .PZ2

Step 7 - Add The Saved Face Morphs To "DAZ" Studio

Copy the folder that you saved the face morph in and paste it in:

C:\Program Files\DAZ\Studio\content\Runtime\libraries\Pose

Now all you have to do is load your figure, select the head, and click on your saved .pz2 file (located in C:\Program Files\DAZ\Studio\content\Runtime\libraries\Pose\your pz2 folder) to add the face morphs.

Making Tank Tread tracks

2011-11-01T17:42:18+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

Making Tank Tread tracks

Author: Gary_P

Tools Needed

Photoshop or paint program
DAZ studio
Bryce 5.5

Support Files

TreadsTest02.zip

Introduction

In this tutorial, I am going to show you how to create tracks in the sand made by a tank or other vehicle.

Here is how it will work. We'll take a screen shot of the bottom of the tank and its treads. We will use this picture to import into Bryce to use as a terrain.

Because the terrain needs a grayscale map, we'll touch it up in Photoshop first.

We'll be creating a displacement map. A displacement map is different from a bump map. A bump map uses shadows to fool the viewer into seeing bumps in a surface. A displacement map actually conforms the surface so the surface is bumpy.

After applying the map to the terrain, we'll import our tank, and set up the scene, and I'll show you how to layout the new terrain so it will look like the tank created the tracks as it drove by.

It's a really nice effect.

Step 1 - Let's get started

The first thing we need is a tank. I'm using the free JAGDPanther from Vanishing Point.

I got it from Content Paradise.

You could use the M1 Abrams Main Battle Tank from DAZ too, but I'm going for all the freebies here.

The first thing we need is a render of the tanks treads, and the best way to get it is to turn it upside down and render it from the bottom.

Sometimes you can get what you need from the texture, but this tank has the treads modeled rather than just a drawn texture on a belt.

Open your copy of DAZ Studio and load the tank model.

Your screen may not look exactly like mine. I have my timeline on and docked at the top.

Step 2 - Render the treads

Now render it from the bottom like the picture shown. You may have to turn off the floor.

Make sure it is straight up and down. This will help in the next step.

Step 3 - Save the treads render

Now save the render as Treads01.tif where you'll know where to find it later.

Menu: File | Save Last Render.

(I have included a zip file with this image in it).

I saved it as a TIF file because it gives me a much better resolution then JPG files.

Step 4 - Fixing the image Part 1

Next open Photoshop or your favorite image editor and load in the Treads01.tif picture.

Draw a marquee around the middle parts of the tank so we can remove the under belly of the tank. All we want here are the treads.

Delete the entire picture in the marquee.

Desaturate the picture to get it to grayscale.

Why are we doing this?

Because if you use Bryce, or any other modeling program to do a displacement map, it requires a grayscale image, and desaturate creates a grayscale image from a colored photograph.

Step 5 - Fixing the image Part 2

Invert the picture so the high points will be high and the low points will be low.

Why are we doing this?

Because of the way displacement maps work. White is high and black is low. Grey is in the middle. If we did not invert it then the treads would stick out of the ground. We want them to be depressed into the ground.

Set the brightness and contrast so there is just a bit of difference between the treads and the terrain.

I used -100 for the brightness and -70 for the Contrast.

Why are we doing this?

Because we only want a slight indentation. The closer the tread color gray is to the ground gray, the smaller the indention is. If you want really deep tread marks, then make the treads darker.

Step 6 - Bryce setup

Save your new picture as Treads02.tif . This way if the brightness or contrast needs more setting, you can come back to it.

Open Bryce and create a new terrain.

Open the Terrain editor by pressing that little E next to the terrain, and click on the Pictures tab in the editing tools.

Click the Load button to load the Treads2.tif photo.

Step 7 - Loading treads onto terrain

Press the Apply button to apply the map to the terrain. See how the treads depress into the sand? You can do this with any image, but make sure you have your colors set right.

Remember: White is the highest point and black is the lowest.

After you press the checkmark in the lower right of the screen, you will have a terrain object with the tank treads applied. Now we need to line it up.

But first we need a tank.

Press the blue S at the top to go into DAZ Studio again. We need to import the tank into Bryce.

I applied a sand texture to the terrain so I could see it better.

Step 8 - Posing the Tank

Load the tank and pose it as you like in DAZ Studio, then press the Bryce button to send it to Bryce. It's the button in the upper left of the screen.

It's huge! Yes, we will have to do a bit of scaling here. It does not matter if you scale the tank up or the terrain down as long as you'remember to scale everything else in your scene while you build it.

Step 9 - Finishing Up

After you scale it then line up the terrain with the tank and you're done.

If you need longer tracks, then duplicate the terrain and move it behind the last, making a lot of terrains.

You could also have extended the picture in your paint program, and then created a larger terrain.

If you see the edges of the terrain and you want them underground, then go back into the terrain editor and carefully paint all around the edges of the terrain a darker gray. This will make the edges lower into the ground.

I may do a later tutorial showing you how to animate this process so it looks like your tank is rolling across the desert, but it's out of the scope of this tutorial.

Now add some trees and texture it.

The finished product!

Happy rendering from Gary_P.

How to Morph Objects in DAZ Studio

2011-11-01T17:42:18+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

How to Morph Objects in DAZ Studio

Author: OniDrEvil

Tools Needed

DAZ Studio
Victoria 4.2
Victoria 4.2 Morphs

Tutorial Link

http://hubpages.com/hub/How-to-Morph-Objects-in-DAZ-Studio

Description

Morphing objects in DAZ Studio can be just as important as textures and outfits, when creating a character or a scene. In this tutorial I examine the basics like creating vampire teeth, elf ears and increasing body part size with the Victoria 4.2 character model. No prior experience with morphing is required. This tutorial is hosted offsite and can be found at the link above.

Sample Image

http://s2.hubimg.com/u/2641885.jpg

How to Make Your Own Props in DAZ Studio

2011-11-01T17:42:18+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

How to Make Your Own Props in DAZ Studio

Author: OniDrEvil

Tools Needed

DAZ Studio

Tutorial Link

http://hubpages.com/hub/How-to-Make-Your-Own-Props-in-DAZ-Studio

Description

This tutorial focuses on primitives; basic 3D shapes that come with DAZ Studio. With the right morphs and textures, these simple objects can become a wide variety of props like a staff, sword or pedestal. The uses are nearly limitless and the process is extremely easy. This tutorial is hosted offsite and the link can be found above.

Sample Image

http://s4.hubimg.com/u/2224495.jpg

Converting Poser Pz2 poses to DAZ Studio Pose Presets

2011-11-01T17:42:18+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

Converting Poser Pz2 poses to DAZ Studio Pose Presets

Author: jadeelf

Tools Needed

* DAZ Studio

Introduction

In this tutorial I am going to show you how to convert your Poser Pz2 pose files to DAZ Studio Pose Presets. It will also give you an idea of how to save your own Pose Presets.

Step 1 - Step 1 Load the Character

Open DAZ Studio and load the character you wish to use. In this tutorial I am going to use Hiro3.

Step 2 - Step 2 Applying a pose

In the content tab go to Content > Poses > !DAZ's Hiro 3.

Now choose and apply(Double Click) the pose you want to use.

Step 3 - Step 3 The Save Menu

Now that the pose is applied you can save it. Go to File > Save as > Pose Preset.

Next a save menu will pop up asking where you want to save the preset at. I save my pose presets for Hiro in C:Drive > Program Files > DAZ > Studio > Content > People > Hiro > Poses > !Hiro 3.

Through my experimenting, I have seen that you can set up your folders pretty much any way you want inside the Content folder. Give it a name to help remind you what type of pose it is and press save.

Step 4 - Step 4 Pose Preset Options Menu p1

Next is the Pose Preset Options menu. Click advanced. Hover your cursor over the lower right corner. When it changes left click and drag to make the menu bigger.

Step 5 - Step 5 Intermission

Before going any further I am going to explain why I chose advanced. Just clicking tranforms and accept is OK and will save your pose, but it also save the global transforms parameters. What does this mean? In simple terms if load a character and save pose the pose presets with your character standing in the middle of the grid area then every time you apply those poses your character will show up in exactly the same spot. Let's say you have a wall in your scene and you want your character leaning against the wall. You load your character apply a leaning pose that was saved by just clicking the transforms button and save. Everything is OK no problems right. Now move your character over close to the wall. That pose does not look right. So I apply another leaning pose that I saved the same way as mentioned earlier or apply this pose again. See your character jumped away from the wall and back to where you had saved the pose at. Now saving global position is a good thing like if you have a scene created with a bench and you go want to use the scene many times. Then you should save not only the way that your character is sitting on the bench but also the global position so that when you apply the pose your character not only moves to the right position for sitting on the bench but also moves your character to the bench in the scene. The way that I am saving the pose preset saves only the local settings. Which means that I can move my character against the wall in one pose. While there I can apply another pose saved with local settings and there is no jumping around the scene. The only thing that changes is the way that the character is posing. A bit long winded I know, but hopefully you understand why I save most of my pose presets with only local settings. Now on with the tutorial.

Step 6 - Step 6 Pose Preset Options Menu pt2

Now expand the bone hierarchy by pressing the plus signs.

You could save here by just pressing the square beside the hip.

This would not save your global position, but would also save all the adjustments made to the morph buttons. In other words if you applied a morph to a character then applied a pose preset saved this way, the pose preset would set all morph adjustments to what they were when the preset was saved. To fix this problem you have two options. To check or to uncheck.

Step 7 - Step 7 To check or to uncheck

You have two options that you can choose from. You can either click the box beside the hip node as mentioned before(which checks everything below the hip in the bone hierarchy)and then expand properties (below the hip node)and uncheck the morph property group or you can skip checking the hip node, expand properties (below the hip node) and check the general- property group. Whichever method you choose is up to you, but with both methods you will have to repeat this for every node below the hip node in the bone hierarchy.

Step 8 - Step 8 Pose Preset Options Menu p3

I prefer to uncheck the morph property group, but whichever way you choose to go the end result will look like these pictures. I have divided the final look of the pose preset menu up into more than one picture so that they would load faster.

Now press accept in the lower right hand side of the pose preset options menu. You have just saved your first of probably many poses.

Step 9 - Step 9 Closing comments Pt1

In closing I want to encourage you to experiment with saving different parts of poses. For an example to save an upper body pose all that you have to do is have the property groups checked as shown in the next three images. All others in the pose preset options menu remain unchecked.

Step 10 - Step 10 Closing comments P2

For a lower body pose just check the property groups shown in the next three images and leave all others in the pose preset options menu unchecked.

Thanks for reading. I hope this tutorial was helpful.

Poses in DAZ Studio: Prop Presets

2011-11-01T17:42:18+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

Poses in DAZ Studio: Prop Presets

Author: jadeelf

Tools Needed

* DAZ Studio

Introduction

In this tutorial I am going to show you how to create a pose for a prop and then save it as a pose preset in DAZ Studio.

Step 1 - Step 1 Load Character

First thing you need to do is add a character. In this tutorial I will be using Hiro. Now you could go ahead and load a prop, but I like to save a default hand pose in case I want to reset my hands and not mess up the body pose. Another good tip is to save each hand separate in case you just want to change the pose for just one hand and not both. If you do not want to do this step then skip to step5. In this tutorial I am going to work only with the right hand.

Step 2 - Step 2 Saving The Default Hand Pose

Go to File > Save as > Pose Preset.

Step 3 - Step 3 Filtered Save Menu

Next a menu will pop up asking you where you want to save the pose preset at. I saved mine in C:drive > Program Files > DAZ > Studio > content > People > Hiro > Poses > Hand Poses , but you are free to choose how you want to organize yours.

Step 4 - Pose Preset Options Menu

The next menu to pop up will be the Pose Preset options. Click advanced on the menu. Now hover your cursor over the bottom right corner of the menu. When it changes, left click and drag it to make the menu bigger.

Now click on the plus signs to expand the bone hierarchy down to the rhand.

You could just press the square next to the rhand and save it, but there is a problem with this though. After saving it this way if you were to apply it to a character with morphs applied to the hands, this saved pose would reset the morphs. What I do is just press plus sign next to rHand. Then press the plus sign next to properties. After that I just press the box beside general property group. Repeat this for all of the finger nodes parented to the right hand in the bone hierarchy and then press accept in the lower right corner. By having the general property group checked this method saves the transforms, visibility, selectability, and whether or not to cast shadows for the right hand and fingers. You can go further and choose to save only the transform parameters, but I have not had a problem with saving it this way. For easy reference here is a picture of what needs to be checked for hand poses.

Click accept and you have just saved your default hand pose.

Step 5 - Step 5 Loading the prop

Load the prop you are wanting a hand pose for. In this tutorial I will be using the sword from Knight Errant for Michael 3.0.

Since this prop was made for Michael and not Hiro it is in the wrong global position for his hand. Left Click the Sword in the Scene tab.

Adjust the X, Y, and Z Trans buttons, in the Parameters tab, until the prop is lined up with the hand.

Move your camera around to get a better view of things. Once it looks lined up move to the next step. Do not worry if it's not perfect. You may still have to tweak the sword some while posing the hand.

Step 6 - Step 6 Posing the Hand

Now to pose the hand. For this pose I want the hand to look like it's gripping a sword. You can do this two ways. First through picture reference of a hand holding a sword. Second just play with the dials until the hand looks right. For the first one either search the web for pictures of a hand gripping the prop, for the sword a swordsman or knight search would turn up plenty of images, or if you have the prop you could take pictures of your hand holding the prop, I prefer this method because you are sure to get the angles you need. For the tutorial I am just going to mess around with the dials. Next step is a list of adjustments I made to Hiro 3's finger transforms in the Parameters tab.

Step 7 - Step 7 The List

Left click Right Pinky 1 in the scene tab.

Ctrl + left click Right Ring 1, Right Mid 1, Right index 1, then on the parameters tab increase Bend until it's at 14.00.

Next Right Ring 1 Side-Side 9.00

Right Pinky 1 Side-Side 26.00

Right Index 1 Side-Side -14.00

Left click Right Pinky 2. Ctrl + left click Right Ring 2, Right Mid 2, Right index 2 Bend 80.00

Left click Right Pinky 3. Ctrl + left click Right Ring 3, Right Mid 3, Right index 3 Bend 60.00

Left click Right Pinky 1. Ctrl + left click Right Ring 1, Right Mid 1, Right index 1, again Bend further. Now it's up to 60.00

Remember to move your camera around to get a better view of how things are looking. You may also need to tweak your prop here and there so that it looks well with the hand pose

Left click Right Pinky 2.Ctrl + left click Right Ring 2, Right Mid 2, Right index 2, then move the Bend up to 99.00.To do this you will have to turn the rotation limits off

Left click Right Pinky 2 and move the Side-Side button to -16.00

Left click Right index 3, Side-Side 6.00 and Bend 28.00

Left click Right Ring 2, Side-Side -4.00

Left click Right Pinky 3, Bring Bend down to 45.00

Now for that pesky thumb.

Left click Right Thumb 1, Twist 57.00 and Up-Down 8.00

Left click Right Thumb 2, Twist 11.00 Bend -12.00 and Side-Side 11.00

Left click Right Thumb 3, Twist 11.00 and Bend -39.00

That is pretty good. It is not perfect. There is still some more tweaking that could be done. Remember that your hand pose may not look the same at a different angle, so you would have to adjust the pose a little more for certain angles. Also keep in mind that you can adjust the hand to look good at this angle and save it then move to another angle adjust the hand for this angle and save it. May seem like a lot of work but it will save you in the long run, but it is up to you on how you want to do this. I am going to stop here and finish the rest of this tutorial. Remember that in Animation and Digital Art tweaking can give you a headache sometimes, but it is your friend and can make or break your Art or Animation.

Step 8 - Step 8 Getting ready to save

I am not saying that this step is a must, but working with other programs has taught me that lots of times doing these little things can save you a lot of future headaches. In the scene tab right click your prop and choose Remove item from scene.

Next select Hiro 3 in the scene tab.

Step 9 - Step 9 Saving your custom hand pose

Go to File > Save as > Pose Preset.

Step 10 - Step 10 Filtered save menu

Next a menu will pop up asking you where you want to save it at. Save this one in the same folder as the last one or where ever you want to put it.

Step 11 - Step 11 Pose Preset Options Menu

Next the Pose Preset Options menu will pop up. Just repeat Step 4.

Step 12 - Step 12 Final Words

Hope you enjoyed this tutorial and that it helped answer some of your questions. Just keep in mind this tutorial was not meant to tell you exactly how you should or should not do something , but to get you started with one of the ways to accomplish those pesky hand poses. This is only the beginning of what you can accomplish. As always have fun with your art.

jadeelf

Poses in DAZ Studio: Set Groups Invisible

2011-11-01T17:42:18+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

Poses in DAZ Studio: Set Groups Invisible

Author: jadeelf

Tools Needed

* DAZ Studio

Introduction

In many cases characters or clothing come with poses to set body groups invisible. But there are times when it comes in handy to make your own. This technique is used primarily to prevent poke through on close fitting clothing items like gloves. This tutorial will demonstrate how to create a pose preset to make the hands invisible. The same technique can be used on any body group on any figure.

Step 1 - Load your character

For this tutorial I will be using Hiro.

Step 2 - Step 2 Saving the Hands visible

First we are going to save the hands visible. Go to File > Save as > Pose Preset.

Step 3 - Step 3 Filtered save menu

A menu will pop up asking you where to save the script file at.

You can save it where ever in the content folder you want. I saved mine in C:drive > Program files > DAZ > Studio > content > People > Hiro > Poses > Hand Poses , but that is how I organize mine. You might have a different way. Give the script a name to help you know what it is, like normal or visible. I usually just leave the default .dsb as the script type. Press save.

Step 4 - Step 4 Pose Preset Options Menu

Now the pose preset options menu will pop up. Hover your mouse over the little area at the bottom right corner of the menu. When your cursor changes click and pull it to get a bigger few.

Make sure advanced is pressed. Press on the plus signs to expand the bone hierarchy until you have the lhand and rhand bones showing.

Now for this next part I am going to post two pictures that show which areas should be clicked and which should not be clicked. After all a picture is worth a thousand words.

Now press accept and you have just saved the visible hand pose. Now for the invisible hand pose. By having visible property group checked you are saving in script form whether or not the hands are visible. When using these poses DAZ studio will read the script and the script will tell it whether or not the hands visible.

Step 5 - Step 5 Making the Hands invisible

First thing we need to do is press the scene tab, and expand the bone hierarchy to the hands and all parts of the fingers.

Next we need to turn the hand and all parts of the fingers invisible. You can do this two different ways. First way, click on the part you want to become invisible in the scene tab. Then in the parameters menu there is a button that says visible on. Just left click on and that body part will become invisible and the button will say off.

The second way, in the scene tab click on the eye next to the body part you want to become invisible. I prefer doing this the second way.

After turning all the hands and finger parts invisible, your character should look like this.

Now that his hands are invisible lets proceed with the next step.

Step 6 - Step 6 Saving the Hands invisible

Now all you have got to do is save it. Repeat steps 2, 3, and 4.Remeber to give it a name that will let you know what it does.

Step 7 - Step 7 Final Words

You are not limited to using this technique only on characters. You can use this on clothing, props and other such things. Hope this was Helpful. Have fun with your renders. jadeelf

Morph Loader, Introduction to Exporting and Importing

2011-11-01T17:42:18+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

Morph Loader, Introduction to Exporting and Importing

Author: Susurrus

Tools Needed

* DAZ Studio 1.3.1.0

* Morph Loader

* Hexagon (or other 3D modeling program)

Introduction

In your 3D modeling program you can manipulate an Exported figure from DAZ Studio by pushing and pulling groups of vertexes around, and so long as you don't create or remove any new vertexes, use the Morph Loader to Import the altered figure back onto the original figure as a morph. For this tutorial I am going to use DAZ's Victoria 3 figure to make a head morph from, as this seems to be something asked about quite often on the DAZ forums.

Step 1: Load and apply selective invisibility to your chosen figure

Load your figure into the DAZ Studio default scene, don't change its position and make sure you don't have any other figures loaded.

Now select Victoria from the Scene tab, click the little eye on the right and Victoria should disappear.

In the Scene tab select Victoria's head and click the little eye to the right of it to make her head visible once more.

Step 2: Export your figure as 'Wavefront (obj)'

From the File menu select Export to bring up the Export file window.

Make the Save type 'Wavefront Object (obj)', and name it something like 'Victoria Head' so you can find it again easily.

Note. Also make sure you'remember where you save it.

When you click Save it will bring up the 'Export: Wavefront Object (obj)' window. I'm not an advanced user of DAZ Studio so I don't know what every one of these setting does but fortunately DAZ Studio is user friendly enough so that we only have to concern ourselves with two things in this window.

First the Preset box, in this tutorial I'm going to use Hexagon to create my morph so I select Hexagon from the Preset dropdown list.

If you are going to use another 3D modeling program then select it or an applicable scale from the Preset dropdown list.

Second the 'Ignore Invisible Nodes' box, this is the reason we made everything but Victoria's Head invisible, by ensuring this box is ticked we will only export her head and as this is the only part we wish to work on it will prevent unnecessary computer slowdown whilst editing.

Click Accept when done.

Note. You can use the 'What's This'(?) function in the bottom left at any time, to give you more information about a specific heading in the Export window.

Step 3: Import figure into your chosen 3D modeling program

Now we have exported our figure we can Import it into either Hexagon (as I'm doing) or another 3D modeling program of your choosing.

In Hexagon, from the File menu select Import.

In the Open window that appears find and open your previously saved figure.

Note. If you can't find your saved figure, make sure that 'Wavefront Object (obj)' is the type of file selected under 'Files of type:'.

In the Import window that appears ensure your settings are the same as in the picture below.

Your figure should now load into Hexagon.

Step 4: Create your morph

For my morph I am going to do something simple, give Victoria a bulbous nose. This is very simple and quick to do in Hexagon and it makes a noticeable difference to Victoria's face.

Turn on Select Object from the Selection Palette, and click on Victoria's head to select it.

Rotate your view to the front (hold down Alt + left mouse button, move mouse to rotate as required).

Zoom in (role the wheel on your mouse), turn on Select Faces, and click on a polygon on the end of her nose.

In the Properties window tick the Soft Selection box and move the slider just below it until quite a bit of her nose is selected (you will see this by the red dots that appear on her face all around your selected polygon).

Now click and drag the little yellow dot (see pic below) on your selection to increase the size of her nose.

This tutorial is about the Morph Loader not 3D modeling so I have only done this simple change just so you can try it for yourself; to create a more complex morph you must have a working knowledge of the 3D modeling program you are using. It is imperative that during this process you DO NOT create or remove any vertexes, if when the Morph Loader is reading the 'obj' file of your figure it detects more or less vertexes than the original figure which you are trying to load it onto it will come up with an error message.

Step 5: Export your altered figure

Go into the File menu then the Export submenu and select 'Wavefront OBJ'.

Name your model something like 'Victoria Head Morph' and click Save.

In the Save as window that appears ensure your settings are the same as in the picture below.

Note. I cannot account for the settings of other 3D modeling programs but I would think they would be similar to the ones pictured above.

Step 6: Using the Morph Loader to Import your morph

Back in DAZ Studio load Victoria into the default scene and ensure you have her selected in the Scene window.

In the Edit menu (assuming you have installed Morph Loader correctly) you should see Morph Loader, click this to bring up the Morph Loader window.

Under File: click the '~' button which will bring up the Open window. Select your previously edited Victoria figure, for me it's 'Victoria Head Morph' and click Open.

Under Morph Name: type something appropriately recognizable like 'Bulbous Nose'.

Under Geometry select the Preset from the dropdown list appropriate for the 3D modeling program you used, for me it's Hexagon.

If your 3D modeling program uses the Z-axis for up rather than the Y-axis like DAZ Studio does, then tick the 'Swap Y and Z orientation' box.

If you have used Victoria and Hexagon as used in this tutorial then please check to make sure your settings are the same as in the picture below.

Now click accept.

A little loading box should come up showing that DAZ Studio is reading your created 'obj' file.

Step 7: Apply your morph

To apply your morph, select Victoria's head from the Scene window.

In the Parameters window under Morphs you should now have your morph appear under whatever name you gave it, for me it 'Bulbous Nose'.

Click and drag the centre of the slider to the right and your morph should gradually be applied to your figure.

And there you have it, how to create and apply a brand new and completely original morph to your favorite figures for use in DAZ Studio.

You can now make morphs for any other part of Victoria or indeed any other figure you wish simply by using this same technique, lets recap.

Make your figure invisible.
Make your chosen part (or parts) visible again.
Export in Wavefront format, then Import into your 3D modeling program.
Push and Pull the vertexes of your model (ensuring not to create any new vertexes).
Export in Wavefront format, then Import back into DAZ Studio using the Morph Loader.
Use the sliders on each body part to apply your Morph.

You could also make full body morphs by exporting the whole of your figure, editing your figure in your chosen 3D modeling program, then using Morph Loader to import your morph onto your figure and using the dials for each body part to apply your morph to each body part.

The morph made in this tutorial may not be very exciting but the possibilities made available by the Morph Loader most certainly are. You can create morphs to make your characters look more individual, make clothing fit better, create bizarre new alien races or even something subtitle like the soft indentations in skin created by sitting or other specific poses which will make your work all the more realistic and unique.

I hope you have enjoyed this tutorial and will make good use of the Morph Loader and the endless possibilities it bestows upon DAZ Studio users.

Until next time, happy morphing!

Using Poser Little Helper with DAZ Studio, Part 1

2011-11-01T17:42:18+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

Using Poser Little Helper with DAZ Studio, Part 1

Author: A_C_C

Tools Needed

DAZ Studio
D-Form plug-in
Poser Little Helper

Support Files

V3_pointed_ears_dform.zip

Introduction

Poser Little Helper (or PLH) is an application that generates INJ files for Poser from a morphed OBJ file and the original file of the figure. The default figure for PLH is V3, although can be used with M3, A3 and other Third Generation Millennium figures, without changing anything. This tutorial is, I hope, the first of a series that will teach how to use together PLH, and D|S to generate INJ files. You can download Poser Little Helper from: http://home.online.no/~kjellil/Index-AllStuff.htm

Step 1 - MORPHING AND EXPORTING

In a previous session, I created a D-Form set that would give V3 pointed ears (you can download it up there)

Now you must export only the morphed part (the head in this case). To do that go to the scene tab, and click in the small eye to the right of V3, and Vicky will disappear, then click in the + to the left of the name and continue clicking the + to the left of the body parts until you find the head (follow the route hip – abdomen – chest - neck ) then click in the eye to the right of head and the head of Vicky will be visible again.

Click in File and the in Export.

After you have written the name of the OBJ file, a box of option will appear, chose the Morph Loader preset, and click in Accept.

Now you can close DAZ Studio.

Step 2 - SETTING UP PLH

Start Poser Little Helper.

Click in the TOOLS button

Now select Project Setup

Here we set where the program will save our files. My recommendation is that you save the Deltas and Dial Visibility pz2 files in their own directory in Libraries, and the INJ/REM files in a directory in Pose, and give the project a descriptive name. The other ones can be ignored for this tutorial..

Now PLH should look like this (or similar), so we can go to generate the Morph files.

Step 3 - LOADING THE FILES

Click in the Load button. Click in Original

And proceed to point the program to where we have the original V3 mesh.

When you have finished click in the lower Morph. button

And load the morphed part of V3

Now the program has processed what vertexes had changed, and we are ready to generate the INJ files.

Step 4 - GENERATING THE FILES, PART 1

Now click in the upper Morph button

Ignore the Delta Filter for the moment and click in Generate Morph

Now click in Setup Injection Files.

Select one of the Morph Injection Channels, and write the name that you want in the Morph Dial Name box. As this only affects the head, we don't to save it as a Full Body morph, so uncheck it. You can leave the others as they are (but check that the selected project is the one that you wanted).

Now we are ready to save the files.

Step 5 - GENERATING THE FILES, PART 2

Now click in Save Injection files.

Save them as you want. The program will pop you to save the Rem files

Then click in the Save Dial Visibility files button

Step 6 - GENERATING THE FILES, PART 3

And now Click in the Save Pose File Button.

That is!. Now, you can start DAZ Studio and check how your Vicky3 looks with your custom new morphs.

Tutorial continues in Using Poser Little Helper with DAZ Studio, Part 2

Using Poser Little Helper with DAZ Studio, Part 2

2011-11-01T17:42:18+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

Using Poser Little Helper with DAZ Studio, Part 2

Author: A_C_C

Tools Needed

Poser Little Helper
DAZ Studio
D-Form Plug-in

Support Files

Michael_alien.zip

This tutorial continues from Using Poser Little Helper with DAZ Studio, Part 1

Introduction

In this second tutorial we will learn how to create full body morphs with D|S, D-Form and Poser Little Helper.

Step 1 - DAZ Studio

Like in the anterior tutorial we'll start with a D-Form preset that I created in a previous session.

As you can see, this D-Former affects several parts of Michael body giving him a quite strange appearance. Now we'll proceed to export our morphed Michael as a OBJ file. This time we export the full body, so we don't have to hide any part.

Save it with a descriptive name, to avoid confusion.

When the export options dialog box appears, choose For Morph Loader (it's not strictly necessary, but it will save time with PLH).

Now you can close DAZ Studio and start PLH

Step 2 - PLH, part 1

First, you must setup the project, until it looks like more or less like this:

Once that we have set up the project, press Load and the Original and Morph buttons will appear.

Press Original and PLH will prompt you to load the Michael 3 file.

Now press Morph and load the morphed OBJ that we exported before.

Step 3 - PLH, part 2

Once that we have done this, we start with the complicated part. Do you'remember when in the previous tutorial I said that we were going to ignore the Delta Filter dial?.

Well, here is where this dial comes to play. The Delta Filter filters the parts where the vertexes have not been moved, reducing the size of the INJ file, and not adding a dial in the body parts that are not affected. Slid it all the way to the right.

Now press generate morph. After the program ends to compute the deltas, it should look like this.

This time is a Full Body Morph, so let the box checked…

… and put the name that you want there…

Step 4 - PLH, part 3

Now press Mark to Morph Name and hit Save Injection Files.

After you have saved this, hit Save Dial Visibility Files.

And finally hit Save Pose Files.

Done! Now you can use this Morph for M3 to create the alien or monster of your dreams (or your nightmares ;))

Casting Shadows Through Trans-Mapped Objects (Using OpenGL)

2011-11-01T17:42:18+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

Casting Shadows Through Trans-Mapped Objects (Using OpenGL)

Author: BDRichardson

Tools Needed

* DAZ Studio

Introduction

As all great tutorials (not that this is great), I couldn't find it, so I made it happen. But I must issue a disclaimer right away: this is a cheat ' a work-around; if you know a better way, PLEASE let me know! My goal, since I'm attempting animation, is to decrease my per-frame-render-time without compromising (terribly) the image quality. For example, the first image, rendered with 3Delight, took approx. 1 minute 30 seconds to render. Too long! (At least for me)' at 24 frames per second, a 1-second animation will take 36 minutes; a 15-second animation will take 9 hours! There must be a better way' maybe there is! Pay no attention to the truncated man in the pictures! No 3D meshes were harmed during the production of this tutorial.

Step 1 - Select Render Options, 8-Pass OpenGL

I know there is a reduction in quality, but I'm willing to sacrifice a little quality if the overall image looks 'OK' and takes significantly less time'

Step 2 - Test Render

Wow' the next image took 1.8 seconds to render! That's a 98% decrease in render-time. This is what I'm looking for! Yes, I see some defects in the quality of the shadow around the nose, the chin, the ear, and where the shadow meets the hip. But overall I think the image is 'OK.' I expected this, and I'm willing to accept this especially because of the decreased time involved, and since the figure will be in motion. I might even do some post-work on the video to make the images more bearable if necessary…

But wait' He's not supposed to be bald! There's no hair in the shadow. Why? This is where you find out that OpenGL cannot cast a shadow thru a transparency map. I don't want to draw the shadow in post-work on x-number of frames! I knew this was too good to be true' I should just give up, and leave and take my 3D computer with me. No!

Step 3 - Insert a Duplicate Object into the Scene

No comment. I hope you can do this one on your own'

Step 4 - Parent the Duplicate Object to the Original Object

Next, parent the duplicate object to the offending (the non-shadow casting) trans-mapped object by dragging it (in the hierarchy folder list) to the original trans-mapped object. Do not 'Fit to' the offending object – just parent to it.

Step 5 - Center the Duplicate Object to the Original Object

Ensure you have selected the duplicate object, go to the parameters tab, and make sure the x, y and z transposition dials are set to 0. This will (should) put the duplicate into the same 3D space as the offending object.

Step 6 - Remove the Trans-Map'

'by going to the Advanced materials tab, and selecting the hair material zone(s) for the duplicate object. Next, click the little white triangle, and select 'None' to remove any transparency maps in the Opacity section of the materials list.

Step 7 - Move the Duplicate

I moved my duplicate hair object -4 units on the z-axis (backwards). Why? To get the unsightly, now non-trans-mapped, chunks of hair out of sight!

Step 8 - Scale the Duplicate

Scale the object down to 92 to 95%. (Don't scale the individual x, y or z-axes yet).

Step 9 - Check it Out

Use the perspective view or another camera to fly around the hair object to ensure it doesn't look too out of place or ridiculous. I ended up scaling my z-axis down further to avoid the hair poking too far out of the back of the head, should he decide to turn his head or look around'

Step 10 - Final Render

The final image is an 8-pass OpenGL render, and still under 2 seconds to render. Maybe a little more volume to the hair, but this time, there's a respectable shadow of the hair on the ground! And, after all, who's really looking that closely? Maybe not necessary all the time, but an option for quick renders. And, you can turn the duplicate object on or off based on need (like a close-up where you don't need to see the shadows of the hair on the ground).

Create comicbook-style image using DAZ Studio render modes

2011-11-01T17:42:18+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

Create comicbook-style image using DAZ Studio render modes

Tools Needed

DAZ Studio
Photoshop

Introduction

The Cartoon render mode in DAZ Studio, combined with some simple Photoshop post-work enables you to create some quick and cool comicbook-style effects.

Step 1 -Setting the scene in DAZ Studio

Create your scene in DAZ Studio

Step 2 -Cartoon and Normal Rendering

We will now render the image twice: once with the “Cartoon” render setting, and once with the “Normal” render setting.

(a) Open the Render Options menu:

Render > Options > Render Style > select “Cartoon”.

Press Render.

(b) Open the Render Options menu:

Render > Options > Render Style > select “Normal”.

Press Render.

Step 3 -Initial Layer Work in Photoshop

In Photoshop, load both images.

Create a new file, the size of your render, and Copy > Paste both images into it.

Name your Cartoon-rendered layer “Toon”, and your Normal-rendered layer “Normal”.

Create a copy of both layers (this is optional, and merely for backup reasons), and move both copies to the bottom.

Place your “Toon” layer on top of your “Normal” layer.

On your Layers menu, change the Blending Mode to “Overlay”, and set its opacity to 50% (play with it a little!)

Step 4 -The Overlayed Effects Layer

Create a copy of your “Toon” layer, rename it “Overlay”, and move it to the top of your Layers palette.

Optional: Adjust the color of your layer using Image > Adjustments > AutoColor.

Change the Brightness/Contrast settings of this layer: using Image > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast and set Brightness and Contrast so the dark and light areas of your image are enhanced.

Step 5 -Applying Filters

Hit “D” to return to the default Foreground/Background colors - black and white.

On the Filter menu, select Sketch and Halftone Pattern.

Use the default setting, or play a little with the contrast settings to your liking (you might also want to change the dot size according to the size of your image)

You should now have something that looks like this:

Step 6 -Layer Blending Modes

In the layers menu, change the Blending mode and the Opacity settings for your overlay layer to taste.

Experiment with different Blending modes and Opacity settings.

Different settings will produce a significantly different athmosphere in your image!

Step 7 -Optional Steps to Enhance Your Image

Tada! Simple, wasn't it?

Additional Enhancements:

You can also explore this some more, combining additional filters and layers.

For example:

(a) This was produced as by copying the our final flattened image, and an additional copy of it.

A Photocopy filter was applied on the copy (Filter > Sketch > Photocopy), and it was moved to the bottom of our Layer palette. The Multiply blending mode was then used on our original layer. The result is a little darker, with some enhanced “borders”.

(b) This was produced as above, only applying the Charcoal filter (Filter > Sketch > Charcoal), which was placed on top of the original layer. The Soft Light blending mode was then applied on the modified layer. The result is a little “sketchier” than before.

D-Toon Anime/Cartoon Technique

2011-11-01T17:42:18+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

D-Toon Anime/Cartoon Technique

Author: SnowSultan

Tools Needed

DAZ Studio
Photoshop

Introduction

Hi, and thanks for viewing my tutorial. If you use DAZ Studio, or are just looking for a way to spruce up your cartoon renders, I think this method might be helpful. :) Let's get started!

Build your scene normally, but only add one Distant Light and turn its shadow casting off (default). This basic scene uses DAZ's Aiko 3 with eye textures I created, a free bikini from BAT Lab at Poser Penthouse, and hair included in MayaX's Anime Doll kit. Using this sort of simple non-transmapped hair is important if you want to create more anime-style art, but transmapped hair like Kozaburo's or 3Dream's should work as well. Once you have your scene assembled, switch your render mode to Cartoon (in the Render Options screen) and continue.

We're going to have to make at least two separate renders to get the desired effect, a FLAT colored image with no shadows and little or no detail and a SHADED one, which is grayscale and contains shadows. Later I'll explain how you can combine additional renders for different results, but we're going to keep it simple for now.

Step 1 - Making the Flat Image

To get DAZ Studio to render flat colors with no shading, you will need to change your figure's Material settings to those shown here. The important value is the Ambient; choose the basic color you wish (in this case, flesh for skin, brown for hair, etc.) and set it to 100%. Make sure all other settings, such as Diffuse and Specular, are set to 0%, including for the eye Materials (Eyewhites, Irises, Pupils, and Corneas). If you wish to use a texture, as we did for the bikini and the eyes, load the textures into the Ambient box.

Remember that you can right-click/control-click with the Surface Selection tool to select all surfaces with the same diffuse color or the same texture, allowing you to make several changes at once. Be careful to check what is being selected though - the lips will usually have the same map and diffuse color as the face, but you won't want to give them the same ambient color.

If all the Materials are set correctly, your figures and props will be filled with solid colors when rendered, with no shadows or highlights, like the example above.

Step 2 - Making the Shaded Image

Now it's time to make the SHADED render. Make sure you don't move your figure or change your camera settings at all because we're going to be layering these renders in postwork later and they need to match up exactly. Go back into the Materials menu and begin changing the settings to match the ones shown here. This time, the important value is the Specular. Turn all the Ambient values back to 0% (you should not need to change the colors though, dropping the value to 0% is enough) and set all the Specular values to white at 100%. You can affect the amount of shadows cast by raising the Diffuse and Glossiness (adding Diffuse will reduce shadows, raising Glossiness will add more shadows). I find that keeping the Diffuse at around 20% (white) will often eliminate the “airbrushed” shadows created by the cartoon renderer, which you'd probably end up smoothing out in postwork anyway. Make sure you apply these settings to the eyes as well, otherwise they may become darkened later on.

Now your scene should look like the example above when rendered. Your figures will have no color, only gray shadows. Rotate your Distance light if necessary to move the shadows around and keep rendering until you get a satisfactory result. Try not to have too much solid black in the preview unless you want to create a “horror-style” shaded image.

Step 3 - Curving the Shaded Image

Save your DAZ Studio file if you wish and exit the program, we're done with the 3D portion of this tutorial. Now open your graphics program and load the two renders that you created (the FLAT one and the SHADED one). I will use Photoshop 7 for this example, but any software that uses layers and blending modes (like Multiply, Lighten, etc.) should work.

Open the SHADED render and go to Image - > Adjustments - > Curves (or an equivalent tool in your program). The Curves graph will appear as shown. Drag the little handle in the middle down and to the right to make things darker. The objective here is to make the different shaded areas (like the usual light grays, the occasional dark gray, and any black shading) merge into a solid black. When they appear to blend together, apply the Curves as shown. Now you've got a really ugly, dark shaded layer, but that's actually what we want. You'll see why in the next step.

Step 4 - Merging the images

With the SHADED render still open, use Select-All, then Copy to the clipboard. Go ahead and open your FLAT render. Paste the image you just copied, and you should have an two-layer image like the one shown above.

Make sure the darkened SHADED layer is still selected, and change its blending mode to Multiply and lower the Opacity. You will see that now the shading looks much better against the flat colored layer beneath, and you can make the shading darker or lighter just by adjusting the layer's Opacity.

That is the basic concept, but you can get much better results if you're willing to do a little more work in your paint program. I highly recommend smoothing out the shadows, which is quite easy to do now because of them being on an independent layer. I'll show how to do this, as well as adding missing outlines and making airbrushed shadows in the next pages.

Step 5 - Recommended - Smoothing Shadows

To edit the shadows, simply select the SHADED layer and use a black brush to paint more shadows and a white one to erase them. Smooth out jagged shadows or add completely new ones to give your image a more traditional cel-shaded look. And since the shadows for all objects are on the same layer, you can change them on the clothing and hair too.

If you've gotten this far and decide you don't like where the shadows are at all, it's still easy to completely change them. All you have to do is go back to DAZ Studio and re-render a SHADED image with adjusted lighting. As long as you haven't changed the camera angle or moved the figure, you can just repeat the Curves and layering steps until you're happy with the basic shadow placement.

Next, we'll use a tiny brush to add outlines where the renderer may have missed them.

Step 6 - Recommended - Adding Outlines

In our image, we see that the cartoon renderer did not add outlines to several areas of our figure. This usually happens on the hands, feet, hair, and the edges of clothing that fall within the borders of the figure. The larger your renders are, the easier it should be to paint these outlines. Just don't make your images TOO big, or it will take a long time to add them.

Add a new layer and begin painting them in with an anti-aliased round brush. I use a dark gray or black, depending on the strength of nearby outlines. You'll probably get best results if your images are big enough to let you use a 2-pixel brush or larger (because you won't get quite as much anti-aliasing or blurring). I had to use a 1-pixel brush here, so your results won't be any worse than what you see here. ;)

Step 7 - Optional - Airbrushed Shadows (step 1)

If you don't care for the sharp-edged anime shadows, you can give your figure soft “airbrushed” shading instead by rendering your SHADED image in Normal mode instead of Cartoon. Continue as you normally would, but when it's time to adjust the Curves, don't make the shadows solid black. Use the example above as a guide, and when you layer the renders in the final step, the shadows will retain their softness.

Step 8 - Optional - Airbrushed Shadows (part 2)

Here's how the airbrushed shading looks when merged. (NOTE: This image suffered from some dithering to fit upload requirements. The shadows will be slightly smoother in your render.) The only drawback to this method is that it is more difficult to edit the softer shadows, but if you're willing to take the time, you can get great results.

If you have any questions or problems with this tutorial, please feel free to contact me at snowsultan@aol.com and let me know. Special thanks to MorriganShadow, skye100, and JOELEGECKO for testing. Ambient coloring and shading methods used in this tutorial were developed independently and nearly simultaneously by Staale Loseth, so I want to make sure he gets credit for his work and discoveries too. :)

Thank you very much for your time, take care!

SnowS

My Homepage

DAZ Studio rendering with POV-Ray

2011-11-01T17:42:18+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

DAZ Studio rendering with POV-Ray

Author: Smags

Tools Needed

* DAZ Studio

* POV-Ray

* PoseRay

Introduction

For this tutorial you will need to download and install Pov-Ray and the PoseRay plug-in. Pov-Ray and PoseRay are free. PoseRay will only work with the current stable Version of Pov-Ray. Do not install the BETA version of Pov-Ray. Pov-Ray is a powerful Public domain Ray-Tracer. You can render scenes made in DAZ Studio with Pov-Ray. Here is an example of the rendering capabilities of Pov-Ray.

Step 1: Install POV-Ray and PoseRay

Download PovRay at http://www.povray.org/download/

Download PoseRay at http://mysite.verizon.net/sfg0000/

Install POV-Ray first. PoseRay is a zip archive. Download the archive and unzip the archive to any folder you wish. In the unzipped folder you can launch PoseRay by double clicking on the file “PoseRay.exe”.

Step 2: Create a Scene

Make sure that you have DAZ Studio version 1.3.1.0 or above installed. Make sure it's not version 1.3.0.1. Start DAZ studio and create a scene. I suggest keeping it simple for now. Be sure to create at least one light in your scene. For this tutorial I am going to create a sphere and a plane with textures applied. My scene will contain one spotlight, and the default camera will be used as my rendering viewport.

Step 3: Exporting Scene Objects.

Now we need to export our scene for PoseRay. In DAZ Studio select “File– > Export” and select “Wavefront Object”. Set-up your export window as seen below.

Make sure that the Bryce Material option is enabled.

Step 4: Exporting Lights and Cameras

In this step we are going to save our lights and cameras as presets. We will import this with PoseRay later. In DAZ Studio click file – > Save as Lights Preset as in the image below.

** IMPORTANT ** Use the Text Option.

Now set up your options in the dialog box like this.

Next we will export our camera. Highlight the camera used to render your scene.

Click file – > Save as Cameras Preset. Again remember to use the text option when you export your camera. Now Set-up your export options like this.

Save your Project. Close DAZ Studio. Now we are ready to render our scene with POVRAY.

Step 5: Importing To PoseRay

Browse to your POSERAY folder and run PoseRay.exe.

Now click the load button and select DAZ Studio scene.

In the DAZ Studio Import window load the Objects, lights, and cameras. You can create lights in POVRAY rather than importing the presets file, but that will be covered in another tutorial. For now set up your import window like this and click OK.

Step 6: Previewing the Render

Let's preview our render. Click the Preview tab. There are a lot of options in the preview window, but for this tutorial we are only going to look at a couple vital features. We will start by clicking on the camera tab.

Here we can reposition our scene if we need to. The right button will zoom our scene. The Middle button will pan our scene. The function of the Left button can be changed by using the drop down menu located next to the “Left button- > ” Label.

Step 7: Lights

In this step we will fine tune our lighting. In the preview window click on the lights tab. In this widow you can adjust the way your light looks and how it is positioned in your scene. In the image below I have changed the elevation and position of my light.

Note that there is not an undo function for the light and camera windows. If you need to start over, you can click on the From file tab to reload your original presets.

Step 8: Prepare To Render

In Pose Ray select the “POV-Ray Output” Tab. If this is the first time you are running PoseRay, you need to locate the .exe for POV-Ray.

In the Scene and Output section of the POVRay output window you can select various render options. More on this in another tutorial, but feel free to experiment. PovRay can produce very realistic renders, however using very high quality settings will increase render times. For this scene I have selected Normal Radiosity and recursive AA.

Step 9: Render and Save.

Finally, it's time to render with POVRay. Click the button Save and Render. Click OK to all the message dialogs. Here is the final result in 40 seconds.

This tutorial continues in DAZ Studio rendering with POV-Ray (Part 2)

DAZ Studio rendering with POV-Ray: Part 2

2011-11-01T17:42:18+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

DAZ Studio rendering with POV-Ray: Part 2

Author: Smags

Tools Needed

* DAZ Studio

* POV-Ray

* PoseRay

* HDR Shop

Introduction

In this tutorial we are going to export our scene from DAZ Studio, and render it in POV-Ray with HDRI lighting. I'm going to breeze through the export process, since this was already covered in a previous tutorial. If you have not completed the first tutorial, DAZ Studio rendering with POV-Ray, I recommend that you at least read through it before attempting this tutorial. The first tutorial is more in depth about exporting to POV-Ray from DAZ Studio and covers some essential basics not found in this tutorial.

Step 1: Create a Scene in DAZ Studio

Create a Scene in DAZ Studio. No Lighting is required, since we will be generating HDRI Lights in PoseRay. Try to keep your scene simple for this tutorial. I'll be exporting the scene shown in the following image.

Step 2: Export Your Scene

Export your scene as a Wavefront Object. Set-up your export options as seen here. You can export your camera settings if you like. I'm going to set-up my camera in PoseRay.

Step 3: Import Your Scene with PoseRay

Save your DAZ Studio scene and exit the program. Start Pose-Ray and import your scene. Uncheck the option to import Lights. If you're not importing your camera, uncheck that as well, and press OK.

Step 4: Preview the Scene

Preview your scene and reposition the camera until you are satisfied with the results.

Step 5: Download an HDRI File

Now we are ready to add our lights. In PoseRay Click on the tab labeled Light Dome. You will see this window.

Before we begin we will need a .PFM file or an HDR image file. There are plenty of HDRI files available on the internet. You can do a Google search or you can download an HDR Image from here.

http://www.debevec.org/Probes/

Choose an image that contains lighting that is appropriate for your scene. I will use this one.

Step 6: Download HDRShop

Now we need to convert our HDRI file to a PFM file. You may ask, “Why not just download a PFM file?” You could just download a PFM file, but HDRI files are far more abundant than PFM files. If you know how to convert an HDRI file, you will not be limited by a small selection of readymade PFM files. To convert our image we need to download a program called HDR Shopv1. HDRShop can be found here.

http://gl.ict.usc.edu/HDRShop/

Save or copy the HDRShop.exe to a permanent location. Now we can launch HDR-Shop from PoseRay by pointing to the application. To do this, press the button labeled “Start HDR Shop..”.

If you can't get this feature to work. You can start HDR Shop by double clicking on the HDRShop.exe.

Step 7: Convert HDRI to PFM

With HDRShop opened we can now convert our HDRI File to a PFM file. Click file and open your HDRI file. You HDRI should be square in proportion, and appear to be mapped on a sphere. In the view tab of HDRShop, zoom out and center your image until you can see the entire image. If it doesn't look like this download another HDRI or refer to the help found in the PoseRay documentation.

In the HDRShop menu bar, select “Image – > Panoramic Transformations”. In the window that appears. Select “Light Probe(angular map)” for the source, and for the destination select “Latitude-Longitude”. For now leave the other options at the defaults, and Click OK.

Your Image should be transformed to something like this.

HDRShop can have multiple windows open at the same time. Before you save your file make sure that you give focus to the window containing the new Image. If you don't do this, you will be saving your original image. This will cause an error in PoseRay. Now we can select File – > Save as. A window will appear and we will choose Portable Float Map and browse to a location to save our PFM file.

Step 8: Set-up the Light Dome

Close HDRShop and return to PoseRay to import our PFM. In the Light Dome tab press the “Load probe(*.PFM)..” and locate the file we had just created with HDRShop. You will see a preview of your image along with some information next to it.

Before we can add lights to our scene, we should set some options. To speed up render time, you may want to reduce the Max number of lights in your scene. If you want colorful or surreal type of lights, you can uncheck convert all lights to white level. I will uncheck this, since my image is mostly grey. You can come back and rescale your light intensity, if you discover that your render is too bright or dark. Soft shadows will produce higher quality images, but it will increase render times.

Step 9: Extracting Lights To The Scene

Now we can add our lights to the scene by pressing - > Extract Lights into scene. After this, open the preview tab to view the results. open the light tab in the preview window. Pressing the dropdown arrow for the Choose Light options box will show you a list of all the light you extracted to the scene.

Step 10: Rendering The Scene

Finally, let's render our scene. Open the POV-Ray Output tab. Then select Save and Render. Experiment with different settings, until you get the desired results for your render. Keep in mind that you can always cancel a render and come back to PoseRay to modify your settings. For this render I will use These Settings.

Here is the final result.

Fill Your Pool or Water Surfaces in DAZ Studio

2011-11-01T17:42:18+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

Fill Your Pool or Water Surfaces in DAZ Studio

Author: mcvdaz

Tools Needed

DAZ Studio
Optional DAZ Studio Primitives plug-in

Support Files

Introduction

DAZ Studio comes with all the Tools Needed to make realistic water.

Setting opacity is not enough, so here are some basic steps to creating good water surfaces. This tutorial is centered on DAZ Studio, but you may be able to adjust and use these methods and tips in Bryce and other 3D programs.

A 2400×1600 water surface bump ( and displacement ) map image of 1.6MB and a small zip file containing a water prop in DAZ Studio scene format along with an obj and mat file for other programs are provided as Support Files.

Step 1 - Obtain water surface image map and water prop

Download the provided water surface bump map image or obtain your own.

Your map should look something like the image above, which is a small portion of provided image map.

Download the provides simple cylinder prop for use in DAZ Studio for the water object.

Simple cylinder prop created in Wings3D:

You may also use a cylinder, box, or other simple prop you already have or create one with the free DAZ Studio Primitives plug-in.

You can just open the water prop scene to follow along with this tutorial. or use merge to add the prop to an existing DAZ Studio scene.

Step 2 - Set water surface values

Open the Surfaces menu as shown above.

Select the default surface for the cylinder for water pool prop as shown below.

You should now see the following:

Select your water props surface and set the following surface values:

Diffuse Color : Light Blue, RGB value 124, 246, 255 to start

Experiment with turquoise or other water colors

Map : Not recommended nor needed for this water effect

Strength : 95% to 100% recommended

Glossiness 100% Most water has a very glossy shine.

Specular Color : Light Blue to simulate sky reflection, RGB value 9, 211, 238

Adjust for outdoor sky or surrounding indoor environment,

or use the technically correct White/Gray.

Strength : 85% to start

Multiple Specular Through Opacity The default value ON works fine.

Ambient Color : Black

Strength : 15% default is fine

Opacity Strength : Start with 15% to 20% for shallow water.

Lower for deeper water to see further into it.

Too low value for shallow water may make it look invisible.

Bump Map : BW_water_surfaceJPG or your own

Strength : 100% to 120%

Bump Negative : -.1 to start

Decrease (increase absolute value) for rougher water surface at risk of black render errors.

Use 0 to get rid of black render spots.

Bump Positive : +.1 to start

Increase for rougher water surface.

Displacement More accurate than bump, but the 3DLight render engine

can be likely to give small black render spots in any concave areas when displacement and refraction used.

Since displacement will make your water's edge vary where it meets another

surface and bump will not, use displacement in place of bump in scenes where this is important to get the realism you want.

It is recommended you use the settings show on bump above for

displacement when needed. Do not use bump also, that is set bump strength to 0% if you use displacement on materials with refraction also set.

Reflection Color : Medium Blue, RGB 127, 162, 195 to start

Strength : 40% to start, but suggest trying the 40% to 99% range

Map : None needed, but you may experiment using the map above if you wish.

Refraction Color : Light Blue, RGB 169, 222, 255 to start.

Adjust for desired water color.

Strength : 100% to start. You may experiment with lower values.

IOR : 1.33 for water's “Index of Refraction”

You can use higher vales to simulate glass or honey.

Map : None

Lighting Model Glossy Plastic

Step 3 - Fixing Water Render Problems

There is a downside to rendering clear materials like water and glass in DAZ Studio. DAZ slows down a bit when you lower opacity to make things seem semi-transparent. DAZ really slows down by a huge factor, however, when you use reflection and refraction settings. You may see multi-hour renders

Thus it is suggested you do test renders smaller size or leave the water effects until late in the scene design process to save yourself time.

You may find adding items like boats, swimmers, pool floats, and docks actually lowers your render time because less of the total scene is water.

If your bump or displacement map is applied too strong it can warp the effected model surface such that things called UV coordinated get distorted. If this happens you can get small black squares in your render output when you also use refraction.

Sometimes setting DAZ ray bounce number higher can help.

Other times using a map that does not create concave model areas when applied to the model can fix things. Avoiding any negative values in bump or displacement and lowering the bump or displacement percentage and strength can also help.

Other times just a camera angle change can help. If nothing works you may have to do post work fix ups.

However, most likely you will do fine and be rewarded with a render something like this:

Step 4 - Final Tips

The opacity, refraction, and color are your keys to clear or murky water.

The surface bump or displacement map and settings are your key to water surface eddies and waves.

Setting a “sun” light at an equal angle to your render cameras to the water surface will give nice surface glare effects.

As shown in step 3's last image, blue water can end up looking green if you use a yellow sand bottom. If this is not what you want, you will need to adjust your underwater surface colors to closely match your desired water color and render again.

Now get out there and fill your pool!

Multi-pass rendering with DAZ Studio

2011-11-01T17:42:18+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

Multi-pass rendering with DAZ Studio

Author: RubiconDigital

Tools Needed

DAZ Studio
Image editor

Support Files

MultiPass.zip

Introduction

Multi-pass rendering is the process of separating individual elements of your renders into different passes. This means splitting your scene up so that you render the key light only in one pass, fill light in another pass, reflections in another pass and so on. You can do this on a per object basis, rendering separate passes for each item in the scene, or just render different passes for the entire scene.

Step 1 - Setting up

The first thing we need is something to render. I'm going to use a pretty simple scene of Victoria 3, with hair and a swimsuit. I would suggest starting with a simple scene like this, until you grasp the principles involved, and then move on to more complex scenes later on.

I'm using a three point lighting set-up. The key light is a spotlight and shines from left of camera. It's angled down at the subject and has an intensity of 100%. This is the only light in the scene that casts a shadow.

The fill light is a distant light shining from the right of camera to simulate light that might be reflected from a wall. Its intensity is set to 25%.

There is a third light shining from behind Victoria. This is a spot and is set to 100% intensity. You don't need to mimic my set-up exactly, but I recommend using at least one shadow casting light and a fill.

These are the raw renders from the separate passes that I set up. They are:

Landscape: Blurred landscape image.

Key Light: Key light only render, with shadows being cast. All other lights turned off.

Diffuse: Key light and fill light on, with neither light casting shadows.

Fill Light: Fill light only turned on, not casting shadows.

Back Light: The light shining from behind the character, not casting shadows.

Suit Reflect: Reflection only render of the swimsuit.

Suit Specular: Highlight only render of the swimsuit.

Lips Specular: Highlight only render of the lips.

You'll notice that the layers have different blend modes and opacity settings. This is the real magic, if you like, of what this multi-pass technique allows us to do. Now let's put the image together one layer at a time and address some specific issues.

Step 2 - Key light

This is the main shadow casting light. Make sure no other lights are active. For this layer, I also rendered the eye reflections. I wanted separate control of the swimsuit specularity and reflections, so I removed the reflection map and all highlight settings from the suit. The blend mode for this layer is Normal, as it is the first one above the background landscape layer. Make sure you save your renders as tifs, so that you get an alpha channel with them. You will need the alpha channel at least for this layer, so that you can remove the background and allow any underlying layers (in this case, the blurred landscape) to be visible.

Step 3 - Diffuse

This is the key light and fill light rendered together, with no shadows being cast.

This is an optional layer, really. If you turn it off you'll notice the skin on Victoria gets much paler. The skin texture I'm using here is quite pale anyway, so I use this layer to give it a bit more punch in the final composite. Blend mode is set to Multiply with 40% opacity.

Step 4 - Fill light

This layer helps control the shadow darkness of the key light layer. I set my fill light to 25% intensity, so with this layer we can have shadow fill ranging from 0-25%, depending on the layer opacity setting. Note that this layer's mode is set to Screen at 72%.

Step 5 - Back light

This gives a nice highlight along edges, such as the left hip, arm and shoulders, and really helps to pull the character out of the background. It's not that noticeable in this reduced size image, but it does make a difference in full sized renders. Blend mode for this layer is Screen at 100%.

Step 6 - Suit reflect

In DAZ Studio, I simply turned all lights off and rendered. The reflection comes from an image, so is not dependent on lighting. I adjusted Reflection Strength to 94% for a good strong reflection.

The blend mode for this layer is Screen at 40%.

Step 7 - Suit specular

The suit's reflection map was removed and Glossiness and Specular Strength were adjusted to taste. Specular Color was white. The key spot's illumination mode was set to Specular Only in DAZ Studio, which is an incredibly useful setting to have for a light. This obviates the need to change other surface settings to matt black, which is a real time saver, as it will only render the specular highlights, not the textures. Layer blend mode is set to Screen and 100%.

Step 8 - Lips specular

Use the same technique as for the suit specular layer. I also hid every part of the character except the head. Layer blend mode here is Screen at 73%.

Step 9 - The final composite

Once the separate passes are rendered, paste them all into a single image. Then the fun begins. Once you have the layered image, you have almost limitless options. Probably the two layer blend modes that you'll use most often are Screen and Multiply. Don't be afraid however, to try different blend modes. Sometimes Soft Light or Overlay modes may be just what you're looking for. You can also experiment with moving the layers around.

One thing I like to do is give the reflection layer a slight blur, to help soften up the reflections. This is one of those instances when multi-pass rendering can extend the capabilities of your 3D engine. Blurred reflections are still not available in all 3D software. With this technique that is no longer an obstacle.

Do you wish the suit were more or less reflective? Simply move the opacity slider for that layer.

Do you wish the suit were another color? Go into the suit reflect layer and colorize it.

Don't like the way the diffuse layer alters the look of the skin? Simply hide it.

Need the shadows to be darker? Hide the fill light layer or adjust its opacity.

Want to change the color of the lighting? Go into the appropriate layer and colorize it.

I'm sure you're getting the idea by now. Separating the scene into layers has given us far more control than we could ever have had with the renderer alone. We can also save literally hours of re-renders. How you split up your scene for the various render passes is really up to you and the demands of the project. I could have separated the hair into a separate pass, for instance. This would have allowed me to easily change its color without affecting the other elements.

Having said that, it's not necessary to split absolutely everything into separate layers. You may decide you only need one layer to take care of all the specular highlights in an image, or that a separate diffuse layer is unnecessary.

Make sure you download the support file, MultiPass.zip, to see how the image was constructed.

Happy (multi-pass) rendering.

Make your cartoon style (basic)

2011-11-01T17:42:18+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

Make your cartoon style (basic)

Author: perfy

Tools Needed

DAZ Studio BETA v 0.9.6.0
The GIMP(You can get it at gimp.org for free)

Introduction

Do you want to make cartoon style using DAZ Studio? You say it is not easy? Come to see what you could do!

Step 1 - Create file

Launch your daz|studio and import your poser model. You can choose from the File menu: File- > import or double click the icons that you want to import from the Content tab. I chose Osian Helmet for this example.

Go to the View tab and use the camera tools to put your model in the right position.

Step 2 - Make basic picture

Select the model and go to the Surfaces tab. Click the button and change the old materials from every part of the model to some fit colors you like. And you may see an example of the results in pictures shown below.

Render your picture and save it. Because it'll not be used directly, you may not want to make it very high quality.

Step 3 - Come to GIMP

Launch GIMP and open your rendered picture saved just now.

Right click on the picture and select Layer/colors/curves or tools/colors/curves.

Step 4 - Continue

You may set the channels as the picture shown below. Then click OK!

Step 5 - Finish

Now you can easily get your cartoon style using D/S and GIMP. And next time we will do some further study!

Manga Style in DAZ Studio

2011-11-01T17:42:19+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

Manga Style in DAZ Studio

Author: Ruri ruri

Tools Needed

DAZ Studio
Any photo editor (optional)

Introduction

This is for all those people who like manga and anime style. This tutorial will show you how to make manga style renders in DAZ Studio without having to worry about using a photo editing program.

Step 1 - Starting Off

To start off please load all you want to be in the scene. (If you want a better looking anime style you should use the models Aiko 3.0 or Hiro)

Add a distant light (you can add a distant light by going to the create menu) select it and in the parameters box set the intensity between 80 and 100 (depending on how bright you want it the higher the brighter.)Pose your models and morph them the way you want. Also move the light to the way you want it to illuminate your model or scene

(you can change the way the light hits her/him or it by going to the drop down menu right above your scene labeled perspective view or default camera) and select distant light. rotate it to hit your scene the way you wish.)

After fixing your light go to the same drop down menu where you selected your light and go to perspective view or default camera and fix the camera the way you want it.

Make sure everything is the way you want it because the model gets a little too bright to see.

Step 2 - Surfaces

For surfaces: If you don't have the surfaces box out or don't know where to find it, it can be found by going to the view drop down menu and then to tabs. Select surfaces. Make the window bigger.

You only need to edit the surfaces of the human model(in this case Aiko 3.0 LE) Select the advanced tab.

Set the specular of the surfaces has a strength of 100% and the glossiness set to 0. the specular color should be set to white. (There really is no need for textures because this a manga style image and all things with textures should just have textures loaded up and left alone.) Go to the diffuse color and set it to white for the whole model. set the diffuse strength to 13%.

Next go to the ambient. Set the ambient color to grey (make the color values equal to 152). Make the ambient strength 63 for the whole model. The whole model should be white with some shadows depending on the light. The light has already been set in the previous images and previous step.

Step 3 - Making eyes (and eyebrows) and lips stand out.

To make eyelashes, and eyebrows stand out select them and set the colors of the ambient, diffuse, and specular to black. load any lash transparencies on them to make them look thinner or more anime style. (to load transparencies through the surfaces box go to opacity and set the opacity strength to 100% click on the tab to load any transparency map you wish.)

Now for the eyes themselves: select the Rpupil from the surface list and set all the color values to black. do the same with the surface Lpupil. Go to the surface Riris set the color values of the diffuse to 103 (grey) and the color values of the specular to 91 (grey). For the lips set the specular to 128 (grey) the darker the lips the more it looks like lipstick.

Step 4 - Now for the final image.

For the final step. RENDER AWAY! (To make sure you not set to OpenGL got to the menu called Render then to Render Settings. Click on the advanced tab in the window that appears in the center of the screen. go down and make sure that Software 3Delight is selected.

Go to the general tab and then go down to the section label Style and then select Cartoon.) NOW RENDER AWAY!!

Step 5 - Optional step

If you don't want any color what so ever but you still got some in your render open up the rendered picture in any photo editing program and colorize it black. I can't give you instruction on doing so because there are some many kinds with so many different features.

Ridding DAZ Studio Images of Unwanted Highlights

2011-11-01T17:42:19+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

Ridding DAZ Studio Images of Unwanted Highlights

Author:

Tomsde

Tools Needed

* DAZ Studio

Introduction

This tutorial explains how to rid your DAZ Studio images of unwanted, unnatural looking highlights when rendering in DAZ Studio. These highlights can appear when using DAZ Studio's default settings (Figure 1). By a few simple tweaks the skin tones can appear more natural.

Step 1 - The Surfaces Tab

The unwanted highlights do not appear until after the image is rendered, not in the preview. The reason for this is that by default D/S applies a plastic texture to all models in the scene regardless of whether they are humans, animals, or inanimate objects. In this example I will use the Freak as my model. You can use any figure to follow along with this tutorial, so set up your scene and pose your figure in D/S. When you are ready to render the image click on the surfaces tab (Figure 2).

Step 2 - The Shader Tree

DAZ Studio allows you multi-select different scene elements, in this example we only have one character, the Freak. Click on the character's name in the shader tree window and all its body parts will be selected at one time (Figure 3). For more than one character shift and click on the other character's name.

Step 3 - Lighted Model Setting

Be sure that the advanced tab of the surfaces palate is selected. Scroll down to the bottom of the Advanced surfaces tab and click on Lighted model. Click the down arrow next to plastic and select skin from the list (Figure 4).

Step 4 - Glossiness and Specular Strength

Now scroll up to the top of the Advanced Tab and set the glossiness setting to 50% and the Specular Strength to 50% (Figure 5).

Step 5 - Render!

Render your image using the highest quality settings and desire resolution and you will find that the unwanted highlights are gone (Figure 6)!

Simple Fog Effect

2011-11-01T17:42:19+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

Simple Fog Effect

Author: chupa

Tools Needed

* DAZ\Studio

* 2 images (supplied in the zip file below)

Support Files

*clouds.zip

Step 1: Create a Scene

First create a scene and add all the elements to it that you plan on, like people, lights, background etc…

Step 2: Create a new primitive

At the top in your tool bar click this symbol to create a new primitive. From the drop down bar on the window that opens select plane, and make it 1m in size with 1 division.

Step 3: Alignment

Go to the scene menu and find the plane and highlight it, then in the parameters menu change the x rotate to 90, and y translate to about 100 (just until it is centered in your scene). Now using the z translate move the plane towards you until it blocks out your entire scene. All you should see now is a white square.

Step 4: Surface Settings

Open up the surfaces menu by going to view, tabs, surfaces. Once that is open, scroll down to the plane and highlight it, then click the advanced tab and change these settings:

Diffuse Color: press the small arrow next to it and browse to where you saved the zip file I provided above, open the clouds jpeg.

Glossiness: 25%

Opacity: 50%

Bump: add the clouds bump jpeg to this the same way you did for diffuse color, then change bump strength to 200%

Lighting Model: matte

Step 5: Render

Render the scene, and you got fog! Don't stop there though, experiment with different settings, for example below I changed the x rotate back to 0, then enlarged the scale, and used the y translate to lower it just above the ground for a low fog effect.

Step 6: Happy Rendering

I hope that you were able to glean something useful from this, enjoy!

Step-Rendering with DazStudio

2011-11-01T17:42:19+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

Step-Rendering with DazStudio

Author: Locke21

Tools Needed

DazStudio
Image editor with layers

Introduction

Ever notice how DazStudio has some trouble rendering multiple figures, especially on low-ram systems? Well there is a way around that, its called step-rendering. This is one way of doing it. You will need a image editor capable of layering.

Step 1 - Step One

Using DazStudio, create and save a scene that you would like rendered. Remember this, position all the lights, cameras and figures just the way you would like them. You cannot change them later.

Step 2 - Step Two

Now that you have everything the way you want it, delete everything but one figure. Do not worry; we are not going to ruin your work. Just delete everything but one figure and then render. Remember, at no time during this process will we be saving the scene, just the renders!

Step 3 - Step Three

Once that figure is rendered and saved, click undo, to bring back your other figures. Now delete the figure you just rendered. Starting to get the picture?

Render the figure you just brought back and save that render. Continue to do this until you have all the figures, props and environments you need for your final scene.

Step 4 - Step Four

Once you have all your figures in place, open up the background in your favorite image editor. Add a layer to it and then open up your images in a separate window. All of them will have white background, so simply select by color, invert the selection, and paste into the transparent layer you just created. Do this for each render.

Step 5 - Step Five

Now that all the renders are resting on top of one another, take your eraser tool and erase everything that is not supposed to show. This can take quite awhile, but my picture only needs a hand and leg removed. In addition, you will have to spend some time remove all the white around your figures that the copy brought along with them.

Step 6 - Step Six

Once your done touching up your picture, just merge the layers and flatten the picture. If you want, now is the time to add any special effects, I put a small light flare in mine. If not, just save and enjoy.

Stereo image in DAZ Studio

2011-11-01T17:42:19+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

Stereo image in DAZ Studio

Author: caviedes

Tools Needed

DAZ Studio

Introduction

We present a very simple method to create 3D Anaglyph images from DAZ Studio using StereoPhoto Maker Ver. 2.33 freeware

Step 1 - Open DAZ Studio

Figure 1 In this case we are using DAZ Faerie 'Forest day' scene

Step 2 - Render L

Render the image and name it L (jpg format is supported but you can archive better results in TIF format

Step 3 - Render R

Using the time line move your cursor to frame 2

Step 4 - Render R (2)

Using the default camera, roll it to the right. About 5 to 10 degree.

Select it an then use x translate to roll the camera

Step 5 - Render R (3)

Render again an save as R

Render of Left (l) and Right (R)images

Step 6 - To Anaglyph

Open StereoPhoto Maker and load the L image as shown in the figure and

repeat with R

You may probably need to get aligned the images, use left-right and up-down arrows on your keyboard.

Step 7 - Color Anaglyph

Select 'Color Anaglyph' in the upper bar.

The result should appear like this:

Step 8 - Saving Anaglyph

Save your stereoimage using File-' Save Stereo Image (ctrl + S) options and Voila!! You have an Stereogram red and blue.

Now you only need a pair of red-blue glasses which can be made of red and blue cellophane in a cardboard-cut frame (use red for left, yes your left, and blue to the right).

Happy rendering!.

Stereo rendering demystified

2011-11-01T17:42:19+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

Stereo rendering demystified

Author: itsikw

Tools Needed

* DAZ Studio

* Stereophoto maker

Support Files

*Stereo_camera_38x30x60.zip *camera.zip

Introduction

This tutorial teaches how to make stereoscopic images from 3D scenes using a new tool: the Stereo Camera. Shooting with the Stereo Camera is easy and fun, and full success is guaranteed in the first shot. Framing the object with the provided Stereo Window automatically positions the left and the right cameras in space, thus determining both the intercamera separation and the shooting distance. The Stereo Window also marks the boundaries of the final stereo image, thus serving as the stereoscopic viewport. The Stereoscopic Camera is a complete tool for shooting stereoscopic images. It was made for a 19“ monitor with display size of 38x30cm (actually 37.5x30cm), and viewing distance of 60cm. To emphasize this we added the string '38x30x60' to the stereoscopic camera name, although we will refer to it simply as 'Stereoscopic Camera'. With the help of the Stereo Camera you will be able to free your mind from tedious technical chores, and focus completely on composition and art. Full color display of a stereoscopic image requires special equipment, which may not be readily available to most readers. However, if one agrees to compromise true color perception and to put up with a certain amount of visual fatigue, one can use the anaglyph display method to view stereoscopic art. The anaglyph is a standard image, and can be displayed with any software capable of displaying images. Any monitor can be used to display an anaglyph image. The only extra equipment needed for viewing is a cardboard red/cyan eyewear. In order to create the anaglyph from your stereo renders, you will need an external software. There are several software packages capable of creating anaglyphs. My favorite is StereoPhoto maker that is available from StereoPhoto Maker (English) by Masuji SUTO (a Freeware program). I used this software for the examples in this tutorial.

Step 1: Adjust your render settings

Choose the settings shown in the figure for this tutorial. The 16:9 preset of the active viewport is necessary to accommodate the shifted frames of the two cameras. The pixel dimensions and the render speed may be altered.

Step 2: Open the Stereo Camera

Open the Stereo Camera, and choose “camera center” for the active viewport. The active viewport should look as shown in the figure:

Before proceeding, let us ourselves with the Stereo Camera and its components.

Under Stereo Camera you will find two subcomponents: the Stereo Window and the Cameras. The Stereo Window is a frame made of four cylinder primitives outlining the edges of the final image (in this case a 19” monitor).

The Cameras subcomponent contains three cameras: left, center and right. The left and the right cameras are used for the stereoscopic rendering. The center camera is used for composition.

All transformations must be applied to the Stereoscopic Camera only. The subcomponents must not be modified. In order to avoid accidental modification, the transformations of all sub-components have been locked.

All three cameras are located 60 cm from the Stereo Window plane, with optical axes parallel to each other and perpendicular to this plane. The center camera is aligned with the Stereo Window center. The left and the right cameras are horizontally shifted by 3.25 cm with respect to the center camera to the left and the right sides respectively. Thus the distance between the left and the right cameras is 6.5 cm, which is the average human interocular distance.

Step 3: Merge the scene

We will illustrate the use of the Stereo Camera on the DAZ Studio demo scene Fairy Daytime. After merging it, the active viewport will look as follows:

Our Stereo Window can be seen located at the scene origin, half buried in the ground just below the Fairy feet.

Step 4: Adjusting the XY translations

Suppose we want to photograph the Fairy face.

Choose the Stereo Camera object and translate it to y = 180. Then choose the center camera for the active viewport that should now look like this:

First we use the X translate dial to bring the face to the center of the frame. We have chosen X = 7. Then we fine-tuned the Y translation and have chosen Y = 182. The centered image now looks like this:

Now comes the crucial step of adjusting the Z dial. But before that, we need to explain the two fundamental stereo composition rules.

Step 5: The stereo composition rules

The Z value of the Stereo Window is chosen according to two rules.

The Z rule: Position the Stereo Window as close as possible to all visible points of your object. In other words, if the farthest visible point in the object has Z value of Z1 and the closest Z2, put the Stereo Window Z value in the middle between Z1 and Z2.

The Stereo Window rule: Do not let any object in the scene to obscure the Stereo Window frame.

In many cases it is impossible to satisfy both rules simultaneously. The Stereo Window rule has precedence; in other words, the best compromise of the Z rule should be sought, while adhering to the Stereo Window rule.

There are many other stereo composition rules, however these two rules are most important.

Step 6: Adjusting the Z dial

Inspecting the previous image we note that the farthest points on the Faerie's face are the ears, and the nearest point is the nose. Let us choose the top view for the active viewport and zoom in, to obtain the following view:

According to the Z rule we adjust the Z translation dial to position the Stereo Window in the mid-way between the Faerie's ears and nose:

The value of the Z translate dial is now -3.

In order to verify that there is no Stereo Window obscuration, we examine the object using the center camera:

The Stereo Window is fully visible so both composition rules are now satisfied. The scene is ready for the stereo render.

Step 7: The render

Choose the left camera for the active viewport. It now looks like this:

Note that now the object is a little bit off center. However the final stereoscopic image will look perfectly centered as seen through the center camera.

Now render this scene and save the render. Next choose the right camera for the active viewport. It should now look like this:

Render this scene and save the render.

Step 8: Opening the left/right images in StereoPhoto maker for adjustment

The raw images that we created need to be adjusted and converted to a stereoscopic format. There are several programs that can be used to accomplish this. My favorite is StereoPhoto maker by Masuji Suto. Open the two images as left/right:

On the dialog that pops up, mark the two Faerie close-up images, and click on Open:

The application window will now look like this, showing the two images side by side:

Step 9: Adjustment

Press now the “K” key on the keyboard. The Easy Adjustment window will appear:

Using the H position slider adjust the images until the two Stereo Window frames are precisely superimposed:

Press OK to return to the main window, which will look like this:

This concludes the adjustment process.

Step 10: Cropping

The image needs now to be cropped. Using the free crop tool we mark the image just inside the Stereo Window:

Clicking now on the image produces the final format:

The image processing is finished, and the image is ready for display.

Step 11: Displaying the image in Anaglyph format

Choose the Color Anaglyph display format from the Stereo menu. From the various options, choose color (red/cyan):

The anaglyph image is displayed. Now you can observe it using standard red/cyan glasses.

Pressing “Enter” and “F” you can display the image at fullscreen. If your screen is 19“ with 4:3 aspect ratio, and you view the image from 60cm, you will see the Faerie face unscaled, exactly as it exists in its virtual reality.

Note that there is some difficulty in fusing the background in this image. This difficulty is caused by a variety of mechanisms. Discussion of these problems is out of the scope of this tutorial.

JPEG compression spoils seriously the quality of an anaglyph image. Therefore, anaglyphs should be saved in non-lossy formats like TIFF or BMP. If you are forced to use the JPEG compression (as in making illustrations for DAZ Studio tutorials), use always the highest quality available.

Step 12: Photographing objects larger than the Stereo Window

Let us scale up the Stereo Camera by 270% and set Y translate to 158. This is how the active viewport looks now from the center camera:

The Stereo Window rule is clearly violated by the Faerie's wing and tummy. In order to deviate as little as possible from the Z rule, we translate the Stereo Camera by the least distance along Z, just enough to expose the Stereo Window. With Z translate = 9, the active port looks as follows:

Letting X translate = 0 puts the Faerie's torso precisely at the center:

It is instructive to observe the scene from the side using the default camera:

The Stereo Window represents the monitor on which the image will be displayed. The Faerie's left hand protrudes through the monitor surface and will appear “floating in the air” in front of the viewer face. The Faerie's right hand is submerged far behind the monitor surface. The span between the two hands will give the image an impressive depth sensation, which is an effect often sought by stereo photographers to impress the viewers.

Step 13: The Faerie torso anaglyph

To make the Faerie torso anaglyph we follow precisely the same steps as in the Faerie close-up example. We leave this as an exercise for the reader. The final result is:

Step 14: Conclusion

You are now in possession of all knowledge that you need to unleash the full impression of your 3D scenes by displaying them stereoscopically. The author is confident that once you get used to it, you will not want to see them flat anymore.

Stereoscopic photography in virtual reality is much easier (and much more accessible) than in real world. Therefore, it is a great laboratory for learning and mastering the subtle techniques of this art.

Unique Ghost images

2011-11-01T17:42:19+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

Unique Ghost images

Author: chupa

Tools Needed

* DAZ/Studio

* Photoshop

Introduction

I wanted a ghost in one of my scenes. I spend a great deal of time setting up the scene, with all the characters, props, and lighting, and finally went to the surface menu and highlight the character along with their clothes, jewelry, hair etc.. that I wanted to be the ghost and lowered the opacity. Well, I got a world of frustration! Suddenly I see the inside of the mouth, the eyes, the hair through the back of the head not to mention all the layers of clothes etc.. So I spend more time trying to fix all these problems. I turn the opacity to '0' on things like the eyes, inner mouth, tongue, gums, and teeth. Now my ghost looks as if it had its eyes plucked out and if I wanted to pose them with their mouth open (God forbid) there was just this gaping hole that looked stupid! I didn't even bother trying to mess with the clothes after this, I admit I gave up. I deleted the whole scene in disgust, and decided to play around with some reflections and lighting. During my play I discovered this process to make a ghost without all those problems I just mentioned, OK ranted about. Here it is.

Step 1: Setting the scene

Set a basic scene (without ghost character), in mine I just wanted a simple outdoor scene with a single kneeling figure. I created this then added some simple lighting.

Next I placed a plane in front of my kneeling figure where I wanted my ghost to appear. To do this go to 'Create' - > 'New Primitive', now in the window that pops up select 'plane' from the drop down menu, make the plane about 2m in size. Now using your X rotate slider in the 'parameters' menu change it to 90, now position it where you want the ghost to show, use you Z and Y scale sliders to make it about the size of your ghost. You now should have something like this.

Next in your scene menu click the little eye next to anything right around the plane (in my case this was my kneeling character and all his clothes)

Now add your ghost character, dress them up, add hair, jewelry whatever, and pose them in front of the plane facing in the OPPOSITE direction that you want them in the final picture, like this.

Step 2: Change some settings

Ok now we got to make some minor setting changes. The first one is to go to your 'scene' menu and highlight ALL of your ghost (including hair, jewelry, clothes etc..) and the plane, you do this by holding 'Ctrl' and then clicking on the all the items you want. Now once they are all highlighted go to your 'parameters' menu and scroll down until you see 'cast shadows' and change this to 'off' (ghosts don't have shadows, and neither should our plane).

Good that was the hard part, now go to the 'surfaces' menu, if it's not already open got to 'view' - > 'tabs' - > 'surfaces'. Now find the plane and click the little '+' before it, now highlight 'default', make sure the 'advanced' tab to the right is selected and then change these settings:

Diffuse strength - 0%

Spectral strength - 0%

Ambient strength - 0%

Opacity strength - 0%

Reflection strength - 100%

Lighting model - Glossy plastic

Great now the only other thing that you have to add to your scene is a spotlight, you do this by going to 'create' - > 'new spotlight'.

Take this spotlight and using the X, Y, Z translate sliders in the 'parameters' menu move it to the opposite side of the plane as your ghost character about chest high. Now scroll down the 'parameters' menu until you see 'point at' click on this and then in the menu that appears highlight the ghost character and hit 'accept', lastly change the 'intensity' to about 60 (this dial is just a little bit farther down)

Step 3: Rendering

Ok we're almost there, hang in just a little longer.

Now render your scene keep all of the things that you hid from view earlier hidden, you should get something like this.

Save this render and call it 'foreground'. Now go back to the 'scene' menu clicking the little eye symbol again turn off the plane, your ghost character (don't forget their hair, clothes etc.) and turn on the other things that you hid before. Render this now and you should get something like this.

Step 4: Putting it all together

Alright the home stretch, it's easy from here on. Open up Photoshop, and then open the 'foreground' image we rendered. Go to 'select' - > 'all', like this.

Now 'edit' - > 'copy'

You can now close this image, next open the image 'background' that you rendered, create a new layer by going to 'layer' - > 'new' - > 'layer' like this.

Now we go to 'edit' - > 'paste'

Step 5: Last steps

Now all we have to do is select the 'eraser' tool from the toolbox (by default this is off to the left), using a fairly large brush size to start erase everything in the foreground picture except the ghost image, now change to a smaller brush size if you need to get close. You should now see the full scene with a pretty nice looking ghost.

Lastly go to 'filter' - > 'distort' - > 'diffuse glow', and play with the settings until you get something you like, the important one is 'graininess' set this to '0', now go to 'edit' - > 'fade diffuse glow' and in the window that appears click mode and change it to 'luminosity' and adjust the opacity as desired. Now simply go to 'layer' - > 'flatten image' and save it as whatever file type you want.

Step 6: Our finished Product

Well this is my finished product, I hope you found this helpful, enjoy.

Chupa

Make Your Cartoon Style (Part Two)

2011-11-01T17:42:19+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

Make Your Cartoon Style (Part Two)

Author: perfy

Tools Needed

DAZ Studio
DS Egyptian Content
The GIMP(You can get it at gimp.org for free)

Introduction

Now maybe you have known how to make your cartoon style using D/S and GIMP.But how about some Complicated things like people?This tutorial will give you some suggestions.

And you should take a minute to have a look at the tutorial "Make your cartoon style (basic)", the first part of this tutorial sequence.

Step 1 - Make your basic pictures

Make your basic pictures using DAZ Studio(You may consult the tutorial “Make your cartoon style (basic)” here: http://arcana.daz3D.com/index.php?id=962 ) In this tutorial, I choose the woman from the DS Egyptian Content.And you may render the picture like the one below.

Step 2 - Come to GIMP

Now come to GIMP.Open your picture in GIMP and right click the picture to choose select/by color, then click the background color.And you may right click to select Edit/Clear or Cut to delect background.

Right click on the picture and select Layer/colors/curves or tools/colors/curves.Also you may set the channels as the picture shown below. It's only an example.And the set may just be as you like!

Step 3 - Select and Colorize the Image

Choose select by color and set the options as below.Also the set is only for reference.You may set it as you think is proper.

Then right click the picture to choose Layers/Color/Colorize.Change the selected color to what a real person may have.

Change another part of the color and do the same things as the above.Here you may also change the set of the Select By Color Options to match the colors you want to select.

Step 4 - Complete

After changing all parts of the people, you may do some further works like add background, add lightening and so on.

Here is one result.

How to Make 3D Wallpapers with DAZ Studio

2011-11-01T17:42:19+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

How to Make 3D Wallpapers with DAZ Studio

Author: OniDrEvil

Tools Needed

DAZ Studio
A completed scene

Tutorial Link

http://hubpages.com/hub/How-to-Make-3D-Wallpapers-with-DAZ-Studio

Description

I love making new wallpapers and the artwork created with DAZ Studio fits perfectly on the desktop. In this tutorial I outline a few easy steps for rendering your favorite scene at your desktop's resolution. This tutorial is hosted offsite and can be found at the link above.

Sample Image

http://s4.hubimg.com/u/2303383.jpg

A Brief Introduction to Toon Shaders in DAZ Studio

2011-11-01T17:42:19+00:00

This page exists within the Old ArtZone Wiki section of this site. Read the information presented on the linked page to better understand the significance of this fact.

A Brief Introduction to Toon Shaders in DAZ Studio

Author: AlmightyQUEST

Tools Needed

DAZ|Studio
Optional: Photoshop

Support Files

DS Basic Shaders

Introduction

“Toon” style renders, comic book style renders, and cel shaded styled anime renders are something a lot of people are interested in, but have difficulty getting started with in DAZ Studio. Often people find the “Toon Render” option in Studio, but then when the results aren’t quite what they would like, they become confused or frustrated that there are no additional control settings for the Toon Render engine. I hope to help get people comfortable to start using the “toon” styled shaders that are available for Studio, from the developers at DAZ.

The first thing to do is obtain the shaders. Easiest source is in the DAZ free stuff archives, here:
DS Basic Shaders
I would also recommend the Toon Noir kit available through Eustace Scrubb available in the forums. While optional, and operating based on the DAZ toon shaders, these are useful as presets to refer to and offer some additional line options in the case of the silhouette. I will briefly refer to some of the presets he has made later on. They are currently available here:
Toon Noir Shader Presets

Building the Scene

Now that you have the shaders installed and in an area of your Studio content directory you are comfortable with, we can begin. If you are unsure how to set up a Studio content directory, please refer to any of the starter tutorials for Studio available on the website or in the forums. So, to get started, we need a scene with objects to work with. For the scene I’m using as an example, I’ve got a guy in a pseudo urban-cowboy style outfit standing in a grungy, run-down urban interior. Why? Because I can. And because it happens to help me illustrate a few common issues we will address later. But fear not I will take it one step at a time. The first thing you will want is a figure. It can be any figure; shaders work the same on any surface. And to start with we will apply a texture to it.

Preparing the Scene

Lighting is very important for toon renders, but for now we’ll just use a single distant light at a bit of an angle, enough to light the visible areas of the figure well. Don’t worry about the color or shadows now, we just want to learn the shader’s basics for the time being.

This next step I’m going to give you applies to all shaders in Studio, so it’s important to remember and very useful. First we want to select the surfaces we are going to apply the shader to, and then the figure or all the objects in the scene we want to apply the shader to as well. I will give some tips on speeding this up shortly, but for now, just select all the surfaces of your figure.

Applying the Shaders

Now go to where the shader is located in your content directory. Press crtl (command on a Mac, keep in mind throughout tutorial) and double click with your left mouse button on the “dzToonSkin” preset. In a moment a window will pop up, there may be a slight delay if you have many surfaces or objects selected. In the window that appears, click on the “Map Settings” drop down menu and select “Ignore”. Click Accept. Again, if this is being applied to many surfaces or objects, there may be a slight to significant delay as it applies the shader.

Now that this is done, switch back over to the Surfaces tab in Studio and (making sure you are in the “Advanced” view) take a look at our new settings, the ones under the “Toon” heading.

Shader Feature Basics

So, to keep things simple and render times minimal, this is a very quick and basic look at what these parameters mean and what they do. We will return to our cowboy shortly, you can follow the images for now and let your scene sit.

First is “Color Divisions”. This is how many sections of different color tones the surface is separated into. This, along with all of the properties, will affect each surface independently. So if you have an object with several surfaces and a value of 3 for color divisions for each of them, each surface will break into 3 divisions, even if the colors vary between the different surfaces. Some things to note are that specular settings also get their own pass for this setting, so three divisions will actually result in highlights divided into three colors, and diffuse value in three colors. Sometimes the highlights will not have the whole division number visible as well, depending on the settings. Using the “dzToonMatte” will remove highlights entirely from the surfaces, and in the case of toon renders this may be something that will end up giving you better results. Also, a black shadow area will usually apply, not counting towards your set color divisions. Values less than 1 will give results that appear to be the basic shader of that type with the toon outline. Values set too high may be too close together an give the appearance of a fuzzy surface, but not the separation expected of a toon shader.

Following is an example of a sphere with color divisions of 3, 9, and 1, respectively, using the dzToonMatte shader.

Next is the “Blend Amount”. This value is how much one color division blurs into the next. Lower values, as low as zero, will give crisper outlines between areas. Higher values will give less distinct separation between areas. Values of zero and near zero amounts may sometimes cause issues with transparency maps, but this will be discussed later.

Following are examples with a Blend Amount value of 10%, 0%, and 100%. (Note the grey in the darkest area with a blend amount value of “0%”. Depending on lighting conditions and the surfaces involved, this can sometimes occur, while a value above zero but sometimes even lower than 1% can correct the issue without giving more blending than desired.)

“Outline Color” is fairly self explanatory. It will change the color of the outline of the surface. Black is the default and is what is most often used, but occasionally a colored outline may help to emphasize an object in a scene, or make a dark object visible against a dark background without having to lighten the surface of the object.

Following are examples using black, white, and blue outlines.

The last option we have is “Outline Threshold”. This one is not so obvious, and can be a little tricky to work with. In general, the idea is that a lower threshold will result in thinner lines, and a higher threshold will result in thicker lines. Basically explained, lines in these shaders in Studio are based on geometry, surfaces curving or tilting away from the camera define where the lines are, and after the threshold is reached any geometry beyond that is black. A settings of zero will result in no lines (useful for surfaces near perpendicular to the camera and some specific come effects), and a setting of the maximum, ten, will result in almost a complete silhouette. If you are using Eustace’s Toon Noir kit, there is an option to be able to get a full silhouette from lines.

Following are examples with an Outline Threshold of 3, 1, and 7.

Working With the Scene Part 1

Now you have the basics of the Toon shaders, what the settings are, and generally what they do. That already is enough to then go and experiment on your own, and I do highly encourage that. However, for the sake of moving things along a bit quicker and possibly helping out on the way, I’m going to continue with a figure and a scene, with advice and tips that will hopefully be useful as you work with these shaders.

Let’s return now to our figure from before. We’ve already applied the basic skin shader, and we have some idea of what the settings do. So the first thing we are going to want to do, this being our “first time” using the shaders, is to render and see how it looks.

(I’ve switched to a white background since it’s a single figure and it helps to see the lines more clearly)

So, this is using the default settings. Something to keep in mind is that between any object and any image, the results may vary due to any number of variables, including simply, how do you want it to look? Now, looking at this, the first and possibly easiest thing to decide on is the lines. Things to look for are patches where there is too much black, either an entire area black or lines being too thick in areas. Then you will want to lower the Outline Threshold for those surfaces. Also, check for areas where you don’t see lines you want, you may want to raise the threshold. Sometimes internal lines, such as along the nose or mouth, won’t show up until the threshold is higher than you want for the outside surface, and this is a limitation of lines rendered in 3D programs. Possible solutions would be multiple renders, using one for the internal lines and one for the external lines, or adjusting lines by hand. Also keep in mind that there is no smoothing on lines between surfaces, so if you lower or raise the settings for one surface, you may need to lower or raise surrounding surfaces too to prevent stepping in lines.

In this particular case, there aren’t areas that are blacked out, and I’m getting good detail in the shoulders, around the nose, and along the muscles on the sides of the chest. So in this case I’m going to leave the outline threshold. The default tends to be good within about +/-.2 for human figures.

The next thing I typically look at is color divisions. Since we are using a texture for this surface, there is more color variability, and as such, I think to get the detail I want I need to raise this value. I went with a value of seven here, which is typical for what I use in my projects, but this is where personal taste plays a big role. For something to look more like cel shading you will likely want fewer divisions, for certain effects you may want more. Values of less than three will typically only be useful in cases where you aren’t using a diffuse texture, and where you want a special effect to your render, such as sharp black and white contrast. While color divisions also do not blend between surfaces, it often is not as noticeable, particularly if you wanted to have more divisions on, for example, the face of a figure, and fewer divisions on the body.

After color divisions, the next thing to look at is the blend amount. This is very particular based on how you want the final results to look as well. I frequently like a bit of a grungier look to my comic renders, so between the texture map and the amount of color divisions, I usually use a blend amount of zero or near zero. By contrast, a more painted comic effect could be achieved with similar line, diffuse, and color division settings but with a blend amount near 50%. A more anime styled look may be achieved with brighter diffuse colors, not texture maps or texture maps with few colors and lacking small details, and texture divisions around three or four, and a blend amount of 10% or less. Definitely not bump or displacement maps, these will disrupt the smooth blend between colors, which is something I do intentionally in my renders, but will not give the smooth results that one would want in a cel-style image.

figure_03

Now, using a value of zero on all surfaces, I run into an issue I briefly mentioned earlier. Here, the eyelashes and eyebrows use a transparency map. With a blend amount of zero, extra lines appear around the geometry of the surface, which is obviously not something I want in the final results. The solution is to select just the eyelash and eyebrow surfaces, and raise the blend amount on just those surfaces. Once more, it can be changed for each surface, but there won’t usually be a distinct divisions with the blend settings, and in this case the nature of the materials allows us to do this without any odd looking surface divisions. Shown below are the initial results, and the same thing with a blend amount of five instead of zero. It doesn’t take much to get rid of the extra color, in fact sometimes as little as 1%, but a bit extra usually doesn’t hurt, particularly with small areas. Transparency maps in hair tend to take a bit more work to adjust.

Following is an example of the color divisions as I have them set, and also an example with the color divisions at four and blend amount at 80% so you can see the sort of difference you can get just by changing a few settings.

The last thing to look at is outline color. I’m leaving it black. An effect that isn’t too uncommon is using a grey or white line when you have a black or dark object against a black or dark background, so help build up contrast and still keep the form somewhat unclear. Also effects such as a red line on black to give the effect of a deep red velvet or similar surface is also something you may want to try. But for the current image I am leaving it black. I don’t need particular emphasis on the figure, and contrast will be built into the scene.

And, now we have the figure taken care of. Not too difficult, right? So keep this in mind, because now I’m going to take you through the rest of the scene, giving you tips along the way for issues to watch out for and ideas to try to build your scenes using these shaders.

Working With the Scene Part 2

First, finish clothing the figure. Typically you will have a few articles of clothing on a given figure, sometimes many depending on how much goes into the outfit. This is where we can use some features of D|S shaders to our advantage to save us time. First, you would be able to select all objects you want to apply the toon shader to, select all of their surfaces you want to apply the shader to, then crtl+double click the shader and set it to ignore texture map settings. However, since we are working with a lot of surfaces and we want to apply the shader to all surfaces, we can save some time by selecting all the objects, crtl+double clicking the shader, and then after setting it to ignore textures, change “Surfaces: Selected” to “Surfaces: All”.

Note that if you have set any surfaces to 0% opacity, they will revert to 100% opacity if you are using the DAZ standard presets, so surfaces such as body handles and surfaces you have hidden may appear again, and you will need to set them invisible again. This will still happen if you select surfaces, but since body handles are more often in clothing and aren’t in many figures, this is the time where you will most likely see this happening. (I have used the dzToonMatte preset for the clothing here, again you may want to use the glossy or metal surface presets for some surfaces if you want highlights on the surface, for the clothing in this scene it was not going to be necessary, and helps to simplify settings).

Now, the process for working with the clothing is going to be the same as working with the skin. Look at the line thickness and watch for blackened areas. Make decisions about color divisions and blend amounts. Sometimes I set the clothing to fewer color divisions and slightly more blending than the figure it is on, but this again is a step that is very much variable based on the appearance you want it to have. The same issues that the skin have apply here, to watch out for missing details at too few divisions, lines on transparency maps at too low a blend amount, and bump or displacement maps affecting the smoothness of division. In this case, after a few test renders, I have gone with the same settings as I had for the skin, a color division amount of seven, blending at zero, and the default outline threshold of three. I’m also including an image with the clothes having a color division of 3 and a blend amount of 90 against the skin settings I am using so you can get an idea of how changing settings for parts of a scene can change the effect of the objects and emphasis of figures.

Working With the Scene Part 3

Now that we have the clothed figure, we can move on to the scenery. Once again, we select all elements of the scenery, and use our crtl+double click to ignore maps and apply to all surfaces. Now, when looking at the scenery once more decisions need to be made about color divisions and blending. I personally once again like to lower divisions and raise the blending value slightly relative to the main figure, just to give more emphasis to the figure by having more detail. The detail in the texture can also make a significant difference in the amount of color division you want, and how much you want the background to simplify.

So let’s take a look at the first basic render.

Now, I’ve mentioned this before, but we’re finally seeing it now. The floor is mostly blacked out. Now, deep shadows in the corner are fine, but I don’t want the floor to look like this (Or at least, we’ll say that, there are cases where if you have a dark scene it can work to your advantage, but fixing it is more important). A brief note, despite what some people will say, this is not necessarily a bug in the shader. This behavior is correct for a surface tilted this far away from the camera, since lines are based on geometry. In this case it simply happens to be an unwanted result of intended behavior.

To fix it, we have some options. If it were important to have lines somewhere on a surface where this is happening, you would want to do several test renders using outline threshold values of less than one until you get the right balance. However, the floor is a separate surface here, and has no detail that needs lines, so setting the threshold value to zero is a quick and certain way of solving the problem, as we see here. (Note that I also lowered the line setting slightly, to 2.4, for the rest of the background. Again this is to personal taste and varies from scene and style, I use it to give more emphasis to the figure once more)

If you remember, I mentioned earlier that lighting is tricky and very important with the toon shaders. Because of the nature of the toon effect, too many lights can result in washed out surfaces and surfaces that appear too bright. The large amount of low-strength ambient lights are typically not needed in toon renders, and in fact if you need any ambient at all, with toon shaders I would highly recommend using the ambient channel in the surface settings at low strength instead, if you even need it. In general my advice would be no more than two lights overlapping on a single space, and only one light if possible. In this scene, I used the default lights for The Ministry, because they do a good job of using a few lights to spotlight certain areas of the scene, and then added a single spotlight focusing on the figure, coming from slightly below the figure. Do to the stylized nature of the toon shaders, you can use more dramatic lighting without looking out of place. I still kept similar light colors, and made sure that the figure was not too sharply lit to look out of place in the scene. Because there was not an obvious light source in front of the figure, since it is off screen anyway, I’m able to change the angle and intensity slightly from what I might use in a more naturally lit scene to keep the figure well lit in the scene. Typical issues such as brightly lit figures not casting shadows and multiple light sources only hitting single figures (so all objects in the scene appear to have different light sources) are still things to watch out for when lighting your scene here, but also keep the final effect in mind when choosing how to light your scene. After doing a test render (no shadows) with the lighting I have decided on, this is another time where I would look to see if I want to make any more changes to a surface, since lighting can have a significant effect in how the surface looks, especially with color divisions and blending in particular.

In this case, I am satisfied with how it looks, so I am going to turn shadow casting on for my light pointing at the figure. In a case like this I may also consider some lights on the background to cast shadows as well, but again depending on color divisions shadows can have a significant affect on the scene, and too many shadows can have unwanted dulling effects on surfaces sometimes. Again, this varies greatly based on taste and the scene itself. For a cel-styled image, for instance, you may use a single distant light, possibly with no cast shadows, for the entire scene. For now, to save time, I’m only using the one shadow casting light.

Working With the Scene Postwork

Now I’m briefly going to give some postwork/composition tips. I’m going to be showing these in Photoshop, but the functions will be similar in most 2D image editors, and the reasoning behind it is more important than the name of a given function. My first tip is going to be to render this out in sections or to use layer masks. This is typical advice for any render, and I think in the case of toon style renders it is particularly useful. In this case I rendered the full scene once, so that the shadow cast by the figure is in the background, and then I rendered just the figure so I could edit him separately. I brought first the full render and then just the figure into Photoshop and put the figure on a separate layer above the full render.

The steps taken here are going to vary greatly from one image to another, and since the focus of this tutorial is centered on the Studio shaders I’m just going to very briefly cover some commonly used functions that I think will be helpful in your toon renders.

First thing, after separating into layers, is levels adjustment. Take each of these functions on a per-layer basis. You may want to remember settings to use on several pieces of a composition, but it is important to look at each one individually, and how it fits in the scene as a whole. For the levels adjustment, dragging the black slider to the right will lower the threshold of solid black in the image. In general you want it to be at the lowest peak in the histogram shown, but make sure you have your preview showing so you can watch the adjustment being made. This will darken the overall image by adding black. Dragging the white slider to the left will lighten by adding white. The slider you are likely going to use most is the center gray slider. Drag it towards black, and it will lighten the layer, drag it towards the right, and it will darken. The closer it moves towards either slider the strong the effect and variation in color will potentially be lost (moving towards a black with only the lightest points showing, or white with the darkest points showing). This can greatly help correct issues with lighting that lower contrast in the image, and help lighten surfaces that have gotten too grey in the render. In this case, the figure was well lit enough before that he is brighter than I would like, so I have moved the black slider in, and then moved the center slider towards the white slider enough to darken the figure and add contrast, without getting too much black in the shadows that causes detail to be lost. This, as with everything else, can vary greatly depending on the render and the style you are trying to achieve. Cel style renderings that have shading turn out too dark is one particular style that benefits greatly from a levels adjustment, while keeping dark outlines. Following is an example of settings used and the view with and without the preview showing.

In general, level adjustments will likely be similar on like objects, such as several figures in a scene having similar settings, with the background having different settings. In this case I kept the background slightly lighter, with a little more black in the shadows. You may also want to make contrast adjustments to layers after making level adjustments with just the simple “brightness/contrast” settings. I recommend starting with level adjustments, but a quick and slight increase in contrast can be helpful as well. In this case I made a minor increase in contrast in the figure.

After levels adjustments, the thing that most toon renders need in my experience is increased saturation of the colors. This is something that is difficult to do in Studio, but can be done quickly and simply in postwork. Don’t be too concerned about oversaturated colors not looking “realistic”, as long as you are consistent in coloring it makes sense for a comic or anime styled image to have bold colors. Following is an example of the saturation adjustment for the figure.

Because I already had strong colors, I didn’t need to make as strong an adjustment to the saturation, but don’t worry about values higher than you might expect to see in more realistic renders you have had, the appearance and not the changes are what matter. Make sure to make use of the “preview” checkbox option if you are using Photoshop or another program that has that option to make comparisons as you go.

After adjusting saturation of the background (I increased it by about 10% in this case) I decided that, since this is a portrait focusing on the figure, I wanted to make him stand out a bit more. There are many ways to do this, and while none of these are unique to toon renders, I find it is something that comes up for me more in highly stylized images than in more realistic ones. Some ideas to keep in mind are giving the object of interest a higher contrast, higher saturation, or a lighter overall color in levels adjustment, or by doing the opposite of all to the background. Another is by adjusting the coloration of the figure or background to give one warmer tones and the other cooler tones. In this case, since the figure had warm tones already, I decided to add a layer between the figure and the background filled with a solid blue-green, set the layer to overlay and at a low transparency. This is the resulting image:

Now, some of this may seem very specific to the image, and the image is definitely of a particular gritty, comic style. What is important is to keep in mind the steps along the way. With a different figure, different textures, and different decisions on lighting and post work, this could have had any final outcome. The process is going to be the same in most any image; it’s the options along the way that decide the final style.

Working With the Shaders: Colors

So, the image I walked you through used textures for most of the surfaces. I wanted to give you some examples and advice on using these shaders without texture maps.

First, I removed the diffuse map on the shirt, changed the color to a yellow similar to what was on the texture, and rendered. Well, that wasn’t initially what I expected, but was a happy accident which allows me to bring up a useful point. Here, the bump map still applies. So now I can get a clean looking surface with relatively flat colors, in any color I want, but I can still have a bump or displacement map apply to give it textures. This can particularly be useful for displacement on surfaces such as rough concrete, grass, or other organic surfaces.(1)

Now, I remove the bump map and render again. And we get a nice smooth surface, much more like we would expect in a toon shader.(2)

As an example, I took the shirt surfaces and applied the dzToonPlastic shader so I could get highlights again. I took the shirt color but set it to have strong, light blue highlights (Glossiness 40, Specular Strength 80). You can sometimes get interesting effects by combining different diffuse and specularity colors for certain, shinier surfaces.(3)

Using flat colors without textures also makes it easy for you to change the color of surfaces, just adjust the diffuse color, no texture conversions and other applications to worry about. (4)

I mentioned earlier using colored outlines on black surfaces for certain effects, and I would like to briefly address that again now. For these I am using some of the presets that come in the Toon Noir kit, but the effects can be achieved by hand as well.

First, I apply the “Black>Blood” preset. What this sets is a black diffuse color, medium red specular color with a medium high glossiness and full specular strength. In this case color division is also reduced and blending is high. The outline is red. The effect is similar to a dark red velvet material, which is good for dark surfaces that you still want to have stand out in the scene, and don’t want to be a complete black. A highlight color of gray could also be used on a dark surface against a dark background to simply make it visible in the scene.(1)

Using the same settings I reduced the specular strength to zero. This gives me a black surface with bold red outlines. This serves to be an even more dramatic version of the previous preset, good for black surfaces that you want to have stand out dramatically in the scene. Alternately, having the outline be white or grey against a black background would allow to simply make it visible, or even give the effect of an invisible object, possibly.(2)

Keep in mind that most surface options from the standard shaders are available, and function the same as in the standard shaders, from setting up bump maps to filling in ambient light in the surface channel. Don’t be afraid to mix different shader settings to see what effects you can get.

Working With the Shaders: Special Effects

Finally, now that I have given you the basics of what the shader options are, a look at building a scene, and additional advice and examples on how to work with basic surfaces, I want to take a look at a few special effects that you may find useful in your work.

1) Skin and Toon Noir Kit Skin Shaders

Eustace put in several very good and very interesting skin presets in his toon kit. They can be used with textures, but are most effective with no texture maps or only bump/diffuse maps applied. What is important, in addition to being useful presets, is that they use the subsurface settings of the skin shader. Using the dzToonSkin shader, you also get the subsurface settings that you do with the standard dzSkin shader. While the toon effect may not show the typical scattering effect you use in realistic skin due to its simplifying nature, you can still achieve interesting effects that give an appearance of skin or other similar soft surfaces by using the Toon Skin shader and subsurface settings or the Toon Noir Kit presets.

2) Tips for Anime Effects

In general, the first thing is to use no texture maps, or texture maps that are more or less designed for anime effects. On people in particular, skin detail will typically only hurt, as will fine makeup detail. Skin details will have to be simple, bold marks on the skin, makeup might be something like a single color blush or single color bold eyeliner, shadow, or lipstick, something with a lot of contrast to the skin. Bump and displacement maps are almost never recommended for skin or cloth materials, the only exception might be for other surfaces that have larger or regular texture created by the displacement map, such as a fuzzy/furry surface or possibly something like grass in the background. It frequently helps on these surfaces to give an outline threshold of zero. Eyes also fare better with simplified colors. Transparency maps with fine details can also cause problems, fine lines such as lace or hair especially can cause unwanted detail effects or stray lines. For hair, something with no transparency maps or maps that do not have fine hair detail but rather break it into rounded or tapered shapes work best.

For the actual shader settings, you typically will want few color divisions, and either near-zero values for color blending for a cel-shading appearance, or low values for an airbrushed appearance. Frequently the colors will appear too dark for an anime style on render, so adding an ambient color and strong value (anywhere from 10-50% depending on the surface and scene) will help, particularly on skin to give it a light appearance (Just make sure to watch for unwanted highlights appearing as a result of high ambient settings). In postwork you can also use levels adjustment to lighten the mid tones if the shaded areas are still darker than you would like. You may want to use the dzToonMatte or dzToonPlastic settings so you can remove or lower specularity on skin and other similar surfaces. For eyes, using the dzToonGlossy with high glossiness, specular strength, and high sharpness can give the shiny effect eyes often have in anime, or if highlights are painted on the eyes you can remove specularity from the surface.

As mentioned previously, bold, bright lighting from a single direction is frequently the best choice to keep surface color appearing clean. Depending on the materials of the surfaces, you may want to try setting your light to “diffuse only” to remove unwanted specularity. Ambient settings for the exception surfaces that use displacement are also highly recommended. For line values, you will typically want lower outline threshold, but that can change depending on the style and the scene. Again, test renders help significantly to determine good line width.

3) Reflection

Reflections can be useful in any renders, but it’s important to remember that since we are using the shaders, we can use reflective surfaces in a toon scene. One option is to use a regular, non-toon shader for a mirror surface, using all the standard setups for a mirror. This will reflect the scene exactly as it appears, using the toon shaders.

You can also use the same sort of reflection settings on a toon shader as well, useful for things such as reflective tile or other objects where you need both the reflection and the surface itself to be visible. It will also allow you to change toon settings, such as color division and blending, in just the reflected image.

In both instances, you can also use reflection maps to simulate surfaces like chrome or other metals the same way you would with a non-toon shader. Just make sure to watch out for surfaces appearing too bright at high reflection strength settings.

4) Outline Renders

For more control and flexibility with lines, you can render with color and no lines, and then render separately with all white surfaces and outlines (on a white or transparent background) and then in an image editing application use the line layer over the color layer and set it to multiply. Then you can try several line width options and even combine parts of them. For the white surfaces, after removing the diffuse maps and setting it to white, set the ambient color to white as well with a value of 100%.

5) Graphic Effects

You may sometimes hear this referred to as the “Sin City” style, though I think both that Frank Miller has no claim to the style as exclusive, nor is it all that goes into the style of his comics. However, what I’m talking about is the bold black and white effect that not only saves money on printing but can also look very cool in a highly stylized way. All that really goes into it is removing the diffuse maps from surfaces and setting all diffuse to white (or black in some cases, such as if you have cables in the scene that are their own surface. In general look at the default diffuse color, if it’s light make it white, if it’s very dark make it black). Bump and displacement maps can be used if you want a rougher effect, but remove them for a smoother, bolder result.

Typically you want a single distant light, or a single spotlight for interior scenes. If multiple lights are used, you will likely want them in generally opposite directions. Set color divisions to two, and blending to zero (except for transparency maps, as usual). When you render, you are going to get white and grey. Now, you can leave it as is and you still get a bold black and white look, but for the high contrast bring it into an image editor. With a levels adjustment with controls like Photoshop, bring the black and white sliders in, and then move the center one all the way to one side or the other. This will give you solid black and solid white. Make adjustments to prevent pixilation, you may have tiny amounts of grey in between zones with this, but it often is not enough to notice. Some additional things to try with this are to set the outline threshold to zero, so the entire scene is broken up into black and white shapes, with light and dark areas blending together and no outlines to break up white space. Also you can experiment with creating a mask of a certain area, then creating a solid color for that shape and overlaying it on the black and white layer, or putting it beneath the black and white layer and setting the black and white to multiply. This can give a cool effect where only one object in the scene has color, or only one color is showing, to give it particular emphasis or allow it to be more recognizable in other scenes when doing sequential art. And yes, the single color technique makes and appearance in a few “Sin City” comics.

And there you have it, a brief introduction to using the DAZ Toon shaders in Studio. Now that you have the basics and examples of how to work with them, the next thing to do is practice using them so you get used to the surface settings and lighting that work best for you, and to experiment to find new styles and effects that you will be able to use later.

DAZ Studio Tutorials

2011-11-01T17:42:19+00:00

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