I’ve been experimenting in DAZ Studio lately (as is my want) at creating a style of image which hearkens back to the cheesy D&D images of the ’90s. This was a time when every fantasy artist wanted to be Boris Vallejo, and few succeeded.

Normally when you mention Boris Vallejo thoughts immediately turn to naked (or half-naked) women in a temple. Something like this, in fact (one of mine, NSFW).

But not this time. This time I’m interested instead in the style of his Safe For Work imitators where images are brash, high-contrast in-your-face Fantasy scenes with the Hero (or villain) is Posed Dramatically in the centre. The kind of image that would grace the cover of Dragon magazine, or a dime-store fantasy novel. This kind of image, for example:

Today I’m going to show you how to make your very own Cheesy Fantasy Art. The image above, in fact.

You will need:

• A copy of DAZ Studio Pro
• The Chrome web browser
• Pixlr Express for Chrome
• Photoshop, or another graphics application which can use Photoshop Filters
• Flaming Pear’s Flood demo plug-in

DAZ Studio Pro is currently available for free and the nice people at DAZ 3D keep extending the deadline. I suggest you grab it now rather that wait and kick yourself in the future when it’s no longer free. Go on. I’ll wait.

Chrome & the Pixlr Express Extension is a great way to add light, contract and vignetting effects to an image. It’s like Instagram for your PC, but with more customization capabilities. Pixlr Express is a great tool to quickly add toning and vignettes to an image. That’s what we’re going to be using it for here.

Flood, as the name implies, adds a water plane to your scene. It’s a great way to add reflections to your renders without suffering the huge increase in render-time that usually goes with them. I like. If you don’t have access to Photoshop, you can skip this part of the tutorial.

On with the show.

Hopefully yours will look somewhat different (better, I hope) to my render above, and along the way you should pick up some ideas and a desire to create renders of your very own. That’s the plan, anyhow.

In the first part of this tutorial we’ll be setting up the initial image in DAZ Studio and finishing when we hit render. In Part Two we are going to take a close look at Postwork, that all-too-often forgotten element in creating 3D renders.

Fire up DAZ Studio Pro and you should see something like this:

Except yours probably won’t look like that, not right away. One of DAZ Studio’s (many) strengths is that the layout and appearance is highly customizable. The default layout is optimized to be newbie-friendly, whereas I favour a layout which gives me more screen space for the 3D view. If you want to try out the different styles and layouts, you can find them in Window->Workspace (which controls the views and placement of the tabs) and Window->Style (sets the overall fonts, colours, etc). I have mine set to a variation on the City Limits workspace, with the Darkside style. How you set your own screen up is, of course, entirely up to you.

I will be using the Content Library rather than Smart Content throughout as I’m more used to the Content Library way of working. If you can’t see the Content Library tab, go to Window->Tabs and activate it. Drag it someplace conventient (it will auto-stick to the sides) and you’re all set.

The Genesis Base figure loads up by default as an androgynous figure so let’s put some meat on his bones. If you can’t see him in your Scene, go to My Library->People->Genesis in the Content Library and double-click him to load him up.

Click on Genesis to make sure he’s selected then go into the Parameters tab (again, if it’s not visible, activate it in Window-Tabs) then open up the Actor list.

Here are the settings I used for my hunk of a barbarian. Feel free to experiment and build your own.

• Male->Basic Male 1.0
• Universal->Body Volume 0.8
• Universal->Bodybuilder 1.0
• Universal->Thin 1.0
• Upper Body->Torso->Chest Scale 20%
• Upper Body->Torso->Ribcage Volume 0.6
• Upper Body->Torso->Navel 1.0
• Head->Face->Mouth Width -0.4
• Head->Face->Nose Width 0.3
• Head->Face->Jaw Size 0.2

Much more Barbarianic. If Barbarianic was a word.

Next head into the Content Library and go to People->Genesis->Clothing->Journeyer Scout. With Genesis still selected, double-click the Pants, Boots and Wristguards. They should conform to the figure automatically. Clever, eh?

Now go into the Materials tab in Journeyer Scout, select the Pants (either in the 3D view, or in the Scene tab) and double-click 05_Pants (or any other material, if your prefer). Next select the Wristguards and set them to 05_Wrist, then choose a Boots texture. You should end up with an image something like this:

Now to give our Barbarian some skin texture. Click on Genesis to make sure he’s selected and go to People->Genesis->Materials and double-click Sample Jeremy – No Gen. Marvel at his lack of nipples. If that bothers you, use a different texture or cover him up :)

Now for Hair. Go to People->Genesis->Hair->Duke Hair and double-click it. Choose a Material to set the colour how you want.

Go into People->Genesis->Poses and choose a suitable pose (the one I used is in Basic Male) and move the camera until you find a pleasing position using the camera controls to the top-right of the 3D View.  While you’re there, click the topmost button (the one which looks like a mini-menu) to open up a mini-menu and change the background colour to black. You’ll see why in a mo’.

Double-click Genesis’ Head and to into the Parameter tab to set an expression. I used Angry 1.0 and Mouth Open Wide 0.7.

Now is a good time to do a quick test render. In the top menu, go to Render->Render Settings and set the render size to Square, 800×800 pixels. Press CTRL-R, and bask in your own awesomeness.

The default lighting in DAZ Studio is designed for preview use only, so let’s make it better. In the top menu, go to Create->New Distant Light and in the Parameters tab set the Light Intensity to 25%. This is going to be our overall fill light which puts a small amount of light into the shadows to give them detail. Without it, out shadows would be completely black.

Now add a Spolight by going to Create->New Spotlight. With that selected (use the Scene tab to select it, if necessary) use the Parameters tad to set the following:

• General->X Translate: -100
• General-> Y Translate: 250
• General-> X Rotate: -90
• General->Z Rotate: 45
• Shadow->Shadow Type: Deep Shadow Mat
• Shadow->Shadow Softness: 50%
• Light->Intensity: 75%
• Light->Spread Angle: 90

This should set the light to cast on the figure from above with pleasing (but not too deep) shadows.

Now hit render, and you should be an improvement in the overall appearance of the scene, all with just two lights.

Go into the Render Settings, raise the Render size to 1280×1280, and Render one last time. Save the image in .png format. This will export it with a transparent background. We set the background to black earlier to ensure there will be no “glowing” pixels around the edge. This is a Golden Rule – if you are going to add a background in another application (as we will do here), always render it with a black background in DAZ Studio and save it as a .png file. It saves no end of headaches later.

Black background becomes transparent, but with nice crisp edges. See?

And we’re done in DAZ Studio. Next time, we will use Photoshop to add a background and some water, then load the image into Pixlr Express for some final postwork and tune-up.

Till then!

One of the (few) areas where Poser beats DAZ Studio hands down is its default light set.  It is trivially easy in Poser to load a figure, add clothes and props, set a pose then hit Render and end up with something you’re likely to be happy with. With DAZ Studio each step is the same, but you will always need to add and adjust the lighting as a final stage. The default light set just doesn’t cut it, at all.

DAZ Studio default light setup. Not that great.

In a way, that’s a good thing as it means you have to stop and consider the lighting. But sometimes you just want to click Render and see something good appear before your eyes. It might be a finished image, but it’s more likely nothing more than a preview render so you can see how things are shaping up.

A default light set need to be two things: fast, and good enough. It needs to be fast because it is most likely going to be used for review purposes and all you want is a rapid render while you’re working, yet at the same time it needs to be good enough for those times when simply being good enough will do. Sometimes I just want a render of a new set of clothes, poses or a scene for reference purposes, and good enough is just that – good enough.

Ideally, a default light set should also be simple so that it can easily be fine tuned with minimal effort. The default Poser light set is made up of just three lights, and I’d say that’s the limit. The default “there are no lights” light set in DAZ Studio is just a single shadowless Distant Light, and that’s not enough.

I’ve been on a bit of a quest these past few weeks to create a light set for DAZ Studio that fits the bill; one that is fast to render, delivers good enough results yet is simple enough to adjust on the fly.

And by jove, I think I’ve got it.

Much better. Not perfect, but good enough.

Welcome to my new default.daz scene. I set up just the lights and backdrop, saved it then set it as the Default scene in the DAZ Studio Preferences (F2->select Scene tab). Whenever I hit CTRL-N, it loads up and I’m ready to play.

There are just four elements:

1. the default Camera (of course)
2. a Cyclorama backdrop that is pure white (easily replaced, and a good shadow catcher)
3. a Distant Light at 30% intensity that casts no shadows
4. a Spotlight from the top right (position 60,200,100, Xrot –20, Yrot 30) set to 70% intensity, Raytraced Shadows with 60% Shadow Softness

The Spotlight is the main thing, of course. This provides the shadows and therefore the depth to the images while the Distant Light is in place just to prevent the areas not covered by the Spotlight from blacking out. Between them they simulate a very simple photo studio setup that’s ideal for full length portraits – in other words, just what we need. The Spotlight is positioned to aim for a figure’s lower face but can easily by adjusted by looking through the Spotlight then using the Camera tools to position it accurately. Switch back to the Default Camera to position that, and you’re done.

Here’s a handful of images I created using just this default light setup. None of them will ever win awards – they’re just simple renders to see how different materials and textures work in this default scene.

Like I said. good enough.

‘Till next time!

Here’s a quick show’n'tell for DAZ Studio 3.

But first, the setup. I’m using Vicky 4.2 with the Morphs++ pack, the 3Dream’s free Boy Hair, RecieCup’s free Doll character & textures and the Sports Bra and Shorts (included with DAZ Studio 3), so y’all should be able to follow along just fine. If you don’t have the Morphs++ pack you won’t be able to use Doll’s morphs, but otherwise you’re good to go.

Load in Vicky 4.2 with the morphs, add the clothes & hair and apply the Doll texture & morphs. You should have something which looks like this:

In Render->Settings, the dimensions are set to Custom, 640×800. Time to pose Vicky and adjust the camera position. For this setup I used one of the poses included with the (free!) Girl 4 Base. Select the Default Camera in the Scene tab, set the focal length to 180mm and position to suit. I set the SportBra’s ClothThickness (in the Parameters tab) to 1, and adjusted the Cloth and Trim materials in the Surfaces tab to Black with a light grey Specular shade.

Now for the UberEnvironment2 magic. In the Content tab, go to DAZ Built-in Content->Lights->UberEnvironment2 and double-click !UberEnvironment2 Base. Go into the Scene tab and select it, then hop right back over to the Content tab again. Click on Set HDR KHPark then Set Quality 3Hi. In the Parameters tab, change Occlusion Samples from 64 to 128. This will slightly increase the rendertime, but increate the quality dramatically.

See how a backdrop appeared when you set the UberEnvironment to Park? By default it’s set to be invisible when you render, but if you like it (or are feeling lazy and don’t want to add a background scene of your own), you can make it visible by clicking on the little + next to the UberEnvironment in the Scene tab, selecting EnvironmentSphere then settting Visible in Render to On in the Parameters tab.

Hit CRTL-R, and………..

Even though a scene like this is quick to set up (honestly, it took me much longer to explain than it did to build), consider setting up couple of default scenes – one for Victoria, and one for Michael – with your most commonly used morphs (Morphs++, Aiko, FREAK or whatever) in place, UberEnvironment all set up and the camera in position. This will shave a lot of time off your workflow and help deliver consistently great results. But don’t tell anyone I said that, ok?

In summary

• Set the camera’s Focal Length to 180-200mm for 3/4 shots, 300mm for head shots
• UberEnvironment Quality Hi and Occlusion Samples upped to 128 is a great compromise between quality and render speed
• Hair kills render speed when using UberEnvironment. If necessary, turn the Shadows off for the hair, or consider investing in the Uber Hair shaders. These let you turn off Ambient Occusion for just the hair – a great time saver!
• If you want an outdoor look to your lighting, use the HDR Park setting
• Once you’re used to this setting, look at ways to break it. Add other lights, drop in a full backdrop and use Depth of Field, experiment with camera angles. It is your render, after all, and there’s no such thing as wrong

Till next time!

Depth of Field, how I love thee. For those that don’t know, this is the photographic term meaning the parts of an image that are sharp and in focus; anything else is blurred out to some degree. But that doesn’t make it sound exciting at all, does it? So, let’s start again.

Depth of Field is that magical zing that takes a flat image and turns it into something three dimensional. It’s the cue that tells our minds where to look and what is important in the image. Movie directors use it all the time so we can follow the action. Yes folks, Hollywood can control your eyes and thus your mind! You have been warned.

For 3d render work all too often it’s not used at all which is why so many computer-generated images look like…. well, computer-generated images. Depth of Field giveth Realism, and lack of Depth of Field taketh it away.

When it comes to DAZ Studio, using Depth of Field in your renders used to be pretty darned tricky – it involved messing about with Null objects and lots of guesswork. Then along came the frankly awesome ahRenderControl plugin which made using DoF super-simple in DAZ Studio 2.3. I covered how to use this in some detail, right here.

Now, we’re up to DAZ Studio 3 (with version 3.1 just around the corner, it seems) and Depth of Field is easier still, built right into the program. Here’s how.

Let’s start with a simple enough setup that anyone can make and follow along. Here’s a couple of Victorias with Glamour Hair and wearing Sports Top and Shorts. These are all included content with DAZ Studio, so we’re good to go. I’ve used the Super Shiny Shaders on the clothes and the Bijou texture for the skin (an excellent skin texture, morph and hair pack, btw – watch out for it on Fast Grab and if it appears, get it!), but any skin texture or morph is good for this.

Vicky One is at 0,0,0 while Vicky Two is at -60,0,-100, slightly back and to the right. I’ve set the Default Camera’s Focal Length to 105 and moved it slightly to frame the two of them neatly. Now for the clever bit.

Select the Default Camera in the Scene tab, then head into Parameters. Set both Depth of Field and Display Persistence to ON.

Now, with the Default Camera still selected, change the camera you’re looking through (drop-down in the top-left of your viewport) to Perspective View and move the camera around. Lines show the Default Camera’s field of view, and a guiding box shows the Depth of Field! Change the Focal Distance to move the DoF forward and back, and the F/Stop to widen or narrow it. You can immediately see what’s going to be sharp, and anything else is blurred to a lesser or greater degree (depending on distance from the “in-focus” part). Easy, eh?

This is a pretty extreme example, but it’s well worth using DoF for all your renders. Set the F/Stop to a suitably wide value (for the photographically minded, a value of 22 = f1/2.2, 56 = f1/5.6, 80 = f1/8 etc, by my reckoning) so that the most distant elements have a touch of bluriness, and you’ll see a huge difference in the way your renders pop.

Same setup, but with the Focal Distance changed from 360 to 480 to put the back figure in focus instead. Ok it’s not going to win any prizes, but I like it!

When it comes to your Render->Render Settings->Advanced parameters, the main thing to remember is to set Shading Rate to 0.2, and leave it there. Don’t touch that dial ever again! The default value of 1.00 is much too high, and makes the out of focus elements look oddly pixelated. Set it to 0.2 for a much smoother effect, then forget about it.

There’s on last part to recreating this images, and that’s the lighting. I used nothing more than the included UberEnvironment2, and I’ll show you how to use that lovely light setup in DAZ Studio 3 – next time.

Till then!

Just in case you didn’t get the memo, the generous people at DAZ3D have released all of their Base Figures (yes, all of them) for free. That has put the 3D rendering community into feeding frenzy mode with all and sundry stuffing their hard drives to the gills with everything from the very first Aiko to the latest and greatest FREAK 4 figure.

Then they’ve scratched their heads wondering what to do with all these terrific figures. After all, these are just the figures – there’s next to no hair, no clothes and many don’t even include a set of morphs or textures worth writing home about. So, just what can you do with a runtime folder full of just the base figures?

Use them, of course!

The Girl, bare. Cute as a button she is too.

The easiest way to use the figures straight out of the body is as figure studies. Get to know how the models pose and the strengths of each one. Every model is different. Michael 3, for example, is far more chiseled than Michael 4′s more rounded features, and the original Aiko is much more toon-like than the later Aiko 3 and Aiko 4 models. The Reduced Resolution figures are well worth the price of download (free!) as they’re ideally suited if you want to add a crowd scene or bunch o’folks in the background.

Ten Michael 3 RR figures in one scene and my little netbook didn’t even break into a sweat.

The Reduced Resolution figures also come with equally reduced resolution textures, and they work with any figure of the same Generation – so you can use the Michael 3 RR texture on FREAK or Michael 3 himself too. It’s not a great texture, but it’s good enough to get started.

Michael 4 base. A surprisingly great texture, by default.

The newer Fourth Generation figures (Michael 4, FREAK 4, Hiro 4, Victoria 4, Aiko 4, Girl 4 and She-Freak 4) are the current, and best, models out there but that quality comes at a price. These are all memory intensive figures to use. The earlier generation figures are much lighter to use, both in terms of loading and render time. For complex renders, I sometimes use Victoria 2 and Michael 2 as stand-in figures while I set up the scene, then replace them with their Fourth Generation counterparts when I’m ready to roll.

Stephanie 3, sunset and Gold Shader. Done.

The huge advantage of using an earlier figure is that there’s a wealth of free (and paid) content out there for them. I’d guess V3 has fifty times the number off outfits than V4, and Aiko 3 is easily the best supported Anime figure on the market. I’ll be looking at free resources for the older figures another time. Until then, I suggest taking a look at using Shaders to colour and texture the Base Figure directly. This is something I’ve already covered (here and here) – why not give it a try?

She-Freak 4. As deadly as she is beautiful.

Thanks to DAZ Studio’s Morph Follower, it shouldn’t be too difficult to make your existing clothing fit (provided it’s of the same Generation), and solutions exist to convert any clothing or hair to any figure. FREAK 4 sure looks funny in a dress.

But that’s not all. DAZ3D have also issued a $5 voucher for everyone. It’s valid until 1st February so be quick! The code is SPREADTHEWORD5 - just add it in the My Account page and it’s yours. You can read more about this offer over on the DAZ Forums. Until the end of the month there’s a huge dicount on 2nd, 3rd and 4th Generation clothing bundles so you could even use it to pick up a whole load of clothes for free!

A pair of Victoria 3s all set for a disco face-off thanks to the V3 SP Clothing Pack. Oh yeah.

The David Clothing Bundle, Hiro Clothing Bundle, Chic Boutique, v3 SP Clothing Pack, David Clothing Pack, V3 High Fantasy Character Clothing Bundle, M3 High Fantasy Character Clothing Bundle and 4 in1 Hair Bundle are all currently only $3.48 each – that $5 more than covers any one of them. Heck, the Modern Desert Soldier Bundle is only $5.23 so you could pick up a full set of army dress for David, Michael 3 & FREAK for just 23 cents! Bargain? Oh yes! Grab all the links to these packs and more on the Generation 3 Bundles page – but be quick!

Next time, let’s take a look at just one of the figures – Hiro 3. Till then!