March 2024 - DAZ 3D New User Challenge - Posing and Puppeteer/PowerPose
Elliandra
Posts: 476
New User's Challenge - March 2024
Sponsored by Daz 3D
Are you new to the 3D World? Are you at the beginning stages of learning 3D rendering? Have you been around for a little bit but feel you could benefit from some feedback or instruction? Have you been around awhile and would like to help other members start their creative journey? Well then come and join the fun as we host our newest render challenge!
Back by popular demand (or well because we think it went well LOL), we are breaking down each month into 2 different challenges:
A Beginner Challenge and then also an Intermediate Challenge.
So which "Challenge" should you choose?
Follow the Beginner Challenge if you are:
- New to the New User Challenges
- New to Daz Studio
- Newer to 3D Rendering in General
- Or if you have not participated in the Previous Month's Composition Challenge
Follow the Intermediate Challenge if you have:
- Participated in the New User Challenge for awhile
- Know the basics of Daz Studio and would like to learn more in depth topics
- Been using 3D Rendering Applications for awhile and feel comfortable with learning Intermediate Topics
- Or if you have all ready been spotlighted in the Previous Month's Composition Challenge
*Please be sure to list in your post which Challenge you are participating in!!*
Check out Daz3D's Free Masterclasses on Daz Studio from Jay Versluis! It's a great series for everyone from the Newest User to the OG's of Studio!!
Closing date for Posing and Puppeteer/PowerPose challenges are both Midnight Daz Time on March 31st 2024!
For a list of the current challenge rules, please see this thread: Challenge Rules
They apply for both versions of the challenge!
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Beginner Challenge - March 2023 Posing Basics
Posing Basics:
This challenge is a general render challenge with the focus being on how you pose the characters in your image. We're providing you with lots of great links on Posing from a variety of sources. To get started, find a photograph or drawing using this link or for dance poses this link to use as a reference. (Be sure the image you use is labeled for commercial reuse - though we will only be using it as reference, alternatively use your own personal photographs for reference.) Additional searches approved for use include Running and Fighting. (These links go to DuckDuckGo, which may give different results for different searchers, and should give everyone plenty to choose from.)
Then try to pose your character as closely as possible to match the reference image. For this challenge, please post your reference image or a link to it, and your render. This will give forum viewers an idea of the pose you are trying to achieve and will lead to more helpful suggestions. Have fun!
How to Use Your Software:
Software is often updated, and online tutorials and information often demonstrate older versions of the software. The software version you are using may differ in User Interface and tools available. Please share links to reference material that you have found helpful in the Challenge thread.
in Daz Studio:
Introduction to Posing Tools in Daz Studio with Jay Versluis
Daz Documentation Center [Wiki]
Daz 101: Posing
Pinning, Posing and the Active Pose Tool
Applying Partial Poses
Daz 3D Posing, Pinning Poses, & Morphs
Some good tips in this forum thread.
in Poser:
Poser Tutorial: Quick Posing
in Carrara:
Huge list of helpful forum links (scroll to Animation and Posing section) If you have a problem, your answer might be here!
Carrara 3D Tutorial - Posing a Figure
Posing in Carrara
in Bryce:
While it is not possible to pose things in Bryce, you are welcome to do your posing in another program such as Daz Studio or Poser, then export and render in Bryce.
For information on how to use the Bryce bridge to import a DS scene into Bryce
Always worth a look: last years Posing challenge:
Posing 2023 (https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/622551/march-2023-daz-3d-new-user-challenge-posing-and-posing-ii/p1)
Posing 2022 (https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/554081/march-2022-daz-3d-new-user-challenge-posing-and-posing-ii/p1)
Posing 2021 (https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/476666/march-2021-daz-3d-new-user-challenge-posing-and-posing-ii/p1)
Posing 2020 (https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/388851/march-2020-daz-3d-new-user-challenge-posing-and-posing-ii/p1)
Posing 2019 (https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/312316/march-2019-daz-3d-new-user-challenge-posing/p1)
Posing 2018 (https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/235981/march-2018-daz-3d-new-user-challenge-posing/p1)
Posing 2017 (https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/150246/march-2017-daz-3d-new-user-challenge-posing/p1)
I will be checking in, as will the rest of the Community Volunteers, to try and help with anything you all may need.
Beginner Challenge - March 2023 Posing Basics
Posing Basics:
This challenge is a general render challenge with the focus being on how you pose the characters in your image. We're providing you with lots of great links on Posing from a variety of sources. To get started, find a photograph or drawing using this link or for dance poses this link to use as a reference. (Be sure the image you use is labeled for commercial reuse - though we will only be using it as reference, alternatively use your own personal photographs for reference.) Additional searches approved for use include Running and Fighting. (These links go to DuckDuckGo, which may give different results for different searchers, and should give everyone plenty to choose from.)
Then try to pose your character as closely as possible to match the reference image. For this challenge, please post your reference image or a link to it, and your render. This will give forum viewers an idea of the pose you are trying to achieve and will lead to more helpful suggestions. Have fun!
How to Use Your Software:
Software is often updated, and online tutorials and information often demonstrate older versions of the software. The software version you are using may differ in User Interface and tools available. Please share links to reference material that you have found helpful in the Challenge thread.
in Daz Studio:
Introduction to Posing Tools in Daz Studio with Jay Versluis
Daz Documentation Center [Wiki]
Daz 101: Posing
Pinning, Posing and the Active Pose Tool
Applying Partial Poses
Daz 3D Posing, Pinning Poses, & Morphs
Some good tips in this forum thread.
in Poser:
Poser Tutorial: Quick Posing
in Carrara:
Huge list of helpful forum links (scroll to Animation and Posing section) If you have a problem, your answer might be here!
Carrara 3D Tutorial - Posing a Figure
Posing in Carrara
in Bryce:
While it is not possible to pose things in Bryce, you are welcome to do your posing in another program such as Daz Studio or Poser, then export and render in Bryce.
For information on how to use the Bryce bridge to import a DS scene into Bryce
Always worth a look: Previous Posing challenges:
Posing 2023
Posing 2022
Posing 2021
Posing 2020
Posing 2019
Posing 2018
Posing 2017
I will be checking in, as will the rest of the Community Volunteers, to try and help with anything you all may need.
Intermediate Challenge - March 2023 using Advanced Posing Tools:
This includes PowerPose, Active Pose and Puppeteer, you can choose one or try yourself in all three. These tools give you a greater range to create your own new poses either from existing ones or from scratch. For example using Puppeteer you can create new poses from existing ones on a fluent scale. It can be applied for animation as well, but for this challenge we will keep the focus on the still image.
You are welcome to use one of the references for a pose from the links in the beginner challenge, but it's not a requirement.
Information, Explanations and Tutorials:
PowerPose
Introduction to Posing Tools in Daz Studio with Jay Versluis
Daz Animarion Power Pose
Making Expressions with PowerPose
Daz 3D Posing, Pinning Poses, & Morphs
Active Pose Tool
Pinning, Posing and the Active Pose Tool
Puppeteer:
Puppeteer Tutorials Forum Thread
Daz 1.6: Animation Puppeteer Tool
Here's my start for this month.
I'm going about trying to use powerpose to make a G9 character look like they're driving the truck that I placed them in. I haven't used G9 before, and I don't have much experiance using powerpose as well so we'll see how it goes.
@Shinji Ikari 9th - Oo very cool!
Got version B here.
I added HDR lighting, and did some tweeking of his left arm/hand to get his hand on the wheel better. I also moved him back in the seat a little to help with the placing of his hand,
Still need to work on his right hand to have it on the stickshift better, but that's for later.
Example Only, Not Entry.
Power pose.
Challenge: Intermediate
Title: Overcompensator [Fan Art/Parody]
Software: Daz Studio Public Beta 4.22.1.88 & Caesium Image Compressor
...jpg... :)
Ever wonder what 25,000 iterations look like? By then it was only around 33% converged, lol. Why run the heater when you can keep your home toasty with GPUs.....haha.
I call him Proud Puddingwife and his sword Overcompensator.
This is my start, I'm thinking about doing some scene modifications related to lighting, and possibly adding a second character.
Pose is 100% mine start to finish
EDIT: Oh I'm not real fond of that lightning effect either, I didn't even notice it was there in the environment until I was like 30 minutes into the render, so I'll likely be removing that as well.
Challenge: Intermediate
Title: Overcompensator [Fan Art/Parody]
Software: Daz Studio Public Beta 4.22.1.88 & Caesium Image Compressor
...jpg... :)
Realized I forgot to talk about what I used to pose.. for this pose which wasn't very excessive I just used the little ball in the upper left corner of the viewport. Not exactly sure what it's called. I tend to use that for most of my posing these days, but I originally started with power pose since that was what was recommended to me. Posing was the first "skill" I feel like I learned in Daz Studio, and did it intentionally, to try to save money so I wouldn't have to buy (too many), pose packs lol. Inititally I did also buy a pose creator to help me sort of get my actor as close to the final position as I could. I feel like I'm fairly good at it at this point. :) I'll search for images of people doing this or that on Google or some other search engine and try to mimic them in my renders, oooor I'll go browse the Daz shop and eyeball a few there for a bit. In the beginning I was just trying to copy the exact pose but now I just do my own thing pretty much.
I think this one (pose), took me around five minutes to make. Maybe a little less. But when I do them that quickly I tend to miss little details. For example if you compare the render above to the render here you'll see I missed the thumb on the sword's hilt. :) Always room for improvement, even if I feel like I'm good at something.
Final version here, constructive criticism and suggestions always welcome. :)
Used two self made ghost lights, one is behind the actor and another is a massive sphere that is juuuuust slightly bigger then the sphere in the back of the room and overlays it. Added some volumetric fog, and learned how to make an opacity map so I could add the little text in the back.
This environment was a bit of a pain to work in, very small and cramped. Also the entire thing was one solid object so I couldn't cannibalize it like I do other environments to remove things or move things around. Most of the objects were connected to other objects in surfaces so I couldn't even hide them.. anyway, I made it work. :)
@Shinji Ikari 9th - I like the adjusted posing! I would suggest adjusting the hand on the steering wheel a little more if you can so his hand isn't bent at such a sharp angle. I also really dig the fact that the truck isn't a "new shiny"!
@suffo85 - Great Image! We are fans of the Final Fantasy series (gotta have 'em all!!!) here and the pose just screams Cloud lmao Great Job and setting the scene inside a PC Tower is really cool I haven't seen that before!
My only suggestion would be on the lighting:
1. Small spotlight as a rim light to bump up the red on your character edges so he interacts more with the red lighting
2. Warm up the lighting behind him some instead of the blue-ish tint he's getting right now. It will make the scene a little more cohesive
Same for me, but I will certainly try out those suggestions. :) It'll likely be a busy weekend for me.
It's funny you noticed the tint of the light in the rear, I had to make it that tint because white light was making the sword glow for whatever weird reason. I messed with all sorts of settings in surfaces to try to rid the sword of the glow but nothing seemed to work. As I was just about to give up I tried a different tint to the light and the glow vanished. The only part of the sword that glows is the blade's edge, but it's a really obnoxious bright glow that removes all the detail of the other maps on the blade like the bump map and such, and it takes barely any light at all to cause it to glow like that when shined directly on it.
It's even visible in the first render, though not quite as bad since the lights are shining from the bottom, but the blade's edge has no detail there. I'll see what I can do with it, but I really did try everything in the surfaces tab to be rid of it. Perhaps there is a proper combination of things though, idk, I'll try to do some searching.. :)
edit -> Glow isn't the right word.. I'm not entirely certain how to describe what it's doing lol. It's not glowing, it's not shining, it's not glossy, it just ends up being solid white (or close to that). Like I'm putting too much light on it or something but there was very very very little, especially when I noticed the issue, I dialed back my light even more but since the light was angled downward at him from above/behind it was still shining directly on the blade. I did try to move the light source around a bit too, but still couldn't find a good result without the loss of detail.
@Suffo85 - Which pack is the sword from I can take a look at the mats for it and see if I can figure out what's causing the reflections on the sword edge.
You know I'm not entirely sure lol. When I saw this question I went and tried to find it again and couldn't. There's two on renderhub but neither are the one I have. I want to say I got it sometime around Christmas as a freebie on patreon or deviantart but that could be incorrect too. I did get several things from both places related to final fantasy I just don't remember where I got what from and who. I've gotten so much stuff in the past few months it's kinda hard to keep track of it all. Although there is a silver lining to that, randomly finding cool things you forgot you had in the first place. :)
I still have to go through all the .obj's and .blend's I have, import them and rig them, which is something I want to tackle soon (rigging), then I'll have a really nice sized collection of fan characters to mess about with in renders.
Speaking of that sword, funnily enough, when I loaded back into Studio when I got home last night I could not reproduce the issue (I did reproduce it, my primitive plane iray matte ghost lights caused it. It occurs when you're "driving(?)" a camera around as your view, and look at something with the invisible ghost light right in front of you so you're looking through the transparent plane of the ghost light. Does not affect all objects, only some). White light lands on it fine now, after moving my light source away from right in front of my face so to speak. My Studio acts weird all the time, and I really need to reinstall it and take some of the advice I've read around the forums about splitting my libraries up and quarantining things that I haven't tested yet. I probably have several hundred packages I haven't even looked at yet (or more). I've been trying to put off the whole wipe everything routine until I sort through everything, but I keep piling more stuff on heh. I'll run out of disk space eventually and be forced to though lol.
And speaking of the sword since I ended up getting home earlier than expected, I had time to work on the scene a little bit. I used my ghost lights to get the rim first until I remembered you specifically said spotlight, although I tried using a spotlight to do it and had some varying and mixed results. One thing the results with the spotlight had in common though, the rim always came out looking like it had been painted onto the model's clothing instead of having a light look to it. I tried fiddling with the spotlight settings, using red as a color, and also as a temperature instead of a color, but in both cases it still looked the same. I'll put two images below, the first one on top should be my ghost light, and the one underneath is the spotlight.
I also ended up having to do postwork in Gimp 2.10.36. Not really because I wanted to...lol, but to get rid of an unwanted effect of adding an additional red light into the mix of all that red fog on the floor. Hopefully my Gimpwork isn't too noticable haha.
Ghost Light
Spotlight
@Suffo85 - yea the Ghost light does look much better! I'm used to doing portrait shots usually and go for the larger rim lighting but with lower light color/intensity
Hi everyone,
I'm working on a piece for the beginners challenge. Since I started using Daz last Summer, I've always struggled with posing the most. I'm trying to mimic this pose to the best of my capabilities, but I have no idea how to get the pose of the hips area done right. I've tried rotating her pelvis side to side and then rotating the hip on the Z axis, but I still can't get anything close to the original pose. Any pointers about that? I know that there are other areas of the pose that need to be done as well. But right now it's her pelvis and hips area that I'm trying to get closer to the original.
To pose her I'm using the dials under the Parameters tab, starting from the hip.
I tried to go for a larger rim light, if maybe I'd done something other than the fog, or maybe if I moved the model to another spot.. the problem I ran into with that was the additional light hitting the floor made the fog reflect light everywhere. At least I think that's what it was doing. The hues in the scene changed really noticably, so I had to pull the light way back and try to narrow the beam down on him. This was a good learning experience though. :)
Curiously, I was wondering if you or someone else here might know a way to "lock" different sections of a model's body in place when posing, or really anytime? Since this month is about posing it seems an appropriate place to ask. Sometimes when I'm in a hurry I might click a part of the body instead of selecting a bone in the scene tab, and sometimes that causes DS to spaz a little bit and it'll freeze for 5-10 secs and my actor zooms off screen somewhere, or twists in some violent way lol. With limits on it still looks like it had to hurt lol. I've just been doing Undo whenever it happens but it'd be nice if I could just lock parts of the body I'm finished with posing already, if that's even possible?
I saw a Lock option under Edit -> Figure -> Lock, only I don't think I'm using it right, or maybe it's not doing what I think it does?
@jumbotron.nkna - For the hips/torso you'll need to over rotate the hip bone on the X-Rot to her left then using the lower chest/spine 3 to the left as well leaving the lower spine 1 & 2/abdomen Lower & Upper bones with a slight rotation to the right to exxagerate the hip pop. Direction are from the rear of the figure!
@Suffo85 - You know as long as I've been making poses and using Studio I have no idea lmao I tend to use the undo function as well as I have it mapped to a single key on my gamepad!
I love your images; suffo85, they are lovely.
It looks like an excellent Manga, almost like Dragon Ball Z or a knock-off thereof.
What type of fog is DAZ ground-level or an add-on? I'm pretty sure you can turn the reflective settings.
Entry for intermediate challenge
This is my first version of my image - I have attached the photo that inspired this, but I thought it would be better if the dancers were looking at each other.
I know the lighting isn't ideal but I would like feedback on the pose mainly.
Thanks! Your stuff looks great too, I've been browsing around the Daz+ forums and peeking in on those contests, you guys all do some really awesome work in there. I'm a little nervous to try to compare my messing around in DS with you guys lol. I'm getting to a point where I'm starting to shed more of my self-consciousness about my rendering, these new user contests have helped immensely. :)
It's "henyey-greenstein." I was reading a blog post about it and figured I'd give it a try... so I watched one of WP Guru's videos on it where he's doing the creepy abandoned mansion in the swamp. Then put my own little red twist on it.. :) Will post a ss of my settings for it. I completely did not even think to check reflection.
I did notice there was an HDRI map set, the default Daz Ruins one, and I don't remember doing that either--but that could have happened if I deleted the scene I was working on before I started this one, instead of going to create "New" - I sometimes have a bad habit of doing that and carrying my render settings over into a new scene. I'm not sure if that would have a negative effect on the fog or not...
I started removing all the things from the environment settings that shouldn't be there for an indoor scene, by the time I was done, the reflection slider was gone.. so I'm going to say I have to keep ground drawing on if I want to mess with it. But since it's already black it shouldn't reflect anything...should it? lol.
I adore this. I think you did really good with the posing, especially the attention you spent with the hands and fingers. Those are the most tedious to work with and yet very important at the same time. I would only suggest fiddling with the hand around the woman's waist just a little bit more, the others to me look perfect. :)
You can try to disable limits and see if you can get a realistic or natural look out of them looking more towards one another. Select one of the figures and go to Edit -> Figure -> Limits and turn Off or On there. With limits off DS will kinda let you do whatever, so you just kinda have to eyeball it to be sure it looks realistic and if not then Undo.
Have you tried the matte setting for the fog? Reflections are due to the material used on the floor. You could go into the surface settings and check the floor settings to reduce reflection and metallic, which will also reflect into the fog.
No I hadn't tried anything for it, I hadn't the slighest clue what might be causing it until you mentioned reflections. So thank you for letting me know, I'll make sure to have a go at it later today to see what I can come up with. :)
Sadly I lost a bet for now though, and this is my second submission for the month. I have consent from the person I used Face Transfer 2 on to use this, both of us agree, it doesn't look like him, so he doesn't care about what I do with it. I owe him a case of brew for losing the bet. Anyway, this is more or less a joke, but very much a real submission since I ended up doing the posing by hand.
I used my laptop and kept a pose loaded that I had, one of the ballet poses for Clare G8.1F, and then posed it on G9M Face Transfer 2 character on my desktop. There's a zipfile in my Google Drive that has around 12 files in it, four renders, and eight screenshots (4 of Claire G8.1F, 4 of G9M), if anyone wants to see the exact pose and how closely mirrored it was or wasn't.
Google Drive Download
Checksum SHA256: 2c8aaf35b50556a8bc89d5d13cf79080ee56056c03f5cb8ee06df11013036cef
Postwork was done to hide a mesh warping issue since G9M was in G3F clothing that I'm fairly certain wasn't meant for someone of his size...lol. G9M's bounding box got all twisted up doing this, so I kept hitting limiters, but managed to do it up without disabling them. You can see how crooked the bounding box is in the screenshots lol, especially compared to G8.1F - also trying to pose the fingers and hands on G9M when your target is a G8.1F with very very slender hands was much harder than I expected. This was the first time I had tried to mirror a female pose to a male by hand, and it took way longer than the five minutes I spent on the first submission. Maybe somewhere between a half an hour to an hour, on just the hands... moving cameras around for better angles, adjusting, moving, adjusting, lol.
EDIT -> The bounding box got messed up because I was sending my friend renders of "his character" wearing and doing really absurd things on the Z Belina Bike.- so I had manually posed him several times already to use that and do some various other things before I started doing the dance studio scene. Never did create a new scene, lol, my usual bad habits still applying.
Challenge: Intermediate
Title: I Feel Pretty
Software: Daz Studio Beta Public 4.22.1.99, Gimp 2.10.36, Caesium Image Compressor
...jpg...
(There is also a no bloom version. This shot needs a little context to understand, it was taken using depth of field on a mirror)
He thought he was alone. But he never was. *queue omnious music, the Among Us theme* Indeed. The Daz House Cat sees all.
He felt left out last month. *shrugs*
Anyway, here was the original pose.
Hope this all amuses someone out there, have a great day. :)
Intermeadiate.
First time I have done a complete pose, it's nothing dramatic boy I am happy with it.
Title: Need a Ride
@Sueya - Hiya hun! Great start to the posing! Not sure if those are G8 or G9 figures but here are some notes on possible edits:
Male Figure:
Female Figure:
@suffo85 - OMG I love the "I Feel Pretty" roflmao it's great!
@berriboy - Hiya and great render! The pose looks great the only thing I would suggest would be to raise the Left Shoulder and lower the left upper arm just a little to smooth out the angle on the left arm that's waving!
@Elliandra - soo, I think I found the Cloud character I have, or at least a version of it.. but.. pretty sure it'd get me in trouble if I posted a link to it with the content moderators since it's located on a NSFW page... it claims it requires a character I don't have which is why I say a version of it, I still must've gotten the one I have somewhere else, because mine has different textures. But it's definitely the same model and sword. I figured I'd run across it again sooner or later. And still free for download.. just ya know, leery to post the link, lol.
edit -> when i started to put a lil more effort into it i began finding it all over the place. its on deviantart too but for cash. I'm not really sure who actually made it, since it seems to be the same one in multiple places, and nobody is really saying they "made" it lol. and to clarify the page containing the character is on patreon, which by itself isnt nsfw, but the person offering the download is a nsfw artist and, yeah. i dont want that one guy with the mage avatar and cane to come and smack me with it if i linked to it
Hi,
I don't know if this is what you were asking for, but you can lock specific nodes by selecting them in the scene tab and then right-clicking on the Parameters tab and selecting: Lock>Lock Selected Node(s).
Hi Elliandra,
Thanks. I'm afraid I haven't been able to put your indications to work in my scene. It is quite likely that I've even misunderstood part or all of what you were telling me to do. English is not my native language and sometimes that makes following instructions a bit of a challenge for me. Sorry about that. I tried, more than once, but in the end I wasn't able to give her the desired pose on the hips and pelvis just by using the dials for the bones in the Parameters tab. In fact, I had to use Pose Architect for Genesis 8 Female(s), specifically the 3DU Hip Left-Right dial, to get the pose looking somewhat good, which it's not what I would have wanted to do and, probably, not what it's encouraged to do with this challenge, right? Anyway, this is what I've come up with. Her hand pointing does not look much like the original either, I think. Please, tell me anything that I should redo and I'll do my best to fix it. Thanks again. :)
Entry for the beginners challenge.
Name: Pointing.
Done in Daz Studio Pro v4.22.0.16. Minor post-work with the Camera Raw Filter in Photoshop, where I also reduced the image size.
omg I have to go try this out right away haha, thank you! oh and love the pose too by the way I meant to say something earlier but kept forgetting, i get distracted by shiny things
edit.. sadly no go. :( I tried...doesn't work. I think that's the same option in the Edit -> Figure -> Lock as well, just another way to get to it. but thanks for suggesting anyway, appreciated :)
@suffo85
Thank you! I also like what you did a lot, and other works in the thread as well. As I said, posing is quite challenging for me, so it's inspiring to see what you and the other participants can do. :)