MAybe its time I learn Daz Studio? maybe?
daveso
Posts: 6,501
I've tried it since the first beta or whatever years ago...didn't like it.
Poser kept me interested. I've tried pretty much every release since the beginning, but still prefer Poser.
I've tried the current version .. and still prefer Poser.
I guess it is what I'm used to ... Poser. BUT ... I've now purchased quite a few products here at DAZ that use DS. I need to take the time and get used to the DS interface.
Right now, I have difficulty even getting something to render in camera..or decent lighting. Finding the stuff in the database, etc... getting things to load. Often there is an icon, but no actual product with it... they need to be loaded or something,
Anyway .... maybe I've surrendered :)
Doubt it totally.
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Comments
Resistance is futile. You shall be assimilated.
I had a hate/hate thing for DS for years (very long-time Poser user), but when Iray came along, I wanted to use it. So, I decided it was going to learn it or else. I struggled with it a little bit every day and then something happened. I found out it wasn't bad once I got used to the interface and the way it did things. And now it's very familiar (because I use it almost exclusively now). Surprisingly to myself, I actually liked it better than Poser o.O. I really didn't expect to because the UI used to drive me so nuts when trying to learn it that I'd give up before I really understood any of it. At least until this last time ;). Now I'm actually making images, which is something I'd quit doing in Poser years ago.
Laurie
There are a few good tutorial videos here and on youtube. The "Starting" is here: http://www.daz3d.com/help/help-daz-3d-video-tutorials
thanks for the links :) i will go through them. It is time ... let the assimilation begin.
When I first started with Daz Studio two years ago (quite recently, really, compared to a lot of the old-timers on here) it seemed really limited to me. There were 'environments', but there was no real landscaping capability, everyone had almost the same colour eyebrows whatever their hair colour and it was a world where you were a lot more likely to meet an alien or werewolf than anyone under 12 or over 25. These days, creating old or young people isn't a problem thanks to Zev0's marvellous products and you can set them pretty much anywhere, day or night thanks to Terradome. I've got more eyebrows in more colours than I know what to do with now, all matched to hair thanks to UHT2. Sim Tenero's Randomiser gives me endless unique characters from my morph collection, and there's even a particle generator available now if I didn't prefer to do that kind of thing in Postwork.
Yes, all this means throwing money at Studio and it's been an expensive two years, but a lot of what I've spent has been in a continuous attempt to overcome the shortcomings that I first came up against. If all the products mentioned above had been around when I first started then the shopping list would have been a lot shorter. Studio is not without it's faults, but I don't think there's ever been a better time to start using it.
Learning Studio is never really done (unless you're the legend that is Richard Haseltine!) because there's so much to it, but I kind of like the buzz that learning something I didn't know, especially when I didn't know I didn't know it :) The forums can be an absolute goldmine, and although there's the odd bit of misinformation, there's usually someone around who knows enough to call it out. Nobody laughs if you ask a question either - it's generally answered promptly so that everyone can get back to the important business of complaining ;)
I was a long time Poser user, since Poser 5. I finally decided to open DS about 2 yr ago and couldn't have been any happier. It does take some time to get use to the UI and where everything is. It also takes time to discover the powers of DS and all the cool stuff you can do, but it is well worth it. I still have a LOT to learn but I know enough to make my content. I haven't opened Poser for more than a yr and a half now and don't plan on opening it again.
As for finding stuff, I've found it easiest to simply use the product list
Clicking on the Content library tab, then expanding Products gives the alphabet
Expand the letter that the product you want to check out lists all products beginning with that letter.
When you select a product, it then shows EVERYTHING that's included with that product (objects, shaders, lights, etc.)
I would then highly recommend investing in the Content Package Assistant sold here in the store because then you can package all your stuff from other sites to be DIM ready and they will also be added to that product list to be able to find.
There's lots to like about Daz Studio; there are a couple of things to loathe too, but as of 4.9 they can be disabled.
I hate Poser's interface, and have never been able to get used to; I have tried periodically as there are some things about it I really like, and it has taken me a while to learn about studio; longer it seems that learning how to medel and render in Blender.
But it's a tool, and a good one, I use it to create art I am happy (mostly) with. It isn't the only tool I use, but it is worth persevereing with.
Like Astracadia I've spent a bunch on Daz content the last year and a half or so. I don't feel bad about it though....the last time I made a huge investment was for Victoria 3 and Mike 3. It's been a long time since I bought so much and because I'm disabled and at home all day, it was money well spent :). The content and figures are better than ever before and getting great results is easier than ever too.
Laurie
I made a serious effort to learn to use Studio when Iray came along, too. At first there was a lot of "how do I do this" pain, but once I found the layout and settings that worked with me, it all just started to fall together. And tutorials, I watched and read a lot of tutorials. I came to realize quite quickly that Studio was the right tool for me, and I could let go of a lot of the frustrations I was having with the hobby at that time and just enjoy creating pretty pictures again.
Take the leap and don't look back.
My story is very close to yours, long time poser user from version 5 and got to a point i wasn't really happy with the renders i was getting with firefly and I HATED the node based material room in poser, so I started trying a few alternatives, mainly the free plugins for luxrender which i could never get good results with. Seemed like every year I would d/l and install DS and play around with it for a few weeks, get really frustrated and uninstall it.
Then came Reality for luxrender which made me have to learn DS to use it and eventually it just clicked. I remember when reality for poser came out and since I was still buying the latest versions of poser I went ahead and got the new reality. I found that poser was totally alien to me now, and a chore to nagivate around it which made my workflow suffer quite a bit. Pretty sure poser 11 is my last version of poser to purchase since i don't even use it anymore.
i remember seeing your posts Laurie in the poser forum back when you were still using poser more, nice to see you here now!
I started using Daz Studio about six months ago. It was a bit tricky to learn at first and I'm still learning things - but it was SO worth it! I really like Daz Studio and have created some really fun art with it!
Like anything new it will take you a while to get used to it - however, I feel it's worth it. If you don't think it's worth it then don't, but if you do, then jump in with both feet and go to it! If you take the plunge and dedicate to learning it, I think you'll be glad you did. :)
There's no reason that you can't use both. Specialization is for insects.
Yes , I can see a need for both. More in the toolbox is better, as long as you can manage it all .. and afford it.
I had fully intended to use both. It was just that after starting to use DS, well...I just didn't use Poser. LOL
I'm sure I was very entertaining. I try to make an effort to be less opinionated and less "snarky" these days :P.
I was a very long time Poser user. Started using it before Rendo was even Rendo, but still Poser Forum Online if anyone around remembers those days now ;). Poser 4. Started it so I could get posed humans and animals into my Vue 2 scenes ;). Heh.
I used Poser for years, making pictures that more or less satisfied me, skipped Poser 5 (too buggy) and then got Poser 6. Always did despise the material room, even tho eventually I understood more of it. The material sliders that DS has were exactly what I'd envisioned Poser should have. I just stopped doing images altogether around Poser 7/8 and just concentrated on making freebies to use IN it instead. Now the whole hobby is "new" to me again. I remember how much I liked putting scenes together and getting the shaders and everything just right :). I'm re-energized a bit for the hobby like I haven't been in years and years, which is nice :).
Laurie
I first started playing around with Poser with Poser 3, and that's all you could do back then, was just play around, sort of like playing with dolls. Then I grew with Poser over the years, and loved it. When DS came along, I had no interest in it, then finally tried it a few times when they introduced Genesis 1, and got so frustrated that I blew my small PA status. I had created one product for sale, then everything here became DS only and it just seemed too frustrating to learn. So, I stuck with Poser and was happy with it. Then this year, when I started seeing these amazing Iray renders and gorgeous V7, which they gave away for free along with G3 morphs during March Madness, I thought I'd try again...
I was so frustrated, like you, with the UI, not finding anything, it felt like I went through a wormhole into a parallel dimension and nothing made sense. But I now had Poser 11 which has a whole new learning curve as well with Superfly, so I figured I had to expand my brain no matter what, so I forced myself to learn DS, since thanks to March Madness and Daz's evil genius marketing, I now had all these DS products.... And I'm finding it's worth it. Genesis 1 with all the morphs for great toons and creatures, and G3 for realism... I'm still learning, still often frustrated with the UI, still really frustrated that there is no manual and I'm only using a small portion of its capabilities, but I am enjoying it now. You have to put yourself in the mindset that learning new things is fun. I'm not giving up on Poser though, I'm just bi-software now LOL. But if you want photorealism, you either have to learn Poser 11 and Superfly (which to me is as complicated as Iray and takes just as long to render) and spend a bunch of money on new Poser shaders or learn DS and have a better use of all the Genesis generations which are clunky in Poser, and either way, you're going to have to spend money and fire new synapses in your brain. So, if nothing else, you're warding off Alzheimer's LOL... I think it's definitely worth it to learn DS, but don't give up on Poser either, just more tools for your toolbox!
I was a poser user since Fractal Designs poser 2
Animation was always My area of interest
and back then I was an exculsive Apple mac user
The first few iterations of Daz Studio were just Throw away Curiosities for me and I never took DS seriously as it offered
animation features that were even more primative than posers aged system
Also I had a really powerful plugin for maxon Cinema4D that imported native poser assets from any poser formated runtime
This changed Dramaticly with the advent of go figure Aniblok system for DS as I started creating most of my Figure animation
in DS Exporting them as animated PZ2 files that could be used directly in C4D on poser figures loaded directly from my runtimes into C4D making poser less relevant.
I did eventually upgrade from my Vestigial poser 6 on my mac
to poser pro 2014 for windows on my new win7 PC.
The poser pro 2014 flash based Library was a Disaster making it almost mandatory to buy the third party library manager from D3D.
Having partially Migrated to Windows I saw no reason to not jump headlong into the much talked about Genesis figures
and the latest version of Daz studio which was 4.5 at that time.
I also invested in Iclone 5.5+ 3d exchange from Reallusion which was the nail in the coffin for my use of poser as a figure animation tool.
Poser is Dead to Me!
the only reason I keep it installed is because
the brokerage where I sell My Character motion products requires that any motion products for Genesis2 or earlier Must also have a poser version since poser technically "supports" G1-G2 via the DSON plugin
MY G3 Motion products do not require creating a Poser version
which is why my next Motion product will be G3 only
at that time poser will be gone from my pipeline entirely.