The Complete Guide to DAZ Studio 4 book
kenmo
Posts: 1,086
I recieved a $25.00 gift card for a popular national book chain in Canada.
I am considering purchasing The Complete Guide to DAZ Studio 4 by Paolo Ciccone, Of course the book sells for much more than $25 so I'll have to put some of my own money towards the purchase.
Any thoughts on this book?
I am also considering two other art books.
Framed Ink
How to Draw Noir Comics: The Art and Technique of Visual Storytelling
Any thoughts or recommendations?
Cheers & Happy New Year...
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Comments
First off, CONGRATS on your gift card! I think I have either gotten this book, or researched getting it - QUITE A WHILE AGO. I'm a huge fan of books in general, but be careful that if this book is for an older version of DAZ Studio it will be minimally useful as menus and features change and the book's examples and instructions no longer work. A LOT has changed since the first iteration of DAZ Studio 4.0. For a dynamic piece of software like DAZ Studio you may be best served getting online training that has been developed more recently. I'm not saying you won't get ANYTHING out of the book, but don't expect it to be the last resource you'll ever need, or to even mention newer features like IRAY and dForce.
Just my opinion. Use or lose as you see fit.
Well, Paolo is the guy who created the Reality plugin, so he certainly knows quite a lot about shaders and the inner workings of Daz Studio. But 2013 is terribly out of date for a Daz Studio book. That would put it right around the release date of Genesis 2 (Summer of 2013).
Don't buy Ciccone's DAZ book. I bought it when it came out and not only was it already out of date back then, but the title's misleading as it was really just a beginers manual with a massive plug for the author's own program for the LUX render engine, Reality, in the middle. If you really want to get it anyway, buy the e-book version, as the illustrations in the print version are all in black and white while the same images in the e-books are in color.
A much better and more current book on DAZ is A Primer for DAZ Studio 2nd Edition: Your Easy Way to Learn 3D Rendering and Animation by Anne Marie Rasmussen, available on Kindle for $15. Ironically, given the two books' respective titles, Primer covers more advanced topics and the second edition was specifically released to cover Iray.
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Thanks kindly for all the replies they were very helpful...
I'm dubious personally.
Any book you buy will be out of date.
It will miss out on all the features not part of Studio when written. It may conver features either no longer part of Studio or in some way depricated.
You are hoping the author actually has a clue.
There are a lot of written instructions out there, if you prefer those to video format.
You know, somebody should do something on Udemy or one of those training sites. That would be cool to see a well rounded out series!
...yeah while "purging" stuff before I moved from my last flat, I came across a bunch of printouts I made of old Daz PDF tutorials (I think they date back to ver.1.8 or 2.0). Put those in my file cabinet for posterity sake..