Making Environments For Beginners
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What do you mean by "environments"? Do you mean HDRIs or do you mean sets of props that are put together to create a scene, like the things categorized as Environments in the content library?
If you nean HDRIs, take a look at https://www.daz3d.com/v3d-hdr-master-bundle
The commercial thread on the V3D product has a lot of tips, like setting the Nominal Luminance.
When by creating environments you mean modeling them there are quite a few options out there.
Options from DAZ itself would be Hexagon (free), Carrara (paid) or Bryce (paid)
I myself work with another free option, Blender
In case you mean landscape generation with environments there are also options as addons available like Ultrascenery2
Vue can also be used to create terrains and HDRi skies and Plant factory for foliage
I haven't even installed it yet mind you but I know many have used it
DDCreate Its a bit complicated if you want to venture into environment creation.
You need to learn how to use a 3D Modelling program.
I have tried to learn to use blender.
Its not like using Daz Studio, most topics are in the form of videos in YouTube, I prefer some written instructions and try to learn at pace, getting some examples to get familiarized.
So its your choice, go and try yourself.
The fact we're mentioning any of these in the conversation to a new user is funny to me. If they want to explore them as historical curiosities fine.
But there will be much more support and an active community for Blender and other more prominent tools.
There are some good comprehensive Blender tutorials on Udemy, made by the guy behind polyhaven.
1) Chatgpt exists, which is written documentation. Yes it might hallucinate, but generally is fine.
2) I see a lot of people want to watch a youtube tutorial and follow every click and clack that the demonstrator does. Fine, but you also need to watch these videos passively in your free time in the way you would watch TV or youtube as entertainment if you want to actually engross yourself in the learning experience. You dont have to be sitting at your computer freezing every frame and then hunting over your keyboard to peck at the 'p' key or something.
The problem with text based documentation is that it's impossible to convey artistic endeavours well like that. Bob Ross wasnt known for making a painting book. Sculptors dont go into a studio and then read their instructors books.
there are DAZ PAs who use those programs so I fail to see what's funny
true some use Blender, others use 3D studio MAX, Modo, Terragen, Vue as I suggested as free now or other software
Those software mentioned earlier are end of life
If you are going to learn a new software, may be best, generally speaking, to learn one that isnt?
If all daz vendors jumped off a bridge, should we follow? Is the aim to compete with a few daz vendors using old software, or to compete with the subset of daz vendors who you admire or other industry standard professionals working in games, VFX etc, so you dont get left behind?
Perhaps questions someone asking for help should be advised to ask themselves if they are going to embark on a new endeavour to ensure it is worth the investment and they are not led astray.
sorry lilweep, I must have missed the Environments you made
I have however taken a keen interest in how many of my favourite vendors made their Environments
Name one?
PSA: stuff like this is now becoming standard quality for game environment assets:
Can you make this in Bryce? No.
Are you going to find tutorials to help you make something like this in Hexagon? No.
Will you in Blender, yes, all over Youtube and Udemy.
DZFire uses Hexagon, there are a few others who have used it in the past but moved on to Max, Silo or Modo, some indeed Blender
TangoAlpha, Oso3D and I think maybe Maclean started with Carrara, FirstBastian Hexagon,
a surprising number of PAs at least started with Hexagon, I don't have a list
and others who are not DAZ PAs like MrSparky - Carrara, the late Chris Schell - Hexagon
Blender is popular but don't think of it as the only option
Yes but the idea for a beginner is not to just pick up a software at random with a barely proven track record of a few daz PAs ten years ago.
New users need to weigh up price, community support (tutorials), future proofing their skillset, access to latest technology etc. Most beginners are naturally ending up in Blender just because there are more tutorials for it and a bigger community there. E.g., everything that appears on my feed on Instagram are Blender creations from fairly young people. I barely even see Maya or 3DS Max in use, even though these are industry standard creation tools, and certainly never Carrara or Hexagon.
If you choose Carrara or Hexagon, there isnt going to be same level of cross pollination from other people using the same software, there isnt going to be future development, there isnt going to be a vast array of established pipelines/tutorials for creating environments that are readily accessible to you.
I dont even like Blender and dont mean to proselytize anyone to it. It's just the fairly obvious answer to this question.
Good point, about the larger community (I am guessing). I always make a point of at least visiting the Hexagon forum, to keep the numbers up.
Sepaprately can ChatGPT spit out * model * files, like in .OBJ format??? I can see (ergo imagine) generative A.I. describing scenes and textures, and perhaps making texture maps and suggesting elements to be modelled, and MAYBE building a scene in its memory and from there rendering it on a base and maybe rotating it, and showing you how that looks in a video that it has rendered for your approval sort of thing.
I have not tried submitting a .DUF file (say) that I have created and saved, and asking if it can change something to make whatever it is more to my liking.
Hunyuan 3D can
This channel i came across today has some good videos on environment design for games, from a more conceptual/philosophical standpoint. Games typically work with a tight budget compared with the limitations imposed on environments for Daz. But even for Daz it's probably still ideal to keep everything under 6-8GB VRAM as not everyone has a 4090.
https://www.youtube.com/@NextLevelGameArt