December 2025 - Daz 3D New User Challenge - Open Render Challenge
Linwelly
Posts: 6,058
New User's Challenge - December 2025
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 a while 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!
This year, 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
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 a while and feel comfortable with learning Intermediate Topics
The Open Render Challenge is also referred to as a "free" month, where you can concentrate on using and combining the skills you learned in the past few challenges. Please be sure to mention in which Open Render Challenge (Beginner or Intermediate) you wish to enter into when you add your image to the thread.
Optional: in keeping with the "free" theme, you are encouraged to highlight a free product (either something you obtained for free here at Daz, or a freebie from another source) in your renders. This invitation is just for fun and intended to stimulate creativity. Use of a freebie in your renders won't have any bearing on the judging.
If you would like to review the previous topics and information you can find the topics/threads here:
Beginner/Intermediate: Composition and Instancing, & Duplication
Beginner/Intermediate: Lighting and Light Effects
Beginner/Intermediate: Posing and Puppeteer/PowerPose
Beginner/Intermediate: Using Props and Push Modifiers/Deformers
Beginner/Intermediate: Scenes, Landscapes, and Working Modularly
Beginner/Intermediate: Portrait Rendering and LIE
Beginner/Intermediate: Depth of Field and Canvases
Beginner/Intermediate: Atmosphere and Ghosts & Special Effects
Beginner/Intermediate: Materials and Next Level Kitbashing
I will be checking in as will the rest of the Community Volunteers to try and help with anything you all may need.
For a list of the current challenge rules, please see this thread: Challenge Rules
Closing Date: December 31st, 2025
Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
7533 S Center View Ct #4664
West Jordan, UT 84084
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2025 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
intermediate
DazStudio
Some experiment with materials
Here are my entries:
Title: Dear Deer
Challenge: biginner
Since we are in December, I wanted to create something in relation with snow and winter. These renders tell the story of a young deer that got lost and was saved by the Winter Godess.
The biggest difficuty I had was posing, especially the arms and hands. For the first render, I would have prefer to pose the left hand on the deer's top head, just between its ears, but even if I tried, I never succeeded to send the hand there: it always generates defects like the arm crossing the deer or an unnatural pose, that I didn't manage to fix. So, I sent the hand on the bottom of the head instead...
I would also have preferred the woman to be leaning a bit more over the deer: here, she seems a bit too high. But when i try to lean her more, it doesn't seem natural too.
Furthermore, it's seems I have a kind of issue on the kimono's sleeve: I used a dForce simulation, but the sleeve pose doesn't look natural and I don't know how to fix that...
For the second render, I'm not sure the hand pose is the best too, I feel it could be a bit more natural, but I'm not sure what it needs to be improved.
Anyway, I hope you'll enjoy them!
that looks interesting, ist this all the same material just at different sizes?
That is a lovely start, but I understand, posing can be tricky, if you want to find some tutorials, there is a link to the posing challenges from this year, which lists a lot of help.
one way that helps me with clothing like this is to hide the cloting for the time you create the pose also I use the parameters tap for the separate bones for the detail work. Always start posing from the hip up and down and if in doubt try the pose in front of a mirrowr and look which parts of you bend which way to make is look natural.
as for the d-force in the first image it looks as if the cloth got snagged durging the process. it's helpful to make the d-force starting from the zero pose to avoid that.
I hope that helps
No, it's 3 different materials.
Christmas Time
Just beginning it.
Beginner
Welcome, and I'm looking forward to where you go with this
Just a little update on my Christmas Time Post. Haven't decided how much farther I'll go with it.
Another hint/help with posing (in case you haven't come across it yet) is to turn off limits for posing if you haven't. Many poses need to go "past the preset limits" of the figure's joints to look natural, so if you are struggling, it may be because you have limits turned on.
To shut them off you can either go to the Parameters Tab while clicked on any individual joint and then click the little locks on the individual dials for bend, twist, etc (just use care if you do it that way to be sure you only do it for the dials you need to) or you can click on the full figure in the Scene Tab and then select Edit - Figure - Limits - Limits Off
You can also have them always turned off by default (most useful for when using Free or store bought poses in general or as a starting point) by going to Edit - Preferences - Content Tab - and under
Pose/Shaping Preset Loading:
When importing a Pose/Shaping file that exceeds limits:
and select Always turn limits off (this one helps most when using store bought or free poses as a starting point since many have settings that exceed figure limits)
In addition this video also shows different ways you can approach posing (you may find one easier to use or that you feel more suited to - sometimes I use a combination depending on the pose):
Your version of DS may look a bit different to the one in the video so if you need help finding something, please let us know!
cyborg blues
intermediate DS
About light and mood
very nice work on the light settings there @Aki3d
Maybe try to play with the Twist value from Right Forearm Bend to get the lowest fingers closer to the chin (?) of the animal, then fine tune the result by bending the fingers?
If you want inspiration, I would search for photos of people doing the same pose with similar animals: I would focus on horses because they are likely tons of photos of people peting young horses on the Internet.
In case you didn't know, the pearl decorations on that hairs are rigged and you can rotate them to make them look like they are impacted by gravity.
To add to Linwelly's advice, if an object is not supposed to interact with clothes being simulated, you can select that object, then go to Display and set Visible in Simulation to off. You can also do that on just a selection of bones on a figure (which won't be useful in your case, but could be if in the future you're trying to simulate a sleeveless top and the figure's arms/hands are clipping into the clothes simulated).
If the arms are clipping through the kimono while doing a simulated as advised by Linwelly, your last ressort is to use a timeline. What I would do in such cases is the following with a 45 frames simulation (the last 15 frames are here to allow the simulation to stabilize, once everything is posed as it supposed to be).
Then, I would move the cursor of the timeline (without doing a simulation), to identify when arms or body parts are clipping when they should not and change the position of the clipping part a bit before. If you're keeping both the default position at frame 0 and the final one at frame 30, Daz Studio will automatically change the way the clipping body part is moved from the default position at frame 0 to the newly added position at frame N, and to the final one at frame 30. Ideally, it will be enough to make solve the problem. Otherwise, rinse and repeat.
Was able to think of an idea for this month (unlike last month which is why i didn't have anything for potitial feedback.)
Needs some (ok a lot of) texture work given that the enviroment is pre-Iray along with the character's outfit.
Christmas Time
Final
This challenge is now closed, happy new year everyone!!
Thank so much to everyone that participated in the challenge - whether that be by entering or by helping others. We always enjoy viewing the wonderful artwork and all the tips and ideas people give each other.
As such, if you participated in this thread - HAPPY NEW YEAR! I hope your holidays were lovely and check your accounts for a little gifty (whether you entered or just helped)
Also, the January Challenge is now up as well
((HUGS))