New Year's DAZ-olutions?
SilverGirl
Posts: 3,208
Thought it might be fun to share our goals for the new year and maybe inspire each other along the way!
My big ones:
- Learn how to use these fabulous helpful tools I got to improve my workflow (which are currently doing nothing because I keep forgetting they exist)
- Lighting. Ugh. Get better at that.
- Get a few of my characters set up that I can't use because, although I have all the parts, I haven't assembled them yet. And then actually render things with them once they're done instead of feeling accomplished and promptly leaving them to languish on my hard drive
- Make progress on getting all my assets logged.
What are yours?
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
© 2026 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
Hmmm, that's a biggie. I'm not really one for making goals, just getting up each day is often my only achievement. That and switching the computer on, making coffee and planting my bum on the chair in front of the monitor till it's time to go to bed again. Retirement is cool. That said, I actually need to make an effort to move said bum from said chair and get some exercise, outside. So my goal for this year is spend less time in DS and more time in the sunshine...vitamin D deficiency is a thing. Hope you have a splendid year.
Put my s....stuff together and start making use of at least a decent portion of the things i bought here instead of having all accumulating virtual dust.
my signature says it all. Render my stuff is number 2 goal. Number 1 is cutting down my spending here by close to 100%. Can I do either one? That is the question
Feel you on that Vitamin D deficiency! My SAD is not fond of the cold and snowy and dark. I look forward to having my daily walks with Little Dude (and Teen Kiddo, when they opt in) back.
I hope you can get some enjoyable exercise in. :)
My spending here is something I keep between me and my bank account. But hey, I could be spending thousands travelling like my little sister, or I don't know how much following a small round ball around a golf course while questioning what the hell I am doing there.
I am fortunate enough to live somewhere warm enough that the snow and dark doesn't happen but, OMG, does the rain! Winter here in Northland is wet, followed by wet, and then, just for a change, more wet. It's a wonder I don't have moss growing on me but I'd have to get outside for that to happen. Summer has been periods of dry (a month which crunched the grass) followed by wet (a week, sadly over xmas/new year which dampened/flooded/washed away a lot peep's holiday plans) Today is sunny, warm, the wind has gone, and would be a good day to get out in the garden. We'll see ;)
Easy one. I've spent most of the last six months trying to find ways to get Genesis 9 to be able to do everything I'm used to being able to easily and quickly do with Genesis 8 and 7, Ultimately, though, there are just so many issues with the tech that it not only hasn't been anywhere near as fast or as fun, bu it got to the point where I was wondering if I had just burned out on DAZ and thinking that the overall quality of my work was taking a real downturn. Then, back in November, I pulled out the continuing G8 characters that I've used on the last six year's holiday cards for this year's entry and it was just like old times, so I kept playing with G8 and G7 again and all seems well now. So, in 2026 it's back to focusing on the earlier generations and having fun rather than trying to brute force around G9's quirks.
Past all patience with certain aspects of the website.
1. There is one utility I will buy.
2. A couple of items, once or twice or month. <-- Amended.
Otherwise I'm headed for Unreal.
Normally, I disdain arbitrary “new year’s resolutions”. But I recently set out a personal plan to allocate regular time to various creative endeavours that I’ve been wanting to pursue, but letting slide. One of them applies here:
I’ve already modeled my first morph (it’s nothing special; a tutorial using Nomad Sculpt for Daz morphs caught my attention, so I gave it a try for a custom nose). I just need to figure out all the stuff to make a good distribution (so it shows up in the right spot(s) in the content library, with suitable preview icons).
I’ll be using this to get myself to learn more 3D modeling (Blender, Nomad) and Daz in general.
Spend $50 a month, not $100 a week (all usual stores combined)
I would like to monetize my art.
More time in the gym
Lighting. Lighting. and lighting lol. Its not that I don't know how, I'm just really slow, so i need to figure out a base set up as as starting point and get faster at modifying it.
Learn to use dforce effectively, and figure out how to move clothes and hair in hexagon and re import to daz.
Work on my world building project.
I plan to spend time figuring out all the time-saving plugins and tools I've purchased, and then make better renders.
Also, smarter shopping than last year.
I'm heading into the New Year with some good steps already.
I've been making cartoons featuring the Genesis 8 "seniors." My friends love them.
I'll be getting some new color laserjet cartridges. My senior friends prefer to see printed art. It's hard for many of them to look at my iPad.
I'll be starting a new Portrait Painting class on January 6. It appears we'll have the same friends who were in the flower painting class.
My one hope for this year: I hope I don't lose hearing in my only good ear.
At the beginning of 2025, a blood vessel in my right ear burst. (It was a freak happening). I lost hearing in my right ear.
The first few months were difficult. I got my new hearing aids on April Fool's Day.
I've done few renders over last couple of years. After doing a lot of renders and some renders that I really liked my motivation disappeared so I won't try to force it in 2026. I do have 3 important technical challenges in 2026 I want to try though:
1) A Norman Rockwell ,1922 I think, advertisement for eating crackers while reading in bed, It is very reminiscent, in a good way, of when I was 15 years old, snowed in for 2 months, and with 2 severe ankle sprains for 6 weeks while I read the entirety of J.R.R, Tolkein's The Hobbit & The Lord of the Rings Trilogy. Amazing BOOKS! I can't bbring myself to watch the DVD movies I bought of the books because I know they can't compare. I want to see how close to the source painting, without AI, I can create a DAZ Studio render of that advertisement painting.
2) Another Normman Rockwell painting imitation. I have one in mind but it might change.
3) I bought in 1979 a single from Blondie called "Atomic" that had Debbie Harry on the cover. I want to see how good a likeness in DAZ Studio I can do now that FaceGen is updated for Genesis 9, I still need to buy that update though, and since DAZ Studio has the needed volumetrics too.
I actually have made several specific shopping excursions in the DAZ Store buying a few female bathing suits, female hairs, volumetics explosions, Joan 9 HD Bundle, every blanket set that Jepes makes (lol), every hammock in the DAZ Stoore, and so in prepartion of pulling off those 3 renders to my own satisfaction in 2026.
If those get me rendering again great, if not, well they are worthwhile technically speaking too, my best shot of those will let me test them as for their dual use to feed into AI image generation programs online or like ComfyUI, for example.
I am getting a small graphics tablet, which I hope will help me get better at textures - I'm not good painting with a mouse. I'm also hoping that more work in GIMP will reduce my sense of irritation with the program. Then I want to try texturing in Blacksmith 3D. Finally, my preference would be for my PC not to die on me this year (unlike 2024 & 2025). And eventually register my SolidWorks to my machine (lost when the MB died) and start modelling stuff again.
Regards,
Richard
- render more
- create more in blender
- buy less
My resolution for 2026 is a carryover from 2025. I had intended to recreate the covers for my older books with more accurate depictions of my characters, rather than the 'close-enough' photo manipulations they currently have. I even acquired most of the assets I needed to do it, but it didn't happen. As always, the writing took priority. I will do it. Hopefully soon.
That's the plan, anyway!
I plan to sculpt more dudes. Original and fan art male characters.
i've been struggling with confidence and motivation issues. My main goals are to get back in the saddle and render more, and to quit compensating by constantly buying more stuff when i've barely used the stuff i have in recent times.
I hope that 2026 will be the year when I finally learn dForce properly and utilize all its benefits. At the moment, I have no clue what I'm doing and getting very random results.
Other than that, this is the year I'm focusing on my author business. With 8 books already out, I want to take it to the next level. Not only publish more books (new series coming), but also create more art tied to the books rather than just fun SFF renders. I already redid covers for one of my series, and I'm hoping to do new covers for the other series. Plus all the art and covers for the new series. So, I guess, I want to align my Daz work with my author work.
But Daz is also a hobby, so I will continue to have fun, learn (important to me and that's the best way for me to do it), and create random things that strike my fancy. So, I guess, "business as usual" with a little bit more intentionality in using the stuff I bought in my authoring.
At the same time, after almost 4-month long shopping spree (I didn't buy as much during the member festival, but I did buy more than expected, especially when you add PA sale before that and Christmas sale after), I can see myself buying much less in the store. There are things on my wishlist I really like, but have no immediate use for, and in recent weeks, I've been more thinking it terms of "can I use it for any of my current projects or at least the ones I will be working on shortly?" and it affected my willingness to buy. "Things I like" can wait for the next sale or for when I actually have an idea how they'll be useful.
I will render things I buy in more timely manner.
I will use the things I buy in a more timely manner.
I will not buy things I will never ever use.
As if.
I agree with this, though no promises on the third one - I will likely still spend when it makes sense to do that.
My only resolution is easy. I resolved to try drinking Scotch for the first time in my life.
The delivery is on its way.
Yep, that's why I say 'less' rather than 'nothing' - there are still things I need/like that I will buy. But I have more than enough content, so the must-have urge is a lot less. That said, I way overspent in December... so who knows how this year will go.
Definitely a great way to go. I will do the same :)
At least I already sorted my content that I aquired since 2002 here and in other places and started to upgrade some V4/M4 and G3 characters/poses/clothes to G8/G8.1.
@joanna - You reminded me of one... figure out dForce. I now have several utilities for it, though, so maybe that falls under the 'utilities' resolution?
I will definitely confess that many times I've just picked a different outfit rather than the one I'd really like, as I couldn't get dForce to behave and didn't have the patience to figure out what the issue was. If I already understood at least the basics (which, considering the mention of a timeline makes my eyes glaze, is pretty much everything) I might open up my options a bit.
Uh, my main resolution concerning DAZ is to use it less. Not that it's a problem itself, but learning to use DAZ (a process I wouldn't consider myself near through) soaked up the bulk of my art time last year, and I've kind of been itching to paint more.
Minorly, I also intend to set up a gallery here, for the nicer pics I do render. I meant to before, but it didn't work like I thought it would and I haven't gone back and tried to work with it.
-Getting independent from DAZ studio
-Learning Blender
I guess that won't happen, though, I say that every year
Make a render every week, if not, every month!
Actually learn animation.