May 2026 - Daz 3D New User Challenge - Using Props and Push Modifiers/Deformers
Leana
Posts: 13,138
New User's Challenge - May 2026
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 awhile 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!
As with the previous months, 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
- Or if you have not participated in the May Action / Using Props challenge
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 awhile and feel comfortable with learning Intermediate Topics
- Or if you have already participated in the May Action / Using Props Challenge
*Please be sure to list in your post which Challenge you are participating in*
Closing date for both is May 31st 2026
For a list of the current challenge rules, please see this thread: Challenge Rules
They apply for both versions of the challenge
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Comments
Beginner Challenge:
"Action / Using Props"
This month's focus will be action with an emphasis on interaction with props. Your characters' actions, or the props they are using or interacting with, should be a major aspect of your image. As always, posing techniques, composition, and lighting will be important considerations as well.
Some Inspiration:
Digital Art Action Scenes
Human Action Poses
Action Photography
The Fundamentals of Action Photography
The Best Sports Photos of 2016
While we encourage you to create your own poses from scratch for this contest, many of the pose sets available in the store can offer some great inspiration on how to use props in active situations!
To fit the theme of "Action & Props," your render could depict anything from a melee to a barbecue, or from a pop concert to a masquerade ball, or even a bar room brawl. The key points are that it must include some sort of dynamic movement or activity, and that it must involve interaction between figures and props (tools, weapons, or any sort of objects being manipulated).
Tutorials
How To Create A Smart Prop in Daz Studio
Posing tools overview
Dealing with accessories
Daz 101: Posing
Pinning, Posing and the Active Pose Tool
Daz Studio Animation Tutorial: Step by Step
Intermediate Challenge:
"Using Modifiers and Deformers"
This is a general render challenge with the focus on using Modifiers and/or Deformers within your action scene. We are providing you with some links on the topics from a variety of sources. Utilizinging modifiers and deformers well can add that extra touch of realism to help create a dynamic looking and fluid scene. It is a fundamental skill for those wishing to show movement, customize items to better suit the use within a scene, or to fix issues such as pokethrough.
*If participating in the Intermediate Challenge, please be sure to list what item(s) within your scene you have modified/deformed*
General Information:
Push Modifier / Push Modifier Weight Node
Smoothing Modifier (Also covers deformers)
Deformers
Generally, push modifiers, smoothing modifiers, and deformers can all be used to manipulate existing geometry to change it's shaping. You could use a Push Modifier to make Genesis 8 pregnant or to make a dent in an object. You could use the smoothing modifier to show a face smooshing up from a punch (like a freeze frame of the hit) or to show pressure on a matress or couch. You can use a deformer to change the shape of a character, to change the shape or damage a prop, or to fix pokethrough or issues between items. There is an unlimited amount of things that can be done with the 3 and a lot of advanced topics to using the 3 as well but hopefully this will give you a better basic understanding of how to add them and how they can be used.
Handy Products to Use to help with using the Modifiers or Deformers :
Mesh Grabber Bundle by ManFriday or the Geometry Sculptor Premier plugin
InstaEdit by Callidus Simia
Ghost Dynamics by KindredArts
Prior "Action / Using Props" and "Modifiers and Deformers" Challenges for inspiration:
May, 2025
May, 2024
May, 2023
May, 2022
May, 2021
May, 2020
May, 2019
May, 2018
May, 2017
May, 2016
I will be checking in as will the rest of the Community Volunteers to try and help with anything you all may need.
OK, I think I've understood the challenge for beginner this month. I've put a render together but I'm not happy with the posing just yet so I'll add it shortly once I've fixed that.
OK, I give you Gumshoe Rescue.
Beginner.
A little synopsis should hopefully explain the action element of the image:
"Audrey used to be a singer in a speakeasy until she was spotted by Consigliere Joe Castellino. With his natural charm and vivacity, he persuaded Audrey that she was too good for the club and she began to work for him. Little did she know that the world she entered was one of drugs and prostitution, a world where she would be used and abused on a daily basis.
She eventually took her chance and escaped, turning to her high school sweetheart, Detective Gus Lorenzo. Quite by chance she is spotted on the street by Capo Oscar "The Tank" Zappa. Detective Lorenzo arrives, calmly smoking a Marlboro, just in time for the inevitable standoff...."
Dug out some older items for this idea I started on here. It may not be to obvious, but my character is using a arm mounted computer kind of like a pip-boy from Fallout deturmaning where to go to restore power (hence the reduced lighting in the room). Main lighting on the character is the glow from said prop.
Nice picture, looks like an old gangster movie.
The part of the scene with the kidnapping is a bit dark due to mostly been backlit, so you don't see the figures that well. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but maybe having a bit of light in front would make it clearer (maybe adding a lighed sign to the other shop?). The pose looks quite good.
The cigarette doesn't seem lit right now. Again, not really a problem, but if you want to make it look like he's smoking maybe you could add a wisp of smoke?
The red stop lights on the car are a bit too bright compared to the rest of the scene.
Nice pic.
The reduced lighting with light coming from the screen is a good idea, but right now what the character is doing is not really visible. Maybe adding some dark-colored light in the front might help give a bit of visibility while keeping the overall feeling?
I did think about a whisp of smoke but the asset I have isn't that good and it looks a bit cartoonish.I may be able to do something with one of my fog assets scaled down.
Maybe you can go the Lucky Luke's way, replacing the cigarette with something else:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucky_Luke#Smoking_controversy
As it's a period scene, I don't see the issue. Why people are so insistent on trying to sanitise history with modern standards is beyond me - how else are future generations going to learn if history has been altered to suit the whims of snowflakes?
Anyway, rant over. Wasn't aiming that at you by the way, just a general rant.
Realised I have Sue Yee's Speedy Smoke that I picked up the other day for pennies. It's worked out nicely. Had to scale down to about 10% of the original size but it's worked pretty well.
The Gangster Car was a pain to figure out the emissive. The lights aren't on their own material file, it's actually part of the interior so I had to adjust the emissive on the interior surface. But it is a fairly old asset so can't complain too much and it was cheap when I snagged it.
Upped the shop front emissives but it didn't make much difference so I ended up adding a point light into the shop doorway next to the characters.
Also changed the cigarette prop for one with a few more options.
Rendering it now so it should be done in an hour or so.
?
I have no issue with your character having a cigarette, it was just a suggestion to solve your problem by replacing it with a prop that didn't require smoke and I linked the article because it has a picture of Lucky Luke with the replacement, not because it had information about why Morris may or may not have decided to make Luke stop smoking.
Ah, fair enough.
For the record, it's possible to use the geometry editor to create new material zones if the ones the model provides don't work for what you want to do.
I haven't even touched that tool yet. One step at a time and all that.
OK, redux. I wasn't happy with the noise so re-jigged some settings and left it to run overnight, now much better.
I moved the lamppost to try and get some more lighting wash around the girl and added a point light in the shop doorway, shop front emissives didn't make a lot of difference.
Oh, I don't know if anyone noticed, but the car definitely wouldn't pass smog testing
Intermediate Challenge
I used dformers to:
I don’t think I would have done it if not for the challenge (the render started as an icon for a free character morph and I wanted a fantasy one): the last time I had a problem with grasses poking through something or someone (in this render), I did try to use a weight map to control the dformer, but the node weight map brush was losing its mind when I tried to paint it over the grasses so I didn’t try to solve the problem (it’s not too visible).
This time, I initially use the sphere and the result was not too bad (it’s too bad there is no other primitive shapes usable to control a dformer) but was still not precise enough, so initially, I removed the shield (she’s not joking when she’s wielding that hammer, so the shield could have flew way out of the frame :D).
Then, for some reason, some part of my brain remembered that it’s possible to switch the geometry selection to the lasso mode.
So, what I did is:
And voila, I now only had to move the dformer into the ground and the various plants and grasses went with it.
I did the same with grasses and plants that were the most visible at poking through the armour or the skeleton.
For the dent in the shield, the hardest part was finding a shield with both enough geometry to get a nice deformation and one that didn’t look brand new, but in the end, it’s not that visible because the shield is outside both DoF planes
(there is also a crow somewhere too, but I’m barely able to see it and I know where I placed it…)
I didn’t try to use a dformer to move the skeleton’s head and I don’t know if it would work because there is a head only prop provided in the LoREZ skeleton product and it was easier to move it where I wanted and put a helm on it.
I don’t remember using push modifiers. I’m usually using them to fix poke throughs, but I didn’t need for this render: I did spend likely too many times in Blender fixing the FBM for the clothes she’s wearing –except the boots – which helped the simulation process smoothly and her pose is not the most challenging to simulate, both reduced the risk of poke throughs.
Because the dress doesn’t have a top surface and ‘skirt’ surface, I merged a spot render to get the final look in Affinity Photo, and I tweaked the curves a bit, but I didn’t touch the shield to remove plants poking through.
Beginner
Olivia was in school for Photography and had aspiring dreams of becoming a professional photographer of nature. So, she took a little sabbatical from school to travel to the jungles of South America. Each picture is shown with the dome changed.
Switched the dome around to adjusting the lighting in the scene.