July 2026 - Daz 3D New User Challenge - Portrait Rendering and L.I.E.

ann0314 · July 2

New User's Challenge - July, 2026

Beginner Challenge - July, 2026

"Portrait Rendering (Expressions and Lighting)"

This month's focus will be Portrait Rendering, with an emphasis on the character's expression and lighting. Portraits are the way we show off the unique aspects of each individual. Expressions should convey their personality. Good lighting will enhance your portrait and set the mood. Portraits don't have to look like yearbook headshots. Get creative, hone your skills, and have some fun in this months contest.

A portrait is a representation of a person, group of people, or even a pet, that displays the expression, personality, and mood of the subject. The focus of a portrait is usually the subject's face, although the entire body and the background or context may be included. Depth of Field is often used to blur the surrounding environment to draw the eye to the subject.

Inspiration:

Portrait Tips and Examples:

Google Search - Portrait Expressions

Beginner's Guide to Portrait Composition

Foundations of Portrait Composition Part I: Framing Your Model

Lighting:

Portrait Lighting Patterns

Mastering Lighting in Blender (The first 25 minutes of the video are basic lighting theory and insights.)

Intermediate Challenge July 2026 - L.I.E. (Layered Image Editor)

What is the Layered Image Editor?

The Layered Image Editor (LIE) allows you to create, open, edit, and save DAZ Studio Layered Image (DLI) sets (*.dsi). A DLI is a composite of image layers into a single Studio material file which can then be applied to an object's material zone in Studio via the Surfaces tab. DLIs can be composed of any image file format supported in Studio (i.e., TIFF, PNG, JPEG, etc.). In addition, DLIs can contain other DLIs as part of its composition. The images composing the layers are not modified as the DLI file contains the pathname to the files and the opacity and blending information.

The DLI format provides a way of combining images without modifying the original images. For example, a tattoo could be available as an option on a figure. Usually, this might require separate texture maps for each skin color plus an extra set of maps with the tattoo. Using the LIE, a DLI file could be built layering the tattoo over the skin maps and the resulting .dsi file added to the material file to load via a MAT pose file. The original skin map can then be applied to the figure without the tattoo or with it, all without having to create two texture maps.

L.I.E. Video Tutorials

Daz Studio Layered Image Editor

DAZ Studio Tutorial - Layered Image Editor - Make your own Tattoos

Daz Studio Tattoo Tutorial

L.I.E Article Tutorial

Daz Custom Tattoos Tutorial

Forum Threads

https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/19670/how-do-i-use-layered-image-editor-lie

https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/191661/how-to-save-a-layer-image-editor-l-i-e-preset

garrett_3d · July 2

Beginner, posed and rendered in Daz 4.24. All assets from Daz store.

Tried two different approaches, colour and mono.

Burlesque Dancer.

Brian&Alicia · July 4

intermediate entry: LIE

this challange seems like a good one, and the video was helpful.

i knew how to apply L.I.E materials, from the products. but not how to make my own.
so i made the eyeliner webby design, and applied that to the character. this is my first attempt at doing this. looks like i got it right.?.

yuyu.atem · July 7

Title: The Old Chief

Challenge: Biginner

Maybe the render is a bit surrexposed... I used the Godray to enlight the character, but I had difficulties to balance the scene lighting...

Brian&Alicia · July 8

yuyu.atem said:

Title: The Old Chief

Challenge: Biginner

Maybe the render is a bit surrexposed... I used the Godray to enlight the character, but I had difficulties to balance the scene lighting...

Try these settings, .05 for lower density, and .02 for the upper density. And hight at 2000. Then at the bottom option in environment to .98. I normally cut environment intensity to .5 and the next environment option just below to 1.0. This seems to work for me. Also using a spot light, seems to work best for me, with the godray effect.

ann0314 · July 9

Brian&Alicia said:

intermediate entry: LIE

this challange seems like a good one, and the video was helpful.

i knew how to apply L.I.E materials, from the products. but not how to make my own.
so i made the eyeliner webby design, and applied that to the character. this is my first attempt at doing this. looks like i got it right.?.

Very nicely done. I recall the first time I played around with LIE. It's a lot of fun and it opens up so many possibilities for additions to just about anything. And it can be used to weather things etc as well. While often you see it used more on characters, keep in mind it can be used on anything - any model. So you wish a building you bought had some spray paint? You can add that for your render etc. It gives an extra layer of personalization that can be really nice when you need something very specific

ann0314 · July 9

Brian&Alicia said:

yuyu.atem said:

Title: The Old Chief

Challenge: Biginner

Maybe the render is a bit surrexposed... I used the Godray to enlight the character, but I had difficulties to balance the scene lighting...

Try these settings, .05 for lower density, and .02 for the upper density. And hight at 2000. Then at the bottom option in environment to .98. I normally cut environment intensity to .5 and the next environment option just below to 1.0. This seems to work for me. Also using a spot light, seems to work best for me, with the godray effect.

Thanks for sharing some settings to try.

ann0314 · July 9

garrett_3d said:

Beginner, posed and rendered in Daz 4.24. All assets from Daz store.

Tried two different approaches, colour and mono.

Burlesque Dancer.

Very fun. I like both versions. I used to enjoy trying to reproduce the older style ads etc This sort of reminds me of that,

OT for those that don't know, you can enter more than once so feel free to keep experimenting and playing! The more you focus on and utilize any given feature or style, the more you learn about it or how best to utilize it in your artwork.

ann0314 · July 9

yuyu.atem said:

Title: The Old Chief

Challenge: Biginner

Maybe the render is a bit surrexposed... I used the Godray to enlight the character, but I had difficulties to balance the scene lighting...

The brighter lighting does show all of the character in her face really well. But I would maybe try what was recommended above and see if that maybe helps get it closer to what you envisioned.

That said, lighting tends to be a lifelong process IMHO. You'll consistently be learning new things about lighting. So try not to get discouraged if you hit a wall. Heavens knows I have over the years. And sometimes how a surface is setup is just as important (because the settings directly effect how it interacts with the light. So keep that in mind as well. If something has a roughness more towards white then the light will wash it out more so sometimes tweaking surfaces a bit can also help (or trying a diff set of settings if the character includes options for different skin translucency - not sure if this one does though) But you can try playing with the translucency settings on the skin and lowering them a bit (doesnt hurt anything since you arent changing the presets etc. You can always get back to the default just by reapplying the skin shader)

Brian&Alicia · July 10

ann0314 said:

Brian&Alicia said:

intermediate entry: LIE

this challange seems like a good one, and the video was helpful.

i knew how to apply L.I.E materials, from the products. but not how to make my own.
so i made the eyeliner webby design, and applied that to the character. this is my first attempt at doing this. looks like i got it right.?.

Very nicely done. I recall the first time I played around with LIE. It's a lot of fun and it opens up so many possibilities for additions to just about anything. And it can be used to weather things etc as well. While often you see it used more on characters, keep in mind it can be used on anything - any model. So you wish a building you bought had some spray paint? You can add that for your render etc. It gives an extra layer of personalization that can be really nice when you need something very specific

Ty, I'm just glade the video was easy to follow. This was one thing I was really wanting to learn. But, I'm stubborn and typically try figuring things out. Next will be learning to find the texture maps for stuff, so I can dabble with making my own textures. Or an easier way then trying to find them manually... I'm too lazy for that lol.

Brian&Alicia · July 11

intermediate entry: LIE
created the scar and stitches LIE metarial.
added the png file for the scar and stitches, incase someone liked and wanted to use it.

Shinji Ikari 9th · July 16

Finaly thought of something to try and start with.

lina.catfish · July 18

Sorry, I got the message "An error has occurred, please try again" – so I did it again, but it turned out that the real error was the error message itself. So I deleted the text here.

lina.catfish · July 18

It can't be said clearly enough: sometimes there just isn't enough time until the deadline to participate in one of the monthly challenges. Anyway. But now something completely different: My July post for the beginner challenge (By the way, thank you for the opportunity to do so and the monthly organisation).

Title: Nebula

Nebula

Rendered in Daz Studio. And I did some pre-rendering work in Gimp and Blender (for the flames, smoke, and gobo light). And absolutely no use of so-called AI.

yuyu.atem · July 23

Brian&Alicia said:

Try these settings, .05 for lower density, and .02 for the upper density. And hight at 2000. Then at the bottom option in environment to .98. I normally cut environment intensity to .5 and the next environment option just below to 1.0. This seems to work for me. Also using a spot light, seems to work best for me, with the godray effect.

Thank you very much! Do you mean in the Environnement settings? I don't see any lower and upper density in the Environnement settings (I don't know if it hads an impotance, but I am using an HDRI for the background):

I also forgot to precise that I used the Expanded Godrays Iray to insert the godrays (sorry, I shoud have give this information at the bigginning...)

I tried to decrease the Environnement Intensity to 0.5, but the backgrond becomes too dark, I think (see attachement 1). So, i used GIMP to mix both versions, by adding a layer mask from a greyscale version of the first render (see attachement 2 and screenshot):

It yeilds an interesting image, but would it exist a way to do that directly in DS, rather using GIMP?

Brian&Alicia · July 26

Thank you very much! Do you mean in the Environnement settings? I don't see any lower and upper density in the Environnement settings (I don't know if it hads an impotance, but I am using an HDRI for the background):

attached are my settings i used for this image i made to give you an example. i went pretty extreme with the lumins for the spotlight. but, you can adjust to your liking. most of the settings for doing this, will very from scene to scene. but, i feel these numbers are a good starting point. hope this helps.

when i was giving instructions before i wasn't at my PC. so the terms/labels i was giving you may not have been exact labels. i just know what does what, and did my best to discribe the setting.?.

ann0314 · August 3

Just a little note to let you know that the August Challenge will be going up likely tomorrow. There was a slight delay

ann0314 · August 3

lina.catfish said:

It can't be said clearly enough: sometimes there just isn't enough time until the deadline to participate in one of the monthly challenges. Anyway. But now something completely different: My July post for the beginner challenge (By the way, thank you for the opportunity to do so and the monthly organisation).

Title: Nebula

Rendered in Daz Studio. And I did some pre-rendering work in Gimp and Blender (for the flames, smoke, and gobo light). And absolutely no use of so-called AI.

If others agree, we could spread some over two months instead of 1. If there are specific challenges anyone feels may need more time, please let me know which ones. We are always open to suggestions And we can have more than one going at a time as well (so start the one for the next month but allow longer on some and have them overlap a bit too)

lina.catfish · August 5

ann0314 said:

If others agree, we could spread some over two months instead of 1. If there are specific challenges anyone feels may need more time, please let me know which ones. We are always open to suggestions And we can have more than one going at a time as well (so start the one for the next month but allow longer on some and have them overlap a bit too)

That's absolutely nice to say!

But honestly my case is a little different. It wasn't a big problem to finish a work in a month. My typical problem is rather **to start early enough** (for planning after the first idea, looking for items, renewing the idea because an asset along the way inspired me to go in a different direction...). The biggest problem is the disorganised (maybe winding ?) workflow

Notifications

July 2026 - Daz 3D New User Challenge - Portrait Rendering and L.I.E.

New User's Challenge - July, 2026

Comments

Beginner Challenge - July, 2026

"Portrait Rendering (Expressions and Lighting)"

Inspiration:

Other Helpful Links:

Intermediate Challenge July 2026 - L.I.E. (Layered Image Editor)

What is the Layered Image Editor?

L.I.E. Video Tutorials

L.I.E Article Tutorial

Forum Threads

Title: The Old Chief

Challenge: Biginner

Title: The Old Chief

Challenge: Biginner

Title: The Old Chief

Challenge: Biginner

Title: The Old Chief

Challenge: Biginner

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