So, I'm not a PC user. Been an apple lover all life. Except I have been using DAZ on my MAC for over a year and it has been a bit of a nightmare, the GPU not able to handle it. So I splurged and built myself a PC spending thousands just to use this freaking program. 

Everything was great. Then after about ten minutes of using it, I get notified that my OneDrive is full, and I look and see all of DAZ's programs have been saved there even though when I installed DAZ Central I pointed it to install everything on my C drive. I unlinked the onedrive, but every five minutes it would link itself again so DAZ could access it. I got fed up and moved all the folders to my local drive and went into DAZ's content directory and routed it to all the local folders instead of the onedrive ones. No luck. DAZ couldn't find the folders even though it was pointing right at them. Then it started sending installs to my onedrive again! Even though I had uninstalled the damn onedrive and unlinked it. 

So I tried uninstalling DAZ. But it only gave me the option of uninstalling DAZ central. I did this. But there were still all these random DAZ folders spread out all over my computer. I tried deleting them all but don't think I tracked them all down. I reinstalled DAZ central, reinstalled DAZ Studio and what did it do. Install DAZ studio on my goddamned onedrive again after specifically telling it not to! Now when I open DAZ studio it has exclamations marks in all program files and can't install them. If I save a file it will, but when I try to open it, it says it can't find all bunch files in order to do it. It's completely wacked. I have read a few forums that have been complaining about this but haven't found any answers that make sense to me. I don't understand PC lingo and am sorry for all the exclamation marks but I shelled out a bunch of money for what seems now to be a completely useless venture.

Can anybody tell me, in layman's terms, like you are speaking to a three-year-old, how to uninstall every tiny bit of this program from every nook and cranny of my PC and onedrive and then how to reinstall it so that it stays on my l local folder and doesn't keep creating onedrive folders for its content? I will cry from happiness if you can. 

Thanks Daventaki, I tried saving and then merging, but talk about a mess! But here is the first render, Sunset Pause. I got the 36 AM Sedan in the BYOB sales and was wowed to find Iray materials. But trying to position it, well that was fun. It kept floating off on me.

I like the simplicity of the coastal options. Where I lived on the Central Coast of California, it is more sheer drop-offs, and mountains growing down to the Pacific, until you turn north at Gaviota. Then you deal with riptides and rocks.

Well I checked a few things out. I had the Game version of the Nvidia update, so I downloaded the Studio one. Then I found there was a switch for GPU in some admin setting in Windows that was turned off! Turned that on. Lots of reboots today, including for the new Daz Studio installation. Hopefully everything will work together happily now. (Until Microsoft, Nvidia, or Daz decide to change something.)

...when opening Daz Central it states I don't have Daz Studio which is really crazy.

I had that too! 

However in my case I tried using DIM to get (eg. upgrade) DAZ Studio. I don't know what happened but my old copy of Studio really did get deleted.

I sort of knew there were going to be problems, but I had planned to erase my hard disk anyway so this is my way and my time to look at what is going on.

I seemed to have difficulty finding the place to download DS 4.12, so I opted for the Daz Central route.

Other first reactions: I was not able log in to DAZ Studio 4.12, and at first G8M no longer had a heading for "characters". (under "G8F" the list of characters was present). After I closed DC and DS 4.12, I *was* able to run DIM to download the G8M characters that I wanted.

I'd love it if there was a way to organize and get rid of unwanted expression dials. I have thousands, and quite frankly some of them just don't work for me. I'd love an easy way to remove them, without rooting around in the data folder for the exact morph. 

Unfortunately there is no easy way to do this.

If you've installed via DIM, Daz connect, or Daz central, you can just select the particular product and remove it.

If you want to keep certain dials but remove others, you'll need to find the particular DSF file in the Data folder and remove them manually.

If you've installed manually, you'll need to delete it manually.

To find the particular DSF, you'll need to check it's Name, not its Label, in the slider. Click on the gear icon  for the Parameters Settings dialogue box, and note the name above the label. image 1

Once you know it's name, and the PA didn't bork something, you'll then just need to run a search through Explorer in the data folder.

I'm uncertain if I can put my problem in proper words, but I'll give it a shot! 

I'm using https://www.daz3d.com/sci-fi-hdri for a space station set up (using the 6th image on the last photo, the central planet surrounded by rings), but I'm only getting a small portion of the planet in my render. It's like the background is super zoomed in. 

Things I have tried: 

Changing Dome to Finite Sphere
Adjusting Dome Scale Multiplier (doesn't seem to do anything but make it a different color??? If I go to like -50,000. Still no noticeable change in size. Very strange)
Adjusting Dome Radius (same effect as above)
Zooming really far out (it shows more of the planet and it's on the right track, but after a certain distance it doesn't seem to change)

All of the other threads I have found through the Google Machine have been saying to adjust Dome Scale Multiplier, and that seems to do the trick for everyone else. My current settings are as follows (I can provide more on request)
Environment Mode: Dome and Scene
Dome Mode: Finite Sphere
Environment Intensity: 1
Environment Map: 2
Dome Origin, Orientation, and Rotation are all at 0.

Reference Photos:
1: Zoomed out of scene. DSM and DR at 100% and 100%
2: Actual shot I want to take. DSM and DR at 100% and 100%
3: Actual shot I want to take. DSM and DR at 5% and 5%
4: Actual shot I want to take. DSM and DR at -50,000% and -50,000% (the same effect happens at +50k/+50k)
5: Actual shot I want to take. DSM and DR at +50,000% and -50,000%, respectively

I got tired of waiting on the renders, so they got progressively worse, but the point should be made. Send halp.

Does this mean we can no longer do manual downloads and installs, cause I just tried to get Daz 4.12, since I am currently on 4.10 and the option I got to download was to install Daz Central, there was no other option.

I am getting really tired of installing things on my computer just so I can install things on my computer, which is what Daz Central and DIM are.

You can download the standalone installer for Daz Studio from your Product Library here:  https://www.daz3d.com/downloader/customer/files#prod_13176

(it's an installer, too, BTW -- there's never been a completely manual install option for software)

Does this mean we can no longer do manual downloads and installs, cause I just tried to get Daz 4.12, since I am currently on 4.10 and the option I got to download was to install Daz Central, there was no other option.

I am getting really tired of installing things on my computer just so I can install things on my computer, which is what Daz Central and DIM are.

Boy, I hope thay are not starting that up again.  I bought a product FW Honey that was DAZ Connect only at one time.  What a hassle.  Open DIM and set it to recent first and see if you can download it through DIM.

It's not really a Central-only item, it's another files-failed-to-upload-to-the-DAZ-servers item. It can't be downloaded at all because there's nothing there. Apparently the "Install Types" display has a bit of a bug where it assumes there will always be a Central download available, even if there isn't. This has happened a few times in the last month or so; the only fix is to report it on one of the monitored threads so someone at DAZ can give the store database a good hard kick. Again.

I'm trying to stay calm about all of this, but it looks like there have been new paths created.

My Daz Application has been on my C drive under Program Files, My default content library has been D:/DAZ/My Library for a long time. 

Now it looks like Install manager wants me to use new created folders starting with and under Applications for both the application and content. - D:/DAZ/Applications/Data/DAZ 3D/My DAZ 3D Library and D:\DAZ\Applications\Data\DAZ 3D\Content Database.

Is this required, or can i continue to use the old paths? Install directory currently show only 24 installed and over 2,000 ready to install - which i have to tell you is genuinely obnoxious. I have absolutely zero interest in using Daz Central, since my experience with it was quite horrible. 

You can use the old paths, but why do you think it wants to use the Applications folder for both application and content?

These were the defaults when i looked into advance settings - and the Application folder is not one that i ever created

I just manually downloaded this onto my second computer and I am glad I did - it is changing all the paths I have set and I am having to manually go in and set them back to the correct one. I'm still fighting the the Manifest Archive path, and DIM is currently saying that I have nothing installed on this computer, which is wrong. At least I know now to go in and take screenshots of all my paths on my main computer before upgrading.

This is NOT how you update a bit of software and not respect the settings already there. This hasn't happened with any update before, I avoided Daz Central after hearing the horror stories I heard about that, and now DIM is changing settings. Not good enough.

[Update - sorted Manifest Archive and now it sees what I have installed - but I shouldn't have to do this!]

HEY CAN SOME ONE HELP ME WHY MY DAZ SAID REZOURCE ERROR WHILE I IMPRORT MY FROM DAZ CENTRAL TO DAZ STUDIO

I can login to Daz3d Website but not Daz Central with exactly same email and password.

My password is over 7 characters.

I'm trying to stay calm about all of this, but it looks like there have been new paths created.

My Daz Application has been on my C drive under Program Files, My default content library has been D:/DAZ/My Library for a long time. 

Now it looks like Install manager wants me to use new created folders starting with and under Applications for both the application and content. - D:/DAZ/Applications/Data/DAZ 3D/My DAZ 3D Library and D:\DAZ\Applications\Data\DAZ 3D\Content Database.

Is this required, or can i continue to use the old paths? Install directory currently show only 24 installed and over 2,000 ready to install - which i have to tell you is genuinely obnoxious. I have absolutely zero interest in using Daz Central, since my experience with it was quite horrible. 

You can use the old paths, but why do you think it wants to use the Applications folder for both application and content?

I'm trying to stay calm about all of this, but it looks like there have been new paths created.

My Daz Application has been on my C drive under Program Files, My default content library has been D:/DAZ/My Library for a long time. 

Now it looks like Install manager wants me to use new created folders starting with and under Applications for both the application and content. - D:/DAZ/Applications/Data/DAZ 3D/My DAZ 3D Library and D:\DAZ\Applications\Data\DAZ 3D\Content Database.

Is this required, or can i continue to use the old paths? Install directory currently show only 24 installed and over 2,000 ready to install - which i have to tell you is genuinely obnoxious. I have absolutely zero interest in using Daz Central, since my experience with it was quite horrible. 

I just noticed the new Frontier Outpost from Stonemason only says "Central" in the "Install Types" category. And it's the only item I have seen like that so far.

I'm hoping it's a mistake but I'm not buying that until I'm sure. Will wait until this is clarified before saying more but if it's indeed the case.... oooh boy....

Boy, I hope thay are not starting that up again.  I bought a product FW Honey that was DAZ Connect only at one time.  What a hassle.  Open DIM and set it to recent first and see if you can download it through DIM.

I haven't used Smart Content for years as I perfer the Content Library and file structure.  While it is anoying that the link for automatic download by DIM is gone, my workaround is make my purtchases then open DIM.  Since I have the DIM Sort Order set to "Order Date: Recent First", when I open it, my latest purchases are already there and ready to select to download.  I have a lot of manually installed content and also beta test for vendors from other sites so the last thing I wanty is something like DAZ Central to break everything in the name of "making it simple for new users".  At least they are still supporting DIM as when I opened it today to check for product upodates, they had a new version of Install Manager to download.

I just noticed that after the order we have again the option to download directly with Dim, this morning was daz central only.. thank you!

Che bello! Hanno sistemato quella brutta faccenda del DIM! Ora posso scegliere quale usare e non mi forza ad usare quella trappola di Central!

Però vedo che si sono trasferiti, non stanno più a Salt Lake City ma a Sale Lake City.

Vabbè che "salt" vuol dire "sale" in italiano... Ma da loro vuol dire "svendita".

Thank you!

Install Manager is back! 

I guess enough people complained that it was put back on the after purchase page.

------------------------------------------------------------

Download through 

Download and install your products automatically.

DOWNLOAD AND INSTALL 

Download through DAZ Install Manager

Download and install your products automatically through DAZ Install Manager.

DOWNLOAD AND INSTALL 

Purchase the camera collection here

https://www.daz3d.com/real-world-camera-collection

Hey there! Serum here. I just wanted to post what i wrote for the included PDF so people had a resource for how to use the cameras.

feel free to comment. I will answer what i can but please bear in minds that i am not on the forum too often. 

First of all I want to thank you for purchasing my real world cameras.  It's support from people like you that allow me to live the creative life that I now live.

Outside of being a 3D artist on Daz I am a professional photographer and have been for over 15 years at this point.

As you can imagine I have a lot of lenses for my cameras!

Each and every lens has a specific use and some work better for certain situations than others.

Unfortunately out of the box Daz does not come with what i would refer to as real world lenses.

Instead daz provides a suite of tools for you to craft your perfect lens.

That is where I decided I would fill the gap because as a working professional photographer I like to reach for my favorite lens and so i wanted the same for when i am using Daz.

And such I have created a collection of real world cameras that I can reach for when creating my renders.

At first it is a little fiddly to get to grips with but keep at it eventually the process becomes second nature. (much like photography)

How real cameras work.

Cameras really have not changed that much over the past 100 years but in basic the way that the camera works is light hits various surfaces and bounces off surfaces then goes into your lens which is then focused onto either a sensor or film. 

In rendering it's essentially the same process but the direction of light is reversed.

So in the case of 3d rendering we start with the sensor and the rays shoot through the lens and then bounces around the scene until it finds a light source.

It's okay you didn't need to know that but the overview gives us a good place to start.

Camera Formats

There are many types of cameras out there but the majority fall under these 3 categories which are denoted by their format type.

• Full Frame- These are the most common type of camera out there and are denoted with a sensor size of 36mm across. Most professional cameras tend to be Full Frame as such I have created the most options for this category.

• Medium Format- These cameras have a larger sensor to capture the information usually around 6-7cm which give a wider field of view than the full frame cameras.

• Large Format- These are the big cameras that you will have seen where they often have large bellows and often the photographer would be under a cloak behind the camera. The capture medium on these cameras is measured in inches because the sizes can be quite large.

Lens Types

There are many lens types out there all denoted by their size in millimeters.

For this Example I will stick with assuming that the camera we are using is a Full Frame camera. 

The lens types fall into 4 Categories that are provided in the collection.

• Wide Angle Lenses - These lenses have a wide field of view and let in a lot of the scene and fit it onto the sensor. Sometimes that angle can be so wide that when all of that information is presented to the sensor it can be distorted due to the curvature of the lens. This effect may be wanted or not wanted depending on the shot. The centre of the image will be less distorted than the outer edges so it is advised to have your subject placed more central on lenses with distortion. Common Wide angle lenses which are included in the collection are as follows: 16mm, 24mm, 35mm. The way to know which is the wider angle is the smaller the number the wider the angle.

• Normal Lenses- These lenses have little or no effect on the field of view. As such they are meant to mimic what the human eye  sees without zooming in or distorting to fit in more of the scene and are incredibly useful for a more natural look.

Lenses in this Category which are included in the collection would be the 50mm and 59mm lenses

• Telephoto Lenses- These are classified as any lenses that have a smaller field of view than a normal lens. In short what that means is that they cover less of the image than a normal lens. The effect of this is that the telephoto lenses fit less onto the sensor than the normal or wide angle lenses but because the image still fills the sensor this has the effect of zooming in. The way to determine how zoomed in is to look at the millimeter size which works in the opposite way to the wide angle lenses. The higher the milimeter the more “zoomed in” the image. 

    Lenses included in the collection: 85mm, 105mm, 120mm,150mm, 200mm.

• Portraiture lenses- These lenses are specifically crafted for shooting living subjects and include all of the previous types of lenses but have been designed to be as flattering as possible.

 Let's Talk Compression

You may or may not know this but all lenses have an artifact called compression.

Compression is kind of what it says on the tin in that the scene is compressed.

What i mean by that is the background that is behind your subject can be made to look closer or further away than it really is.

Wide angle lenses will push the background further away whilst telephoto lenses will bring the background closer literally compressing the image.

This is something that the photographer takes into account and it becomes an artistic choice.

Let's put this into practice.

Take a look at the example below where I have placed 2 cubes into a Daz scene. 

The closer cube in this example is our subject and the cube further away will be our background. 

The cube positions do not change only the camera positions so they all roughly have the front cube at the same size across all three images. 

Look at the rear cube and the differences between a Wide angle lens, A normal Lens and a Telephoto Lens. 

As you can see above the more wide angle the further back the background appears to be whilst the more zoomed in you are the background appears closer to the camera. 

Aperture Blades and Bokeh Balls!

Aperture

Inside each real world lens is a series of blades called the Aperture. What this does on a real world camera is control the volume of light hitting the sensor but this is not something we will concern ourselves with as we have other ways in Daz of controlling how bright the image is. 

Instead we will concentrate on the other function of the Aperture which is to control our Depth Of Field (DOF) which is essentially how much of our scene is in focus from the camera to the background.

Aperture settings are represented by an Fstop number such as F5.6, F8 etc.

The way it works is the higher the number the more things that will be in focus.

Conversely the opposite is true the lower the number less things will be in focus.

What you choose is all artistic choice. 

Here are some examples below of our cube in a scene with a HDRI Background. Notice how the background changes as the Aperture is opened up wider.

This is a powerful creative way of separating your main subject from the background or including the background.  

It's different with different lenses and distances!

 There is no set amount of space that will be in focus; it changes between lenses and distance to the subject.

This is why photographers have so many lenses to provide those creative choices to get the shot. 

Here is the key to aperture use.

• The closer to the subject the camera = less area that will be in focus at any F Stop

• The further away from the subject the camera = more area will be in focus at any F Stop

• The more Telephoto the lens = The less area that will be in focus at any F Stop

• The more Wide Angle the lens = The more area will be in focus at any F Stop

What this ends up meaning is you may need to choose between the lenses you have in order to achieve the right balance of what is in focus or not. 

Aperture Demonstration.

It's all about them Bokeh Balls!

Wikipedia describes Bokeh as “bokeh (/ˈboʊkə/ BOH-kə or /ˈboʊkeɪ/ BOH-kay;[1] Japanese: [boke]) is the aesthetic quality of the blur produced in the out-of-focus parts of an image produced by a lens. Bokeh has been defined as "the way the lens renders out-of-focus points of light".[5] Differences in lens aberrations and aperture shape cause some lens designs to blur the image in a way that is pleasing to the eye, while others produce blurring that is unpleasant or distracting ("good" and "bad" bokeh, respectively).[6] Bokeh occurs for parts of the scene that lie outside the depth of field. Photographers sometimes deliberately use a shallow focus technique to create images with prominent out-of-focus regions.”

Translated this means the pretty out of focus balls that you will see in images. it's usually where pinpoints of light are in the image which are out of focus which gives a pleasing look to the image.

The more open the aperture the more pronounced the bokeh. 

Let's take the previous example to see the bokeh in the image. 

We will use the F1.8 Aperture image and I will highlight those lovely Bokeh Balls for you.

Should they be that shape?

Well that is an artistic choice you have.

The shape of the bokeh is determined by how many aperture blades there are in the lens. 

The standard lenses included with the real world lens collection are based on classic photography lenses which have 9 blades. 

Luckily included with the collection are the portraiture lenses all of which have a massive 21 blades in to create a more circular bokeh. 

See the difference below. 

But why do I need to know all this?

In order to make the best choices for the camera you pull out of the bag you need to know how your choice affects the image. 

Photography is all about balance and the effect of the sensor size works in conjunction with the lens and aperture

It's all your artistic choices 

Some basic things below to remember about the artist choices you will be making .

• The Larger the format you choose the wider field of view (More Wide Angle)

• The Smaller the format you choose the more narrow the field of view (More Telephoto)

• The smaller the mm on a lens the wider the angle (Zoomed out)

• The higher the mm on a lens the more telephoto (Zoomed in)

• The smaller the mm on a lens the further away the background will look

• The higher the mm on a lens the closer the background will appear in your renders.

• The lower the Aperture number = The less things in focus

• The Higher the Aperture number = more things in focus

Conclusion

Wow that is a lot of information to take in but i wanted to give you a crash course so that you have a baseline of knowledge to draw from so that you can use this tool in such a way that you get the most out of your renders.