Beginner Challenge - March 2022

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!
 

Posing

This challenge is a general render challenge with the focus being on how you pose the characters in your image. We're providing you with lots of great links on Posing from a variety of sources. To get started, find a photograph or drawing using this link or eg for dance poses this link to use as a reference. (Be sure the image you use is labeled for commercial reuse - though we will only be using it as reference, alternatively use your own personal photographs for reference.) Additional searches approved for use include Running, Fighting. (These links go to DuckDuckGo, which may give different results for different searchers, and should give everyone plenty to choose from.)

Then try to pose your character as closely as possible to match the reference image. For this challenge, please post your reference image or a link to it, and your render. This will give forum viewers an idea of the pose you are trying to achieve and will lead to more helpful suggestions. Have fun!

How to Use Your Software:
Software is often updated, and online tutorials and information often demonstrate older versions of the software. The software version you are using may differ in User Interface and tools available. Please share links to reference material that you have found helpful in the Challenge thread.

in DAZ Studio
Daz Documentation Center [Wiki]
Daz 101: Posing
Pinning, Posing and the Active Pose Tool
Applying Partial Poses
DAZ Studio Tips 2 - Symmetry and Partial Poses
Daz 3D Posing, Pinning Poses, & Morphs
Some good tips in this forum thread.

in Poser
Poser Tutorial: Quick Posing

in Carrara
Dartanbeck's simple method of character animation (Carrara Cafe article, great for those who prefer illustrated written tutorials)
Huge list of helpful forum links (scroll to Animation and Posing section) If you have a problem, your answer might be here!
Carrara 3D Tutorial - Posing a Figure
Posing in Carrara
Posing Tips - Carrara Cafe

in Bryce
While it is not possible to pose things in Bryce, you are welcome to do your posing in another program such as DAZ Studio or Poser, then export and render in Bryce. For information on how to use the Bryce bridge to import a DS scene into Bryce: http://brycebasics.blogspot.com/2009/12/using-daz-studio-with-bryce.html

Always worth a look: last years Posing challenge:

Posing

I will be checking in, as will the rest of the Community Volunteers, to try and help with anything you all may need.

denisnormandin said:

Hi,

Can the zip file to install the Daz bridge to blender be downloaded manually?

The instructions to install the bridge sais that I must start by installing it in Daz Studio, then go to the Blender preferences and install the add-on from C:\Users\*YourUsername*\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\DAZ 3D Add-ons\” and called DTB_v280-283.zip. 
I don't have that.

All I have under C:\Users\*YourUsername*\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender... is \2.90\scripts\addons\DTB 

No zip files anywhere along that path.

I'm using Blender 2.9

The export process seams to be working fine from Daz, but I can't import to blender since I can't find the right file.

 

Thanks

 

yukimuki12 said:

goodwinds said:

When exporting from DAZ set SubDivision level = 0

 

ah wow thank you! i will try that but what about pose? all poses are okay? 

yukimuki12: I wasn't able to export poses thru the bridge, if someone knows how to do it I'll appreciate the info. You can try exporting outside the Bridge as Collada or Alembic or even .fbx files and then import them  in Maya as such.

Thanks, that place is notorious for stealing and sharing others work, not to mention the malware you might get for just visiting it.

The airwolf on turbosquid will import into Daz Studio if you get it in .OBJ format. Keep in mind that it will just be a model and not rigged, meaning nothing moves or opens and you will probably have to tweak the textures to work well in Iray

Since going to 4.20 general release I've noticed certain shader presets, namely iray Daz Uber shaders ask if I want to save the scene before exiting. Now I understand from this group that this appears to be a CMS issue, my question is, how do I fix it? I have tried stopping and restarting CMS, updating Metadata, uninstalling and reinstalling the default resources for 4.20+ but no joy. 
 

All content installed via DIM if that's relevant. 

All that good custom info is stored in the CMS database. You can export it from the Content Database Maintenance utility (right-click on Content Library tab) with the "Export User Data" selection. One or more files (UserData_n.dsx) will be created in the Runtime/Support folder, which can be used to "Re-Import Metadata" if needed. This presumes that the files are intact, along with the metadata for all installed products. Backup, backup, backup...

Some users back up the entire CMS data cluster. You can see the location in Preferences (F2), CMS Settings. 

This seems to be a metadata issue. It started after the store software change, without any update to Daz Studio at least, so I have to assume the bug is store-side. It is annoying that it still hasn't been addressed, I agree.

I'm a big fan of the Smart Content tab myself, but I will admit it took some getting used to at first. Partly because not everything actually appears there and partly because it's context sensitive so I was wondering why 'Figure' options suddenly vanished after loading in one of Stomemason's epic structures

It does have its quirks though. For some reason universal materials don't show up even if you correctly label them and have a surface selected - only the ones directly associated with the selected object like skin, and as a long-term Daz user I think there's been a touch of corruption or oddness with some of the metadata as a ton ended up in the "Lost and Found" and needed recategorising. Still, for the things I use most often it's a godsend. I'm always adding to it as well, since 3rd party sites don't show up in Smart Content by default so I've taken to adding it in manually.

Check my signature for a metadata tutorial to add your own items to the Smart Content window. You will need to find it in your Content Library first, but at least you'll be able to speed things up in future. It covers not only how to add items to default categories, but also how to create your own and associate different outfits with different figures (if needed). I would advise against doing this for Daz Connect content unless it genuinely doesn't appear anywhere in the Smart Content though -- they should already have their own metadata.

Also keep in mind that because the Smart Content window is context sensitive, if you have something selected in the viewport, you're likely to only see items which are related to the selection. For example, selecting Genesis Female 8.1 offers wardrobe items and poses for that figure. Clear your selection to make sure you haven't just overlooked it.

alainmerigot said:

how do i rid myself of the smart content? 
Are there 2 different install paths or how does DIM install to both Smart Content and Content Library?

DIM installs items in a file hierarchy given by your configuration and the asset content. It is how content library works and the only real installation done by DIM.

Then DIM maintains a database that connects this path to some "smart" attributes to create the smart content wrt to metadata of the asset.

The Content Managment System, operating through the postgreSQL database, is controlled mainly through Daz Studio. DIM simply adds the metadata from the content it is installing.

There is no need to get rid of smart content. It is always present and does not really occupy disk space. You can just ignore it.

This is what I do most of the time. I may eventually use smart content but it is extremely rare. I have much more purchased assets than I have installed assets and smart content is useless in that situation. I just maintain a personal DB with the asset description and I have no problem finding assets in the content library. And if the asset that I need is not installed, I install it and update my DB with its path in the content library.

 

So, a few key considerations to know about the Smart Content tab. Firstly, it's context sensitive. If you have something selected in the viewport, the Smart Content will list items compatible with that item. That could be clothing for a figure, for example. Despite how scary the interface might look, it's surprisingly simple to add new items to it, of course this depends on how you added it.

Daz Connect content should automatically put itself into the right categories and includes metadata (fancy word for the bits of info that tell Daz where to find it). Content found outside of the Daz store does not always come with metadata (and in most cases usually won't), so you would need to add your own.

They have simplified this a LOT though, through the categorize function. If however you do get stuck, there's a handy-dandy tutorial for changing the metadata (using that complex-looking window) in my signature below. It's old, but all of the information contained within has not changed dramatically since it was posted. You'll find it in the 'add your own Smart Content' link.

alainmerigot said:

how do i rid myself of the smart content? 
Are there 2 different install paths or how does DIM install to both Smart Content and Content Library?

DIM installs items in a file hierarchy given by your configuration and the asset content. It is how content library works and the only real installation done by DIM.

Then DIM maintains a database that connects this path to some "smart" attributes to create the smart content wrt to metadata of the asset.

There is no need to get rid of smart content. It is always present and does not really occupy disk space. You can just ignore it.

This is what I do most of the time. I may eventually use smart content but it is extremely rare. I have much more purchased assets than I have installed assets and smart content is useless in that situation. I just maintain a personal DB with the asset description and I have no problem finding assets in the content library. And if the asset that I need is not installed, I install it and update my DB with its path in the content library.

 

i think most of my problems with finding stuff is that I have allowed DIM to install as it does, mostly everywhere. Yeah, I have poses in clothing, in shaders, shaders in props, on and on. Its terrible really. I would like a hair, its shaders, and anything related to the product, in a folder with that product, preferrably under hair ... but no, its in hair, shaders, props, figures, and wherever under all kinds of different names.  

how do i rid myself of the smart content? 
Are there 2 different install paths or how does DIM install to both Smart Content and Content Library?

DIM installs items in a file hierarchy given by your configuration and the asset content. It is how content library works and the only real installation done by DIM.

Then DIM maintains a database that connects this path to some "smart" attributes to create the smart content wrt to metadata of the asset.

There is no need to get rid of smart content. It is always present and does not really occupy disk space. You can just ignore it.

This is what I do most of the time. I may eventually use smart content but it is extremely rare. I have much more purchased assets than I have installed assets and smart content is useless in that situation. I just maintain a personal DB with the asset description and I have no problem finding assets in the content library. And if the asset that I need is not installed, I install it and update my DB with its path in the content library.

I originally came from Poser (years ago) where I had become used to using the library structure to load content. Also to organise content into my own folder structure, not where Poser/DAZ/PAs want me to put it. This breaks Smart Content straight away. You don't need to turn off Smart Content. You can take the tab off your screen through the UI if you want to. I install all my content through DIM and then rearrange it how I want it.

Beware....if you currently have a lot of content the file structure of the Content Library folder can be a little confusing to begin with if you haven't ventured there before. As most people use Smart Content, and it gets linked to wherever it was installed, the installation paths might not make a lot of sense. For example, you may have a folder with a clothing item in it. The addon textures might be in a completely different folder named after the Vendor, not always but enough to cause issues if you don't know where to look.

There's a search function for the Content Library to locate things.

At the beginning Smart Content wasn't that 'smart'. It's improved leaps and bounds but there are still threads/metadata content updates regularly that make me think it's definitely not perfect, but then no system is.

Mark_e593e0a5 said:

It might REALLY help A LOT if Daz would also use the the "Resolved Issues" section in the readme file. That section seems to be there for a reason....

Agreed they didn't do it for ages then not long ago they started again, and now they've stopped again. Helps a lot if you have a 1GB file showing as updated in DIM to download and you see all that was updated was the Metadata (I don't use Smart Content).

barbult said:

Is there a way to select a single toolbar and export/import just that one, or is the entire set of toolbars always exported/imported?

The settings are in one file or, maybe, several files which contain all the settings of a particular type, not for a particular purpose (e.g. particular toolbar).  I think the toolbars are in %AppData%/DAZ 3D/{Studio4,Studio4 Public Build}/toolbars.dsx  So everything gets saved/loaded at once.

The AppData .dsx files can be copyied and backed up and if "Studio4 Public Build" doesn't exist they get copied from "Studio4" (i.e. the release).  When instances are created they get copied from the corresponding parent directory (Studio4 or Studio4 Public Build), although there were some changes to the behavior in 4.16.

The files are just pseudo-XML (no schema), they can be viewed in notepad (etc) and even editted with apprpriate care.

Yeah, don't get confused with different ways to install stuff, if you're using DIM or Daz Central then you do not want to mess around with Connect because if you do then you risk installing the same material twice.

As for smart contents...  the keyword is metadata. In order to add a file to the smart contents pane you need to categorize it, and add this metadata which will determine what kind of file you're adding. In order to do this you need to use the content library pane, right click the folder which contains the file(s) which you want to add and then use the option "Edit metadata...". There you can set the type of the file you're adding. So....  actor/character for figures, preset/material for.. materials. etc. After you set that up things will become accessible in smart contents.

second_technician_rimmer_9571136c47 said:

DoctorJellybean, yes, I,am on this version. I can't import previously saved layouts from my good saves, nor create one and get it back after restarting DS.

Please try again and post a full log.

DoctorJellybean, yes, I,am on this version. I can't import previously saved layouts from my good saves, nor create one and get it back after restarting DS.

Is there a way to select a single toolbar and export/import just that one, or is the entire set of toolbars always exported/imported?