Book Image

The Complete Guide to DAZ Studio 4

By : Paolo Ciccone
Book Image

The Complete Guide to DAZ Studio 4

By: Paolo Ciccone

Overview of this book

„While 3D technology can be intimidating, DAZ Studio provides a perfect entry point for anybody interested in it. DAZ Studio is designed to empower the readers with tools to manipulate "ready to use" models and figures. With DAZ Studio, you can use thousands of pre-made 3D models and create fantastic scenes without any hassle. Embark on a journey through the amazing world of 3Ddesigning and create great 3D art with DAZ Studio. This book will show you the way!The Complete Guide to DAZ Studio 4 shows you how to effectively use DAZ Studio 4 from start to finish. This guide takes you on a fun journey into the world of 3D art with DAZ Studio. Using everyday situations and practical examples, this book leads you from understanding the basics of 3D to the exploration of all the relevant topics, including posing, lighting, rendering, and content installation. You will follow step-by-step examples that will show you how to create great 3D art with fun and ease.With a free download code for Dawn: the brand new and hugely anticipated 3D figure by Hivewire3D and two free environments by renowned 3D artist Jack Tomalin, this book is a must-read for all aspiring 3D artists.

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The Complete Guide to DAZ Studio 4
Paolo Ciccone
Oct, 2013 | 348 pages
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Table of Contents (20 chapters)
The Complete Guide to DAZ Studio 4
The Complete Guide to DAZ Studio 4
Credits
Credits
About the Author
About the Author
About the Reviewers
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Preface
Free Chapter
1
Quick Start – Our First 3D Scene
Quick Start – Our First 3D Scene
Stepping into DAZ Studio
Customizing Studio
Introducing Genesis – a shapeshifter
Rendering an image
Summary
2
Customizing Studio
Customizing Studio
Getting more screen space
Removing screen clutter
Simpler, faster keyboard shortcuts
Changing the background color
Summary
3
Posing Figures
Posing Figures
The main blocks of a pose
Using premade poses
Creating a new pose
Avoiding common mistakes
Posing the lower part of the body
Finishing touches
Saving the pose
Summary
4
Creating New Characters with Morphs
Creating New Characters with Morphs
Understanding morphs
Character creation with morphs
Summary
5
Rendering
Rendering
Gearing up for rendering
The Render Settings menu
Rendering
Summary
6
Finding and Installing New Content
Finding and Installing New Content
Places to find more content
Summary
7
Navigating the Studio Environment
Navigating the Studio Environment
Polygons – the building blocks of our scenes
Moving in the 3D space
Learning about the Viewport tools
Let there be light
Managing content
Importing models from other applications
Summary
8
Building a Full Scene
Building a Full Scene
Adding an environment
Summary
9
Lighting
Lighting
Setting the scene
Adding the required lights
Renaming objects
Cinematic lighting
No lights in the frame
Summary
10
Hyper-realism – the Reality Plugin
Hyper-realism – the Reality Plugin
LuxRender
Understanding LuxRender concepts
Installing Reality
Using realistic materials
Lighting with Reality and Lux
Reality in production
Summary
11
Creating Content
Creating Content
Creating clothing
Making a dress for Dawn
Rigging the dress
Distributing your work
Getting down to business
Summary
12
Animation
Animation
Understanding animation
The Studio timeline
A simple animation test
Organizing your project
aniMate2
Rendering
Summary
Installing DAZ Studio
Installing DAZ Studio
The reason for installing software
Using the Install Manager
Running DAZ Studio
Index
Index

Managing content

We have seen how the Genesis figure is accessible from the Smart Content tab. We have seen how to buy and install additional content through websites such as Renderosity and RuntimeDNA. It is now time to examine how to access all that content from Studio.

The Smart Content and Content Library tabs

With Studio 4, DAZ has introduced the Smart Content tab. This part of the UI manages the installed content that has metadata, information that describes the product, and how it relates to other products. Metadata provides a way for Studio to know what products are made for a given object or figure.

For example, if we add Genesis to the scene and we select it, the Smart Content panel changes to show only the content that applies to the selection.

Tip

Finding the right terms for UI elements is useful, so let's examine the world of tabs for a moment. The tab is the element that sticks out and which when clicked, causes a pane or panel to be shown. So, we click on the tab to make the panel...

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