Hi gang!

So... after having shared some critical opinions about Daz Studio and the Daz3d company I'd now like to focus on something more positive. I mean... say what you want but isn't it kind of amazing that this software is (still) provided free of charge? I know, I know! => "Freemium", fair enough. But still, you cannot deny the fact that you don't have to buy anything if you know what you're doing and understand how things work.

And to be perfectly honest with you guys... my absolute favorite figures are all Daz Originals, and IMO for a very good reason. I'd like to specifically mention Sukai 8, Riley for Stephanie 5 (yups: a Genesis (1) figure!) and let's be honest... there's something special about Micheal & Victoria; I often jokingly refer to them as "Daz Studio's Barbie & Ken", I mean... both are cute couples from my POV (no, no... I don't play with Barbie dolls but my gf still has hers). Oh, context: this is coming from someone who owns multiple generations of the "power couple" (basically from V&M v4 and up) and I still enjoy working with all those generations.

At the time of writing I'm in a very good mood, felt like sharing and so... let's do this!

10 tips for both beginning and advanced users alike which I hope you guys can both enjoy and put to some good use.  (too bad that this forum doesn't have headers, but we'll make it work!).

#1 Customizing everything!

Is it me or is Sukai looking a little grumpy today? ;)

One of my absolute all-time favorite features is F3: "Window => Workspace => Customize...", this feature is totally insane (in a good way!) because let me tell you: Daz Studio is like elastic: you can bend, shape and customize it in any way you'd like. To my knowledge many Daz Studio users select one of the awesome workspace layouts and then, well, start using that.

Nothing wrong with that of course, don't get me wrong here (!) but the thing is... if you'd like something to be a bit different then there's a very good chance that you can make that work. Let's start with the interface: I'm fairly certain that my help menu shown above doesn't look like yours. After mis-clicking one too many times when I only wanted the list of my active plugins I decided to re-arrange it. I did the same for the GoZ option that got a bit buried in the File menu. 

Or what about the panes? I'm also fairly certain that my workspace as a whole doesn't fully match yours either. Or what about the toolbar? Keyboard shortcuts anyone? (in my Daz Studio you press Ctrl + 1 for textured shaded, Ctrl + 2 for Filament and of course (!) Ctrl + 3 to render the viewport with Iray). 

There's nothing wrong with using the software as-is, but at the same time it can also help to change things in a way that works best for you.

Warning! => If you do customize (parts of) your workspace then do yourself a favor and make sure to save those customizations. Sure, Daz Studio will remember your changes, no problem, but what if you need to suddenly re-install or.. what if there's a glitch somewhere?  The quickest way to save all of this is using F4 ("Save layout"). This will save the layout, actions (like keyboard shortcuts?), menu's and toolbars.

#2 Smart contents + Content library = power use!

The smart contents pane is much more than just an easy option to find related items for whatever you have currently selected in your scene. If you look at my above screenshot again then you probably won't recognize my Figures => Genesis category, because I set that up myself. As a result it's much easier for me to add a Genesis base figure to my scene (I heavily rely on this to check out custom (= 3rd party) characters). And the best part? None of these changes have any impact on my actual assets. You don't have to worry about assets suddenly not working because... the smart contents pane is basically a "virtual storage system" if you will, moving assets around in here won't affect anything else.

Now... you might be tempted to only use this smart contents pane, but ... be careful: you're missing out if you do. Big time. For multiple reasons...

> Daz3d vendors aren't always careful...

This here is "Mummy HD for Genesis 8 Male", an awesome ("antagonist?") figure for some scary and/or dangerous renders (warning: bandages sold separately). Yet there's one "small" problem with it: the ridiculous placement within the smart contents categories as shown above: right within 'Figures => People'. See: the smart contents pane always recurses the display of its contents. Meaning? Well: when I select "Figures => People" within smart contents then I get 370+ figures (!) to go through which makes it pretty much impossible to spot this one single character.

True story: I bought this character several years ago during one of Daz3d's awesome (!) sale periods. However... I then also managed to overlook and forget all about it for nearly 2 years, for the simple reason that I relied a little too much on "smart" contents back in the day.

The solution should be obvious: use the content library pane to check out your categories sometimes, unlike 'smart' contents this one doesn't recuse its results and makes it pretty obvious what is where.

And no, this isn't the only example... many wardrobe vendors are even more sloppy.

> Easy product overviews

Please don't tell her that I told you guys, but Sukai has a really cool tattoo on her back (yes dear random reader, I have way too much imagination pouring over at times). More seriously though: sometimes I don't want that to show and as one could expect: there's a preset to remove said tattoo. The only problem... "Materials => Iray => Feminine => (looking for): Sukai 8 => Skin". Oh no, wait! : "Tattoos". Each and every time. Meanwhile I can also use the option shown above and that will open the Content Library pane while showing the full product overview for Sukai 8. Removing the tattoo now only requires me to scroll down and double click the setting. Easy!

> Never underestimate "3rd party" markets!

I'm of course talking about Renderosity, but also my personal favorite of Renderotica. Please be advised that the name says it all, viewer / visitor discretion is definitely advised. Apparently the staff doesn't mind casual mention of other places, so I couldn't resist doing this one time.

But why bother, I hear you ask? Sure... you need to download the archive(s), unpack/extract them, look up your contents in the content library... lots of work. True. So why bother?!  Well....

You won't find these two beauties on the Daz3d marketplace <3....

I apologize for the lazy (Filament) render but I'm already 90+ (or so) minutes into writing all this up, so yes: I am cutting a few corners.

These two figures showcase my 2 favorite vendors. 3DLoki (left character is Violette, the very first I bought from him (notice the birthmarks?!)). The right character is Meher Gayatri by the amazing Aiylaf Learning. You guys know her (?) as Aiylaflrn. When their characters share surnames... they also share character traits as well. Notice the facial expressions? I didn't do anything here!

Fun fact: the outfit on the left? Cyberpunk outfit for G8F & G8.1F, bought full price from Daz3d because ... well, for starters: just look at it!  Loki showcased Violette with this outfit and I was so caught up... I just nabbed it. Never regretted that, this is so cool.

#3 The surfaces pane = awesomeness!

I'm not gonna lie here: if you have the option to get your hands on Substance Painter and (!) Designer (Steam perpetual FTW!) then that will become a sure way to put an end to ever buying into texture packs ever again. Yes, the 'designer' learning curve can be a little steep, but I'm not exaggerating here. 

... yet don't cut the Surfaces pane and all its material presets short either!  I present you... the golden biki..., errr: Cyber (swim)suit!

Seriously you guys... SO many times I didn't even need to fire up Substance and just find the right surfaces, select the right presets and I had a solid looking figure, but differently.

Oh, and if you think this is awesome....you should check out the Shader Mixer sometimes as well.

And there you have it!

Truth be told I was going for a top 10 but...  I'm being told that I've been at this for quite a while so I'm leaving it at 3 (for now ;)).  The forum doesn't do drafts either, so I need to be careful.

Whatever you may think of Daz Studio and/or the Daz3d company.. there's no denying that we get access to easy to use software which provides a ton of options and all free of charge. We can purchase awesome contents and don't even have to think too hard about the installation process. And some of said contents... are IMO totally awesome.

Oh... and I'm going here: Richard even tries to help out people "over here" despite many of us being kinda critical? Sorry, but I have mad respect for that!

(context!) => there's a reason though I'm posting this "over here" vs. "over there", I'm on probation ;)   But that's not something I hold against the Daz moderators, I was harsh, critical (seriously!) and let's not forget: their house, their rules. Heck, I don't even lash out on Reddit (I'm also a vivid Redditor?). I can't help mention though that I did find it funny to see several other forum users over here who apparently have the same kind of issues "over there".

But none of that takes anything away from the fact that Daz Studio is one of a kind software.

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed (I hope this gets saved! (it didn't!)) and I hope this is going to be useful for some of you.

Very good of you to post this info :)

I agree with goofygrape. You might want to upload this information to the freestuff forum just in case someone want to download it for reference.

I'll third what goofygrape and ggreen said.

I'll add that Filament could be/should be more of a go-to renderer. Actual Filament is a lot more capable than the Daz implementation. And, of course, it's instantaneously fast. That makes it a wonderful asset in my book.I should probably buy some of the Filament enhancement products. Haven't got around to it.

Also, you can control the brightness of a Filament scene by going into Iray preview for a moment and then using the tonemapping exposure slider in tonemapper options to adjust the overall lighting. The base setting is 13. Smaller numbers brighten the scene, higher numbers darken it.

First: thanks you guys for your kind words!  I'll be sure to keep those suggestions in mind and check out that other forum too. We'll see what I can do and/or come up with. Even so... I did promise a top 10 initially. Still no promises but...

PART II => 3 more tips!

#4 => Never underestimate the Shader Mixer pane!

True story: I'm a vivid Redditor and I also enjoy the (unofficial!) Daz3d subreddit, it's generally speaking a really fun and relaxed place. Except for those moments when it isn't of course (but that's not something only happening in this one channel; it's a sporadic "Reddit community flaw"). People were talking about shaders and Iray presets when I commented on the availability of the Shader Mixer pane shown above, which was quickly met with downvotes as well as comments that I was basically being stupid to even mention this because (I quote): "You can only use that for RSL!", quickly followed by more comments backing up this display of stupidity stating things as: "You can easily see for yourself: just use the File menu to open one of those .duf files, cannot be done!".

I just shrugged behind my screen, unsubbed from the post and moved on. Arguing ignorance is a waste of time (this happened several years ago btw, and I can't help but grin whenever I think back).

So here we're back with Sukai 8, now wearing a pretty cool catsuit. On the left side of my screen you'll notice the Surfaces pane telling us clearly on top that the so called "Iray Uber (MDL)" shader is being used (see my green highlight?).

Now, as most of us hopefully know the Surfaces pane itself provides a lot of customization options. You can tweak just about anything in here.

But what if... What if you want to change the very nature of the shader you're working with? You know: to apply some very specific customizations yourself. From adding some birthmarks to a skin to... I dunno... make things look a bit "off" (sunburn anyone?).

For that... we can use the Shader Mixer pane. Check the Windows menu: "Windows => Panes => Shader Mixer".  Now, sure: by default you'll be met with the "2 brick" Daz3d shader which defines the basic material for RSL. And yes: if you try to load a saved preset then only .dbm files are supported.

So instead:  Select the surface / figure which you want to edit, and pay attention to the shader name shown in the Surfaces pane. Open the Shader Mixer and then use: File => Import from scene. Next... well, just edit to your hearts desire.  Don't be fooled by the (limited) previews. Instead: be sure to save your work and apply where needed.

Now, an important disclaimer is in effect here: please be advised that you're probably (much) better off sticking with the Surfaces pane to apply / "mix" and customize different shaders by using all of the provided controls. Editing the very bricks and their relationship(s) themselves is not easy! 

And yet... once again it's one of those (seriously) advanced features that not too many people seem to use (or be aware of?) and ... still available fully free of charge?

You can use the Shader Mixer to create (or customize) shaders for RSL / 3Delight, Filament and (as shown above): Iray (MDL).

#5 => Consider using multiple Daz3d & Poser format libraries

(in case you're wondering about the blurring above: one mention of "another marketplace" is more than enough)

If you're using market places other than Daz3d then you should do yourself a favor and add at least one more Daz library to your setup. When I first downloaded an archive (I believe that was from ShareCG) then I dumped all of that in my "My Daz Library", and sure: that worked. But ... why would you include "static" contents (which you can always download again) next to your own projects and presets which you'll want to back up at times? All this does is increase the size of your backups, and for what?

Now, then you may be tempted to just add all this to your official Daz3d library, and why not? Well... maybe this won't happen often: but what if you want to remove something at a later time? You can easily uninstall Daz packages, but as soon as you want to remove an archive... you'll have to do some digging. And having to dig through, say, 50 subfolders is a lot more tricky than 12 or 20.

Trust me: it's a lot easier than you may think.  Press F2 to enter your settings, then open the 'Content' pane. Click on the bottom: "Content Directory Manager".

Here's the "secret": a Daz (or Poser) -formatted library is merely a folder on your harddrive which follows a specific standard. You can recognize "Daz contents" by specific sub-folders such as "Data", "Props" or "People" and even Runtime (though that's more related to Poser). Adding an extra library can be done by right clicking on one of these headers, and then selecting the "Add base directory" option. Point it to an (empty?) folder in which you plan to extract your content archives and you're done.

Once again: there really is no "right" or "wrong here", seriously. Even so, it's my experience that keeping some contents a little separated can help out in the longer run.

#6 => (re)organizing your morphs can be useful at times...

So... I have quite a few figures in my library and because of that also have quite a ton of different morphs, especially for figures such as G8F and G8M. Most of these morphs are located in pretty common locations that are easy to find again. But some morphs end up in the weirdest of locations where I'd like to point out "Hidden" as a somewhat unfair example (still an example ;)).

Fortunately for us we can do something about it ourselves. If you want to 'move' a Morph to a different location then all you need to do is click on the cogwheel icon (highlighted above on the right side), and then select: "Parameter Settings". This will open a new window (shown on the left) and from here on out it couldn't be easier: click on the "drop down" button behind the "Path" entry and just select a new location. Once you're done click "Accept" at the bottom and you're all set. Note that you can also use this method to define new location if you want to.

And don't worry: this is all virtual (meta)data so no actual files will get moved or something like that. So no worries about suddenly "breaking" any of these settings; though you should of course always be careful when making changes like these.

End of Part II

Well, at least we're now at 6 tips and tricks which is at least more than half way of 10, so now I don't have to feel guilty ;)

Thanks again for reading, thanks for your comments above and I'll be sure to check out the freebie forum!

First: thanks you guys for your kind words!  I'll be sure to keep those suggestions in mind and check out that other forum too. We'll see what I can do and/or come up with. Even so... I did promise a top 10 initially. Still no promises but...

PART II => 3 more tips!

#4 => Never underestimate the Shader Mixer pane!

True story: I'm a vivid Redditor and I also enjoy the (unofficial!) Daz3d subreddit, it's generally speaking a really fun and relaxed place. Except for those moments when it isn't of course (but that's not something only happening in this one channel; it's a sporadic "Reddit community flaw"). People were talking about shaders and Iray presets when I commented on the availability of the Shader Mixer pane shown above, which was quickly met with downvotes as well as comments that I was basically being stupid to even mention this because (I quote): "You can only use that for RSL!", quickly followed by more comments backing up this display of stupidity stating things as: "You can easily see for yourself: just use the File menu to open one of those .duf files, cannot be done!".

I just shrugged behind my screen, unsubbed from the post and moved on. Arguing ignorance is a waste of time (this happened several years ago btw, and I can't help but grin whenever I think back).

So here we're back with Sukai 8, now wearing a pretty cool catsuit. On the left side of my screen you'll notice the Surfaces pane telling us clearly on top that the so called "Iray Uber (MDL)" shader is being used (see my green highlight?).

Now, as most of us hopefully know the Surfaces pane itself provides a lot of customization options. You can tweak just about anything in here.

But what if... What if you want to change the very nature of the shader you're working with? You know: to apply some very specific customizations yourself. From adding some birthmarks to a skin to... I dunno... make things look a bit "off" (sunburn anyone?).

For that... we can use the Shader Mixer pane. Check the Windows menu: "Windows => Panes => Shader Mixer".  Now, sure: by default you'll be met with the "2 brick" Daz3d shader which defines the basic material for RSL. And yes: if you try to load a saved preset then only .dbm files are supported.

So instead:  Select the surface / figure which you want to edit, and pay attention to the shader name shown in the Surfaces pane. Open the Shader Mixer and then use: File => Import from scene. Next... well, just edit to your hearts desire.  Don't be fooled by the (limited) previews. Instead: be sure to save your work and apply where needed.

Now, an important disclaimer is in effect here: please be advised that you're probably (much) better off sticking with the Surfaces pane to apply / "mix" and customize different shaders by using all of the provided controls. Editing the very bricks and their relationship(s) themselves is not easy! 

And yet... once again it's one of those (seriously) advanced features that not too many people seem to use (or be aware of?) and ... still available fully free of charge?

You can use the Shader Mixer to create (or customize) shaders for RSL / 3Delight, Filament and (as shown above): Iray (MDL).

#5 => Consider using multiple Daz3d & Poser format libraries

(in case you're wondering about the blurring above: one mention of "another marketplace" is more than enough)

If you're using market places other than Daz3d then you should do yourself a favor and add at least one more Daz library to your setup. When I first downloaded an archive (I believe that was from ShareCG) then I dumped all of that in my "My Daz Library", and sure: that worked. But ... why would you include "static" contents (which you can always download again) next to your own projects and presets which you'll want to back up at times? All this does is increase the size of your backups, and for what?

Now, then you may be tempted to just add all this to your official Daz3d library, and why not? Well... maybe this won't happen often: but what if you want to remove something at a later time? You can easily uninstall Daz packages, but as soon as you want to remove an archive... you'll have to do some digging. And having to dig through, say, 50 subfolders is a lot more tricky than 12 or 20.

Trust me: it's a lot easier than you may think.  Press F2 to enter your settings, then open the 'Content' pane. Click on the bottom: "Content Directory Manager".

Here's the "secret": a Daz (or Poser) -formatted library is merely a folder on your harddrive which follows a specific standard. You can recognize "Daz contents" by specific sub-folders such as "Data", "Props" or "People" and even Runtime (though that's more related to Poser). Adding an extra library can be done by right clicking on one of these headers, and then selecting the "Add base directory" option. Point it to an (empty?) folder in which you plan to extract your content archives and you're done.

Once again: there really is no "right" or "wrong here", seriously. Even so, it's my experience that keeping some contents a little separated can help out in the longer run.

#6 => (re)organizing your morphs can be useful at times...

So... I have quite a few figures in my library and because of that also have quite a ton of different morphs, especially for figures such as G8F and G8M. Most of these morphs are located in pretty common locations that are easy to find again. But some morphs end up in the weirdest of locations where I'd like to point out "Hidden" as a somewhat unfair example (still an example ;)).

Fortunately for us we can do something about it ourselves. If you want to 'move' a Morph to a different location then all you need to do is click on the cogwheel icon (highlighted above on the right side), and then select: "Parameter Settings". This will open a new window (shown on the left) and from here on out it couldn't be easier: click on the "drop down" button behind the "Path" entry and just select a new location. Once you're done click "Accept" at the bottom and you're all set. Note that you can also use this method to define new location if you want to.

And don't worry: this is all virtual (meta)data so no actual files will get moved or something like that. So no worries about suddenly "breaking" any of these settings; though you should of course always be careful when making changes like these.

End of Part II

Well, at least we're now at 6 tips and tricks which is at least more than half way of 10, so now I don't have to feel guilty ;)

Thanks again for reading, thanks for your comments above and I'll be sure to check out the freebie forum!