One day I will give it a try to make real movie.
I know it is a lot of work, besides making a script, but I am only speaking technical.
Can this be done in Daz, or can I close this approach.
In other words, is Daz good enough for a full screen tv movie? Or will it be too blurry?

I know I need to do it in parts, because an hour or more will probably be too long to handle.

If you mean by "Blurry" a pixelated or a soft looking video, this is not a function of D|S but a choice of video codec and size.

Yes, you're right, movie making is a hugh process frin start to finish. I woud learn all you can on video output and codecs as these are the key to making good looking video.

Andd to answer your question, yes D|S is capable, but with any other animation softtware you will need to lear and have available other software as well. (Editing, sound, video conversion, etc)

Start small and work up from there.

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That was the thing I was looking for.  Thanks. If Daz is capable of making a sharp looking video on a full tv screen? That was my main issue. The rest is learning, sweating and testing. I don't like to walk in a dead end street.

You;re asking the wrong questions. (Yes, D|S is capable) - the first thing you should ask yourself is:
"What is it (the video) for? and where will it be shown?"

If it's for DVD, you need to know that, if it's for YouTube or another  online medium, you need to know that too. If it going oit to DigiBeta (tape), is it going to film?  Lots of mediyms to consider.

These are simple questions, but they will affect the outcome of your video if you don't plan for them to begin with. If not quality and usability is affected.

It is for DVD. So far beyond a YouTube video. Today I saw parts of the new movie "Avatar" and the problem solved of the bridge Daz-Bryce and had some more looks at Bryce. So I thought I am going to make something like that. I know Avatar is far beyond my skills, but a "simple" version could be possible.
No, there is nothing wrong with my brains.

Make sure your video is 480 x 720 px for DVD and 29.297 fps (NTSC)

Avatar cost Cameron 1/4 billion dollars to make. That's a high goal indeed!
He hired a linguist just to create the languages spolen in the film and a biologist to create the plant and animal life in the movie. He also created a new camera that shows the CG composited with the live footage in realtime. Incredible stuff.

Here's a making of video you might be interested in:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geNv6FUK0HU&feature=player_embedded#

I wish you rhe best with your movie projects - it's always best to be armed with as much information as you can before atempting any project.

It's a big project, even if you do short movie. Maybe you should have a look at Pigeon Impossible at Youtube, while it has nothing to do with DAZ Studio, some of the hints, tricks and information will still be usefull.

The last few years software has improved a lot and because of that a lot more is possible by individuals. Technical, Daz and Bryce can do very nice things. I have seen 5 minute Bryce manuals on YouTube which create awesome results. The software can do it, but many are afraid of trying things they can't do. Everything can be learned. It won't be perfect in the beginning, but the next one will be better.

Those are very useful videos. Thanks.

It is possible.

If you look at Cameron's "Avatar", hundreds of artists were put to work in the effort. Rendering farms processed the work.

It is extremely complicated and time consuming.

If you really want to try, start with something like a 30 second commercial. See how that goes. Keep in mind the time & effort you put into that 30 seconds will have to be done an additional 160 times (for an 80 minute feature). If you still want to do it, roll up your sleeves.

I'm not trying to discourage you, but I want you to know it can be done. It can look good. It WILL take a LOT of time and work.

Break a Leg!

I have a lot of other things to do first, but one day I'll give it a try. Bryce can do a lot of nice things, but Bryce is new to me. I never looked at it, but now the bridge new Daz-Bryce is fixed, I can use it.

Avatar is far over my head, but things like Madagascar and Happy Feed are doable. A lot of scenes have just plain simple images as backgrounds. Besides the lot of work, the voices and the script idea, are my biggest problems. But everything is solvable.

Render times are going to be killer, even on my quad core (my average scene) takes about a minute to render.  At 30 frames per second (and I would think that you would actually by looking at 60 frames a second), you are talking about 30 minutes for one second of footage.

The cost of subing this work out to a professional render farm is HUGE! However...in your position I would look at what it takes to setup a beowulf cluster. The poor man version of a super computer/render farm. I have seen 50 node clusters that were put together (with a fair amount of dumpster diving) for less than $2000. The thing here, it isn't processor speed that matters nearly as much as the number of processors.

D|S does support multi-threading (i.e. multiple processors) but I am not certain that can be translated into a full scale beowulf cluster.

The other thing to think about is what video editor you are going to use. If you have any asperations to using a video camera down the road...matching the editing software with the video camera is important.

Not going to use a camera, so this isn't an issue.
30 fr/sec will do. 60 frames is for games.

Probably I am missing something, because this is all pretty new to me, but:

Just rendered 20 frames with Daz. 1920 x 1080 px. Highest/slowest level: 3Delight.
Took me about 15 sec/fr.
Used a quad core.
Result on my 28 inch pc screen looks good.

Did you have shadows on? Were there any transparency-mapped items, such as hair, in the scene? If yes I'm amazed at the speed you were getting as those are the things that really slow renders (along with the more advanced shaders, and real reflections).

None of the above. But in new projects it will probably be added. It all depends if things are possible. If hair is going to be a problem, my characters will be hairless or a fake approach. I don't work with human characters or a natural looking world, so I can skip a lot of the heavy stuff if I want.

If I am going to use a feature depends on if it is doable. If something is too much to render, it will not be used or I use something else. If hair is the reason I cannot make a movie, I can give up, or loose the hair.

Those are sweet render times!

Yes, DS and Bryce are certainly capable.

One thing to keep in mind with rendering is you will need a lot of patience even with fast systems - a separate machine for rendering is a real time-saver if it's available. If you're not going for photorealism like Avatar or the Final Fantasy movie, then you may see significant time savings.

Learn all you can, test test test, and make sure to plan well in the pre-production stage.

Congrats and break a leg!

The situation has changed a bit. I am now studying Carrara. This has a lot more potential as Daz + Bryce. I am amazed by this software. Wish I had looked more into it.

With Carrara it is lot "easier."

One other thing is, if you are in the animation stuff, the habit start of overdoing. Because we work with these tools, we see more as "normal" people. We want more because we can. Recently I saw a part of the Madagascar movie (in the zoo). Many of the backgrounds are very very simple images. I see this because I pay attention to this. "Others" don't see this.

That is why there has to be a way in the middle between simplicity and perfectionism. If you can't produce something because rendering takes weeks, while "normal" people don't see the difference with a lower render or images as background for instance, you are doing something wrong. Rendering doesn't have to be a problem.

Carrara is great, I've only recently started using it myself. The oceans are amazing. I would suggest the Dreamlight tutorials, they are fantastic and will help you get up to speed faster.

You're absolutely right about the backgrounds, they can be simpler yet still effective. It's the same way with comics - many panels have only solid colors with full detailing only on establishing shots or other important shots.

There is a lot to be said for beautiful matte paintings - but they are not needed in EVERY shot of a film, and especially in conversations between characters you should not notice the backgrounds.

Tutorials will follow. But I am only at page 200/850 of the manual and allready impressed.

But keep in mind, you see things others don't see. No "normal" viewer will see the difference during conversations between a real 3d background or one image rendered in Bryce.

Quote - One day I will give it a try to make real movie.
I know it is a lot of work, besides making a script, but I am only speaking technical.
Can this be done in Daz, or can I close this approach.
In other words, is Daz good enough for a full screen tv movie? Or will it be too blurry?

I know I need to do it in parts, because an hour or more will probably be too long to handle.

No you can not make anything like Avatar on Daz Studio.  I hate to sound negative but the software is just not up to the task.  You need certain things like dynamic clothing and dynamic figures that you don't have in studio.  You will need to use something like lightwave or Maya Cinema4D or even Blender which is free to create something like Avatar and you will also need a render farm to do the rendering.  What Daz Studio is good for is Stills and short animations where things are not too complicated. Daz studio is a good place to get your feet wet in 3D but it is not capable of high end work just yet maybe in the future.

Quote -
No you can not make anything like Avatar on Daz Studio.  I hate to sound negative but the software is just not up to the task.  You need certain things like dynamic clothing and dynamic figures that you don't have in studio.  You will need to use something like lightwave or Maya Cinema4D or even Blender which is free to create something like Avatar and you will also need a render farm to do the rendering.  What Daz Studio is good for is Stills and short animations where things are not too complicated. Daz studio is a good place to get your feet wet in 3D but it is not capable of high end work just yet maybe in the future.

Maybe not like Avatar, but it is certainly good enough  for animation. I am currently working on a multi-part animation that will total over an hour in length (currently over 7 minutes of it are done, rendered and on my editing app's time line) - aprox a month to complete over 7 mins to date.

I have not used anything but D|S (2.3.3.138) to remder the image sequences. (compositing, sound design, and editing in other apps)

So, while D}S is not Maya, D|S with the advantage of pre-rigged figures and props can be quite an advantage over an app when you have to create EVERYTHING from scratch.

Not totally disagreeing with you, but I think your accessment of D|S is a bit harsh.

Animajik, you sound very serious on animation. So I would like to give you an advice. Have a look at Carrara from Daz. It blows Daz Studio away on almost anything.

I was working with Daz Studio and thought this is the best thing to work with. Because I need 3d backgrounds, I bought Bryce. But somehow I found Carrara. I am still studying it, but I now for sure, I probably never use Studio again. Carrara is so much better and very very easy to work with. It can do anything, animating, modeling, morphing, hair, 3d backgrounds, sounds and whatever. Believe me, it is amazing. And you won't need any other software probably.

Carrara 7 can import Daz scenes. Manuals are here http://artzone.daz3d.com/wiki/doku.php/pub/software/carrara/start

A trick to get it cheap: Buy the book "Figures, Characters and Avatars." Amazon 23 dollar. On the cd is Carrara 6, Hexagon 2.5, Daz 2.3 and Daz figures. Contact Daz, mail the book invoice and you get the serial codes in your account. Then you have registered full versions without limitations. I bought Carrara upgrade Pro 7 and I am so happy with this. So for 23 dollar and shipping you can have Carrara 6.