I posted this already in the 'character design' forum, but I get the sense that no one goes there much.  I'm mostly looking to get into character design, and possibly to eventually construct comics and sequential art stories, but I have no idea how or where to begin.

I recently downloaded Daz 3D for my computer, and a number of other models, packages and such that were offered for free for beginners, but I cannot make any head or tail of anything.  I've looked at a couple of tutorials and presentations, but they don't make much sense, either.  Mostly because when I load the files that are suggested, my interface doesn't look anything like the one in the tutorial.
What would you suggest is a good beginning point for an absolutely complete newbie to this program, and indeed the whole 3D art/rendering world?

I'm sure that someone wil post tutorial links, but I started in baby steps. I load one model (V4) and I learned how to add clothes, hair, and move her body parts (arms, leg, etc.) tried different camera angles, practing moving her around in the work space, figured how to rotate the working area, etc.  I also practiced saving and merging scenes   You might look for DAZ tutorials on youtube.com. Sometimes watching sometimes makes it clearer.  You can only learn so much so fast, so don't get discouraged. 

if no one posts tutorials to your liking, please feel free to PM me and I will see if I can help.  DAZ is so fun, hate to see anyone miss out.

oh man there are tuts everywhere but it sounds like most of them will just blow through and leave your head spinning betastyles.  nothing against you or your learning styles i hope you dont take offense if you'd lik and can manage the time post me a pm and we may be able to set up a way to walk you through the basics. maybe find a way to do up a tut as we go that absolute newbies can understand it for future usage

Have you got the new Daz 4 because that interface doesn't look anything like the ones in the tutorials, they were made for the older Daz Studio

Sylvia

You can also read the manual...the DS artist guide can be downloaded from Daz.

http://www.daz3d.com/i/support/downloads?product=studio&_m=d

The problem with tutorials is they are written by people who already know the program and have their interface set up how they find it easiest to work with. You can change the layout of the interface in many ways which makes the tutorials very hard to follow and find the tools you need if you are just starting out with the program.

If you take a look in Daz Studio, on the top row you will see "View" click on it. Click on "Interface layout" and then "Select Layout". The box that appears will allow you to change the layout of the interface and hopefuly find the layout used in the tutorial which will make things much easier.

It can be very daunting at first but don't panic things will soon fall into place, it is amazing what you can learn by just playing with the program.

Quote - Have you got the new Daz 4 because that interface doesn't look anything like the ones in the tutorials, they were made for the older Daz Studio

 

 

Sylvia

The version I have is Daz Studio 3

I agree with and did the same as Digital_Mischief. Start in baby steps.

I also agree with FragmentedFortunes about tutorials written by people who already know the program well and therefore tend to skip some seamingly minor steps which are important to a newbie.

I will add to don't be afraid to experiment; look under every menu and try every icon to see it's effects. What's the worste that could happen anyway.........EEEEK! MY PC is on fire!

Treat it like a PC game before you treat it like an art tool. Always be curious and have fun.

Also GeekatPlay (www.geekatplay.com) have good video tutorials on Daz Studio.

Quote - I posted this already in the 'character design' forum, but I get the sense that no one goes there much.  I'm mostly looking to get into character design, and possibly to eventually construct comics and sequential art stories, but I have no idea how or where to begin.

I recently downloaded Daz 3D for my computer, and a number of other models, packages and such that were offered for free for beginners, but I cannot make any head or tail of anything.  I've looked at a couple of tutorials and presentations, but they don't make much sense, either.  Mostly because when I load the files that are suggested, my interface doesn't look anything like the one in the tutorial.
What would you suggest is a good beginning point for an absolutely complete newbie to this program, and indeed the whole 3D art/rendering world?

Be prepared for a steep learning curve in your venture.

I would go along with what the guys here are saying and take one step at a time.

First you need to understand how the Daz software functions.  Then you need to understand how add content, poses and lighting to your scene. For good comic book creation you will need Photoshop or something similar.

There is no easy way!.......at the very beginning its, READ! READ! READ!. There are some super tutorials all over the web. If your not already a member you should join the Daz forum, most of everything you will need is over there.

Best of Luck..........I am sure you will get there. If you have any specific questions just post them.

Definately... go for the Daz forums and just play - I started out completely by accident and had never touched a 3d program prior to downloading Daz (I was only vaguely aware that they existed and had no clue that they were accessible to the general public!) 

Daz Studio 3 comes with a 'Quickstart' scene - you'll find it under Studio - Scenes. Load it up and have a play around - first I'd recommend getting comfortable with your camera controls, as there's nothing more frustrating than losing what you're looking at! When all else fails with them, try the 'Reset' icon (the little black arrow) or make sure you've got the object you want to look at selected in your 'Scene' tab and hit the 'Frame' icon (it looks like a target site.)

As the other guys have said, poke every button. :) Daz is an awesome program once you get used to it, but it does take some getting used to! So please don't give up in frustration - it will come and the best way to get advice to just shout out.  There's no such thing as a dumb question, as we've all asked them at some point or another. 

http://forum.daz3d.com/viewforum.php?f=97&sid=36de1be4d07c9046313f7a9fa6bb3faf

This is the link to the Daz new users help forum - there's a great bunch of folks over there who are very lovely. There's also a load of tutorials to have a flip through - they might seem very daunting at first, but the more you read, the more bits and pieces will start to fall into place. 

Best of luck :) 

Attached Link: DAZ Studio for Beginners

The tutorials are located at my website. See link above.

Hope it helps.

i just found some videos on you tube about daz link below

http://www.youtube.com/user/WWWDAZ3DCOM

good luck im a newbie at daz as well if i find any other info i will let you know and post here

;) x

Hey guys!

Thanks for all of the advice and a few of the tutorial links.  I've been playing around off and on for the past month, and I'm learning some interesting things about how to work with this program.  I wouldn't really call them artistically inclined, but I've at least rendered two images so far, one by playing with poses, the other playing more with morphing what little content I have.

http://i.imgur.com/CfDk4.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/F93SS.jpg

I'm still trying to figure out things like lighting, cameras and so forth, as well as how to put in new downloaded content.  The free stuff I've downloaded so far won't even extract from the compressed files, but then, I'm not sure I'm supposed to do that...

And now, after another three days of trying to unpack downloaded stuff, having to uninstall, reinstall, upgrade to the newest DAZ studio (twice), and still not getting the program to work AS ADVERTISED, I'm about ready to say fuck it to this entire community....

I've checked the manuals, I've watched tutorials, and I cannot for the life of me figure out what, if anything, I'm doing wrong.

I can easily see the frustration in your post, and I'm sorry that you're having problems getting the program to work for you.

Just out of curiosity, could you post your computer and OS specs for us? I know, in the past, there have been some permissions issues with DAZ Studio 3 and Windows 7.

Also, since none of us can be in the room with you, would it be possible to share with us, step by step, how you're going about installing content and what it is exactly that's not working for you? I hate to see people throw their hands up in frustration and walk away from something when a solution to resolve their problem may not be very far away.

Thanks.

beta you have a site pm...........

Yes, I do.  I think I should focus my cracks against the program itself, rather than the community.  You guys have been nothing but awesome so far ._.

I've always been more of an active learner, and done best when there's an expert with me, so it's even more frustrating that I follow the tutorial step by step and don't see the stuff happening on my screen that I do in the video, even when I do as instructed.

I can't find my complete system specs, but I'll give you what I have.  My computer is a Gateway GT5408, it's about three years old now.  I have upgraded it a little for the purpose of playing games.  Nothing too extensive, 1 GB of RAM and likewise in a video card.  Probably not the greatest setup, but it lets me play most of my games at good to high settings with no problems.  I run windows vista on this computer.

All right, so, here is the step by step process.  I got sick enough of trying to navigate the database system of DS 3, in addition to failing to get any of the free downloaded content to work.  I uninstalled everything, and started anew from the Daz software website.  I downloaded DS 4, standard, and the base packages for Victoria 4 and Michael 4.  From the download pages, I saw things like the power loader, morph package, and other things for V and M that said they were all listed in the base package, but could be downloaded separately....so I only clicked to download the base packs.

Next, I went to install the new studio.  Everything went fine until it installed something to do with C++, where it hit an error.  It didn't seem to affect the installation, though, as the program finished and opened fine.  After that, I went to install Victoria and Michael, no problems there.  When I opened the new studio, all I saw was the greyscale plain model.  None of the core packages for Genesis showed up on the left hand side of the window under My Stuff, Surfaces, Wardrobe and Props, et cetera, even though I could see the content actually in my hard drive files.  Likewise, V and M were nowhere to be found, not even when I found the database and looked through everything that was loaded up.

I uninstalled everything and tried again, just with the studio program alone.  Now, I did not see any errors at all.  Everything installed and opened again, and now those content tabs were full of stuff, morphs, props, clothing, presets for male/female, etc.  Now, following along with one tutorial video, I was able to build the model exactly as the instructor did, but when it came time to applying different skins (including Genesis' own skin) nothing happened.  I couldn't drag and drop to change anything, and every other way I was told I could load content didn't work.  I tried to play around with the model itself.  I was able to select individual parts, but couldn't do anything with them except change the pose.  I tried loading in the male and child morph presets into the model, and for some reason it created two grayscale humanoid shapes intermeshed with each other, and I couldn't interact with either of them.

And, that brings us to today, with me still confused.

I'm going to try installing DAZ Studio 4 into Win 7 on my Mac to see if I can replicate the problems you are experiencing. 

Are you installing M4 and V4 via the installation paths supplied by the BitRock installer, or are you installing them into an external content folder? I have all of my Poser/DAZ assets saved in a 200 GB partition separate from the software folder in my Applications directory. 

Thanks.

Okay...

I did a fresh install of DAZ Studio 4 onto Win 7. During the installation, I indicated that I wanted to place my content in a specific folder as the installer wanted to put it into my Documents folder on my Mac OS via a shared folder, rather than keep it within my Win 7 environment (VMWare Fusion thing). What I did was I created a DAZ Content folder within my User directory, so my content folder path is:  C:UsersMyNameDAZ Content. I chose the default settings on all install queries while installing.

After going through the entire first start-up dialogue windows, I finally got to the new blank scene. By default, I'm using the Hollywood Boulevard workspace. In the left-hand column, by default, it displays the Products tab, rather than the Files tab. This prompts the white window with the "Where Are My Products?" dialogue.

To the left of that, you should see a column with "ALL; Accessories; Animals; Hair; etc. If you click on the "People" button, it should display Genesis in the white area to the right of the column. When you double-click on the Genesis icon, an area opens up beneath it to show all of the compatible content available for Genesis that is currently installed on your computer. If you look at the Genesis icon at the top of that column, you will see two sub-directory links.... ALL or Default. If you click on Default and, then, select People, you will be shown the Genesis icon again. This one will load the Genesis figure on the scene when double-clicked. It's easier than fishing for it through all of the compatible content.

Once you have the Genesis figure loaded, the far left column will change the selections offered. You will now see Accessories; Hair; Presets; Props; and Wardrobe. You can apply a texture to Genesis by either clicking on the Presets button and, then, scrolling to the bottom of the right side of the column to find the material settings. OR, if you look at the side-ways tabs (My Stuff; Shaping; Surfaces (Color)) you can selection Surfaces to see only the texture files (if they don't appear, look to the upper left-hand corner of the column and make sure "Presets" is selected.)

Double-click on the texture of your choice. Genesis should be selected in the scene by default, but if it's not, you will be prompted to select an object in the scene when trying to apply a texture. The Scene tab is located in the right column.

See if you can get this far. If not, please indicate which step didn't work for you. I want to see if we can get a basic figure loaded and a texture applied before moving forward with the M4 and V4 figures.

Thanks.