Ok I finally gave in and am trying to learn DS...but the render settings are driving me nuts.

Can someone tell me just some nice render settings for getting nice details? This is different to poser and Its about to drive me to pulling my hair out.

ALSO is it normal for lights to load all on the floor at the figures feet?

When I load one of the presets that came with it...the specular lights all are at her feet.

I just use the defaults for 3delight renderer. Make sure thats selected or you get Opengl.

Yes the lights load on the floor.    The point lights dont seem to do much.

I just use the defaults for 3delight renderer. Make sure thats selected or you get Opengl.

Yes the lights load on the floor.    The point lights dont seem to do much.

:/ not much of "Light presets" then are they? Why dont they create them to load in position?

I have been using the default 3delight, seems good. I was hoping to ramp up the details etc though.

This is harder then when I started with poser >.<

If they are distant lights there x,y,z position doesnt matter as they shine from the virtual edge of the world. Just there rotation will effect the direction. 

You can pickup AdamR render settings here which is not a bad base to get you started with the settings.

If they are distant lights there x,y,z position doesnt matter as they shine from the virtual edge of the world. Just there rotation will effect the direction. 

You can pickup AdamR render settings here which is not a bad base to get you started with the settings.

Oh thank you! that is great! as for the lights....they all come in at a ball at her feet. Its really frustrating. 

Yeah, well it's different.

My advice usually to someone using Daz Studio after using Poser.

Is simply to just accept that Daz Studio isn't Poser and isn't trying to be. Things will be a lot of little differences and at first may seem even a little uncomfortable but most are different for a reason and given some time and experimentation will seem just as natural as any other system and some instances better. There is a lot of community support about for DS so don't be afraid to ask if you get stuck with something. :)

Yeah, well it's different.

My advice usually to someone using Daz Studio after using Poser.

Is simply to just accept that Daz Studio isn't Poser and isn't trying to be. Things will be a lot of little differences and at first may seem even a little uncomfortable but most are different for a reason and given some time and experimentation will seem just as natural as any other system and some instances better. There is a lot of community support about for DS so don't be afraid to ask if you get stuck with something. :)

Yes it is different. Most of the lil differences arent bad. Just abit of getting use too. The lights though...I am bound and determined to learn. 

Also...the textures. I know DS does SSS but...how do I set it up?

Depends on what "presets" your trying to load, "presets" you load from the content directory will load into the same place they were saved, unless they were made in Poser in which case they are useless, everything under the "create" menu is a new entity that uses a default template, they will always load in at the world center unless you use one of the other options to place them as they load.

Distant lights are a huge wall of parallel light rays, so it doesn't matter if they are at world center or 200 meters away, as your going to get the same lighting, it's just easier to see what your lighting at world center especially as you can look through the lights in DS, so that is pretty much where everyone leaves them.

Spotlights I normally place using the perspective view to line up where I want it to point, and then use the "apply active viewport transforms" option to spawn it, I do the same thing for placing cameras.

When you create a new light a small window will open, the default for this window is to show the light name which you can edit, and three buttons underneath it, click on the "show options" button to expand the window and to see the load options.

Most sss in 3ddelight is currently done with AoA sub surface shader, which is what is used for most of the gen6 DAZ3D figure skins .

AoA sub surface shader manual is here

http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewthread/16085/

Darkelegance says the point lights don't seem to do much, and I would have agreed - at one time. Now they are amongst my favourite tools. They feature in my image Carleena and Harry avoiding the Beast (https://market.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=2608381). I think I used Iray in DS 4.8 but possibly not, in which case it will have been 3Delight. Iray is temperamental on my computer but fantastic when I get it to work. The torches and Harry are all lit with point lights, using variations of colour, intensity and scale. 

If you use Iray, you can expect long times for renders. 3Delight is pretty quick I find.

In DS 4.7 Point Lights do have falloff. So if they aren't very bright and they are a distance away, they won't contribute much light to the focus of your scene. 

As Bejaymac stated,  most people, myself included, do find the easiest way to place spot and distant lights is with the Perspective Camera. If I need to move them after placement, I look through the light to place it. 

Also included in DAZ Studio's base content are several additional lights. Uber Environment 2 allows you to set up Ambient Occlusion or  Global Illumination. There are also Shader lights for area lights and spot lights with fall off. If you decide that 3Delight is going to be your primary render engine then I definitely recommend Age of Armor's various advanced lights. 

One other thing, once you have your scene set up, turn off the camera's headlamp. It is only there to prevent black renders when a new user hasn't learned that lights should be in your scene. :) The easiest way to turn off the headlamp is to add a light to the scene. (If you are lighting with shader lights, then you can add a light and make it invisible, neither the invisible light nor the headlamp will give off any light with that combination. 

If you check the change log, DAZ Studio Iradium has a few light enhancements, both for Iray and 3Delight (not yet in the public Beta).

3Delight is pretty quick, compared to other render engines. Comparing it to Iray for speed depends on several factors. Your hardware, lighting and what you are rendering being the biggest. Remember, to get equivalent lighting between 3Delight and Iray requires, at a minimum, Uber Environment 2 added to your 3Delight scene. 

In 3Delight, for render settings there is no need to go overboard in terms of high settings. 

Changing the shading rate to about .75, for most final renders, is enough change from the base (default) render settings.

If you are using mirrors or reflective surfaces, and have something for them to reflect, then turn up the max ray trace depth, usually, there is no need to set it higher than 4 but that is definitely scene dependent. (4 equals through the eyelashes (1), bounce off the surface of the eye (2), through the eyelashes (3), to the camera (4).)

Each layer of transparency, and each bounce off a reflective surface counts as one and you need one more to reach the camera.

I don't think plain transparency counts as a bounce - but refraction does.

Oh dear! Just when I thought I was beginning to understand something, along come uber environments, occlusions and global illuminations - which I assume to be different from Blackpool Illuminations.

I haven't a clue what most of this means......

uberEnironment is a light, but unlike the spot or point lights it doesn't come from a specific place, and unlike the distant light it doesn't come from a specific direction. It produces light from all around the scene, either a flat light or a light that varies by direction according to an image map (so it can fake the way a real object is lit by the light bouncing off or scattered through objects in the world around it) - in fact you have the option to do true global illumination which actually works out how the light bounces from the real items in the scene, rather than faking it with an image. Ambient Occlusion is another trick - it darkens areas that are near to other things, either in an indentation in a single item or one item close to another, to imitate the way recesses get less light than exposed areas.