Poking about on a dying forum with a rubbish search isn't my idea of learning. In addition not everyone has the time or inclination or bandwidth to spend time online searching for stuff or viewing videos. I suspect there are quite a few people who pick up daz studio discover the lack of documentation and then drop it again. The learning curve is getting steeper and steeper.

I'd love to know how many Daz users are old hands vice new users.  If I came into it cold I wouldn't stay long.  I'm of the opinion that it's a marketing ploy to get folks to hang around the forums as much as possible where they can be coerced into buying more stuff.  The point that makes me want to punch Daz's forum mod's teeth down their throats is when they blatantly lie by telling me that the wiki is being 'diligently worked on' in the face of the indisputable fact that it hasn't really been touched in years.  The only 'updates' are half hearted and leave out vital information.  Of course, they're doing it on purpose.  If they had proper documentation they'd rule the world.

Only his CD page works for me, with all others showing up blank.  I'm still lamenting the loss of Dr. Geep.

big sigh

Just FYI - The documentation is being diligently worked on.  Several things have been added and more are coming.  :)

Kat

Huh?... Is there a secret documentation page that only select people get to access?  I just checked the Wiki ( http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/software/dazstudio/4/referenceguide/interface/panes/render_settings/engine/nvidia_iray/start ) and there's been NO change to it in the months since IRay and Daz 4.8 came out.

I was thinking of switching to DAZ, but the render quality isn't as good as poser.

Render quality has nothing to do with the 3D program either Poser or Daz, it's the render engine itself AND the skill of the user.  The new generation of physical based renderers, Reality and IRay, are both capable of amazing results and Reality can be used in both Poser and Daz.

The Reality user guide instructs one to turn it off.   Since the strength of the headlight can't be manipulated I would assume that it's effect would change with different exposure settings.

Reality comes with an excellent user guide (*unlike IRay) that explains pretty much everything about Reality itself.  The LuxRender wiki ( http://www.luxrender.net/wiki/Main_Page ) is also worth reading.  You may need to learn basic photographic concepts such as exposure, aperture, ISO and others since Reality/Luxrender uses them.  Google is your friend.

*couldn't resist the little dig.

What's your playtime?

Nice to see someone have the guts to be honest about what many (most/a lot?) folks are using Poser and Daz for.  While I do some 3D at work, when I'm home playing on my computer with either poser or Daz I am just playing...a grownup playing with dolls.

If you're married (real world married) then you've undoubtedly heard the expression, "It's cheaper to keep her".

My illicit affair with Miss Vicky Fourpointtwoplusplus started many years ago and she's proven to be awfully demanding.  If my real world wife was as high maintenance as Miss Vicky then I'd have been broke ages ago.  She has a vast wardrobe, numerous (hundreds?) poses (figures) and more accessories than I can count.  I've also gotten to know her quite well and can make her do anything I want.  Good taste keeps those details on this side of the screen.  While Genesis Two and now Vicky Seven are unquestionably better, I simply don't have the heart (or wallet) to kick Miss Vicky out on the curb with her moving van full of clothes and start all over with another woman who'll demand another walk-in closet full of clothes.  I have other expensive hobbies to feed.

Now, if someone wants to make a clothes converter for Miss Vicky's stuff...

... but you don't have the right to insult their intelligence and derail every thread you get involved in because they disagree with you...

In my opinion he does have the right to be a pompous jerk.  Freedom of speech works both ways.  We also have the freedom to ignore him...  ...which I do.

Depends on what you want to do and how far you intend on pushing the software.  I'd talk to Aerogenesis ( http://erogenesis.blogspot.ca/ ) before spending money.  I moved to Daz3D a few months ago, not because it's a whole lot better but because I at least didn't have to pay for the crashes, lock-ups and stuff that just plain didn't work.

I'm pretty lucky with work.  It's a small section that does a wide variety of stuff in support of technical training, and testing & evaluation.  We can use what we want as long as it gets the job done.  At the same time I have to be quick to respond to last minute requirements that can change in mid-stream.  Some of the jobs have been truly bizarre from a technical standpoint...but usually fun too. 

And boy, me too....would love to have real numbers regarding usage.

Hmmmm,

 I feel that Blender already is taken seriously.  When I proposed that we switch from 3DSMax to Blender, my bosses didn't even bat an eye.  It's worked out well and saved us some bucks.

I don't feel that there would be any real backlash or animosity since the Poser/Daz userbase is likely much smaller than the number of Blenderists.  There are so many different type of users now that Blender is seemingly the do-everything-app and they don't always interact a lot.  Where they would interact and where it would be a huge boon is in the gaming side although I can't say much about it since I'm not a gamer (anymore...sigh).  

My understanding of the plug-in is that it would be complete.  Ie, one would be able to do anything in Blender that one does in Daz/Poser.  It would certainly make a couple of companies sit up and take notice (panic?) if folks no longer needed their program to make dirty little pictures and stuff.   :-)

  So the commodity of knowledge there is much more valuable.

I believe that this is one of the main reasons that there is no longer (at least to me) any real sense of community in the Poserverse or Dazville.  When it was new there was a feeling of camaraderie as we where all in it together figuring stuff out.  Folks like Dr. Geep explored the program and made his knowledge available for free.  This exists only on the fringes now, where like minded folks play with Poser/Daz and freely share our knowledge.  There have been rumblings and hints in dark alleys of Blenderville about a plug-in that will allow Poser and Daz items to be imported directly into Blender and used in a similar manner.  It'll be like working in Poser/Daz but using Blender's rigging and render tools.  One will also be able to fiddle with the mesh directly.  Last I heard they (no idea who 'they' are) where working on the rigging conversion and creating a library for content.  One of the problems is that the CR2 file is quite old and is somewhat undocumented.  Once this goes gold ("Comon guys!") I'm hoping it will bring back that sense of community that I so loved and still miss.  That's one of the strengths of Blender...a massive user base that is gregarious and loves to share knowledge.

 The last thing a vendor wants is other modellers to know how to make things, because then they lose their ability to sell things. 

I believe that this is the main reason that there are no complete tutorials on content creation.  All the tutorials I've bought leave out some vital section with promises of "It's coming soon!"  They seem to feel that figuring this stuff out on one's own is a rite of passage.

The add-ons continue to amaze me. From motion tracking to composting, green screening and video editing, is there nothing this program won't do?  We had a technical video clip from a support company in some weird proprietary format which nothing (Premiere Pro, VLC,  Avidmux, VirtualDub) would touch.  Blender's video editor opened it and quickly spit out a nice play-it-anywhere H264 clip.