OK-- I am a desperate, stupid newbie, and I've quickly learned that there is a LOT of nice stuff out there to play with! I have M3, V3, and David. It's making me a bit dizzy, trying to decide how to start. Like most I don't have unlimited funds, but would like to DL some nice clothes & things for my figures--- maybe get some new figures too. For the purpose of the list, don't worry about price-- there's always the wish list. I'm finding that I'm wanting some hair, new eye colors, makeup for my girls (and boys, LOL!) and some very basic tops & bottoms-- and maybe a couple of basic fantasy outfits. But where should I start? What is your list of basics-- the files you wouldn't live without? What are the files you would put in every newbie's content bin if you could? If you had to start over on a new PC today, what are the bare basics you'd want to get yourself going again? And what would be the one or two extras-- the luxury items-- that you would want to begin a fantastic wardrobe, hair & makeup collection? PLEASE post, and tell me your ideas! Thank you so very much!

BEGINNERS BASICS:

Head and Body Morphs (for whatever (freeor paid) characters you use)

Environments: Several each of City, Fantasy, & Sci-Fi and 1 or 2 basic environments you add pictures to!

Clothing: Several sets of Casual, Business, Fun, Sci-Fi and Fantasy

Free poses out the wazoo ---> but use these to make your own

Props for each of the above catagories!

Every plug-in for DAZ|Studio

hair--> http://digitalbabes2.com/  click on downloads. these hairs imo are better than most commercial hairs

free figures and assories can be found here

sara>http://www.jalberts.net/francemi/3dSC

the link to find sara is at the top

and join the wapico pu fan club-http://pudollfanclub.smfforfree.com/index.php

has links to two free dolls and assesories!
new one just added yesturday!

netta

Step 2: Go to www.runtimedna.com and pillage their freebie section. Gazilions of kewl things to play with. Don't download all the helmets, though. There's nothing wrong with them, there's just a crap-load of them, and you'll never need that many different types of headgear. ;-)

And don't forget Daz's free stuff archive: http://free.daz3d.com/free_weekly/archive_list.php

First make out what you want to do. Realistic?, Anime?, Erotic?, Sci-fi?, and select your downloads on that.
Buy one month of DAZ-Pro and you get a load of stuff. Don't forget to cash your premium and unsubscribe before the end of the month.

As for DAZ V3/M3 models, check out the reduced resolution versions in the starter pack. In most renders you will not be able to tell the difference, and they render much faster. 

For DAZ|Studio add-ons the d-Former and the morph loader plug-in are a must-have.

plugins... dform, and morphloader, the rest are luxuries...

clothing for female figures, if you have to spend, spend on shoes, it seems to be the one area where freebies will consistantly let you down, mainly by the lack of same, pumps are common, boots almost non existant.

DONT buy skin textures, there are plenty of good textures available, check out Mab's 'Sherra A3' on the daz freepository forum, commercial textures can wait till you have found your feet.

Grab all the kozaburo hairs from digital babes, all the free clothing from the poser penthouse costume festival, grab all the figures clothing and especially hair from studio maya.

And grab as many free backgrounds as you can. ;)

I agree with the head and body morphs for sure. I also love Wapi :)
Hm yup definatley Kozaburo hair (digital babes)
Bat's limited freebie clothes are sweet.
Rdna has awesome free lights.
There are a ton of beautiful characters in the free stuff here.

Don't know if I helped or made it worse lol but at least it's all free ;) except the head and body morphs anyway.

can't remember where I found it, maybe here in freestuff-- 'Aurora' headmorph for AikoLE. When applied it gives Aiko Vicky's head, which is great for more realistic images of her.

There are/were magnets available to give the various gals fuller chests  _look for willdial's sets (depends on taste of course). The nice thing about magnets is you can usually apply them to clothing too, whereas morphs don't often translate that way in my experience. A note about the magnets- you can select the magnet itself after applied and scale it to fit your needs.

Hairs- definitely all from Kozaburo and maya, and keep in mind any hair prop (not conforming figure) can be scaled to fit any figure with a little dial moving. The standard hair for Wapicodoll is great for example. Aiko also comes with a nice hairprop.

Figures- you have Daz incl Aiko and the animals from their free site- gorilla, sanke, python. Contentparadise puts out a new critter each week it seems, though with poser 5 downloading may have to wait.  Mayadoll and Sara as mentioned. Sixus1 poserfreebies.com has an assortment of figures too, several that give unique options- Behemoth is a big fella, and Britta is a child. Some cool monsters there too

Just to add: with Poser 5 (now free for download today only) you get the Poser 5 content set: Judy, Posette, James, Dork, and so on)

Works great in D|S!

Awesome about Poser 5-- will be DLing it when the dust settles & the DL isn't so slow. :-)