Hiya Rendo Community,

As you may have noticed (or not) I've been lurking around here for months now checking out the galleries and asking ridiculous noob questions about Daz3d. I finally decided to post my first image because I'd like to get some insight on technique and approach from the pros. Please check it out in my gallery.

Also, I still have a million questions, but I'll limit myself to those about this image specifically:
#1: This image took me an hour and ten minutes to render. That seems really long, especially since there are only two light: a spot with raytraced shadows and a pointlight on specular.
#2: I figured out how to do some stuff; adding tattoos, adding textures and  designs to the clothes, etc. But I could always use more outfits. Besides downloading tons of freebies and paying (gulp!) for some things, is there a way to get in the loop of sharing items? 
#3: What did I do wrong with the lacrimal/sclera bit?
#4: The crease on her left elbow seems too deep. Is there a way to rectify that besides repositioning her arm? Do deformers work on skin?

Thanks and I welcome your feedback. I hope to begin posting images more regularly.

First question you mentioned the length of time it took to render, this varies on how many high resolution objects are in the scene, another thing that can affect the time is the settings on the gloss, reflection, refraction and the shadows as these will only add to the time.

I find just having more lights and less shadows will produce quite awesome images without having to wait a very long time.

Second question I would say to keep your eyes on DAZ studio's website as they will often list stuff there for free. There are a few sellers here that will list free stuff on their website if you follow the links to their homepage.

Third question I would check that your light setting are not too high, and then see if you have them set to white colour. I sometimes change their settings a no gloss and off white colours, this way they will not reflect the light as much. Another method is to move the light source to one side, this may require you to create another light to the other side so the face is lit and not directly in front of the subject.

Last question this can happen often if the lower arm is not proportionally twisted, an example is if you have twisted it too far around. Try twisting the wrist more than the lower arm. This can also be overcome by adding extra lights to the sides to hide these shadow lines and not make it so obvious.

Best of luck in your future renders.

I thought you may find this tutorial useful....

www.calida3d.com/tutorials6.shtml

"What did I do wrong with the lacrimal/sclera bit?"

Had to fix that on a character just tonight. The skin texture was bright scary pink for some reason.. added some color to the diffuse setting (in my case  RGB 124,114,109 did the trick) and the gloss on it was just as shiny as yours. Try changing the color to a mid gray rather than white, make the glossiness about 98 (for a sharp highlight rather than a broad gloss). I tend to have trouble getting the scalera to look right for some reason. I think some textures used are darker than the normal human eye really is (be sure you used glossy plastic on it by the way) and if it looks to dark or gray you can lower the diffused texture a little bit to brighten it up some.

Oh and we have some free Studio stuff on the site as well if you do go look at the tutorial link Katanas gave you.

Did you do anything other than raytraced shadows that might have added to the render time? Raytraced reflections anywhere or sub surface scattering on her skin maybe? 

I think most people who share what they make list it in the freebies here, at 3dCommune and so forth. You may want to visit some of the smaller brokerages and sign up for newsletters so you know when they are giving things away as well.

Long render times can be really frustrating. In this case it was due to the spotlight being set at raytraced shadows. Raytracing can look really good but there at the cost of time. Spotlights and pointlights raytraced take longer because the render software makes calculations for numerous directions. While a spotlight shines in a specific direction it creates a cone growing outward from it's source thus making the software calculate everything withing the path of the cone.

A raytraced distant light on the other hand takes significantly less time because the software is tasked with only one direction. Raytraced pointlights placed in a tight spot can make for insanely long renders.

The deep shadow map option can produce very nice shadows especially with spotlights. Akhbour made a video on basic light set up you might find useful.

http://www.akhbours.fr/html/tutorials.html

Keep at it, all will fall into place before long ;)

 Thanks everyone for your tips and comments. I just posted my second image if you care to take a look!