[zomgwtfbbq]

For who is this?
I made this tutorial for people who want to start using DAZ3D.

What is DAZ3D?
DAZ3D is a solution for making 3D environments, characters and animations. Best of all DAZ3D is free and has an absolute huge amount of compatible products.

Note:
I have lots of content for daz3d, when you just start out you just begin with a couple of characters, so my panels will look different from yours.
There are loads of sites where you can buy stuff or download for free.

Resources:
cgshare: awesome free site where you can download clothes, environments, lights and morphs for characters.
daz3d: absolutely huge site where you can find the latest characters, morphs etc.
renderosity: more aimed at poser but most poser stuff will work in daz3d as well(you need to install those manually in user/My Library)
runtime dna: more aimed at poser but most poser stuff will work in daz3d as well(you need to install those manually in user/My Library)

How do I start?
First of all you need two products:
- DAZ install manager(DIM), which is used to automatically install products in the right folder.
- DAZ Studio 4.6.x Pro
You can download both at http://daz3d.com
Install both of these products and start DIM first. If I'm correct you might see a couple of products like genesis base and/or genesis 2 bases. Install these.
It might be they're already there, I don't remember exactly, just start DAZ3D.
If there's a character appearing without any texture, just click Ctrl + n to create a new scene.

Click on the tab Smart Content and then Figures as below:


There are at least two characters you need to have:


If you have these installed, great, let's get one elite character for free!
Victoria 6, is as we speak, free. Victoria 6 is based on the Genesis2Female, the difference between the last generation(genesis female) is that it basically has more polygons so more/better details.
There's also a HD version available, but that will cost you money.

Install victoria 6 from here:
http://www.daz3d.com/victoria-6-base-dson/victoria-6

Done that? Okidoki, let's make sure DAZ knows she's there too. Make sure you have the tab Smart Content selected and Click on the icon on top.
Next click on Content DB Maintenance > Process MetaData Queue

Now that you have her installed let's create a simple scene. Go to Figures again (Smart Content) and you should see Victoria 6 now. Just double click in order to get this scene:


Posing:
For now Victoria just looks like a naked traffic controller without any hair. You want to move her body in different positions, put some clothing or makeup, whatever.
First let's pose her. Always double click on her, then click on the Parameters tab as shown below:

As you can see it's all about sliders so you can move her around easily.
Click on Pose Controls as shown below.

There are more ways to pose your character, you can just click on a body part in order to move its bones. You can change those settings always in the Parameters tab as you see now.

Materials:
My favorite part. Here you can find make-up for the character. Just double click the character and make sure the Smart Content tab is selected. The materials tab will appear, because Victoria is still a girl, select feminine.
This will give you all compatible stuff for her. Usually it's best to stick with the same character because every character uses different skins.

Rendering:
You will see the result of how the character really looks when you render it. On top of your screen you will see the Render tab:


Summary:
This was just a very brief intro but it should be enough to at least get you going. There's more you want to know like how to use the Wardrobe panel and most important the lighting.
I'm by no means an expert but feel free to ask me questions.
Cheers.

[DaPaus]

Nice tutorial! Can't wait to try this! Thanks. Al tough it's quite finny you blacked out some parts of the body :p

[zomgwtfbbq]

Nice tutorial! Can't wait to try this! Thanks. Al tough it's quite finny you blacked out some parts of the body :p

You're welcome. Lol, yes didn't know if the admin would appreciate boobs and pussies.

[bluedog.tar.gz]

Nice tutorial! Can't wait to try this! Thanks. Al tough it's quite finny you blacked out some parts of the body :p

You're welcome. Lol, yes didn't know if the admin would appreciate boobs and pussies.

Although I'd appreciate them its better to go for the safe way (incase someone is browsing this thread in a public etc.)

Nice tutorial


edit: What is the difference between this and for example Maya?

[ShawnReynolds]

Nice tutorial, sadly I had to do it on a friends computer. I could never get DAZ3D to install on mine.

[zomgwtfbbq]

Nice tutorial! Can't wait to try this! Thanks. Al tough it's quite finny you blacked out some parts of the body :p

You're welcome. Lol, yes didn't know if the admin would appreciate boobs and pussies.

Although I'd appreciate them its better to go for the safe way (incase someone is browsing this thread in a public etc.)

Nice tutorial


edit: What is the difference between this and for example Maya?

Maya is much more powerful, but in general most 3D programs do the same, only the workflow and capabilities are different from what I've seen.

[Ex094]

It's that simple? o.O I've seen people designing this from scratch

[zomgwtfbbq]

It's that simple? o.O I've seen people designing this from scratch

Yes and no. Yes it's easy to make a decent render after some practice, get the lighting done properly and your halfway. No, if you want to make things that fall behind the safe line of what other vendors have in store, you'll still need to work in a modeller like hexagon to make the objects you want, which of course is time consuming.

I've personally just dived into 3D because I was a bit tired of making websites, the hacking scene and creating tools. So decided I'd love to make an online adult RPG just for the fun.

When I came across DAZ3D half a year ago I didn't understand the overwhelming interface. I'm not the only one, most people familiar with Poser give up on this program because of it's interface and sometimes weird behavior. Once you get through this stage, yes, it's a lot easier.

[DaPaus]

@'zomgwtfbbq': What is your opinion on DAZ3D vs Blender? Since I have the impression that Blender is used more for games. (Correct me if I'm wrong)

[zomgwtfbbq]

@'zomgwtfbbq': What is your opinion on DAZ3D vs Blender? Since I have the impression that Blender is used more for games. (Correct me if I'm wrong)

Don't know, I did hear that the renders are better in Blender. The animations in daz3d are really easy to perform though, you just add some poses to a timeline and daz3d will automatically calculate the pose for every next frame until the end pose and does it fluently.