Year: 2015

How to change the background colour in DAZ Studio 4.7

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Contrary to what the documentation wants you to believe, and unlike DAZ Studio 4.6, the background colour can no longer be changed from the Viewport Properties menu at the top right. In DAZ Studio 4.7 and 4.8 the option has moved to Window – Style – Customize Colors. There’s a whole lot we can amend here, …

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How to setup shortcuts to load figures in DAZ Studio

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Even with Smart Content it can be tough to find a single figure from your library. If you find yourself loading a particular character a lot, you’ll be pleased to hear that there’s an easy to way to setup shortcuts on the menu bar for such things. In this article I’ll show you how to …

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How to apply a Shader in DAZ Studio

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Shaders are an important component in many 3D applications, but I never knew that DAZ Studio understood that concept too. I was under the impression that the relatively simple Surfaces Tab would be how to tweak what an object looks like. Turns out, DAZ Studio has Shaders! And here’s how to apply them. Pay attention …

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Getting started with UberEnvironment in DAZ Studio

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UberEnvironment is a shader based light, available exclusively in DAZ Studio. It brings image based lighting to DAZ Studio when using the 3Delight render engine. It has been around for a while, but it has been a bit of a mystery to me for the last 6 years. I think I’ve finally grasped some of its basics – time to write them down before I forget.

Unlike traditional lights in DAZ Studio, UberEnvirnoment creates a sphere in the scene onto which a HDR image is projected. The sphere itself then emits light, creating some very realistic looking ambient light. UberEnvironment can be used on its own or in combination with other lights for nicely balanced results.

Historically, the UberEnvirnoment product had to be purchased through DAZ by a vendor named omnifreaker. It has since been updated to UberEnvironment2 and is now included for free in DAZ Studio 4.x (as part of the “Default Light and Shaders” – make sure this installed).

The product itself is difficult to find in the Smart Content tab because it appears mixed in with some other scary items. It’s much easier to access it via the Content Library tab: navigate to

  • DAZ Studio Formats – My DAZ 3D Library
  • Light Presets (not Lights!)
  • omnifreaker – UberEnvironment2

You’ll find the following icons:

Screen Shot 2015-04-28 at 16.00.47

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How to disable Image Grids in Carrara

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You know those grids in Carrara that often get in the way? Those that only appear in the viewport and not in the final render. The ones that show you the outlines of your objects in yellow: Sometimes you can’t see your scene with too much clutter. And I keep forgetting that there’s a super …

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How to reload image textures in Blender

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We often have to tweak images in an external application while they’re already applied to a 3D object. To see our changes in action, it is necessary to reload the textures in Blender. Few applications detect such changes automatically (which is sad – because it’s not exactly rocket science to implement this). To do this, change …

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How to use Background Images in Blender

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Reference images are helpful for modelling objects or to add simple backgrounds to scenes. There are at least two ways in which we can add them in Blender. Adding Background Images One way to do it is via Background Images. On the tab next to the Properties Palette (expand it with the little plus icon …

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How to use Blender as a simple Render Farm for animations

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Blender has a bafflingly simply way to let several computers render the same animation. Render Farms are usually setup in a way that one machine is the “master”, and the others are declared “render slaves” that each render a single frame or even a single bucket of a frame. The master then assembles everything into a …

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How to drape cloth in Blender

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Cloth2

Blender has an excellent physics engine that can simulate cloth – among a great many other things. Blender does this using a modifier: all we have to do is declare one object as being “the cloth”, and other objects as the ones colliding with the cloth.

Let’s see how in this quick example.

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Grouping and Parenting in Blender

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If you’ve used grouping or parenting in other applications, it may throw you off guard how Blender thinks about those things. A little explanation is in order to bring clarity to our cluttered 3D minds. Usually we can group objects together so that when we select one object, all others in the group are selected at the same …

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How to render with Depth of Field in Blender Render

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Blender-DOF

The Blender Render Engine uses postwork to create a depth of field effect, much like Carrara does. The advantage is that after a long and complex render, depth of field can be applied after the fact without having to re-render.

I must admit that rendering with depth of field in Blender is not for the faint-hearted – I thought it’s best to take some notes while I still remember how it works (using version 2.7.3). Note that this will only work for the Blender Render Engine, not for Cycles.

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How to render Motion Blur in Blender

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Motion Blur is the illusion of moving objects in still images. 3D applications create this effect usually by rendering several images of an animation and mixing them together as a blend effect. This is in contrast to an ordinary still image in which everything appears is focus as if it was shot with very fast film …

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How to constrain an object to a Motion Path in Blender

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Carrara has a concept of Motion Paths. Those are bezier curves to which another object can be constrained during animation. I’ve described how to use them in this article. Blender has the same concept: create a curve (any curve will do), then add a Clamp To constraint to your object using the curve. Here’s how …

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How to create keyframe animations in Blender

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Keyframe Animations work a little differently in Blender than in other packages I’ve used. It all makes sense and is very intuitive – but I fear I might forget this, so here’s a quick guide on how animations work in Blender. At the bottom of the interface is the standard timeline. Move the green line …

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How to speed up rendering times (or improve quality) with 3Delight in DAZ Studio

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It’s easy to reduce rendering times in DAZ Studio with 3Delight at the expense of quality. Likewise, it’s possible to greatly improve the rendering quality with the same setting: the secret lies in the Shading Rate Slider.

On the Render Tab, under Render Settings, take a look at a lone slider called Shading Rate. The default is 1 and it produces a good compromise between speed and quality.

Screen Shot 2015-04-15 at 17.56.00

The higher the Shading Rate is set, the lower the quality of the image is – but at the same time, render times speed up. This is great to get an impression of the overall scene without having to wait ages.

Conversely, the lower the Shading Rate is set, the higher the render quality is as a result – which increases render times, but gives a very nice quality boost. It’s easy to overlook this setting!

Here are some example renders. Click on the images to see the full resolution at 1920×1080. No postwork was applied. The scene is Stonemason’s Tin Pan Alley with the Genesis Troll.

Shading Rate 1 (Default) – Render Time: 1 minute

Troll-SR1-1minThe default setting gives a good compromise between quality and speed. I always wondered how to make such a render look better.

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How to apply textures in Blender (with Blender Render)

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Adding textures in Blender depends on which render engine is used. In this article I’ll discuss how to do this for Blender Render. I’ll explain how to do this with Cycles in another article. It’s easier to make a texture appear in Blender Render. Make sure it’s selected as the render engine at the top of the …

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How to assign Materials in Blender (Blender Render)

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Materials are closely related to Textures in 3D modelling: they describe the surface properties of an object, or parts of an object. Which colour it has, if there are any texture maps applied, how shiny it is, how rough it is. That sort of thing is described via Material Properties. Other 3D applications may call them Shaders or Surface Properties.

Blender calls them Materials, and here’s how to assign properties to them. The actual properties you get depend on which rendering engine is used: Blender Render or Cycles. I’ll stick with the traditional Blender Render in this description. I’ll discuss how to do this for Cycles in this article.

Select an object and head over to the little shiny ball icon in the Properties Palette on the right hand side. The icon is located between and upside-down triangle and a checkerboard icon.

Screen Shot 2015-04-15 at 14.34.41

By default Blender creates a default grey material. Feel free to amend it, or add a new material to this list by clicking the little plus icon to the right of the materials list. This  creates a new slot. Now click Create Material to proceed.

Screen Shot 2015-04-15 at 14.40.56

Give it a nice name, then pick a Diffuse colour to change the appearance of your entire object. You’ll even see a nice preview of your new material.

Screen Shot 2015-04-15 at 14.45.54

See where it says Lambert? Pick something else and see the effect. This describes the basic reflective properties of your object – it’s a Blender internal thing, so it won’t matter when you come to export your object for use in another 3D application.

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How to point the camera at an object in Blender

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Other 3D packages usually have a camera setting that allows us to “point at” an object. This can be either part of a scene or a null object which doesn’t show up but can be animated. The idea behind this is that no matter where you move the camera, it will always frame your object of …

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How to use Sculpt Mode in Blender

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Blender has an excellent Sculpting Mode that works very similar to Sculptris and ZBrush. It’s very easy to sculpt on a mesh – let me show you how. Create a Mesh Object with a decent amount of topology for sculpting. For example, use Add – Mesh – Ico Sphere. In the init menu on the left, set the …

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How to use Soft Selections in Blender

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Soft Selections are those that influence more than what you have selected for a more organic and natural influence around an area. In Blender this concept is called Proportional Editing and it’s disabled by default. To enable it, while in Edit Mode, select SHIFT-O (as in the letter). There’s also a little circle icon which …

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How to apply a Modifier in Blender

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Modifiers are forces that act upon your vertex objects, with the added advantage that you can manipulate them later. Carrara has the same concept. Here’s how to create a Modifier in Blender. First, select an object in your scene. Underneath the scene tree, find the little wrench icon and click it. This opens the Modifier Pane …

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Creating selections on Vertex Objects in Blender

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To edit a vertex object in Blender, we must first switch into Edit Mode. By default a scene is in Object Mode. Select an object by right-clicking it, then switch into Edit Mode by using the drop-down (or drop-up) menu. The entire object may be selected, which is not exactly what we want. Hit A …

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How to render with Depth of Field in DAZ Studio

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Depth of Field is a photographic term that describes how much of a scene is in focus. In the 3D world this has to be calculated and switched on – because otherwise everything in a rendered scene is in focus. A real world photographic lens doesn’t work that way: take a portrait with a long lens, …

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Creating Primitives in Blender

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To create a new primitive in Blender, select Add – Mesh from the bottom menu. Alternatively, select SHIFT-A to bring up a similar context menu anywhere on the screen. Pick your poison and it will be inserted into your scene wherever the 3D cursor is located (that weird little red-white ring-thing). You can position the …

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Navigating 3D Space in Blender on Mac

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Using Blender with the integrated Magic Trackpad on my MacBook works a treat – it’s  intuitive even! It’s a nice surprise in the otherwise daunting user experience Blender has to offer. Here’s how to navigate a 3D scene using gestures: Rotate using two-finger swipe Zoom using two-finger pinch, or the PLUS and MINUS keys Pan by holding …

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Comparison: 3Delight vs NVIDIA Iray for Animations

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For this animation I’ve rendered the same scene twice in DAZ Studio 4.8: once with 3Delight and once with the new NVIDIA Iray engine. It’s interesting to compare the results in an animation rather than a still image due to the different challenges involved.

One thing is that the subject is illuminated differently depending on how far away it is from the camera. Another is that it’s difficult to get matching end results when mixing faster and slower hardware: Iray can take a long time to finish a render if no GPU acceleration is around.

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How to render Iray with transparency in DAZ Studio

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DAZ Studio Splash

DAZ Studio 4.8 comes with a new render engine called NVIDIA Iray. From what I understand it’s similar to the Mental Ray engine and – from what I hear – is supposed to become the new default render engine in DAZ Studio. It’s not a replacement for 3Delight, just an addition – selectable on the Render Tab (under Engine).

Unlike 3Delight, Iray renders images without transparency (or alpha channel) by default, which isn’t desirable. There is of course a way to change this, and here’s how to do it.

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How to display frames instead of timecode in Adobe Premiere Pro

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No matter what preset you select for your sequence, Premiere will always default to showing timecode in your timeline. This will be automatically adjusted to the relevant EBU or SMPTE timecode. Some advice from the Memory Tree Video Production team: “Full frames on the other hand can be very useful for things like animations where …

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