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SlimMckenzie — My Must Haves for Rendering in Daz
Published: 2017-01-23 17:16:38 +0000 UTC; Views: 7913; Favourites: 28; Downloads: 0
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Description I thought this would be a fun (and hopefully, informative) sharing session between some of us artists here on DA. These are the 10 (?) most useful things (or vendors) that I've come to rely on while working on my art in Daz Studio. Full disclosure, I render pretty much exclusively in Iray, so a lot of these products are tuned for that direction.

1) TerraDome 3 (www.daz3d.com/terradome-3-iray ). This has become my go-to for any render that has an outside - whether it's an outside shoot like Raya and the car, or an indoor shoot with a window. It has both a fantastic set of iray skies as well as a large but not overly complicated "land" to be used to help take your renders to the horizon. The morphs (and packages) for the land to give you extra shapes (or roads) are also very useful!
2) OutOfTouch (Vendor) - At both Daz and Renderosity, they have provided some of the best hair and shoe models I've seen. Honestly, most of pieces have at least one thing from them in there somewhere. A lot of adjustments, FX morphs, and usually pretty durable for morphs and poses. Disclaimer - I do sometimes have issues with their packages - usually missing metadata causing the "smart content" not to work. YMMV, especially if you don't use the smart content pane.
3) The NGS shaders (both 1 and 2) - At Daz. I think these shaders have been one of the most useful things to help bring life to the models, especially the older ones. I'm quite sure this will only help in iray, but the results are spectacular.
4) P3Design (P3D) - I mostly get their stuff on Daz. Some of the best textures for models I use come from this vendor. They seem to do a real good job with creating literal texture and details, giving the models life. I have some skins from other vendors that I like at least as much - not gonna lie - but P3D seems to help me do more with less work.
5) DimensionTheory's SSS shaders (www.daz3d.com/subsurface-works… ) - I find they're fantastic for converting a 3delight material to iray, and sometimes good to try if your render's materials are just missing that bit of depth. The only "problem" is that they are sometimes too realistic, and if the object you're applying them to is too thin, you can end up with an unintentional transparent shirt. Still, something I tend to use in most of my renders.
6) Ghost Lights (www.daz3d.com/iray-ghost-light… ) - this one is new, but so far, I've found it a fantastic way to try to light an indoor scene. It does seem, so far, to work as advertised. Denise Getting Ready and the Date Night story uses them extensively. They're very good at lighting an area without blowing it out like a spotlight sometimes can. As with all lighting (witchcraft!), YMMV, but I don't regret picking it up at all.
7) Sickleyield (in general), especially the front fixer (www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/sy… ). It's a very simple but quite reliable way to get rid of that pesky "in between chest" clingy fabric. I find that most of the time, this works quite well, and it's easy to manage. Also very useful is the Templates: www.daz3d.com/sy-ultra-templat… - they're fabulous for using older outfits and not having the skirts painted to the legs!
8) Fit Control (www.daz3d.com/fit-control-for-… ) - If SY's front fixer doesn't work, or doesn't quite get you there, this package will. It's a very complicated set of morphs that you can add to a piece of clothing to adjust it in a much more detailed manner. From my own experience, read the manual on it, but it's great for fixing little things and little bits of push through.
9) DestinysGarden (Vendor) - At Daz - www.daz3d.com/destinysgarden - their patterns are always a fun and easy way to add some life to a render. There are many (many) images where I've at least started with one of these patterns before adding extra layers, SSS, etc to create the texture and design that I'm looking for.
10) Decorator Kit (Daz) www.daz3d.com/decorator-kit-ne… - This one is also quite new, but, for me it's a really good toolkit to have for fixing / changing scenes textures and colors. The materials are all spot on. I find the paints and the carpet are two of my most used, but really the whole set is just a good "utility"
11) (Bonus, because I forgot it earlier) Valzheimer's Wear them All (www.daz3d.com/wear-them-all-au… ) - another good set of tools for making clothes work, as well as helping make male clothing fit a female model (without having to create the morphs).

I certainly use many (many!) other tools, but there are some of the ones that might be less obvious from the renders. Now, I'm not going to "tag" anyone - this isn't a chain or anything, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on my choices. Even more, I'd love to hear what yours are! Let me know! Help me find what I've been missing out on!
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Comments: 15

conkec1993 [2019-03-08 14:57:19 +0000 UTC]

Do you have a must have list, but for posing instead? 

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SlimMckenzie In reply to conkec1993 [2019-03-08 16:09:20 +0000 UTC]

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conkec1993 In reply to SlimMckenzie [2019-03-08 19:52:13 +0000 UTC]

Thank you very much for the detailed reply, it indeed helped me out alot!

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SlootySlots [2017-03-26 22:07:00 +0000 UTC]

Helpful list, thanks for this!

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SlimMckenzie In reply to SlootySlots [2017-04-02 16:13:49 +0000 UTC]

My pleasure!

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MyLaLe [2017-02-22 09:42:38 +0000 UTC]

Thank you!

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SlimMckenzie In reply to MyLaLe [2017-03-06 15:58:27 +0000 UTC]

Any time!

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DonKevinMartin [2017-02-03 18:27:01 +0000 UTC]

Great list for a toolbox inventory.  Thanks for sharing!

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SlimMckenzie In reply to DonKevinMartin [2017-02-07 15:02:33 +0000 UTC]

My pleasure - feel free to write your own list if you've got any tools you find helpful!

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Ruris01 [2017-02-01 15:20:01 +0000 UTC]

Good to know the tools used by experienced artist, thanks.

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SlimMckenzie In reply to Ruris01 [2017-02-07 15:02:46 +0000 UTC]

Haha I'm glad I could assist!

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Ruris01 In reply to SlimMckenzie [2017-02-10 07:05:35 +0000 UTC]

Any particular tips you want to share on terradome? Just testing it, a resource hog for budget machine. But disabling the atmosphere helps.

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SlimMckenzie In reply to Ruris01 [2017-02-13 12:23:40 +0000 UTC]

Removing the atmosphere is huge. Any sort of volumetric dispersion effect (like clouds, fog, etc.) is very render intensive. I find that I can often do without Zone B, especially if I make Zone A a bit rocky. Beyond that, it was actually suggested in my tutorial for the section plane to use it to simply remove some of the geometry.

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Lady-Quantum [2017-01-25 12:10:00 +0000 UTC]

So should we create our own journals and link them to yours, or how would you like this done?

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SlimMckenzie In reply to Lady-Quantum [2017-01-25 22:29:44 +0000 UTC]

I think making your own journal and maybe tagging or linking to mine would be the best. It would give it the most exposure, and sort of act as a "repost" for the other journals!

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