This is great for me because I do not have much drawing or painting skills. I love art, but I certainly would not be able to create my DA images without Daz Studio. Best of all, you can get it for free HERE.

Arabian Dreams Fantasy Woman Art created using Daz Studio, Iray, and Photoshop.

What Is Daz Studio?

Ok, so now we know that Daz Studio is cool, but what exactly is Daz Studio?

Daz Studio is a 3D rendering program. You create a 3D scene, light it, adjust camera settings, and then just click render. In this way, it is like photography, except you are taking a picture of a virtual scene. Because it is a virtual scene, we get a lot more control over the scene itself, as well as how it is lighted.

You may think that creating a 3D scene is very complicated and time consuming, but actually it is not. This is because we can get many 3D-objects, poses, and lights to populate our scene from the Daz3d marketplace. In fact, that is how they make money, which is why they give away the Daz Studio software for free.

The software itself also comes with some free initial content, and you can get more free daily items from their freebie page. In this way, you can try things out first, without having to buy content right off. Daz also organizes many sales throughout the year, so I buy most items in my library at a 50% or more discount.

WARNING – Daz Studio can be very very addictive.

WARNING – Daz Studio can be very very addictive.

How to Create a Scene?

One of the first things that I did when I first started using Daz Studio is to set up the layout. This allows me to pick an interface that I am comfortable with. I go to Window -> Workspace -> Select Layout (see below).

One of the first things that I did when I first started using Daz Studio is to set up the layout.

When the pop-up window comes up, we can pick the layout we like most from a drop-down menu (see below). I use the Hollywood Blvd layout, so that is the one you will see in all of my tutorials. I like this layout because it is most similar to the Poser interface that I used before moving to Daz Studio. More on why I moved to Daz Studio.

When the pop-up window comes up, we can pick the layout we like most from a drop-down menu.

Now we are ready to create our scene. The first thing that I do is go to the Smart Content tab (interface left). If the tab is not there, we can easily right-click on empty space in the tabs area and pick Add Pane (Tab). This allows us to add additional tabs to the interface.

In the Smart Content panel, I drill down to Default > Figures > People > Female > Real World. This presents me with a thumbnail grid of realistic female figures. From this list, I double click on Charlotte 8 HD. This adds a human figure into my scene.

In the Smart Content panel, I drill down to Default > Figures > People > Female > Real World. From this list I pick Charlotte 8 HD.

Next, I enrich my figure by adding hair and clothing. An easy way to do this is to click on the Scene tab (interface right), and select my Charlotte 8 object. Then, I go back to the Smart Content panel, go to Hair > Long, and double click on the wonderful Alice Hair by OOT. Similarly, I go to Wardrobe > Outfits, and double click on Lilikh !Outfit.

I go back to the Smart Content panel, go to Hair > Long, and double click on the wonderful Alice Hair.

After crafting my character, I want to give her an artistic pose. To do this, I go to the Pose & Animate tab (interface top). Then, I go to the Smart Content panel and pick a pose that shows off the character and outfit.

I go to the Pose & Animate tab (interface top). Then, I go to the Smart Content panel and pick a pose that shows off the character and outfit.

Camera controls icons in top-right of viewport.

Once that is done, I may adjust the camera a bit (top right of viewport). Finally, I go to the Render tab (top), and click on the camera icon (top left of viewport). And just like that, I start rendering my scene.

What Is Iray, 3Delight, and Reality?

In addition to Daz Studio, you may also hear people talk about Iray, 3Delight, and Reality/Lux. These are all different renderers that we may use to render our 3D-scene. I highly recommend Iray because it is a physically based renderer that is built into Daz Studio. As such, it is easier to access, and there are a lot of shaders and materials for it in the Daz3d marketplace. The only downside to using Iray is that we will need a good nVidia graphics card for it to render in a timely manner.

Reality/Lux is also a physically based renderer, but we get to it through a plugin. As such it is not as integrated, and there are very few supporting shaders and materials that we can purchase. It is therefore, more of a do-it-yourself option.

3Delight is the original Daz Studio renderer and it is not physically based. Scenes generally render faster and are less noisy, but they are also less realistic.

Set renderer to Iray by going to Render Settings > Editor > Engine

We can pick to use the Iray renderer by going to the Render Settings tab (interface right). Select Editor up top, and then pick the renderer you want from the drop-down menu next to Engine.

What Is Iray, 3Delight, and Reality?

How to Improve Your Daz Studio Images

Once we get comfortable with the Daz Studio interface, we can start to drill down into certain key areas to improve our images. I got the most bang for the buck by improving my scene lighting, so that is the area that I would recommend tackling first.

This tutorial describes in greater detail how I light my Iray scenes. You can also see how improvements in lighting leads to changes in my images here.

How to Improve Your Daz Studio Images

Currently, there are two options that I know of for transforming previous skins into Base Female (G3F/G8F) UV maps.

1. Blacksmith3D’s Texture Transformer together with their add-on packs.
2. Various Legacy UV products by Cayman Studios.

I use Blacksmith3D’s Texture Transformer because it transforms the actual texture maps, allowing me to combine textures from different generation characters. In contrast, Legacy UVs work by adding new geograft areas. Note though that while I have had good success with BTT, it does not work on all textures.

Here, I highlight some of my favorite skins from Victoria 4 until now.

Best Fantasy Women Skins, 3D-Art

1. FWSA Dayanara HD

Dayanara has two main skin options – natural and snake skin. Both are fantastic, especially the snake skin version which has great detail, scales, and is very distinctive. Below are both the natural and snake versions of the skin, side by side. Natural-skin is on the left and snake-skin is on the right.

FWSA Dayanara has two main skin options – natural and snake skin.

This very impressive character by Fred Winkler Art and Sabby is one of my all time favorites. I still use her skin textures today and my most popular image on the Daz gallery features Dayanara.

This very impressive character by Fred Winkler Art and Sabby is one of my all time favorites.

2. MDD Shimmer for V4.2

Another fantasy skin that I use very frequently is Shimmer by Maddelirium. She is a Victoria 4 character but I transferred the texture over to Base Female UV (G3F/G8F) and have been using it with various G3F and G8F morphs. It consistently produces results that I am very happy with. For example, the image below uses Shimmer texture with TW Ktarya G8F morph.

Dragon lady portrait
with MDD Shimmer texture and G8F morph.

The cool tattoo designs, displacement maps, and striking colors make this skin unique and arresting, whether in a portrait close-up or a more zoomed out pin-up. Next, we have Victoria 8 with Shimmer skin in a classic pin-up image, and wearing the superb Bootleggers 2 high boots.

Victoria 8 wearing the Shimmer skin in a classic pin-up image and wearing the superb Bootleggers 2 high boots.

With the G3F UV Swap or G8F UV Swap products by SloshWerks, I am also able to use this transformed texture on G3M and G8M. The following image features a G3M character wearing MDD’s Shimmer skin with the adorable Daz Squirrel on his shoulder.

With the G3F UV Swap or G8F UV Swap products by SloshWerks, I am also able to use this transformed V4 texture on G3M and G8M.

Maddelirium’s Fire and Water as well as Earth and Air elemental skins are also fantastic. In fact, if you like fantasy skins as I do, definitely take a look at her store at Renderosity.

MDD Fire skin on G3F character. Rendered in Daz Studio Iray.

3. Tigerlily

Tigerlily has always caught my eye, but before I was able to get her, Genesis 3 and Iray were released. That got me very busy for a long while, and I never got around to getting this very striking cat girl. It wasn’t until this last PA sale that I finally saw her, got her, and I am very happy that I did!

In the image below, I have G8F wearing the Tigerlily skin with the LY Moxie Sparks morph. Her hair is Ktarya Hair for G8F.

Adorable fantasy cat girl pin-up . G8F with Tigerlily skin rendered in Daz Studio Iray.

I am a big fan of cat girls, so will definitely be doing many more renders with this amazing skin texture.

4. Aunrae the Dark Elf

Of course, no fantasy character-list is complete without a dark elf. My current favorite is Aunrae by Hinky Punk. She has wonderful skin detail and a great variety of colors and face tattoo options. Our fierce dark elf girl (below) is also wearing awesome claws from the Eagle-Guard Armor as well as the NightQueen Hair.

G3F character using Aunrae’s dark elf skin texture. Rendered in Daz Studio Iray.

I also like the results on G8F. Definitely a skin that I keep coming back to again and again. Works well as both a bad-ass dark elf (above), or a more smiley, happy dark elf (below).

G8F character using Aunrae’s dark elf skin texture. Fantasy art rendered in Daz Studio Iray.

5. FWSA La Llorona and Muneca HD Bundle

Last but not least, we have the zombie girl. This bundle by Fred Winkler Art and Sabby has a large variety of skin options. My favorite is probably the face with stitches and different skin patches from the La Llorona creepy options. It is highly distinctive and while it can be scary/creepy, it can also be sexy/dangerous or sad/vulnerable.

Sexy and dangerous zombie girl using the stitches and patches skin from the La Llorona creepy options. Rendered in Daz Studio Iray.

A more sad and vulnerable zombie girl with her teddy bear. Rendered using Daz Studio-3Delight.

The more minimalist skin with dark tear-streaks around the eyes and stitches on the lips is another excellent option. It is not as striking as the previous skin, but works well in a larger variety of contexts.

Lonely zombie girl sitting with cats. Here we use the more minimalist skin with dark tear-streaks around the eyes and stitches on the lips. Rendered in Daz Studio – 3Delight.

What Are Your Favorite Fantasy Skins?

Are any of the skins above in your favorite’s list too? What is your list of best fantasy women skins? What are those character skins that you end up using again and again? Hope you will share some of your choices with us in the comments section below! 😀

One of the first things that I had trouble with, was how to include properly sized images in my forum posts. I finally figured out how to do this, so this short tutorial gives step-by-step instructions on how to do this with the least amount of fuss. I am using the Chrome browser.

1. Click on the Attach a file link.
2. Click on the Choose File button, and select the image file(s) we want to post. This will upload our image files onto the Daz3D forum server.

After attaching an image to our Daz3D forum post.
3. If we hover our mouse over any of the attached image thumbnails, a small menu will open up below it showing us the file size, and giving us the option to delete the image if we so choose.

How to get our attached image URL.
4. Instead, right click on our attached thumbnail and select Open image in new tab. This will open up our thumbnail image in a new tab on our browser.
5. Go up into the browser address bar and remove thumbnail/ from the URL. This will give us the URL of our newly (large) attached image, on the Daz3D forum server.

How to get our attached image URL.
6. After we delete thumbnail/ from our address bar, and hit , we should get the large sized image we just uploaded onto Daz. Go up to the address bar and copy this URL.

Copy the address (url) of our newly attached image.
7. Now we are ready to insert the image into our forum post. First, (a) click on the insert image icon in the Leave a Comment interface, at the bottom of each forum page. This will open up an Image Properties popup-window. Then, (b) paste our image URL into the URL box..
8. 

   How to insert an inline-image into our Daz Forum post.
9. At this point, we can also change the width or height of our image so that it is not too large. I usually set the larger of my image width or height to 520 pixels. Changing one, will cause the other to shift accordingly, to preserve the aspect ratio of our image.

Resize our forum image so that it comfortably fits a browser window.
10. Next, click on the Link tab and paste our attached image URL in there as well. Then click on OK.

Use the Link tab to attach a link to our forum post image.
11. This inserts our attached image into our forum post. We may then add text around it as we so choose.

Success!! We have now inserted our attached image into our Daz forum post.

Hope you found this mini tutorial to be useful and thanks for visiting!

However, some argue that she is nothing special, and similar results can be achieved as a morph on G2F. Others acknowledge that there are certainly posing improvements. However, those do not justify yet another generation figure, a mere 2 years after the release of G2F.

Here, I talk about my own experiences with Victoria 7, what I like, some of the difficulties I encountered, how much extra bucks I would have to spend, and most important of all, whether I think V7 is worth the money spent.

Victoria 7 – Good, Bad, or Meh

Victoria 7 – The Good

1. Victoria 7 looks fantastic!

I don’t usually buy base figures when they get released. I know that if I am patient and wait a few months, I can probably pick things up at a much better discount. However, as soon as I saw Vicky 7, I was very tempted to get her right away. The promo images and the expression packages look absolutely fantastic!

After agonizing over it for 1 day, I got the base figure and Victoria 7 Attitude Expressions by Cake One. I figured that at the very least, I get a “good morph” and a good Iray skin.

2. Expressions make a big difference

The first thing I noticed when playing around with V7, is that the enhanced expressions make a big difference to my renders. A good expression can make a so-so render into a good one, by making the piece more expressive and realistic. Some images are made, just by an expression.

Since I most enjoy doing figure based pieces, the enhanced expression in G3F is a BIG win for me.

The enhanced expression in G3F is a BIG win for me.

3. Clothes transfer pretty well

Another happy surprise is that clothes seem to transfer quite well. I fit V4 and Genesis clothing on a G2F figure first, and then refit that onto Victoria 7. The only items that I had problems with so far are some G2F boots, which get all twisted when auto-fitted onto V7.

Hair also works pretty well, as long as it comes with enough adjustments to move things around based on the figure pose. I just use the hair as a prop, parented to my figure’s head.

This is super great news because I can focus my Daz bucks on expressions and perhaps a bit on new poses.

Older generation clothes (V4, Genesis, G2F) transfer pretty well.

4. Doesn’t take too much to get started with G3F

The G3F base figure comes for free with Daz Studio 4.8. However, as with previous base figures, it doesn’t look very good. Therefore, getting Victoria 7 base was necessary for me. At the start, I got –

• Victoria 7 Base Figure,
• Attitude Expressions by Cake One,
• Genesis 2 to Genesis 3 Pose Converter by Zev0/DraagonStorm, and
• FWSA Adaline.

These four products were sufficient to start generating images that I am quite happy with.

Doesn’t take too much to get started with G3F.

Victoria 7 – The Bad

1. Old poses need to be converted

Because of changes in the rigging structure of Genesis 3 figures, old poses will generally *not* work very well. However, there are already two different converters (one by Zev0 & Draagonstorm, and another by 3D-Universe) that allow us to easily upgrade our G2F poses for use in G3F. In addition, Zev0 is working on a batch converter for V4 poses into G2F. Therefore, with these two converters, we can ultimately transfer V4 poses for use in G3F.

However, as expected, the converted poses will not work as well as the original. I usually need to tweak each converted pose that I use, some more than others. I prefer the results that I get when I do not unlock the ZForearm (Z-unlock). As a result, I need to manually get the arms into the right position myself, which takes up more time. Not surprisingly, I get the best results when using poses that are crafted for V7.

A useful tip that I got from this Daz Forum thread is that –

If you want even more accurate hands, we discovered that the G1 to G2 hand preset from Handy Dandy (for Genesis2) works really well on the converted poses for Genesis3.
~~[Zev0]

Old poses need to be converted, and those will not work as well as the original.

2. Old skins and characters won’t work

Not surprisingly, old generation skins and character morphs are not going to transfer. It is still early though, so perhaps converters will be created for these at some later date.

3. Spend more bucks rebuilding character, pose, and expression library

Even though the startup cost is not too great, there is no denying that we would need to spend additional money getting characters, poses, and expressions that are designed for G3F, to get the best results.

4. Not Poser compatible

If you look at the Victoria 7 product page, only DAZ Studio 4.8 is listed in Compatible Software. At the current moment, Victoria 7 and Genesis 3 are not supported in Poser.

I do not know what the actual details are for figure compatibility here. According to a comment on this Renderosity thread, it would require some non-trivial updates from Poser.

To even attempt a DSON version would require Poser support industry standard dual quaternion skinning, which is how Genesis 3 is rigged. Note that is just one of the things blocking a DSON version, though it is the most obvious.
~~[bhoins]

I haven’t seen anything on this from either DAZ3D or Smith Micro.

Spend more bucks rebuilding character, pose, and expression library.

Victoria 7 – Good, Bad or Meh?

Personally, I rather like Victoria 7 and for me, the good outweighs the bad. I like the renders I can make with her, and I think they look more realistic than my older renders. My startup costs weren’t too great, and I am already pretty happy with what I can render so far.

However, art is subjective, and results are going to vary depending on art style and composition.

What do you think of Victoria 7? Are there big advantages or disadvantages that I missed? If so, please share them with us in the comments section below.

What do you think of Victoria 7?