I use three main classes of lights in all my Iray scenes-

1. An image based light (IBL). This is a HDR image that I use in Render Settings > Environment > Environment Map.
2. Three mesh lights arranged according to the three-point light system.
3. One or more volumetric lights for softening effects and atmosphere.

Then, I may add point-lights or emissive surfaces based on composition.

How I Light My Daz Studio Iray Scenes

We will use the image above to illustrate the different classes of lights and why we use them, in this tutorial. The outfit and hair used in the image are from the NeoIndia Outfit and Hair Bundle by Arki and Shox-Design. The ruins in the backdrop is Mandgadfor by powerage.

1. Image Based Light (IBL)

I usually use a HDR image for this to provide my scene with –

• Realistic ambient lighting.
• Realistic reflections.
• Realistic background that is consistent with both lighting and reflections.

This beginner Iray tutorial has more on how I use a HDR image in Daz Studio Iray.

How well our IBL illuminates the scene will depend in large part on the HDR image we are using. In particular, what range of values it supports. The higher the range, the better the results.

I think about it this way … sunlight is a very strong light source, and its value should be many many times greater than anything else in the scene. Using a regular JPG image that only supports 255 values per pixel, is not going to work well for scene lighting. This is because the difference in range between our very bright sunlight and everything else will be overly compressed. I.e. a lot of light information in our IBL would be lost due to range limits.

A decent JPG can serve as a good enough background, but it will not be sufficient for providing good realistic scene lighting.

Below is our Princess of the East image, with just the IBL turned on. Here, we are using the Barcelona Rooftops HDRI from sIBL Archives. Here is a list of free HDRi sites. Dimension Theory and Orestes Graphics also has some great HDRi’s for Iray.

Scene lighted with just an IBL (Iray Environment Map).

2. Mesh Lights

If we are already using a good HDR image, why do we need to add mesh lights?

I add mesh lights to highlight my main figure(s) and make them stand-out from the rest of the scene. This is especially important in figure based compositions, because the focus of the image is on the main actor(s) in the scene.

I think about it this way … when we go out walking in the streets, the scene around us is very busy. Although we may imagine ourselves to be the center of attention, no single individual stands out from the rest. This is what we get with a HDR image.

In contrast, during a model photo-shoot, lights are added to bring out the figure so that it grabs the viewer’s attention.

1. To highlight my main figure(s), I add three Daz Studio spotlights (Create > New Spotlight).
2. I place my three lights according to the three-point light system (key, fill, back).
3. Then, I convert each of my spotlights into mesh lights by setting the Light Geometry parameter to Rectangle. This will give me softer shadows. For more details on how to convert a spotlight into a mesh light refer to this article.
4. I want my back light to have the sharpest shadows, so I set its size to be the smallest of the three. I want my fill light to have the softest shadows, so it gets the largest rectangle. The key light is somewhere in-between the two.
5. Finally, I select my three lights and add them to a group (Create > New Group), so that I can move them and rotate them together. In this way, I can easily center my three lights around the main figures within my Daz Studio scene.

To bring out my main figure(s), I add three lights according to the three-point light system.

After adding the three mesh lights to my IBL, my figure stands out a lot more from the background, and there is a much stronger silhouette on my figure. If we compare this image and the previous one, with just the IBL, we can clearly see that the lighting is more compelling here and the figure pops from the background.

If you do not want to create a light rig from scratch, the BOSS Pro Light Set for Portraits & Promos has ready-made key, fill, rim lights, and much more.

After adding my three mesh lights to my IBL, my figure stands out a lot more from the background.

3. Volumetric Light

I also like to add at least one volumetric light to my images to provide additional shadows and atmosphere. In this case, I add a spotlight shining onto my figure’s face. I then render it as a volumetric light by using Marshian’s AtmoCam for Iray.

You can also create your own volumetric light. Here are a few ways.

Add a volumetric spotlight shining on our figure’s face. This adds more shadows and atmosphere.

Finally, I re-tone the image some, add a little bit of glow, add some contrast, and I am done!

You will notice that I do not talk much about light intensities in this tutorial. This is because I usually render each light in a separate layer, and later combine them in Photoshop. I control intensity, tint, and more from within Photoshop.

Depending on how I combine these lights, I can create a day-time scene or a sunset scene. I can create a realistic image or a colorful fantasy setting.

By combining lights differently in Photoshop, I can get a day-time or sunset scene; a realistic or a fantasy scene.

On a Break

For those interested, here are the past winners.

If you want announcements of site events and winners, follow us on Facebook.

Thank you very much for all your condolences and well wishes.

For those who did not see in my previous posting, I just lost my best (furry) friend to cancer. It is a terrible thing to suddenly lose someone that you spend so much time with every day, creating light and happiness. I am still trying to muddle through this, so I will be taking a break from posting new contests for a while.

Hopefully, we will be back soon. Thank you to all for participating, viewing, posting comments, as well as for your positive energy and support. The Daz Studio community is totally awesome and I hope everyone stays safe in these very difficult times. Big hugs to you all.

Siberian Husky dog Lara (a.k.a. JJ). I miss you and love you always.

May there be light in this darkness.

If you have ideas on how to improve the contest or other fun contests you would like to see, please let us know in the comments section below. If there are vendors you would like us to feature, also let us know.

Love always to Shania and Lara.

Prizes

I love gift certificates because they are easy to deliver, claim, and use. Prizes will all be in DAZ gift certificates.

• 1st Place – $50 Daz3D Gift certificate.
• 2nd Place – $25 Daz3D Gift certificate.
• 3rd Place – $15 Daz3D Gift certificate.
• Honorable Mentions – $10 Daz3D Gift certificate.

Winners will be announced at around the 10th of the following month. Please remember to post a comment with your email in the monthly winners page to claim your GC.

Contest Rules

1. Anybody can enter except judges and organizers of the contest.
2. Entries need to contain at least one item from any of the featured vendors. Each month will feature one or more vendors, but your entry only needs to contain one item from one of the featured vendors.
3. Please include the qualifying item used in the description of your image. For example –
   

   Qualifying items used –
   FW Sebastian by Fred Winkler Art,
   Paladin HD MMXV by Luthbel.

4. Enter as many times as you like.
5. Old and new images are welcome. Entries can be submitted to other contests.
6. Postwork is allowed and any software may be used.
7. By entering this contest, you give us permission to post your contest images on this site, for example in an article announcing the contest winners.

We want everyone to have fun, so there aren’t many rules or restrictions. The only real requirement is to include at least one item from one of the featured vendor stores. Links for the featured vendors and stores will be updated at the beginning of every month.

How to Submit Images

To submit an image to the Daz3d gallery, click on MY GALLERY.

We will be using the Daz3D gallery for contest entries.

1. To submit an entry, you will need to have an account at Daz3d.com. It is very simple to create, and takes very little time to make one.
2. Then, click on your account icon to the top-right (step 1 in the image to the right), and go to MY GALLERY (step 2).
3. Next, simply drop an image at the “drop image” icon, or click on it to load an image from your local directory.

How to edit an image in the Daz3d gallery.
4. Hover your mouse over the image, and click on the Edit Image icon (circled in red to the right).
5. In the description section of the image, enter in the qualifying items used for this contest. Qualifying images must contain at least one item from one of the current featured vendor stores.

Enter the qualifying items used in the description section of the image.
6. In the tag section of the image, enter the current contest tag. For example, shiba-6-15. Click on the plus [+] button to the right to add the tag.

How to enter tags for images in the Daz3d gallery.
7. Save your image, and that is it!

Hope You Have Fun!

And thank you for participating! If you have any additional questions, suggestions, or comments, please post them below.

In this tutorial, I will describe how I started out with Daz Studio Iray, and how I created a simple realistic render from start to finish. This tutorial is intended for Iray beginners who are already familiar with the standard Daz Studio Interface.

If you are only starting to use Daz Studio, then check out this Daz Studio for Beginners tutorial.

First Iray image I created with an image based light (IBL).

1. Creating the Scene and Materials

I create the scene in the same way as I would in regular Daz Studio. However, one very important aspect of getting a scene to look right in Iray is in using the right materials.

In this tutorial, I make a very simple scene with a female figure and a dragon tattoo on her back. She has interesting, long, wind-blown hair and is wearing a bikini. I make sure to use a highly detailed and realistic looking skin on my human figure. In this example, I am using the Bambolina skin by Tempesta3d. I also get pretty good results from the Daz3d Elite skins that I got from Michael 6 HD Add-On and Victoria 6 HD Add-On.

This simple scene allows me to focus on learning the basic material and lighting aspects of Iray.

This simple scene allows me to focus on learning the basic material and lighting aspects of Iray.

After I finish creating my scene, I need to apply Iray shaders to all of my scene objects (figures, clothing, props, environment). One simple way to do this, is to –

Expand all objects within our scene.
1. Click on the Scene Tab. Then, right-click on the Scene pane, and select Expand > Expand All.
2. I do Ctrl-A to select all items in my scene pane. Then I Ctrl-click to un-select lights and cameras.
3. Next, (a) I click on the Surfaces Tab, (b) click on Editor, and (c) select all the objects within it

Select all object surfaces in the scene.
4. Now, (a) I click on Presets. Within the Presets pane, (b) I select Shaders > Iray. If you are not using the Smart Content functionality within Daz Studio, you can get at the Iray shaders through your Content Library by going to Shader Presets > Iray > DAZ Uber in your Daz Studio directory. Finally, (c) I double click on the !Iray Uber Base shader to convert all the objects in my scene to using Iray shaders.

Apply Iray Uber Base shader to all object surfaces in my scene.
5. Note that Iray also has specialized shaders for glass, metal, water, fabric, leather, and more. At this point, I identify any special surfaces in my scene that fall into these categories, and assign them accordingly.

I select Ignore, and then click on Accept to to keep the original textures of my selected objects.
6. I do Ctrl-double click if I want to keep the original textures of my selected objects. This will open up a pop-up window. I select Ignore, and then click on Accept.

How to apply Iray shaders to my Genesis 2 Female figure.
7. There are also specialized shaders for Genesis 2 males and females. These shaders will use the existing skin textures that we have on our figure. Therefore, I select my female figure in the Scene pane, (a) go to the Surfaces Tab, (b) click on the Presets button, and (c) select Materials > Iray > Feminine. (d) I double click on the Iray Optimized Genesis 2 Female MAT to apply this shader on my figure.
8. Finally, I tweak my surfaces as needed. I find that the Iray skin shaders are a bit too glossy/shiny for my taste. Therefore, I select my G2F figure, go to Surfaces > Editor. Open up Genesis 2 Female and select Skin. Then I change the Glossy Layered Weight to 0.5.

How I lower the glossiness of the skin on my female figure.

This finishes the material setup of my simple scene. As I learn more of Iray and create more complex scenes, I will probably want to do more here to get the best render results. However, that is for a later time and tutorial. 🙂

2. Iray Image Based Light

A very simple way to light my Iray scene in a realistic way, is to use an image based light (IBL). To do this –

1. I go to (a) Render Settings > (b) Editor.
2. I select (c) Environment > Dome.
3. I assign an appropriate image to light my scene in the (d) Environment Map control. In this example I am using Barcelona Rooftops that I got from sIBL Archives. That is a great site to get free IBL images. Dimension Theory also has some great HDRI packs in his DAZ store.

   As far as I can tell, the Environment Map slider also controls IBL intensity. For example, rendering at Environment Intensity 1 and Environment Map 1 gets me the same result as rendering at Environment Intensity 0.5 and Environment Map 2.


How to set an image based light (IBL) in Daz Studio Iray.
4. Next, I set Dome Mode to Finite Sphere so that I have more control over how the image map is used in my scene. When I do this, additional controls appear including Dome Scale Multiplier, Dome Radius, and Dome Origin XYZ.

   Dome Scale Multipler and Dome Radius allows us to scale our environment map, and Dome Origin allows us to reposition our environment map. I set Dome Scale Multiplier to 3 so that I can see more of the image in my scene.


Setting Dome Mode to Finite Sphere so that I have more control over how the image map is used in my scene.

Iray render of scene with the render settings specified above.
5. Next, I want to position the sun in the image map at the right place so that it casts a nice rim or silhouette on my figure. To do this I need to better understand how my image maps onto the 3d-dome in my scene.

How the sections of our image based light map to the dome in our 3d-scene.

A simple way to think about it is to divide our image into four segments.

• Section A maps to the front of the dome (what we see in the scene).
• Section B maps to the right of the dome.
• Section C maps to the back of the dome.
• Section D maps to the left of the dome.

The four segments of our image map.

Essentially, the left of the image maps onto what we see, and then it goes clock-wise from there.

The sun in our image is in section C (back of the dome). Therefore, to move it to the front of my image, I rotate the dome by 180 degrees. This gives me a nice rim or silhouette effect on the left of my figure. Rotating 270 degrees shifts the light-rim to the right of my figure.

Iray render of scene with IBL dome rotated by 180 degrees.

However, it looks like there is also too much light in my scene, and there does not seem to be enough contrast between the rim set by the setting sun and the rest of the image. This is because of the camera headlamp.

In particular, if there are no lights in the scene (other than the IBL), Daz Studio automatically adds a headlamp to the top of the camera to light our scene. This headlamp is adding too much light and reducing the contrast of the IBL that I want. To turn off this headlamp, I simply add a Daz Studio light to the scene, and then turn that light off. In this way, the only light source is my image based light (IBL).

Iray render of scene with the Daz Studio camera headlamp turned off.

3. Postwork and Done!

Finally, I add some glow to my image, tone it to a more orange sunset color, lighten the figure a little bit, and I am done!

With an nVidia GeForce GTX TITAN X card, I was able to render a 1000×1300 version of the image in under 5 minutes.

Finished image after adding glow and tint.

Below is a more complex second scene that I made. I set the armor to the Iray iron shader (keeping my original textures), and I exported the lion hair as OBJ from the Look at My Hair plugin.

Lionheart – Daz Studio Iray render.

Following, I will list a set of common issues I encountered, and then discuss useful tips and tricks that I found within Daz Studio, to solve them.

Tips and Tricks for Daz Studio Beginners. Image rendered in Daz Studio 4.6 Pro with postwork in Photoshop.

1. Dealing with Poke Through in Clothing

One common problem in 3D-posing software is that depending on pose, the body of our figure may sometimes poke through her clothing. In addition, when a figure is wearing multiple layers of clothing, an inner shirt may poke through an outer vest or belt. Similar poke through issues can also occur with hair and head-wear.

In the past, we deal with this issue by manually adjusting or enlarging various parts of our wardrobe. Another technique is to make a body part that is fully covered, invisible. For example, if our figure’s toe is poking through her boots, we may turn off the visibility of her entire foot.

In Daz Studio, we can address this thorny issue by using their collision detection function.

To get to this function, we access our clothing parameters.

For example, in the screen-shot below, we have added some hair and clothing to our Olympia 6 figure. Next, we select our clothing top (JG_Top), and then click on the Parameters tab, which is right below the Scene tab.

Added hair and clothing to my Olympia 6 figure.

Accessing the collision detection feature for a piece of clothing.

On the Parameters screen, we want to select Mesh Smoothing, which is where the collision detection feature resides.

Note that Enable Smoothing must be on for collision detection to work. We can then set the collision item and the number of collision iterations.

In the case of clothing, our collision item is usually our figure. However, if we are wearing multiple layers of clothing, we can also set the collision item to be another piece of clothing. For example, we may set the collision item of a belt to the pants, instead of to our base figure.

The default collision iterations of 3 usually works for most things, but if there is still poke through, we can try raising this figure to resolve it.

How to add the Mesh Smoothing functionality.

Most new clothing items already come with the Mesh Smoothing feature included. However, for older pieces of clothing, it may not be present. In this case, we can add the Mesh Smoothing function from within Daz Studio.

To do this,

1. Go back to the Scene tab.
2. Select the object that we want to add mesh smoothing to.
3. Click the the button with a triangle and some lines on the top left of the Scene panel (highlighted to the right).

This will open up a drop-down menu. We want to mouse over the Edit option, which will open up even more object feature options. To apply mesh smoothing and collision detection to an object, we simply select Apply Smoothing Modifier from the top of the drop down menu.

Note however, that adding this mesh function will require additional calculations, which may slow down navigation and increase render time. Therefore, we only want to only include it as necessary.

In the case of mesh smoothing, additional calculations need to be made when our figure pose is changed, which can significantly slow down direct manipulation posing controls. If I have clothing items with high smoothing or collision iterations, I usually turn mesh smoothing off while testing and tweaking poses. There are also vendor products that can help with poke-through such as Zev0’s Fit Control

Make sure there is no poke through between the figure and her clothing by using the collision detection feature.

2. Getting Rid of Blocky or Jagged Figures and Objects

Sometimes, an object in our scene may appear blocky or jagged when viewed up close. This is because there are not enough polygons on the surface of the object (i.e. not enough resolution). Therefore, when we zoom in, we start to see the jagged corners of the now larger polygons that make up the surface.

This is similar to when we zoom into an image, and start seeing jagged edges, because each pixel is now much larger and we start seeing the jagged corners of the pixels.

How to add sub-division surfaces to a figure or object.

Another very useful Daz Studio mesh function is the Convert to SubD option. SubD stands for subdivision surfaces. Using this option, we can automatically add more polygons onto our object surfaces. By increasing the resolution of our objects, we get rid of jagged edges and increase the quality of our renders.

We can increase the object resolution by using the same process as outlined above for mesh smoothing.

1. Go back to the Scene tab.
2. Select the object that we want to add mesh smoothing to.
3. Click the the button with a triangle and some lines on the top left of the Scene panel (highlighted to the right).
4. Then, we select Edit > Geometry > Convert to SubD.

For example, in the dark angel picture below, I used the sub-division surface feature to increase the resolution of the wonderful End of Summer Hair on my figure. In addition, I also used the Mesh Smoothing operation we discussed in the previous section, to further smoothen out my hair edges.

I applied mesh smoothing as well as sub-division surfaces to the hair object on this dark angel. It helped to significantly smoothen out the jaggies in his long hair.

We can access our sub division surface parameters by selecting the object, clicking on the Parameters tab, and then choosing Mesh Resolution.

Mesh Resolution or sub-division surface parameters.

Wheel icon to the right of the sub-division level panel.

Note – if we want to increase our sub-division level by more than 2, we only need to click on the wheel icon at the right of the sub-division level panel (shown to the right).

This opens up a drop-down menu, and we want to select the Parameter Settings option. Doing so will open up a pop-up window that allows us to increase the maximum sub-division level in our interface (shown below).

How to increase the maximum sub-division level in our interface.

a) Remove Grid Lines on Sky-Domes

Sub-division surfaces are also really useful for removing lines in sky-domes. When certain environments are rendered, grid lines may sometimes appear on the sky-dome. When this happens, I simply select the sky-dome in my scene and convert it to a sub-division surface. Increasing its polygon resolution seems to get rid of all the grid lines.

b) Background Figures

Just as we can increase the resolution of foreground objects and figures in our scene, we can also use the sub-d controls to lower the resolution of background objects to increase rendering speed.

This is especially useful when we have multiple human figures far off in our background. These human figures have a lot of detail and are usually set to high resolution by default, which will unnecessarily slow down our rendering speed. I also make sure to reduce the mesh resolution of far away clothing and hair.

I lowered the mesh resolution of the human figures, hair, and clothing that appear on the background of the scene.

To get the blurring effect in the background,
1. Select your camera and go to the Parameters tab.
2. Select Camera from our list of parameters.
3. Turn on Depth of Field.

How to get blurring effect in the background.

Here are some simple instructions from Flipmode on how to easily set our focal distance.

Here is a more detailed tutorial from Daz on Depth of Field.

3. Change Background Color

Finally, it took me the longest time to find the controls for changing the background color of my Daz Studio scene. Changing background color is very useful for a variety of purposes including –

• We may want our scene background color to match our floor color or texture. For example, in pin-up scenes, we may set a white floor so that shadows will create a nice effect. In such a situation, setting our scene background to white also, will cause the floor to naturally merge into it.
• We may need greater contrast between the figures or other elements in our scene with respect to the scene background.
• For placing lights, it is absolutely invaluable to change our scene view to Wireframe so that there is no occlusion of our light objects. To better view a wireframe scene, we will need to change our scene background color to black or some other darker color.

Top view of wireframe scene, with a black background, which is very convenient for light placement.

How the change the background color of our Daz Studio scene.

To change our scene background color, we want to-
1. Click on the triangle with lines menu button to the right of the camera drop-down menu on the top-right of our scene. We circled this button in red in the image above.

2. This opens up a drop-down menu, and one of the options is Change Background Color.

3. Clicking on this option will open up a pop-up window with a color selector for us to pick our new background color. Once we are done, select Ok and voila, our scene background color is changed.

That’s All Folks

If you have useful Daz Studio tips and tricks, please share them with us in the comments section below. Have fun rendering with Daz Studio!

Scene created and rendered in Daz Studio 4.6 Pro. Post-work in Photoshop.

There are lots and lots of 3D software that seem to do very similar things – but not quite – and it is really unclear which one is right for you.

To find the best 3D image software, you must first buy my
Shiba 3D-Software E-book!

Just Kidding!

Poser, Daz Studio, or Carrara? Scene above created and rendered in Daz Studio 4.6 Pro. Post-work in Photoshop.

Originally, my goal was to find something simple that I could use to quickly generate high quality 3D-images of figures and some simple backgrounds. In particular, I wanted to use these 3D-images for my online articles and blogs.

I started with Poser 7, got some great 3D-models from Daz3D and started having a lot of fun creating 3D-images. I chose Poser because I had used it briefly a few years back, and wanted to go with something I was familiar with.

Should you use Poser as well?

If I had to do it over again, at this time, I would not start with Poser. Instead, I would download a free version of Daz Studio and start generating images with that first.

Below, I will go through my experiences with Poser, Carrara, and Daz Studio, and talk about why I am currently back on Daz Studio.

Image rendered in Daz Studio 4.6 Pro with postwork in Photoshop.

Poser

Rendered in Poser 7, using Aiko 3 base.

One of the biggest advantages of Poser, in my opinion, is that it has been around for a long time, therefore, there is a lot of content for it. Many vendors are very familiar with Poser, and there are loads of 3D-products that are available for the platform. In addition, it has a powerful dynamic cloth system, and a great material room (i.e. shaders).

I moved away from Poser mainly because rendering time was really long. Anything more than a simple figure took a long time to render, and the direct manipulation interface (e.g. posing and navigation) slowed down significantly for me as well. It became extremely painful to create, pose, and render even fairly simple scenes. I really wanted something that would give me greater control of the object polygons, smoother interface control, as well as faster rendering.

Note though, that I haven’t used Poser in several years, therefore my Poser experiences are based on Poser 7 and 2008 computer hardware.

More recently, I decided not to move back to Poser, mainly because of the Genesis figure. One of the largest places for low cost 3D models is at Daz3D. More importantly, Daz also produces very popular human base models, such as their well known Victoria and Michael lines. Most of the outfits and accessories produced by 3D vendors support these two character lines. Earlier versions of Victoria and Michael are fully Poser compatible.

However, recently, Daz released a new generation of models based on their Genesis technology. In particular, generation 5 and above Victoria and Michael figures are now based on this new technology. While there is a format transfer solution for Poser, these figures and the clothing autofit tool that gives it a lot of flexibility, work best in Daz Studio.

Rendered in Poser 7.

Carrara

After using Poser for several months, I decided to make the switch to Carrara at the end of 2009. As I described earlier, I wanted a faster renderer and more control of my object polygons. While on sale, Carrara 7 was comparable in price to Poser, and at the time I liked it a lot better than Poser.

Why?

• Carrara was much faster than Poser.
• I liked Carrara’s posing controls more than Poser’s. Carrara runs more smoothly than Poser on my computer, which makes it significantly easier to pose figures and clothing. I had difficulty using Poser’s direct manipulation controls because of the significant time lag.
• I liked Carrara’s rendering quality a lot more than Poser’s. Rendering speed is also much faster in Carrara compared to Poser. For example, the image below is generated using Carrara 7 with post-work in Photoshop.

Figures rendered in Carrara. Backgrounds from Sveva at Renderosity.
• Because of lag, doing more complex backgrounds in Poser is difficult and unpleasant. In contrast, Carrara is much better at handling backgrounds, as well as supports terrains and environmental effects.
• Carrara has good support for shaders (e.g., character, object, and clothing textures). In addition, there are a variety of pre-built shaders in Carrara and you can purchase more from Daz. With better textures, you can generate higher quality, and more realistic looking 3D images.
• Carrara supports a much larger range of functions compared to Poser. The biggest one for me is the ability to do vertex editing. You may think that you do not want to mess around with vertices, but it is very nice to have the ability to tweak little things such as making a shirt slightly longer or shorter, slightly changing the shape of an object, etc.
  Ultimately I really wanted the ability to change the faces of my characters.

I figured that Carrara will easily grow with me as I gain more 3D experience, and want to do more with 3D art.

One of the key weaknesses of Carrara (as of Carrara 8.5) is that it does not support dynamic cloth (which is supported by Poser and Daz Studio). However, you can drape the clothing within Daz Studio and import that into Carrara.

** I am not sure how well it will work when animated within Carrara because it will no longer be dynamic.

I liked Carrara’s rendering quality a lot more than Poser’s.

Daz Studio

However, at the end of 2013, I decided it was time for a switch to Daz Studio. One of the key reasons for this is that Daz is no longer putting much effort into developing Carrara. It took more than a year after the release of Genesis, before it was supported in Carrara (version 8.5). In addition, the autofit tool which really gives the Genesis figures its super powers does not work well in Carrara 8.5.

In addition to all this, it seems like Daz is focusing their main software efforts on Daz Studio, which now has some great global illumination options, sub-surface scattering, scene instancing, collision detection, sub-division surfaces, and more. In addition, Daz Studio has since collected a fairly large following, and there are now a lot of vendor products available for it. This is in contrast to Carrara which has very slow updates, limited new features, and a lot fewer vendor offerings.

In addition, Daz Studio is currently free, so I decided to make the leap.

Rendered in Daz Studio 4.6 Pro, postwork in Photoshop.

I could not be happier with that decision. In addition to the new features, tools, and greater amount of vendor content,

• I found that doing lights in Daz Studio is much easier than in Poser or Carrara. I was able to get up and running really quickly because of the awesome light primitives that come with Daz Studio 4.6 (which I got for free!).
• The Daz Studio 3Delight renderer is nice and fast. In addition, if we want to use an unbiased renderer later on, to produce more realistic looking results, there are plugins for those in Daz Studio.
• The Daz Studio interface is smooth and easy to learn. I am able to navigate my scenes well, even with more complex background scenes and elements.

Rendered in Daz Studio 4.6 Pro, with post-work in Photoshop.

Previously in Carrara, I would render each figure separately and then compose them with various backgrounds in Photoshop. However, since switching to Daz Studio, I am now rendering the entire scene together. The faster rendering speed, simple interface, and great lighting system has allowed me to start doing this fairly quickly. Rendering the entire scene is best because it allows for more interesting camera angles as well as lighting.

Here is my Daz Gallery, which contains many of the recent renders that I made using Daz Studio 4.6 Pro. In contrast, my Renderosity gallery contains my older renders that I did in Carrara. Even just from the renders included in this article, it is clear, I think, that there is a big improvement in what I can create.

If you are new to Daz Studio, I have just written a few tutorials for beginners based on my recent experiences –

• How to Create Fantasy Art in Daz Studio.
• Tips and Tricks for Daz Studio Beginners.
• How to Combine Multiple Poses in Daz Studio.

Rendered in Daz Studio 4.6 Pro, with post-work in Photoshop. This image also uses the Look at My Hair free player.