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« Last post by Agent0013 on October 13, 2024, 11:40:59 AM »
I think the problem with the Big Picture is the size of the images being required to be no less than 1500px on a side. The Upper limit is of course 3000px on a side. I will most often do a 16 to 9 aspect ratio, which fits most widescreens, in case people want to use one for a wallpaper. I use those for wallpapers myself.
So, when did you get started with DAZ Studio? For me it was way back September of 2009. I started in 3D, using MicroSoft Office PowerPoint. I was in college at the time, and one of my classes required that I have a computer. It was the first time I ever owned a good one. My first computer was an old Coleco that was given to me. It did not have any of the modern operating systems, and was not very powerful at all; plus, when I turned it on, I had no instruction on how to use it, so I never learned anything on it. The computer was given to me, and since at that time I knew very little about computers at all, I took it to a pawn shop and sold it. I got about $75 for it. But when I finally went to college, I bought a Toshiba Laptop and at the same time I got the student edition of MicroSoft Office 2007. I learned about Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Publisher, all part of the Office 2007 package. PowerPoint quickly became my favorite of the Office apps, because it had 3D capabilities, and even animation. I used the shapes in the shape menu, and different fonts, and made them real digital 3D objects that could be rotated on all axes, jamming them together to make complex looking starships. I then made an animated clip about 20 seconds long at 24 frames per second. It showed the ship coming at the viewer, past a 3D planet I made. The backdrop was an astronomical photo. The Planet was moving from the upper left to the lower right of the screen. I was showing what I did to my college friends, some of whom were in my computer class. It got back to me Computer Class Professor.
One day he came to my desk, and said "I heard about some thing you have done on your computer. If I may, can I see it?"
Well I knew that what he was asking me about had to be the animation I had created using PowerPoint. "Sure!" I told him. I opened PowerPoint, called up the file, and and ran the animation for him.
He was so amazed at what I had been able to do in less than 2 months of learning. He said "I did not even know that PowerPoint had these capabilities! It's amazing that you found them! How did you find them?"
"I was trying out the shapes menu, and discovered the 3D abilities. Then I noted that the fonts could be made 3D as well. I typed my name 'Cleve Major', converted it to 3D, and saw the animate command. So I tried it by making the letters in my name rotate on the X and Z axes. once they completed the first rotation, I used the loop command to make it repeat the same thing over when I played it back." As I was telling him this, I demonstrated what I was saying.
Well by that time, I had an audience of fellow classmates wanting to see. The professor seeing this decided to forego the day's lesson to let them see what I was doing. He hooked my Laptop up to a 48 inch big screen TV. Then he turned to me and said "Teach them!" So I did a tutorial for my classmates. Many followed with me as I was explaining the process in a way that even an elementary school student could follow successfully.
Afterward, the Professor told me "You're a natural born teacher! That was a lesson worthy of an award!"
Within a week after that, he came to me and told me about a 3D app that was being offered for free. It was from DAZ3D, and it was Bryce 7. So I checked it out, created my DAZ3D account, and downloaded it. After installing it, I explored it. Some of my first images were not so great, but it was far more complex than PowerPoint, so I knew it would take some time to learn. Luckily I found a British friend named David Brinnen on YouTube. He was an avid Bryce user making video tutorials that teach how to do many things in Bryce. I followed several of his tutorials, getting on the fast track to becoming a good Bryce user. He and I are still in contact, and I have helped him learn a few other apps, which he then took the the next level beyond my own capabilities.
Well DAZ3D soon put together a bundle deal that included three of their then current apps; Bryce 7.1 Pro, Hexagon 2.5, and DAZ Studio 4.0 Pro, all for free. At first I thought Bryce was all I really wanted, but my friends and my computer Professor said they won't take up too much space on your hard drive, and there is a bridge between these three apps that lets you move items from one to another and back. In DAZ Studio you will have access to several rigged figures, and clothing for each of them, if they need any. So I grabbed the bundle. DAZ Studio became my main app, with Bryce becoming my modeler at that time.
I also discovered the freebies that DAZ3D was giving away on a weekly basis, and began building up my DAZ Studio library with mostly content I got for free. Indeed I have paid for very few content products at DAZ3D. I found other sites that have a large selection of 3rd party content products for free, and became a member of this very site, which helped me find even more 3rd party products I could use. Now I am the active(ish) administrator here. I'm a member of The Fantasy Attic (a sister site to this one), The Fantasies Realm Market, a market for content products attached to this site and The Fantasy Attic), DeviantArt, Renderosity, and ShareCG. All of these I recommend to you, if you do not already know about them.
If you are into 3D modeling, or would like to try it out, I can recommend a few good modelers I use:
1 - Wings 3D: My main modeller now, as it is easy to get started in, and you can access good tutorials by my friend David Brinnen at YouTube, plus ask me about certain aspects he ,to my knowledge,[size=78%] [/size]has not yet covered. I have experimented with some new tools in Wings 3D, and figured out some great ways to make them part of my modeling process. It also has a UV Mapping feature that allows you to make templates for making textures for your models. That has been a part of Wings 3D since I got started with it. I've not fully explore that aspect of it, but I can do pretty good with what I already know.
2 - Blender: For certain modeling tasks, this one offers tools that Wings 3D does not have. It is a full 3D modeler, scene composing, rendering, and animation app; and can use much of the DAZ Studio content, via a recent bridge that can convert the content to work in Blender. Rigged figures will work in Blender once they are converted. I rarely use Blender for much more than using its exclusive modeling tools for certain modeling operations.
3 - Project Dogwaffle Howler: This one is actually my favorite painting app, but a feature within it lets you use heightmaps to make 3D models. I have not fully explored that aspect of it but the models it produces are better than those same models done the same way in Bryce's Deep Terrain Editor. You get a much smoother and defined model in PD Howler. You can paint your own textures too right onto you models in PD Howler.
There are other modelers available, some I tried and had to uninstall because either they were too complex, or did not have features I was wanting.
DAZ3D's own modeler, Hexagon is so complex, I cannot figure it out, and I have been unable to find any good tutorials to follow for it. They may have improved the user friendliness recently, but I moved on long ago to other, easier to use apps.
Now I have told you my story on how I got into 3D art. I would like to see your story, and offer help where I can.