Many of you may not know this: between 2005 and 2008 Julia and I created a substantial body of artwork made with Kinetic Photography, long exposure pictures we took of light sources that became abstract super colorful images. It started as a fun experiment, but really took off when Julia put one ...
2021-11-23 21:15:51 +0000 UTC View Post
Well hello there! I have another video for y'all in which I'll show you how to tweak your Genesis clothing so that it won't trigger the auto-fit mechanism in DAZ Studio. This is super useful for Genesis 3 clothing that needs to go onto a Genesis 8 figure and vice versa. None of the weight maps ne...
2021-11-06 01:42:22 +0000 UTC View Post
New month, new video: I've made this one in response to my previous Iray Server videos, several viewers have had problems finding what details to put where, so I thought I'd explain it in detail. I'm spinning up an Iray Server instance on Infinite Compute's cloud servers and talk about the interf...
2021-11-01 21:08:44 +0000 UTC View Post
In this episode I'll show you the slightly unintuitive process of upgrading to a perpetual license of Marvelous Designer 11. In previous years we were given a discount code and use it upon checkout, but since perpetual and annual licenses are no longer available to buy, the &nbs...
2021-10-29 17:49:52 +0000 UTC View Post
In this episode I'll show you how to use the Scene Optimizer by V3Digitimes and demonstrate how it can speed up render times. The tool also lets you render scenes that would normally not fit into your GPUs VRAM by reducing the texture sizes of objects in your scenes.
Last weekend Julia and I went on a trip to Hollywood, where I gave a presentation about my cancer case. It's the second time I've done this. Julia made me a small presentation in Canva so I could show off some pictures that I didn't have last time in 2019. I thought I'd share it with you here, in...
2021-10-08 14:59:13 +0000 UTC View Post
In this episode I'll explain how DAZ Studio can be used with Iray Server to render animations. Yes, it's possible after all! I've received this tip from Rob at Infinite Compute, after we both had a long chat. I wanted to test it out immediately and thought I'd share the good new...
2021-10-07 11:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post
The above bouncing ball might not look like much, but I'm seriously excited about it: I've managed to render it with DAZ Studio and Iray Server!
This is a tip from Rob at Infinite Compute, whom I had a chat with recently. The trick is to not think logically and submit the s...
2021-10-06 18:16:05 +0000 UTC View Post
In this episode I spin up a cloud server with 4x RTX 3080 cards and use it to render the Subway Tunnel animation I've built for the DAZ Streams Holding Loop. It's an edited version of a Twitch session, in which I'm using the service for the first time. I was able to render 1200 frames at 1000 ite...
2021-09-30 13:55:31 +0000 UTC View Post
In this episode I'll show you how to create your own toolbar icons that can launch your favourite characters with a single click. This works with any figure or prop that can be loaded from your Library, including Sub Scenes. It's a nice time saver for your favourite items. I have a 2021-09-29 12:54:29 +0000 UTC View Post
Here's the final version of the DAZ Subway Tunnel Animation. This one was rendered on a node with 4x RTX 3080 cards in only 18 hours with 1000 samples per frame, courtesy of some promotional credits I received from GPU Hub for trying their service. I was very impressed with their setup and will m...
2021-09-23 22:56:03 +0000 UTC View Post
I've put this little animation together in a couple of hours this week and thought this would make an excellent addition to the holding loop for the DAZ streams. I've used the 2021-09-23 22:27:31 +0000 UTC View Post
In this episode I'll show you how I've managed to use an existing palm tree and add a subtle movement effect to it, as if the wind is blowing. This is done without using a rig on the tree or any real wind effect and can be used on any existing geometry.
I did this as...
2021-09-21 17:14:35 +0000 UTC View Post
In this episode I'll show you how to use outfits that come as Geoshells made for Genesis 8 characters successfully with the Genesis 8.1 figures. When you apply such an item (like the 2021-09-12 17:00:04 +0000 UTC View Post
In this episode I'll show you how to use the Noise Modifier in Blender. It's an excellent way to animate objects randomly without much work. The modifier is applied via the Graph Editor, it's a little un-intuitive, so I'll show you how it all comes together.
2021-09-11 11:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post
Yesterday I've done some more work on the Subway Tunnel animation for the new DAZ holding loop. I've been able to fix the train on the tracks, added passenger animations, and a bit of hero character movement. I've used the Decimator on the tunnel and train to preview my viewport a little, hence t...
2021-09-10 13:44:20 +0000 UTC View Post
In this episode I'll demonstrate how Iray Server works in DAZ Studio. I'll explain how to connect it, how to send jobs over to the server, how to start the server in both stand-alone and cluster mode, and how to restart jobs that are have already been submitted. I'll even show you several inevita...
2021-09-07 11:00:04 +0000 UTC View Post
In this episode I'll show you how to adjust the position of Rigged Props. You may have seen things like glasses, hats or necklaces that don't respond to the translation/rotation controls. That's because they contain (most of the) Genesis figure rig and can auto-follow as you mov...
2021-09-06 17:19:33 +0000 UTC View Post
In this episode I'll show you how to use the Weight Node Brush to fix geometry that appears distorted when using auto-fitting for shoes. The process works well for regular clothing, but since shows are made of more solid material, DAZ Studio frequently gets it wrong. In this example I'm using the...
2021-09-03 17:32:45 +0000 UTC View Post
In this episode I'll show you how to create an Iray Matte. This allows you to use an object to hide other objects in your scene to create potentially interesting visual effects in DAZ Studio.
A forum post suggested this could be used for spot rendering an image sequence, so I'm elaborating ...
2021-09-01 12:20:07 +0000 UTC View Post
I've just finished editing a little trailer for the next public stream on the DAZ Channel. I thought it might be nice to create a holding loop for the streams, much like I have on my own channel. A while back I bought the Subway...
2021-08-26 18:18:29 +0000 UTC View Post
In this episode I'll show you how to setup those mysterious JCMs in DAZ Studio. Joint Corrective Morphs are controllers that drive how far a morph is dialled up as a rotation on a joint happens. Think of a bicep muscle (morph) that needs to flex as the arm's rotation reaches the up position (join...
2021-08-23 20:50:00 +0000 UTC View Post
In this episode I'll show you how to create a Controller Property in DAZ Studio. This is an extremely helpful custom slider that combines various adjustments you've made into a single dial. Controllers drive multiple values at once, be that joint rotations, morphs or a combination of the two. For...
2021-08-20 21:59:10 +0000 UTC View Post
Here are the scene files for my recent Slinky Animation! It's a simple library folder, so there's no need to install this anywhere, just unZIP it and add it as a Content Library Folder to play around. I've included the following:
Hello again! In this episode I'll show you how to disable the constant and often destructive Windows 10 updates as long as you like. I'll explain how to stop the update service in the current session, and how to disable it on subsequent restarts.
I've researched this after running into mult...
2021-08-18 00:18:00 +0000 UTC View PostThis evening I dedicated a little more time to playing with Iray Server, and I have a little bit of a "success update" for you. It's about clustering up various machines, something I didn't have much luck with over the weekend.
Iray Server can work in two types of configura...
2021-08-17 01:22:46 +0000 UTC View Post
Today I've had the pleasure of trying something I've had on my radar for years: Iray Server. It's a mythical stand-alone application that can process Iray jobs we throw at it - from compatible applications. DAZ Studio is one of them, it has some interesting settings hidden in the...
2021-08-12 23:39:31 +0000 UTC View Post
In this episode I'll show you what I've learnt last week, namely how to rig a simple cylinder in DAZ Studio. I'll create face groups for three parts, use the mysterious Figure Setup Tab to create the bone hierarchy and add weight maps so that my little guy can be deformed.
The Decimator is a plugin that allows you to reduce the vertex count for selected objects in your DAZ scenes. In this overview I'll show you how it works in DAZ Studio, how you can add your own levels of detail to your objects, and how useful it can be when you're posing or anim...
2021-08-04 16:00:07 +0000 UTC View Post
In this episode I'll show you how to disable the Filament Viewport Option from DAZ Studio. Some people don't like having it and reduce clutter in the interface. Like with many options in DAZ Studio, Filament is implemented as a plugin and is easily disable-able (is that a word?)
2021-08-03 16:00:02 +0000 UTC View Post