My Must Haves for Working in DAZ

First off, hiya folks! It's been a bit since my last journal because of the holiday madness, but thank you all that decided to grab up my commission deals over the last couple of months. It really helped out around here, and I hope you all enjoy the pictures as much as I enjoy making them for you.

Now, on to the reason behind this journal.

has started a...well, not really a challenge per se...but a request to us friendly artists here on DA, to share our kind of "go to" items and "sellers of great stuff" for DAZ studio. I suppose it's so that if there are other folks out there looking for help and want tips, or whatever, then they have a list of what we, as artists, think of as "The good stuff". 

So without further ado, let's get started with my first pick, from one of my good friends right here on DA:

Legacy to Gen3 morph converter version 1.1Hello everyone,
my Legacy to Gen3 morph converter has been updated to version 1.1.
The new version has an updated content (improved clones) and a new executable file.
Morph accuracy for V4 to Genesis3 female has been improved. There are no changes for Genesis 2 to Genesis 3.
If you bought the old version, you should be able to download the update without any extra charge.
Version 1.1 is available here:
  's Legacy to Genesis 3 morph converter.

Now, the reason I picked this is simple. I started out several years back using V4 models, and this allows me to transfer the morphs of those models to the G3F, making me able to use newer and more modern rendering techniques for my characters. On top of that, there are several other products that you can get that allow for the auto-fitting of just about any Legacy clothing to the G3 line of models, so that makes this product even more useful.

My second pick is actually a vender at DAZ called JGreenlees www.daz3d.com/jgreenlees and this individual is where most all of the textures for my artwork comes from. This person has some amazing skills creating textures, and their other products aren't bad either! I own about 80% of what is in this person's whole store, if that gives you any idea of how good I think their stuff is.

Okay, so my next pick (number three) I have to cheat a bit, because it's actually two vendors together I have to talk about. On DAZ.com if you do a search for FWSA you will find some of the most amazing characters that you will ever see! The reason for this is because you have two wonderfully talented artists working on these characters, Fred Winkler Art www.daz3d.com/fred-winkler-art, and Sabby www.daz3d.com/sabby. Now, I'm a bit newer to Fred Winkler Art, but I've been getting characters from Sabby for literally years while she was on Renderosity, and the quality that she puts out is just amazing! And I can tell you that these FWSA characters are ALSO amazing!

Now then, pick number four has already been done by but it needs mentioned again because of its importance. Dimension-Z has created two products thus far that are skin shaders that make rendering realistically so much more viable that it isn't even funny. NGS Anagenesis, and NGS Anagenesis2 are must haves for serious renderers who want to save time, and therefore money. You can see his practice renders here on DA on his page Check it out and love it forever!

Coming in at number five...a great little product that I use all the time is Real Lights for DAZ Studio Iray. www.daz3d.com/real-lights-for-… Now what this does is give you a wide array of different types of lights that you can put on any kind of surface. Be it the neon lettering for a beer sign, or the glowing blade of a Jedi's sword, or just a normal 40 watt bulb, it's in this package, and because it's Iray, then when you render it, it comes out like a real light in your picture. Helpful for when you get a scene and it isn't pre-lit, or when you need to choose surfaces on objects around your models that aren't in the scene to shed light so that you can easily get the effects you want without the mess of creating a bunch of extra mesh lights and positioning them. This way the light is natural and so are the shadows.

Number six is a vender/venders called DM or more correctly Danie www.daz3d.com/danie, and Marforno www.daz3d.com/marforno. Once again I've bought things from these two for years and can vouch for the quality that they put out. In fact, the original Lady Quantum character was started with one of their character morphs, so we owe them a big thanks for that! Nowadays they mostly focus on settings, poses, and the occasional clothing item. Unfortunately they have gotten out of the character making business (I asked. ) but they still are some nice folks who are willing to talk and help if they can.

Seven is an easy one and that is Stonemason www.daz3d.com/stonemason. He is the King of scenes. If you need a background to put your model in, he's the person's page to visit! Anything from castles, to jungle foliage, to sci-fi wasteland, to urban sprawls, Stonemason has it all, and it's in 3D so your model can interact with it. It's not just an environmental backdrop HDRI, it's all around your model! Catch his stuff on sale, it's well worth the money you spend!

Eight I've got to go along with and say Out Of Touch (or OOT) is the next one I'd pick for people to take a look at. I've got a LOT of his hairs and hair shaders, and they are just great to use.The big thing about OOT's hairs is that they have a lot of morphs that allow for a range of movement and styling. So when your character starts moving (which it will, trust me) the hair will be able to keep up with the motion.

Nine is kind of a no brainier for me. It's the Wear Them All www.daz3d.com/wear-them-all-au… it's what allows all of your older Legacy clothes to fit on your G3 model. Not only does it save you time and money, but it saves you from ripping your hair out trying to manually fit those cool outfits that you used to have onto your new models.

Ten is one that I personally like, but can be kind of tricky to use at first. Iray Worlds Skydome www.daz3d.com/iray-worlds-skyd… is a lighting/environment setup that you can manipulate to exact time of day for sun position to get your shadows right and everything. It gives you clouds, water, and several different other environments to choose from so that your background and lighting for your scene can be done with ease. Mind you this is more for outdoor scenes, but between this and Real Lighting, you're covered.

Well, that's my list. Hope everyone likes it and gets something out of it. Remember to check out  's journal regarding this here:  My Must Haves for Rendering in DazI 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 (http://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

Lots of
~LQ