This Daz3D Shortcuts & Time Saving Techniques article is all about making you faster when working with Daz Studio. We will explain everything step by step. Having ways to save some time can be very helpful and convenient. In this article we are going to look at ways how you can make your Daz Studio experience more comfortable. Mainly by using shortcuts, but also other ways that can help you.
Typically faster than full CCD (roughly 1/2 the time), but slower than Swept Vertex (it is doing significantly more work) More accurate than Swept Vertex, but less accurate than full CCD (detects collisions that Swept Vertex is incapable of and skips the edge to edge checks that are present in full CCD) 2 - 'Good - Discrete: Swept Vertex'. In today’s video we will be discussing what contributes to rendering times inside Daz Studio and I will also be sharing with you some of the tips and tricks. I experimented with Daz Studio iRay render settings. These are my settings for a specific scene with one posed figure, but I have also indicated other setti.
Daz3D Time Saving Shortcuts
Most of your time in Daz Studio you will spend by moving around your scene, looking everywhere and making changes to it. So one of the best ways to save some time and get more comfortable with the software is to use the following Daz3D shortcuts.
Daz3D Customize Daz Studio Window
First of all let’s open the “Customize Daz Studio” window. You can either press [F3] to open it or go to the “Window > Workspace > Customize”.
In this window you can customize how your Daz Studio looks, feels and controls. We are here for the last one. You can find basically any function that is in the Daz Studio here and see which shortcuts it uses. So for example Render is [Ctrl+R] and Render Settings are [Ctrl+Shift+R]. By the way, Mac users should replace any Ctrl in this article with ⌘.
Also using this menu you can change any of the shortcuts. Or even add shortcuts to things yourself. So if you often create Spotlights, why not just create a shortcut for it?
Daz3D Scene Navigation Tool
One useful tip before proceeding to the shortcuts: you can move around your scene from the first person perspective. Meaning that this is done like in computer games. To turn this one, you will need to turn on the Keyboard Navigation and Scene Navigation Tool.
When this is done, you can move around your scene using [Left Mouse Button] (LMB) to rotate your view and keyboard keys to move around. [W], [A], [S] and [D] to move forwards, left, backwards and right. [Q] and [E] to move up and down and [U] with [O] to roll your view.
Then you can use [Alt+P] to cancel all the rolling and rotation you have done and return to normal.
While the “Scene Navigation Tool” is active, you can open the Tool Settings window to see all the controls that have been mentioned above but via buttons instead of shortcuts. Also here you can control how sensitive Controls are by changing the number beneath them.
Daz3D Navigation Shortcuts
Now let’s talk about the shortcuts and how you can navigate your scene using them. The main controls that you need are Orbiting, Panning and Zooming and they can be found as buttons on the top right of the viewport.
You can utilize these controls using shortcuts instead. They are: orbiting(Rotating around) – [Ctrl+Alt+LMB]; Panning – [Ctrl+Alt+RMB]; Zooming – Scroll wheel. There are more to controls than just Orbiting, Rotating and Zooming through. To Reset the Camera press [Ctrl+Alt+R] and Frame Selection is [Ctrl+F].
Frame Selection on the eye
You can also move like you are in first person without using the Scene Navigation Tool. For this simply click on the Navigation buttons on the top right of the viewport with the Right Mouse Button instead of the Left one.
On the top right you can also switch between Shadings for your scene. Instead of opening this list each time, you can simply use shortcuts for them.
The shortcuts are [Ctrl+#] with # being any number from 0 to 9 on the keyboard. Both regular numbers and Numpad works. With [Ctrl+9] and [Ctrl+0] being the most useful ones as they are Texture Shaded and Nvidia Iray shading respectively.
To the right of the Shading menu you also have a view controls list. Here it is possible to change your view and see your scene from a specific angle.
And again, for your convenience you can use shortcuts for this. They use arrow keys and are pretty easy to remember and understand:
- Front View – [Ctrl+↓]
- Left View – [Ctrl+→]
- Right View – [Ctrl+←]
- Back View – [Ctrl+↑]
- Top View – [Alt+↑]
- Bottom View – [Alt+↓]
- Perspective View – [Ctrl+P]
Front View
There are a lot more shortcuts in the Daz Studio, I can’t mention all of them. A couple more useful ones: [Ctrl+L] changes your lighting in the Texture Shaded and [Shift+F11] makes your viewport full screen.
Full Screen Viewport
Daz3D Other Time Saves
Additionally let’s talk about other time saves except the shortcuts. Firstly I would recommend you to use search function. Yes, this sounds very basic, but it can save a lot of time in a long run.
When you have a big collection – finding stuff can be difficult. So search bar is your lifesaver. It is located at the top of the Smart Content window. You just need to type in the product name that you want to use and it will be filtered out for you.
One of the biggest ways to save time is your renders. Rendering is the thing that will take most of your time working on the scene usually. Some renders can take up to tens of hours to complete.
So a huge recommendation to you would be to always make a test renders before the final one. Just lower your “Max Samples” amount in the “Render Settings” window and see how your scene looks. At least approximately.
Besides simply lowering your Samples amount – there are more ways to speed up your renders. We already made an article devoted solely to that topic – Daz3d Faster Render Tips: How to Speed up Renders. And even made a video that is based on this article on our Youtube Channel – Daz Studio Faster Render Tips | Daz3D Tips.
Test Render Example from Daz3d Faster Render Tips: How to Speed up Renders
Daz3D Time Saving Products
Another major method of saving your precious time. It implies that you, instead of doing all the work manually on your own, will get it done by someone instead. On the Daz3d.com/shop you can find a wide range of most different products. Some of them are very specific, so always give this a try.
For example, instead of creating your own facial expressions and spending a lot of time on that – you can get ready ones. Just like The Expression Collection for Michael 8.1 by Daz Originals & Quixotry. Michael 8.1 is the newest and most advanced male figure there is at the moment.
Source The Expression Collection for Michael 8.1 by Daz Originals & Quixotry
Or find more expressions for the earlier Genesis figures. Like an astounding collection 101 Expression Library with Dials for the Genesis 8 Male by Daz Originals & Gustef. There are so many expressions in this pack, that they are divided into ten categories.
Source 101 Expression Library with Dials for the Genesis 8 Male by Daz Originals & Gustef
Another thing that you can try to spend a lot of time to create yourself is Materials and Shaders. And instead of doing that there are a huge selection of different products of this type. Just like Iray Materials Collection Vol 3 by Polygonal Miniatures that includes 25 organic Iray materials such as wood, bark, oil, stone and more.
Source Iray Materials Collection Vol 3 by Polygonal Miniatures
There are a lot of shaders and materials on the market. With different purposes each. You can find something that could be used for the clothes of your figures. Like Sublime Iray Shaders by Daz Originals & JGreenlees.
Source Sublime Iray Shaders by Daz Originals & JGreenlees
And there are even some very specific shaders. For example Putting On The Glitz – Shiny Shaders for Iray by Daz Originals & MartinJFrost. It has a distinct holiday christmas theme with all the glitter and shine.
Putting On The Glitz – Shiny Shaders for Iray by Daz Originals & MartinJFrost
One more example of a thing that you can find on the Daz3D.com and that will save your time is Poses. Creating a pose is very important and you need to do that basically in every scene.
Reusing your poses all the time is not perfect and creating each time your own one is very difficult and needs a lot of time. So why not just look for something like Naturally Poses for Genesis 8.1 Female by Daz Originals & lunchlady
Source Naturally Poses for Genesis 8.1 Female by Daz Originals & lunchlady
Again, there are some specific poses that you can find here. Like couples poses that Z Everyday Couple Poses for Genesis 8 and 8.1 by Zeddicuss adds.
Source Z Everyday Couple Poses for Genesis 8 and 8.1 by Zeddicuss
Conclusion – Daz3D Shortcuts & Time Saving Techniques
I hope you find these Daz3D Shortcuts helpful. Saving time in the Daz Studio can be easier than you think. There are multiple ways of doing so, such as getting faster renders or having a wide collection of assets to use. But by far the most useful one is getting comfortable with your software. If you will learn how to use Daz Studio properly, learn shortcuts and features – you will get much faster while working, which is great.
This article will explain to you basics any common user needs to know about Daz3d Skydomes. What is it, how to use it, where to find it and is it even worth using it at all? All be answered.
Skydome is a way to simulate the environment Farming sim 19 free. on the 3D scenes. Meaning, that instead of creating your own environment out of different objects and assets, you can simulate one for a lot cheaper. Because all the objects can and will extend rendering times by quite a margin.
Example of a skydome in use – source Flipmode3d: easy environments
How exactly is this simulation done? Quite simple. You just need to add an object that will have the image of the needed environment placed on it seamlessly. This object usually is much bigger than the scene itself, so you can’t go out of the boundaries.
Commonly the object is either the cube or a sphere/dome. And skydomes can be called skysphere or skybox in respective cases. It looks something like this:
Skybox view from outside the object – source Flipmode3d: easy environments
How to Use a Daz Skydome
To use a Daz3D skydome in your scene in Daz Studio, you need to simply find it in the content library. There is something similar to the skydome built-in the Daz Studio from the start, so I will show you how to add it as an example. Adding skydome should be almost identical.
Daz3d Faster Render Driver
Firstly, let’s look at how to find it in the “Smart Content” window. By default this window should be situated on the left side of your screen. If it is not open for you, just on the top bar go to the “Window>Panes(Tabs)>Smart Content” to open it.
Daz3d Render Quality
Here you need to uncheck the box at the bottom left called “Filter by Context”:
This should show you more options on the Smart Content menu. And under the newly shown “Utilities” you can find the “Choose an Environment” button. Clicking it will open the “Scene Builder” window, that will show what environments you can use. The “Surfer Guy Beach” is what I was talking about earlier.
Alternative way of finding Daz3D skydomes would be using the “Content Library” tab. It is a neighbouring tab of the “Smart Content”. The path to environments files is: “Daz Studio Formats > My DAZ 3D Library > Environments”. Our file is a bit further: “…Environments > Multiplane Cyclorama”.
After you add this beach to your scene, this should appear at the center of a viewport:
This is not a skydome, but close enough. A couple of planes with the images placed on them to create an illusion of an environment. So now you can use this for your backgrounds without worrying that it will extend rendering times.
Daz3d Iray Render Quality
This is what I have came up with in a couple of minutes as an example of such scene:
To use a proper skydome you would need to find it somewhere. Later in the Daz3D Skydome Products section we will look into that.
Should You Use a Skydome in Daz
A strange question. It is an easy way to add environments that will look good and don’t require any additional computer power for rendering or work from the user. Why wouldn’t one use a skydome then?
Well, there are some points that explain why. But the main one is simple – High Dynamic Range Images, or just HDRI. This is a technology that allows users to use an image to create the image-based environments. Besides, this provides not only a background, but a lighting also. Any good 3D software has supported this technology.
HDRIs are similar to the Skydomes in a lot of ways. They are better in a lot of ways too. Frankly, they are better in almost any way. Which makes using Skydomes an outdated thing. You can even use them in a really similar way. Creating boxes or spheres out of them:
HDRI used as a box with a seamless image background
I would not explain why and how HDRIs are so good in this article. You should just read our other article dedicated solely to them – Daz3d HDRI Tutorial: What It Is and How to Use.
The one good way I can see someone using Daz3D Skydomes is if you wanted, for some reason, to use HDRI only for the purpose of lighting. And at the same time you want to have a background image, so you are going to use a skydome.
Angel – source 3D Art by LiliumVA
Daz3D Skydome Products
Okay, so if you want to use Skydomes, you would need to download them from somewhere. Probably the best way is to get them from the official Daz3D shop. As if you get them there, this means that they were made specifically with the Daz Studio in mind and can work better or provide some additional features.
First product that we are going to look into is the Iray Worlds SkyDome. It is an UHD skydome that features realistic skies in a total of 24000 x 3000 resolution. At the same time this skydome contains many different styles of tiled textures, grass, industrial, snow, water and more, besides it should have fast render times.
Daz3d Faster Render Editor
Forest rendered with the skydome background – source Iray Worlds SkyDome
Next item is also from the Iray Worlds collection of products. It is an Iray SkyDome Super PAK. Which is a pack of 22 instant Scenes, 24 Skies, 40 Ground styles, 18 Water styles and 33 New Horizons. And most importantly it contains 23 Custom created HDR and UHD images with the 12000 x 3800 resolution.
City with the evening skydome in the background – source Iray SkyDome Super PAK
Next two items are coming from the same author. They are based on a 3D rendered environment that was created specifically to make a skydome out of it. This benefits products, as digital characters inside a digital environment can look more believable than surrounded with a real-world one. Also both of them can be used as HDRI too.
First one is the Grim Dawn Skydome and HDRI. It features a mountain landscape at dawn with a lot of smoke and fog. It would be really good for a medieval scene.
Grim Dawn mountain landscape – source Grim Dawn Skydome and HDRI
Second product features a really similar landscape to the previous one, called High Peaks but in an absolutely different weather and time of day. Here it is a sunny day that reveals all the details of such a landscape.
Source High Peaks Skydome and HDRI
Conclusion Daz3d Skydome
A Daz3d Skydome is a really good way of adding background to your images. They are cheap, easy to use and seem really useful. But after the appearance and popularization of HDRIs – Skydomes become almost obsolete, as they are inferior to HDRIs.
There are ways and situations when you would use skydomes, but they are rare and mostly you really just should stick with the HDRIs. So it might be a good idea to look more into them by reading our Daz3d HDRI Tutorial: What It Is and How to Use. Also you can take a look at our Daz3d Iray Lighting Tutorial, where we show how HDRIs are used for the lighting purposes. We have also many additional Daz3d Tutorials and Top 3d Models reviews you can find.
There are ways and situations when you would use skydomes, but they are rare and mostly you really just should stick with the HDRIs. So it might be a good idea to look more into them by reading our Daz3d HDRI Tutorial: What It Is and How to Use. Also you can take a look at our Daz3d Iray Lighting Tutorial, where we show how HDRIs are used for the lighting purposes. We have also many additional Daz3d Tutorials and Top 3d Models reviews you can find.