...well they do to an extent. Especially if they are dedicated and not integrated like mine is. With integrated graphics the render process must share the accelerator's memory with other operations like the OS, Screen Savers, etc. With a memory hog like Windows, that can have a significant impact as I have been experiencing. I have seen pieces done on duo core machines similar in specs to mine, but with a dedicated VC, that I could never dream of rendering on my system (like large percentages of reflectivity, translucency, ambient occlusion, and raytracing).

Also any additional memory (particularly dedicated video memory) will improve performance.

True, for the type of applications we are using, you don't need anything like an nVida Quadro (unless you are heavy into animation or gaming), A 512Mb GeForce 8800 will work just fine.

Well, I considered a dedicated VC kind of a given since I play computer games too. When I render I tend to shut down all other programs though, to save on memory.

...yeah I'm not much of a PC gamer save for stuff like Madden NFL and Flight Simulator. Man I love flying the Tyполев Тy-114 PoccиÑ? ...err Tupolev TU-114 (until the 747 was rolled out it, was the biggest airliner in the world, and it was a turboprop with a cruise speed on par with most jetliners of the day).

When I'm in D|S or Carrara, I close as many processes as I can like Screen Savers, Wireless (since I have no connectivity from home), and other media stuff that runs in background that I know my name. However I'm not totally sure what else can be closed that won't shut donw a critical operation I need. Not all that up on some of those alphanumeric the names as presented in the Task Manager processes window.

...oh, almost forgot. Found a need set of rigger wheels from Sparkyworld through the DAZ forum:

Deathrace Car

Cool... I've used Sparkyworld's Alpha 1 Reactor, and Mega City Block One.

A scene from the "Divine Comedy" campaign on DS: Hacking an old Deck

And the cover pic of "A new Start in Seattle".

And a picture from an upcoming campaign.

I just found Poser 6 on sale at contentparadise.com for $30 do you think it would be beter than DAZ studio pricewise since it already comes with content?

Not Shadowrun, but here's my latest: Graveyard Shift

DAZ Studo is free, and you can download some free content as well. $30 is a good price for Poser 6 though.

HERE are Book & Tank, my characters in the Atlanta 2070 campaign. That render took hours and I rendered it nearly a dozen times playing with the lighting. I'm still not happy with the skin and lighting on the girl in the purple, but I grow weary of it.

THIS is Nix; Formerly of the Blood of the People campaign, now in the Legacy Campaign.

Nice pictures! if the skin is too glossy, I usually check the skin tab in DAZ,and fiddle with the settings.

Yeah, I've had time to get back to playing and that reflection setting helps a hell of a lot. Used to ahve the skin issues, and sometimes shiney clothing issues.

...yes there is included content, though Poser's UI is slightly more tricky to master compared to DazStudio. However, if you are eventually thinking of designing your own clothing and props, Poser is a necessity. True, Daz has their own rigging tools for Studio out but to get the same level of performance, you need the entire bundle which is about 180$ (125$ if you are a PC member)

There are also a number of sites with freebie content: Three of the best are:

Renderosity (you will need to set up an account but it is free)
VanishingPoint
ShareCG

Also as of the new year, Content Paradise freebies should now be open to everyone as they closed their Passport club.

All three have both Poser and Daz content. The only thing is you have to manually unzip and load the various components into the right folders as Freebies do not come with an installer.

If you go the Daz Studio route, Daz also has a Freebie Vault a their website (registration again required but it is free). Items from the Vault do have their own installers. Also Daz offers weekly freebies.

For modelling you will also need both a modelling and UV mapping application there are a couple good free ones:

Wings3D - this is a fairly good modelling programme
Blender - this is a kick butt modelling app that is on par wit professional grade software that costs 1000s of $ however it has a steep learning cvurve
UVMapper is a UV mapping programme.

...OK been getting a pretty good handle in Studio to the point of being able to whip out 3D sketches almost a quickly as I could in the old days with pencil & paper. Here's one inspired by a humourous side discussion after Violet asked if she could get a Flame Thrower or Missile Launcher after an FBI agent asked if the team was interested in helping out on a "cleaning mission" (the mission involved Bugs).

Violet the Destroyer??

Hehe, cute.

...OK time for a bump.

Here's a couple more pics I've done recently

First the latest of my Namesake:

Evnin' Pilgrim

A couple of Urban Fey from my campaign.

Lock and Load...

Need a Light...

A pic from my Rhapsody In Shadow storyline done for a Holiday themed contest.

The Greatest Gift

Nice stuff, KK!

...thanks. Been learning a lot over the last year. Also have branched out into Bryce, a wonderful application, mainly used for creating terrains and landscapes, but has as brisket to Studio for importing posed figures. In my opinion a much better render engine than Studio, a bit slow yeah, but no where near as crash prone and runs a lot cooler on my system.

Here's my latest, albeit a non Shadowrun piece, that I did for a themed render thread on the Daz Forums.

New for 2253

Currently working on another scene from Leela's background in Bryce as well. Also playing with the new version Carrara and while a bit more robust than the previous version for my machine, still an incredible application.

..OK, time to slap a Stimpatch on a sleeping thread.

Been very busy as of late with my 3D stuff. This month DAZ has a Cyber themed challenge on their website. Here is my first submission.

The Shopping Cart Lady

Click for full size.

Wow, she's sexy! I really like chicks with glasses!

Here's a quick one from "Down in the Puyallups with Team #2":

Lynx checking her form-fitting body armor

Here's one from Down in the Barrens II
Athena, goddess of Wisdom & Battle. She is the team's hacker and she's packing pretty powerful virtual reality filters and AR sculpting programs.

Looking good.

As mentioned Daz Studio is free, but you will find yourself buying models.

For everyone that is having render time issues...

How many lights are you rendering with?

Have you thought about composting in Photoshop (Gimp, Paintsho Pro, etc.)?
Compositing has reduced my render times SO much and gives me a lot more control over the final output.

I never do postwork myself. With base shadows and not raytraced ones, and not too many reflective surfaces rendering is very quick in Daz. I usually use 1 spotlight, one distant light, and a few pointlights when needed.

As long as you are keeping your poly count low and staying away from raytraced shadows, there might not be any need to do compositing. For me though, I love compositing not only can I control the lighting and shadows far better but I can use brushes. On of the things that have bothered me about my renders is that the scenes look very pristine. Grab some grunge brushes, add a layer, suddenly the scene looks more convincing. Brushes are great for adding, smoke, water, fog, and various special effects.

Speaking of shadows, compositing is one of the easiest ways to take that hard crisp edge off of shadows, without adding more lights (i.e. increasing render times).

Here is a fantasy piece that I did a while back.

The Summoning

Good work, I especially like the flames in the pit.

Thanks, I had a lot of fun with putting that one together. Feel kind of dorky, I didn't mean to put that up as a print for sale. No where else to display it and not familiar with Deviant Art.

The flames if I remember correctly were Jepe's. They come in 2D panels. In this instance there are three panels in front of the demon's arm and four behind it.

The idea for this actually came from 'Ghostbusters' when Sigorney Weaver's character gets nabbed in her chair by the gate keepers.

I noticed that further back in the thread people were telling about their systems. Since I am late to the show I will throw in mine here.

My art computer

This computer is not connected to the internet, HP, Intel Core 2 Quad, 4 GB Ram, 720 GB HD, with an 'auxillary' fan system for the BFG GeForce GTX 280 Video card (1 GB Video Ram).

Here is a pic of the auxillary fan system!

Aux Fan

Before you ask, I am planning on getting a larger case and adding more 'reasonable' sized fans.

Oh! If anyone can tell me how to submit photos or load photos onto deviantART without making them for sale I would greatly appreciate it. I feel like a goob with how it is automatically turning them into prints for sale.

Has anyone downloaded Daz Studio version 3 Beta yet?

Just interested if there is anything ground breaking or major bugs to be concerned about.

Edit.

I went the the video clips that they have up covering the new features.

You can find them here...

Daz 3D Forums new features

Nothing like seeing these guys do stuff I have NO clue how to use, humbling. Anyway, there are some pretty neat features. Dynamic clothing rocks! If you have any interest in animations it looks like they have really beefed it up as well.

I think the addition of multi-layer images within Daz is excellent. Want to throw on some grafiti, posters, or any other image to a wall, box, telephone pole well now you can very easily. Use photoshop and some brushes create a jpg and add it to an object and still be able to move/scale that object without losing that added image.

It seems that there is going to be two flavors of Daz Studio.

Daz Studio 3 (the free version)

Daz Studio 3 Advanced (the opposite of free)

However, until June 15 you can use this serial number...

SDZADVD-030-0000000-RNM-001-EBTMSWM

To download the beta version of Daz Studio 3 Advanced!
They have put in some very cool shader options in to this including, image based lighting, HDRI (High Dynamic Range Image), global illumination, indirect lighting, color bleed, ambient occlusion, Ubersurface (sub surface scattering, velvet, skin, layered anisotropic specularity <hair>), Ubervolume (smoke and fog), a more potent render engine!

You can see some of the awesome end results at...

Daz Studio 3D Forums

From what I have seen, the latest version of Daz Studio is very impressive. I am lamenting the fact that I shelled out the money for Cararra 7 Pro after seeing how they have amped up D|S 3. Lots and lots of features with a program that you already know the basics of how to use.

P.S.: I am a fan of D|S, not an employee.

I'll have to try out Daz Studio 3. I am a bit wary of upgrading since last time I did I had a lot of trouble to find a version that allowed me to load my older pictures.

You mean your 3d models or scenes?

Scenes.

That is interesting. I take it you build some base characters and then save them as scenes?

Yes. And I build locations as well. With about three to five pictures per week just to illustrate my D&D and SR camapaign chronicles I need that.

Well then D|S 3 could be problematic as of right now I don't think that it supports plugins. My guess (and that is all it is), that you have used some morphs in your scenes and they are not making the transition to the newer version of Daz.

Here is my Missions character, Nada. DS3 Advanced, though I really didn't use any features from advanced.

Here's one with my shaman Book from the Atlanta 2070 pbp. He's sitting with one of his primary contacts in a cafe. He is masked btw and she is in need of his team's services.

The hacker Athena and all her sculpted reality-filter goodness.

Really nice...wish I had the time (and ability) to explore this.

AJC

So you're going to dress like that this year right? Scramble is only a few days away!!!

I really didn't get into the Scramble last year....

hey all been MIA for the last year. my personal life went hoop up. my relationship died then the hurricane hit. I havent sdone myuch 3D wise either but Im getting back into the swing again.

...hey guys & gals, I'm back. Had a fatal HD failure that knocked me offline for a while.

Nice to see the thread still going

Well, while I'm here, may as well add one of my last pics I did before my system went down.

Here is my little Leela doing what she did best as a Freedom Fighter during the Serb occupation of Croatia and as a Shacdowrunner.

It's Showtime

*clickee for biggiee*

Had to do this through MS IE (ick) as the latest version of Firefox has a nasty bug that disables the "paste from clipbard" function (eseential for embedding links in posts).

hey KK have you tried Google Chrome? I like it pretty well, it's what I use most of the time now.

yeah I just bought... alot ot Daz during this PC thing so.. lol we;ll see if I can do anything with it. I need to grt Freak4 and the the M4 creature morphs. I got shefreak and the V4 creature morphs so that will help
oh and i got those predatron trog horns so they will help on some trolls

Here's a link to free Curly Horns Good util Nov 12th!

A new render from the "On dead Wings" game.

...Finally have all my apps up & running again The old drive is pretty much powdered toast so everything on it is gone. Hence,this means I have been required to rebuild all my characters from scratch again.

Here is one of the first new pics.

...Following a recent attempt on her life, Leela's lifestyle required a few...ahem...changes.

Evening Stroll

...Currently working on a new pic of The Kid.

For Daz/Poser artists, if Y'all got the resources, Stonemason recently released his new Urban Sprawl II (which I used in the pic above). Very nicely detailed and lots of cool places for shadowy activity. Another good set is his Dark Places bundle that has been updated.

What the heck, one more,

Here's one of my campaign personalities, Princess Kam testing a new weapon on her private beach (done in old travel ad style).

Aloha, Have A Nice Day