Jay Versluis

Using Synty Characters in Unreal Engine 5.1 with Live Retargeting

Hello Supporters!

I've been torturing my brain with too much  Unreal Engine recently, and this is the first video reflecting the  consequences. I've been using UE4 since 2019 on and off and haven't had a  chance to investigate UE5 until recently, so I thought a good start  would be to re-visit my favourite Synty characters and how to make them  play nice with the new skeleton. That's what the video is about: using  the new third person template and making a...

Moving Tabs and Splitting Toolbars in Daz Studio

Hello Supporters!

In this early access episode I'll show you  how to move those pesky little toolbars in the Daz Studio UI around. The  trick is to grab hold of that little divider on the left hand side,  then drop it anywhere you like. It's a tad fiddly, but you'll soon get  the hand of it. I'll also explain how to split the tab groups and  move/dock/split/combine them anywhere you need them.

Enjoy!

Hip Gate: Using Poses on Daz Horse 3, Genesis 9 and Rustic Old Carts

Hello Supporters!

On Saturday I was "horsing around" with the  new Daz Horse 3 and thought I'll give a quick overview on how it worked  on the Daz+ stream. Turns out, applying hierarchical poses to the horse,  attached cart and Genesis wasn't easy or intuitive. I've had a play  with this problem today and worked out a solution, so I made a quick  video in which I'm showing how to use the two cart products from the Daz  Horse 3 Mega Bundle.

​They may...

Using the Daz Decimator and Texture Atlas

Hello Supporters!

I've made a new video about using the Daz  Decimator for the Daz channel. It's been on my list of things to cover  in more detail, and with an eye on exporting content to other places, I  took the liberty to mention how use Texture Atlas too. This way, users  get an overview of how to decimate the geometry for each attached item  of a figure, and combine all textures onto a single UV set before  exporting. I hope you like it!

Meanwhi...

Flipping and Mirroring Poses with Scene Tools

Hello Supporters!

Today I have an early access video for you,  in which I'll show you a neat way to flip and mirror poses on a figure.  Say you have something that looks great when the character faces left,  but you'd like the whole thing the other way round. Or an arm pose on  the left arm that would look great on the other one. I use a tool called  Scene Tools for that, it's a neat little thing on the toolbar that  takes care of such things.

​That...

Valentine's Day Stream this Saturday

I did this promo image for this Saturday's Daz stream, in which we get to hang out and build a similar scene from scratch. Drop by and say hi.

Since it's Valentine's Day next week, I thought a pink couple's theme  would be great, using two of the new Daz characters Angela and Ivar 9. I  tweaked the necklace and outfits for a better fit in ZBrush and  adjusted the hair to have less volume. ...

Saving and Packaging Morph Files from Daz Studio

Hello Supporters!

I've been getting a lot of questions about  how to save and distribute morphs and thought it's about time I made a  video about the process. And here it is, both in English and German.

There's  a little story behind this actually: I've tried structuring my week by  doing all recordings on...

Posing a Sitting Character in Daz Studio

Hello Supporters!

Today I have an early access video about  posing a character for you. This was a question I got recently, and I  thought this might be a nice start into a little casual mini series  about posing characters into all kinds of positions. If it's in my  power, I'm happy to show it (and if not, well perhaps it's a great  opportunity for me to learn how to make it happen).

​This will go live later this week on the Daz channel.

Hope &nbs...

Anime Girl

I've been following a course with Grant Abbit last week, in which I learnt how to model a low poly base character, then transform it into different characters, add a pixel shader and add an animation with Mixamo. Here's my take on the classic Anime Girl - all done entirely from scratch in Blender. This was a lot of fun, and I've learnt so many nice tips in the process. 

She's far from perf...

Animated Shaders in Daz Studio

Hello Supporters!

Today I have a video about animating shader properties in Daz Studio for you, something you can do with ABAS.  This will appear on the Daz channel tomorrow, together with a related  video in which I'll show you how to animate VDB files with the same  product.

I've recorded another video about creating contro...

Your First Hour with Daz Studio - Full Series

Daz have released the mini series I've made last year called Your First Hour with Daz Studio. It's part of a product called Basics and Beyond Tutorial Bundle.  I haven't seen a public announcement yet, but the product and series  are already live. I believe it's part of a campaign to attract new  customers . 2023-01-21 16:01:29 +0000 UTC View Post

Moving the Pivot Point in Daz Studio

Hello Supporters!

Today I have an early access release that  explains how to move the pivot point or origin point of your objects in  Daz Studio. It's the position of where that little manipulator gizmo  shows up. Sometimes it's just not in the right spot, and in this video  I'll explain how to do this.

This video will show up on the Daz channel sometime next week.

In  other news, I have some interesting hardware arriving over the weekend:  I've...

The Introspector (WIP)

I've had a play with re-creating The Introspector from Deathloop this  morning. It'll be nice to see if I can do this for real, with Substance  materials and those creepy eye blink animations. This was just a layout,  but it taught me valuable lessons that I'll implement should I make a  more elaborate version of this set.  

I've started by modelling the TV screen and experimented with a  holding frame of sorts, before abandoning the idea and leaving them &...

Changes to Mesh/Ghost Lights in Daz Studio 4.21

Hello Supporters!

First of all, Happy New Year 2023! May all  your wishes, hopes and dreams come true. Remember to treat yourself  well, do what you're passionate about and avoid what gets you down. I  believe that's the key to happiness. Let me know what your plans are for  the new year if you have any.

I've taken a bit of a break and  hibernated, played games and spent some quality me-time while recharging  my own batteries after an incredibly busy ...

Substance Painter Material Zone Workflow

Hello Supporters!

Today I have a video I've made for Websoul,  inspired by a chat we had on Discord about using objects with material  zones in Substance Painter. Each material zone creates a whole texture  set on export, wasting resources and costing time when we want to apply  those in the target application. Adobe have been actively refusing to  implement an option to remedy this, so we're forced to come up with  workarounds for the problem (at least as ...

How to use Map Transfer in Daz Studio

Hello Supporters!

I have an early access video for you today in  which I'm explaining the Map Transfer tool. This is a mystical little  script that lets us convert texture sets from one UV set to another, as  long as both UV sets are on the same figure. I'm bringing this up  because it may come in handy for converting older character textures so  they can be used with the new Genesis 9 figure, for which I'm showing a  concrete example with Rune 7. She was b...

Legacy UVs for Genesis 9 by Cayman Studios

Hello Supporters!

Here's an early access video I've made for  the Daz channel, scheduled for sometime in December. In it I'll show you  how the current Legacy UVs for Genesis 3/8/8.1 female product works. A  male version is in development. Hope this helps make sense of the  product.

In other news, the Daz Masterclass has finally been  released! They team did quite a job integrating the whole PDF documents  and chapter points into the website. It's all...

New Editing Toy and Early Access Sneak-Peek

Hello Supporters!

Today I have a quick early access video for  you that gives you a preview of Zev0's new Shape Shift product. It'll be  released on November 30th, and I've just finished editing it. Enjoy!

Speaking  of editing, I've ordered a new toy that has arrived this week, and I'm  about to install it in my workstation: it's called a HP Z Turbo Drive Quad Pro,  ...

Time Lapse: Making a Flag Thumbnail

Hello Supporters!

Today I have a quick time lapse for you, in  which I'm building a relatively unspectacular thumbnail featuring a  waving dForce Flag as a hero. I've made this for a clip that's going live today on the Daz channel, and since I've caught the process on camera I narrated what I'm doing.

It  starts in Blender, where I'm building the flag object, defining  material zones and stenc...

Creating a Follower Eye Morph for Genesis 9

Hello Supporters!

I have an early access episode for you  today, in which I'll show you how to create an eye morph for the Genesis  9 Eye Attachment that will follow your figure morph. On some  characters, eye adjustments are necessary that need to follow how much  the figure morph is dialled in.

The new eye and mouth attachments  behave like follower clothing, so when your figure morph is not  detected in the object, Daz Studio will create one for yo...

Converting Genesis 2/3 Character Shapes to Genesis 9

Hello Supporters! 

I've recorded a follow-up video to my previous  Genesis 9 conversion video, in which I'm explaining how to convert  Genesis 3 and 2 characters to the new figure. The instructions differ  slightly from the previous method as we're adjusting the donor figure  before running the Transfer Utility. All we need to remember is to bake  the join rotations. It's far easier to do this than to match the G9  figure to the existing A-Pose.

...

Reducing Boots Platform Height in Hexagon and Blender

Hello Supporters!

Today I have a Supporter Exclusive video for you  that I've recorded for Aaron. He wanted to know how to reduce the  plateau on wedge platform shoes in Hexagon. I tried my best to make it  happen, but the results aren't great - but the process and some of the  explanations might still be interesting to watch.

A better  approach is probably Blender, so I've got a segment for the process on  how to smooth out some of the artefacts with...

First Hour with Daz Studio Promos

Hello Supporters!

Last week I've finished working on a little project that Daz and I had been discussion for some time. It's a bundle of  products and accompanying mini-series of videos for new customers. The  twist is that I've assembled the bundle items into a demo scene to  dissect, and added 6 videos on how to get started with Daz Studio. We call it "Your First Hour with Daz Studio" (although it's actually a little longer than one hour).

I'm  hoping this wi...

Converting Genesis 8 Shapes for use with Genesis 9

Hello Supporters!

As promised  yesterday, here's a video I've made this morning that'll show you how  to convert your "legacy" characters and import them onto the new Genesis  9 figure. This works by turning G9 into a fit suit that the old  character will wear, thereby distorting the G9 geometry so we can import  it back as a morph.

This is not a perfect process and can lead to  unwanted results especially in the eye areas, but it's free and  rel...

Using the Iray Auto Exposure Tool in Daz Studio

Today I have a quick early access episode for you, something I've  made with Charles (csbond2) in mind. He accidentally clicked it on  stream recently and asked me what may have possibly gone wrong. It  occurred to me that I don't actually have a video on this thing, so this  was the perfect opportunity to make one.

The Auto Exposure Tool  is that little icon next to the Iray icon when your viewport is switched  over to Iray. When you click it, the cursor w...

Running Daz Studio on Linux (Exclusive Supporter Preview)

Hello Supporters!

Today I have an exciting preview for you of  something I've been tinkering with for a while: running Daz Studio on  Linux! This is exciting because there's no native Linux version of the  software out there. Instead, we can use the Windows version with a tool  called Wine, which can react to Windows API calls.

The ins and  outs are a little tricky, so this is not a tutorial and more of a "proof  of concept" demo. I've tried this succ...

Applying Partial Poses in Daz Studio

Sometimes you find a feature and you can't quite believe it's been  there for like... ever. This tends to happen in Daz Studio, and applying  poses partially is one such thing. Having been a core feature in Daz  Studio since version 4 released some 15 years ago, it's as easy as  selecting say a shoulder, then applying a full body pose and only the  shoulder/arm/hand will be changed.

Pure Voodoo Magic you say?  It's all thanks to that hidden "hold CTRL down ...

Visualising Depth of Field in Daz Studio (and other updates)

Hello supporters 😍

Today I have a couple of little updates for  you, the first one being a new early access clip in which I'll show you  a neat trick that lets us visualise the focal plane of our cameras in  Daz Studio. This will let us place the focus exactly where it needs to  be, no matter how our camera is pointing at the subject we frame up.  This is a slightly hidden feature in Daz Studio, thanks to CakeOne for  bringing this to my attention!

Patreon is offering mid-month charge option - should we switch to it?

Patreon have introduced a change with which new patrons would be charged on the same date they've joined. 

Right now, everyone is being charged on the 1st of the month, irrespective of when they join. This is a little mean if you've pledged $25 on the 28th of the month, get charged immediately, then get charged $25 again for the next month. Hence, I can see the new option might ...

Greta 9 - 8K Skin Detail Comparison

Last Saturday I had the pleasure to create this model from the Genesis 9 figure, together with prompts and votes from the community. This was fun! We decided to call her Greta (or Gretel actually, but I guess I must have read it wrong in the chat and thought it's a fitting name). She's not perfect by all means, I could have probably smoothed out the jowly neck bit, but it was more about the process and possibilities. 

So here she is in 4000x4000 pixel renders with 5000 iterations e...