Open side-bar Menu
 Taming The Dimensions
Marie Brown
Marie Brown
Marie Brown is an experienced writer and a less experienced 3D artist. Her interests include creating 3D content, experimenting with different software and render engines, and learning how to make 3D imagery so fabulous that no one will question whether it's art or not.

Instancing in DAZ Studio

 
October 27th, 2014 by Marie Brown

Have you ever wanted to do a crowded scene in DAZ Studio, but run into problems with limited memory? Well, there’s an easy way around that: instancing. There are some pretty severe limitations to this method, but it’s really light and easy on the memory.

First, how to do it. I’m in a fantasy sort of mood right now, so I’m going to create a fantasy warrior. Okay, here he is:

warrior_1

There you have it, a rather annoyed-looking Gianni dressed as a barbarian in a desert wasteland. Now for the next step, and an illustration of a hidden catch of instancing.

I’m going to select Gianni, then go up to the “Create” menu and select “New Node Instances”. It asks how many, I leave it at the default value of ten. Then voila, I have my fantasy raiding party! Or do I…?

warrior_2

Oops! There’s something missing. If you’re going to instance a figure, the clothing absolutely has to be parented to it, or you get a whole bunch of naked people.

So now I’ll parent everything properly, create my instances, and drag each one into position. Instances can be selected individually or as a group, so you can drag the whole group into a rough approximation of where you want them, then select and move each one.

Okay, here’s my group of barbarian warriors, illustrating the one major drawback of instancing: they all look the same.

instances_all

The similarity of the figures isn’t the end of the world, though. There’s a way around it. If you create, say, five different warriors, all in different poses and maybe with variations of armor, and of course different hair and weapons, then you can create instances of each warrior. Vary the number, too, so there’s maybe five black-haired guys, and eight with their swords overhead, or whatever. Then intermix all the instances and their original figures, and you’ve got an active battle scene, without completely destroying your computer.

If you have Photoshop, or any other imaging program, you can add some final touches such as dust or lighting effects, and you’re done. Put your finished image online for the world to see, and enjoy the comments about your amazingly powerful computer and the questions of “How’d you do it?”

An example of instancing in DAZ Studio, postworked in Photoshop to tweak colors and add dust.


An example of instancing in DAZ Studio, postworked in Photoshop to tweak colors and add dust.

Tags: , , ,

2 Responses to “Instancing in DAZ Studio”

  1. Avatar dazpoweruser says:

    Excellent tutorial. Was thinking about posting something like this myself. This has been made SO much easier in recent versions. I’ve been surprised how many people I run into that don’t know how to clone/instance.

    BTW for anyone who’s never heard of DAZ 3D or DAZ Studio … or maybe just haven’t heard what they’ve been up to lately: check’m out here: http://www.daz3d.com

    And read about/download their free 3d software here: http://www.daz3d.com/daz_studio

  2. Avatar TJ says:

    Thank you! That was probably one of the simplest explanations on how to use instancing I have seen since I have recently decided to look into using it.

Logged in as . Log out »

 



© 2024 Internet Business Systems, Inc.
670 Aberdeen Way, Milpitas, CA 95035
+1 (408) 882-6554 — Contact Us
ShareCG™ is a trademark of Internet Business Systems, Inc.

Report a Bug Report Abuse Make a Suggestion About Privacy Policy Contact Us User Agreement Advertise