Thank you SO much! I've been fighting to get a full-back sak yant tattoo by splitting it in half, going to the texture outside Daz, using PS to try and align it... it's been TORTURE. This is what I've been looking for! I asked around Daz forums, etc., and NOBODY even hinted at this. This has to be the best, most useful, unknown/secret tool available in Daz ever. I can't tank you enough!
If only I had seen this 12 hours ago, I would have saved 11 hours and 45 minutes. This was the best and quickest way for me to add a back tattoo to my character. AWESOME !!! THANKS FOR THIS TUTORIAL!
This was a huge help. Had purchased a graffiti back that used this feature and it came with zero zip in the way of instructions. After hours of bashing my head against it, this finally allowed me to figure out how the heck it worked. Thanks!
Thank you for all of the Daz videos. They have been the most helpful I've found on youtube. I really enjoy watching you set up a scene and explain what you are doing, I'd love to see more like that.
Ditto here. That sunset/balcony scene was incredible. I have been using sun and sky exclusively now for outdoor lighting... now that I know how to control it!
@@asraharrison you should try this out for interior scenes. It basically allows hdri lighting to go through walls which can greatly speed up renders and give you some great lighting without having to spend a lot of time messing with lights. www.deviantart.com/heroineadventures/art/Iray-Interior-Camera-V1-4-758604718 It's not perfect for all situations but I use it a lot. It works best if you have specifically interior hdri or hdri light presets like the ones iradiance makes.
I was always editing emblems in photoshop and it became a pain because the only way you could update a trial was to resave it with a new name. This is a lot easier!
I just started to learn in Daz studio and I've watched a looottt of tutorial vids literally, but it is really in your channel that I really learned very much 'cause you give detailed explanations and I hope you keep it that way. thank you very much.
Interesting!! I would usually use the Layered Image Editor in the Surface tab/Diffuse menu to make a decal.... I’ll play with the this technique and see what I can do with it!!!
LIE is a good option too. The advantage of it is that it'll stay in place when you rotate the figure. The Iray Decal might distort, but it's somewhat easier to set up. Another tool in the 3D arsenal 😀
Awesome tutorial and tips. Cheers! I just tried this right now and the result is great. I especially appreciate how you explained how create the cut out in PS. Thanks again :)
Something I might suggest in Photoshop is try a slightly lighter black, maybe 95% and see how that goes for the transparency on the material. I'd have to try but it's allow some see through even at 100% on your node. This way too it doesn't look like an old iron on.
I don't think so. I mean, the option is there on the surfaces tab, but I think they've just used the Iray Uber shader, which is not to say decals support all these properties.
Wow! That doesn't seem all that complicated. You make that look easy. I'm new to 3d and Daz, so I've been trying to stick to the basics. BUT, your Daz tutorials make everything so damn tempting to try. I wanna create some cool T-shirts for some characters, I already have the Magic shirt maker thingy from 3D Universe. It is VERY cool, however. it is text only I want to put images on the shirt. Plus, you are stuck using their T's.. I have a quick question, since you seem to answer your comments (unlike 99% of other content creators... Thank you!): How do you get rid of that little colorful cube when you are posing characters? It wasn't there for a long time, now recently it reappeared. I like to use powerposer and that little manipulation cube is always parked right where I'm trying to see! Is there a setting to turn it off/on? It is handy sometimes, but it gets in the way when I'm trying to pose, especially eyes. Love your chan. Thanks for the help.
Aww, thank you Harrison! I do indeed take comments seriously and try to answer them all ;-) About that cube: it's the manipulator gadget, the red/green/blue one with arrows you mean, right? It'll appear when the you're using the Universal Tool (or the Scale, Translate, Rotate tool). When you choose the Node Selection tool (big arrow icon, or Tools - Node Selection) that manipulator goes away. Good luck!
@@WPguru Thanks so much! That worked Perfectly! Now, if feel like an idiot. I was looking through the menus... Now I can toggle it on and off at will. I learned to use power poser, because my mind can only comprehend 2 dimensions at a time. lol. I am getting pretty quick with it though.
A tenner in my pocket says that it probbaly won't work well with dForce or animations 😂. I think I've said this in an easlier comment, anything to do with animation would be better tackled by tweaking the textures to avoid trouble.
Another great tutorial! Can these be saved as a preset? For example a clothing item saved as a preset with a logo put on it using this method? And can this method also be used for tattoos?
Yes this can be used for tattoos, and it works great. In the thumbnail I've tattooed the DAZ logo on Victoria's back. I don't think there's a way to save just the decal as a preset. You can save the whole scene though and merge it into another one (File - Merge). I'd probably save the character without any other items as its own scene, then import it via merge into the scene you'd like to render. Have fun tattooing people!
@@WPguru Hi! I think I've just discovered the decal node doesn't work on geoshells - unless I'm missing something and you know of a method to apply them.
@@LzyPlckr I have a feeling you can only use one or the other, but not both together. If you need a functionality like that, perhaps try to create a copy of your object with an invisible material. Remove the geoshell and add a decal to it. Not ideal, but it'll project the decal in the correct spot while also using a geoshell. You may have to scale up the transparent object just a tiny amount to make it not intersect with the geoshell. Good luck!
Hi Scott, transparency isn’t read from the PNG, you’ll need a transparency map in the Cutout Opacity channel under Geometry. www.versluis.com/2020/09/iray-opacity/
Although the concept of decals is available in other render engines, what I’m describing here only relates to Iray, not to Filament nor Octane (hence the title “Iray Decal Nodes”).
decals are iRay only. But you can always get exactly the same effect with a shell. You can paint your tattoo + an opacity texture of that tatoo. And as long as you paint your texture on the proper portions of an image (corresponding to the torso, or legs, or arms, etc), the tattoo will be loaded onto the shell at the right position. Because the shell of a Genesis has exactly the same UVs.
Is there any way to stop the decal tiling horizontally and vertically? I know I can make the texture larger and it'll increase the size of each tile, but it seems a waste to use an 8k texture for a decal that's only 100x100! Surely there's a better way?
Indeed there is:with your decal node selected, take a look at the Surfaces Tab under the Geometry section, you’ll find settings for tiling your texture there.
@@WPguru I did find those settings, by default they're both set to 1.00, when I tried reducing it below one the decal stopped showing up at all.... now I'm wondering if it actually is still showing up, but reducing it moves the one that shows in the middle to somewhere else so it just *looks* like it's not there. Hmm. Going to test it with a large flat plane!
A bit of experimenting later and it turns out the problem was caused by my having set Parameters/Decal/Clipping/Clip Mode to "None", which causes the decal to tile even when Tiling is set to 1!
Sadly no, decals are specific to the render engine, and while many engines and apps support decals, the FBX format does not. I don't know any 3D file format that does.
You're welcome! Sadly there's currenlty no support for HiDPI monitors as far as I know. DAZ Studio is built with an extremely outdated framework (Qt4), I'm not sure if they can implement it. All I can suggest is to change your resoution to 1920x1080 while working with DAZ Studio. Not ideal, but probbaly as good as it gets for now.
@@WPguru huh? Whats the issue here? I've been running 4k resolution and have no issues. More room too work. Wish they could make it so that the main monitor you habe your view port and on the other your work tools.
@@patrickschoolderman2943 I believe he means the size of the text. In anything over 1920x1080 it's very tiny (at least on my settup). Apps that support HiDPI monitors usually adjust the font to compensate, but DAZ Studio doesn't do that.
Hey Jay, Been a while. Hope all is good. Nice video again. Though with decals its fun with stills but with animation in daz studio this doesn't stay in place. Even when you parent the decal node to the object or figure its not always in the same place. Though decals is fun, I rather still work with PS or Zbrush to create tattoo on the texture it self and have more room to play with it as well. It's a cool feature but maybe more for people who don't use PS or GIMP. but hey that's my take on it ;)
Nice to see you today, thanks for stopping by! Yes very good point about Decals and Animations: they're great for stills, but not a good idea when projecting onto a moving object. Even when parented, the animation might change the object's shape and that'll look awkward.
Hi , I guess parenting it to a bone will work, maybe because a bone changes the position and maybe clothing not ( it's morphed not transformed) but I'm not an expert. I guess we can infestigate a bit with the joint tool.
It's not a good solution for anything involving geometry, like a raised emblem. This is just an image projection on top of existing geometry. Decals are used in other render engines too (temporary bullet holes or footsteps in games often use decals), but each engine implements it differently so there's no way to export it from DAZ Studio.
Decals are a projection, so when you change the pose/shape of the object it's projected on, some adjustments are necessary. Sometimes projections don't work well, in which case I'd recommend an LIE overlay, or tweak the texture of the material instead.
And now that Substance Painter understands (since major upgrade v.2020.2.0 (6.2.0)) UDIM UVs properly and that we can paint across UV sets, it's possible to 3D paint those decals onto a Genesis exported as .obj, and easily make them run across the back+torso seamlessly (for example). Check that to get an idea : ua-cam.com/video/rmtSz_a0G7Q/v-deo.html Possibilities (painting displacement maps, etc) suddenly became limitless a few months ago thanks to the looooong awaited UDIM compatibility of Substance Painter.
Thank you SO much! I've been fighting to get a full-back sak yant tattoo by splitting it in half, going to the texture outside Daz, using PS to try and align it... it's been TORTURE. This is what I've been looking for!
I asked around Daz forums, etc., and NOBODY even hinted at this. This has to be the best, most useful, unknown/secret tool available in Daz ever. I can't tank you enough!
If only I had seen this 12 hours ago, I would have saved 11 hours and 45 minutes. This was the best and quickest way for me to add a back tattoo to my character. AWESOME !!! THANKS FOR THIS TUTORIAL!
I feel you. I spent 3 days doing a full body tattoo because I had to use UV maps to place tats across seams >
This was a huge help. Had purchased a graffiti back that used this feature and it came with zero zip in the way of instructions. After hours of bashing my head against it, this finally allowed me to figure out how the heck it worked. Thanks!
That's a really powerful feature! It would be nice to see this a feature of Daz itself for the other modes, but it greatly simplifies things. Thanks.
i love your videos and i wish you a very happy new year, your videos make me happy and you seem like a really nice person!
Thank you for all of the Daz videos. They have been the most helpful I've found on youtube. I really enjoy watching you set up a scene and explain what you are doing, I'd love to see more like that.
Ditto here. That sunset/balcony scene was incredible. I have been using sun and sky exclusively now for outdoor lighting... now that I know how to control it!
@@asraharrison you should try this out for interior scenes. It basically allows hdri lighting to go through walls which can greatly speed up renders and give you some great lighting without having to spend a lot of time messing with lights.
www.deviantart.com/heroineadventures/art/Iray-Interior-Camera-V1-4-758604718
It's not perfect for all situations but I use it a lot. It works best if you have specifically interior hdri or hdri light presets like the ones iradiance makes.
I was always editing emblems in photoshop and it became a pain because the only way you could update a trial was to resave it with a new name. This is a lot easier!
I just started to learn in Daz studio and I've watched a looottt of tutorial vids literally, but it is really in your channel that I really learned very much 'cause you give detailed explanations and I hope you keep it that way. thank you very much.
I'm really glad to hear that Hady! Thank you for saying it :-)
Thanks for the info, I was giving GIMP a heavy workout, now it can take a breather.
Thank you for this tutorial
Great stuff, another feature I wasn't aware of. I can make use of this for sure so thankyou!
Such a fun feature! Thank you Jay!
Thank you this is just the thing I need
Interesting!! I would usually use the Layered Image Editor in the Surface tab/Diffuse menu to make a decal.... I’ll play with the this technique and see what I can do with it!!!
LIE is a good option too. The advantage of it is that it'll stay in place when you rotate the figure. The Iray Decal might distort, but it's somewhat easier to set up. Another tool in the 3D arsenal 😀
Awesome tutorial and tips. Cheers! I just tried this right now and the result is great. I especially appreciate how you explained how create the cut out in PS. Thanks again :)
You're very welcome!
I'm sure this is gonna be usefull. I'll probably use this method on clothes :=) Thanks.
So in effect you have to make a negative out of the image? I don't have PS but I do have Gimp
Muchas gracias ¡
Can you or how can you animate something fading in and out in daz studio like bruise fading out in an animation ?
Something I might suggest in Photoshop is try a slightly lighter black, maybe 95% and see how that goes for the transparency on the material. I'd have to try but it's allow some see through even at 100% on your node. This way too it doesn't look like an old iron on.
Thank you for the tip, I'll try it out 😃
Great tutorial! Thanks!
Tysm for the guide. It does crash daz for some reason tho
@The WP Guru
Is it possible to make a decal emissive?
I asked the Daz Support but got no answers!? Hope that is a feature for future updates!
I don't think so. I mean, the option is there on the surfaces tab, but I think they've just used the Iray Uber shader, which is not to say decals support all these properties.
Astounding..!!!
Noice. Finally i can use tattoos of my choice on skin instead of buying assets for that.
um not really because a character moves and you can just open Photoshop and add every tattoo that way anyway xD
very good
Wow! That doesn't seem all that complicated. You make that look easy. I'm new to 3d and Daz, so I've been trying to stick to the basics. BUT, your Daz tutorials make everything so damn tempting to try. I wanna create some cool T-shirts for some characters, I already have the Magic shirt maker thingy from 3D Universe. It is VERY cool, however. it is text only I want to put images on the shirt. Plus, you are stuck using their T's..
I have a quick question, since you seem to answer your comments (unlike 99% of other content creators... Thank you!): How do you get rid of that little colorful cube when you are posing characters? It wasn't there for a long time, now recently it reappeared. I like to use powerposer and that little manipulation cube is always parked right where I'm trying to see! Is there a setting to turn it off/on? It is handy sometimes, but it gets in the way when I'm trying to pose, especially eyes.
Love your chan. Thanks for the help.
Aww, thank you Harrison! I do indeed take comments seriously and try to answer them all ;-)
About that cube: it's the manipulator gadget, the red/green/blue one with arrows you mean, right? It'll appear when the you're using the Universal Tool (or the Scale, Translate, Rotate tool). When you choose the Node Selection tool (big arrow icon, or Tools - Node Selection) that manipulator goes away. Good luck!
@@WPguru Thanks so much! That worked Perfectly! Now, if feel like an idiot. I was looking through the menus... Now I can toggle it on and off at will. I learned to use power poser, because my mind can only comprehend 2 dimensions at a time. lol. I am getting pretty quick with it though.
this looks useful for stills and hard objects but how well does this work with animation and dforce clothes?
A tenner in my pocket says that it probbaly won't work well with dForce or animations 😂. I think I've said this in an easlier comment, anything to do with animation would be better tackled by tweaking the textures to avoid trouble.
Thanks man
Another great tutorial! Can these be saved as a preset? For example a clothing item saved as a preset with a logo put on it using this method? And can this method also be used for tattoos?
Yes this can be used for tattoos, and it works great. In the thumbnail I've tattooed the DAZ logo on Victoria's back. I don't think there's a way to save just the decal as a preset. You can save the whole scene though and merge it into another one (File - Merge). I'd probably save the character without any other items as its own scene, then import it via merge into the scene you'd like to render. Have fun tattooing people!
@@WPguru Great! Thanks for the reply :o) I've previously used the other method by modifying the textures but this looks much more straightforward.
@@WPguru Hi! I think I've just discovered the decal node doesn't work on geoshells - unless I'm missing something and you know of a method to apply them.
@@LzyPlckr I have a feeling you can only use one or the other, but not both together. If you need a functionality like that, perhaps try to create a copy of your object with an invisible material. Remove the geoshell and add a decal to it. Not ideal, but it'll project the decal in the correct spot while also using a geoshell. You may have to scale up the transparent object just a tiny amount to make it not intersect with the geoshell. Good luck!
daz is not seeing my png as a transparency any ideas? The background shows up again only in daz.
Hi Scott, transparency isn’t read from the PNG, you’ll need a transparency map in the Cutout Opacity channel under Geometry. www.versluis.com/2020/09/iray-opacity/
With the new Filament and Octane options available in Daz Studio how would the decal node display when rendered?
Although the concept of decals is available in other render engines, what I’m describing here only relates to Iray, not to Filament nor Octane (hence the title “Iray Decal Nodes”).
decals are iRay only. But you can always get exactly the same effect with a shell. You can paint your tattoo + an opacity texture of that tatoo. And as long as you paint your texture on the proper portions of an image (corresponding to the torso, or legs, or arms, etc), the tattoo will be loaded onto the shell at the right position. Because the shell of a Genesis has exactly the same UVs.
Is there any way to stop the decal tiling horizontally and vertically? I know I can make the texture larger and it'll increase the size of each tile, but it seems a waste to use an 8k texture for a decal that's only 100x100! Surely there's a better way?
Indeed there is:with your decal node selected, take a look at the Surfaces Tab under the Geometry section, you’ll find settings for tiling your texture there.
@@WPguru I did find those settings, by default they're both set to 1.00, when I tried reducing it below one the decal stopped showing up at all.... now I'm wondering if it actually is still showing up, but reducing it moves the one that shows in the middle to somewhere else so it just *looks* like it's not there. Hmm. Going to test it with a large flat plane!
A bit of experimenting later and it turns out the problem was caused by my having set Parameters/Decal/Clipping/Clip Mode to "None", which causes the decal to tile even when Tiling is set to 1!
Can this useful effect be exported via FBX?
Sadly no, decals are specific to the render engine, and while many engines and apps support decals, the FBX format does not. I don't know any 3D file format that does.
@@WPguru OK then. Just wondered, I would only export for animation. For a still, it wouldn't matter.
Awesome, thanks!
Offtopic: do you know best way to use Daz3d with 4k monitors? I'll appreciate very much your advise (sorry by my english)
You're welcome! Sadly there's currenlty no support for HiDPI monitors as far as I know. DAZ Studio is built with an extremely outdated framework (Qt4), I'm not sure if they can implement it. All I can suggest is to change your resoution to 1920x1080 while working with DAZ Studio. Not ideal, but probbaly as good as it gets for now.
@@WPguru Thanks a lot!
@@WPguru huh? Whats the issue here? I've been running 4k resolution and have no issues. More room too work. Wish they could make it so that the main monitor you habe your view port and on the other your work tools.
@@patrickschoolderman2943 I believe he means the size of the text. In anything over 1920x1080 it's very tiny (at least on my settup). Apps that support HiDPI monitors usually adjust the font to compensate, but DAZ Studio doesn't do that.
@@WPguru aaaaah hmmm well. I havent looked at it that way. Must be because i wear glasses lol joke 😉
Hey Jay, Been a while. Hope all is good. Nice video again. Though with decals its fun with stills but with animation in daz studio this doesn't stay in place. Even when you parent the decal node to the object or figure its not always in the same place. Though decals is fun, I rather still work with PS or Zbrush to create tattoo on the texture it self and have more room to play with it as well. It's a cool feature but maybe more for people who don't use PS or GIMP. but hey that's my take on it ;)
Nice to see you today, thanks for stopping by! Yes very good point about Decals and Animations: they're great for stills, but not a good idea when projecting onto a moving object. Even when parented, the animation might change the object's shape and that'll look awkward.
Hi , I guess parenting it to a bone will work, maybe because a bone changes the position and maybe clothing not ( it's morphed not transformed) but I'm not an expert. I guess we can infestigate a bit with the joint tool.
How does this work for raised emblems?
And can this effect be exported?
It's not a good solution for anything involving geometry, like a raised emblem. This is just an image projection on top of existing geometry. Decals are used in other render engines too (temporary bullet holes or footsteps in games often use decals), but each engine implements it differently so there's no way to export it from DAZ Studio.
thanks!
how can i this logo stick to clothes when i another setting pose
Decals are a projection, so when you change the pose/shape of the object it's projected on, some adjustments are necessary. Sometimes projections don't work well, in which case I'd recommend an LIE overlay, or tweak the texture of the material instead.
IS that a washer and dyer?!
It’s my new office!
And now that Substance Painter understands (since major upgrade v.2020.2.0 (6.2.0)) UDIM UVs properly and that we can paint across UV sets, it's possible to 3D paint those decals onto a Genesis exported as .obj, and easily make them run across the back+torso seamlessly (for example).
Check that to get an idea : ua-cam.com/video/rmtSz_a0G7Q/v-deo.html
Possibilities (painting displacement maps, etc) suddenly became limitless a few months ago thanks to the looooong awaited UDIM compatibility of Substance Painter.