Experimenting with Lights 

I own the intellectual copyright for the written tutorial.  What you make is yours, but please do not take my tutorial.  Share only my link.

This tutorial was created for some friends of mine who wanted to begin learning more about DAZ Studio.  It is intended for beginners to learn how to make water lights undulate in a figure.  If you have any questions, please feel free to Email  me.

To do this tutorial you will also need DAZ Studio.

This is only an introduction to using lights in DAZ Studio-- with some of my suggestions.  It is not a teach-all, so you need to continue experimenting with lights.

1.  Open up DAZ and create your model, dressed and posed.  Lights should be the last thing you work on before rendering.

2.  There are 3 kinds of lights for you to use -- point lights, distant lights, and spot lights.  We will use Distant Lights and point lights in this tutorial, mainly because I prefer to use them.  You use spotlights just light you use Distant lights, and I prefer to use them when I build an entire scene, rather than just a character.

Tip:  Always start with the bigger, brighter lights first.

Choose the Distant Light icon, see pink arrow.

This box comes up.  You can give your light a different name if you want.  Click Accept.

3.  The light appears at the bottom of the figure in the center.

4.  We need to move the light to where we want it.  Remember that moving the light will affect where shadows fall, so you might want to try different places.  We can move lights around just like you move figures.  First, we will move the light to the side.

Choose the Translate tool, see pink Arrow.

5.  I hovered my mouse over the red arrow until it turned yellow (activated), left-clicked my mouse and held that button down while I dragged the light to the left of my figure.  I also moved it a little closer to me by grabbing the blue arrow and dragging it closer to the screen. 

6.  Now the light is not shining directly on the figure.  We need to turn it.  Choose the rotate tool, see pink arrow.

7.  Hover your mouse over the green rotate circle until it turns yellow.  Then Left-click and hold as you move the mouse to the left.  This will turn the light towards your figure.  Notice the difference in shadows with the picture in Step 5.

8.  Now you can adjust the brightness and colors of the light.  To the right of your screen, find the Parameters panel (looks like below).  If you scroll to the bottom you can see Shadow & Light settings.

If we had other objects in our scene, we would want our figure to cast a shadow on the other object, so we would have to turn it on.  But this is the only figure in our screen.

9.  In the Light Settings Section, click in between the numbers on the Color bar, see pink arrow.

This will open a color box.  Choose the light color that you want to use.  I chose a pale blue.

10.  You will notice, that the figure has basically turned blue.  I don't want that.  I just want a blue glow on my figure, so we will adjust the intensity of the lighting.  You do this by sliding the Intensity slider (to the right to make brighter, more white light  -- and to the left to make darker, less white light).

11.  Now we want to add some lighting to specific areas of the figure.  Distant Lighting affects the whole figure/scene.  Point lights will apply lighting to specific areas.

In the top menu, Choose create new PointLight, see pink arrow.

You will get this box.  You can change the name of the light if you want to keep track.

12.  I want to add some pink lighting to the head, like as if she's standing near a pink neon sign.  In the parameters palette on the side, click on the Light Color bar, between the numbers.

That will bring up a color box, and choose your color.  I chose a light pink.

13.  The pink Point Light was formed at the center bottom again and needs to be moved.  Choose the Translate Tool.

14.  I grabbed (hovered and left-clicked) the red arrow to move the light to the left.  Then I grabbed (hovered and left-clicked) the green arrow to move the light up to head level.  Notice how it illuminates the head with a pink glow.

15.  If the light is too pink, change the intensity.  This time I needed it to be a little darker, so I slide the Intensity slider to the left.  (This is found at the bottom of the Parameters palette)

16.  A closeup so you can see the pink light on her hair.

17.  Now you can add more Point Lights and place them where you want.  I added a green one and put it at shoulder level.  You can see the green glow on her arm.  Put what lights you want.

18.  When you are happy with your light arrangement, you can save it to use again with another scene.  File > Save As > Lights Preset

19.  In the Save in Box (pink arrow), click on the arrow and find the Content folder of your DAZ program.  If you have not already, create a folder inside that Content folder and call it something like MyPoser.  To create a folder, click on the Create Folder icon (it's circled).  A folder will appear with the name highlighted.  Just type in the name MyPoser.  Then Double-click on the folder to open it.  Then I created a folder here, and called it Lights.  Double-click to open the lights folder.  Down below, in the File name, give your light set a name.

20.   When you click save, you will get the Save Light(s) Preset Options box.  Set the Data to "ALL LIGHTS".  Click Accept.

21.  Now you are ready to render.  Render > Render.

22.  This is what my figure looks like rendered.  Notice the pink glow on the left hair, and the green glow on her right arm.  This is because of the Point Lights.  Also notice how the right side of the figure parts are in shadow and the left sides are in light.  This is from the Distant Light.

23.  Now save your render.  File > Save Last Render.

 Please do not remove this tutorial from my site.  Share my url.