Welcome to Dartanbeck.com!

We're going to delve into an exciting adventure of filmmaking purely from CG (computer generated) elements, but maybe with a touch of stock footage shot in-camera? We'll see.


I'm sure that most of this will also be valuable toward making still images as well, but my main goal is to put it all in motion.

Appreciation for Your Support!

In honor of the Wonderful People who enjoy what I do enough to offer support, This Appreciation Page is For You!

For those who have asked to remain anonymous, I have not included you in there. If you'd like to be included, I'd Love to!

Anonymous or otherwise, I really appreciate your Support - and All of it goes Directly into what I'm working on at that time, so it's a Huge benefit. Thank You So Much!!! 

Every opportunity I get to make improvements is a delightful boon and helps push everything forward!

Special Thanks to All of You who donate a Gift Card Code!

I really appreciate it. 

It's one of the only ways I can get this stuff and report back about it

- it Truly helps this site flourish!


Simply buy a Daz 3D Gift Card and Just Send me a PM with the Gift Card Code


So Thank You!!!

Paul and I are at it again! We thought it would be a Great idea to demonstrate ways to Really perform some Cool Magic with your Daz Studio work, whether it's animated or still.

This is one session you won't want to miss!


There are many ways to build, save and render our Daz 3D scenes.

In Movie Magic we’ll explore workflows for creating specific, separate renders that are purposely made to be melded together into a single, final image.

Whether for you’re making still images OR animations, these practices add Magic by allowing us total freedom over the look of Every element within the scene.

You’ll see how much Faster we can work – how much more we can get done with an efficient workflow.

The additional tools and elements demonstrated are not essential to the course, but shown to inspire creativity in using them. The main things that we will take away from all of this can be achieved with your own library of content assets.


Check Out Movie Magic!

New Free Digital Art Live Series

The Creative Cart is a curated exploration on a selection of recommended assets from the DAZ 3D store, designed to inspire, educate, and empower artists and creators of all levels.


Join us as hosts Paul Bussey and Dartanbeck showcase chosen assets that can serve as your building blocks for breathtaking digital art.


Creative Cart” will provide you with a valuable resource for discovering tools that can bring your artistic ideas into reality. Through themed episodes, we’ll spotlight various genres and assets—be it characters, shaders, environments, scripts, clothing or props—ensuring every creator finds something that resonates with their personal artistic journey.

It’s also about interaction where we include a community section where you can share your favorite finds, and add to the conversation about how these assets have shaped your own creations; we’d love to get your insights and recommendations on assets that have made a difference to your artwork!


Check It Out!!!

What a Fantastic place to learn, share and absorb anything and everything Art!

Led by Paul Bussey, this fantastic place has a beautiful forum with an endless supply of topics - and we can join courses and training, or just hang out with the group and discuss and enjoy art!

Check Out Creative Cart

Check out Digital Art Live 

Join The Digital Art Live Forum (Free)

Creating new custom action dials (as we make in the Dynamic Character Animation course) that quickly facilitate total changes to animations. In this case a single dial that widens the stance, lowering her hip at the same time - making this stance easily added to most idle-style actions. This pose was inspired by a promo picture for one of Aeon Soul's excellent pose packs. I'll probably make another that puts her hands in her pockets as seen here.

To finish off the total pose change from the original animation, 3D Universe's LimbStick script is utterly powerful!

Awesome Sauce!!!

Okay, this is Cool!!!


HEAT is really cool. I have been waiting for this moment - I signed up as soon as I saw the post about it on the DAZ Blog.


Using the plugin couldn't be easier! 

Instructions for Using the HEAT Daz 3d Bridge

Dartanbeck's Amazing 2023 Year!!!

I had quite a year in 2023 - enough to deserve a commemorative page in celebration!


Join me on a tour through My 2023!

After a year like that, I'm hoping for an AMAZING 2024!!!

Let's get focused on mastering “aniMate 2” in DAZ Studio! AniMate 2 combines a user-friendly interface with sophisticated features, making it a valuable and core tool for animating your visual stories. 


Dartanbeck uses AniMate 2 at the heart of his workflow and reveals in this tutorial set how to make the most of this and other hyper-useful tools such as LimbStick, Bone Minion and Mixamo for effective animation storytelling in DAZ Studio.


This tutorial set by Dartanbeck is for you if...



This is for you if you want to accomplish:


The Power of aniMate 2 - at Daz 3D


Total tutorial set running time: 5 hours and 1 minute

We needed a new home from which to grow all of this exciting information around animating in Daz Studio


For me, that all revolves around aniMate 2. 


There's a Lot more to it than that, but it truly is aniMate 2 within Daz Studio that allows us to take any motion data and combine it and alter it in many ways before committing to the timeline. 

And once we're in the Timeline, we can always send it back to aniMate 2 to blend in more, or....


The possibilities are endless!


This is Awesome - Check It Out!!!

Action VFX is a company built from young pioneers wanting to offer the world of VFX artists of all levels, from just trying to learn to full studio professionals a Top-Quality library of assets for use in any visual effects software.

I first leaned of them from the HitFilm YouTube channel when they were first starting out - and it was really exciting then.

As time unfolds, this amazing group of ambitious and amazing artists keeps pushing the envelop making more and more magic for our cinematic endeavors.

But now there's This? How Clever - How COOL!!!

Check out my Action VFX Page!

Wanna Have Some FUN?

Let's Get Animated with Daz Studio!!!


Did I say Fun?

Yeah... but only because I really meant it!


Using this workflow for animation has changed Everything! I loved animating before, but this... 


Going from hearing (and believing) that we simply CANNOT animate in Daz Studio to having more fun animating in Studio than any other... I mean... What a Blast!!!

Special Thanks to Paul Bussey and the Digital Art Live Community for helping me turn this Dream into a Reality! :)

Rosie 8 Continues to Succeed!

I am absolutely Loving this journey! 


I get an idea of what she needs to be doing next. 


Several ideas for a base motion capture aniBlock come to mind immediately.


If Partial aniBlocks are needed, I know pretty much what I need and which aniBlocks will get me there in no time - so I create them and save them.


Put it all together and bake it all to Daz Studio's Timeline where I fine tune everything.


Run her through VWD Cloth and Hair for Dynamic Morphs Simulation (soft body)


Save, then Simulate the hair and Save again.


Set at least one camera and render. 


I often come back, like this one, and shoot it again from another angle.

Since I'm always in the habit of saving my entire scenes, I can always go back for another shot - sometimes with different lighting or perhaps different expressions, perhaps she's talking... We can actually do some pretty significant changes without having to simulate the hair over again. But even if I have to do that, I certainly will without a second thought. 

This is all So Much Freaking Fun!!!

Awesome Daz 3d Sales Events Thrill my Library!

This Holiday Season's "Punch Card" Sale features along with all of the sporadic Flash sales and other massive discount offers have filled my library with some really cool new things lately! Here's just a sneak peak at some of it:

This thing is Awesome!!! Complete with control dials for suspension, foot pegs, gear shift, brake and clutch levers, spinning the wheels... I've come to expect these things from folks like DzFire, but some of the new PAs have been selling me Beautiful vehicles, but without even steering or door controls... I was really happy to see for myself the high quality of these controls - and the Bike itself is Gorgeous!!!

This massive setup comes with some exquisite models with the amazing surface material talents we've all come to expect from Polish



The XI Futuristic Yacht Bundle is an adventurer's dream come true. 


Nice and plentiful Sci-Fi detailing throughout. Looking forward to rendering this bundle of Fun!


Explore water and air with the included Futuristic Yacht, Helicopter, and Jet Ski!


Also by Xivon

Colorful and Fantastical - These two interior environments are just what I need for some of the animations I'm working on - and for some that are already done.  The Dystopian Desert Buggy looks really cool! It lacks the wonderful animation controls I've mentioned above - the likes I get from DzFire and Mely3D, but that's okay. We need as many cool-looking vehicles as we can get our hands on - even if they're not "Hero" vehicles, which really do need those controls!

The AntFarm - Oh Yeah!

I'm a Huge Fan of The AntFarm's incredible products and the artwork he creates with it. Just looking through his incredible promo images always inspires me to render and to animate. His products all lend well to his imaginative artwork and they're such a joy to work with!

Here's three more AntFarm I was able to add to my already large collection:

...and there's a LOT more coming!!! 🙂

What a Fantastic place to learn, share and absorb anything and everything Art!

Led by Paul Bussey, this fantastic place has a beautiful forum with an endless supply of topics - and we can join courses and training, or just hang out with the group and discuss and enjoy art!

Check out My Digital Art Live page

Check out Digital Art Live 

Join The Digital Art Live Forum (Free)

I started this thread to help uncover many of the less-known but incredible things we can do with aniMate 2.


My entire workflow flourishes because of aniMate 2 - and how it so easily passes motion data between itself and Daz Studio's Timeline and back again in any order and for any reason.


After Getting through that, there has been no stopping me pushing forward with more explanations of how I use this wonderful setup to work out the animations I create.


Of course that all leads me down more paths, techniques, and useful tools to help along the way. 


So this thread has turned into a wonderful means to Get Animating in Daz Studio with very little cost and easy to follow guidelines and techniques. 


Having the article in the forum instead of here gives You the opportunity to ask questions, comment, make suggestions, share your own workflows... it's a big win for us all.


A living, breathing workflow experience that can evolve however we need it to :)


Same animation as the image above, but with an entirely different purpose and atmosphere

Need some of the Industry's Best VFX Elements for your movies at exceptionally great deals?

Look No Further! 

I don't do subscription plans, but AVFX+ is much different - if you cancel, you keep what you got! But they also offer non-subscription sales as well - which is Brilliant! Check them out!

Inspirations

Join me on a tour through some of the many things that inspire me to do what I do. In my Gallery > Inspirations pages, we'll see videos of cool things as I write why and how much I like this stuff and I hope to expand these narratives to also illustrate how it helps to drive my work.


I've just added a new page - Inspirations - Blade Runner: Black Lotus


Here's a short scene from an Incredible sequence of events that really helps to drive the rest of the season home. Amazing work by the whole team, including the voice of the amazing Alessa Cara

Check out Inspirations - Blade Runner: Black Lotus  for more about this incredible show and how they made it!

Rosie 8 ROCKS!

I get asked all the time: Where can I buy someone like Rosie 8?

Short answer - you can't. She's my Custom Signature IP Girl

But I can give you the details on how that all came to be, which is even better! Now you can make your own Special Custom IP Character! 

Wa'am has her own Marketing/Copywriter business, Wa'am Writes!

Check it out!

Along with the newly revised Daz+ Experience and Daz+ Cloth Frenzy pages comes an updated and ready-to-grow Thanks to Daz 3d page, which again will become a lot more pages. 


After the generosity, patience and kindness they've given me over the Many Years I've been a Member, there simply isn't enough time, nor enough words to properly convey my appreciation to this Amazing Art Zone. So the least I can do is to sponsor:

Daz+ Cloth Frenzy!!!

Getting Great mileage from our Daz+ Memberships!


Check this out. We can always shop for clothing that we really want at the time, but with our Daz+ Membership, we get deals throughout the year and often even opportunities to grab some fun stuff for free if we check the store often. 


Grabbing up deals on clothing made for any generation of Daz Figure can really be a boost to our creative process when we're trying to build 'that special outfit' that's completely unique or just some garb to toss onto one of our background characters.

Rosie Rough Rider - The Fourth Frame

In that same thread, I detail the workflow used to create a "Rough Ride" on Cyberpunk Motorcycle, by Charlie - though the same method will work with any bike.


Most of the animation came from an In-Place Zombie Walk from Mocap Online's Zombie Animations Collection P1 for Victoria 8, believe it or not!


Find out the whole story!

Rosie Rough Rider - The Fourth Frame

A student of my Dynamic Character Animation in Daz Studio course was asking about the Simulated Hair Helpers that I was using in the course.


So here's a short tutorial video on how I make and use them


The beginning and end of the video also have a small glimpse of what's to come in the up-and-coming Rosie 8 2023 Animation Demo Reel.

Rather than join in the moan and groan that animation is troublesome at best in Daz Studio, I put my thinking cap on and found a way to make it work. Using these methods it not only works, but it's fun and very efficient! I'm anticipating that I'll never go back to my old ways! 


Special thanks to all of the Daz 3d devs that put their heart and soul into making Studio what it is today! Love It!!! heart


And a Special Thanks also to GoFigure for creating aniMate 2+ and all of the amazing motions you've captured in your studio for us to apply to our cool characters!!! heart

Bonus Video in 1080p

Part 1 (three videos) - A complete workflow from and un-posed character, through aniMate and then the Studio Timeline - editing with tools we'll make quickly and easily in Part 2, tips on simulating cloth and hair using dForce, rendering and a basic composite of the final render over a backdrop.


Part 2 (eight videos) - Breaking down techniques in their own dedicated videos in great detail and numerous examples plus two Bonus Behind-the-Scenes videos of the video on the left.


There's also the Intro Video shown above and a copy of the video on the left included in the course.

Appreciation for Your Support!

In honor of the Wonderful People who enjoy what I do enough to offer support, This Appreciation Page is For You!

For those who have asked to remain anonymous, I have not included you in there. If you'd like to be included, I'd Love to!

Anonymous or otherwise, I really appreciate your Support - and All of it goes Directly into what I'm working on at that time, so it's a Huge benefit. Thank You So Much!!! 

Every opportunity I get to make improvements is a delightful boon and helps push everything forward!

Special Thank You to Mely3D of Daz 3d

Take a brief tour of my Mely3D collection - As a Daz + Member I have been gifted many of these at no cost, others at incredibly low prices.

Just In from the Daz 3d Forums

More Fun in the pages of Dartanbeck's Journey - CG Filmmaking

There's a Lot of exciting things going on in the world of Dartanbeck Animations right now so I try to break into my news thread when ever I can to report about all of this absolute Glee I'm feeling each day as I animate, simulate, and render my story elements.


Being a Daz + Member has its benefits - a Lot of them.


In a very short time with some Amazing back-to-back sales events, Daz + members can really score big without having to empty that pocketbook.


With just a few well-placed purchases it's amazing how much falls into place for next to nothing. I feel very fortunate because I don't have much of a budget at all. 


Daz + really helps out!

A Few New Videos from Dartanbeck.com

Carrara was Born for this kind of work and will give my poor GPU some time to relax

An article I've started as a thread in the Daz 3d forum so that you can ask questions and I can answer them. Or you can share your experiences as well.  We can all learn and work together - which is a lot of fun and very rewarding!


I've been adding more dForce fix-it adventures to the thread. I think I might just keep that up - turn the thread into a nice 'dForce - Advice in Action' interactive Q&A/info spot. Like I said above, we can work together on this stuff if we need to.

click here or the to join the fun!


Mimic: Who owns what?

A fun discussion at Daz 3d regarding lip sync and performance capture started by Walk Sterdan, creator of the Hrimfaxi Adventures and Starship Hrimfaxi - Brilliant!!!


Dartanbeck's Journey - CG Filmmaking

My thread in the Art Studio forum at Daz 3d to share what I'm doing or thinking or....

Come on in!


Daz + Anniversary Event of 2023

A video made using my new goods from the 2023 Daz + Anniversary Event


As we wait for me to compile the full list of goodies acquired in this year's Daz + Anniversary Event, check out the cool stuff I found in the sale that just preceded it - the 2023 Summer PA Sale - Thanks Daz 3d!!!

Fun News!!!

I've been invited to join Jay Versluis as a special guest on the Daz+ Pro Artist Series* this Saturday, September 30th!

We'll be sharing our many tips and tricks for Animating in Daz Studio - showing how much fun it can truly be!

Tools, techniques, workflows... Jay and I have been friends for a lot of years - so this should be a really interesting and fun session, and I'm Really looking forward to it!

* Daz + Pro Artist Series is a Live Stream offered by Daz 3d as a benefit to being a Daz + member, and therefore is only available to logged in Daz + members. A back catalog of streams is also available within the sticky topics in the Daz + Members Only forum.

It was a lot of fun! The many folks who joined us were great! I hope we can all hang out again sometime! Definitely more stuff in the works from this guy, that's for sure!


The GIFs on the right are a sized down example of something I put together to explain a few things.


I must say, I'm really having a Blast with this!!!

I have created a special thread at Daz 3d to answer any questions if you have any. Of course, this is a service for Daz + members so you have to be logged in as a member or the link will take you to a Sorry! page. 

Sept 30th Live Stream - Animation Tips with Dartanbeck

I've put more work into this early WIP of Dartanbeck 8 than I've put into any other completed Datan character previously.


Check out the new Dartanbeck 8 page to learn about what I've been doing to build and test this cool new character!


Meet Dartanbeck 8

Rosie 8.23 Rocks!!!

There's a lot going on with the development of Rose 8.23 and what will become her surroundings. 


Starting all over again has me knee deep in learning new stuff - which is a real Blast!!!


I try to come back often and report about the new goings on with Rosie 8, so go ahead and check back when you can.


New tools for Daz Studio, new design ideas, experiments with the whole 'pressing forward' thing - this is certainly the best version of Rosie to date!


There's a little blurb on Rosie below, but if you want to see what's going on, you'll want to go to her page.



...but first:

A new Kit Bash for you...

Finally getting my hands on Kibaretto's Beautiful Astromaster starship, I really wanted something different for its interior. The new supplemental Cockpit kit is Gorgeous. It really is. But it doesn't really fit with the look of any of the interiors I'd like to use for other parts of the ship. I already knew what I wanted, so it went together like a dream!


One of my very first purchases at Daz 3d, when I bought Carrara, was Kibaretto's Commander - Starship Interior Solution.

This has been my favorite starship bridge to date, although I do like many others as well. 


I could tell before getting Astromaster that it was going to be considerably smaller than the Massive Commander, so I was thinking I'd use the Geometry Editor to carve parts away and move stuff around a bit. You know... having fun with a good ol' kit bash!


I think my life has changed permanently now. MeshGrabber is such a blessing for Daz Studio. I can't thank ManFriday enough for creating this amazing tool! 


I'm usually using MeshGrabber on cloth and making corrections to hair simulations - which it's amazing for, by the way - but this time I had to be careful... symmetrical. 


I took my time making my selections. Having two starships overlapping each other doesn't make selection processes easier. The really nice falloff adjustments for how the rest of the mesh behaves is fantastic. Several smoothing options for the falloff range too. Sweet.


Commander has these really cool corridors that lead out of the bridge deeper into our imagination - one on each side and another in the center. Above that center doorway is a balcony leading to the lift - again... imagination time. 

The main fuselage fit pretty darned nice right away, but the rear corners by those corridors stuck out just too far, so I trimmed them back a touch with Geometry Editor, but the cool Sci-Fi décor was able to stay - all of it!


Those three rear corridors are pretty long (Commander is an amazing setup!!!) so that was my first attack zone for MeshGrabber. Going back and forth with the falloff, I was able to shrink those corridors right down, which gives a really nice dimension to the Astro. Still a work-in-progress, the lift will take us up and out the airlock (which I'll have to make) and down to the lower deck.

It's my plan to use Petipet's Sci-Fi interiors (various collections) to stage events in other parts of the ship. Being three times larger now, AstroMaster (now Astro Commander) has some room for breathing. We can stage some long distance adventures with this thing - and so we shall!


Another early purchase of mine was Kibaretto's Star Carrier, which is equally as amazing. It's a massive launch bay, but there are all kinds of nooks and crannies throughout that are fully detailed and beautiful  - perfect for staging nearly anything. 


Rounding out the image is The DigiVault's Stardomes, which I've performed some Iray magic to. Check this out:

In the Surfaces pane, click the main texture map to see where it is in the list, then select None for Diffuse, and set the color to black.

Now load that map into the following: Translucency Color (first set Translucency Weight to 1.0), Gloss Color (probably don't need that one) and in Emission Color. 


Load a nice HDRI into Iray's Dome (I use JoeLeGecko's HDRI Photoshoot) and then blast the Emission Luminosity with a few extra zeros to bring up those levels until you get a good match for your Dome. I didn't make the dome visible in render, but I'm sure you could. It would certainly add to the background. 


The Digivault's Stardomes have some really nice options. I'm really glad I grabbed it. 


Then I did my color grading, motion blur and signature using Project Dogwaffle Howler. My goto for artistic 2D!

HDRI Photoshoot, by Joelegecko, is the lighting solution you see on most of my work over the past couple of years. He's a master, that's for sure. He's the one who does some of the best promo art we see at Daz 3d. 


This set has over twenty HDRI and their mirror, so some 46 or 48 HDRI altogether. There are a lot of HDRI packs out there, and I have quite a few. When it comes to rendering my characters (using an alpha (invisible) background for compositing over backplates layering in other elements along the way) I always use this. 

That dark blue and red from my Rosie 2023 Demo was almost always number 21 and its mirrored version. Rotate the dark to the front and let the light seep in over each shoulder - red contrasting to blue. Fun! I love number 21!!!

The medieval video that followed almost exclusively used 22. Right now Rosie 8 is enjoying quite a few, but her Base scene is set up with number 10, rotated to have a subtle bit of sunshine coming in from behind her on one side with a cool blue center, and a sunrise pink over the other shoulder. 


It's really fun because rotating the dome around gives a limitless supply of excellent character lighting - like my new starship! :)

Site Highlights

 

A Digital Art Live Experience 

Now Available at Daz 3d - a Special new educational course that I've been anxious to share with everyone.

Paul Bussey, from Digital Art Live, offered an amazing opportunity for me to tell my story of how I've unlocked the key to a super-easy approach to animating in Daz Studio - something that a majority of animators consider to be nearly impossible, and for good reason. Daz Studio is set up differently than traditional animating software, making it feeling clunky, even unfriendly to folks who are used to animating.


Well such a thing is difficult to tell in a few words or even a single article here on the site. It's something that needs to be seen, worked through, demonstrated.


Paul's offer is just that. He loves seeing other artist's work and he has a wonderful drive at helping artists learn new skills to better themselves at what they want to do. In that, we are both incredibly similar, for those are my goals as well!


Check out the rest of the story - My Digital Art Live

It's really cool to have people around who do nothing but create new miraculous wonders for the rest of the world to enjoy.

Alvin Bémar is one of those people.


With FLUIDOS II for Daz Studio, we have liquid, fire and smoke simulations within studio. Highly configurable to get incredible results.


Then, among his other fun creations he comes up with PARSIS: A Particles System, Gescon: Constructive Solid Geometry for Daz Studio, AB Greebles Generator(!!!), and his Thickener Plugin.

Latest up is his amazing Fisio: Physics Simulator and he's just released the above video for a Soft Body Addon! Really looking forward to this stuff!!! Bravo Alvin! Thanks for all you do!!!

Woah... I thought I'd have to wait another year for this, but...

...here she is!!!

She still needs the Genesis 9 Essential Shapes Bundle in order to function properly, at which time finishing touches will also be made, but I think the look is right. She's ready to take on the world!


Wow. I am stunned that this is happening right now.


Check out my page for Rosie 9 for more information about her.

There's a Lot more here. Check out the navigation menus at the top of each page - there's a lot of fun to be had here. Make yourself at Home!

Plenty of experiments going on learning micro-movements of the face using a new FACS system.

Genesis 3 & 8 Face Controls provides a facial puppet rig used to manipulate all of the FACS (Facial Action Coding System) intricacies. We'll learn how I took this further by developing my own Animorphs specifically for FACS and expressions. 

What Happened on Odysseon Station?

Take a fun walk through the idea of letting a content collection hobby fulfill the needs of a story!


Story Driven Through Content - Odysseon Station Collection


Nearly complete, between deep Daz + Sales and the help of my readers, I now have a tremendous Odysseon Station collection. 


It's really fun to see how each additional piece to the collection can make the storytelling That Much Easier - and More Fun!!!

Take A Look!

Some friends of mine are conducting a PD Howler course at the time of this writing, and I'm in the class. What a Blast!!!

Tiffanie conducted the first two weeks, which we've just finished. Philip will take over for the remaining two weeks. What a great way to do it. Both of them use Howler in entirely different ways and both are excellent at teaching the software. 

I actually look forward to getting homework, doing it, and then doing a bunch more stuff. 

We didn't even get to the animation part yet, but I couldn't resist. Tiffanie has a way of teaching me new features and tools that get me excited to add to my workflow - which is usually doing visual effects on my animations.

Let it Snow!

Philip took us on a journey through many of the incredible animation and 3D capabilities of PD Howler 2023, and gave us a glimpse of the soon to be released PD Howler 2024.

He showed some really cool techniques for adding falling snow to an animation along with animating filters and filters that are designed specifically for animations. PD Howler is packed with both options, plus a timeline editor with nearly every filter available, my pal - the Brush Keyframer, 3D Designer, PuppyRay render engine, and a whole lot more.

This little short was a lot of fun to create - all compositing and effects are done in Project Dogwaffle Howler 2023. The editing and titling was done, this time, using Corel's wonderful VideoStudio Pro, which also automated the music per my selections to the length of the project. Really cool! VideoStudio Pro also has a really nice separate Screen Capture app that I use for my tutorials and demonstrations.

For one of our weeks of homework, we had to (1) color grade an image and also (2) fix an image. I did both to the same project, but they can be separate too. Here's an older render that I always liked. I wanted to update it with the Rosie character the way she is today. Well there's a removal tool in Project Dogwaffle that really works slick! I remember when it was first introduced, but never took the time to try it. 

Wow! It's really cool!

Original Finished Render

WIP - Removal Tool in Progress

Finished homework image

New Animations & Simulations Demo Videos!

A new video of incomplete scenes and test renders. This is getting to be a lot of fun to do!

Right when I was really getting going in Daz Studio with animations, I visited the forums where I saw that somebody asked if they cool use Daz Studio for making animations and the only answers that came up were saying "No, better to export to Blender", "No, export to Unreal"... that sort of thing. 

I couldn't believe that this was the only sort of message left for the original poster to try and digest - or simply turn away knowing that animation is not possible in Studio!

So I switched gears for a bit and made up a bunch of scenes to go with the character renders I was doing at the time - and having a blast with, and brought it all into DaVinci Resolve and composited everything together using Fusion within. That's a Cyberpunk video below.

In doing so I realized that I really need to get some practice at Fusion and all of the tools! So I think I may do a bunch more of these fun movies. It doesn't bother me that I'm not entirely up-to-par with everything. I enjoy seeing my own blunders and learning from it.

All new Rosie! All New Reel!

dForce - Proof Pudding!

We're about to get underway with the next phase of this project - Seriously adding Daz Studio into our animating and rendering workflow.

It's been an exciting time for me, learning how to animate in such an odd way, yet doing it in the interface that allows us to make our own custom tools to help... I have an entirely different outlook on Daz Studio now. 

I liked using it before, but only as a set of tools to help make things compatible with Carrara.

Now I've opened it up and explored rendering in OctaneRender and Iray, grabbed some useful plugins and scripts, discovered ways to animate without relying solely on aniMate 2 alone, simulating using both VWD and dForce and in the process made a whole new cast of characters that I like more than ever.

The above image is the new Rosie 7 and her new aniMate compatible car in a new Iray Cyberpunk environment.

*** If you're looking for the old Home page, I have it saved HERE. I will be further cleaning up this Home page to keep folks informed of new happenings with the site.

This next adventure is going to be a Fun one... so Buckle Up!!!  DAZ Zone is about to get Serious!!!

I just wanted to pop in and let everyone know that new pages are going to be coming soon about the results of this whole adventure and some new videos that help show off the new techniques.

Simply log into the Daz 3d forums and send a PM to Dartanbeck with the code

While you're at it, go ahead and ask me a question about my workflow or techniques, products, anything! Always happy to help!

Support for this site goes directly into more creative workflows, animations and articles

A very special and warm Thank You to those who help! 

I love and appreciate you all!!! Thank You!!!

Appreciation for Your Support!

In honor of the Wonderful People who enjoy what I do enough to offer support, This Appreciation Page is For You!

For those who have asked to remain anonymous, I have not included you in there. If you'd like to be included, I'd Love to!

Anonymous or otherwise, I really appreciate your Support - and All of it goes Directly into what I'm working on at that time, so it's a Huge benefit. Thank You So Much!!! 

Every opportunity I get to make improvements is a delightful boon and helps push everything forward!

*** If you're looking for the old Home page, I have it saved HERE. I will be further cleaning up this Home page to keep folks informed of new happenings with the site.

This next adventure is going to be a Fun one... so Buckle Up!!! ;)

MORE TO COME SOON!!!   MORE TO COME SOON!!!   MORE TO COME SOON!!!   

Please Help Support My Cause!

(or not... your choice!)

Feeling generous? Perhaps a little Kind Hearted?

Drop by Daz 3d and buy me a Gift Card

It's the Best Gift EVER!!!


After purchase, simply PM Dartanbeck at Daz 3d with the code

Thanks in Advance!                Dartanbeck

Use the Gizmo on the left (or the following links) to filter between the following:

Blacksmith 3D       *  Daz Studio        *  Poser        *  Reality        *  Reallusion        *  Sixus 1 

...and Have Fun Learning New Skills and Techniques!!!   :)

Philip Staiger of Project Dogwaffle (makers of PD Howler) uses Power Director to create his energetic and fun tutorial and demonstration videos!

and support this site at the same time!!!  :)   Thanks!!!  :)