Import into Blender (basic)

This section is all about the first prize : getting your character into Blender and rendered. We are going to keep it very basic, I will try to create more advanced techniques in other tutorials. So we are at the stage where we want to simply want some results! Once we got the basic technique down, we can advance.

If you opened up Blender, you get to see the default cube. We can delete that by pressing the <DELETE> key.

PROTIP : One of the things that make Blender hard to use when you start out, is that it loves HOTKEYS, there is pretty much a hotkey for everything. However, for BEGINNERS this is tough. Memorizing the basic keys can help you. If you decide to learn hotkeys, the uptick is that you will be a LOT FASTER with hotkeys. Luckily, if you don't like hotkeys, everything can be found in a menu usually. In this case, you can RIGHT-CLICK on the cube and choose DELETE. You can see another hotkey for delete, namely the X hotkey, as in the image below



The next step is to click on "import DAZ file" :



You'll be getting a file dialog box like in the image below. Choose your DUF file you saved in the earlier tutorial and make sure the default DBZ File (Characters) is selected (see arrow)



Succes! (I hope :) -- We now have our file in, never mind the colours and the freaky fire sticks, the important part here is you got your character over from DAZ3D Studio!



So now we need to render. We first need to switch to camera (NUMPAD KEY 0)



Everything in the light grey box is what the camera sees, so all that will be rendered. Our figure looks quite small. Let's move closer. First of all press <G> key. You are now in movement mode, if you use the mouse to move. Luckily  you can constrain your camera by using the hotkeys <X>,<Y> and <Z> for each dimension you want to move in. For instance pressing <G> and then <X> will move the camera along the X axis. Pressing <Y> next, the Y axis, pressing <Z> next, the Z axis. Use these new skills to inch closer and closer to your character.



Once you got close enough, you probably want to rotate the camera, and this is possible by pressing the <R> key TWICE. This will give you a panning motion you can use to center your subject.

Enough learning hotkeys for now, to render, simply press <F12> , and wait a while for your render to finish! You probably get something like this :



Not a Rembrandt yet, but with a bit of work we can start tweaking the things to our liking in the next tutorials.


Last update : 5-3-21