The trick to getting great little images to use for an avatar is first being sure that you have the camera settings correct for how close to "portrait" the image is going to be. Before you begin be sure that you have a basic understanding of how the program works. If you're brand new to Daz Studio it now comes with several tutorials to help you do just that. Also look through our blog posts as we give hints and have links to quite a few free tidbits.
First lets get a good camera setting for a close up of your character:
When you first start a new scene and add a character it will look something like the image below. Notice that I have the parameters tab showing and what the initial camera settings are. The setting for focal length is 65 when the camera loads into the scene.
- Notice how the
focal distance
is 360? If you
look up at the
Z translate
(back and forth)-
it is set at 360
as well because
0, where the
character is
standing, is 360
from the camera.
- Focal length adjustments
keep the subject
from being distorted
as the camera
gets closer to them.
That will give you a great image if you're going to render your image from about that distance. But, because avatars are smaller you get better results if you move in closer. As you move in closer the setting needs to increase in order to cut down on distortion. This render was done with the Z translation changed to 200 and the focal length still at 65 and there is little or no distortion. So for a ¾▪▪▪ shot the setting does not need to be changed.
