Easy Skin with Daz Studio and Iray

TimFromPerth@gmail.com
Table of contents
1. INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................... 2

2. SETTING UP THE TUTORIAL SCENE .............................................................................. 3

3. BETTER SKIN IN A FEW EASY STEPS.............................................................................. 4

4. SAVING YOUR SKIN AS A MATERIAL PRESET.................................................................. 6

5. APPLYING YOUR MATERIAL PRESET TO A NEW CHARACTER .......................................... 7

Version Control
1.0 16 Mar 2019 Initial draft
1.1 16 Mar 2019 Correct minor formatting errors.

Copyright
©2019 TimFromPerth
TimFromPerth@gmail.com
Document last modified on 16 March, 2019.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0

International License.

(This license lets you remix, tweak, and build upon this work non-commercially, as long as you credit me
and license your new creations under identical terms. I’d also appreciate a copy sent to the email
address above. Thanks.)

creativecommons.org/licenses/

Easy Skin with Daz Studio and Iray TimFromPerth@gmail.com 1

1. Introduction
What will you learn?
In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to improve the look of human skin in Daz Studio.

What should you already know?

The tutorial assumes that you have installed Daz Studio and have a basic familiarity with it. If you’re
new to Daz Studio, it would be a good idea to work through Daz’s QuickStart Guide before proceeding:

1. Run Daz Studio.

2. From the Help menu select QuickStart Guide….0.

This will open your web browser and display Daz’s introductory tutorial.

About this document

Your feedback and suggestions regarding this tutorial will always be appreciated.

Cheers,
Tim N.

Perth, Western Australia

TimFromPerth@gmail.com

Easy Skin with Daz Studio and Iray TimFromPerth@gmail.com 2

2. Setting up the tutorial scene
This tutorial consists of a very simple scene with two identical characters and basic lighting. The
character used will be Genesis 3 Female and the software Daz Studio 4.10. The techniques will work
with other characters and versions with only minor variations.

1. Run Daz Studio. If it’s already running, from the File menu select New…. This will create a new,
empty scene.

2. Insert the default Genesis 3 Female character. (From the Content Library tab, navigate to People
> Genesis 3 Female.)

3. Insert a second Genesis 3 Female, and position them side by side like so:

4. In the Scene tab rename them to G3F Left and G3F Right so it’s clear which is which.

5. Apply any simple lighting to the scene that doesn’t introduce a colour cast.0.

The lighting in this tutorial is provided by an HDRI map. No other lighting is used. I’ve used a lovely,
free HDRI map called Butterfly. It’s available as part of a free pack of HDRI maps by Second Circle here:

www.deviantart.com/second-circle/art/SC-Free-HDRi-Lights-for-Daz-Studio-646475146

Easy Skin with Daz Studio and Iray TimFromPerth@gmail.com 3

3. Better Skin in a few easy steps
1. In the Scene tab, select the right-
hand character: G3F Right.

2. In the Surfaces tab, click on the small

triangle next to G3F Right to expose
the surfaces.

3. Click on Surfaces as shown here:0.

Now we’re going to convert all of the character’s surfaces for use with NVIDIA Iray.

1. From the Content Library tab navigate to Shader Presets > Iray > Daz Uber.

2. Double click on !Uber Iray Base.0.

For the remainder of the tutorial, we’ll be limiting ourselves to modifying the skin, lip and nail
surfaces.

1. In the Surfaces tab, select Skin-Lips-

Nails as shown here:0.

Easy Skin with Daz Studio and Iray TimFromPerth@gmail.com 4

This is where the fun starts. We’re going to change just
a few shader settings to get much nicer skin.

1. Hold down the Control key and click in the large

white area where it says Base Color.

2. In the Float Color window that pops up change the

Red, Green and Blue values to

0.76, 0.76, 0.92 (blue–purple)

You can click on the numbers or drag the sliders.

3. Press Accept.0.

This should make the right-hand character’s skin look

less yellow.

Now let’s change a few more settings:

1. Scroll down the list of properties and change Translucency Weight to 0.30. This lightens the skin.

2. Change Base Color Effect to Scatter & Transmit This will change the colour of the skin a little.
More importantly, though, it will reveal several previously hidden properties.

3. Hold down the Control key and click on Translucency Color. Change the Red, Green and Blue
values to:

0.59 0.49 0.37 (tan)

4. Hold down the Control key and click on SSS

Reflectance Tint. Change the Red, Green and Blue
values to:0.

0.80 0.96 1.0 (light blue)

The skin of the right-hand character should now be

looking a great deal better. You could stop at this point
and be quite satisfied with the result.

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 Let’s make just two further quick changes:

1. Scroll further down the list of properties and change

Base Bump to a higher number, say 4.0.

The higher the number the more detailed the pores

and wrinkles on the skin will appear. You could use a
lower value (say 0.25) if you wanted smoother skin.
The effect will be subtle unless the camera is very
close to your character.

2. Scroll further down the list of properties and change

Transmitted Measurement Distance to 0.25.0.

While there are many other changes you can make, your
skin should be looking very good at this point.

4. Saving your skin as a material preset

Having made these changes once, you probably don’t want to have to do it again for every new
character. The good news is that you don’t have to. You can save these settings as a material preset
and then apply them instantly.

1. Ensure that G3F Right is still selected in the

Scene tab.

2. From the File Menu choose Save As. From

the submenu that appears select
Material(s) Preset… .

3. Enter a file name such as Better G3F Skin and

press Save.

You can save your material preset wherever

you find convenient. Personally, I’ve created
a folder called My Materials and within that a
folder called Skins.

4. Press Accept for the Materials Preset Save Options window that appears, and you’re done.0.

Easy Skin with Daz Studio and Iray TimFromPerth@gmail.com 6

5. Applying your material preset to a new character
Let’s see how to apply our preset to a new
character.

1. Start a new scene in Daz Studio and add a

default Genesis 3 Female character. Add any
simple lighting such as an HDRI map.

2. Select the character in the Scene tab.

3. From the Content tab, navigate to the

material preset that you saved earlier.

4. Double click on the icon for your material

preset.

That’s it. Your character just got fantastic skin with only a few clicks.

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