Running DAZ Studio

When you start DAZ Studio for the first time, the DAZ Studio Startup Wizard comes up followed by the View Tutorials dialog. The startup wizard prompts you to select a Quick Start option, search for content, and view some tutorials.

Complete the wizard as follows:

1. New Users only: If you have never installed DAZ Studio, a Quick Start scene will be loaded prior to the Setup Wizard starting.
2. If you have never registered DAZ Studio, the first screen of the DAZ Studio Setup Wizard will prompt you to register your copy of DAZ Studio online. It only requires that you have an active, verified account at the DAZ Web site (http://www.daz3d.com).
   
   
   
   To register the software online, click the Click Here to Register Online button.
   • To sign in to an existing account, enter your registered e-mail address and password, and click the Sign In button.
   • To register a new account, enter a valid e-mail address in the New Customers section and click Register. You will be prompted to enter additional registration information, such as a password, first and last names, community user name, and date of birth. Additional options ask if you’d like to receive the DAZ newsletters and whether you would like users to search for your wishlist. After you enter the information, click Create Account.
     
     NOTE! DAZ Studio will not run without the serial number.
3. After you sign in or create an account, you will be directed to the Software Serial Numbers page in your account screen. If the computer with DAZ Studio installed is not connected to the Internet, write down the serial number from the browser.
   
   
   
   When you return to the DAZ Studio Setup Wizard, the serial number will be entered into the field on the registration screen. If DAZ Studio is installed on a computer not connected to the Internet, enter the serial number manually and click on Next.
   
   
4. New users: Wizard will skip to step 7.
5. If you have previously registered DAZ Studio, the next dialog will ask if you would like to load the Quick Start layout or keep your previous layout. If you select to load the Quick Start layout, the wizard will skip to step 7 and load the Quick Start default scene. If you choose not to load the Quick Start layout, the wizard will continue to step 6.
   
   NOTE! If you select to use the Quick Start layout, the default scene will load each time you load DAZ Studio, until you select a different default scene in your preferences (or no scene at all).
6. The Category View dialog will come up next with details on the Content Manager feature and what it provides. If you do not want to use the manager, click in the checkbox next to Turn off this feature. Click on Finish to exit the setup wizard.
   
   
7. If you did not turn off the Content Manager feature, the Scan for Content dialog will come up asking if you'd like to have DAZ Studio scan your content directories. If you have a lot of content and don't want to wait for the scan to complete or if you have not set any content directories in your preferences, click on No. Otherwise, click on Yes to begin the scan.
   
   
   
   TIP! When you change views in the Content tab to the Category view, this dialog will come up asking to search for new content. To turn this off when changing to Category view, click in the box next to Do not show this dialog when opening the Category view before clicking on Yes or No.
8. If you clicked on Yes, the scan will begin and, depending on how much content you have, can take quite a while. You will see a progress dialog showing how many files have been found and added to the database. If you would like to see how many files are added at the end of the scan, click in the checkbox next to Close this dialog when completed to deselect it. Click on Cancel to cancel the scan.
   
   
   
   Once the scan is completed, the dialog will show how many were scanned and added to the database. Click on OK to exit the dialog.
   
   
9. If you selected not to scan for content or once the scan completes, the Tutorial Listing dialog will come up asking if you'd like to see a listing of installed tutorials for DAZ Studio. If you do not want this dialog to come up each time DAZ Studio is loaded, click in the checkbox next to Do not show this dialog again. Click on Yes to view the list or on No to continue without viewing the list.
   
   
   
   NOTE! You must be connected to the Internet in order to view these tutorials.
10. If you clicked on Yes, the dialog will change to show a listing of the available tutorials.
    
    
    
    Click on a tutorial to select it then click on View or on Close to close the dialog without viewing any tutorials. If you clicked on View, the selected tutorial located on the ArtZone Wiki will open up in your browser.
    
    
11. Click on Close to close the dialog after viewing the tutorials. The Startup Wizard will close and the main DAZ Studio viewport will be available.
    • If you selected to use the Quick Start setup, a default scene will be loaded and you will see a simplified Quick Start layout as shown below:
      
      
      
      NOTE! If you did not do a search for content prior to starting the tutorials, you will get some file not found messages while loading items into the scene. Click on OK to close the dialogs as the files DAZ Studio cannot find are created as part of the content search process.
      
      The layout includes the following:
      • Menu Bar
      • Toolbar with default file operations, Active Pose, Rotation/Translation, Render, and Help icons.
      • Content tab with either the Quick Start category view (as shown above) or the content not found text if a content search was not done. See ”Content Manager” for more on using the Content Manager.
      • Main viewport with controls
      • Quick Start tab with tutorials for getting started. See ”QuickStart Tutorials” for basic information on using the tutorials.
      • New at DAZ tab with links to new releases at the DAZ store.
    • If you selected to not scan for content and did not turn off the database feature, the Content tab will show that no content was found.
      
      
      • You can have DAZ Studio perform a directory search for content by clicking on the first link. Select which directories to be scanned from the dialog that comes up then click on Do Search. Click on Cancel to close the dialog and cancel the directory search.
        
        
      • When you are ready to have DAZ Studio search for content (after adding content directories), click on the second link to begin the scan.