Category Archives: DAZ Studio

It’s the wrong time of year, but the Meshbox Halloween 7 series is available for $39 for the complete set, if you order by 2nd April 2012. The best of them is this very cool Witch House, complete with interior.

Sea Life! A quick survey of ocean and underwater life and lighting for DAZ Studio and Poser users. (Updated, May 2014).

The Terrors of the Deep: Jellyfish pack has some nice jellifish, which seem to render best in Poser…

Although note that the starfish and shell and other content is not included — it’s just the jellyfish. There’s a Biolight textures addon for these jellyfish.

Most people should have an Angelfish as standard, as it ships with your Poser install (or at least, it did with older versions). But overall there’s a surprising lack of the sort of small colourful fancy fish that you’d see in an aquarium, at least ones with really good textures. Also missing currently is a really strong pack of corals and small intricate shells with superb textures.

Although the Toucan Museum in Japan does have some beautifully textured OBJ fish for free.

The Pacific Rockfish Collection perhaps offers the brightest colours in fish, it has good textures…

There are a variety of shark packs, but one of the most fearsome sharks — as well as the best textured — is Dinoraul’s Carcharodon Megalodon…

Stonemason made an early venture into creatures, with his Creatures of the Deep deep-sea angler fish, before he went into making his famous large scenes. Although I found the textures on these only worked for Poser…

For more monstrous ocean dinosaurs see Jurrasic Seas.

There’s also a very nicely made and textured Marlin and Ray in the Sea Life Pack 2…

Personally I found the earlier Sea Life Pack 1 to be showing its age now, in terms of the modelling and textures. The Octopus in it still stands close-ups, though.

Also lacking, these days, are most of the aquatic creatures vended by Smith Micro on Content Paradise. Only the Octopus (also available on its own) can stand close renders, but the rest are ok for middle-distance and background. You’ll find the octopus and other creatures bundled in the “Ocean Pack Bundle”, currently at $7…

The best crab is “Aquatic Crab” on Content Paradise…

Also have a look at PoserAddict’s crab.

I’ve yet to find a really good starfish.

The best Poser ocean is RD’s Poser Ocean, although this is ocean-surface only…

You might also look at the 360-degree environment Ocean Wide, although note that it’s for DAZ 4.6 only.

Those who just want beach and sea view scenes could look at the detailed Waves on the Beach scene — but be warned that this pack puts a very heavy load on the average PC, even before you try to render it.

There are some nice shallow underwater ‘sandy seabed’ scenes to be had by sinking the camera in the sea around the Ultimo Paradiso island, available on the DAZ Store…

For a lagoon also look at The Lost World for DAZ Studio 4.6 and Poser…

The deeper sea might be covered by the With the Fishes pack…

Also have a look at Aquatica Reef on the DAZ Store, which (unlike older cycloramas) claims to be hi-res and able to stand close-ups and hi-res renders…

There’s a huge bundle of underwater plant props in the Gardens of Poseidon Bundle and also hunt around for “Lisa’s Botanicals – Sea Floor Pack 1” (it seems to have vanished) and look at Runtime DNA’s older Sea Critters pack…

The best undersea light sets are the DAZ Store’s Under The Sea, which work for both Poser and DAZ. They tend to ‘moire’ when used on large seabed scenes, but work nicely on characters and props that you intend to composite into a scene using Photoshop.

Also look at Camera Magic: WaterCam DAZ Studio.

Photoshop users who are not afraid of a little post-production on their renders can generate sea caustics overlays for use with layers / Screen Mode, with the Caustics Generator software.