Daz Studio, developed by Daz 3D, provides innovative 3D figure modeling and animation tools, promoting the creation of high-quality virtual content. The software leverages the Qt framework for its versatile UI design, cross-platform support, and powerful scripting capabilities, enabling easy customization and extension. Key developments include the transition from Qt 3 to Qt 4, which enhanced stability and added new features like improved styling and scripting support.

1. DAZ Studio
Advanced 3D Graphics Empowered by Qt

2. DAZ 3D
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3. DAZ 3D
• DAZ 3D – What we’re all about
– “Unleash the Artist Within”
• Bring 3D art to the masses.
– High quality virtual 3D figures and content.
– Innovative software which enables anyone to create
artistic images.
– A synergistic community which learns, shares, and
grows together.
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4. DAZ 3D
• History of DAZ 3D
– DAZ 3D began as a division of the Zygote Media
Group creating realistic virtual figures.
– In December of 2000 it became an independent
corporation and shortly after opened an online store
for 3D figures and content at www.daz3d.com.
– Since then it has grown to provide software
applications which help users get the most out of their
virtual content.
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5. DAZ Studio
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6. DAZ Studio
• In the beginning DAZ 3D had some great 3D
figures and content, but relied on another
company’s software to display this content.
• We needed a way to showcase our content and
remove our reliance on 3rd party applications.
• DAZ Studio was born.
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7. DAZ Studio
• DAZ Studio is a feature rich 3D figure modeling,
posing, and animation tool.
• It’s a vehicle for getting 3D content into the
hands of users.
– Get it into as many hands as possible.
– It’s free!
• It pushes 3D content to new heights with new
ideas and innovations.
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8. DAZ Studio
• Designing DAZ Studio
– We needed an app with a unique and custom look.
– We needed an application framework that would give
quick and flexible results.
– We needed Windows and Mac versions.
– We needed a scriptable application.
• Qt fit perfectly into our goals.
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9. DAZ Studio
• Why Qt?
– Versatility of interface components
– Cross platform support
– Ease of development
– Integrated scripting capability
• Since DAZ Studio’s inception in 2002 we’ve
relied heavily on Qt, and it has been a huge
benefit.
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10. UI Versatility
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11. UI Versatility
• Some applications need to look native to a
specific platform – Qt does this well.
• With other applications, you often want a unique
and eye-catching look. – Qt also does this well.
• We want anyone who sees DAZ Studio to be
drawn in and have to try it.
• Here’s what we came up with:
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12. UI Versatility
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13. Just Kidding!
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14. UI Versatility
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15. UI Versatility
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16. UI Versatility
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17. UI Versatility
• Familiar widgets can still have unique style
– Content pane using Model/View architecture
• Completely new widgets are also easy to create
– Puppeteer – innovative user interface for posing and
shaping figures
• OpenGL Widgets for real-time 3D displays
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18. UI Versatility
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19. UI Versatility
• Styles
– We wanted a way to easily change the whole look of
the application through “skins” or styles.
– This was before CSS styles were introduced in Qt4.
– We created an XML based style system which
controls how widgets are drawn.
– The style defines a set of drawing commands for how
each widget should be drawn depending on its
current state.
– Supports images and basic drawing operations.
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20. UI Versatility
• Styles
– Savvy users are able to create their own styles.
– We’re able to mimic the look of other applications in
our lineup, so users can have more familiar and
consistent experiences.
– Most of this would have been very difficult without the
powerful styling framework that Qt already had.
– We’re currently exploring Qt Style sheets and are
excited for the possibilities they’ll provide.
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21. UI Versatility
• Layouts
– Not all users have the same work flow.
– Qt provides the flexibility to create completely
customizable window layouts.
– Layouts can be arranged by the user and saved for
later use.
– Users can quickly switch between multiple layouts
based on the tasks at hand.
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22. Cross Platform Support
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23. Cross Platform Support
• Whether Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, or any
other supported system, Qt makes it easy to
support multiple platforms.
• Design interface elements once, and they just
work on other platforms.
• No need to deal with often complicated setup for
native windows, widgets, file IO, etc.
• Spend less time worrying about details and
more time getting stuff done.
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24. Cross Platform Support
• Porting DAZ Studio to Mac was straightforward.
– Initially DAZ Studio was developed on Windows.
– Basic functionality was working in about 2 weeks.
– It would not have been possible without Qt.
– Most development is still done on Windows, without
having to worry that it won’t work on Mac OS X.
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25. Scripting Support
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26. Scripting Support
• Scripting support in an application is something
that may not seem very useful at first, but it
provides a lot of flexibility and power.
– Gives the end user the ability to add the functionality
that they need.
– Allows for features that may not be fully known at the
time of release.
– Gives developers tools for prototyping and testing.
• Qt makes it really easy to have full scripting
capabilities.
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27. Scripting Support
• A Scripting interface was an important design
goal for DAZ Studio.
• Originally we used the open-source SWIG toolkit
to generate Python Bindings.
• When QSA (Qt Script for Applications) was
introduced for Qt 3, we were early adopters.
• QSA made a scripting interface for DAZ Studio
much easier to create and maintain.
• The same classes that provide the plug-in SDK
also provide the scripting interface.
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28. Scripting Support
• In Qt 4, QSA has been replaced by QtScript.
• QtScript is now a part of the core Qt framework and is
more standards compliant.
• Scripting provides many benefits to our users:
– Many tasks in DAZ Studio have been automated with scripts
– Content presets are provided as scripts – figure poses, material
settings, animation data, etc.
– Many 3rd party add-ons for DAZ Studio are available as scripts.
– A Scripting language makes DAZ Studio very easy for the user
to extend – only basic programming knowledge is required.
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29. Ease of Development
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30. Ease of Development
• Qt provides a framework that makes new development
for DAZ Studio relatively easy.
• New engineers, and even interns, have been able to
make meaningful contributions in a relatively short time.
• The DAZ Studio plug-in SDK, which is rooted heavily in
Qt, makes it easy to extend DAZ Studio with new
functionality.
• A number of 3rd party plug-in developers have expressed
that DAZ Studio is one of the easiest applications they’ve
developed for – in part due to Qt.
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31. Ease of Development
• Open Source benefits
– In Qt 3, DAZ Studio plug-in developers were required
to license the Qt framework.
– This was cost-prohibitive to many.
– In Qt 4.5, the addition of LGPL licensing enabled us
to make the DAZ Studio SDK freely available, and
has generated a lot of new interest.
– There is no barrier to entry except knowledge.
– This creates a rich and productive add-on community.
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32. Ease of Development
• Recently, we developed 64-bit versions of DAZ Studio and Carrara
for Windows and Mac OS X.
• The move to 64-bit for DAZ Studio was very smooth, thanks in large
part to Qt.
• The move to 64-bit for Carrara was more problematic.
• On Mac OS X, the 64-bit move required us to change from using
Apple’s Carbon framework to the new Cocoa framework.
• After researching the required changes, it was decided to move to
Qt instead, which can handle the Cocoa interface for us.
• The application event loop and window system were moved onto Qt,
and a 64-bit version of Carrara for OS X was running in less time
than if we had made the change to Cocoa ourselves.
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33. Qt 3 to Qt 4
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34. Qt 3 to Qt 4
• With all of our style customization and heavy use
of scripting, porting from Qt 3 to Qt 4 was a
worst-case-scenario.
• The qt3to4 utility gave us a good starting point
• Problem areas
– Styles
– Changes in widget and layout behavior
– Scripting
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35. Qt 3 to Qt 4
• QStyle changes were very problematic, and
documentation was sometimes incomplete.
– Access to the source code was very valuable.
– We could examine exactly how different style aspects are
handled and adjust accordingly.
• Qt3Support library is very useful, but some widgets and
layouts still don’t behave quite the same.
– Switching to Qt 4 counterparts was mostly straightforward.
• Moving from QSA to QtScript was very challenging.
– Again, having source code was invaluable.
– We were able to write a syntax translation tool that can
automatically convert most of our QSA scripts to working
QtScripts.
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36. Qt 3 to Qt 4
• What did we get with Qt 4?
– Improved UI behavior and stability
– Qt Style Sheets
– Model-View type item views
– Mac Cocoa support – important for 64-bit version
– Script debugger
– Scripts are now fully ECMAScript compatible
– WebKit and other networking improvements for
interactivity with our online store
– LGPL licensing allowing us to distribute a free SDK
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37. Conclusions
• Qt is an invaluable tool in the development of
DAZ Studio.
• Qt gives us the flexibility to create an application
with a flair and style all its own.
• Qt enables us to ignore many technical details
and focus on building a better app.
• Qt helps us reduce development costs and
decrease time-to-market.
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