What are the "must have" plugins/assets for VAM and how to strart creating proper renders with it (step-by-step)?

[Handyff]

Hi, (an Absolute Virt-a-Mate Beginner Here, I want to make a comprehensive guide for myself and others who will in future try VAM and they should have a good guide because I think VAM is awesome but there's really no proper/total guide for becoming a VAM creator)

So, After launching Daz and realizing my pc isn't built for this, I went for best alternative VAM. I downloaded some looks and clothes and I thought okay now I need to create a scene, load assets, pose, light etc. like Daz and I will be making renders in no time haha!

Safe to say I had no idea what I was doing. I loaded a character and then a scene and had no clue what to do. I realized it's not that simple and I have to ask for help, so here I am asking you:

General question to creators: What do you do (in sequence) when you open VAM and want to make renders normally?

(1) What are the must have plugins for a creator? I mean for saving/loading scenes, Posing, Rendering (and how to use them)?

(2) Do I need to pose the characters myself (How?) or are there gender specific pose packs like Daz which can be used for every character?

(3) Clothing and Accessories? Can I change clothing on a character (How?) or is it fixed and I need both the nude and clothed version?

(4) How to create sex scenes properly, I mean posing characters and controlling genitalia (which plugins and how?) at the same time.

(5) Lighting? Of couse I need to ask this.

(6) Performance and FPS plugins and Tips/Tricks for an optimized experience?

(7) Something useful you want to tell me which I forgot to ask?


And finally asking again (with a bit of embezzlement):

IF you are a VAM Creator and you meet your past self bashing their head on the wall trying to figure VAM out, How would you guide them STEP-by-STEP from Opening VAM to creating renders?

 

[murn]

1 saving and loading plugins, none. Don't even know if there is any might be a waste of time. any scene saved goes in your saves folder. (I think that's the name.
posing I use ruvik's "posing helper" and manually moving joints which can be helped by hitting "T" to show the joint controllers.
rendering. users don't really do that but if you want to save frames you can use Eosin's "VRvideo renderer" I think there is another can't remember the name.
there are a few posing and image renderers( screen shot) plugins.
2 You can pose the characters or download a pose collection. There are a lot and you can use them on either sex.
3 to change the clothing open the clothing tab.
4 you can use auto motion plugin( auto thruster, diving rod, etc. There are a few), mocap or the timeline plugin to animate the characters.
5 lighting no need to ask you can download lighting packs or set up your own.
6 Best I can say there is a plugin called give me fps by redeyes there are a lot of ways to improve fps but dam, dam, dam.
7 Yes there is a wiki that helps in learning a lot especially in how to get started...

Bonus. There are no speed runs in learing VAM. A lot of things also can be learned from disecting a scene to see how users do stuff as there are many ways to create/use VAM. Almost everything has instructions on how to use them.


NOTE: Don't think I'm trying to be an arsehole or something. It can be a lot if one tried to sit down and show you everything. That's what the wiki is for and there are demo scenes to help with some stuff also there is a search function on the site here... Make use of it.

 

[atani]

Whether a newbie or experienced, it all comes down to the essential: reading stuff and playing around with things