Ken Gilliland Songbird Questions
Joe Cotter
Posts: 3,259
A couple questions about Ken's birds.
With the morphs (Crests, etc...) there is the morph itself, then there is a file in the Materials folder and in the Character folder. Most of the time, the item in the Character folder is Morph+Texture and materials is just Texture, but this doesn't seem to be the case with these. I can't see a difference in my testing and nothing in any references as to what the purpose of the two different ones are. Could someone inform me as to the exact difference of these?
The Pupil Morph in the Owl package has a ds component with accompanying Data folder item, a pz2 component, and an obj pair of components with instructions on using them with morph loader pro. I'm confused as to how these are supposed to work.
Most packages have a Materials component and Character component, but the Seabirds only has the Character component. Is this by mistake or design?
tyia :)
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Comments
Some conforming crests are simply stationary attached props and some have some morphs for either species shapes, movement controls or both. It depends on the bird.
After creating owls originally I became unhappy with the way light reflected from the pupil, so after the release I created and slightly different pupil shape morph to shapes how the pupil material reflected highlights.... in many cases you won't see a difference. For the latest version that incorporates the morph into the Cr2 go to my downloads at songbirdremix.com
A big, very recent to change to DAZ Studio versions is to move all DS files to the Runtime structure whether they co-exist of the poser version. These updates are on my website now and will eventually to incorporated into DAZ's store versions
Thank you for your quick response :)
I moved all of the DS versions into the Poser Runtime in my local version so I can keep track of everything. It sounds like the owl morph will be updated eventually if I can't get it to work otherwise so that's good.
On the crests, I'm still not understanding... are the differences something that only show up in the parameters or surface tab when the one Character specific preset is used rather then the Texture one? The icon for the two, Character and Texture, are exactly the same. I did notice the Character preset is slightly larger.
On a side note, I noticed these two texture files are missing:
Seabirds: sbrm_wf3_t.jpg
Amazon: mangroveswallow_s.jpg
Is there some place I could download them, or could they be emailed?
Also, the Puffin in Seabirds 2 has only one pose. Are there specific poses that would work alright with the puffin in the Water Fowl category, such as short neck...?
In most of the packages I've loaded so far, there are presets in the Character folder which has resizing information and a matching texture only one in the Materials folder. I noticed there are no Materials presets for the Seabirds I - II. Is this by design or .. ?
There are many more poses included in the "Puffins" package of course, but you can also use regular Songbird Remix bird poses-- although you'll probably have some correction the poses to do after it's applied. I often pose my parrots or other Zygodactyl-footed birds with normal Songbird Remix poses then use Pose Pack2 with the partial Zygodactyl foot poses to correct the feet. Most of many bird bases will accept other birds bases poses. It's the same concept of applying a V4 or M4 pose on Genesis-- it gets you part-- sometimes most of the way there.
It's by design now, very few people, if any, were using the material folders (because the character settings do the same thing with all the morphs settings), so I've stopped including them.
Thank you very much :)
...
I'm confused about the update to move the DS material files to Poser runtime. I recently bought and installed Songbird Remix Started Bundle (I only had CU3 before, but wanted the cardinal,etc.). Anyway, I downloaded and installed the non-Legacy update in package 01-Update-dsps.zip, since I am running DS 4.5. Now I have the DS material files in both the DAZ Studio Formats and Poser Formats branches of my Content Library. But when I click on a songbird in my scene, the metadata still points me to the DAZ Studio Formats version in Smart Content->Presets->Materials. If the files installed into the Poser folder by the update were new and improved, I think I won't see those improvements, because the metadata still points me to the old ones. Am I misunderstanding something? Which file version is used when the material is applied along with the bird shape morph? Maybe I'm not even supposed to be applying materials separately with Smart Content->Presets->Materials??? I did read the field guide, but it doesn't address Smart Content. I did see a comment you made about not supplying separate Materials anymore, so maybe I should delete the DAZ Studio Formats version of the materials and the corresponding metadata????
I'm confused about the update to move the DS material files to Poser runtime. I recently bought and installed Songbird Remix Started Bundle (I only had CU3 before, but wanted the cardinal,etc.). Anyway, I downloaded and installed the non-Legacy update in package 01-Update-dsps.zip, since I am running DS 4.5. Now I have the DS material files in both the DAZ Studio Formats and Poser Formats branches of my Content Library. But when I click on a songbird in my scene, the metadata still points me to the DAZ Studio Formats version in Smart Content->Presets->Materials. If the files installed into the Poser folder by the update were new and improved, I think I won't see those improvements, because the metadata still points me to the old ones. Am I misunderstanding something? Which file version is used when the material is applied along with the bird shape morph? Maybe I'm not even supposed to be applying materials separately with Smart Content->Presets->Materials??? I did read the field guide, but it doesn't address Smart Content. I did see a comment you made about not supplying separate Materials anymore, so maybe I should delete the DAZ Studio Formats version of the materials and the corresponding metadata????
First of all, thank-you for supporting my bird series. The updates provided on my website do not include revised metadata (yet). DAZ in checking these updates will adjust the metadata to point at the correct files in the "Poser formats" section of DAZ Studio. I redid the manuals explaining the new process DS users will take but let me explain it here too.
You're now going to be applying species morphs and materials exactly how Poser users do.
1. First, you'll load the bird models (as you always have) from the Poser Formats->My Library-> Figures->Songbird Remix
2. Now go to: Poser Formats->My Library-> Pose->Songbird Remix-> (and the appropriate volume). The Legacy DS2-4 (if installed) will appear here too.
3. Make sure the bird model is selected and apply the Morph/Material Pose. DS users will automatically load the DS pose and material settings on the bird.
4. Props are now found in the Poser Formats->My Library-> Prop->Songbird Remix folder
The older DAZ Studio format Animals-->SBRM>!CreateYourOwn folders are now obsolete (provided you've installed the updates).
Meta data versions (through DAZ) should appear around late April-- it's going to take a while to assign metadata to 800+ birds. Those versions will eventually appear the Download Manager or through your DAZ account.
Thanks, Ken. I'm a Smart Content devotee, so I have always loaded the birds from the Smart Content pane Figures->Animals->Air. Then, with the bird selected, I applied the shape/material from Smart Content tab Presets->Morphs->Apply->Body. Smart Content is wonderful, because (when DAZ gets the metadata right, which is iffy), only valid options show up. I understand your instructions for loading though the Content Library pane. I look forward to the DAZ updates with metadata updates. Thanks for the great birds. My collection is growing.
You're welcome... and I'll use this opportunity to tease with an image from one my Audubon's Birthday releases ;)
yes ! they look great !
Oh dear, these look nice - my wallet is shaking in its shoes! Especially if the ducks are on their way too?!
Although, I'd love to sell you lots of waterfowl, your wallet can rest easy on that account... I know everyone's heard my delays and excuses for almost a year now... but I'm still working on base models so the quackers are ducking this sale. I do promise they will be out by the end of the year though. Unfortunately all the DS4.5 revisions I had to do to my 800+ bird library seriously ate into months of development time.
I have a half-finished Goose volume that "might" be part of the sale or at least a late spring/early summer release. Vultures2 is one of the 5 raptor packages I promised and has the remaining 12 vultures found throughout the world I haven't done.
Never mind, raptors are pretty cool too. And you have certainly been busy by the sound of it! Anything new will be most welcome :)