AoA Advanced Lights MAC/Sierra Doesn't work either

StevieD

I have another discussion where I stated that I tracked down a very serious problem I had to Mac-Sierra.  Look at these posts

https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/2426331/#Comment_2426331

https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/2426336/#Comment_2426336

so I don't have to waste space here. To be short, though, I had two machines, an i5 iMac - Lion in one location and a fairly hot 6 core Hackintosh - Yosemite in another.   Both were running DS 4.6. Everything was running well on both machines. For reasons not related to Daz Studio I hesitatingly updated the iMac to Sierra. That's all I did. Still using same DS. That's when I finally found and tracked down Keymate not working in either 4.9 or 4.6 on the Sierra machine, even locking it up and crashing it. While everything was and is fine on the Yosemite machine. Still the same. 

   NOW - as I was begining to work things around the problems, animating on the Hackintosh and doing other tasks on the iMac, waiting for some solution (as was suggested by Daz), I noticed that the same project I had been working on for a long time, looked like crap when rendered (used to look beautiful). I went back to the Hachintosh, rendered it and YEA, it looked beautiful. Going back to the iMac I ripped the scene apart and found that the AoA Advanced Lights (mostly spotlights) were not doing ANYTHING! When in DS4.6 the extra controls didn't even show up (which were there when I designed the scene). In 4.9 (which I had installed when I was tracking down the other problem) the controls were there BUT the lights didn't light. That's as far as I got. I don't know if there is a solution.  I'm going to have to do less and less on the iMac and figure out what I can do on that machine. I don't want to change things because it does work on the Hack but this will slow my progress right down.  

   So here is the point. You know, we spend so much money on some of these assets that can stop working completely on the next verson of DS. Do we get our money back? I doubt it. What about the time working on a project that all of a sudden an't be used with out countless of changes for something that should be solid!  What else do I own that is now no good? Animated textures I bought don't work anymore.  I heard that Mimic no longer works in DS.  Some of these things are still being sold. Should I stop buying things because they might not work on my machine??  I think Daz should pay a little more attention to what the new versions will do to what is already out there.

I'm not happy. I'm really getting put off. Perhaps DAZ is not the way to go.  

Thanks Steve

scorpio

In 4.9 are rendering with Iray or 3dl, AoA lights don't work with Iray.

Also after upgrading etc you often need to reinstall things like AoA lights, have you tried reinstalling them?

StevieD

No, Not using Iray. I haven't tried to reinstall them. I was thinking about that but I chose to complain aboutt it instead. It's easier. Tomorrow, when I get some time, I'll may try to reinsttall Advanced Spotlight. Though I didn't upgrade DS. I upgraded the Operating system.   Also upon fresh install because of the other problems 4.9 didn't work either, even though it did have the controls.

Still pisses me off.

Thanks

Steve

StevieD

     I haven't reinstalled AoA Advanced lights because I've been trying some things. The big problem I have is that I have several huge and very intricate scenes, using these lights, both Advanced Spotlight, Advanced Distant Light,etc.  These lights in these projects do not work when I open them up in this Sierra iMac in both DS 4.6 + 4.9 and it would take a huge amount of work to fix.

     I did start a new project in both 4.6 + 4.9 using one figure and several of the Advanced lights, no other lights. The lights did work in 4.9 seemingly as expected but still did not work in 4.6. When rendered it is totally black as if it had no light on it what so ever. Nothing I did to this point would make it work.  Now the lights are the same, in the same folder, and brought into a scene by double clicking on it from the content pane.  So I don't see why the lights need to be reinstalled.  I tried looking for some switch or preference which would direct the software to treat the lights in a certain way; show or don't show, etc. I could not see anything that would preclude daz 4.6 from allowing the lights to be used properly. Also before OSX was updated, not DS, the version did work properly and in fact I created the scenes with the lights on that machine with that exact version. So I'm still not sure about this.

Thanks

Steve 

BeeMKay

You do have the lights installed in each of the respective plugin folders for 4.6 and 4.9? The way you describe things, it appears that they are only installed in the 4.9 plugin folder. I am asking as I had a similar problem with using a Beta version once, I also had to put the AOA plugin files into both version's plugin folders. 

StevieD

I'm not there at the moment but I was thinking that that was the next thing to check. I will later this afternoon.

    It's just that 4.6 was up and running beautifully for years. Then as a result of the OSX move from Lion to Sierra, I thought I would then try updating to the 4.9 Beta to get some of the new features and because I wouldn't have to get rid of 4.6 which I knew would cause problems that I couldn't afford to have happen in the middle of all these projects.  It happened anyway. I really hate updating things. There is always some kind of catastrophe. I'm not a computer enthusiast. I just need to use them. I hate trying to get things to work as they already should but never do.

  Anyway, if 4.9 Beta is a seperate install completely void of attachment to 4.6, why would it suddenly rob 4.6 of it's working assets? I don't know but I will look. They are sharing the same folder assets. I hate it.

Thanks

Steve

 

CypherFOX

Greetings,

AoA lights aren't assets, they're essentially plugins, and they have to be installed to work.  If the installation process isn't done, they won't work.  You won't see entries for them in the appropriate dialogs, they won't render during rendering, etc., etc...  I'm 90% sure that's your problem, and it's a problem that's happened before.  The tools WILL work, they just need to be reinstalled.  With DAZ Install Manager it's a matter of minutes, at most, to give that a try.

--  Morgan

 

StevieD

I'm trying to be complete and precise so excuse me if this seem too long or convoluted. It took me a long process to get here and I want to be precise about how I explain it..

OK - Apparently, I have several 4.6 DAZ 64bit programs installed on this machine. I'm not sure how or why I did that (maybe because I'm afraid to delete things and it is my oldest machine (So I did it when I didn't know  anything about what I was doing)). Now,,, I'm pretty sure I know what happened to the above problem I had.

    After the OS update I did, some how I opened the 4.6 version that did not have the AoA Script/Shaders in the obligatory support folders.  I'm usng the same "Content Library" so AoA is available for all the versions in all the places I use. (I called them Assets because they are in where all the other assets are and are recalled (or put in the Scene) from the Content Library) But,,, because they are plugins of sorts, they also have to have support files in support folders in the Daz application folder, not necessarily the Plugin folder but Shader, Script, etc, folders.  So what I'm saying is I'm using the same Content Library for every DS project I use, on various machines, but on that particular machine I used the Daz Studio Application that didn't have the support files (not the original DAZ application in which I created the project) to open up my elaborate scenes which used the AoA Advanced Lights. Make Sense?

    Before I noticed the lighting and because I was working on animations at the time, and I had saved the scenes as I worked, then, later, when I started to render,, I saw the difference in the look of the scenes. The scene version I had opened on my other machine (which looked great), luckly, was from a backedup version before I merged with the newly saved versions. Or else I might not have figured out what actually happened.  I'm pretty sure that when I saved the scenes with AoA lights from the DS version without the support files for those lights, they became "branded" as not being valid AoA lights or something like that.  At that point they wouldn't work in the proper version of DS that I had now found and went back to using. I didn't have to re-install AoA because they did have the support files on the proper version. Duh to me! 

   OK, so I opened up the proper DS application with the right scripts/shaders in the right place and ran the program. This made the AoA light Controls appear and available in the Program BUT STILL the old scenes with the AoA lights already placed and set in the scene DID NOT work, just like when I tried it in the 4.9 version. I 'm sure they didn't because they were saved from the "Nonsupport files" version of DS.  I could make a new scene, add an AoA Advanced light of any kind and it worked perfectly but because the old scene was corrupted by using that "bad" version (as it had been saved wrongly) they didn't work.  There fore, Like I said, I believe they were some how Branded (because of the no support files save). The AoA lights are there, the Controls are there but the Lights themselves didn't actually render out, as if there was no light there at all. This makes sense, I guess, if you think about it. Now when I bring in the "Backed Up" file that was never opened up in the "nonsupport files" version. So in essance it was never branded and it works as originally planned.  Phew!!!!   I guess this was not DAZ'z fault but it did happen because of an update. I feel a little better because I know what happened, and I'm back to normal, but I did waste a week or so trying to figure out what happened, All because of an update!.  Still though, I have a "Keymate" not working in Seirra problem. I went back to see that I might have been wrong about that BUT I wasn't.  Something isn't quite right. It crashes and locks up under normal use or just having it activated in general. Maybe if I were more of a computer person, I would actually enjoy this and thrive through it but it only gets me down. 

Thanks for Listening, Hope it was some help to you,

Steve