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...If this is handled strictly through plugins like Vue, then that would be fine. However if these features are to be native to the base Daz Studio programme. I have some reservations as effectively it would be making Studio pretty redundant with Carrara (save for vertex modelling).
Personally, I do not do animation or game development as I am more of an illustrator. Animation would be best served with an advanced plugin rather than being a native feature of the base progamme. The same with any game building/development related features.
What I like about Daz Studio is it is simple, very intuitive, I can set it up to fit my workflow and needs, and not have it encumbered functions I'll rarely if ever use, which is part of the reason I am not big fan of a "Swiss Army Knife" 3D application. For one trying to create an "all in one" application over complicates the base programme and can also result in more bugs that are harder to track down and fix. Second, there is the "jack of all, master of none" situation where the individual parts do not offer as much in tool selection/versatility as a programme/plugin more dedicated to the particular task would. To create such a programme that did everything well, you would effectively end up with a "3DS Max" which for most of us would be unaffordable.
Basically I do not want to see Daz Studio become a "Carrara clone".
The one feature I and many here do want to see and that Daz Studio has been missing is some form of open ended cloth dynamics (which brings it on even terms with it's competitor, Poser), be it native or via plugin, as well as improved collision detection to support layering better.
As I mentioned here and elsewhere, the route I would like to see Daz take would be to update both Bryce and Hexagon to fix the bugs that have been nagging these programmes for years and bring them into line with 64 bit support. Since they already have bridges with Daz Studio, this would make for a very powerful suite of 3D tools. Hexagon is a more comprehensive modelling tool than the vertex modeller in Carrara as that has always been it's primary focus, Same with the aforementioned Bryce and world/environment design. This way you would have three fully dedicated programmes, each with their own particular focus, that could work together rather than one that sort of does everything but has to cut corners to stay affordable and still operate on most hobbyist's systems.
Daz3d's self-description is Render high resolution stills and animations.
I don't think still artists have anything to worry about Daz3D becoming like 3DSMax or Maya or Motionbuilder! In 2024 maybe...? LOL... Daz Studio's animation side is not even as developed as Iclone the prosumer toy. The simple fact that Carrara exists should suggest the obvious that Daz Studio will never be made very sophisticated or complicated - precisely the reason why I like DS and keep coming back in spite of its plentiful flaws.
Thing is many are calling for DS animation features improvement, which, is NOT the same as 'making things complicated'. In fact these things will make life easier and more fun for everyone. It's time to progress down that track for sales expansion and brand building anyways. Are veterans protesting 3delight having its hidden gems revealed for fear of 3delight becoming too sophisticated? Are people scared that IPR is making life easier for us?
Why would anyone fear animation-supporting features like...
More professional Instancing, dynamic hair, dynamic cloth, collision, physics, better IK, smarter Genesis with entry level AI like terrain recognition and fun and game The Sims right-click instruction? Can't we see that ALL OF THESE are what typical still render artists have been asking for forever?
Can't we see that all these make creation process far easier for animators and more fun for still artists TOO? Is that so scary? :)
Reeeelaxxx... Everything that helps make animation 2X easier will make still render 10X easier....
Whether the animation capability is improved natively or via plugin, it will be up to Daz Studio and vendors. The more official-3rd party collaboration, the more everyone benefits. Do I need to spell out Optitex deadweight or Garibaldi aftersales support? Will Reality4 be even less buggy or god forbid more user-friendly if it has tighter native integration?
Can we ask for what we want WITHOUT devaluing other people's requests?
Can progress be win win win? :)
Keeping it in perspective and more positive my friend...
..again if most of this is done via the plugin route (which kind of is Daz Studio's M.O.) I have no issue. Part of the reason I like Vue's concept as well is that you can effectively build the application as you need it to be though the different modules.
The issue I have is the more bells & whistles that are put in the base application, the more demands it makes on one's system.
Back in the Daz 3.1 days, I had come to the realistion that the days for working in 32 bit were numbered with regards to 3D CG as each update of the application ws demanding more and more resources than 2G of memory and duo core CPUs could offer. At the time many were beginning to migrate to the new core2 quad CPUs and 64 bit systems which Daz 3.1 and the built in 3DL engine supported. The was like a kick to the gut for those of us on extremely tight budgets who couldn't afford to go out and buy a new system, particularly one with a dedicated GPU. So we struggled long, enduring more frequent crashes as both content and updates to the programme became more robust. It got to the point I couldn't even use a lot of the new features like cloth dynamics or IBL (UberEnvionment). One could roll back to 2.3 but it meant a slower render engine and bugs that would never be fixed as well as shaders and textures in new content that were more detailed (like Elite HSS and USS) and in some cases, not backwards compatible.
So in a sense it became a case of "upgrade or die".
That was when I ended up sitting down to learn how to design and build as well as save for my own system as I couldn't afford a new "off the shelf" one (at the time one basically needed a gaming rig rather than an "all purpose" PC which had no dedicated GPU) or a custom build. It took well over a year during which the technology changed again with the introduction of hypertheading CPUs, triple channel memory, and Windows7. Many advised me to hold on and go with the new CPU memory technology and Win7 as Core2 was a dead end and Vista was a basket case, even though it meant having to save and wait a bit more (I already had the specs drawn up for a 64 bit Core 2 quad system). In the end, that was a good advice to follow.
about 1,400$ and several more months later I had (for the day) a pretty wiz bang system 2.8 gHz i7, 12GB DDR3 memory in tri channel mode, the new Fermi nVidia 460 GPU with 1GB GDDR5, dual 7200RPM HDDs, powerful CPU cooler, 750w PSU all in a full height case with 6 fans and enough bays for an additional 7 HDDs and a wide screen display. This system was ready to rock with Daz 3.1 x64 Advanced. Render crashes and slow viewport response were about to become history....
...then Daz came along with 4.0 and Genesis. Suddenly my monster didn't seem quite as "monstrous" anymore. Naturally Genesis was a big improvement but at price in more system resources, same for the base application which included an expanded list of built in features including a content management system. and improved 3DL rendering engine. To this day I have no idea why they even bothered with a 32 bit version as I tried it and at best I could only render a single figure with clothing and hair (on which I had to turn raytracing off) using the base maps in a simple setting with maybe a prop or two and lit by a handful of the standard Daz lights (no UE) and not have it crash while rendering For me, this was the final nail in the 32 bit coffin.
So what will Daz 5.x bring? Given all all the suggestions in this thread, who knows. It's sure bet though it will require even more in system resources than the current version does. Crikey, even 24GB of memory may not be enough.
The bottom line is I feel Daz should actually go more "modular" with Studio rather than simply add new features to the core programme. If anything at least design these features to be "built in plugins" that the user can disable, this way there would be even more control in customising the application to make it more efficient for one's needs and system it is run on.
Actually, Kyoto Kid, your rig sounds quite beefy to me for DS and current GPU renderer ready.
I got in around DS 4.5 in time for a very confusing and 3Dnoob-torturing period of major upholsters. I went away to learn Zbrush and 18 months later I have a better perspective what DS is about in the scheme of things. I can appreciate Daz3D products more now and get a clearer view of the various products.
I agree with you that DS should continue to be kept lo-fi and made more accessible. Even with manuals now, I still feel bad for DS noobs who'd freak out at Joint editor and content library disorientation. The first page of DS manual should really be Poser Daz marital history + current children visitation arrangement.
More serious note, the DS5 stuff I asked for 2 posts ago are strictly speaking not advanced features, but refinement and STREAMLINING of what DS already has. Basically, lean up existing bloated and confusing stuff, get rid of redundant bits, and expose user-friendly things more efficiently. Which leads to increase ease of use and....the holy grail....speed, without having to spend more on hardware.
It is not far fetch to achieve easier and FASTER workflow without having to up system requirement. Case in point, I'm still running the same 2 yo Xeon W764 yet DS is looking leaner AND its renderer is performing far better today then when I first signed up with the same setup.
But yes, this conversation is reminding me I need to give the totally under-marketed Carrara Pro a second look...
...as I've been moving to Luxrender (via Reality) I realise both a memory and GPU upgrade are necessary. To perform GPU rendering your entire scene must fit into VRAM, on average the scenes I create exceed the memory of my current GPU. What that means is not necessarily a crash but poor quality texture processing. In this department I am fortunate though as a gamer friend of mine gave me two Radeon 7950s each with 3GB GDDR5 when he upgraded his game rig. As only one is really needed (having two does little for 3D rendering performance since VRAM does not stack) I'll have a spare for a render box build.
With Reality I have been receiving High Memory Usage warnings when launching a render job and on several occasions even with 3DL have pegged memory load at almost 11G. I don't do a great deal of postwork as due to worsening arthritis I don't have a steady enough hand to do digital painting (I cannot use a tablet and stylus) so I try to get as much out of the initial render pass as I can. This will give me enough to work with for a while until there is major leap in tech like there was a few years ago when everything went 64 bit.
I used to paint in oils so I am patient, I don't need a render process to finish in say, ten minutes, especially with Reality/Lux as once the render process is launched I can let it run in background and start working on an entirely new scene (wish they had a Queue Manager for Daz 3DL like Poser Pro has, was one of my earlier suggestions).
This of course is one advantage for having a lot of CPU threads as in Lux you can assign any number of threads you have to a render job (kind of makes that 8 core Xeon now worth the price as you can split it up and effectively assign 8 threads to rendering and 8 threads for building another scene, modelling, postwork, or whatever).
I am working on the plans for a dual Xeon workstation based on dual 8 core CPUs but for now just for amusement as DDR4 memory is still fairly expensive and it would have to be built with server components. By the time I'd ready to build it, the cost could easily be two thirds to even one half of what it is now and then it may be a reality. In effect it would almost be a mini super computer with 128G memory in four channel mode (expandable to 512) and a Firepro W8100 GPU with 8 GB VRAM. 4.2 TFlop floating point performance Open CL 2.0 and 4K resolution (OpenCL is necessary for GPU assisted/full GPU rendering in LuxRender that is where nVidia falls behind as they petty much are dedicated to their own CUDA GL).
Then, I could consider dabbling in animation.
After about a month working with Studio I'd say that the only thing I miss from Poser are dynamic clothing (meaning I import an OBJ and drape it on whatever mesh I say it collides with).
I would like to see a bridge towards Blender but I understand that DAZ wants to keep Carrara around so no likelihood of such product.
I would have liked to see the Environment tab to be the begging of real (at least Bryce-like) environments but the answer I got was an inequivocable no; on this issue there is still the mcjTeleblender route to send stuff into Blender to do the kind of stuff you see here, here and here.
...unfortunately the bridge from Daz Studio to Carrara is broke Carrara also doesn't read shaders of characters & scene subsets brought in from Daz very well (in several experiments a character I created in Dz either loaded in all grey or all black) as well it has serious autofit and layering issues.
Bryce on the other hand works fine, though like importing for Poser to Vue, you have to set up poses in Daz first then use the bridge to load into Bryce.
As to using mcjTeleblender, until they (the Blender Community) ever get around to providing a more useable UI that works like other 3D software, that path is out for me.
I confess to having not read this thread, so if I repeat others, I apologise.
One issue that is really, really vexing me is that if I do a search in Content Manager, or look at the product lists (alphabetic thing in CM) I find that things I know exist are not revealed, often, I suspect, because they have not gone through the Daz Install program (which is fab!) but are downloads from other sites and often Poser originals. When I find them they usually work, but it is the finding that is proving frustrating.
Products from other sites such as Rendo and RDNA are likely to place the files in the legacy Poser runtime format that was required up until Poser 8. Instead of the top folder being content as they are in DAZ zips, the top folder will usually be Runtime. It's best to unzip the manually and manually move the folders to where you want them.
The majority of these products do not have the metadata that the CMS uses. Therefore, they will not appear in the Smart content pane. If you have the Poser directory properly mapped in the Content Database, they will show up in the Content pane. It is also a good idea to take a look inside the various folders when you unzip them. You would be surprised at how vendors label subfolders. You may be looking for one thing but a vendor may label the folder something completely different.
For brokerages other than DAZ, this isn't likely to change anytime soon and DAZ can do nothing to change it.
I read the words, they are all English; I am English. Why don't I have a clue what they mean?
I don't have a clue how to properly map the Poser Directory, let alone in Content Database.
I think I have generally tried to download manually, but it is possible that I have multiple Runtime levels. I generally copy the Runtime folder in any (non-Daz) downloads into the My Library folder after extracting them to their own folder. I don't normally transfer documentation etc., because the files always seem to match existing files.
I may have bitten off more than I can chew here....
Ok.
DAZ has it's own way of setting up it's zip files. If you open one and look at it the first or top folder is labelled Content. If you look inside, you will see among other folders one labelled Runtime. Runtime is how Poser and older DS files used to be set up.
Most non-DAZ brokers required that their products be setup in the Runtime folder structure. Especially for products that are listed for use in Poser 7 or higher. This is because Poser 7 and the original Pro version of Poser requires that files be in a very rigid set up for the app to use it. DS can use these files as they are. The only requirement is that you copy the Runtime folder to the Runtime folder that resides inside the Content folder in you DS MyLibrary folder.
To map a directory, click on the content pane. In the upper right hand corner, right click on the icon to get the fly out menu.
You will get a pop up that lists DS and Poser directories. If the the Poser directory is not listed add it.
Metadata is what gives you the smart content. Most non-DAZ vendors don't know about and don't use it so content from them will not show up there. However, if you place the files in the correct folders in your MyLibrary folder, they should show up in the Content Library pane.
It takes awhile to learn even the basics and get comfortable with the terms. I've been using Poser for twenty years both privately and professionally and DS since it's alpha testing days and I'm still learning something new all the time.
The one feature I would really like to see is a way to bring up more than one instance of the Content Library at the same time. It would help my workflow out immensely to be able to grab things from say "Expressions" and "Poses" without having to navigate all the folders in between each time.
...I would like it if, when you changed tabs it didn't change your location in the runtime/library tree. So if you were say in in the Poses Tab and changed to the Surfaces Tab, you would still be in .
It has probably been mentioned already, tho I'll put in another gripe and vote for the text fields getting fixed so the courser dose NOT jump to the end, every time a key is pressed.
It is annoying as all hell!
I thought that was a feature, so you could have the library open to a different place in each activity. I admit I haven't tried it since DS3, as it only worked for folder view and not for category view.
I thought that was a feature, so you could have the library open to a different place in each activity. I admit I haven't tried it since DS3, as it only worked for folder view and not for category view. I find that behavior extremely helpful my self.
I spend a lot of time actually putting content on the floor. I know there is a 'send to floor' option, but rarely does this actually work for me. It goes close, but I usually have to zoom in to find stuff is actually a couple inches above the floor.
Would love the option to designate a model as 'floor' and send an item to rest gently on it. Not above or in it. Possible?
There is also a script for dropping a character wearing shoes to the floor, but I don't have a direct link for it. Search his site.
...I don't as usually I when I move from one tab to the other it is to make adjustments on the same item. Maybe set this as a preference.
Talking as a Poser user transitioning to Studio, the only thing I (sorely) miss are dynamics for draping cloth meshes. I mess this functionality so much that I have already planned to see whether I can send G2s into Blender to use Blender cloth engine to do the job.
ICPMCSS said:
DAZ has it's own way of setting up it's zip files. If you open one and look at it the first or top folder is labelled Content. If you look inside, you will see among other folders one labelled Runtime. Runtime is how Poser and older DS files used to be set up.
Most non-DAZ brokers required that their products be setup in the Runtime folder structure. Especially for products that are listed for use in Poser 7 or higher. This is because Poser 7 and the original Pro version of Poser requires that files be in a very rigid set up for the app to use it. DS can use these files as they are. The only requirement is that you copy the Runtime folder to the Runtime folder that resides inside the Content folder in you DS MyLibrary folder.
To map a directory, click on the content pane. In the upper right hand corner, right click on the icon to get the fly out menu.
You will get a pop up that lists DS and Poser directories. If the the Poser directory is not listed add it.
Metadata is what gives you the smart content. Most non-DAZ vendors don't know about and don't use it so content from them will not show up there. However, if you place the files in the correct folders in your MyLibrary folder, they should show up in the Content Library pane.
It takes awhile to learn even the basics and get comfortable with the terms. I've been using Poser for twenty years both privately and professionally and DS since it's alpha testing days and I'm still learning something new all the time.
Thanks. I think I follow that, but how I go back and check the hundreds of downloads are in the right place......
As for the directory mapping, if I have understood correctly, then the appended image suggests that I should be seeing Poser stuff - assuming of course that it is not hiding in even more secret places. Am I right?
Yes, you'll see it in Content Library > Poser Formats
With the Poser directory you need to point "deeper". It slould be MyLibrary>Contente>Runtime... Just pointing at the MyLibrary or the Content folder isn't enough.
As for the non-DAZ zips and products you installed, you will need to do that manually. If you simply unzipped the folders in the main MyLibrary folder, then you should see a folder labelled Runtime. Move this folder inside the content folder. If you are running Windows, it will tell you have a runtime folder there and should it copy/merge the two folders. Tell it yes.
Relaunch DS after you have done this. I found it was easier to keep the content library pane in tree mode as it resembles Windows Explorer and it's folder structure. If you go to the content library pane and go down to where it lists Poser and expand it, you will see Poser's legacy library structure. Characters, Poses, Lights, Hair, Expressions, Props, Cameras, ect. This where you find the content. Characters are figures like V4. Poses can be figure poses, morphs (known as morph poses or mor poses), materials (known as material poses or mat poses), lights are light presets (Poser lights do not really work in DS so don't bother with these), hair is prop hair (conforming hair or figure hair will appear under Characters), Expressions are face files or expression files (these may be in pmd format which is native to Poser, there used to be a script to convert but I don't think it works in the current versions of DS), props are props (they work in DS but may need some tweaking of material settings), cameras are cameras (Poser cameras don't work as expected in DS so don't bother with these either). You may also see Poser material settings (mt5 or mc6). These are procedural textures designed to work in Poser's material room. The DS equivalent is Shader Mixer. However, These types of materials are tied to render engine. DS and Poser use different render engines so their procedural materials don't work all that well (if at all) if trying to cross apps.
Hope this helps a little more.
No, you point to the folder CONTAINING the Runtime folder, and you shouldn't have a folder named "Content" inside "My Library".
No, you point to the folder CONTAINING the Runtime folder, and you shouldn't have a folder named "Content" inside "My Library".
Correct.
Allot of content providers, free and paid for, still have not bothered to update the zip content layout within so when they create a new product they still have "Content" or "My Content" as the Parent folder. If you open up a zip and see this then just drag all the child folders from that to your "My Library" folder and let it add all that to it and it should go where it's supposed to go rather than unzipping it because then it's going to create the older set of folders with "Content" or "My Content" within your "My Library" and really mess things up. I discovered this a while back. It's annoying but some folks just are too lazy or not aware that that parent folder is now called "My Library".
Silly question but how come my DAZ zips have Content as the top folder?
Because the DIM needs that format.
...and usually that is for the Poser CF installs although some content that is useable in both which does not have a separate "Daz" or "DS CF" component will install there as well (for example, ArtCollborations props and sets).
Unlike Poser and its "Runtime" folder, DAZ Studio does not have nor does it need a 'parent' folder. What DAZ Studio does need is a good beginners tutorial explaining the concepts of "relative addressing" and "absolute addressing" and how these are used in relationship to the content library system.
http://www.optitex.com/en
Optitex's site claims 27 thousand users in the world. I say only one of them is in the Milky Way galaxy, and it's debatable if that individual has used Daz Studio in the past two years. (lol)
Ready-made cloths only
http://www.daz3d.com/optitex
http://www.optitex-dynamiccloth.com/
A how to use the stuff for dummies would be really nice, considering most of the Dynamic cloths is for figures two generations behind what I'm currently working with.