Problems With (I assume) Ancient DS Products

Prince Wao

Apologies for the length of this, but it's driving me nuts!

Needing to add some wildlife to a new composition, I last night bought the following:

Rodents by AM: PolyMorph (SKU 38537)

Rodents by AM: Squirrels of Eastern Hemisphere (SKU 38539)

Rodents by AM: Squirrel Props & Poses (SKU 38543)

Buck (SKU 334)

Buck Poses (SKU 1074)

Elusive Buck Poses (SKU 6159)

The first of 3 problems I had and have is that downloading via Install Manager I suddenly noticed that part of the download which hadn't been in the original product list was Hexagon 2.5. I've never used Hexagon and don't know why I'd need it, but irksomely the final part of that wouldn't download and the notification was something to do with there not being a file path and to make sure there is one under settings and applications (or that's as far as I recall), but Hexagon doesn't appear in my applications list (Windows 10 64 bit). I then found that Hexagon had appeared on my laptop so I opened it and it required a serial number. So I found the serial number in DS and copied and pasted it into the box in Hexagon only to be informed it was invalid. I tried and failed a few times. This was annoying as I just wanted to start using the squirrels and buck I'd purchased. Thus:

Question 1: although there's no mention of it on the Rodents and Buck product pages, do I need Hexagon for something to do with these? Otherwise I don't even want it.

Next I'll go to the Buck problem. There's a hairless red Buck but it doesn't state "Actor" and there's a 'white' Buck Map (obviously a material), but both load as models independently - ie: the Map doesn't require the Buck to manifest in an image - but if I want to add the Map to the Buck and pose and position the Buck I also have to independently pose and position the map in the exact same spot. However, the product is supposed to be a red buck and all I can get is the 'white' mapped version or the bald red version. I'm assuming that the Buck and Rodents products are ancient which is why there's no standard Actor file and then a separate Materials file, but:

Question(s) 2: is there an order I'm supposed to apply these 2 files in order to get a red buck which is what is advertised? And is there a way to attach the Map to the Buck so that I don't have to pose and position 2 items all of the time? Or am I missing something else?

Finally re the Rodents, I've just discovered while writing this that I need the Look At My Hair Free Player - as previously the squirrels had no bushy tails - but even with that now downloaded I'm baffled as to what order I need to insert the various files into an image to get any squirrel furred, plus which files not to use, if any. EG: Firstly there's a Rodent PolyMorph given as "Actor" in one folder; next there's the 5 squirrel breeds folder which contains 3 sub-folders - Iray (which is currently irrelevant as I'm using 3DL), LAMH, and Standard; then in the Materials folder there are 2 materials subfolders, the usual Iray and 3DL. I have a similar problem to the Buck product above in that the Rodent PolyMorph loads as a model (Actor), but so do the breeds without first using the PolyMorph. If I load a squirrel (without the PM) it loads coloured, but adding the material doesn't make a difference. If I only load a LAMH squirrel it takes awhile to load but I get 2 items listed under Scene: the specific breed of Squirrel plus the Squirrel LAMH Group - and these 2 items can't be parented one to the other or 'fitted to' - so although when I apply a pose I get the 2 working together in that I get a proper if slow render (albeit that the LAMH Group doesn't change pre-render, it stays in the original pose), but if I move or scale the Squirrel, the LAMH Group stays as it is. If I want to move the animal I also have to move the LAMH Group; but if I want to scale up the animal (which is actually mouse sized and way too small for my compositions) the LAMH Group remains the 100% size despite that I've scaled it and all children to 300% while the animal itself renders at 300% but no longer has a bushy tail and hair! Thus:

Question(s) 3: is there a specific order for loading these irksome files? and can one actually scale the darned rat-squirrel so that at 300% or more it actually has a bushy tail and actually looks like a squirrel?! As with the Buck above, is there a way to have the Actor and the Material connected so that I don't have to keep moving 2 items around?

PS: I can only find the Buck under Products in the Product Library. Is it perchance in some other obscure and illogical file/folder (as are certain other hard to locate products)?

sriesch

Question 2: While I can't locate my buck map to confirm, that should just be two copes of the buck; one with no material, and one with a material.  Just use one or the other.  Presumably you will normally want the one with the material.

Question 1 partial: I don't know what's going on there, however I can think of no reason why Hexagon would be required to use the rodents.  I'm guessing possibly you are using DIM, and Hexagon showed up as a new download coincidentally at the same time you went to download your new purchase?  I know they recently started working on Hexagon again, so perhaps there is a new version or public beta that just became available, or perhaps it is something else.  However I think you can treat your Hexagon install as separate from the rodents, if you don't need it now, worry about it later.

Prince Wao

sriesch ~ thanks for the reply! I'll probably just delete Hexagon a should I ever need it in future I can always redownload it. ... Re Buck, at least I can use it, but I'm baffled that it isn't a materilaed red one as advertised. If I load the red hairless one first and then the Map over that I just get a hybrid of the two, wjile the hairless red one just looks bald and unreal when rendered.

Chohole

I only have Poser and an old version at that  and yes there were 2 versions of the buck, with the texture actually filed under Zygote on my PC, with the original download,   that shows just how old this product is.

Richard Haseltine

1. I think that's the hexagon content, you presumably have Hexagon (unless it's been added to all accounts) but don't have it installed and don't have your download filters set to show it - its apperaring now is because it has just been updated, it has nothing to do with the animals.

3. As with character presets, like Victoria 7, you can load them instead of loading the base and applying shapes and amterials - they are just conveniences. Not being able to fit/parent LAMH nodes is normal, but they should - as I recall - update to reflect the pose (Edit: just tried and yes, the hairs do update though there is a noticeable lag for my system - just loading the LAMH Grey Squirrel). Just loading the LAMH version should give all the needed content.

Prince Wao

Thank you, Chohole and Richard, I now have all things sorted, though the squirrels make a labour intensive product. As I wanted to use all 5 breeds in the composition I'm working on, I decided to first create a subset of each one in the poses I planned to use in the scene. That alone took 30 minutes due to the fur not instantly following the body. When I loaded each subset into the scene all I had to do were the X & Z Transitions and the Y Rotation, then later some minor adjustments of the necks and limbs. The very first one I loaded and then X Transitioned, the fur followed the body almost immediately, but then it didn't after the Z Trans and the Y Rotate. The fur on the other 4 breeds never followed the body, so I concentrated on getting each body to the place I wanted, then input the same figures for the LAMH and sometimes that got close and sometimes not, but the way I finally got all LAMH images to the exact positions of the bodies was to continue to Trans or Rotate the body, each time cancelling the last instruction and bit by bit all came together. Sometimes I had to set the Trans & Rotate on the LAMH (normally they're always 0 despite the body postionss) which moved to where the body was, but then reset each slide control back to 0 and the LAMH stayed where it was. The slide controls are useless as neither the bodies or the LAMHs move simultaneously with the control, so the only way to move each figure was numerically. I've also found the same sluggishness on older DS sets or when I've added Genesis hair or clothing to a Genesis 2 figure. I assume that's because each time DS upgrades the older sets and characters become less compatible. "Sluggishness" is actually an understatement as one moves the slide control expecting the character or prop to follow. But it doesn't then a second or so later it suddenly leaps across the scene to wherever the slide control ended, but it's never where one wants it. As above, the only way to move the character or prop is to input such as -250, then it f that's not quite right, -245 or whatever, and so on. It took me over an hour to load and position the 5 squirrels! Had it been 4 newer characters or props it would have taken about 10 minutes.

Richard Haseltine

That is a pain. I can't recall if there are options in LaMH to reduce the number of preview hairs or the like, to speed things up (possibly).

Prince Wao

I'd like to add a bit more re the labour intensivity of the Rodents/Squirrels for the sake of anyone in future searching the forums re these pesky critters. It's taken me since my last comment above to finish what's not a complex composition in that in total it contains 11 animals - 5 being squirrels - 2 humans, 2 trees, the groundwork and sky and mountain backdrop. The light is filtered for tone and intensity increased, so there's not a lot of dabbling with it. However, just those 5 squirrels have proved a real pain to work with and I've had the programme crash 5 times, 4 of those times my laptop also freezing requiring a Ctrl-Alt-Del to get out of it. My LT is an MSI gamer which I bought for its high end graphics card and 16GB RAM, so it's easily up to the task and isn't itself the problem. But here are the facts re the squirrels files problem, starting with the minor:

Saving the scene takes 3-4 times as long as most; but spot-rendering doesn't even become visible on screen until after about 4 minutes, while loading the file takes around 15, nearly all of that time being loading the squirrels.

The first bigger problem is that when translating, rotating and adjusting the poses of each squirrel, the LAMH fur files don't always follow the Actor files, and to solve this a lot of juggling is required as I mentioned in my previous comment. My 5th and final crash came when 1 squirrel's LAMH file wouldn't follow the body after a minor Y rotate and no matter what I tried it refused to conform and finally I got "Daz Studio is not responding" and eventually I had to Ctrl-Alt-Del and start again. I finally solved the rotation problem by translating the newly rotated squirrel's X parameter back to 0 in which case the LAMH file followed it despite that it was still at the old Y rotation, then I undid the X to 0 in which case the squirrel's body returned to its correct position, but the LAMH file stayed at 0. I then went to the LAMH file (re which all of the parameters are always on 0 despite the bodies' positions) and I just clicked on 'reset' which didn't alter the 0, but at which point the LAMH file returned the body and at the correct rotation.

But next comes the crippler problem which I at least theorise I've sussed the problem as what I did solved it:

When the squirrels are loaded, the files appear in the Scene menu in this order:

Red squirrel
Red squirrel LAMH
Prevost squirrel
Prevost Squirrel LAMH
Grey squirrel
Grey squirrel LAMH
and so on through the 5 squirrels.

However, once the scene is saved and exited, when one reloads it later they appear in this order:

Red squirrel
Prevost squirrel
Grey squirrel
Red squirrel LAMH
Prevost Squirrel LAMH
Grey squirrel LAMH
and the same for the following 2 squirrels.

After I'd loaded all 5 squirrels I later added a 4th camera, a horse and a giraffe, but then these appear in the Scene menu between the squirrels and the LAMH files thus:

Red squirrel
Prevost squirrel
Grey squirrel
Red bush squirrel
Gambian Sun squirrel
Camera 4
Giraffe
Horse
Red squirrel LAMH
Prevost Squirrel LAMH
Grey squirrel LAMH
Red bush squirrel LAMH
Gambian Sun squirrel LAMH

IE: all new files added after the squirrels separate the squirrel Actor files from their LAMH files; and once the scene menu was like this the programme crashed 4 times when trying to spot render (in 3DL) or fully render. I theorised that this new gap causes the programme to fail to link the Actor and LAMH files, but although I could be wrong about that, I did solve the problem by first writing down all of the positional parameters of the squirrels, deleting them all and then reloading them from scratch so that now the Actor and LAMH files followed each other again. So my recommendation to anyone using these old files is to leave the squirrel or squirrels until everything else is set up so that their Actor and LAMH files are never separated by newly input items.

PS: I recall some months ago reading that some users suggested that DS add a reviews section for all products in the store just as does Amazon. I think that's a brilliant idea as it would be of immense practical use to purchasers. DS may have some worries that if they did that then some products wouldn't sell as well, but even if so the reverse would also be true as I often consider a product and then decide against the purchase if I have any question about it. Reviews may well have applied to my query and thus I might have bought. An accurate review re the Rodents/Squirrels above wouldn't have prevented my buying the product as I specifically wanted squirrels - and that there are 5 breeds is a big bonus - but at least I would have known how to handle the pesky critters and saved an enormous amount of time.