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Update Custom morphs?

stitlownstitlown Posts: 294
in Technical Help (nuts n bolts)

Hi Guys,

ISSUE: Update of custom morphs appears to have failed, with the original morphs all that is showing through on a fresh load.

A search of the forums did not seem to find anything directly relevant.

I'm working on some custom morphs for a particular scenario.  They are both fairly extreme distortions of the base mesh and "cascading" in that, to achieve a sequence of "action", first one morph is applied, then a second and then a third. All good - and I was happy with iteration one, but then I had to change the object which the morphs were trying to fit around.  All good again and I came up with my three revised morphs.  The new morphs were created with slightly different names. When I was happy, I deleted the old morphs (edit mode / delete property) and renamed the new morphs to the old names.  I saved the scene .duf and I saved the three morphs using save as / support asset / morph asset.  As it happened, I can see after the event that I used a slighly different product name for the new set so in ... data / .../ <model>  /  morphs / <me> / , there are now two product directories with my three morphs, with the same names.

But when I reload the .duf, or put the model into a new blank scene, what I get appears to be my 6 Feb version of the morphs, not my 12 Feb version of the morphs.

I have tried renaming the 6 Feb morphs in their product file to different names - same problem.   I have tried copying the 12 Feb .dsf files into the 6 Feb product directory - same problem.

Any suggestions on both how to make my 12 Feb morphs ascendent now; and what workflow to follow in the future to not end up in this bind.

Thanks, Lx

Comments

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 102,730

    Try removing the older set of .dsf files from the data folder. If DS finds two morphs with the same name (which usually matches, but doesn't come from, the file name) then only the first will be loaded.

  • stitlownstitlown Posts: 294

    Ah, Richard. You are my Lodestar!  "Doesn't come from the file name" must be the key. I will try again in the morning.

    Out of curiosity ... if I'd got the product name identical in the save as / support asset, would it have overwritten the old files and all worked a-okay?  If so, that should be the workflow I aim for.

    Thank you, Lx

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 102,730

    Yes, if the save settings had been the same the old assets would have been overwritten.

  • stitlownstitlown Posts: 294

    Thanks, Richard - multiple files were, indeed, the problem.  12 Feb revisions now recovered. Understanding slightly increased. Cheers. Lx

  • stitlownstitlown Posts: 294

    A quick follow up on this Richard - it appears, over time, I've created assets under 5 or more names, some just spelling or %20 variations on the one name.  If I wanted to rationalise all the stuff in my Daz Library to just 2 working names, can I do it by just moving the file locations - or will that blow-up the assets and any reference to them in scene files,  If it's not as simple as moving them, is there a "best practice" workflow for doing the rationalisation.  By and large, I don't have the same issue with eg texture files plyus i know how to fix a broken texutre file reference.  Cheers, Lx

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 102,730

    The saved refrences do use the relative path, so yes I'm fairly sure that changing the name in the folders would break things.

  • stitlownstitlown Posts: 294
    edited March 2019

    Again, FWIW, it's proved not that big a deal to move the files to the preferred location and then (using some text editor on the uncompressed files) edit the limited number of references in the asset .duf to the new locations. but note that this has to be done in all downstream files eg the UV Sets and Morphs.  It's possible that in a scene, the old references will persist, in which case the item has to be re-loaded and used to replace the damaged one.

    But the easiest is to just save the asset anew in the location wanted etc. etc. and then delete the old data. But note that an old scene file may reference the old data

    Cheers, Lx

     

    Post edited by stitlown on
  • Syrus_DanteSyrus_Dante Posts: 983
    edited June 2019

    Hi stitlown,

    I'm following this thread since a while and it seems you have found a way to edit the references in the DUF DSF files yourself with a text edior and the serach and replace method.

    I've written some descriptions about saving Morph Assets and Figure/Prop Assets and leaned a few things while working with those inside of Daz Studio.

    Daz Studio can trick you easiely with this behaviour how it handles the Morph and Figure/Prop Assets in a scene. While I have some experience with adding Properties like custom moprhs to props and figures I had discovered simmilar issues.

    This post took some time to write and the help comes a bit late but maybe you and other readers can benefit from the descriptions.

     

    Property Name and Label

    The first thing to notice is that all Properties of a Figure/Prop like a Moprh that holds a shape got an internal Name and a user facing Label. The Label is what shows up in the Parameters pane and the internal Name can only be seen and edited by the Parameters Settings dialog that pops up by clicking on the gear icon on the Property slider in the Parameters pane. It seems that there is a loose naming convention that the real Property Name must not contain spaces while the Label can have them for easy reading. If you inspect the DUF DSF files content in a text editor (it's plain ASCII text but the DSF can be saved as a compressed zip archive with DSF file extension) you will see the spaces in filenames and paths gets converted into "%20" for the Daz Studio script interpreter to read them.

    If you are using Morph Loader Pro to load new shape morphs onto the figure/object in the scene the Property Name and Label by default gets the same in the Morph Loader Pro options dialog. But you can also change that later with the Parameters Settings dialog. Its a good advice to bring up the Parameters Settings dialog anyway on newly added Properties to change things like Limits, Property Group, Auto Follow and so on.

     

    Saving Morph Assets

    The new Properties added to the figure/object first only exists in memory, if you save the Daz Studio scene now by default those additional Properties gets saved "embedded" in the DUF scene file and are only available in this and any further saved scene file. This is not just true for single properties but as soon as you edit some other aspects of the original "Figure/Prop Asset" in the scene with for example the Geometry Editor or the Node Weight Maps Brush tool it becomes an independend Figure/Prop Asset and all changes gets saved "embedded" along with the Scene DUF file.

    [Edit]: Once something got edited the asset gets tagged as "modified" and is no longer handled as the the original asset from the Content Library but as an altered version and will get saved "embedded" in any Scene, Scene Subset, Character Preset, Werable Preset that you save. I you keep that in mind and you simply use those saved scene and preset files from the library to load your modified assets you can get away without ever saving Morph Assets or Figure/Prop Assets.

    If you want to finaly save your modified or new created morph assets to the content library to have them available by default when loading the Figure/Prop Asset to a new scene you have to use File>Save As>Support Asset(s)>Morph Asset(s). In the Save Morph Asset options dialog you have to choose the Content / Asset Directory, the Vendor and the Product name.

    The Asset Directory for the morph files can differ from the original Content Directory that the original Figure/Prop Asset is saved to. For example you can have more than one Daz Studio Format "native" Content Directories paths setup in the Content Directories Manager to keep the commercial products seperate from your own content creations and product addons. While the original Genesis figure asset is saved in the main Content Directory / library your additional morphs can be saved in the My Library. This can also help you finding the files on disc lateron.

    The Vendor and the Product name gets added as sub folders in the Content Directory path where the Morph Asset(s) gets saved to .../data/.../Morphs resulting in this path construction:

    Asset Directory:

    [Content Directory] / [data] / [Vendor] / [Product] / [Item] / [Morphs] / [Vendor] / [Product] / [Property Name] .DSF

    While the first Vendor and Product Name is the original creator of the Item (Figure/Prop Asset) the second Vendor and Product is the name you provide. Sometimes it seems a bit too complicated but everything in Daz Studio is handled as a part of a product that is how the database works.

    Also notice that while Daz Studio saves the Morph Asset(s) it picks the Property Name not the Label to generate the "FileName.dsf" this can be the cause of another pitfall. You may have already changed the Label, saved the Morph Asset(s) and wonder why the DSF files named after the OBJ files you have loaded with Morph Loader Pro.

    I higly recommed you to open up your file browser and navigate to the right Morphs folder before saving any additional morphs to your "Product" folder. To remember where I saved my morphs before or to prevent typos I tend to copy-paste the Product folder name from the file browser to the Save Morph Asset dialog.

    You should be careful what you do while saving morphs because it can get cluttering real soon.

    File>Save As>Support Asset(s)>Save Modified Assets

     

    Deleting Properties

    As you may have noticed already if you have set the Parameters pane with the right-click menu to Edit-Mode the menu will also include Delete Selected Property so you can choose a selection of morphs to delete them. But the original Morph Asset DUF DSF files remain on disk and by reloading the scene of figure the deleted morphs gets loaded agian from the Content Directory if you don't delete them manualy.

     

    Consolidate Properties

    Another conflict that can happen with saving Properties as Morph Assets are naming conflicts if two or more Morph Assets that share the same Property Label. If the internal Property Names are different and the Morph Assets are saved maybe in another product folder with another DUF DSF File name Daz Studio will not show an error message and instead by default combine those Properties to a single slider with the caption "(2): My Morph Name". You can open up the Parameters pane Option Menu (the lined button on the top) and uncheck Consolidate Properties. This will show independend silders for all Properties with the same Label so you can open up the Parameters Settings dialog to see the internal Property Name, that is by default the same as the Morph Asset DUF DSF file saved on disk. With this method you can search and delete the conflicting files from disk with a file browser or otherwise solve conflicts with Labels by renaming.

     

    Conflicts with Duplicate Formulars found

    Every now and then I see this "Duplicate Formulars Found" message while I load my Scene SubSets or Scene files wher I've added new properties to my genesis figures or clothings.

    My advice to avoid all issues is a workflow that goes like this: start with a "Asset Setup Scene" where you first load the original Figure/Prop Assets from the library. There should be not much else in the scene if for example you want to use the ERC-Freeze command to save current Property slider values to new Controler Properties.

    Then you can add and edit your new the Properties with loading morphs from OBJs with Morph Loader Pro. Next I would create Control Properties for the the morphs therefore I choose Create New Property from the Parameters pane Edit-Mode right-click menu. The New Property is empty and does nothing until you right-click it again and choose ERC-Freeze to save the various other morph silders to be controlled by this New Control Property.

    Once every Property is setup and working its time to save the Morph Assets:

    File>Save As>Support Asset(s)>Morph Asset(s)

    or if you are working on a new figure/prop:

    File>Save As>Support Asset(s)>Figure/Prop Asset

    After executing these commands I higly recommend you to delete the current figure/prop... clothing, hair whatever you are working on from the scene and load it again from the library or start with a new scene. Never ever continue to work on the "property setup scene" project file because all the new Property Assets you've added there, even the Figure/Prop assets you may have changed are still saved "embedded" in this scene file. Also don't save Scene SubSets out of these "property setup scenes" because they also can contain "embedded" assets.

    [Edit]:

    1. Morph Assets saved in the "data" folder have the DSF not DUF file extension
    2. Asset Directory is a path including the Content Directory
    Post edited by Syrus_Dante on
  • stitlownstitlown Posts: 294

    Hey, Thanks SD for the extended response - lots of good stuff there - some I knew and some I did not, especially the risks of continuing on with all the older stuff embedded in a developmental scene.  I've yet to play with ERC Freeze but will need to shortly.

    Great Karma to you. Cheers, Lx

  • Syrus_DanteSyrus_Dante Posts: 983

    Yeah Richard came up with the term embedded but it descripes it quiet well.

    By reading my post again I should have made clear what happens in the case "Conflicts with Duplicate Formulars found". It seems the described conflict is caused by previously saved morph assets loading from the data directory in the content library and still existing embedded morphs saved in the Scene or Subset file it only occures if you reload the older scenes.

    Also I see the line "File>Save As>Support Asset(s)>Save Modified Assets" at the end of the Saving Morph Assets section sliped in there that I wanted to write more about but forgot. I don't suggest you to use the Save Modified Assets command for added properties its better to use the Save Morph Assets dialog. One reason beside of other unpredictable issues is if there is not yet a Product defined in which the morphs/properties should be saved to Daz Studio saves them in the Base folder of the Figure/Prop Asset directory.

  • Syrus_DanteSyrus_Dante Posts: 983

    Here are a few recources of information about ERC-Freeze:

    This is what can be found in the Documantation Center: Saving Morphs (WIP) 2014

    Some kind of reference manual about the how ERC-Freeze works:

    Information on ERC Freeze feature

    My latest instructions on how to use ERC-Freeze:

    How do I save a eye morph/ translation with a new character?

    My first post about how to use ERC-Freeze:

    My comment at: TUTORIAL - Creating a Genesis/G2F/G2M/G3M/G3M Full Body Morph for DAZ Studio Pro 4.6 by RKane_1

  • stitlownstitlown Posts: 294

    Thanks. More karma to you. Lx

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