Surfaces Presets tab not including DAZ Uber shaders. SOLVED!
GeminiX22
Posts: 8
I have recently been unable to access the Daz uber shaders in my Surfaces-Presets tab. Before it's suggested, YES they are installed. I can go to the Content Library tab, under Shader Presets, Iray, Daz Uber and apply them to surfaces from there. Like most people I use my Surfaces tab to do all my shading, but for some reason the presets tab is not detecting these shaders. Is there a way to refresh the list or something.
Post edited by GeminiX22 on
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The Surfaces Presets tab is Smart Content, which is dependent on the metadata. The same conditions apply as in the Smart Content window, so verify if they appear there (or not), also.
The only shaders showing up in my Smart Content window is a Strange Substances Effects package, which is a 3Delight package. None of the other 3Delight shaders are there and No Iray shaders are there at all. That said, the Presets tab has some Iray shaders but not all of them. It seems to me that since upgrading to version 4.12, I've lost the Daz Uber set as well as the NVIDIZ MDL Example set from the Surfaces, Presets tab. Also some of my new Iray materials sets, such as, Ground Shaders, Industrial Steel, etc., do no load into the Presets tab either. At the same time, all can still be found under Content Library. So yes installed and useable, just from an inconvenient location.
If this is a metadata issue, is there a way to refresh or update the metadata to get the tabs to show the current installed products?
You can re-import metadata in DIM by right-clicking on the installed product(s), and selecting "Re-Import Metadata..." for one or more selected products. If that fixes the problem, you should be good to go. Otherwise a little more digging will be needed.
First, a few observations. In the Content Library pane, you have selected the base DAZ Uber folder, and they show that the metadata is present (the yellow flashes in the upper right that say Shader). This is good, and they should show up wherever appropriate, if the database is intact. These are organized by folder, as installed.
In the Smart Content panel, you have selected "Shaders>3Delight>Effect", which is presumably the only one available, for the given context. I see at the top of the tree, you have "Female" as a filter. I presume that there is a female figure selected in the scene. On my installation, "Strange Substances" appears under Default>Shaders>Other (as per the original metadata).
In the Surfaces pane you have selected one sub-heading of the Iray shaders, namely Bone, and that is what shows, and that's all that will show. Since nothing is selected and Filter by Context is not checked for that case, all possible shaders are being shown. Selecting other sub-headings will show what's in there.
Smart Content is organized by Category, both default and any custom categories you may define, and not by folder. For example, the DAZ Iray Uber shaders should be under various sub-headings of Shaders>Iray, the likes of: Uber, Car Paint, Crystal, Emissive, Fabric, Glass, Leather, Metal, etc. If in doubt, check the metadata from the Content Library by right-clicking on the folder with the contents and choosing Edit Metadata. Select an item in the top half, and check the values set for Categories and Compatibility (the two major fields) to see if they match what shows in the Smart Content. If "Filter by Context" is unchecked you should see every shader available, along with every other product file in the other headings.
I don't have a Daz Uber folder or at that very least I can't find it. Should I use the above fix by re-importing the Metadata?
Do you mean a folder in the Content Library? They would be in (Your Library)>Shader Presets>Iray>DAZ Uber, as shown in the screenshot. They are installed with Default Resources for DAZ Studio, so I'm pretty sure they are present. You can find the path to any installed product file in DIM with a right-click, Show Installed Files...
If you mean in Smart Content, they would be scattered under various sub-categories of Shaders>Iray, as mentioned earlier. Re-importing metadata won't hurt, but might not change anything if it is already there and in good order.
Don't forget that Smart Content is context sensitive if the "Filter by Context" box is checked, so only compatible products and files will show for the selected item, based on how the metadata is set up (which comes from the vendor, when provided). For example, in an empty scene, you would only be able to access figures, props, lights, and such, but not shaders, nor materials, nor anything that applies to something else, since there is nothing to apply it to. Add something to the scene, then select it, and the Smart Content list will change. If you want to see everything all the time, uncheck "Filter by Context".
In my content folder I go to Shader Presets >Iray> and there is no Daz Uber so I'll re-import the metadata and see what goes on.
Thanks!
You're saying "content folder", but there are two of them — the Content Library pane and the Smart Content pane. Which one are you looking in?
Note that the Content Library DAZ Studio Formats and Poser Formats is a direct view of the actual content files in the actual locations stored in your computer, and is not affected by re-importing the metadata. Smart Content is a filtered and sorted view of a database of links pointing to your content files, and is completely dependent on that database — if the database goes bad, or the metadata that goes into it is not correct, Smart Content will glitch until the database is fixed.
Woo Hoo... So after an ungodly amount of trial and error, I finally solved my problem.
To start, I do not use the Smart Content pane when using Daz. These past couple of days has been pretty much the first time I even opened it, but this is where I found the solution.
I was having an issue, where eventhough, all of my shaders and materials were installed and accessable through My Content Library, Some were missing from the Smart Content pane and even more were missing from the Surfaces Preset tab, (which is my main method of appling shaders).
I found the fix in the Smart Content Pane. With nothing loaded into the scene, Open the Smart Content tab, click on the Products Tab, and uncheck the Filter by Context box. Next, in the list to the right go to Shaders and select Iray. Now we have product images of our purchases that have Iray shaders included in them. I noticed that some were in colour and some were black and white. Along the botom are some tabs, I was on ALL. I clicked on INSTALLED and noticed they were all in colour. I clicked on AVAILABLE and noticed they were all black and white. So I right clicked on all the black and white ones and saw an option to install, so I did, and now my Surfaces Presets tab is being updated with new catagories and all of the shaders are accessable through the Surfaces tab.
The metadata is set up by Daz QA, not by the vendor, for items in the Daz store. Some freebies and products from other stoes may have metadata, and that probably is set up by the person creating the content.
Really? That's quite the burden for QA, but I guess it ensures some consistency of form. Better to just say, then, that the metadata comes with the product.
(Cross post but there are so many threads on the subject that I felt it was ok to do so)
Most people do not see the shaders in the Surfaces Tab and spend hours trying to figure out if they have this and that installed when the issue is often ultra simple :
Use the Surface selection tool (Alt+Shift+M). Instead of selecting an object in the viewport, now you can select a surface.
And suddenly, the default shaders and any extra shaders you eventually bought on the store, are there in The Surface / Presets Tab.