My shader presets work for me, but not someone I share them with

lukon100

I made some iRay hierarchical shader presets for a free poser model, and shared them on ShareCG. They work for me, but not for some one who downloaded them from ShareCG.

This is only one person giving me this feedback. And I’m wondering whether other people also have problems with it.

Can some people here on this forum test my shader presets for me to verify the extent of the problem?

This is the free poser model: https://sharecg.com/v/72921/11/Poser/Bruckner-Typhoon-Model-C68-Aircar

This is my download containing the shader presets: https://sharecg.com/v/95254/21/DAZ-Studio/Gull-Wing-Window-Doors-for-Bruckner-Typhoon-V1

DrunkMonkeyProductions

just checked, every one is producing the same error. 4.12.0.86.

"2020-02-23 00:48:10.835 Invalid hierarchy for selected node(s) and "preset_hierarchical_material" type; no root(s) found."

Looks like this is the issue

        {
            "id" : "brushed_full_contrast.jpg-5",
            "name" : "brushed_full_contrast.jpg",
            "map_gamma" : 0,
            "map" : [
                {
                    "url" : "/resources/brushed_full_contrast.jpg",
                    "label" : "brushed_full_contrast.jpg"
                }

There's no "Resources" folder in the content, either the original or your presets, nor is there anything in the DS folder(program files>Daz 3D>Daz Studio)

 

lukon100

Thanks, DrunkMonkeyProductions.

So for some reason my attempt to package my hierarchical materials prests has failed.

Is there a tutorial I can consult on how to do it right?

DrunkMonkeyProductions

you just need to figure out where in your setup that file is, brushed_full_contrast.jpg.

Try loading the figure,

apply the preset,

then check the channel, under the surfaces tab, that has that texture applied,

Click on the Image box and then click the 'Browse' option, that will take you to the drive location of the JPG.

Then you just need to figure out where this texture came from.

If it's a merchant resource, you just need to attribute it to the original author, generally, check the associated EULA for the product.

If it's anything else, check the eula or contact the vendor that created it to see if it's ok to include it your preset.

 

lukon100

Thanks again for your reply.

But I still don’t understand what went wrong.

In every one of my materials presets I use a shader called “Metal Brushed” which employs the “brushed_full_contrast.jpg” image that can’t be found.

I remain confused why it can’t be found. My own installation of Daz Studio finds it without any problem.

This isn’t supposed to happen.

The “Metal Brushed” shader is clearly included in what is called the “default resources”.

And I was told I could use any shader in the default resources and every user of Daz Studio would have no problem with it (I guess so long as their version of Daz Studio is close to mine).

I quote Richard Haseltine:

“The Products list in the Content Library, or the Products tab of Smart Content, will let you see the Default Resources product and which files are included - any preset that calls on those sahders will be safe for people who have only that set of shaders.”

https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/368586/how-do-i-identify-the-shaders-that-come-free-with-daz-studio#latest

Are people somehow installing Daz Studio without that collection of shaders also installed?

Is an update possibly changing the location of that “brushed_full_contrast.jpg” image (and other images)?

lukon100

"There's no "Resources" folder in the content, either the original or your presets, nor is there anything in the DS folder(program files>Daz 3D>Daz Studio)"

Perhaps there's a glitch in how DS saves my hierarchical materials presets that truncates "default resources" down to just "resources" when creating paths, because of the space or something. Kinda like what sometimes happen in Linux.

Anyway, because I have 2 installations of DS, I have 2 paths to that image file:

C:\Program Files\DAZ 3D\DAZStudio4\shaders\iray\resources\brushed_full_contrast.jpg

C:\Program Files\DAZ 3D\DAZStudio4 Public Build\shaders\iray\resources\brushed_full_contrast.jpg

lukon100

Could it be that I created my hierarchical material presets in my public build version of DS, which included the “Public Build” part of the path in the call outs for the image files; and thus anyone not using the public build version would have these call outs fail?

Fishtales

On my system the path to that shader is....

F:\My DAZ 3D Library\Shader Presets\Iray\NVIDIA MDL Examples\Metal Brushed.duf

The texture is...

D:\Program Files\DAZ 3D\DAZStudio4\shaders\iray\resources\brushed_full_contrast.jpg

scorpio

I'm a bit confused, are these Shaders, shader presets, material presets, or hierarchical materials presets?

lukon100

I want to make hierarchical materials presets to share with others, that use only the shaders that are included free with Daz Studio in the “Default Resources” product.

I tried a method for doing this a few times already. Sometimes it works fine, and those who download my presets find that they work. But other times my method produces presets that fail instead.

So I must be doing something that sometimes works, but sometimes fails.

I want to to know how to do it right so that it will work every time.

Can someone point me to a tutorial explaining the right way to do it?

Richard Haseltine

How do they fail? The most likely issue is that the textures were applied from a folder that wasn't in a content directory, or the textures are not correctly placed in the zip or are not correctly unpacked, all of which would generate missing file prompts.

Richard Haseltine

Merged duplicate threads - please don't open mutliple threads on the same topic.

Bejaymac

The problem is case sensitive DUF files, in yours the ID for the mesh are "bruckner_typhoon-c68", while in the version I have here the ID is "Bruckner_Typhoon-C68", I editted your files to match the ID in mine and they work.

lukon100

Thanks for the clue, bejaymac. It may even lead to the solution to my problem.

Now my quation is: how did you edit my files?

Consider just one of them, this one here: Bruckner Typhoon, Metal Brushed.duf

What kind of editor did you use to edit it?

If I open it in Notepad, I get undecipherable code. So I'm baffled at how such files can be edited.

Bejaymac

DS has a batch converter for decompressing DUF and DSF files, this will allow you to edit them, I use notepad ++ for editing them, but it's second nature for me to edit files, been doing it since DS 4.0.

The part that's bothering me is why is yours in lower case while mine is upper case, that collection of props should load the same for everybody.

SpottedKitty

lukon100 said:

If I open it in Notepad, I get undecipherable code. So I'm baffled at how such files can be edited.

It's only zip compression. WinZip, WinRAR, 7Zip, anything like that will unpack the plaintext file, or as mentioned you can use the batch converter built into DAZ|Studio.

lukon100

I updated my "product" with a fix that I hope will work. I hope someone who had the problem will download my update and test it.

The fix is basically what Bejaymac discovered. I made additional versions of all my presets, versions that have capitalized "Bruckner_Typhoon-C68". But I also kept and still include the old versions. The old versions work on my 4.11 installation, but fail on 4.12. The new versions work on my 4.12 installation, but fail on my 4.11.

In my download update, I designate the old an new versions by the letters "A" and "B" respectively.

Thanks for all ye help so far, y'all!