How to clear all materials from a figure to start over.

lamoid_5f20d3e469

I was trying to test different material presets on Vicki 6 (in DS 4.6) by clicking on one after another and looking at the results. But after a while it started to look like that rather than replacing each other they were superposing, each one being combined with those already there.
Is that true? Is that how it works?

I sure do wish there were a reasonable manual for this program. Documentation is essentially nonexistent. There are absolutely no official explanations on the details of how this program works anywhere. The reference pages are pitiful. This is an excellent program. But there are effective ly no instructions for how to use it. Every time I try to do something with it I have to spend hours experimenting or ask for help here. It should not be that way.

OK. So, how do I clear all the material presets from a figure to take it back to its default state?

Jaderail

Delete it and load a new one. But for RAM freeing there is a Script in the Scripts>Utilities called Purge Memory and that clears all the stack overflow you have caused, or should. There is also a BASE or grey Genesis style Materials file in one of the folders that will clear the figure to Zero textures again but that will still leave the RAM loaded with all the textures you loaded to the stack.

lamoid_5f20d3e469

Thanks, yet again, Jaderall. You've been enormously helpful. More than I could possibly hope from one person. But I must ask, where is said "scripts" located in the program? (This is why I deplore the dearth of documentation!)

JimmyC_2009

Go to the Content Library pane.

DAZ Studio Formats > My DAZ 3D Library > Scripts > Utilities > Purge Memory.DSA

Jaderail

Content Library Tab>DAZ Studio Formats>My DAZ 3D Library>Scripts Not everything is Smart content nor is everything found by the Smart content only Tab, that is why more than one content Tab exists.

lamoid_5f20d3e469

Thank you, both Jaderall and Jimmy.

lamoid_5f20d3e469

I still have two questions about the material presets and materials in general. When you select a material preset and double click on it. Does that replace the one that is already there or is it added in with the existing one. Is there any record of the preset loaded or is that lost after loading? If not, how can I display the presets associated with the selected figure.

Jaderail

If the Stack is not overflowing, that can happen if to many textures for one item get loaded, they should fully replace the last set of textures. DAZ Studio uses a Converter called TDLmake that converts all maps to a format the render engine can read on load of those maps, sometimes it does not clear the cache properly (I think it is caused by fragmented RAM when it happens) and the stack can build up. But each load of a new texture set should replace the old set, unless a user is using the LIE, Layered Image Editor, it is designed to build a new texture by adding one map to the next.

lamoid_5f20d3e469

Great! Thanks again, Jaderall.

jestmart

It is important to note what shader a preset is built for as different shaders have different map options/requirements. The different shaders also make it difficult to evaluate the look of texture preset as the preview isn't capable of displaying the advance settings of the shader.

Jaderail

Oh Yes Textures and Shaders are two different Animals. A Texture set should mostly show correctly in the OpenGL Viewport but a Shader may look totaly wrong in the Viewport, they only work fully when rendered with the 3Delight render engine. They are based on the render engine code and must be run though it most of the time to be seen properly. The odd thing is some things called Shaders are texture based and show fine but you will soon learn which Shaders do the weird look thing as you learn to use them. It all depends on what Type of Shader it is. I love shaders for changing the looks of things myself. I collect them.

jestmart

Actually I meant the difference in how omnifreaker's Human Surface and UberSurface, and AoA's SSS shader will look and behave compared to the DAZ default shader just in preview. Until rendered those advance shaders often look just awful because the graphics card based preview is unable to do anything with the advance settings. To really get a good look at a texture I prefer to open it in an image viewer like XnView or IrfanView

Jaderail

Even then your not going to see the Texture with the Skin Shaders applied, those are AoA SSS, and the Omnifreaker ones. They do a Shader based Sub Surface Skin simulation but again as DAZ Studio Shaders all those are based on the 3Delight render engine as well and only seen in a full render at use. Just looking at a texture Map does not show the Effect as it has not been rendered in to the base texture file. It is a setting of the Materials file loader used in DAZ Studio and only added to the texture for render in DAZ Studio.

Slipmeister

JimmyC_2009 said:

Go to the Content Library pane.

DAZ Studio Formats > My DAZ 3D Library > Scripts > Utilities > Purge Memory.DSA

I do not have this script present...where can I get it from?

SixDs

Be sure that you have the Default Resources package installed, and look for it under the Content Library tab, not Smart Content.