Why 8-9 months for a Big Sur update?
Rod Wise Driggo
Posts: 2,225
I know that there is this announcement in the already closed thread that Studio does currently not run on Big Sur and an update will be provided not before mid-2021.
But here's my question. What is the reason for this taking so long? And what is the reason that studio does not run at all? The 64bit-only move was done with Catalina AFAIR. I get positive feedback from a lot of people who already updated and have no problems with their apps. Why is Studio here so different? It sucks that my only options are staying with Catalina for another approx. 8 months or do a complete DAZ diet. Don't like both options.
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Given that even Big Sur is available since a year (ok, developer versions and release candidates, but even the public beta is available for quite some time), I do not understand that either. I am currently running DAZ on a Catalina virtual machine (Parallels) running on Big Sur. Works, and is not too bad, from the speed perspective.
Part of it is that the update, which will of course affect both platforms, is going to break plug-ins. Some will not be getting updated, as the author has moved on or died.
@Mark: Could you elaborate a bit more an the setup you are using. Don't know if I can wait with Big Sur until Studio is ready?
@Richard: Thank you for the information. What do you mean with "update, which will of course affect both platforms"? Won't there be a 4.14 for BS but rather a 4.15 which will then run on BS and Windows. Or what is the other platform you are referring to. Don't understand the plug-in topic here. Why should those not run under 64bit BS if the run on 64bit Catalina? - And we are far from an ARM-version of Studio for Mac of course ;-)
Big ooof, but not at all surprising. Heck, it's not just limited to Daz Studio: Final Fantasy XIV isn't compatible with Big Sur r/n and won't be until at least the end of December (if not sometime in January 2021). Why for, I have no earthly idea. But DS not being compatible is strike 2 on downloading Big Sur.
I suppose a Daz diet might not be a bad idea, all things considered. Or an alternative would be to start importing and saving stuff into Blender (via Diffeomorphic), I guess...
Sure.
I use Paralles as virtualisation platform. Inside, I have created a virtual machine (VM) with macOS Catalina. Parallels works already on Big Sur.
The steps I did was
If step 6 or any other goes bonkers, you have the bootable backup from step 1 to restore the real Mac via the recovery console. Btw, using a Windows 10 VM with Windows DAZ Studio installed also works quite nicely, as I have to use CPU rendering anyway (onyl AMD or Intel GPU's available).
I suppose the plugins may use functions that have been marked as no longer supported as of High Sierra. They were still available in High Sierra and Catalina. With BigSur, those deprecated functions have been removed, so those plug-ins would stop working and need to be (partially) re-done. Not that great if the source code is not available to DAZ.
More like a 5.0 for Mac and Windows.
Making DS work on Big Sur requires changing DS SDK, as the current one relies on libraries which aren't supported on Big Sur (as in "they don't work at all", not "they don't get support").
For the same reason DS won't run on Big Sur: they're based on a version of the SDK which doesn't work on BS. They will need at least to be recompiled to work with the new SDK, but there might be more than that depending on how much the SDK changes.
Basically, core functionality of Studio depended on operating system commands that, as of Big Sur, no longer exist. There's no way to rewrite those functions of Studio without breaking things that dozens of plugins depend on. This isn't a 4.15 level fix; it's a 5.0 level fix.
Honestly, it wouldn't surprise if me if this ends up being End of Line for Mac users and Daz decides to discontinue support for MacOS. Doubtful, sure, but I wouldn't blame them if it ends up being more trouble than it's worth to support a small percentage of the userbase. :/
Daz Studio still is within artist territory though, so it wouldn't amaze me if the amount of Mac users here is relatively high. Even if I've heard of several artists moving to PC the past few years, the amount of Mac users is probably still significant. But, for graphics design, there aren't many (if any) things anymore for which there aren't good alternantives available on PC.
DAZ crippled Mac users back in the DS3 days by only suplying a 32-bit version for the Mac. It wasn't until they released DS4 that we could make proper use of out installed RAM.
I think the real question is whether *any* version of Studio runs under Big Sur. And that is a *big* question. If it does, then the answer is simple. Extend support for 4.12, until they figure out what they are going to do, or IF they are going to do anything to accomodate those of us who use Macs.
I mean, really, would it be all that much toruble for them to continue to offer DS4.12 as a download option, *in additon* to the DS4.14 release until they manage to figure out what they are going to do about the situation? I know that this is something that they haven't done under their current business model. But it beats limiting a sizable minority of their users to 32-bit.
However if *none* of the comparitively recent versions of Studio will run under Big Sur, then it's a much bigger problem, and one that needs to be made fairly well known. i
As Big Sur dropped the support that is required to run even the latest version of DS, how would the older versions be supported?
No, earlier versions don't work either. They're based on the same libraries which don't work on Big Sur.
The problem is not in changes added in 4.14, it's DS core. I thought that was clear.
AH. Not as clear as antcipated. Okay, I wasn't planning to upgrade beyond Mojave ayway. But I tend to burn out computers rather too quickly, and am going to need to try to make sure that I can revive this one when it decides to throw a fit.
Should be good for at least another year, Possibly two.
Look at it this way: with 8-9 months, Daz Studio will be rolling out a bit after the next wave of AS Macs launch. If the rumormill is accurate (it was very accurate about the first wave of AS macs), these should be quite powerful machines. Maybe we'll get ourselves an updated Daz Studio and some roaring macs to use it on :D
I have been doing some testing and Studio 4.11.0383 works with Big Sur. Weird that the about screen is flipped but the program works.
Also found that QT Designer 4.8.7 runs fine on Big Sur so lets see what I can do with 4.12 or 4.14
What plugins will break when the sdk is upgraded, are we talking core plugins like animate2 and so on? Or is this unknown?
At least GenX will be gone forever
Anything that installs a .dll on Windows, or a .dylib on Mac.
I'd like more info on this too: are these plugins that are integral to DazStudio functioning, or are they like third-party things that DazStudio could continue to function without? I don't use animate2 at all, for instance.
Ok This is interesting and adds hope of a quicker resolution. Testing further.
2020-11-26 11:54:19.512 Creating Authentication Manager...
2020-11-26 11:54:19.524 *** Scene Cleared ***
2020-11-26 11:54:19.534 Loading plug-ins:
2020-11-26 11:54:19.537 libaniMate2.dylib
2020-11-26 11:54:19.567 libdazscriptide.dylib
2020-11-26 11:54:19.578 libdzalignace.dylib
2020-11-26 11:54:19.583 libdzassetiofilters.dylib
2020-11-26 11:54:19.599 libdzautofit.dylib
2020-11-26 11:54:19.608 libdzautoriggerbasic.dylib
2020-11-26 11:54:19.611 libdzautoshaderbakeractions.dylib
2020-11-26 11:54:19.621 libdzbrycebridge.dylib
2020-11-26 11:54:19.624 libdzbvh.dylib
2020-11-26 11:54:19.626 libdzcolladax.dylib
2020-11-26 11:54:20.307 libdzcomponents.dylib
2020-11-26 11:54:20.316 libdzcontentdbeditor.dylib
2020-11-26 11:54:20.317 /Applications/DAZ 3D/DAZStudio4 64-bit/plugins/libdzcontentdbeditor.dylib failed to load
2020-11-26 11:54:20.317 Error: dlopen(/Applications/DAZ 3D/DAZStudio4 64-bit/plugins/libdzcontentdbeditor.dylib, 2): Symbol not found: __ZN16DzDBContentTable14setContentTypeERKj
Referenced from: /Applications/DAZ 3D/DAZStudio4 64-bit/plugins/libdzcontentdbeditor.dylib
Expected in: /Applications/DAZ 3D/DAZStudio4 64-bit/Frameworks/../Frameworks/libdzcmsconnector.dylib
in /Applications/DAZ 3D/DAZStudio4 64-bit/plugins/libdzcontentdbeditor.dylib
2020-11-26 11:54:20.317 libdzcontentlibrarypane.dylib
2020-11-26 11:54:20.322 libdzcr2exporter.dylib
2020-11-26 11:54:20.325 libdzcustomizedlg.dylib
2020-11-26 11:54:20.335 libdzdelightrenderer.dylib
2020-11-26 11:54:20.349 libdzdformeditor.dylib
2020-11-26 11:54:20.353 libdzdynamics.dylib
2020-11-26 11:54:20.489 libdzeasyloader.dylib
2020-11-26 11:54:20.492 libdzexpexporter.dylib
2020-11-26 11:54:20.504 libdzfbxexporter.dylib
2020-11-26 11:54:20.619 libdzfbximporter.dylib
2020-11-26 11:54:20.622 libdzfiguresetup.dylib
2020-11-26 11:54:20.637 libdzhexagonbridge.dylib
2020-11-26 11:54:20.640 libdzimageio.dylib
2020-11-26 11:54:20.898 libdzirayrenderer.dylib
2020-11-26 11:54:20.907 libdzjointeditor.dylib
2020-11-26 11:54:20.922 libdzlayerededitor.dylib
2020-11-26 11:54:20.935 libdzlayerfilter.dylib
2020-11-26 11:54:20.944 libdzmacvideo.dylib
2020-11-26 11:54:20.945 libdzmanualshaderbaker.dylib
2020-11-26 11:54:20.955 libdzmaptransfer.dylib
2020-11-26 11:54:20.966 libdzmorphfollower.dylib
2020-11-26 11:54:20.973 libdzmorphloader.dylib
2020-11-26 11:54:20.985 libdzmorphloaderpro.dylib
2020-11-26 11:54:20.995 libdzobjexporter.dylib
2020-11-26 11:54:21.001 libdzoptitexclothbasic.dylib
2020-11-26 11:54:21.091 libdzpolygongroupeditortool.dylib
2020-11-26 11:54:21.105 libdzprimitives.dylib
2020-11-26 11:54:21.108 libdzpropertyhierarchyeditor.dylib
2020-11-26 11:54:21.121 libdzpuppeteer.dylib
2020-11-26 11:54:21.126 libdzpz3importer.dylib
2020-11-26 11:54:21.133 libdzrenderedit.dylib
2020-11-26 11:54:21.136 libdzrenderlibrary.dylib
2020-11-26 11:54:21.138 libdzrslshadercompiler.dylib
2020-11-26 11:54:21.141 libdzsavefilters.dylib
2020-11-26 11:54:21.155 libdzscriptedrenderer.dylib
2020-11-26 11:54:21.167 libdzscriptedsteps.dylib
2020-11-26 11:54:21.170 libdzshaderbaker.dylib
2020-11-26 11:54:21.176 libdzshaderbuilder.dylib
2020-11-26 11:54:21.189 libdzshadereditor.dylib
2020-11-26 11:54:21.192 libdzshadermixerbase.dylib
2020-11-26 11:54:21.543 libdzshadermixergui.dylib
2020-11-26 11:54:21.556 libdzsmartcontentpane.dylib
2020-11-26 11:54:21.559 libdzspotrendertool.dylib
2020-11-26 11:54:21.561 libdzstrandbasedhaireditor.dylib
2020-11-26 11:54:21.630 libdztextureatlas.dylib
2020-11-26 11:54:21.638 libdztransferutility.dylib
2020-11-26 11:54:21.650 libdzu3dexporter.dylib
2020-11-26 11:54:21.653 libdzweightmapbrush.dylib
2020-11-26 11:54:21.667 SDK_SceneInfoPane.dylib
2020-11-26 11:54:21.672 libdzdrawstyles.dylib
2020-11-26 11:54:21.676 libdzpowerpose.dylib
2020-11-26 11:54:21.694 Error writing author data.
That's a lot of plugins, lots of "core" functionality too, afaik. Interesting, thanks.
Hello, do you know whether it is possible to download this specific version from Daz? Thanks in advance!
And does it render?
Only the latest version is available for download.
You could try asking Daz support if they have a copy they can provide you with, but it's quite an old version so there's no guarantee they still have it.
Thank you! I have just submitted a ticket - hopefully, they still have this version somewhere.
Actually renders very well. Will try to continue working on the combo.
I missed this, and I'm reading this thread a few days later, just one thing I don't understand. The trouble seems to be a missing library
(Library not loaded: /usr/lib/libstdc++.6.dylib)
True, that library is not included in Big Sur. I haven't enough acknowledge, sorry for the silly question, but I'm asking, is not possible to install that library?
Btw in the while I installed the latest 4.14.0.10 and doesn't work
May I ask you when it was released? Not possible to download it again, is it?
While the library is not there in a fresh BigSur installation, it should be still available if upgraded from Catalina or HighSierra. I will check how DAZ Studio behaves in that case. Yes, libstdc++.6.dylib is discontinued, but that is really no supprise. It has been marked as depricated five(!) years ago, in favour of libc++.