"File>Save As" - General Questions

Subtropic Pixel

The user guide only talks about saving as a Scene.

But there are tons of other selections, many of them presets.

Is there someplace I can go to learn about these other types and when/why I would use them instead of save as scene? Right now I save as scene, but it's time I begin to understand this function better so that I can improve my workflow.

Thanks in advance!

Richard Haseltine

Scene subset allows you to specify what elements are saved, useful for extracting an item or group from a scene for reuse elsewhere. Also, by default a Scene subset is added to the current scene while a full scene replaces the current scene

The Hierarchical options save settings for the current item and items parented to it - though you can be selective about exactly what is included. Useful to change a complete outfit at one go, or for posing a figure and adjusting a parented prop to the new pose. Otherwise they are the same as the non-hierarchical versions

A wearables preset, unlike most of the others, does save items - it saves all the items parented to the selected item (again, with an options dialogue in which you can be selective) so that you can save an entire outfit, or a group of props like a jewellery set, in one go.

A character preset saves both shape and material settings for the selected item, and if applied with nothing selected it will load the item (depending on preferences, if applied with the same item selected it may load a new item, change the selected item or ask which you want to do). The files for loading Genesis, Victoria 6 etc. are Character Presets.

A Property preset is a combination of Pose, Shaping, Materials and Other settings - there are separate tabs in the option dialogue to decide which if any of the relevant properties to include. It's useful when none of the specific preset types is right.

A Shaping preset saves the shape settings - morphs, essentially - for the selected item.

A Pose preset saves the pose settings for the selected item.

A Materials preset saves the settings for all of the surfaces on the selected item - when applied only the settings for surfaces on the target named to match the surfaces on the original item are modified.

A Shader preset saves the settings for a single selected surface on the selected item. When applied it affects all selected surfaces on the selected items, regardless of their names. A Materials preset is useful for saving the look of a single item, such as a piece of clothing or a character; a Shader preset is useful for more generic settings, such as metal or leather, that may be useful on multiple items.

Camera and Light presets save all or selected cameras and lights, recreating them when applied. Note however that a Camera preset saves only cameras - it doesn't save lights, even though you can often look through them, and it doesn't save the "views" like Perspective or Left.

A Render Settings preset saves all of the render settings - unlike the preset button on the Render Settinsg pane which just saves different aspect ratios.

D-Former presets save DFormers/magnets, sot they can be reapplied to a selected item

Layered Image presets save the set up for Layered images so they can be reapplied.

Garment Dynamics and Fabric Dynamics presets are analogous to Materials and Shader presets fro dynamic cloth, saving settings for all of the panels on a clothing item and for a single selected panel respectively.

A Puppeteer preset saves the settings for the Puppeteer pane.

Subtropic Pixel

Oh wow, thanks! This will be very helpful. I was surprised to not find it in the user guide.

Subtropic Pixel

So a follow up question (to anybody who can contribute with a way that works well for you):

Right now I am working on a figure with clothing, poses (they change; get adjusted, etc), and eventually accessories and/or props.

Then I'll make the scene in which I'll eventually place her and then make final adjustments on clothing, pose, expression, etc.

For workflow purposes; as I continue to work on my figure, how best should I save her?

Generally I give her a name followed by a number and keywords saying what I just did. If I make significant changes to her whole persona, then I'll change the number. If I make small changes, I'll change the part of the filename that goes after the number.

For example:

Superman Flight 001 clothed posed expressed

Then if I change his whole look but he's still flying, he becomes

Superman Flight 002 ~

If I made a new version of a pose from the first file, then I might use

Superman Flight 001 clothed posed 02 expressed 02

The only reason I do it this way is because the filenames will sort in a somewhat sensible way; although I probably need to start all my numbers from 000 to keep the first iterance from falling to the bottom in a file open dialog...

My examples above are all "scene" examples; now I'm going to try some of what Richard notated in his post. And some of your workflow examples would be very helpful.