Quickest way to copy and paste selected surfaces?

Bryson Jack

I usually find Daz Studio to be laid out pretty well with a quick way to do what I need, but I am not finding a quick way to copy a selected surface and then paste that on to another selected surface.

Here is my present workflow:

Using the Surface Selection Tool, I select the surface that I wish to copy from and go to Menu>Edit>Copy>Copy Selected Surface(s). Next, I select all the surfaces that I wish to apply that copied surface to and then go to Menu>Edit>Paste>Paste Selected Surface(s).

Am I missing something? Is there an icon shortcut, a keyboard shortcut or a script shortcut to do that without going to the menu?

Speaking of scripts, assuming that my workflow IS the quickest way to do this operation, could someone help me figure out how to write a toolbar script so I could speed things up?

Thanks in advance for any help you can offer,

Bryson

Bryson Jack

Okay, so I discovered that there is a quicker way. In the Surfaces Pane (Tab) there is a context sensitive menu when I right click on a selected surface that has the same menu items. That is much quicker than what I was doing.

Richard Haseltine

You can also add the commands to another menu or toolbar, or assign keyboard shortcuts, by going to Window>Workspace>Customise. The commands are under Surfaces on the left, drag them to a toolbar or menu in the appropriate tab on the right or right-click on them, select Change keyboard Shortcut and press the key combination you want.

FirstBastion

Almost everything in DS has a right click, context sensitive option.

Bryson Jack

Richard Haseltine said:

You can also add the commands to another menu or toolbar, or assign keyboard shortcuts, by going to Window>Workspace>Customise. The commands are under Surfaces on the left, drag them to a toolbar or menu in the appropriate tab on the right or right-click on them, select Change keyboard Shortcut and press the key combination you want.

That is some great news if I can get it to work. I managed to create my own toolbar and drag the two surface operations (copy from and paste to selected surfaces ) to the my new Tool Bar. The trouble is that my new Tool Bar doesn't show up anywhere that I can see. I don't know how to add the Tool Bar if it isn't showing up and I don't know how to give those operations icons if they need icons to show up. When I right click on any empty section of a Tool Bar area, everything is checked to show up but my custom Tool Bar is not in the list of options.

Can you help me get that figured out?

sriesch

In Window>Workspace>Customise, click on the Activities tab on the righhand pane, then expand whichever activity(ies) you want your toolbar to be in, then expand Toolbars, then right-click on your toolbar name and from the context menu, select "Enable Toolbar".

Also note that when you copy and paste selected surfaces, you aren't really copying and pasting the surface itself, you are only copying and pasting the parameter SETTINGS for that surface. Therefore, you can't (or at least can't always) copy from a surface that uses one shader and paste to a surface that uses a different shader and expect it to work, although it will look like it's trying. You would actually have to apply the shader itself to the target surface, then paste the settings to it.

Richard Haseltine

In the Activities tab on the right of Window>Workspace>Customise find your current activity tab (assuming there's more than one, expand it to ge the toolbar list and right click to enable the new toolbar.

Bryson Jack

Sean Riesch said:

In Window>Workspace>Customise, click on the Activities tab on the righhand pane, then expand whichever activity(ies) you want your toolbar to be in, then expand Toolbars, then right-click on your toolbar name and from the context menu, select "Enable Toolbar".

Also note that when you copy and paste selected surfaces, you aren't really copying and pasting the surface itself, you are only copying and pasting the parameter SETTINGS for that surface. Therefore, you can't (or at least can't always) copy from a surface that uses one shader and paste to a surface that uses a different shader and expect it to work, although it will look like it's trying. You would actually have to apply the shader itself to the target surface, then paste the settings to it.

Sean. Thank you so much for helping me get the tool bar enabled. That was quite unintuitive in my opinion and I don't know that I would have just figure that one out on my own. Is there a way for me to change how these items display? For example, instead of seeing "cted S" and "lected" could I change the text that represents those items or add an icon of my own?

Thanks for clarifying about the surfaces. I already knew that it didn't copy the shader but it helps to have things spelled out as thoroughly as possible in these forum posts. Good thorough posts can be like gold for someone trying to get to the bottom of something in Daz Studio.

sriesch

Good question. With no icons and cut-off text in the toolbar, it is pretty awkward to work with. I do not know.

Bryson Jack

Bummer. I am probably stuck with the truncated words in my tool bar. I wish I knew a way to copy the information for the individual operations (like I can in Maya to make a mel script) and then make my own tool bar scripts.

BTW...since Sean mentioned shaders and I do have the same question about the quickest way to copy and paste a surface's shader and apply it to another surface. I will post my workflow here and if someone has a quicker way, please let me know.

I start by selecting the surface with the Surface Selector Tool and RMB click to open the context sensitive menu. Next I choose "Select Surface: ...". and then open the Shader Mixer Pane (Tab). In the Shader Mixer, I go to File>Import From Scene, select Material and then hit Accept. I then select the new surface with the Surface Selector Tool and then go back in the Shader Mixer and apply the settings.

Is that an overly complicated way of doing things?

Richard Haseltine

You can, if you make one, assign an icon to a command by finding it on the left of the Customise dialogue again and right-clicking, then choosing Change icon...

Bryson Jack

Richard Haseltine said:

You can, if you make one, assign an icon to a command by finding it on the left of the Customise dialogue again and right-clicking, then choosing Change icon...

So cool. I got it working. Thanks for your help.

For the record, I created 24x24 square png images with transparency and they were added here:
Menu>Window>Workspace>Customize>Actions>Surfaces and then I right clicked on each operation and chose "Change icon".

Thanks again!