Batch convert material collections (mc6 or pz2) to DS format (duf) ?

BBlogo

For example : I have converted many Gen4 clothing to Genesis 2. I know the Poser files mc6 or pz2 materiels presets still work and load but it's not a solution in my opinion because the poser files don't show up in the content library of DS format. So if I want to have the materiel presets in the same folder or sub-folder of the clothing item I have to convert manually each mc6 or pz2 preset to duf preset.
And believe me it is a very tedious, long and boring piece of work.

Is there a tool, script available for this task ?

jestmart

Poser material settings often look terrible in Studio because of the differences in the rendering engines. There is no easy way to automatically adjust for those differences making a batch conversion script of little value.

vwrangler

I don't think the poster was asking about the settings, merely about converting the file format so that they can be seen in the Studio files section. Otherwise, you're left with a converted item in one section, and sometimes quite a few unconverted material files in a completely different section of Studio.

I, myself, would love an automated way to get PZ2 material pose files converted to DUF so that I can have everything in the same section; the settings can be dealt with after you get the materials applied. Unfortunately, I don't know of any way to do this easily or in bulk; you just have to apply the PZ2/MC6/MT5 file materials and save them off as a new DUF. One by one by tedious one. (I have one complicated hair set with something like 90 separate PZ2 files; I would LOVE not to have to deal with those one-by-one.)

Other than that, perhaps in a future update to Studio itself, DAZ can make the program not care where files are.

BBlogo

That's right, I don't really care about the material settings in the mc6/pz2 file because I use Octane render and then tweak the materials in there. All I would want is an easy way (wardrobe/Hair, props, wearables, materials in the same folder/subfolders) to load the textures maps and not have to switch to the poser library files to find the materials.

Scavenger

I don't suppose a way to to do this.. convert pz2 material presets for clothes to duf has been found?

Bejaymac

Probably never will be.

It's not so much the "poor" surface settings you need to worry about, it's that most Poser Mat files (pz2/mc6/mt5) don't have all of the textures listed in the Poser 4 material section of the file, normally that means Specular, Displacement and Normal maps don't get loaded into DS as it can't "see" them, but if the material uses the alt diffuse/alt specular channels in the material room then odds are you wont even have Diffuse maps that DS can see.

Because of this it's pretty much pointless doing a straight conversion, as no matter what render engine you use you will still end up having to save out a new MAT file once you find all of the textures.

Scavenger

Hmm.  I just found a tutorial for converting mc6 to pz2 (http://cyonixgfx.deviantart.com/art/Converting-mc6-Files-to-pz2-194920273) which looks like it could be scriptable. It's really the issue of "Having this stuff show up in the Daz section and not the poser section so it can all be together"

mjc1016

Scavenger said:

 It's really the issue of "Having this stuff show up in the Daz section and not the poser section so it can all be together"

Right...even with a script to convert what it can, without human intevention, the stuff in the non-Daz section is going to be difficult to do automatically.  So does it really make sense to 'batch' them when you'll have to manually add the missing stuff anyway?

Scavenger

And a year later, I'm back to this...

I can convert mc6 to pz2 easily, but the PZ2, doesn't show up in the DAZ section, which is what's needed. :(

Richard Haseltine

DS will read mc6 files, and has been able to fro some time (though that doesn't mean it will read the Shader Tree stuff). pz2 files, being a Poser format, won't show under Daz Studio formats.

Scavenger

Yes.. that's why I'm trying to convert.  See, I have a set of boots from another store for G2F...they show up in the Daz section

They have a texture set that was made for the v4 version of the boots and work fine on the G2F. I would like to have the options for that show up with the G2F boots, so everything is in the same place when I use the boots.

Now, I could go thru the manual process of changing the textures and saving as a material preset...BUT, that is long and tedious, and while doable for one set of boots and 1 set of textures, it becomes very unfeasable for a second set of boots and many texture sets.

Shader tree, material options.. these are meaningless terms....this is about the nice clicky button that changes the image maps applied to the object.

So, is there an easy way to do this?

Richard Haseltine

All I can think of is writing a simple importer script to import the Poser file with the same name, then mass duplicate them so theer was one for each Poser file. That's the reverse of a script I wrote ages ago to load DS content from a Poser library.

Scavenger

I'm not sure what you mean. Can you explain in either more or less detail? :D

Richard Haseltine

For each something.mc6 fiels have a something.dsa, where something.dsa is a script that gets its own name, chops the .dsa off, adds mc6, and tells the Content Manager to import that file. The script would be the same for each isntance since the name doesn't have to be hardcoded.

Bejaymac

If you are using 4.9 then why not just make links for the MC6 files, saves having two sets of files with the same garbage surface settings in them.

djigneo

It shouldn't be terribly difficult to create a batch converter script assuming the product you wish to apply the textures to is already loaded in the scene and you can point the script to a directory of poser files to open and then save out DUF material presets to a destination directory.

I was actually dreaming up something fairly similar for my own usage, but it was to convert poser shaping presets. Conceptually it should be very nearly the same thing. The workflow I was imagining was:

1. Create a folder of PZ2 / poser files that all are the same type of preset and apply to the same base object
2. Load the base object into the scene
3. Kick off the script, specifying the input folder and the output folder

And the script would automate the loading into the scene, then Save as > Material preset, dropping the preset into the output folder. 

Richard Haseltine

djigneo said:

It shouldn't be terribly difficult to create a batch converter script assuming the product you wish to apply the textures to is already loaded in the scene and you can point the script to a directory of poser files to open and then save out DUF material presets to a destination directory.

I was actually dreaming up something fairly similar for my own usage, but it was to convert poser shaping presets. Conceptually it should be very nearly the same thing. The workflow I was imagining was:

1. Create a folder of PZ2 / poser files that all are the same type of preset and apply to the same base object
2. Load the base object into the scene
3. Kick off the script, specifying the input folder and the output folder

And the script would automate the loading into the scene, then Save as > Material preset, dropping the preset into the output folder. 

That works only if the settings affect all parameters for all surfaces on the figure. If there are partial settings, affecting only parts of the model (make-up or nails), or adjustment settings (changing the degree of gloss or transparency) then you immediately have the problem of identifying the changed properties and saving a preset altering only those.

djigneo

Richard Haseltine said:

djigneo said:

It shouldn't be terribly difficult to create a batch converter script assuming the product you wish to apply the textures to is already loaded in the scene and you can point the script to a directory of poser files to open and then save out DUF material presets to a destination directory.

I was actually dreaming up something fairly similar for my own usage, but it was to convert poser shaping presets. Conceptually it should be very nearly the same thing. The workflow I was imagining was:

1. Create a folder of PZ2 / poser files that all are the same type of preset and apply to the same base object
2. Load the base object into the scene
3. Kick off the script, specifying the input folder and the output folder

And the script would automate the loading into the scene, then Save as > Material preset, dropping the preset into the output folder. 

That works only if the settings affect all parameters for all surfaces on the figure. If there are partial settings, affecting only parts of the model (make-up or nails), or adjustment settings (changing the degree of gloss or transparency) then you immediately have the problem of identifying the changed properties and saving a preset altering only those.

This is true. I didn't consider that for my purposes, since I was thinking more along the lines of poses and shaping. I suppose the "right" way would be to custom parse out the PZ2, but that would be a lot of work. The way I'd make it for my purposes (just good enough) would probably be having an option to save out certain surface combinations, since most common scenarios are face, eyes, and nails having "special" presets. Then as long as you create the batches correctly you can get pretty close.

As you point out it wouldn't be a perfect representation of the Poser presets, but it'd be less tedious. =)

Bejaymac

djigneo said:

As you point out it wouldn't be a perfect representation of the Poser presets, but it'd be less tedious. =)

Trouble is you wont get that in DS using P5+ material settings.

	material Preview		{		KdColor 1 1 1 1 		KaColor 0 0 0 1 		KsColor 0 0 0 1 		TextureColor 1 1 1 1 		NsExponent 30 		tMin 0 		tMax 0 		tExpo 0.6 		bumpStrength 0.75 		ksIgnoreTexture 0 		reflectThruLights 1 		reflectThruKd 0 		textureMap NO_MAP		bumpMap NO_MAP		reflectionMap NO_MAP		transparencyMap NO_MAP		ReflectionColor 1 1 1 1 		reflectionStrength 1

^^This is a chunk of code from a Poser mat file, this is the Poser 4 material settings, the only part of the material file DS can use and even then it can't use all of it.

Now if the material was made for the Pro Pack (P4.5) or Poser 4, then what you have in there works pretty much the same in both DS and Poser. P5+ materials still have these settings but it's pretty much just a hold over, as Poser now just uses the material room settings (AKA the "shaderTree" in the Mat file). Some of the base settings from the Poser Surface node do end up in the P4 settings, problem is that in DS those settings almost always look like crap.

Right from the start we have always told people to use ProPAck then P4 settings first, P5+ you take your chances with as it's odds on that you will have to rework every surface setting, and that's on top of having to manually find half the textures for an item (*points at code*), only four texture types can be loaded from the P4 material settings.

WendyLuvsCatz

http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/78986/mc6-to-pz2-batch-converter#latest

is a start

djigneo

Bejaymac said:

djigneo said:

As you point out it wouldn't be a perfect representation of the Poser presets, but it'd be less tedious. =)

Trouble is you wont get that in DS using P5+ material settings.

	material Preview		{		KdColor 1 1 1 1 		KaColor 0 0 0 1 		KsColor 0 0 0 1 		TextureColor 1 1 1 1 		NsExponent 30 		tMin 0 		tMax 0 		tExpo 0.6 		bumpStrength 0.75 		ksIgnoreTexture 0 		reflectThruLights 1 		reflectThruKd 0 		textureMap NO_MAP		bumpMap NO_MAP		reflectionMap NO_MAP		transparencyMap NO_MAP		ReflectionColor 1 1 1 1 		reflectionStrength 1

^^This is a chunk of code from a Poser mat file, this is the Poser 4 material settings, the only part of the material file DS can use and even then it can't use all of it.

Now if the material was made for the Pro Pack (P4.5) or Poser 4, then what you have in there works pretty much the same in both DS and Poser. P5+ materials still have these settings but it's pretty much just a hold over, as Poser now just uses the material room settings (AKA the "shaderTree" in the Mat file). Some of the base settings from the Poser Surface node do end up in the P4 settings, problem is that in DS those settings almost always look like crap.

Right from the start we have always told people to use ProPAck then P4 settings first, P5+ you take your chances with as it's odds on that you will have to rework every surface setting, and that's on top of having to manually find half the textures for an item (*points at code*), only four texture types can be loaded from the P4 material settings.

Well, this discussion isn't about what Poser files are or are not supported in Daz Studio nor how they appear after import. The problem in the OP as I understand it is: how can one get the Poser presets into the Smart Content area, because presumably the user is ok with the way it works and just wants to see it in Smart Content.

Bejaymac

Actually it has everything to do with it, the OP wants the files to appear in the DS section next to the G2F version, now if he uses the CMS he could create metadata and they would appear next to the G2F version in the Smart Content. If he uses catagories he can add them to the DB and move them next to the G2F version, if he's using DS4.9 he can create a link from the Poser files so they appear next to the G2F version in the Content Library.

That's three options right there for him, yet he is insistant on getting someone else to waste their time coming up with a batch converter.

What you have to remember is that this isn't anything new, most of us old hands have been dealing with this since the early days, we could have had a batch converter any time since DS1, but most of us knew that any files it created would just end up getting deleted, as the settings in them just wouldn't look good in 3Delight.

This is a bit of an extreme example as to why you don't want to use Poser material settings in DS, I originally posted this image a few years ago, on the left you see the item in DS with the Poser Mat applied, the item on the right is after several hours in the Shader Mixer and is close to how the item would look in Poser.

Kerya

Very stupid question - something like

http://www.daz3d.com/v4-skins-batch-converter-to-genesis-2-female-s

???

Does somebody have it and tried to use on something that is not a v4 skin?

Leana

Kerya said:

Does somebody have it and tried to use on something that is not a v4 skin?

This won't work for anything but V4 material presets AFAIK

Lyrra Madril

so has anyone found a way to stick pz2/mc6 format files into the ds folder and have DS see them?  or rough convert them in batches to .ds or .duf ? 

Richard Haseltine

Lyrra Madril said:

so has anyone found a way to stick pz2/mc6 format files into the ds folder and have DS see them?  or rough convert them in batches to .ds or .duf ? 

They can be loaded via a script, I think - it's been a while since I've tried.

andolaurina

Richard Haseltine said:

DS will read mc6 files, and has been able to fro some time (though that doesn't mean it will read the Shader Tree stuff). pz2 files, being a Poser format, won't show under Daz Studio formats.

Why couldn't the next version of DAZ Studio simply allow Poser files to be read in the DAZ Studio folders? That would certainly make Poser defectors make the transition more easily as well as make it easier to move around legacy content sold at DAZ3D. Ah...to view Poser props and pz2 files within the DS format folder structure!! (They can still reference the textures [& geometries] folders in the Content folder's Runtime much like the DS files do). 

Richard Haseltine

andolaurina said:

Richard Haseltine said:

DS will read mc6 files, and has been able to fro some time (though that doesn't mean it will read the Shader Tree stuff). pz2 files, being a Poser format, won't show under Daz Studio formats.

Why couldn't the next version of DAZ Studio simply allow Poser files to be read in the DAZ Studio folders? That would certainly make Poser defectors make the transition more easily as well as make it easier to move around legacy content sold at DAZ3D. Ah...to view Poser props and pz2 files within the DS format folder structure!! (They can still reference the textures [& geometries] folders in the Content folder's Runtime much like the DS files do). 

They'd still, unless given separate installers/zips, be nested in the Poser diectory structure and Poser content is imported, rather than opened, so having them in the same file view might be confusing. You can mix the formats in category views, so if you want a one-stop location that would be the way to go.

alan bard newcomer

I would be pleased if I go to say a folder in my daz stuff marked cars and don't find what I'm looking for, when I switch to the poser format I would still be looking at the same folder. Instead of when I switch from daz to poser and back .. it always defaults to the top of the list

---
okay I do have my data in an series of named folders.. 
I just can't "grasp" sticking 8000 products in one folder.
869k worth of files  whoa

 

Richard Haseltine

I'm not sure how that could work - Poser, after all, has several different libraries for different content types. If you want this sort of feature use categories - they are there, and this is just the sort of situation they are designed to help with.