Loading...
> >

Working with .pz2 files in DAZ (NOT Poses)

KittiKitti Posts: 77
edited December 1969 in Daz Studio Discussion

I've been banging my head against this problem for days and I'm finally calling in the experts! After extensive searches on Yahoo and various forums, I'm still at square one and a little flustered with irrelevant information overload. I'm hoping someone here can point me in the right direction :)

I purchased 3DS Brynne by 3DSublimeProductions, a character from Renderosity.com (where hope to get many more once I figure this out!) I'm not really interested in the morphs but I REALLY want the skin & makeup MATS.

I also bought FR Annis by Freja which came with expressions; these work perfectly but again not any of the materials even though they're all .pz2 files (which everything I've read indicate .pz2 files are Pose files… so needless to say I'm a little confused)

Question #1
What do I have to do to get these Poser .pz2 files to work in DAZ?


On a side note, Brynne states she's compatible with DAZ but Annis is Poser only. I'd like to be able to review the product pages & determine which features are the incompatible ones and what could be tweaked or converted. I love a lot of the characters over there but often only for one particular quality or another - I don't want to rule them out entirely just because they don't say "FOR DAZ" when I might be able to use just the part I'm interested in.

Question #2
Can anyone tell me how to evaluate the product listings to make educated purchasing decisions?


Any help would be greatly appreciated - thank you so much!

Comments

  • LeanaLeana Posts: 11,814
    edited December 1969

    .pz2 is basically a preset in Poser, it can be used for poses, morphs and materials. They will all be stored in the "Pose" library as they were created initially for poses, before some clever users discovered how to make them work to apply materials too.

    .pz2 materials can be used in DS, you should be able to find them in your Poser content directory and apply them. What doesn't work exactly? And what figure are you trying to use them with?

    The result might be quite different to what you'd get in Poser though : Poser has a "material room" which works roughly like shader mixer, with material nodes, and node settings won't translate at all to DS. And Poser SSS settings won't work at all either.

    The only things that will be kept from the poser material will be diffuse map and color, specular strength (which will usually require adjustment) and color but not specular map, bump settings (which once again will require adjustment most of the time), opacity settings, reflection and IIRC ambiant.
    Displacement settings use nodes so they won't translate, you'll have to add the provided displacement maps yourself in the surface tab in DS and play with the settings.
    Any complex stuff made with the material room nodes will be lost too. So if the character uses complex nodes to add a makeup overlay on the base skin, for example, then that won't work in DS. You might be able to get similar results using the provided maps and layered image editor or shader mixer, but you'd have to set it up yourself.
    And anything that uses procedurals will be completely lost too.

    I don't have those 2 characters so I can't test them myself (though I find Annis really interesting and she just jumped in my wishlist), but I don't see anything that shouldn't work with Brynne (especially since she's supposed to work in DS according to the vendor).
    Annis has displacement maps included so at least that will require adjustments in the surface tab.

  • SimonJMSimonJM Posts: 5,997
    edited December 1969

    To what figure are you trying to add the material settings, via the .pz2 file and for what figure are they for?
    As and when you do manage to get the tetxures loaded you may well need to do a little tweaking and tuning due the the different way Poser works.

  • KittiKitti Posts: 77
    edited December 1969

    I'd like to be able to use the eyes, skin & face; all the makeup is painted onto the face it's not an overlay. Both are for Victoria 4, I initially tried them on The Girl 6 but have also tried Victoria 6 & 5.

    I can live without the SSS, I figured it wasn't going to work - when I try to load a material a box pops up & it thinks for a minute but nothing is applied.

    Is there a tutorial or walkthrough somewhere detailing start to finish how to load, adjust, and use it? Maybe I just need to start fresh.

  • LeanaLeana Posts: 11,814
    edited November 2014

    OK so you're not using them on the figure they were made for, which is the problem.

    Using them on V5 should work as Genesis 1 includes the V4 UVs natively. The only thing is that you may need to tell Genesis to use the V4 UVs after applying the pz2. To do that you need to select Genesis, go to Surfaces tab, select all Genesis surfaces and select V4 in the "UV" drop-down.

    Using them on G2F-based characters is more complicated, as G2F doesn't include the V4 UVs natively and the material zones names are different between V4 and Genesis 2.
    Firstly, in order to use a V4 skin on G2F you need this product, which will give G2F the V4 UVs: http://www.daz3d.com/victoria-4-for-genesis-2-female
    Secondly, the diference in material zone names means that you won't be able to use pz2 made for V4 on V6 or G6 directly.

    Uou have two options there :
    You can re-save the .pz2 as .duf presets: load V4 (or Genesis 1 if you don't have V4), apply the pz2 (switch UVs to V4 on Genesis 1 if needed), then save as a material preset.
    The new preset will work for V4, Genesis and G2F.

    The 2nd option is to use this product, which will do the "material zone matching" directly when you use th .pz2: http://www.daz3d.com/v4-skins-auto-converter-for-genesis-2-female-s

    There again you may have to switch the UVs to V4 after applying the preset (though it will most probably do it automatically).

    Post edited by Leana on
  • KittiKitti Posts: 77
    edited December 1969

    That is the best news I've heard yet! I'd love to throw some money at the problem and move forward so this is excellent.

    Does anyone know if this is a patch that will be included in one of the future studio releases or how far out the next version is? It would be just my luck to buy it today and they'll announce an upgrade tomorrow LOL!

    Thank you both so much for your help!

  • LeanaLeana Posts: 11,814
    edited December 1969

    I really don't think there's any plan at all to include any of the products I linked to in a future version of DS. Firstly they're PA products so DAZ would need to purchase them from their owners, and secondly they have been released quite some time ago so if DAZ had been interested in doing that they would have done it long ago.
    And in the highly unlikely case where they did do that tomorrow, well there's still the 30 days money back guarantee ;)

    As for when the next DS update will be released, well a new beta version was just announced in the forums, so the next public release is probably not that far away.

  • wilcoliowilcolio Posts: 2
    edited December 1969

    Hi everybody, I am new here, but I have the exact same problem as the OP.

    Everything in this post applies to me too, the problem and description of the problem. With the only difference: I use .pz2 for V4 models on a V4 model, but nothing happens... the file loads (it says), but nothing is shown on the model. She stays naked. No dress, or whatever .pz2 material/clothing/etc file I put on her.

    Pz2 poses work perfect, .cr2 files work perfect as well... but the pz2 materials do not show on the model. Not in the viewfinder, nor in the model scene setup.

    I am working in Daz3d 4.7 on a PC. All files installed in the right runtime/library/pose folders.

    What could be my problem???

    I hope somebody can help me out!

    Thanks in advance.

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 102,309
    edited December 1969

    The pz2 file is a pose, or more generally some kind of settings file - in this case probably material settings. You need to load the model (piece of clothing) it applies to and to have it selected before using it. If you don't have a CR2 for the clothing you may have a texture set that is an add-on for another product rather than a complete item.

  • wilcoliowilcolio Posts: 2
    edited December 1969

    Wow! Thank you very very much for the fast reply! I just came back to rectify my post, because I found out how it works... did not expect a reply already.

    You are absolutely right and I am absolutely new here...

    I just figured it out. I have not gotten used to the navigation yet and I was clicking like a madman on the wrong files. I found the obj and cr2 files that hold the actual model of the objects I was looking for, which I weirdly overlooked all the time.

    The files are all manually installed, third party freebies, and I did not really got how the file structure translated into the navigation structure of the menu in the studio, but I figured it out for now.

    It is a bit confusing though. It feels mixed up. But, I will get used to it!

    Thanks again!

  • quenhoai2003_cc2f734902quenhoai2003_cc2f734902 Posts: 7

    Richard Haseltine said:

    The pz2 file is a pose, or more generally some kind of settings file - in this case probably material settings. You need to load the model (piece of clothing) it applies to and to have it selected before using it. If you don't have a CR2 for the clothing you may have a texture set that is an add-on for another product rather than a complete item.

    Hello, I imported a pz2 and apply a aniMate preset but pose's hand not animate. What wrong with my pz2 or how to fix it?

     

    Screenshot 2022-06-15 180748.png
    503 x 518 - 98K
Sign In or Register to comment.