Geometry Editor and Save File

MelissaGT

Hello all! I've noticed that if I use the geometry editor to remove parts of an object (most often hair in my case), when I go to save the scene after making my edits, the time it takes to save the scene increases by 1,000 fold. It was like that with my old rig (1800X w/ 32GB RAM) and with the new one (5900X w/ 64GB RAM). Does anybody know the reason for that? I would have assumed because I'm actually reducing the amount of geometry in the scene, that if anything, it should save faster, not slower! I know I can just turn the eye icon off on whatever I want instead of actually deleting the geometry, but that only lasts until I reload the file. Once I reload, I have to go and turn off all the parts I want to hide again and that's a giant pain. 

Xen2k

Alternative approach: create a "new surface" and then assign the selected polygons to the new surface (which you can turn invisible with the opacitiy in surface settings).

 

I haven't encountered your issue with extremely long saving times after deleting polygons though. (A faster saving time is unlikely because deleting polygons means DAZ has to somehow store this individual information which deviates from the original object.)

Havos

This is because the geometry of the altered object is now being saved into the project file. For a low poly object this will hardily be noticeable, but a high poly object will cause a delay. I should add that hair tends to be pretty high poly, in some cases there are millions of polygons.

I recommend that you save the amended hair (or other item) as a Figure/Prop Asset. That way the amended geometry is saved away in that file, and not put in the scene file each time you press save.

PerttiA

When you modify the mesh, it is not the same as DS can load from the library anymore => DS saves the changed mesh to the savefile, which is a lot more work than just saving a link to an existing mesh.

The size of your savefile is also increased when you save the changed geometry inside instead of a link.

MelissaGT

Xen2k said:

Alternative approach: create a "new surface" and then assign the selected polygons to the new surface (which you can turn invisible with the opacitiy in surface settings).

 

I haven't encountered your issue with extremely long saving times after deleting polygons though. (A faster saving time is unlikely because deleting polygons means DAZ has to somehow store this individual information which deviates from the original object.)

I've noticed that with some objects, just turning opacity down to 0 still results in some odd shadow casting from the invisible object. That's why the geometry editor is usually my go-to. 

MelissaGT

Havos said:

This is because the geometry of the altered object is now being saved into the project file. For a low poly object this will hardily be noticeable, but a high poly object will cause a delay. I should add that hair tends to be pretty high poly, in some cases there are millions of polygons.

I recommend that you save the amended hair (or other item) as an  asset. That way the amended geometry is saved away in that file, and not put in the scene file each time you press save.

So if I delete say, bangs, from a hair and then save that modified hair as a figure/prop asset, will that hair still be rigged, etc? Like could I use it in more than just that one scene?  

Richard Haseltine

melissastjames said:

Havos said:

This is because the geometry of the altered object is now being saved into the project file. For a low poly object this will hardily be noticeable, but a high poly object will cause a delay. I should add that hair tends to be pretty high poly, in some cases there are millions of polygons.

I recommend that you save the amended hair (or other item) as an  asset. That way the amended geometry is saved away in that file, and not put in the scene file each time you press save.

So if I delete say, bangs, from a hair and then save that modified hair as a figure/prop asset, will that hair still be rigged, etc? Like could I use it in more than just that one scene?  

Yes, it will be just as you saved it so the rigging and so on will remain. It won't, however, be the same item so newly added morphs for the original will not be available in the new version (which isn't usually an issue with hair or clothing) and it will not be affected by updates to the original.

Richard Haseltine

melissastjames said:

Xen2k said:

Alternative approach: create a "new surface" and then assign the selected polygons to the new surface (which you can turn invisible with the opacitiy in surface settings).

 

I haven't encountered your issue with extremely long saving times after deleting polygons though. (A faster saving time is unlikely because deleting polygons means DAZ has to somehow store this individual information which deviates from the original object.)

I've noticed that with some objects, just turning opacity down to 0 still results in some odd shadow casting from the invisible object. That's why the geometry editor is usually my go-to. 

Another option is to create a new group, create a new bone with the Joint Editor, and assign the group to the bone as its selection set - that way you can completely hide the geometry by turning ioff the bone's visibility. As long as you don't edit the weight maps this will have no effect on the rigging of the figure.

Xen2k

melissastjames said:

Xen2k said:

Alternative approach: create a "new surface" and then assign the selected polygons to the new surface (which you can turn invisible with the opacitiy in surface settings).

 

I haven't encountered your issue with extremely long saving times after deleting polygons though. (A faster saving time is unlikely because deleting polygons means DAZ has to somehow store this individual information which deviates from the original object.)

I've noticed that with some objects, just turning opacity down to 0 still results in some odd shadow casting from the invisible object. That's why the geometry editor is usually my go-to. 

I think this might be caused by the remaining shader options. That's the reason I like to use the "hide surface"-shader from https://www.daz3d.com/resource-saver-shaders-collection-for-iray

It also removes this surface reflection in the preview mode that you sometimes see when only the opacity is set to 0.

Sensual Art

melissastjames said:

Xen2k said:

Alternative approach: create a "new surface" and then assign the selected polygons to the new surface (which you can turn invisible with the opacitiy in surface settings).

 

I haven't encountered your issue with extremely long saving times after deleting polygons though. (A faster saving time is unlikely because deleting polygons means DAZ has to somehow store this individual information which deviates from the original object.)

I've noticed that with some objects, just turning opacity down to 0 still results in some odd shadow casting from the invisible object. That's why the geometry editor is usually my go-to. 

Most likely caused by the refraction or reflection settings for the material (or anything that affect the path of the light irrespective of the maps). I usually set the refraction index to 1 and reflections to default if I am trying to hide a surface. Though I have no clue why Daz has chosen a default refraction index of 1.3 (i.e > 1) even for completely opaque objects.