Saving a custom character asset?

SimonStrange

So, this takes some explanation, probably. 

I can save a custom character morph with textures, shapes, etc., that's not the problem. I'm trying to find a tutorial/guide on how to assemble a character *asset* - i.e., in my characters folder I double click the Michael 8.1 icon and up pops Michael 8.1 in the viewport, complete with textures, etc. I'm not looking to sell anything on the daz store, but I have a slew of custom characters with modified textures, tattoos done in substance painter, tweaked shapes blended from 3-4 other characters and various morphs, etc. Problem is, once in a while I need to do some house cleaning because I haven't sprung for a bigger harddrive, and so I uninstall this or that asset I haven't used for a while and low-and-behold, that asset was part of a custom character. Now I have to go dig through my uninstalled assets, re-install, reload, etc. 

It occurred to me that I should just be saving out these characters (and other stuff, I have some customized clothing and accessories and such) as proper assets with icons, probably something in the runtime textures folder, etc. So where do I go to learn all those bits and bobs?

Eboshijaana

Scene Subset is the way I use. There isn't really any other way (that I know of) of saving a full character (hair+texture+morphs.)

Its in Save As>Scene Subset.

In terms of keeping the material+morphs, the best method would be to either make the whole character into a single morph, or keep track of where you save your custom assets.

 

PerttiA

If your character is using other creators assets (morphs/characters) in achieving the look you want, you will need those assets always when loading that character.

Scene subset lets you save your character with everything fitted to it and you can bring it to your scenes from there

Leana

Eboshijaana said:

 make the whole character into a single morph

That is generally a rather bad idea. When you combine several morphs into a single custom morph (rather than creating a property which would apply the various morphs used in the correct amount) you lose all the corrective morphs which would have been triggered by the individual morphs you used, so you can sometimes get problems when posing or adding expressions with the "single morph" character that you wouldn't have with the "multiple morphs" version.

Eboshijaana

Leana said:

Eboshijaana said:

 make the whole character into a single morph

That is generally a rather bad idea. When you combine several morphs into a single custom morph (rather than creating a property which would apply the various morphs used in the correct amount) you lose all the corrective morphs which would have been triggered by the individual morphs you used, so you can sometimes get problems when posing or adding expressions with the "single morph" character that you wouldn't have with the "multiple morphs" version.

It is, I fully agree. But the OP spoke of their problem being that whenever they do disk cleanups, they accidentally delete a morph one of their custom characters used. So, that is A method to avoid it. Not the best, mind.

Richard Haseltine

Eboshijaana said:

Leana said:

Eboshijaana said:

 make the whole character into a single morph

That is generally a rather bad idea. When you combine several morphs into a single custom morph (rather than creating a property which would apply the various morphs used in the correct amount) you lose all the corrective morphs which would have been triggered by the individual morphs you used, so you can sometimes get problems when posing or adding expressions with the "single morph" character that you wouldn't have with the "multiple morphs" version.

It is, I fully agree. But the OP spoke of their problem being that whenever they do disk cleanups, they accidentally delete a morph one of their custom characters used. So, that is A method to avoid it. Not the best, mind.

The issue is the method/tool used for disc cleanup - if it's making a mess here it's likely to do the same in other areas too