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Organise Parameters: how?

marblemarble Posts: 7,500
edited July 2015 in Daz Studio Discussion

I have some products with a list of parameters so long that I become bewildered trying to find one (by the way, the parameter search window at the top is broken for me - it rarely recognises when I click in it so it interprets any key I type as a viewport shortcut - very annoying if I happen to type backspace).

I'd like to be able to create sub-categories. I'd also like to be able to change - AND SAVE - parameter dial colours with the product. I wasted half an hour yesterday chaning the colours on a long list of morph dials (and, yes, I did File>Save As>Morph Asset). The colours were gone when I loaded that product in another scene. Am I missing some technique? 

The Save as Morph Asset works for morphs I have created and manually set the parameter colurs, etc. but not for pre-existing morph dials which are all uniform grey. While some vendors are considerate enough to organise and colour the sliders, I'd really like to be able to do it myself.

Post edited by marble on

Comments

  • ben98120000ben98120000 Posts: 469
    edited July 2015

    To create categories and sub-categories, click on the little cog icon in upper right corner of the slider and from menu select "Parameters Settings". In parameters settings window, under path field you can writte/type in manually your new categories and sub-categories  (DS will create them automatically) or pick already existing one by clicking on the down pointing triangle icon on the right side of the path field. Categories and sub-categories are separated by "/" sign, for example, MyMorphs/Head. 

    If you are changing categories (or colors) of already existing (saved) morphs you can use File - Save As - Support Asset - Save Modified Assets..  to save your changes. But be careful with that one, it will try to save everything that was modified (you will get the list of changes it wants to save).

    If you want to change categories (or move morphs/sliders to different one) for more than one morph at once, click with right mouse button on parameters tab and from the menu select/activate Edit Mode. Than press and hold CTRL key on the keyboard and click on morphs to select them. Or you can select first morph, press and hold SHIFT key and select last morph and it will select first, last and all morphs in between.

    When you have your morphs selected, click with right mouse button on one of them and from the menu select Set - Property Group..., type in or pick a path/menu and click Accept and it will make/move paths for all selected morphs. Or Set - Presentation.. for changing colors for more than one morph. And after you are done exit/deselect edit mode and save modified assets.

    Post edited by ben98120000 on
  • marblemarble Posts: 7,500

    Many thanks. I have read similar advice but I thought I had tried it and failed to get it to work. For example, yesterday, I tried to create a new sub-category as in your example, MyMorphs/Head but the expected /Head sub-category didn't appear. I'll try again now because it is very possible that I did something wrong. 

    Thanks too for explaining the Save Modifed Assets pitfalls. I'll be careful to select the ones I want. I had also stumbled into Edit mode but didn't know what to do with it. Your explanation suggests I can save a lot of time using it, however.

     

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 102,356

    When using the filter, be careful not to move the mouse pointer over a parameter slider after clicking or it will steal focus from the text box. This is apparently a Qt limitation, I have complained about it myself. Shift-K should toggle the viewport keyboard navigation on and off, so that if you do type without focus you won't move your camera.

  • marblemarble Posts: 7,500
    edited July 2015

    Ahh - thanks Richard. Glad to know it isn't just me and the Shift-K toggle should help too. It wasn't just the camera. it would do things to whatever was selected, like deleting the figure if that was selected in the viewport when I typed backspace.

    Post edited by marble on
  • marblemarble Posts: 7,500
    edited July 2015

    Ok - the create sub-category does work as described here so I was obviously doing something wrong yesterday. Now to try the colour change and save.

    Post edited by marble on
  • marblemarble Posts: 7,500

    I have just tried changing the colours of a block of parameters. I used the Edit mode and Save Modified Assets procedure as described above. However, I wasn't sure what damage I could do with this option so I set all custom morphs to Zero before I called Save Modified Assets. I notice that this option doesn't allow you to change your own version but saves changes directly to the original model. This is different to my cusom morphs which I can save to my own version by changing something in the product name (or Author Name). That way, the new folder in the Data directory can be dumped without affecting the original product.

  • mjc1016mjc1016 Posts: 15,001

    If you Save As > <type> instead of Modified you can 'version' it.

    Or what I do, go to the folder and copy the original and save a copy, before making changes (I usually  just paste it back, which gives me the option to change the name...not sure which OS you have, so that may not be an option).  I rename it to something like originalname.~ (the '~' is generally recognized as 'backup file').  Then, it doesn't matter if Studio overwrites it or not and then you don't have to go digging around to reinstall just one item.

  • SpottedKittySpottedKitty Posts: 7,232
    Richard Haseltine said:

    When using the filter, be careful not to move the mouse pointer over a parameter slider after clicking or it will steal focus from the text box.

    Ah, a mystery is solved! After I click into the search box, I usually move the pointer down out of the way so I can see what I'm typing... right into the middle of the parameter sliders.  no

    At least now the <shift>-k works... after a couple of times... so I'm not jerking the camera all over the place with keyboard shortcuts,  but it's incredibly annoying to type in a filter string, look up, and see absolutely nothing there.

    Think there's any chance of a bug report helping?

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 102,356

    I suppose if it affects you and you report it that will give them an idea of how widely it is a problem, but that's useful only if there is anything they can do directly. I'm pretty sure I was told it was a Qt issue - in which case we are all waiting on Qt to fix whatever it is.

  • mjc1016mjc1016 Posts: 15,001

    I think it is fixed in Qt 5...not sure if it will make it to Qt 4.  I've got other  Qt4 apps that do the same thing...but no Qt5 ones that do.

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