Tips to work with JP Sandor's dForce Body Hair
jepegraphics
Posts: 884
Working with dForce hair can be tricky and often very tedious and frustrating. To avoid DAZ Studio crashes - and Studio loves to crash often when working with dForce hair - try to follow some rules. This is based on a sum of experiences I made, be aware of that it can be better or even worse on your computer machine.
1. Save your scene as often as you can or you have to start from zero again too often! - Means, after loading your character, think about a unique name and save your scene. After that you only need to click once on the "Save" Icon and your work is safe!
2. JP Sandor's dForce body hair parts load fully visible - to have a first impression of the look. Make sure Geneis 9 is selected before you apply the body hair Presets, with one exception, for the dForce Hair AEM (Anatomival Elements Male) the genitals have to be selected, NOT Genesis 9! Otherwise DS crashes! I also suggest to choose a hair color then from the subfolder of the dForce hair. Please remember, Shaders are Shaders, not Material Presets, you need to select the hair item in the scene Tab and ALSO the material zone in the surface Tab before you apply another hair color.
3. dForce body hair visibility is nice but also has a downside. You will see that after loading all the different dForce hair areas, you can't pose Genesis 9 anymore, it's because Studio has to calculate too much surface adjustments for the dForce hair for new limb positions. Don't panic, select all the dForce Hair objects in the Scene Tab Genesis 9 hierarchy and simply use the dForce Hair Visibility Preset I included and that is located in the same folder as the dForce hair.
You will then only see hair guides, but no hair anymore. Don't forget the AEM hair, when you loaded it correctly, it is parented to the Genitals, not to Genesis 9. You can then pose Genesis 9 as you like again and with ease.
For rendering you need to turn ON the visibility of the hair again of course with the other properies visibility Preset.
4. Another DS crash can happen when you turn on the Iray preview Mode when the dForce hair is invisible. When you need to control the lighting for instance after all your scene and environment is set, turn off the visibility of the dForce hair with the EYE ICON in the scene Tab for all the dForce hair areas, then you can watch the scene with the Iray Preview mode and adjust lighting. I know it is tedious and needs time, but it is better than a crash! For the final rendering you need to turn the visibilty on again, with both, the EYE ICONS and the dForce hair visibility Property Preset.
5. JP Sandor's dForce body hair usually don't need to be simulated, it's not long enough for a simulation to have any visible impact. But you can of course play around in the surface settings and adjust so many parameters of the hair outcome like length, fuzzyness or thickness, simulate it with reduced stiffness and higher gravity settings to see what happens - with wet skin you maybe get more realistic renders out of the pool! :)
6. Render Settings: I recommend to enable Tonemapping and to set the Exposure Value to 12. Also in the Filter Tab, set the Pixel Filter Radius to lower than 1.0, I recommend 0.75, it's important for rendering fine details like body hair! Make the Post Denoiser Available ON but don't turn it on, so you can switch it on at every time during the render in case you need it. I always render with "Guided Sampling" ON in the Optimization Tab, that I at least have a bit of caustic effects in my renders with water or glass, mostly it doesn't make a big difference though.
The Progressive Rendering Tab - well, I have a good machine and render mostly by visual check - so I set the Max Sample to 15K, Max Time to 0 and the Rendering Converged Ratio to 100%, but that is only good for a little bit better machines or when you render overnight. And don't forget, in General Tab, set the Auto Headlamp to NEVER, never ever render with Auto Headlamp - if your scene is black, use Strg + L!
Let me know if you have any more questions.
Greetings, Jepe
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Comments
Just wanted to say that I was really excited to see this in the store, and really appreciate a beard that includes the neck. Thanks for posting all the tips here, will keep this in mind when I get a chance to try this out.
Thank you for your kind words, very much appreciated!
I completely overlooked it. I thought it was a character. I have added it to my cart, it looks useful.
That seem to happen a lot, so spread the word!
Daz did crash a few times for me until I read your post. Thanks for the tips! Always love your stuff.
Thank you! - I hope the tips help a bit.
Thanks for the great release. I am new to Daz and jumped in with G9. There hasn't been much for male character releases, so this was an excellent addition. Do you have any plans to also release a geometry shell body hair pack for G9? For Mac users, I think that's still a great option to reduce render times (that said, I haven't tried a render with this product yet and I may be overestimating the challenges it'll create for my computer). Thanks again.
Thank you for your kind words.
I plan to make a Genesis 9 Geoshell Body Hair pack, yes, but it's a plan still. I wanted to see how the sales are going with my G9 release and in general, since it is not that long on the market yet and it is my first Genesis 9 guy.
To be honest, it is not like in the past times with new releases, but I know that we faced a lot of bad things in the last 3 years and the economic situation is not getting better also, not here in Europe or elswehere. We can be happy that we're still here and can play with our toys.
So long story short, I will working on it!
Hi Jepe, I am switching to this communication method so other people can benefit. I am doing the proper way to use shaders, but still, they won't work to change colors or length. I wonder if it has to do with my computer. I'm on a Mac M1, which Daz3D is not optimized for, though it seems to work. Actually, none of the "extra" seems to work, for instance the "Hair on/off", or the "ALL MAT". The only one function working is the eyes color changes.
Also, I am rendering on the max size settings, so any advice on rendering would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks for your help and for this great product.
- JC
I'm sorry that I can't be of a big help in this case, I never worked with DAZ Studio on a Mac, so I don't know what circumstances cause all the issues.
For the "Extras" - the "visibility ON and OFF Presets are Property Presets for the dForce Hair items, when you have them applied and selected, they should toggle the dForce PS/PR Hairs Generation, Preview and Tessalation Sides ON and OFF. The dForce Hair item should be selected when you apply that. Alternatively you can of course switch ON/OFF all that manually in the Parameters Tab. See first Screenshot.
For the hair color, select the hair item (in my case the brows), select the surface in the surface Tab and apply the hair color from the Presets. See screenshot 2.
This is how it's supposed to work. As said, I have no clue how it looks on a MAC and what to do to get to work.
Thanks Lepe, that really helped! :)