Content not installed in Daz 3d library messed with Daz 3d content files?
A little while ago I picked up a character from a reputable 3rd party site which will remain nameless, and I had forgotten all about it for a while. I installed it this morning and didn't think much of it, a G9, and I've been doing a lot of G8 stuff, so it just really didn't warrant that much attention from me.
After a little while of rendering I decided to load one of the G9's and render, and he was all messed up (it was Michael 9). It was hilarious for a minute until I realized that reloading him didn't fix it and so I tried to load another G9 (CHB Scarlett), and she was warped the same way Michael was. None of my 8.1 or 8's were affected, it was only G9's.
A long frustrating story short, lol, somehow the character I installed this morning to my regular Content (custom) library was able to alter characters installed in Daz's direct content folder (DAZ 3D Library). I'm a little perplexed, I was under the impression these two completely seperate locations were made so for reasons such as to prevent what had just occurred to me (to prevent overwriting essential files and so forth).
Windows search was woefully inadequate to handle finding all the associated files with the problematic character, and I resorted to using Everything by Voidtools so I could fully nuke her rear end off my drive.
So I guess what I'm getting at, is this a normal thing to happen? I was being rather carefree about the custom Content Library because well, I thought it was immune from a nefarious 3rd party overwrite/file. For a little more context, it was applying two morphs to every G9. If someone reading this in the future has the same problem, I can't guarantee the way I solved it will work for you, but I discovered the culprit package by checking the Shaping tab after loading a character, and within the menu for shaping options filtering it by Currently Used (near the top). Once I was able to find the figure responsible I then nuked it from my drive with the understanding that my decision could have actually made things worse lol. But it didn't. Just saying if you go my trial by fire route to exercise caution. It certainly would not be the first time I've had to reinstall Daz (I hate Postgres lol).
Comments
What happens when you load a Genesis figure is that Daz Studio runs off and pre-loads every single compatible morph that it can find across all known base libraries. What you sometimes find is that a PA will save a morph used in their product with a non-zero default value. This then means that every figure that is compatible with that morph will have the morph applied.
This is why your separation of libraries did not protect from this - however, you can be sure that this did not mean that any other files were corrupt and so no re-installing of Daz was needed.
Obviously, removing the offending morph as you have done was enough to fix this issue one way. The other way is to load the base genesis 9 figure (complete with the "messed up" look), zero the offending morph and then save the modfied asset - this should throw up a dialog box saying what will be saved which should hopefully include the problematic morph. There may be an inbetween step in there that I forgot tho, I will try and find it.
EDIT: The steps are:
Anyway, you should raise a support/bug ticket at the store where you purchased the figure so that the PA can be notified that they need to fix their mistake.
That makes a lot of sense. I'm still really nooby in Daz I'm just far more experimental with software then most people are, I don't mind breaking things lol (usually). The Studio software has left me scratching my head in confusion quite a bit though, nothing seems to be a good logical approach to troubleshooting, and finding packages sometimes is maddening lol. Troubleshooting has become much easier though once I switched to the third party search tool and ditched the native Windows one. Postgres taught me I can't go trigger happy deleting stuff though. Most of the problems I've had in Daz have revolved around Postgres... usually when I start trying to edit files by hand... heh.
I've been so busy with the G8's that I tend to forget all the time I can morph the G9's with basically all the other ones. Thank you for the explaination, I was really trying to figure out how it could've happened and was beginning to think Postgres had shuffled some files around even though a CMS isn't really supposed to do that. I'll have to be a bit more critical about looking over the contents of things I install right away rather than taking the I'll Get Around to it approach.
Thank you for reminding me to raise a ticket about it. I'll get that done in a few moments.