dForce Modifiers in Headless Mode

TheMysteryIsThePoint

Hi All,

I'm writing a tool that runs headless. When exporting geometry, all other morphs are applied, except for the results of dForce simulations. That is, simulated objects look like their unsimuated state. Is there an additional trick to apply dForce modifiers? Are there any special considerations when running headless (I've encountered a few)?

Thanks!

TheMysteryIsThePoint

I see that all the required data for vertex deltas vs time are al in the scene DSON file, so I have a Plan B, but I can't help thinking that there's some function that does this?

vectorinus

It's good that you answer your own questions, TheMysteryIsThePoint! Topics hanging without answers make a depressing impression. When I started studying Daz SDK, I looked through all the pages of this thread since 2012. Sometimes the title of a topic gave me hope that I would receive the answer I needed right now. But there was no answer. There was just a question. It seems to me that at present, the number of people discussing SDK has greatly decreased. Despite the fact that this is a very promising direction for the development of Daz Studio. Programming enthusiasts could improve the Studio appeal by creating useful (even if small) plugins that make the program easier to use.

TheMysteryIsThePoint

vectorinus said:

It's good that you answer your own questions, TheMysteryIsThePoint! Topics hanging without answers make a depressing impression. When I started studying Daz SDK, I looked through all the pages of this thread since 2012. Sometimes the title of a topic gave me hope that I would receive the answer I needed right now. But there was no answer. There was just a question. It seems to me that at present, the number of people discussing SDK has greatly decreased. Despite the fact that this is a very promising direction for the development of Daz Studio. Programming enthusiasts could improve the Studio appeal by creating useful (even if small) plugins that make the program easier to use.

@vectorinus

My experience was just like yours was, except 7 years later. The uplifting feeling when I found a technical forum, even more so when I discovered there was an SDK, and when I found there was a C++ SDK I thought, awww man, I'm going to make DAZ Studio get up and dance! It's going to fit perfectly into my workflow and wars will cease and there will be no world hunger. I don't know how long it took me to realize that there's no meaningful documentation, the devs don't frequent the forums, and they'll ignore any and every plea for help, no matter how easily they could have explained it in retrospect.

To make matters worse, I contrast it with the treatment I got from the Blender folks. At SIGGRAPH last year, Ton frinking Rosendahl left the Blender booth just to help me find the guy who could help with the specific problem I was having. Hans Goudey and Dalai Felinto made me feel like my hair strands problem was as important to them as it was to me, gave me contact info and moral support. And the year before that, Ton actually had the rep from Amazon wait his turn while he addressed my question, and a follow up I had. Now THAT is how to create a community. I go to SIGGRAPH every year it is in Los Angeles just to perform my ritual of shaking Ton Rosendahl's hand, looking him straight in the eyes, and saying "Thank you, sir."

It is frustrating because I may gripe a lot, but I wish DAZ to succeed. Like you, I think of what DAZ Studio could be like if there were actual technical support and people with limited time to work on their projects didn't have to be reverse engineer even the simplest things. But failing that, I suppose the only thing we can do is answer our own questions.

Thanks for your note.

 

Richard Haseltine

What does "meaningful" mean? There certainly is per-function documentation, and although I cannot comment on the SDK version the scripting docs are good enough for most areas 9and i think the others are my lack of understanding of basic principles).

The devs may not post to the forums as such, but we do get information from them which we pass on so it isn't true to say the forums are ignored.

TheMysteryIsThePoint

Richard Haseltine said:

What does "meaningful" mean? There certainly is per-function documentation, and although I cannot comment on the SDK version the scripting docs are good enough for most areas 9and i think the others are my lack of understanding of basic principles).

Are you trolling me, Richard? I know for a fact that I've explained in great detail the many egregious shortcomings of the SDK documentation and the difficulty it presents for a low level language like C++ more than a few times over the last 5-6 years, and so any attempt to explain what "meaningful" documentation would be would represent me repeating myself for the nth time. I am not concerned with the state of the scripting docs and make no comment about them. But the C++ docs are just slightly above completely useless and I usually just read the header files, which, in a language like C++ is completely insufficient for a dev to understand the interface because the headers express syntax, not semantics, i.e. the what of things, but not the who, when, where, why, or how.

The devs may not post to the forums as such, but we do get information from them which we pass on so it isn't true to say the forums are ignored.

You do get information? Then why are nearly all of the questions in the SDK forum unanswered, as the OP and many others have mentioned? Compare this forum to any other app, where the forum is vibrant with lots of movement and sharing of information, and where official staff are actively participating, sharing information, and educating. I had a problem with hair curves in Blender, and within a few days I was having a conversation with Hans Goudey, the guy that implemented them. Dailai Felinto messaged me back to see how I was doing with the fix. Jason van Gumster pointed me to a bunch of beginner's Blender Dev tutorials. Again I ask, why even have an SDK if you're not going to support it or be serious about the community around it?

Look, Richard, you are the only person who has ever lifted a finger to help me , and for that I am grateful. But I will not make excuses for the state of affairs because that will not contribute to things getting better. I continue to think of what DAZ Studio would be like, what it could do, if every person who posted an abandoned question got the kind of support experienced in other app communities. With the quality of the brilliant PAs DAZ enjoys, it would take over the 3D world.

vectorinus

TheMysteryIsThePoint said:

... it would take over the 3D world.

Wonderful phrase, I endorse each and every word.
And I hope that it will be so. They have a good chance. I think they could convert their huge content into a database managed by some kind of server. Upon logging into this server, a visitor could type a phrase (similar to midjourney and stable diffusion) and receive lists of matching products. And when choosing certain combinations of these products, the server would render an approximate scene to show how it would look on the user’s computer if he purchased this set. Of course, very powerful graphics stations must be installed on the server so that the renderings are not inferior in attractiveness to the images that various AIs now offer. If you find it difficult to understand my English, then do not pay attention to my writing. These are just my dreams. But if only they could create such a server! Then Daz would take over not only the 3D world, but also the 2D world and the minds of millions of people! Can you imagine what an advantageous position the creators of plugins for DAZ Studio would find themselves in then?

Roman_K2

I am advised that some people are taking various datasets into "mini" (that's a term I'll coin for now) A.I.'s that they train for a specific purpose like "what's the best way to fix my x-y-z piece of equipment" (EDIT: which could be physical, or it could just be computer code) or "what should I have for breakfast today?".

Also I have a product or tool now on one of my web sites - just a piece of code really - that alphabetically sorts all asset pages. It's still a beta thang and it is currently displaying stuff that needs to be relegated back to the guarded vaults asap but you get the idea.  Lots of missing pieces and possibilities for the DAZ front end.