How to change properties on custom morphs.

lukon100

I changed the slider colors of some custom morphs from gray to orange.

Next time I started DS, the slider colors had reverted to gray.

And later, I discovered that my changes to the CMS paths for the morphs also got un-done next time I re-started DS.

Why? And how can I make it stop? I want my color and path changes obeyed.

crosswind

Did you save morph asset after making the change?

lukon100

crosswind said:

Did you save morph asset after making the change?

I may have.

But also...

As I do more research into my problem, I suspect the problem is caused by duplicate morph files. I have inadvertedly created a few duplicate morph files - the same morph file in two paths. My guess is this confuses Daz when it re-starts. And in that cunfusion, it tries to revert to previous property settings for all morphs in the user's custom morph folders - even reverting the properties of morphs that don't have duplicates.

Bejaymac

A slider's color is stored in the morph DSF file, with a custom morph you set the colors before you save the morph asset, if it already exist as a DSF file then you need to use "save modified assets" to make changes to the DSF file.

lukon100

Bejaymac said:

A slider's color is stored in the morph DSF file, with a custom morph you set the colors before you save the morph asset, if it already exist as a DSF file then you need to use "save modified assets" to make changes to the DSF file.

Thanks so much for that explanation, Bejaymac.

So I tried out the "save modified assets" option. It turns out to be a global command that executes changes on a batch of morphs at once, and does not allow you to remove any morphs from that batch. The command put many morphs in the batch that I did not want changed, including the g3f base figure morph itself. I have no idea why these other morphs were in the batch, and no idea what changes would be made to them. Not a good idea to let the command do a bunch of mysterious changes to morphs I never intended to change. So, without the ability to remove those morphs from the batch, I'm not gonna risk executing the command just to update the morphs I really do want to change.

This just prompts me to complain about the failure of the Daz Studio user interface. The interface allowed me to waste my time changing morph properties when those changes would vanish on session shut-down. I can't imagine why a user would want to change morph properties like path and slider color, and have those changes vanish on shut-down. How could that possibly be a value? Even if it is a value, why is it the default behavior instead of an option one could ask for in special circumstances?

Anyway, now I know how to safely change the properties for only the morphs I want chaged: Re-make each morph and set the properties I will ultimately want before saving the morph as an asset. Then replace the old morphs with the new ones in all the characters that use it. That is, if I can find all those characters. Then delete the old morphs. That's pretty convoluted, but I guess I gotta bite the bullet and do it.

Richard Haseltine

The changes would remain if you saved a scene (or a Character preset and used that to load a new figure, rather than modify a figure already in the scene). You can save individual morph assets (modifier assets in the new beta, though they are functionally the same) though I do dislike the inability to be selective in Save Modified Assets.

lukon100

Richard Haseltine said:

The changes would remain if you saved a scene (or a Character preset and used that to load a new figure, rather than modify a figure already in the scene). You can save individual morph assets (modifier assets in the new beta, though they are functionally the same) though I do dislike the inability to be selective in Save Modified Assets.

Thanks Richard. That basically worked.

What's weird is I thought I had tried saving the scene as a solution before, yet it did not work. No. Wait. Not so weird. Here's why:

I just tried it again and it only partially works. I changed some properties on two moph assets and saved the opened file as a scene. Then I shut down DS. Then I started DS by double clicking on the scene file I just saved. The property changes for the two morphs had survived. All good there.

But then I shut down DS again and started it raw, with no previously made scene file loaded. I loaded in a G3F base figure to check the morph asset properties again. But this time the changes did not survive. They had been erased.

So I shut down DS again and started it again loaded with the saved scene file again. And the changes were present again. So at least DS saved the changes in a limited way, limited to just that scene file.

But now I tried re-saving the morph assets as morph assets again, hoping to over-write the morph assets with these new versions with changed properties. And THAT worked. Now the morph asset properties have the property changes permenant in subsequent re-starting of DS.

This is all in 4.11.

crosswind

Yep ~ The changed settings of a property saved in a Scene file always override the settings within the asset file (DSF) of that property. But for a new load of figure, the data in DSF of the property are always be read.