Instance management plugin

Instances are an effective and cool way to create large numbers of identical figures that you can then move around. The Plant/Grass pack makes great use of this.

However, using instances is a little clunky... you want to be able to move and rotate individual figures to avoid the visible regularity, in many cases. You might want the same character with different outfits.

It'd be nice to have some sort of plugin that can manage these things, maybe randomly distribute, or place a bunch of figures relative to another surface, shuffle the orientation of multiple figures, mix several different sets of instances to avoid clumping, etc.

 

Comments

  • evilded777evilded777 Posts: 2,464
    edited December 2015

    Isn't that what Send in the Clones does, Will? I could be wrong.  Well... some of it, but not all.

    Post edited by evilded777 on
  • Isn't that what Send in the Clones does, Will? I could be wrong.  Well... some of it, but not all.

    Send in the Clones does not do true instances. Where instances do not use up memory, the clones do use up memory.

    I wrote Send in the Clones before Daz Studio had instances... I may just need to address this need ;)

  • Oso3DOso3D Posts: 15,011

    My money's waiting. ;)

     

  • evilded777evilded777 Posts: 2,464

    Isn't that what Send in the Clones does, Will? I could be wrong.  Well... some of it, but not all.

    Send in the Clones does not do true instances. Where instances do not use up memory, the clones do use up memory.

    I wrote Send in the Clones before Daz Studio had instances... I may just need to address this need ;)

    +1

  • DraagonStormDraagonStorm Posts: 748
    edited December 2015

    Instances are an effective and cool way to create large numbers of identical figures that you can then move around. The Plant/Grass pack makes great use of this.

    However, using instances is a little clunky... you want to be able to move and rotate individual figures to avoid the visible regularity, in many cases. You might want the same character with different outfits.

    It'd be nice to have some sort of plugin that can manage these things, maybe randomly distribute, or place a bunch of figures relative to another surface, shuffle the orientation of multiple figures, mix several different sets of instances to avoid clumping, etc.

     

    Playing around with instances and so far, from what I see, you can not put different outfits on the instances of a character (testing with Genesis 2 Female).. As you can not use the fit to since the instance is not a node...

    Have you tried this and been successful?

    Even tried to put one outfit on G3F, create an instance... Then remove that outfit from G3F so that I could change it and create a another instance, but then the outfit is also removed from the first instance.

    Post edited by DraagonStorm on
  • Oso3DOso3D Posts: 15,011

    No, I haven't, I thought someone mentioned you could. My bad. ;)

     

  • wgdjohnwgdjohn Posts: 2,634

    I've not messed with Instances yet but am all for the plugin idea as it would reduce time in rendering and in postwork.

  • barbultbarbult Posts: 24,244

    You cannot change textures or clothing of instances.

  • I would be happy if I could choose several objects, hold down a key (like shift) and drag away a complete duplicate set

    to place.

  • I would be happy if I could choose several objects, hold down a key (like shift) and drag away a complete duplicate set

    to place.

    Something like that would have to be done by the Daz3D programmers within Daz Studio itself. Not something a PA could do with script or plugin.

  • Playing around with instances and so far, from what I see, you can not put different outfits on the instances of a character (testing with Genesis 2 Female).. As you can not use the fit to since the instance is not a node...

    I assume you mean not a figure?

    Something like that would have to be done by the Daz3D programmers within Daz Studio itself. Not something a PA could do with script or plugin.

    I'm pretty sure that could be done as a plug-in, though as a script would probably be limited to selecting and then clicking a command (mouse interaction, as far as I know, requires plug-in level coding - though I think there was a plug-in for that, perhaps one of Casual's).

  • Ask and ye shall receive (sometimes)... Or at least I hope this is what you wanted :)

    http://www.daz3d.com/instances-plus-for-daz-studio

    Main.jpg
    1000 x 1300 - 684K
  • Oso3DOso3D Posts: 15,011

    I laughed out loud when I saw that this morning. :) Good job!

    It's in my wishlist for my next budget cycle.

     

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