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The PA initials are usually there to avoid having a duplicate file name from another pack. It's been that way for a lot of years and the only remedy to the issue at the moment.
One of the worst things is having to search for the pose "sit 01" or "sitA" when you have several dozen poses named "sit 01" or "sitA". Putting the PA ID in front of the file names is one of the most convenient and effective ideas to search quickly and not end up with duplicate files.
Possibly another solution could be to come to the convention of putting the name of the PA at the end: "SitA - XXX". Where XXX is the ID of the PA.
@Tomhip, I believe the script you might be looking for is in this set: Daz Studio Animation Tools - Set 1 | Daz 3D Body2Hip will take the information on the object (it even works for Genesis 9) and moves that information over to the hip and zeros it for the body.
@lou_harper, glad to hear that the spine utility partial poses from my sets are useful. I'm sure there are many different scenarios where different spine arrangements are preferred by the user and I'm trying to provide many options.
I'll keep following this thread, if people have requests for helpful poses. No guarantees, but I'm always open to suggestions, comments and constructive criticism.
If the items are in different folders, doesn't that eliminate a problem with duplicate file names?! I look inside a folder for the items I want.
Thata ssumes the user is looking in the folder under Daz Studio Formats, or in the Product container, it won't be so useful if they are in Categories or Smart Content>Files.
Richard, I hear what you're saying. But I gave up on Categories and Smart Content long ago. It takes too much work to get things right, and the results are sorely lacking (in my own opinion and experience.)
In the end, I find using Poses and Expressions to be needlessly taxing. That's because of the way they're labelled. If you have 100 PAs, you have 100 alphabets to sort through. In the "regular world," you have only one alphabet to work with.
In the spirit of trying to "Be Part of the Solution," I created a screener script that should be able to check for poses that cause problems as discussed in this thread.
The script checks for root figure translations and rotations as well as root figure scale changes and eye rotations.
It is very much a "version 1.0" effort and has only been tested on Genesis 8 poses. I hope to broaden the testing to include Genesis 9.
It is supplied as a Powershell script in a ZIP file. Unzip it to use the script, of course.
Released under Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal public domain dedication. Users may distribute, adapt and build upon this code.
Run it from a Powershell console window. Examples below use Powershell "Dot-sourcing" to invoke the script and assume the script is in the user's current working directory. Invoking the script without the directory parameter will process only the files in the current working directory.
Usage:
Powershell> . .\"DAZ Pose File Checker.ps1"
Or
Powershell> . .\"DAZ Pose File Checker.ps1" <directory containing pose DUF files>
as:
Powershell> . .\"DAZ Pose File Checker.ps1" D:\DAZ_Pose_Files\Vendor_Poses
If the DAZ team would like to use it for screening incoming vendor pose sets, I would support their use of it wholeheartedly and unreservedly.
Olo
So, this thread was brought to my attention. Since I mostly do poses by choice, and this is how I earn my keep, some of the requests made here go against what Daz wants its pose makers to do. We're expected to build poses at zero on the hip, for use anywhere poses. This shouldn't move your figure back to zero if you've moved the body to where you want it in your scene. Pose creators who put translations and rotations on the body should be made to go sit in the corner. It's a sign of an amateur, which I try to avoid. (Be kind on my early, pre-Genesis poses. I didn't know I was starting out then.) Pose sets that I build for a specific environment, I include both "use anywhere" (ex situ) presets and "use in place" (in situ) presets. So don't get hung up on a pose set made for a specific environment. If it's one of mine, I have you covered. (Mostly. There are a couple of exceptions, which I believe are poses I made for the PC/PC+/Daz+ line because I was told not to include them.)
Naming conventions - for a long time, pose creators could name their poses whatever they wanted until about two or three years ago, when Daz moved to a naming convention so that we have to use identifiers in the beginning of our preset names. This was because newer sets were coming along that were named the same as older sets and those older presets were resaved over with the new presets. People lost content and it was a mess. I realize it's a hassle, as I love to have my content laid out in a neat, easy to find fashion. It, unfortunately is one of those sacrifices made to ensure customers don't lose their purchases when installing new content. I do try to be logical when I name my pose presets so that they can be found easliy.
As Lyrra points out, I do make great pains to create poses along the timeline to match her dforce outfits so that customers don't pull their hair out simulating for a specific pose. I've done that for you! Lol. I want you all to have the best posing experiences when using dforce. And while I do make those outfit specific timeline poses (which I call Animated Timeline Poses, or ATPs) you can use them with most dforce outfits. The theory is just the same. You might have to tweak a limb here and there along the timeline to account for the new outfit's fabric cut, but essentially they will work just fine. If you have a problem, you can always track me down. I'm willing to answer questions.
As for gender specific poses, I try very hard to make a distinction. I will never pass a female pose as a masculine pose and vice-versa. And I make it a point to make realistic poses. No broken back syndromes, no furniture humping poses, no physically impossible poses - unless I specify in the description that the pose is made with the limits off. As I put on all of my products, FeralFey poses are fact checked for balance, gravity, and realism. I take great pride in this, as it is MY brand.
My ultimate goal is to make poses that you, the user, can use; that they look plausible; that you can use in multiple ways; and that they appeal to you guys. Making poses that you all will use is what makes me happy. So because of that, I will always listen to what you guys have to say. But also understand that sometimes I have to listen to what Daz tells me to do, because it's their house, their rules. Finding the balance is where you'll see my sets. And if you have anything specific you want to see in the store, I'm listening.
Yup, this is annoying and it's everywhere, not just poses. If it's only a couple of letters like 'FG' or similar it's not too bad but when you get an acronym for a really long product name with the PA's own name crowbarred in there as well it can be utterly unreadable for the average human brain. I do away with it all on first download and I'll link you to a free utility at the bottom to make this process a lot quicker and easier.
There is other egregious nonsense to contend with though and I've had my own internal categories for years. As we're all on a rant, I'll share some of the prefix inaninity:
The Underscorers: These people clearly don't have a spacebar on their keyboard or still work in DOS. My_fabulous_secret_garden_set_and_pose_and_prop_pack.
The C++ variable namers: A category of people who basically look up from Unreal Engine every now and again to create a masterpiece for Daz and then ruin it thusly: myFabulousSecretGardenSetAndPoseAndPropPack. I basically expect to see the word 'float' or 'bool' in front of that nonsense every time I read it.
The Space Denial Conspiracy: A subset of the C++ group: myfabuloussecretgardensetandpropandposepack
The Abbreviators: MFSSGAPAPP
The Masters of Their Art: A combination of all of the above in one hellish wordscape readable only by machine. myVendorNameMFSSGAPAPP_Pants-Grey_01
I really wish this practice would end - there's no need for prefixing anything really. About the only justification I could come up with for doing this (and this is making pretzels out of the possibilities) is that you could load a chair from one product, and a chair from another product and there would be no way to tell which was which in the scene panel as you would have Chair and Chair(2). Other than, you know, using your Mk.I Eyeball.
I have a suspicion it makes the PA's lives easier to use an internal naming convention that makes sense to them, especially if they've got a very large catalogue of props/clothes/figures to keep track of. It can't be too time consuming to remove it for the release files, surely.
---
It has possibly the most confusing interface known to humankind on first contact but once understood it makes short work of any of the above:
https://www.bulkrenameutility.co.uk
Thank you for this. It's exactly the situation I'm concerned with, here. The hope is that my little screener script miight be used by a pose creator to screen his/her poses before they are submitted to DAZ and give the creator an opportunity to fix the problem before it gets into the ecosystem. Failing that, if DAZ staff could quickly run the script as soon as they receive a candidate product from a PA, they could produce a list of the most irksome problems for the PA to correct before any further acceptance of the product.
Olo
I'm always happy to chime in, especially when it comes to best practices. Daz already has a means that the PAs use to check their work to make sure that their products are "store ready" and ready to pass QA, but poses are just kind of glossed over with how the Validator works. Or maybe it's a little better than I think...I've never had Validator trip on any of my pose sets. The only hiccup I've ever had is if I'm using someone else's prop and the prop had an issue...but I digress.) I like the idea of your script checking whether translations/rotations are in the body bone. That's handy.
I'm not so keen on the script gagging on the eye rotations, though, as I often pose the eyes. I don't bake in expressions, because that's not best practices. Expressions should be separated. But, I like to pose the eyes because that helps to give motivation to the pose I'm creating - especially when I'm creating a vignette pose of two or more figures that need to look at each other or at a specific prop, limb, or whatever. Plus, by not posing the eyes for a specific pose, you wind up risking customers rendering their character with the dreaded "dead eye". It's a small thing, but the eyes can add so much life, direction, and motivation to a pose. Of course, there are instances where the end user might need a different motivation for the eyes, and it's not complex to dial spin the eyes to where they want the figure to look. But maybe perhaps I should start including an eye pose preset with my sets, so that customers can remove the "gaze" if they choose? Honest question.
Underscores are not allowed in user-facing files according to DAZ's rules. If you see a product sold in this store with this, you can certainly put in a ticket so the PA can fix it. That said, if you're purchasing from other stores or freebies, then that's a different story. Since those places/PAs may have different rules.
Same as above.
This is a rule DAZ implemented. All user-facing files in a product must include the product's name (optionally, the PA's initials). Some may also use the PAs initials as branding (which I find helpful because most times I remember the PA who made a product, if not the product name, so searching is easier if the initials are in the name).
However, when a product has a long name, PAs may use abbreviations to shorten it while still following the rules. I have heard both sides of the argument, where people like abbreviations while others think they are meaningless. When possible, I try to include the name rather than the acronym because that makes it easier if you're looking for the presets inside of DAZ (if you are searching by product name), but I used to use abbreviations before.
Products' names also follow specific rules. So, although most of us try our best to keep the product name short, we still need the name to be descriptive enough so people know what the product is about.
At the end of the day, PAs must make a lot of decisions, which may infuriate some people while catering to others. There is no one size fits all, unfortunately. Rules also change, and PAs adapt to them as they continue creating. We also learn and, with time, may put more thought into how we organize things as we read feedback and try to accommodate things without breaking others. At the end of the day, all PAs function differently, though.
Also, as users, we all organize things differently. If you have a particular way of organizing, the easiest thing would be to organize things, rename them as you see fit, and use the content library rather than smart content. So long as you do not touch the Runtime and Data folders, you should be safe. The only exceptions to this would be script-based products, which may break if you try to rename or reorganize things.
I hope this helps provide more insight.
The script doesn't really get too excited about any "discrepancy." It just reports stuff that I thought was incorrect. I guess we can disagree on eyelines. Personally, I really don't like a pose causing syes to stare at something "over there", especially when the elements that are changed are the eyeball rotations in the head, itself. If it were simply the eye "Look Left-Right" and "Look Up-Down" sliders, then I could live with it. But burrowing into the character's head to find eye rotations. Not good.
As an aside, I found that at least one of DAZ's Genesis 8 male Starter Essentials poses change character position in the scene. Good grief.
Manual instalaltion and reorganisation may suit some, but bear in mind that it will break certain features and will also be a pain in the event of a product update. Links and categorisation offer ways to organise content without breaking anything, and with minimal issues following an update.
Absolutely. I was trying to be a bit tongue-in-cheek and all of our content is manually installed, renamed and assigned to somewhere that makes sense to us as a company. Deleting prefixes is not a major hassle and nor is removing the utterly useless and unwanted empty Iray folder that plagues the materials folder of pretty much every recent Daz store product so I'm assuming that's something that's inflicted on you as well.
There are some practices that just add to a workload and make things more difficult. This prefixing and useless empty folders are the obvious ones from my perspective but you are absolutely correct - I am approaching it from my perspective and my perspective only and it may well be that the vast majority of people either don't notice (Smart Content) or don't care one way or another.
I think for me, two irritations can be when poses for women are 'high heeled' i'd rather they were just 'flat feet' it's such a faff I find to use them and then adjust it to stand normally without heels, especially when I'm doing scenes that are posing for a photo but without heels on often. Whereas adding heels to a pose with a specfic high heel works better, when you apply that clothing item.
Also, any pose which gives an expression is annoyance, especially if it whacks the dials up all the way
*
+1
Unless the pose specifically uses the feet or is a set specifically designed for an outfit, I say just leave them out of it. In addition to having to reset the feet from heels to flat or vice versa, it's rare to get a high heel pose that works well with the heels my character has on.
Not a pet peeve, but a frustration point. When I do use high heels and the outfit had a foot pose, and then select a pose to for the character that shows a high heel pose, the feet go flat. So before I can simulate, I have to return to the outfit and use its foot pose again, then simulate the character and outfit. And somehow the feet end up flat at the end of simulation some of the time.
Is there anything I can do to avoid this?
What causes this?
And yes, I do buy the foot pose packs as well to help me when an outfit doesn't have a foot pose included. Or I need to adjust the feet to another height because I give up on the included shoes with the outfit.
@memcneil70 this is likely being caused by the fact that the foot pose is only affecting pose controls in the feet. Standard poses should not include pose controls, only transformations (rotarions mostly). At least this is how it is supposed to be, but is not followed consistently on other sites.
What is probably happening is that you are putting in a keyframe for the foot pose (pose controls) when you create it but elsewhere in your timeline you have a keyframe which is resetting the foot pose control(s) to zero. I think the default settings in DS are for translations, rotations and atlas to be shown in the keyframe timeline. Try changing the types by adding the "Other" options, which will show pose controls and morphs. Then you can see the keyframes that are present on that parameter to see if there are other keyframes in the timeline which are resetting it. This setting is found at the bottom of the timeline (see attached images).
I should add that it is currently okay for foot pose corrections (to fit shoes) to include either transformations or pose controls. It should probably only be one or the other, but depends on how the PA built the shoe and the type of pose needed to fit the foot to the shoe. So it is entirely up to the PA to decide which to use. This sometimes does create issues for the user depending on which poses they are using and what they are trying to do (static or animation).
Personally I like to build my poses with flat feet and let the user add the pose controls/foot poses for fitting heels if necessary. There are also some good add-ons for fitting high heels, such as this one: https://www.daz3d.com/heelscontrol.
Finally, in my BYOP sets I always include a "Fit Shoes" pose. But this one is to clear the transformations on individual toes and metatarsals. I figure its better to add the detail to the orginal poses and have the user remove it if the character is wearing shoes and there is poke-through.
My only issues with pose makers are when they turn off the limits to make their pose sets, those limits are there for a reason; so you can pose the character using the natural flexibility of a human/animal, unlike with limit-less poses as they look incredibly unnatural as it doesn't follow any accurate structure with the character and is usually not seen in the real-world, it also forces the poser to re-pose the pose set in order to accurately pose the character.
If you spent time learning the limits you'll find that you can get any type of yoga/gymnast poses even with limits on as the current DAZ first-party characters have pretty accurate joints/limits/range of motion, yet it just takes effort and skill to get the proper accuracy and not look like the character has broken bones!
That's usually because the pose author have the limits turned off, and you have your limits turn on, or vice versa it's one of the major reasons I don't buy pose sets as there's a lot that's pretty inaccurate as they don't use limits, as the authors rarely advertise that they don't use the pose limits.
I haven't bought anything from DAZ since Genesis 9 was introduced. I installed my product, and couldn't find it. The item was installed under "DAZ Originals," rather than the Products name itself.
I use DAZ Studio to Make Art. I don't want to expend energy trying to find items or organize into categories, whatever.
I keep hoping that one day things will be easier. Then I'll happily spend more money.
Thank you @NewGuy. I have just seen your reply today. Been loading my library of Rendo/Hivewire purchases into a new computer which has consumed my days. As soon as I am able to sit down and load a character and try what you recommend, I will do it (and hopefully this thread won't disappear!). I can say my habit is to add the shoes and the footpose while dressing my character, then do hair, makeup... and depending on what inspires me, scene and pose for it. Or pose, then scene/props. So if I understand you right, if I am simulating, I need to make sure my character is fully in the A or T pose, then apply the selected pose at the best keyframe for the dForce articles, then add the footpose there too. Then continue on with the simulation process. (And check to make sure the feet are hitting the floor where needed. I have postettes on all my monitors to 'check the feet' and they still manage to sink, float, or twist on me.)
@memcneil70, setting up the pose at the frame where you wish the pose to be final is the best strategy. What I was suggesting is that in order to ensure you don't have any other keyframes added (for morphs or pose controls) after your final pose, you will need to change the types of keyframes shown in the timeline. By default morphs and pose controls are not shown, so by adding the "Other" option you will be able to see them. For example, if there are any keyframes for foot pose controls after your "final pose" then you can select them in the timeline and delete them so they don't mess up your pose.
See attached...