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Saving a character morph as a dial preset

CelexaCelexa Posts: 73
in Technical Help (nuts n bolts)

I'm looking to save a custom character for G2F as a dial. I've seen methods that save your character with other morphs listed in it, but I'm looking to save it as one singular dial.  For example when you load G2F and you can move a dial to 1.0 and you get Victoria 6 or move another to get Mei Lin 6. It should be of note that this character is 100% for my own personal use, it won't be sold or distrubted for free to anyone else. This is so I can easily save and backup my character on another hard drive without copying over all of my daz runtime. 

Is there an easy to read guide out there that will accomplish this? And where would the actual morph be saved so I can back it up. (Months ago I saw guide about the morph loader that when I tried it, saved a close but imperfect version of the character. I have no idea if that was the guide or my failure to understand it)

Comments

  • nonesuch00nonesuch00 Posts: 18,131

    This would be interesting if it can be done. The only way I know how to do something similar is to actually create the morphs to create the look you want and save them in the correct place in the DAZ folder. To do what you want the only way I know is to save a character preset maybe someone knows a way via 'Create Preset Dial' or something like that however that would be a programming mess as their would be different independent dials all dialed up partially or completely to create you character and then applying your preset dial would in turn dial up each of those independent potentially uniques products as a percentage of your preset dial? Not saying it hasn't been done or can't be done but I don't it has been done.

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 101,002

    Using OBJ export/Morph Loader is not a good diea as you will lose the links to any correction morphs for things like expressions. A safer approach is:

    1. Make sure that everything but your moprh is zeroed - that includes the navel and mouth realism morphs
    2. Right-click on the Parameters pane and select Edit Mode, assuming it isn't already selected
    3. Right-click on the Parameters pane and select Create New Property - name it as you want your morph dial, set its path to where you want it to appear, change limits if desired
    4. Set your new property to 1 (or 100%, depending on display settings)
    5. Right-click on your new property and select ERC Freeze. Your new property shold be listed as the controller in the dialogue that opens, all th shapes you used to make the morph (and nothing else) should be listed as Sub Components. Assuming that is so, click Accept.
    6. Make sure the new morph is working, if it is use File>Save as>Support Assets>Morph Asset to save it

     

  • TottallouTottallou Posts: 555

    This way works and I have used this method several times.: -

    Apply your saved preset or create your custom character

    Right-click on the Parameters pane and from the menu put it in Edit mode

    Right-click in the group you want to contain the new controller and select Create New Property

    Most of the options should be OK, you may want to adjust limits and the path,& give it a name

    Right-click on your new property and select ERC Freeze - this should have the new property listed as the controller and the morphs used in your preset/character listed as the controlled properties if it looks OK click Accept.

    Zero your character & test the controller assuming it works as expected set it to zero  and save (File>Save as>Support Assets>Morph Asset.)

     

  • CelexaCelexa Posts: 73
    edited August 2016

    Thank you. When saving the morph asset do I need to check mark anything but the name of the figure? Also where is in my library is this saved once I'm done?

    One last thing, the dial shows up the parameters tab, but not the shaping tab. Is this correct?

    Post edited by Celexa on
  • nonesuch00nonesuch00 Posts: 18,131

    And since they are asking this character preset dial that is created does the configuration file(s) that describe it list the products involved or just the specific files involved? Thanks.

  • TottallouTottallou Posts: 555
    edited August 2016

    When you save as a support asset you just need to check the name of your new Dial /Morph  as per screen shot

    You can choose which of your content libraries it goes to by using the drop down - You can see mine is being saved into D:/Freestuff/DAZ

    The DSF file is created in your library of choice under :

    data - daz 3d - genesis 3 - female - morphs - your name

    Hope that helps

     

     

    MorphAsset.PNG
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    Post edited by Tottallou on
  • nonesuch00nonesuch00 Posts: 18,131

    Thanks

  • TottallouTottallou Posts: 555
    edited August 2016

    And since they are asking this character preset dial that is created does the configuration file(s) that describe it list the products involved or just the specific files involved? Thanks.

    If you click on the gear next to your dial morph it gives all the morphs names you used to create your dial

    parameters.PNG
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    Post edited by Tottallou on
  • barbultbarbult Posts: 24,245

    Does the ERC controller method satisfy the OP's original request: '"This is so I can easily save and backup my character on another hard drive without copying over all of my daz runtime." Wouldn't it still be necessary to backup all the controlled morphs as well as the new controller morph?

  • nonesuch00nonesuch00 Posts: 18,131

    I think it comes pretty close as Totallou shows the window that shows all the morph and other products the OP should pay attention to if they want to use those products and that preset to recreate their product on again just by backing up the lists products. I don't know that the OP would call that easy though. A full backup would be easier.

  • TottallouTottallou Posts: 555
    edited August 2016

    Does the ERC controller method satisfy the OP's original request: '"This is so I can easily save and backup my character on another hard drive without copying over all of my daz runtime." Wouldn't it still be necessary to backup all the controlled morphs as well as the new controller morph?

    I did not notice that part and Barbult is quite right you would need to add the morphs to any new/2nd machine for the controller to function & you would also need the base figure & any textures, poses, clothing you want to apply.

    To be honest if you want to use the character on another PC there will always be some transferring  needed so even if you went the none recommended way that Richard touched on earlier you would still need the base figure, textures etc & you would lose all your correction morphs by exporting as object files.

    I guess if using 4.9 & Connect on the second machine you could just transfer your own morph controller to the second PC & use connect to download the other things as needed rather than transfer all your runtimes.

    Post edited by Tottallou on
  • barbultbarbult Posts: 24,245

    Content Gatherer has worked for me to transfer a scene and everything that it requires to a second computer. In fact, now that I think of it, it is probably just what the OP needs to back up the character. Just put it in a scene by itself and save the zip created by Content Gatherer as a backup.

  • TottallouTottallou Posts: 555

    I have that on my Wishlist - It looks very useful for backing up & distributing but had forgotten all about it - I guess I will wait for a sale as I only use 1 PC & have most important content on an external drive not to mention I am way over budget on Daz spending as usual :)

     

  • dracutdracut Posts: 0

    I followed Richard's instructions to do something similar however the morph is being applied to every character I have, I would like to remove the morph asset I've created, how would I go about doing that within DAZ? Is there a file I'll need to delete?

  • AbnerKAbnerK Posts: 718
    dracut said:

    I followed Richard's instructions to do something similar however the morph is being applied to every character I have, I would like to remove the morph asset I've created, how would I go about doing that within DAZ? Is there a file I'll need to delete?

    You appear to delete your morph from within Daz but it pops up again after reload. If you go to your Data folder and drill down (easier to search what you named your morph) then delete that folder or just the morph if you want to try again. 

  • AbnerKAbnerK Posts: 718
    Richard Haseltine said:

    Using OBJ export/Morph Loader is not a good diea as you will lose the links to any correction morphs for things like expressions. A safer approach is:

    1. Make sure that everything but your moprh is zeroed - that includes the navel and mouth realism morphs
    2. Right-click on the Parameters pane and select Edit Mode, assuming it isn't already selected
    3. Right-click on the Parameters pane and select Create New Property - name it as you want your morph dial, set its path to where you want it to appear, change limits if desired
    4. Set your new property to 1 (or 100%, depending on display settings)
    5. Right-click on your new property and select ERC Freeze. Your new property shold be listed as the controller in the dialogue that opens, all th shapes you used to make the morph (and nothing else) should be listed as Sub Components. Assuming that is so, click Accept.
    6. Make sure the new morph is working, if it is use File>Save as>Support Assets>Morph Asset to save it

     

    Why do you need to zero the navel morph, doesn't that mean you have to dial it back in every time?

     

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 101,002
    jimmac-donald said:
    Richard Haseltine said:

    Using OBJ export/Morph Loader is not a good diea as you will lose the links to any correction morphs for things like expressions. A safer approach is:

    1. Make sure that everything but your moprh is zeroed - that includes the navel and mouth realism morphs
    2. Right-click on the Parameters pane and select Edit Mode, assuming it isn't already selected
    3. Right-click on the Parameters pane and select Create New Property - name it as you want your morph dial, set its path to where you want it to appear, change limits if desired
    4. Set your new property to 1 (or 100%, depending on display settings)
    5. Right-click on your new property and select ERC Freeze. Your new property shold be listed as the controller in the dialogue that opens, all th shapes you used to make the morph (and nothing else) should be listed as Sub Components. Assuming that is so, click Accept.
    6. Make sure the new morph is working, if it is use File>Save as>Support Assets>Morph Asset to save it

     

    Why do you need to zero the navel morph, doesn't that mean you have to dial it back in every time?

    No, but it does mean you can zero them - if you don't zero them, they will be included in the ERC and will be set by the controller even if you don't want them.

  • AbnerKAbnerK Posts: 718
    edited December 2018
    Richard Haseltine said:
    jimmac-donald said:
    Richard Haseltine said:

    Using OBJ export/Morph Loader is not a good diea as you will lose the links to any correction morphs for things like expressions. A safer approach is:

    1. Make sure that everything but your moprh is zeroed - that includes the navel and mouth realism morphs
    2. Right-click on the Parameters pane and select Edit Mode, assuming it isn't already selected
    3. Right-click on the Parameters pane and select Create New Property - name it as you want your morph dial, set its path to where you want it to appear, change limits if desired
    4. Set your new property to 1 (or 100%, depending on display settings)
    5. Right-click on your new property and select ERC Freeze. Your new property shold be listed as the controller in the dialogue that opens, all th shapes you used to make the morph (and nothing else) should be listed as Sub Components. Assuming that is so, click Accept.
    6. Make sure the new morph is working, if it is use File>Save as>Support Assets>Morph Asset to save it

     

    Why do you need to zero the navel morph, doesn't that mean you have to dial it back in every time?

    No, but it does mean you can zero them - if you don't zero them, they will be included in the ERC and will be set by the controller even if you don't want them.

    okay so assuming I always want them. I can imagine wanting to change them but I never have yet, so I could leave them in and it would be workable? 

     

    Thanks

    Post edited by AbnerK on
  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 101,002

    Yes, it's not going to actually break anything (well, as long as limits are on for the navel morph - if you took them off and had several controllers driving it then it might go to rather an extreme).

  • Lyrra MadrilLyrra Madril Posts: 277

    Okay I've helped three differrent people untangle their G8 installion after they followed this tutorial and made a couple innocuous changes which set off landslides.

    Richard, you left out two important notes, things that new users stumble over.

    Revised version:

    1. Make sure that everything but your moprh is zeroed - that includes the navel and mouth realism morphs
    2. Right-click on the Parameters pane and select Edit Mode, assuming it isn't already selected
    3. Right-click on the Parameters pane and select Create New Property - name it as you want your morph dial, set its path to where you want it to appear, change limits if desired
    4. Set your new property to 1 (or 100%, depending on display settings)
    5. Right-click on your new property and select ERC Freeze. Your new property shold be listed as the controller in the dialogue that opens, all th shapes you used to make the morph (and nothing else) should be listed as Sub Components. Assuming that is so, click Accept.
    6. Make sure the new morph is working. Then set it and all other morphs to 0
    7. Then  File>Save as>Support Assets>Morph Asset to save it.  Save ONLY the controller dial and NOTHING else should be checked.

     

    If you do not set it to 0 before saved it will load every single time turned on.  This can be annoying and in commercial products it is not allowed.

    If you save over other morph assets, especially if they are not set to 0,  you can reset the start position for those morphs and make a giant mess of your G8 installtion.  Avoid doing this.

    Also if you have two copies of the genesis8 figure morphs installed in content folders hooked up to your DS, it can lead to weird results (doubledialing, dials not deactivating when set to 0)  Don't do this. One copy, thats it.

    Lyrra

  • stripe6499_9253833ae8stripe6499_9253833ae8 Posts: 134

    Lyrra Madril said:

    Okay I've helped three differrent people untangle their G8 installion after they followed this tutorial and made a couple innocuous changes which set off landslides.

    Richard, you left out two important notes, things that new users stumble over.

    Revised version:

    1. Make sure that everything but your moprh is zeroed - that includes the navel and mouth realism morphs
    2. Right-click on the Parameters pane and select Edit Mode, assuming it isn't already selected
    3. Right-click on the Parameters pane and select Create New Property - name it as you want your morph dial, set its path to where you want it to appear, change limits if desired
    4. Set your new property to 1 (or 100%, depending on display settings)
    5. Right-click on your new property and select ERC Freeze. Your new property shold be listed as the controller in the dialogue that opens, all th shapes you used to make the morph (and nothing else) should be listed as Sub Components. Assuming that is so, click Accept.
    6. Make sure the new morph is working. Then set it and all other morphs to 0
    7. Then  File>Save as>Support Assets>Morph Asset to save it.  Save ONLY the controller dial and NOTHING else should be checked.

     

    If you do not set it to 0 before saved it will load every single time turned on.  This can be annoying and in commercial products it is not allowed.

    If you save over other morph assets, especially if they are not set to 0,  you can reset the start position for those morphs and make a giant mess of your G8 installtion.  Avoid doing this.

    Also if you have two copies of the genesis8 figure morphs installed in content folders hooked up to your DS, it can lead to weird results (doubledialing, dials not deactivating when set to 0)  Don't do this. One copy, thats it.

    Lyrra

    I've tried following this, and it makes sense, except for when I apply the ERC Freeze to the morph dial. When I try setting it to zero, the figure changes pose from the base pose to another pose. Any clues why it might be doing this?

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 101,002

    stripe6499_9253833ae8 said:

    Lyrra Madril said:

    Okay I've helped three differrent people untangle their G8 installion after they followed this tutorial and made a couple innocuous changes which set off landslides.

    Richard, you left out two important notes, things that new users stumble over.

    Revised version:

    1. Make sure that everything but your moprh is zeroed - that includes the navel and mouth realism morphs
    2. Right-click on the Parameters pane and select Edit Mode, assuming it isn't already selected
    3. Right-click on the Parameters pane and select Create New Property - name it as you want your morph dial, set its path to where you want it to appear, change limits if desired
    4. Set your new property to 1 (or 100%, depending on display settings)
    5. Right-click on your new property and select ERC Freeze. Your new property shold be listed as the controller in the dialogue that opens, all th shapes you used to make the morph (and nothing else) should be listed as Sub Components. Assuming that is so, click Accept.
    6. Make sure the new morph is working. Then set it and all other morphs to 0
    7. Then  File>Save as>Support Assets>Morph Asset to save it.  Save ONLY the controller dial and NOTHING else should be checked.

     

    If you do not set it to 0 before saved it will load every single time turned on.  This can be annoying and in commercial products it is not allowed.

    If you save over other morph assets, especially if they are not set to 0,  you can reset the start position for those morphs and make a giant mess of your G8 installtion.  Avoid doing this.

    Also if you have two copies of the genesis8 figure morphs installed in content folders hooked up to your DS, it can lead to weird results (doubledialing, dials not deactivating when set to 0)  Don't do this. One copy, thats it.

    Lyrra

    I've tried following this, and it makes sense, except for when I apply the ERC Freeze to the morph dial. When I try setting it to zero, the figure changes pose from the base pose to another pose. Any clues why it might be doing this?

    That sounds as if there was a pose applied already, when you did the ERC Freeze. Click the gear icon on the morph's slider, select Parameter Settings, then look in the Sub-components tab - what is listed?

  • stripe6499_9253833ae8stripe6499_9253833ae8 Posts: 134

    Richard Haseltine said:

    stripe6499_9253833ae8 said:

    Lyrra Madril said:

    Okay I've helped three differrent people untangle their G8 installion after they followed this tutorial and made a couple innocuous changes which set off landslides.

    Richard, you left out two important notes, things that new users stumble over.

    Revised version:

    1. Make sure that everything but your moprh is zeroed - that includes the navel and mouth realism morphs
    2. Right-click on the Parameters pane and select Edit Mode, assuming it isn't already selected
    3. Right-click on the Parameters pane and select Create New Property - name it as you want your morph dial, set its path to where you want it to appear, change limits if desired
    4. Set your new property to 1 (or 100%, depending on display settings)
    5. Right-click on your new property and select ERC Freeze. Your new property shold be listed as the controller in the dialogue that opens, all th shapes you used to make the morph (and nothing else) should be listed as Sub Components. Assuming that is so, click Accept.
    6. Make sure the new morph is working. Then set it and all other morphs to 0
    7. Then  File>Save as>Support Assets>Morph Asset to save it.  Save ONLY the controller dial and NOTHING else should be checked.

     

    If you do not set it to 0 before saved it will load every single time turned on.  This can be annoying and in commercial products it is not allowed.

    If you save over other morph assets, especially if they are not set to 0,  you can reset the start position for those morphs and make a giant mess of your G8 installtion.  Avoid doing this.

    Also if you have two copies of the genesis8 figure morphs installed in content folders hooked up to your DS, it can lead to weird results (doubledialing, dials not deactivating when set to 0)  Don't do this. One copy, thats it.

    Lyrra

    I've tried following this, and it makes sense, except for when I apply the ERC Freeze to the morph dial. When I try setting it to zero, the figure changes pose from the base pose to another pose. Any clues why it might be doing this?

    That sounds as if there was a pose applied already, when you did the ERC Freeze. Click the gear icon on the morph's slider, select Parameter Settings, then look in the Sub-components tab - what is listed?

    I'll let you know when I have Daz fixed. Trying to follow the incomplete instructions from Richard, and my own cluelessness, I manages to bake in the morphs to all my G8F. I've had to uninstall Dazz, delete the data, and am reinstalling as I type. I'll let you know when I have it fixed... Next year maybe? I have a lot of 3rd party products :-p

  • stripe6499_9253833ae8stripe6499_9253833ae8 Posts: 134

    Just to be clear... in step 6, where you say to set all other morphs to zero as well, you mean all the body morphs applied in the shaping tab? To all parts of the body? Either full or partial body/head morphs? And individual sliders for each body part?

  • stripe6499_9253833ae8stripe6499_9253833ae8 Posts: 134

    Well, I have Daz fixed and reinstalled. My solution to the pose issue was to take a base G8F and just apply thew morphs from the target custom G8F to the new base. Then I followed the revised instructions, and voila, it works just fine! TY Lyrra Madril!!!

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