Le Village question...

Sphinx Magoo

Might anyone know if there are scene presets available for Faveral's wonderful Le Village sets?

I know I could make some scenes on my own, but the promo images are so well done that I found myself thinking: "Can't I just put my characters in that scene and not fuss with set design and placement?"

sfaa69

I've had the bundle for a while and just looked at it again. Sorry to say I don't see any presets for the whole shooting match or even for one of the sets. It looks like it all has to be put together item by item.

Sphinx Magoo

Thanks for the confirmation, sfaa69... I was thinking maybe I'd missed something.

It's not that I'm being lazy about it... well, ok, maybe just a bit... but there are so many elements that go into creating a decent street scene, that some starter scenes would be a great help. On my old computer, it's easier for me to build the scene in Carrara than it is in DS 4.5. I guess that's one reason I use the same scene files in my renders, but I'd like to have my characters visit different neighborhoods once in a while...

WendyLuvsCatz

yes I would use a preset too!
got it last year in PA sale but not used it as too lazy!!
got as far as lining the buildings up and saving a scene but that was it.

maclean

SmallFry said:

.. but there are so many elements that go into creating a decent street scene, that some starter scenes would be a great help.

On a general note, I'd like to respond to that comment, since it's something that I'm often trying to deal with.

I've made several modular products, like Streets, Corridors, etc, and it's a real pain not to be able to provide ready-made scenes to the user. But frankly, it's such a nightmare to do, that I've given up trying.

The main reason is the utter uselessness of both Poser and DS for proper scenes. I've now abandoned DS data as being hopelessly unreliable (too many bugs, format changes, etc), and Poser scenes aren't much better. DAZ won't accept .pz3 scenes because they include UI information. The new scenes category in Poser 9 means you're cutting out all owners of previous versions. And saving parented figures and props is a nightmare for DS users. They don't open properly in DS because it doesn't read the parenting properly, so everything opens without parenting, and props end up all over the place. Secondly, it's a nightmare to add the accompanying .DSA files for materials if you're dealing with multiple figs/props, especially when they may share the same material names.

Believe me, I'd love for people to buy my products, click once and have a full scene, ready to go. But the way things are right now, it's not feasible.

mac

ShaneWSmith

maclean said:

SmallFry said:

.. but there are so many elements that go into creating a decent street scene, that some starter scenes would be a great help.

On a general note, I'd like to respond to that comment, since it's something that I'm often trying to deal with.

I've made several modular products, like Streets, Corridors, etc, and it's a real pain not to be able to provide ready-made scenes to the user. But frankly, it's such a nightmare to do, that I've given up trying.

The main reason is the utter uselessness of both Poser and DS for proper scenes. I've now abandoned DS data as being hopelessly unreliable (too many bugs, format changes, etc), and Poser scenes aren't much better. DAZ won't accept .pz3 scenes because they include UI information. The new scenes category in Poser 9 means you're cutting out all owners of previous versions. And saving parented figures and props is a nightmare for DS users. They don't open properly in DS because it doesn't read the parenting properly, so everything opens without parenting, and props end up all over the place. Secondly, it's a nightmare to add the accompanying .DSA files for materials if you're dealing with multiple figs/props, especially when they may share the same material names.

Believe me, I'd love for people to buy my products, click once and have a full scene, ready to go. But the way things are right now, it's not feasible.

mac

I totally get this - it sounds like a complete nightmare. I don't envy you this.

What about something like what Jack Tomalin does? Add an extra character/prop to the content folder called 'Preset' that the user accesses from inside the program, and that parents everything together automatically? Is this just as fraught? I honestly don't know - that's why I'm asking. Might be an okay workaround, and if I understand things correctly, wouldn't add a huge amount to the file download size (like a new scene file would).

KickAir 8P

canberra_boy said:

maclean said:

SmallFry said:

.. but there are so many elements that go into creating a decent street scene, that some starter scenes would be a great help.

On a general note, I'd like to respond to that comment, since it's something that I'm often trying to deal with.

I've made several modular products, like Streets, Corridors, etc, and it's a real pain not to be able to provide ready-made scenes to the user. But frankly, it's such a nightmare to do, that I've given up trying.

The main reason is the utter uselessness of both Poser and DS for proper scenes. I've now abandoned DS data as being hopelessly unreliable (too many bugs, format changes, etc), and Poser scenes aren't much better. DAZ won't accept .pz3 scenes because they include UI information. The new scenes category in Poser 9 means you're cutting out all owners of previous versions. And saving parented figures and props is a nightmare for DS users. They don't open properly in DS because it doesn't read the parenting properly, so everything opens without parenting, and props end up all over the place. Secondly, it's a nightmare to add the accompanying .DSA files for materials if you're dealing with multiple figs/props, especially when they may share the same material names.

Believe me, I'd love for people to buy my products, click once and have a full scene, ready to go. But the way things are right now, it's not feasible.

I totally get this - it sounds like a complete nightmare. I don't envy you this.

What about something like what Jack Tomalin does? Add an extra character/prop to the content folder called 'Preset' that the user accesses from inside the program, and that parents everything together automatically? Is this just as fraught? I honestly don't know - that's why I'm asking. Might be an okay workaround, and if I understand things correctly, wouldn't add a huge amount to the file download size (like a new scene file would).
Ditto'ng this -- although I understand Maclean's frustration, when other PAs with comparable products are including assembled scene presets in practically everything they've done for the last several months then "it's not feasible" leaves me scratching my head. And annoying as frequent format changes can be, DAZStudio4.5's new duf filetype seems designed to make this kind of thing extra-easy. Worth a try, maybe?

Sphinx Magoo

maclean said:

SmallFry said:

.. but there are so many elements that go into creating a decent street scene, that some starter scenes would be a great help.

On a general note, I'd like to respond to that comment, since it's something that I'm often trying to deal with.

I've made several modular products, like Streets, Corridors, etc, and it's a real pain not to be able to provide ready-made scenes to the user. But frankly, it's such a nightmare to do, that I've given up trying.

The main reason is the utter uselessness of both Poser and DS for proper scenes. I've now abandoned DS data as being hopelessly unreliable (too many bugs, format changes, etc), and Poser scenes aren't much better. DAZ won't accept .pz3 scenes because they include UI information. The new scenes category in Poser 9 means you're cutting out all owners of previous versions. And saving parented figures and props is a nightmare for DS users. They don't open properly in DS because it doesn't read the parenting properly, so everything opens without parenting, and props end up all over the place. Secondly, it's a nightmare to add the accompanying .DSA files for materials if you're dealing with multiple figs/props, especially when they may share the same material names.

Believe me, I'd love for people to buy my products, click once and have a full scene, ready to go. But the way things are right now, it's not feasible.

mac

...and here I thought this thread would die a slow, unnoticed death. :)

Thanks for the insight, maclean. I can totally understand your point of view. This was something that occurred to me when I bought your great Streets pack.

maclean

KickAir 8P said:

And annoying as frequent format changes can be, DAZStudio4.5's new duf filetype seems designed to make this kind of thing extra-easy. Worth a try, maybe?

Well, I'm very cagey about the new formats. You have to understand that I've been with DAZ for 11 years now, and I build content for long-term sales. Apart from a few retired products, everything I sell here has been in the store for years. I just keep updating things to make sure they're current.

Now, at the moment, I've just finished a large update of Room Creator 2 + RC Exteriors, plus a new room Creator product. The updates were partially done to remove all .daz scenes and data folders, leaving only the Poser figure/prop files and geometry. DAZ no longer support their own older format (not that they ever did support it very much), so I'm abandoning it altogether. Having been forced to update quite a number of products due to changes in Daz Studio, I'm no longer supporting it to the degree I did. I'll only be including DS presets from now on.

So, the idea of starting to make products with yet another new format, which may or may not last more than a few years, doesn't appeal to me in the least. This may sound cynical, but as I said, my products tend to be around for years, and if I have to re-update them all again in 5 years time because .duf is dead, and DAZ have some new shiny format, I'd scream.

I may sound paranoid, but believe me, it's already happened several times.

mac