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Creating a DUF to point at a new material set?

elbigguselbiggus Posts: 23
in New Users

Long story short (I may bore everyone with the long version one day) but I've been teaching myself how to use ZBrush and Daz Studio over the past few days, and I think I have most of it sussed -- I've done a sculpt I'm happy with, fixed the rigging to match, etc., packaged it in a morph so I can apply it at will, and so far so good. For a while I was "borrowing" Marigold's skin materials and Veronica's eyes (they sort of approximate the look I'm after) but once the sculpt was done I figured my creation deserved a skin of her own, and that's where I hit a brick wall and all my Googling is in vain: how do? . As an interim measure I've just made a copy of the ones I've been using and put my own set in their place, but that's a fudge (and I'm probably in danger of breaking something) so can someone please tell me how I create the DUF file that points to a new set so I can put mine in their proper place? I'm probably missing something blindingly obvious...

Also, say hello to Jill. She may not be one of the toned, busty, improbably symmetrical goddesses that make up most of the figures available here -- she got a wonky nose from a childhood mishap, and she has her mother's thighs -- but I have grown rather fond of her.

Comments

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 100,781

    So you have the textures and want a preset? Apply the textures, through the Surfaces pane, then File>Save as>Materials Preset (or Character Preset will save both shape and materials).

  • elbigguselbiggus Posts: 23

    So if I manually create a Runtime/Textures/mynamehere/Jill folder in Textures and stick the textures in there, save a Scene Subset with the character morph applied in People/Genesis 8 Females/Characters, then apply my materials and save the presets in a Characters/Jill subdirectory then a) I can load the character and mats the same way as the "legit" characters, and b) if I create a zip with the usual Content/etc. structures, then other people can install it as per usual?

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 100,781
    elbiggus said:

    So if I manually create a Runtime/Textures/mynamehere/Jill folder in Textures

    In the content directory, where you probably already have the /Runtime/Textures part (thougn putting al the files for your item in a separate content directory - completely outside your standard content directories - can be a good idea - just zip the whole folder up when done and you should have a complete product without having to work around the other content).

    elbiggus said:

    and stick the textures in there, save a Scene Subset with the character morph applied in People/Genesis 8 Females/Characters, then apply my materials and save the presets in a Characters/Jill subdirectory then a) I can load the character and mats the same way as the "legit" characters, and b) if I create a zip with the usual Content/etc. structures, then other people can install it as per usual?

    You don't have to save a Scene Subset (assuming you have saved the morph as an asset). The steps would be

    1. Import your morph(s)
    2. File>Save as>Support Assets>Morph Asset and set your name and your product name, and if you are going to use a separate directory for working on this make sure that is set as the base path at the top of the dialogue.
    3. Apply your textures from the /Runtime/Textures/Jill folder
    4. Save a Materials preset and/or a Shaping preset and a Materials preset to a suitable location (in the separate content directory if you are doing that).
  • elbigguselbiggus Posts: 23

    I've saved the morph, but I want the character accessible from the Characters folder along with everyone else -- having to load a base G8F and applying the morph is a couple of extra clicks, and I'm lazy -- it seems I wanted a Character Preset rather than a Scene Subset, and now all I have to do is work out why mine gets "Actor" stuck over the thumbnail when none of the others have it. (Ditto the materials presets.)

    I know as a general principle it's best to keep custom content in a separate library and as a rule that's what I've been doing, but I'm sort of trying to work out how to package things for distribution -- I'm not ready for primetime yet but if I work out how to do it now I can incorporate it into my workflow sooner rather than later, but there doesn't seem to be a clear set of instructions anywhere. I've been feeling my way through it so far and I think I've got most of it sussed, but my next question is "is there an easy way of testing the package?" Short of temporarily disabling my libraries, creating a dummy one that contains just the bare essentials, and installing into it I can't think of a way of making I don't have any dependencies beyond the base G8F assets.

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