V4, V5, "Genesis," nothing works.

PhoneyBaloney

I went onto sharecg.com, OptiTex, Turbosquid, and a raft of others, gathering materials to use in Daz 3d 4.6. I have Genesis and V4. The only clothing that works on any of these figures is the "magus" material that came with the software.

Here is my feeling on it: I have already spent several scores of hours researching and practicing with "user-friendly" Daz 3d Studio. I imagine that if I spent $500 buying all brand new figures, props, materials, textures, etc., directly from Daz3d.com (which is, of course, their business model) all of this stuff would probably work. On the other hand, for that amount of money, and with the amount of time I have already expended, I could also take two semesters of art classes from a community college and draw the scenes myself with a pencil.

fixmypcmike

Are you having trouble with the figures, or just the clothing? What about the other clothing that comes in Genesis Starter Essentials? What error messages are you getting?

PhoneyBaloney

Just the clothing. I do not receive any error messages, for either Genesis or Victoria 4.2. By the way, the Magus shorts work fine on V 4.2. Otherwise, when I double click on any of the materials I have ever downloaded from any of the (apparently) gung-ho, dedicated, presumably knowledgeable 3d modelers on the sites I mentioned (and plenty of others), the action either

(1) does nothing at all, or else
(2) causes a piece of clothing to appear at the zero mark in the frame.

There is one exception: The "genesis lacy underwear" free package from sharecg works as expected. I highlight the model, then add the bra, then modify it with one of the colors or looks that came with the package.

Here is a list of the items I have found and installed from my multiple searches on this issue:

eblankmadrid.zip
eblankparis.zip
EdenM42ndSkins.zip
EdenPrimitiveTunics.zip
Genesis Golfing Outfit2.zip
Genesis Long Frilled DressUD.zip
PrimJournPant_Eden.zip
PrimK4BaswrT-Eden.zip
SickleSkinnyTee_M4H4F4.zip
SummerShort.zip
Vintage Gym Shorts MATS for SportShort.zip
WAYIIFree_PrettyWalkerzz_2011.zip
SickleYield_sickleyield-free-wrap-top-gene_66975.zip
SimpleSkirtandTopforGenesis.zip
Snake_fan_Solid_v4-expressions-aniblocks_58662.zip

Most of them do not even show up in the materials database, even when I search for them ("short" pulls up only Aldora hair, Magus clothing ... ).

I wish to add, that what is really painful about all of this is that my intentions with the models is so simple. All I want to do is use figures, with rudimentary clothes and props, to create storyboards for videos that I shoot. I do not need to animate them, have them talk, etc.

I have had better success and less frustration with Carrara 8 than with DAZ Studio. It is just that when I want to put two figures standing, and then get them sitting, it would be so nice just to click on a set outfit and a set pose and take the camera shot.

JimmyC_2009

Where exactly did you install the items into?

Where are you looking for them?

If you are looking for the free items in Smart Content, you almost certainly wont find them. You will need to look in the Content Library > DAZ Studio Formats > My Library > People > Genesis to find them. Smart Content relies on Metadata, and most free items donlt have that.

The Poser items (V4 and basically anything before Genesis) will be in the Content Library under Poser Formats > My Library > Figures. You may not have installed the content of these ZIP files correctly, where did you put them? Inside these ZIP folders, there is usually a 'data' and People and even a Runtime folder, which should be dropped directly into the My Library folder.

Jaderail

Your first error is expecting Free items to show up as Smart content. 99% of free content even the content made for genesis will not have Metadata which is needed for Smart to function. As Jimmy points out in DAZ Studio if you use the Content Library Tab and the DAZ Studio Formats and Poser Formats sections of the content tree you should find all your content. Also as noted if the content is not installed properly DAZ Studio may not ever list it or even see it in the content folder.

Sisca

Also note if you're double clicking on a Material for the item with Genesis selected nothing will happen. You have to first select Genesis, find the wardrobe item and double click it to add it to Genesis, then select the new wardrobe item and double click the material you want to add.

If the icon in the Content Library shows Material at the top it's a material. If it says Wardrobe it's a clothing item and should load.

If a wardrobe item loads at the zero point it is usually because you added it without having the figure selected. You can right click the clothing and the choose Fit To and select your figure to fit it to the figure.

PhoneyBaloney

To all:

I realize that "smart content" does not include material dl'd from 3rd party sites (although one can right click an item in the content library and send it to the smart libraries via "Show in > Smart Content > Files") IMAGE

The materials are loaded into the appropriate subfolders, usually "data," "People," and "runtime" of my Daz Studio/My Library folder.

I have repeatedly refreshed my content liabrary via Content DB Maintenance.

Sisca:

I can load "Victoria 4.2", attempt to apply "CaprisClosed.Daz" plus a material and wind up with the Capri jeans on her. Fine. *I cannot find most of the other materials I have loaded,* but whatever.

Now I try to put the bra on, and turn it blue. Double click Bra 2.dsf. Then highlight the bra in the scene file and double click Bra 3 blue.dsa.
IMAGE

Great. Except it's not actually blue. So I go into the elements of the color on the left side of the pane. I get rid of the UV images and then try changing the color, then I reduce the luminosity of the spotlights on the figure, try to render, and the software crashes. Yay. Let's do it all again ...

I am not saying, nor did I say previously, that any of this is impossible. I am saying that it seems to take about as much time and money as learning to create real art.