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I have used it on all 4 genesis generations and their clothes
it varies depending on what morphs you have in use and if in shared folders
I don't know why Carrara gets bloated or unbloated, but here is what I finally did. Not sure which step was essential.
After having virtually no success with the Morph Eraser, I decided to simply delete the G2 figure (M6) and his clothing, and see how much it lowered the file size. First, I saved the figure and clothing to the Carrara object file.
The bloated scene file started out at 775 mb. After deleting G2 and resaving, the file was ... 775 mb! Grr.
So, I went back and reopened the newly-saved scene, and additionally did the Edit>Remove Unused Masters trio of actions. I often don't do this because I like to keep my different shader zones intact. But, it seemed like the next step to try.
This time the file saved to 253 mb. Yay, some huge progress! Next, I put G2 and clothing back in from the Carrara browser. I love how the item reappears in the scene in the exact same spot as it was originally. After saving it all, the file size only moved up to 328 mb! So, I am a relatively happy camper.
But it doesn't answer some basic questions. Why was the file still 775 mb after deleting the G2 character and clothing from the scene? Why does Carrara bloat so much on Genesis in general? Did the morph eraser actually work, but not until after I deleted all the common and unused shaders? Is saving the Genesis stuff in the Carrara object file the best way to lower the bloat?
I hope that someday we can get to the bottom of this. Overly large files are a pain for me because they really slog down Carrara functions, increase save and load and render times, and increase error messages. If it wasn't for that, I wouldn't care. :)
I can help with that one ;) Here goes:
Carrara 8.5 was set up to use the CMS (Content Management Service) for Daz Studio and, luckilly before development came to a halt, we were also given an update for Postgre database from the previous Valentia.
Daz Studio was built from the ground up to use this database as a new way to deal with "Morph Injection". Before that (gneration 4 and earlier) we had to INJect whatver morphs we wanted to use.
Anyway, Carrara was given access to the database, but the way it saves or stores CAR files, it writes everything available to the scene into the file. So if you have a morph available to you, instead of (like DS) leaving it safe and cozy in the database, Carrara writes it into the CAR file so you can access it even without the database.
This is kind of a magical thing, however, because we can actually create custom Genesis figures that Only Include the Dials We Want!
I have an article on that here: Genesis Morph Reduction
I started doing that just before Alvin's plugin came out, so I never really used it yet. For me, the bloat wasn't the biggest issue. I was Totally into buying all of the Genesis 1 shaping morphs during the Carrara 8.5 beta phases. I love having them all. I use them. But after a while it really got to be a burden for me to have every dial for every morph I've ever bought - so my big issue was not to reduce file size (though that's always a major boon!!!) but to exclude any morph dials I don't need for each of my full time actors that I save to my browser!
So I came up with this method just before the plugin came out.
For Daz Studio, morph information gets stored in the database under Public Documents > My Daz 3D Library > Data
I had to know this when I was a PA, working on making DS products that never came to fruition.
I was already well acquainted with how a Poser Runtime structure worked, so the new DS system was a breeze. I was pretty loud back then that they had the perfect opportunity to govern that structure with an iron fist to keep the directories from turning inot a massive hoard of unnecesary folder bloat - something that really got out of hand with Poser content as more and more freebies got thrown in without rhyme or reason.
Well, they let artists just toss in mispelled folders, new folders for cataegories that already exist, under a different name... it just makes it more difficult, especially after years and years of misconduct, to 'know' exactly where to find files. But Daz's DIM saves me from that, so I eventually just kept quiet less noisy about it! LOL
But their system works really, really well in Daz Studio. Dialing up a slider will put that obj information into memory on your computer. But none of the other options will. Not until we activate a slider.
Even storing character presets only store information regarding required files - not the actualy mesh info itself - that stays safe and sound in the data folder!
So that's why Daz Studio feels so efficient. Because it really is!
Custom libraries made within Daz Studio don't actually move files around, like Poser and/or Carrara and probably others. To DS, it's just another allocation to the database. Very fast because it's just passing text addresses.
Thanks, Dart. That was some good information. However, I don't think it directly answered any of my questions.
Again, the questions were:
1. Why was the file still 775 mb after deleting the G2 character and clothing from the scene?
2. Why does Carrara bloat so much on Genesis in general? (is it really the morphs, or something else)
3. Did the morph eraser actually work, but not until after I deleted all the common and unused shaders?
4. Is saving the Genesis stuff in the Carrara object file the best way to lower the bloat?
I just did a further experiment. Instead of saving M6 and clothing to the Carrara objects folder, then deleting him from the instances tray, and then reinstalling him from the objects folder, I instead went directly to Edit>Remove Unused Masters, and did all the actions under that tab. The result was the same - a file of 328 mb. So it appears that saving the character in Carrara doesn't make a size difference, but that the Remove Unused Masters stuff does. If so, the answer to question 4 above is clearly NO.
I did this with a file that already had the Morph eraser applied. Next, I will try it with an earlier file, before the Morph Eraser was applied.
I went back to an earlier file, just before using the Morph Eraser the first time. It was 775 mb. To the file, I only applied the Edit>remove unused shader trio of options. The net result was exactly the same reduction - down to 328 mb.
Therefore, it appears that I didn't (primarily) have a morph problem, even though is would be great to get the file even lower. The answer to question number 3 is clearly NO. The Morph Eraser lowered the file size by only 15 mb. I assume that I am still doing something wrong there, but at least the file size is now manageable!
Questions 1 and 2 are still a mystery.
well my saves before morph eraser are in the Gigabytes
so
maybe you don't own many morphs
I don't know what "many" is. I posted my list on the previous page, so maybe you can tell me if I have many or few?
that won't help as doesn't show amount in subfolders
Genesis I:\My DAZ 3D Library\Data\DAZ 3D\Genesis\Base for me is 643 MB
genesis 8 female on the otherhand
I:\My DAZ 3D Library\Data\DAZ 3D\Genesis 8\Female is 3.71GB
I own an awful lot of content
I am not drilling down through them all either to prove anything just saying for me it makes a vast difference using morph eraser
depending own what you own your mileage may vary, your files honestly sound reasonable mine are anything but.
Hi!
It seems to me that you have few Genesis 2 morphs,at least in comparation with the list the plugin shows me: three or four times the list you posted. Still, I also get considerably smaller memory reductions with Genesis 2 than with Genesis when apply the plugin.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding the issue, but try selecting Remove Unused Masters>Remove Unused Objects and Remove Unused Masters>Remove Unused Shaders after you delete G2. I think Carrara caches the figure in case you chose undo later.
I'm wondering if Morph Eraser works better on G8 than on G2?
Thanks Alberto! Glad to know that I may be doing it correctly, but am not getting the same reductions as with G1.
Can you answer a question? If on the final step I don't select any morphs from the list to preserve, will the Morph Eraser simply delete the entire list?
Yes, I'm starting to think that you are correct. Carrara is maintaining some sort of cache.
If so, that would answer question number 1.
Once the file is saved and closed the cache should be deleted. Have you closed the file before checking it's size?
Thanks, but I'm not sure what you mean. A saved file is a saved file. The saved file size does not change whether Carrara is open or closed..
Cache is probably the wrong word. The bloating is saved in the scene itself. How much of that is due to G2 is still a question. In my case, a lot of the excess was removed by the standard Edit>Remove Unused Masters procedures.
However, when I first added G2 to the scene, the scene went from 4 mb to over 600 mb. Something else is going on with G2, and how it interacts within Carrara. It seems to be more than just morphs.
Hmmm...
Because 'deleting' doesn't actually flush the scene. You already mentioned that the file size greatly diminished after performing the "Remove Unused Masters" trio
Yep. Think of Morphs as the same model (obj) but with a different shape applied to it. On page 411 of the revision G manual, Morpher is a morphing modifier that allows us to add as may morphs as we wnant to an object. Each of these morphs is an actual copy of the original object that has been changed into the new morphed shape. SO in that case, each morph is like having another version of the same object in the scene using up the same amount of resources. For a morph to work, it has to be the same (polygons).
It's hard to say. But it's not just shaders that got removed, it's also the figure which got removed during Remove Unused Objects. Before tht, G2M was hanging around using up resources. Not sure why. It's not lke we can bring him back. Must be to help with the Undo Delete option. But it's always a good idea to remove unused shaders and objects as well as consolidating duplicates. There's absolutelt no good reason not to since we can, at any time open a new shader and drag an existing shader into it if we need a duplicate. Otherwise we've got a lot of addd weight for no good reason.
Nowadays, even the smallest texture map willl come in at 4K. It's like somebody pushed the 'efficiency no longer matter' button in the art world. Further, I've seen some of these 4K texture maps that only have a solid color applied to them. This is a harsh example, but that 4k image is more weight than an entire model for a game back when I first started, and we were forced to make tiny dds compressed texture maps to get them down under 16mb ro some such.
Well, the article I linked to removes bloat before Genesis ever makes it into Carrara. It's a process of analyzing which morphs are not important to a particular copy of Genesis and temporarily (or not) and effectively uninstalling the extra files from the figure - which will also affect Daz Studio, Poser or any other software we might use.
The "Magic" I mentioned about saving as a CAR file, is that we can now put the removed morphs back into the data folder, effectively reinstalling what one figure would consider bloat, without affecting the saved CAR file.
Genesis being Unisex is a major advantage for me. I can use auto-fit to put Freak 3 clothing onto an Aiko shape, Kids 4 clothing to Freak 5 or even a Monstrosity. But even better, I can use any generation 4 or 5 texture maps - and I have a Lot of them!
This does come with a cost, however. Each of those shapes... well... think you know where I'm going with this.
Lets go back to:
Something strange that really bugs me: Genesis hair takes absolutely f o r e v e r to load, and often the same applies with their poses. I think there's something with the DUF format that still isn't quite right with Carrara. An example, I have "Love Me Hair" in both Genesis and V4 versions. V4's loads right in like I'm used to whereas the Genesis version... well, I have to make a trip to town, so I might as well begin oading the hair in.
I absolutley love that Misty gave us G3 and 8 support, so I made Rosie 7, a Janette based figure. Wendy reported that aniBlocks won't work properly and that we must use duf poses instead. So I converted a lot of my aniBlocks to animated duf poses. The amount of time it takes to load those pose files into Carrara was the game changer for me. So I ran to the Daz 3D store down the street and bought the Genesis 3 addon pack for Genesis Generation X2, added my Genesis 3 morph shapes to Genesis, and rmain happy with my aniBlock Importer once again.
Experimenting is a Blast! I love it! These times, when we're trying to troubleshoot issues, it might not be as fun.
I work in a different way. I build my characters entirely on their own, in their own special Carrara scene file. I builld my scenes entirely on their own, in their own special Carrara scene file. I both cases I make a 'bare bones' version which has no additional content added to the scene. I name this file the name of the subject followed by "Base".
In each of these cases, I optimize the shaders and apply lighting and get the instances tray organized to my liking. That last bit is important to me because I have a special flow that I follow.
Then as I need new version of the character or scene, I make my changes and save a new file.
So I open Rosie 5 Artemis Knight and animate her to rising from her seat to check an alert that's sounding on an interface on the wall. As her concerning face checks the message she almost gets thrown from her feet... her vessel's been hit!
So I have her standard array of lights and add some to show the flashing alarm on her face and uniform. Everything I need to do to Rosie - just Rosie, I do now and then save as a new file.
Now I open my Marcoor Control Room scene on its own, bring it the robot figure and give him some simple animated tasks around the room and save that as a new file.
Open the new Rosie file and then load the new Control Room scene into this one. Orient the room to fit Rosie's animation and save as yet another new file.
This might seem like a lot of monkey business but, trust me - this flow works quite quickly compared to the days when I used to try and do everything with a scene, as if I was constrained to do so - as in real life. It took me a while to get to grips with it, but working digitally with digital assets is not really cheating - because it's all a cheat from the start!
Not the entire list, only the morphs the figure is not using at all.
Thanks for the additional good information, Dart! It may not be possible to completely understand the bloating mystery. But your workflow (which I don't claim to understand) sounds like a good approach. It obviously works for you. I need to spend some time taking a deeper look.
It always surprises me how different is everone's work flow in Carrara. Carrara is so deep. There are people here who religiously use certain features that I never use. So many different approaches to get the desired results.
Not the entire list, only the morphs the figure is not using at all in the scene. And the plugin does it by group. E.g, if the figure is using a morph of the Daz 3D Evolution Body, no one of these morphs will be deleted.
Thanks Alberto. That was pretty clear. It seems to me that the best approach (when in a serious bloat bind) is to not select any, and see how much reduction occurs.
Thanks for your efforts!
I usually run the mimic plugin first so they retain the facial movements as well as any active morphs
You're welcome!
That is a good practice.