ALMOST SOLVED! Character Won't Render?
Fauvist
Posts: 2,152
In Daz Studio 4.6 I load a character and it appears in the viewport. It is a character which I made in Poser, which consists of Genesis and a lot of various morphs of Freak 3, Michael 4 etc. I saved the character to the Poser library. It opens fine in Daz Studio, but when I render the scene, evrerything ion the scene renders except the character. It seems invisible to the render engine. I've checked and it is set to be visible during the render. Does anyone know why it would be invisible to the render engine?
Thanks!
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the only time I've seen anything remotely like this is when the shaders for the models surfaces are not compatible (or need to be recompiled) with the version of 3Delight that studio is running. Is anything else in the scene rendering?
Try re-applying a mat for the figure that is from another set and if it renders it's a likely a problem with the shaders,
next step if that doesn't work is update your video card, followed by how much RAM does this system have and can you render in stand-alone 3Delight/
I put a new texture on the figure, one created for Genesis, and in a DAZ Studio format. There is 8GB of RAM. Everything else in scene renders correctly, so it isn't the memory card.
It's exactly this type of intensely frustrating problem that has made me resist using DAZ Studio for years. It's so incredibly stupid. There's a figure in the viewport and it is invisible in the render. Genesis, with a texture, is standing in the middle of this scene. I've spent 5 hours tyring to get this character to render. I loaded a 2nd Genesis into the scene and applied a character and rendered it again. This 2nd Character shows up in the render, but the first character is still invisible.
Does it render w/o that background?
Is "Visible in Render" on or off in the properties?
Visible In Render is "on". It doesn't render with the background, or without the bakgreound, or with different lighting. I just applied exactly the same texture to the first character as I did to the 2nd character who shows up in the render. So it doesn't have anything to do with the texture, or the lighting.
On the Surfaces pane, you don't have Fantom turned on by any chance, do you?
No, Fantom is not turned on.
I opened a 2nd Genesis character in DAZ Studio that I fashioned in Poser - it also appears in the viewport and will not render. It's highly ironic that DAZ Studio won't render a figure that was specifically created for it. I suppose it has something technial to do with the fact that it was a Genesis figure opened in Poser, then morphed into a character in Poser, then saved to the Poser library - then opened in DAZ Studio. Maybe it doesn't like the back and forth. It's really disappointing. I was starting to like what I could do with DAZ Studio and now it seems just useless.
Especially considering I can open and render those exact same Genesis figures in Vue and render them with no trouble.
If you're going to render the character in studio anyways, why not just make it in studio?
I'm betting it's a texture issue. Did you apply the DUF textures in Poser via PoserCFs or in DS natively?
/edit
Give me a sec and I'll see if I can reproduce it.
DS does not read Poser weight-mapping, so I wouldn't expect the rigging to work, but I don't know why it's not rendering.
What type of file are you saving in Poser? Can you show a screenshot of the save settings?
/edit
Nvm. Mine loaded with Visible in Render set to OFF. Mine renders fine.
CR2 saving in Poser has no settings (he said in his first post he saved it via the library, so CR2 would be the logical guess). You click to add it to your library in the figures pane and the only setting is to name it. Everything else it does on it's own.
CR2 saving in Poser has no settings (he said in his first post he saved it via the library, so CR2 would be the logical guess). You click to add it to your library in the figures pane and the only setting is to name it. Everything else it does on it's own.
I'm glad you reproduced my experience independently. So, it doesn't have anything to do with me. Yes, it's just a CR2. I tried opening it without finding the subdnull.obj, and with locating the subdnull.obj - it didn't make any difference.
Unfortunately I have to use 3 software programs - Poser for the Cloth Room, DAZ Studio for the AutoFit and sometimes the light sets, and Vue for scenic content. For the AutoFit to work I have to make every character into a Genesis character.
I edited my post. I actually couldn't reproduce it. I just didn't realize the CR2 loaded automatically with Visible in Render set to OFF.
CR2 saving in Poser has no settings (he said in his first post he saved it via the library, so CR2 would be the logical guess). You click to add it to your library in the figures pane and the only setting is to name it. Everything else it does on it's own.
You're just loading Genesis. Try doing something to Genesis in Poser, then saving it, then opening and rendering it in DAZ Studio.
Maybe it has to do with the fact that I'm using GEN X to apply 3rd generation morphs. Maybe it's the DSON and GEN X combination that's not making it work.
That doesn't seem likely to me -- once you've GenX'd them they're just parameter dials like any other, and there's no reason that would affect visibility. Can you double-check that both Visible and Visible in Render are on?
You're just loading Genesis. Try doing something to Genesis in Poser, then saving it, then opening and rendering it in DAZ Studio.
Something like what? Textures? I morphed her in Poser.
It might help if I knew your exact steps. Which app you're applying the textures in, are you using PoserCFs or Dimension3D's DSON script, etc?
Ok, there is something definitely wonky somewhere. Here's what I did:
Loaded Genesis in PP2014
Turned off SubD
Manually dialed in F5 and a GenX-ed M4 Beer Belly
Applied F5 textures via PoserCF
Turned SubD back to 1
Saved to library as a CR2.
The character loads fine in DS, the textures render well, yet the render looks like a base Genesis and not F5.
/edit
Upon closer inspection... see closeup. o_O
You might have rogue mesh loading with your CR2 that's overriding your visibility settings (just as mine is overriding the F5 morph)
I have this same issue using the Bot Genesis PoserCFs in Poser. No idea what causes it or how to fix it.
Wouldn't the rogue mesh show up in the Scene pane? All I have is one Genesis figure showing in that pane. Or would the mesh show up somewhere else.
I remember, about 6 hours ago, there was a 2nd mesh, like the one in your example. I just deleated it. Do you think it does something to the render settings?
I'm not sure. I can visibly see the 2nd mesh in the DS viewport, but there is no 2nd mesh in the scene/hierarchy tabs.
I wonder if the 2nd mesh I'm seeing is the SubD "shell" from Poser.
/edit
Yes, the 2nd mesh from mine was the subD shell from Poser. I re-saved the CR2 with subD off and no longer have the problem. The UVs for the textures didn't save right for some reason, so the maps are all misaligned, but that's an easy fix using the DS mats.
My question for you still stands though, why bother going through all of this trouble? Just create the character in Daz Studio itself, and use the DS optimized mats. If you're using custom Poser shaders, Poser procedurals don't work in DS anyways.
I'm going through all of this trouble because I'm an artist. There's no reason or rhyme to creating art. I try a thousand different variations of everything. Some of my characters are pieces of 3 different generations of figures parented together with parts of each of their bodies made invisible. Some of my characters were made before Genesis was invented. There's no possible way I can remember what I used, or what I did. The textures are a patchwork of materials I take from many different sources. I don't just buy a premade character and put hair and clothes on it. I alter and customize everything. I use almost nothing "out of the box".
The specific character figure I customized in Poser and want to render in DAZ Studio is 100% Genesis. The texture is one Michael 4 texture. I did it in Poser because I was going to use the Poser Cloth Room for dynamic clothing, but I found it would work better if I used conforming clothing, for which I need the Auto Fit utility in Studio 4.6.
I've really really tried to avoid using DAZ Studio and the Genesis and Genesis 2 products because they have incompatibility built into them. But Studio has Auto Fit, and Poser has the Cloth Room.
I'm thinking you should only have Saved your Figure as a Character Preset in Poser with the DSON files in Poser. Then in DAZ Studio you load a Genesis Figure apply the Character Preset saved from Poser and then just load the Proper M4 Texture, Genesis loads M4 textures when set to use the M4 UV's in the Surfaces Tab, then load the clothing.
Better yet would have been just to do it all in DAZ Studio as Poser was not needed in any of the steps. I would have even built the Figure in DAZ Studio with the Gen-X morphs, then saved the Poser CFs, DSON, and loaded that by DSON into Poser to try the Dynamic Clothing. Not the other way around.
I saved the firgure as a CR2. I can open it and resave it. How do you save the figure as a Character Preset in Poser with the DSON files? I don't even know what DSON files are.
So how did you get Genesis into Poser? Most use the DSON importer for that.
But I'm now at a loss, a CR2 should work I believe. Just Load and Use in DS. Hmm... Now this is a REAL question. DSON not used and the CR2 Fails in DS... Hmm... Okay that's a bigger set of things to wonder on.
What is a "TriAx Weight Mapped figure"? When I opened my Genisis character again in DAZ Studio, I selected it and tried to save it as a Charater Preset. It wouldn't let me. I got this message "You must select a TriAx Weight Mapped figure in the scene to save a Character Preset."
Maybe that's the reason the figure is invisible during a render - because it's not a TriAx Weightmapped figure. How do I make my figure into one of those?
Genesis is Triax by default, the problem is you're using the PoserCF version of it, which is Poser weightmapped. Honestly, you're going backwards. Here's what you should do.
Create your Genesis character in DS.
Save out the shaping preset by going to file > save as > shaping preset (best option is your Genesis Library > Presets > Shaping > Optional Subfolder)
If at this time you want to use your figure in Poser's cloth room, find your shaping preset in the content library and single click on it to highlight it.
Now you'll need to create PoserCFs for your preset.
Right click on the Content Library tab (with your preset still selected) and choose Create Poser Companion Files.
Here's a shot of the settings (obviously your library name will vary). Set these and hit accept. To find them in Poser, open your Genesis Library and go to the Poses tab and look for DSON Conversions > Presets > Shaping.
Load Genesis in Poser and use the preset you just exported out on it.
For stills you an always apply dynamic cloth to an imported DSON figure in Poser, without worrying about materials, then export the cloth as OBJ and import it into DS using the Poser preset.