Huge File Sizes conforming to Genesis?
LordGhoul
Posts: 43
HI,
I'm using 8.5 pro and am interested in using Genesis (yes, late adopter!)
I finally have a computer that I think can handle it (i7,16GB ram), but have found that file sizes are much too large.
Here's my experiment:
1.) Load basic Genesis (I have installed some morph packages) and save the character (no clothes/hair) to objects. File size = 29Mb (ok)
2.) Load hair (Aldora Hair), save just the hair to objects. File size = 13.9Mb (ok)
3.) Conform Aldora Hair to basic Genesis (wait about 10 minutes) save combination to objects (wait another 10 min). File size = 296Mb (!!!)
I've tried to find an answer in the previous posts but couldn't find one.
(I've done the remove shaders and objects routine with no effect)
I can't imagine that this is "normal" so I must be doing something wrong.
If anyone has any solutions, I would greatly appreciate it. Otherwise, I'll be forced to stick to Gen 4! :-(
Thanks in advance!
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Comments
In the "Save" dialog, you're setting it to store everything within the file - rather than leaving the textures and such in their local, already stored locations, which is fine, if you wish to keep everything contained, don't mind waiting a year for the save, and don't mind huge file size - because it actually optimizes the image format to a large file size at the same time, I guess.
Try saving using local coordinates and you'll notice a BIG difference.
I think I'm one of a small handful that uses compression... but I do. I guess there's some issues with that, I never run into any problems. I also choose to have it make me a thumbnail, which adds slightly to the save time, but I like them! :)
Local coordinates, no matter what other settings you use, will solve this one, though ;)
Thanks for jumping on this. I don't know what Carrara would do without you Dartanbeck!
Unfortunately, I have always been saving as "use local settings" and I too have Compress File checked (so you're not the only one).
What I don't get is why the objects are individually relatively small (29+13.9=42.9), but when conformed become almost 7 times larger (296)!
Talk about being greater than the sum of your parts!
Hmmm... it may have to do with morphs used. I'm no expert at this, but Genesis, unlike generation 4 figures, doesn't have the morphs INJected into it - so they stay there. But rather, they are accessed through their file locations upon use. This is extremely efficient (I am to understand) as everything you install for Genesis is then always available at no extra file size cost - until you use it. But say you dial up Michael 6, for example, then that morph data will (I believe) stay with the model, so long as it's dialed on. I could be wrong, though - but that's my guess. I never even noticed.
...and thanks for the wonderful compliment! I do have a passion for helping folks love their experiences with my favorite software in the whole world!
So, Dartanbeck,
You are able to use Genesis, conform hair and clothes to her/him/it and the file sizes stay reasonable?
Since I'm new to Genesis, I don't know what is "normal".
Thanks,
You didn't try any different textures or shaders or anything? You didn't load any additional models and then decide you didn't like them and delete them? If you did any of the above, did you remove Unused Masters under the Edit Menu?
I haven't even checked. My main actors are still Generation 4, and my monsters are going to mostly be Genesis - but I haven't been getting much time with character creation lately. I'll take your word for it that they're not though. Wait... let me look... aha!
Rosie V4 version is 114 MB
Rosie V6 version is 138 MB
Both have similar clothing and the exact same hair.
M4 Dartan (my avatar here) weighs in at 217 MB
M5 Dartan is 138 MB
Genesis 1 version of Rosie is 187, I have another at 246, and another at 321 MB, so I can certainly see what you mean.
Genesis 2 Female that I saved as a CAR file quite some time ago is only 8.41 MB, and she's only sporting a single clay shader throughout. She's there for clothing modeling.
evilproducer,
I'm actually not saving the "scene". I'm saving the individual characters by dragging to "my objects" folder.
in step 1 and 2 I saved the individual characters (base, without any texture or morph modifications)
in step 3 I conformed the hair to the character and dragged the combined set to my objects. I noticed lag during conforming and during saving.
I did originally save a scene with 2 characters and their hair only, which is when I realized there was a problem. The scene was over 700Mb!
I always combine duplicate shaders, and remove unused objects and shaders before saving.
Hope this helps,
Thanks
Just checking. It is difficult to know who is new to the software, who is not, and what their work habits are.
No worries. I'm the first to assume that I know nothing!
I did some checking and my largest V4, fully clothed, fully textured, fully morphed figure I have weighs in at just over 70Mb. As Dartanbeck mentioned, I too thought Genesis would be more efficient given that the morphs are "external", so I don't know what is taking up all the space and then just conforming 2 bloated models causes them to explode 7 times larger than the individual models!
I'm hoping I'm doing something wrong because I like the Genesis models.
Would building the characters in DAZ Studio solve the problem?
I've never learned how to use it past firing it up to get the DB Maintenance done.
Thanks again
I'm pretty sure all the DAZ stuff is using standard compression algorithms...so use your OS/third party compression utility and compress a copy of that monster. If it is already compressed it shouldn't decrease in size very much...but, if it isn't compressed then it will shrink dramatically. That should let you know if it is actually being compressed when you are saving it...that 7x size difference seems an awful lot like a typical compression size difference.
I checked some recent files saves and se a similar thing...it appears to be hair related.
I saved genesis with an aiko3 morph and some clothes: 46 megs
I added V4 hair and attached it to genesis: 177 megs
The hair took about 20 minutes to conform. A similar scene with V4 wearing V4 hair is about 56 megs.
I've given up using Genesis in Carrara because frankly it does not work very well at all, especially in comparision to how well Genesis works within Studio..
S.K.
swordkensia,
Is there a workflow that includes both Studio and Carrara?
The one thing that drew me to Carrara was the "all in one" concept. I was willing to sacrifice a little in each category (modelling, rigging, posing, rendering) in order to avoid jumping between programs. Not to mention that I preferred carrara in posing and rendering to older versions of Poser/Studio.
It seems now that even with 8.5 we can't make use of the latest figures like Genesis in Carrara which really sucks.
When I posted the problem I was hoping there was something I was doing wrong (still hope so) because I don't want to load a character in studio/poser, add morphs, textures clothes, pose etc and export to carrara. I don't want to learn another program.
Ok, I did another experiment:
Individual models saved:
Basic Female = 29MB
Briefs=14.1MB
Top=14.4MB
Total=57.5MB
Combined/conformed model saved:
Total=57.6MB!
So the problem is confined to conforming a hair character.
I've since found that its the Genesis hair that gets bloated after being conformed to the figure.
As a work around I guess I'll stick the hair on the head without conforming.
Not ideal, so I'll still hold out for a better solution....
Are you animating? If you don't want the file bloat that you seem to be getting with a hair figure, perhaps dynamic hair is the way to go. It can look much more real than conforming hair. If you don't want to learn the hair system, there are dynamic hair items in the DAZ store. PhilW has some I believe. I also think RingoMontfort does as well.
evilproducer,
I haven't found the courage to animate yet. I barely have the patience to set up a scene, pose it and render a few images!
I do use dynamic hair. Works great in many cases, but I'm no hairdresser either! For fancier styles I go to geometric hair with texture/transparency maps.
I think I can get by with the work-around of not conforming the hair to the character for those situations.
For some reason, conforming a hair figure to a genesis figure causes the hair to bloat by ~10x!
I'm happy there is a work-around. I had been putting off using genesis, but for now I am going forward.
Thanks,
My computer is old and slow, so I haven't found the courage to animate dynamic hair yet. ;-) I don't use it for animations, which is much more complicated than just using it for stills.
I discovered an interesting thing recently, which may relate to this. Apologies if this is already known to everyone, but I thought it was worth sharing.
One of the things about the new DAZ Studio '.duf' format, as I understand it, is that it doesn't include all the object data in the saved file. Instead, it stores references into the content directory tree. When DAZ Studio loads a '.duf' file, it goes and grabs the information from the content directories, instead of looking for it in the file (as was the case with the older '.daz' format).
This has two consequences. One is that the '.duf' files are much smaller, and save and load much faster. The other is that if your content directory tree gets trashed or stuff moves around, then the '.duf' file won't load correctly.
So far, so good. What does this have to do with Carrara?
Well, it looks as if Carrara is '.duf'-aware as well. If you load a Genesis figure within Carrara - i.e. by dragging it from the 'Content' tab - then your saved Carrara file immediately bloats to a gigantic size: hundreds of megabytes, if not gigabytes. Saves and loads take forever.
If you pose a figure first in DAZ Studio, then save it as a '.duf' file, and import that figure into Carrara, it loads pretty quickly. But -- and this is the big one -- if you then save your Carrara scene, the save happens quickly and the file size stays small.
I have a Carrara file that contains two Genesis figures, plus clothing. The figures were posed in DAZ Studio, saved as '.duf', and imported separately into Carrara. I then saved the Carrara scene. The resulting file is about 75MB in size. When I replaced one of the figures and its clothing with the equivalent pieces loaded from the content tab, the file went to more than 800MB and saving took an eternity.
So I think that Carrara 8.5 and up is not only able to import '.duf', but it can also use the magical space-saving properties of '.duf' to reduce the size of its own files ... but only if the figures began life in DAZ Studio. It seems that Genesis figures created wholly within Carrara are handled differently, resulting in giant files.
The downside is that, once again, there's probably a dependency on your content directory tree. Carrara is not storing the object data or texture maps internally, resulting in faster saves. However, if your content directory moves around or gets changed, you're hosed: you probably won't be able to reload that scene successfully.
This may offer a solution to the problem described by @Lordghoul. If you do your posing and conforming in DAZ Studio, then import to Carrara, it may take care of the file-bloat issue.
Very interesting. I was wondering a few things about the differences between loading fresh from loading a character that was built in DS - thanks for this. I wouldn't mind adding DS to the workflow for setting up the characters for later use in Carrara. I wonder if auto-fit that does work well in DS will still hold, once it gets into Carrara - like for Genesis 2 figures, for example.
I must say, I'm beginning to really enjoy using DS more and more as a separate tool for my Carrara endeavors. I'll look into some of this when I can.
The info about Genesis bloat is very good to know. Also, if you've already loaded one fresh Genesis model into Carrara, I've noticed that all subsequent loads of any Genesis figure are much faster afterwards.
yes I found this too
I create abd clothe my figures in Daz studio and import into carrara
I also save autofitted clothes as support assets in studio
Daz studio is a great carrara plugin!!!
is rather like Poser 2012 where I use the D3D DSON importer on the same saved scenes and characters.
so you really need DS4.6 to use Genesis 1&2 in carrara but they work well together.
Genesis 1 characters loaded via import rather than smart content also works well for me with clothes made for it loaded the same way.
I think it should (although I haven't made extensive tests). I've noticed a few oddities, though.
One was that a clothing figure conformed to another piece of clothing exhibited major poke-through when imported to Carrara. This was Luthbel's Highlander; the instructions say to collide the vest figure against the shirt figure, rather than against Genesis. I did that when I posed the figure in DAZ Studio originally, and it looked fine. When I imported to Carrara, the shirt poked through the vest. However, when I re-parented the vest to the Genesis figure inside Carrara, the poke-thru went away and everything was fine (except for some issues with the collar that I've never resolved).
Another is that I think there's a difference between Open and Import. I used Carrara to open one '.duf' file, and the figure and clothing were imported ungrouped, i.e. they appeared in the scene browser as:
Figure
Clothing 1
Clothing 2
Hair
If I then attempted to group these items in Carrara, everything went to hell; the grouped clothing and hair was displaced on the figure.
When I used Import to bring in a different figure, however, the scene was imported as:
NameOfScene
Figure
Clothing 1
Clothing 2
Hair
and everything was fine.
So I think that if you care about how things are organized in your scene browser, it's better to use Import than Open (i.e. make an empty Carrara scene and import into it, rather than opening up the .duf file directly).
One other thing to be aware of. If your scene contains odd DAZ Studio-specific stuff, such as UberEnvironment, or Reality IBL domes, or certain lights, you may get weird behavior. Specifically, you may get NilPointer warning dialogs. Sometimes Carrara can recover from these. Sometimes it can't. To be on the safe side, try to strip out everything except figures before importing.
Import of LAMH hair objects also seems to be questionable.
Well, I have another observation on this subject.
1) I loaded a piece of clothing from smart content and saved it to my objects. Size on drive = 2.34MB
2) I conformed it to my genesis character.
3) I saved the conformed clothing to my objects (just the clothing, no genesis figure). Size on drive = 62.6 MB!!!
4) I un-conformed the clothing (set "fit to" to none) and saved it to my objects. Size on drive = 62.6MB!?
So it seems that conforming clothing bloats it irreversibly.
Unconforming the clothing does not remove the bloat.
What gives?
This really limits the amount of content possible in a scene and drastically slows down loading and saving.
A simple figure that is 2-3MB when loaded and only takes 1 sec to conform to genesis should not save out this big.
If there was a way to unconform back to the original when saving and reconform when loading, file sizes (save/load times) would be up to 10% of what we have now.
Is there no solution to this?
These are the times I wish I knew how to program!
There were likely morph dials turned on in the Genesis figure. DAZ Studio 4 was a marvel in the new Studio, and is only getting better. It made it so that we could make clothing however we want and bring it into DS and it can completely automate the rigging and weight mapping. While not perfect, it does an excellent job as a starting point. Some object may not even need further tweaks.
Anyways, it also introduced the Genesis figure, which was also a marvel.
DAZ Studio is Genesis. And Genesis is DAZ Studio. The two work together - so we no longer need to make morphs for our clothes that we want to support for users. All we need to make is the clothing - and DAZ Studio does the rest. I imagine that this technology was difficult to add to Carrara - and I also believe that they're still working on its perfection.
When you add clothing to the scene, without "Fit-To" anyone, if it already has "Actor", select that and then look at the "Parameters" tab. Now "Fit-To" a Genesis figure and see the difference. Any dials that have been turned on will now be added, according to a DAZ Studio algorithm, to the clothing. If there are already dials on the clothing, it is likely due to the artist making tweaked versions of those fits. We can easily do that now. And anytime we rename one of our own morphs to match the name of one that Genesis uses, DAZ Studio (nor Carrara 8.5), will generate a new automated version of that shape.
This is why it takes some time to load in the first Genesis into Carrara. There's a lot more to it that just a Generation 4 figure. It is a special SubD cage technology, that has the ability to change into nearly any shape imaginable. The more the shapes you collect and install, the more flexibility the figure has.
Once you conform a clothing to Genesis, any morph dials that are anything but zero, and that were not part of the original clothing, will now get added to the clothing. I haven't checked yet, but perhaps, in order to work better for Carrara, all morphs get loaded right away, I don't know. But once these morphs get added to the clothing, that instance of clothing will not lose those morphs - even if you fit it to nothing. They were already installed.
Please understand that my above post is only an attempt to explain - not defend. When I defend DAZ 3D, I point to the fact that they have always specialized in the ability to push the envelope of the figures we can use - and They certainly are doing that with Genesis and Genesis 2. But I have certainly had my frustrations with Genesis in Carrara keeping me from full implementation of it.
However, I am beginning to have a whole new thought on this level. One which I have yet to experiment with, since I'm currently not in that particular workflow - but with other projects.
Here is the method I would like to employ, and a bit of the reasoning behind it:
I believe that part of the key, in the current state of things, is to employ the help of DAZ Studio for getting Genesis ready for Carrara before bring it into Carrara for our final work - shading, posing, animating, and rendering. So I would like to propose this workflow:
Open DAZ Studio and create our characters within, including applying any clothing and props. Then Save that into the DAZ library.
I'm still not certain if this will make a big difference, but it's where I intend to go. Of course, immediately upon bringing one of these characters into Carrara, I'll be consolidating duplicate shaders and removing unused shaders. Those can really drive up the file size.
In the first few videos of DAZ 3D's playlist for Content Creation Tutorials, DAZ Studio was still 4.0.0 something beta, and Genesis wasn't yet called Genesis, but "Unimesh". I'm researching this stuff for some help with some clothing I'm working on, and there's a lot of useful help in here, even though we're now on version 4.6.2
I think that the above workflow may have better results that simply designing Genesis characters from directly within Carrara because Genesis has been built for use with DAZ Studio, and the new DAZ Studio has been developed around the idea of using Genesis - mainly, they work well together, and might just provide a more optimized starting set for use in Carrara if assembled ahead of time.
I am relatively new to the new DAZ Studio, and so I still have a lot to learn about it, which I intend to do next, so that when I do use it in this manner, I can optimize within Studio as best I can before saving out the duf for use in Carrara.
I have no doubt that Carrara will be gaining better duf working abilities, either in Carrara 9, or an 8.5 update. Nobody told me this... it's just a hunch as a long-time DAZ customer.
Dartanbeck, thanks for all the responses!
So, it seems I'm going to have to learn Studio after all.
Here's what I did (I think I followed the workflow you described)
In Studio 4.6 Pro:
1. Loaded Genesis
2. Applied a few morphs to customize the look
3. Added hair
4. Added a top and bottom.
5. Saved the scene (.duf file). Looks like the duf file is just a pointer since it is only 49.5KB. I think this is an excellent way to save files!
In Carrara Pro 8.5:
1. Started an empty scene
2. Loaded the saved .duf file from the smart content pane
3. Removed duplicate shaders etc.
4. Saved the scene (.car file). This file size is 361MB. As I've shown earlier, this is much more than just the sum of the individual components.
By comparison, the largest Carrara file I have created in the last year came in at 194MB.
The scene included 4 Gen4 figures, associated clothing for each and the geometry of a room and its contents.
I'm very impressed with the capabilities of the Genesis figure (near perfect conforming clothes, single mesh for multiple figures, better bending etc)
Unfortunately, unless I find another way or Carrara gets improved, I can't use the figure.
One of the reasons I wanted to use Genesis in Carrara is that I could set up a "Base" character and create new ones from that base. The reason for this is that I can adjust the IK for the limbs, add helper objects for posing (eg. I have a helper object that the eyes "point at") once for all future figures.
Anyway, I'll keep looking for a solution and report back if I find one (I hope the solution isn't to abandon Carrara for Studio!).
Thanks
Bummer. I was hoping that the work-around would improve it. I guess I can just keep making mine directly within Carrara then.
Daz studio is my Genesis character set up and modification program
Carrara is my scene building, animation and rendering program
I build up a library of saved dressed character scenes to import in the latter
I do not save the characters in the carrara scene but create and save NLA clips if I wish to reuse it later loading the characters fresh.
this seems to work reasonably well.