Seeking to hire someone to produce Poser Companion Files

ShaneWSmith

Hi everyone,

I'm hoping to use a number of 3D Universe Genesis characters in a project. Specifically, these ones:

http://www.daz3d.com/sadie-and-sam-for-genesis
http://www.daz3d.com/jason-jasmin-for-genesis-uber-bundle

However, they are DAZ Studio products only (i.e. no Poser Companion Files), and I use Poser Pro 2014. I attempted to create these PCFs the other day, but gave up when I realised just how incredibly incompetent I am with DAZ Studio. I can't even find the content, let alone load and convert it.

So...

My question is this: would there be an EULA breach if I hired someone to produce the relevant Poser Companion Files for me, assuming that both I and this person owned the products in question?

As I understand things (and my understanding is incredibly rudimentary), the Poser Companion Files themselves are useless without the base product, and so would probably not be legally problematic to transfer from one person to another.

Karibou

You sure you don't want to make your own companion files? Because, even if you never use DS, making these files is really easy. (Even though the official Wiki documentation makes it sound really hard.)

1) Make sure the Poser runtime you want to add CFs to is "attached" to DS. (Edit/Preferences/Content Library/Content Directory Manager. Then highlight the "Poser Formats" pulldown and "add" the runtime you want CFs in.

2) In the DS content library, select the item you want a companion file for. You then click the little pull-out menu from the top of the content library tab (shown below) and select "Create Poser Companion File." When the dialog appears, the top part should already show the file path to the item you selected.

3) The bottom half is where you tell it to deposit the Poser CF. Select the base path from the pulldown menu. If you're unsure you have metadata, just select the "Use This Library and File Extension" button. (This lets YOU tell DS what kind of CF you're making.) Type the name of the folder you want the CF to appear in and hit "Accept." That's it.

Just remember that when you're in Poser, you must have the base "My Library" with the actual DS content connected to Poser for the CF to work.

ShaneWSmith

Thanks - that's a great summary of the process, and definitely easier to follow than the wiki page. I had to figure out how to save DSF files to DUF first, but managed. I got a pair of skinny jeans into Poser, and they work fine.

But they have no textures. Is there a fast way to create Poser Companion Files or do I have to do this individually for every preset, every texture, every pose and every figure? If so, then sadly, yes, I think I'd rather pay someone else to do it.

Thanks again.

glaseye

don't know about the material presets, but there is also D3D's DSON Loader, made esp. for loading DSON files in poser that have no pcf files. (And it is free :) )

http://d3d.sesseler.de/index.php?software=poserpython&product=dson_loader

Also check out the orther scripts available at his site....

DZ_jared

canberra_boy said:

Thanks - that's a great summary of the process, and definitely easier to follow than the wiki page. I had to figure out how to save DSF files to DUF first, but managed. I got a pair of skinny jeans into Poser, and they work fine.

But they have no textures. Is there a fast way to create Poser Companion Files or do I have to do this individually for every preset, every texture, every pose and every figure? If so, then sadly, yes, I think I'd rather pay someone else to do it.

Thanks again.

You can create poser companion files for Material(s) Presets, but those don't end up looking very good since Studio use the 3Delight render engine and poser uses the FireFly engine. The shader used for the original material will also complicate things.

The best thing to do is to create your own MC6 files to use in Poser. I will generally start by plugging in the diffuse, bump, displacement, and transmaps. I'll then adjust the latter 3 until I'm happy with how they look. Usually you'll need to use a math node for bump and displacement since Poser reads bump and displacement maps differently than most Studio shaders do.

Next you'll want to apply any other maps they have included for the product like spec maps, reflection maps etc. Play around with everything until you get it looking how you like and then save as an MC6 file.

It may sound like more work than creating a companion file for the materials presets but in the end you'll have a lot less headaches and your materials will look much better.

ShaneWSmith

DAZ_jared said:

canberra_boy said:

Thanks - that's a great summary of the process, and definitely easier to follow than the wiki page. I had to figure out how to save DSF files to DUF first, but managed. I got a pair of skinny jeans into Poser, and they work fine.

But they have no textures. Is there a fast way to create Poser Companion Files or do I have to do this individually for every preset, every texture, every pose and every figure? If so, then sadly, yes, I think I'd rather pay someone else to do it.

Thanks again.

You can create poser companion files for Material(s) Presets, but those don't end up looking very good since Studio use the 3Delight render engine and poser uses the FireFly engine. The shader used for the original material will also complicate things.

The best thing to do is to create your own MC6 files to use in Poser. I will generally start by plugging in the diffuse, bump, displacement, and transmaps. I'll then adjust the latter 3 until I'm happy with how they look. Usually you'll need to use a math node for bump and displacement since Poser reads bump and displacement maps differently than most Studio shaders do.

Next you'll want to apply any other maps they have included for the product like spec maps, reflection maps etc. Play around with everything until you get it looking how you like and then save as an MC6 file.

It may sound like more work than creating a companion file for the materials presets but in the end you'll have a lot less headaches and your materials will look much better.

Haha, this is so far beyond my skill level I only understood about half of it. Thanks, though!

Starting to look like this may be more trouble than it's worth. Shame.

ShaneWSmith

Is there anyone who can weigh in on this issue? Is it a EULA breach to hire someone to produce Poser Companion Files?

If not, I'm keen to hire someone to make those files.

Fisty

I can't see why it would be.. the poser CFs call the original duf files and the materials call the original texture files, nothing will work at all without the original package.

Richard Haseltine

It would, I think, depend on the item - for a character preset with morph settings those would be in the .duf file, so distributing them would be a breach of the EULA to my mind. Supplying the Poser library files and .py files, then having the suer manually copy the .duf files to the same folder should be safe though.

ShaneWSmith

Thanks for the replies, everyone.

It sounds to me like there is likely to be no issue, as long as DUF files do not change hands, and the only files being transferred are the Poser Companion Files.

So, I'm looking to hire someone to make this product Poser compatible:
http://www.daz3d.com/sadie-and-sam-for-genesis

I am happy to purchase a gift voucher for you to the value of the item as part of the payment, if you don't already own it.

(I'm not sure what a fair rate would be for this work, so I'm asking you to name your price. Hopefully I will be able to afford to accommodate you.)

fixmypcmike

ssgbryan said:

If you don't get the .duf file, then you don't have any way to use the product in Poser.

That's correct, you need to own the product. Then you have the .duf file.

3a. The .duf files come in 2 flavors, machine readable, and human readable. The human readable .dufs load material room information and call the appropriate .dsf file. The machine readable .dufs, don't appear to load material room information (It is done by the ersatz Poser file). Examples of machine readable .duf files are those that make up base meshes such as the Genesis, Basic Child, Basic Female, Basic Male, Aiko 5, etc. Characters based on the base meshes are human readable (or at least the ones I own are).

.duf files can be compressed or uncompressed -- if they are compressed, you can decompress them with whatever you use to decompress .zip files. The content of the duf file is unrelated to whether they are distributed compressed or uncompressed.

icprncss

These are simply morphs of Genesis. What exactly does the OP mean when the say they want a Poser version of Sadie and Sam for Genesis? Do they want a PCF or a Poser version such as you see with Dawn?

Either one requires the OP purchase the Sadie and Sam for Genesis Morph(s). A poserized version can be made using the old cr2 export method for Genesis that was used before the DSON importer was made. This method is by no means fool proof and is not without problems.

There is a tutorial for this method available in the store. It contains some python scripts that can make things easier but read the product page carefully. Poser has changed python versions in both P8 and again in P9. Some compiled scripts that were not updated do not work in all versions of Poser. Even some uncompiled scripts have problems as well.

Lissa_xyz

icprncss said:

These are simply morphs of Genesis. What exactly does the OP mean when the say they want a Poser version of Sadie and Sam for Genesis? Do they want a PCF or a Poser version such as you see with Dawn?

Either one requires the OP purchase the Sadie and Sam for Genesis Morph(s). A poserized version can be made using the old cr2 export method for Genesis that was used before the DSON importer was made. This method is by no means fool proof and is not without problems.

There is a tutorial for this method available in the store. It contains some python scripts that can make things easier but read the product page carefully. Poser has changed python versions in both P8 and again in P9. Some compiled scripts that were not updated do not work in all versions of Poser. Even some uncompiled scripts have problems as well.

The textures. The morphs are easy enough just by loading Genesis via the DSON Importer, but they'll be textureless without PCFs unless the OP uses D3D's script, or follows Jared's advice (which would honestly be my method of choice, but I've got Poser addons that make working with multiple surfaces and maps a breeze).

Richard Haseltine

Well, importing the .dufs won't really fix the materials - it should give the basics, diffuse and bump etc., but they won't exactly be optimised for Poser. What's really needed is a set of native Poser materials for the characters.

Lissa_xyz

Richard Haseltine said:

Well, importing the .dufs won't really fix the materials - it should give the basics, diffuse and bump etc., but they won't exactly be optimised for Poser. What's really needed is a set of native Poser materials for the characters.

It's plugging all of the maps in 1 by 1 in Poser's native mat room that's a pain. If you have something like Semidieu's Advanced Material Manager, it becomes 1000% easier as you can work on multiple surfaces at once like you can in DS. From there, Poser has Snarly's free EzSkin script that can make the skin look good. There is also Semidieu's Utilities vol4 Materials script that allows you to change maps for the entire figure while retaining the node structure.