DAZ Studio 4.5 Release Candidate Available Now
DAZ_bfurner
Posts: 62
DAZ Studio 4.5 RC1!
This release candidate is available to all customers and will run either without a serial number (although you will be asked to enter one each time you run DAZ Studio), or with your current DAZ Studio serial number. Installing 4.5 will uninstall 4.0, and we recommend installing only one of either 4.0.x or 4.5.x on the same machine.
The purpose of this build is to provide early access to the new features available in DAZ Studio 4.5. This is a release candidate, which means we are looking for prompt feedback about significant issues that may still exist in this build as we approach full release. To help our test and development teams, please focus issue reports on items that are significant workflow blocks, crashes, or other major issues rather than new feature requests, UI changes, or desired workflow changes.
New in DAZ Studio 4.5:
1. Full implementation of the DSON file format. This enables full scene save in a lightweight scene file (DUF format). These scene files can be loaded and used by anyone who has installed the products used in the scene. If one or more of the products is not found upon loading the scene, a warning dialog will indicate which files are needed.
2. Selective item save/load. Save only selected items in a scene, then drop them into another scene using lightweight preset files.
3. Viewport speed dramatically increased. For many viewport interactions, speed will be 2-5x faster than DAZ Studio 4.0.
4. DSON file save includes the ability to load and use most Poser files as if they were native DSF files. DUF scenes that contain items in Poser format are also sharable (i.e. only contain references to the needed Poser files).
5. Property Settings now consolidates more information about each property into a single interface (e.g. presentation editor).
6. FBX Import FBX files can now be round-tripped through DAZ Studio, including rigged and animated items in the scene.
7. The Darkside style is now included as part of the base installation package.
8. No serial number is required to run either the 32-bit or 64-bit versions of DAZ Studio Standard
9. Shader Mixer has significantly improved workflow and documentation.
10. New "Ready to Render" scenes have been added as part of the content that installs with 4.5. Loading these is a great way to start tweaking and playing with some cool scenes.
11. A number of Lesson Strips have been added. These are quick lessons about DAZ Studio basics. There are also instruction on how to create your own Lesson Strips on the DAZ Documentation Center.
Along with all the new things in DAZ Studio 4.5, you will also find new documentation on some of the deeper functionality in DAZ Studio on the DAZ Documentation Center in the Publishing and DAZ Studio sections.
If you find any serious issues please report them with as much detail as you can in the DAZ Issue Tracker
What you need to know about this build:
1. Many, many issues and workflow improvements have been addressed since we released 4.0.3. Too many to list here. Please see the DAZ Issue Tracker and the DAZ Studio 4.5 Change Log for details (this will be included in the download of the product).
2. Files saved from this version of DAZ Studio are not backward compatible with older versions, including version 4.0.x.
3. Plugins that run in version 4.0 will not run in version 4.5.
4. When installing the plugins that come with DAZ Studio, you may see warning dialogs indicating there was a problem with installation. These warnings do not affect installation, but we are addressing the warnings in a later build.
5. Not all features of FBX are supported on import, so characters from other 3D applications imported in FBX format may or may not come through with all their components.
6. All presets are saved in lightweight DUF format and scripted presets (DSA files) have been deprecated. DSA presets will still save and load, but the new preset format should be used in their place.
Thank you for helping us make DAZ Studio great!
You can get this version of DAZ Studio here: DAZ Studio 4.5
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Comments
No, it is NOT available. The link given above is for a non-existent page.
Why is it that, every single time without fail that I see a post trumpeting the availability of yet another new version of DAZ Studio, the link never works?
Definitely works for me. Although I haven't tried to place the order.
The other is the old-style link and SHOULD auto-forward (it does for me), but you land at the link I posted above.
OK, that works. Thanks for the response. I'd better try and grab it now before the web site gets taken down for another "upgrade". :(
Will this (DS 4.5 RC1) run indefinitely or does it time out and no longer work at some point in the future?
Only the beta's that require their own "special" serial number are time-locked. Since this one uses your existing DS4.x serial number it won't expire.
I have a Question. I was extremely happy to get the Feb DS4Pro for free with all the goodies. I read in the topics above that the Old Plugins would NOT work. Perticularly the FBX exporter for me. Does this mean I should Stay with DS4Pro? I usually jump on Beta's, but I want to keep my FBX exporter, that's what really makes the software good for me .....
Thanks, Adam.
Charlie
Haven't downloaded the RC yet... I might not, and just wait for the final release, and for my favourite plugins to be updated. Does 4.5 play nice with geometry switching now? I experimented with an A3-based figure a few weeks ago, seeing what it would be like converted to weight-mapping. If this works now, I'll maybe experiment some more.
Will the next version of the fbx plugin import Motionbuilder fbx animation?
Are the system requirements for 4.5 any different than for 4.0? I've been running DS4Pro 64-bit although my computer doesn't meet the minimum levels (it runs slow, but basically fine).
Also, I placed the order for the Release Candidate yesterday, but the status is still "processing auth" and I couldn't download. Rather than bothering Customer Support about it, I placed another order for it, and this time it went through right away and I could download the zip. Just thought I'd mention this in case others are having a similar problem.
Will DAZ Studio 4.5 be a free update?
@JustmeNhere: all DAZ owned plug-ins that are bundled with DS4.5 (thus including the FBX exporter) are updated as far as I know. Only third party plug-ins need updating.
downloaded with no probs and installed.
as i upgraded my pc from vista 32 bit to win7 64 bit it was of course necessary for a new clean overall install.
and when it came to my grahic programs , instead of my daz 4 pro i installed this rc with the serial number of the ds4 pro i have .works flawless for now .i will test more later.
off to play.
oh yeas and i used a copy of my library from the previous install so far no conflicts.
The link works for me.
Seems more stable to me. For instance, it used to crash on exit regularly. Doesn't happen anymore.
To answer a couple of questions.
No changes on the system requirements for 4.5.
This is a free upgrade.
Any ETA on a GenX update that will work with 4.5? The lack, and advice not to have 4.0 and 4.5 in use on the same machine, is preventing me trying out 4.5 on what I'd like to progress with at the moment.
I am presuming that it's as inadvisable to use the 32-bit 4.0 alongside the 64-bit 4.5 as it would be to use the 64.-bit 4.0?
GenX is a 3rd party plugin. The SDK is now available for developers to update their plugins for 4.5. So we can only wait for the developer of this product to do the update and send it to us.
We do have a guy in the office who is running as you outline above. We don't recommend it, but it appears that it can work. Remember that there may be some differences in the UI, as some minor changes have been made.
Hope this helps.
Hrm. Anyone else can reproduce this? Parent any object into pelvis or any node under it and then save the scene into duf file. When you reopen it the model explodes. I went through most body parts and it looks like anything above pelvis is safe.
Also it does not affect props or conforming items that are actually conformed. Even those that are converted from third generation figures. So for example if you have thigh strap as a prop it won't explode or if you fit the item it won't explode. It happens only if you parent a conforming item instead of fitting it, and only for pelvis and below. I first thought it was because of mesh smoothing but it has no effect and I can reproduce it every time.
Weird thing... for the record: that belt is in pelvis area. Not hip or abdomen. Those work fine.
strange indeed.
just had a fantastic crash when posing genesis lol.see attached report.
did the same on a blank scene with2 genesis characters no problems
loaded the same test-scene again and was able to continue.
best rgds
rené aka renecyberdoc
sorry cant attach the zip file.
DAZStudio.exe caused ACCESS_VIOLATION in module "C:\Windows\SYSTEM32\ntdll.dll" at 0033:00000000771532D0, RtlFreeHeap()+208 byte(s)
this is a different crash i just had a minute ago the other one was about gui.bla..bla..
Selective item save/load
Will this save the surface settings i make to the selected object? I wasn't able to do this when I would save an object in the .obj format. I created a wall that i wanted to be able to drop into a scene mutliple times, but not have to adjust some of the surface settings for each one.
Quite impressed with the 4.5.0.26 RC1 build on my Mac Os X Lion, especially with the speed improvements. Overall this version seems to be a lot more stable as well.
Still have to try out a lot of features like the instancing and shells, also only had a short look at point clouds so far, but there is a weekend ahead to play around :)
Enjoying the new build immensely (and it came out just a few days after getting Daz in the new place). However it seems that the morphs for Genesis Evolution (I got Daz with the iClone introductory pack) have completely vanished. They were there in 4.0, they're gone now. I've re-installed several times, manually checked to see that the file is there, re-imported metadata and checked the data logs. Nothing.
Any idea what I'm doing wrong?
Edit: Well, THAT'S not the name that I picked for the forum. And apparently I'm not allowed to change it! D'oh!
The Link does not work on Google Chrome for some reason. I had to open it up in Firefox
I pinched this from the thread in the forums as I couldn't post in that thread.
Firstly, @Rob, if we still had the heart smiley, I would be using it right now. Thank you so much for playing and experimenting with the curves! When I first saw this post I was so happy(still am) to see this was being worked on.
Couple of questions as I haven't had chance to install 4.5 (report writing time unfortunately)
1. I'm assuming that we can somehow use the curves in ShaderMixer, would this be correct? Or are they used somewhere else?
2. Is that what was used for the fur shader in the Supersuit?
Big Hugs
Pen
I highly appreciate the work of the developers, looks as if you are serious about filling in the open holes. Kudos for that.
However, the quality of your QA department has significantly declined the last year or two since Hak went away. So many crashes... I reported a few to the tracker and hope QA looks at the provided traces, not just closes them like it seems to have become common in recent years :-(