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The future of plugins

ImagoImago Posts: 5,158
in The Commons

DAZ Studio 5 will arrive soon(*) and I'm wondering which will be the fate of the many plugins I'm using today on DAZ Studio 4.

I have AniMate, GraphMate, KeyMate, Batch Render and a lot of other plugin that comes directly from DAZ3D and some other external source... They will still work on version 5?

Can we hope on a sort of "old plugin support" feature?

Many of the plugins I'm using have been removed from stores (DAZ3D included) or comes from creators that are dead or unreachable, I would love to have the chance to still use them.

Comments

  • hjakehjake Posts: 895
    edited December 2023

    It is really a wait and see occasion. Plug-ins will be update if the PA that made it decides to invest the effort. Based on previous experience I think many plug-ins will be sold as new products.

    My personal opinion is that DS 5 will be a departure from previous DAZ content as Genesis 9 dumped previous generations. Yes, I know there are converters, but still requires more effort to go from Gen 3 and 8 to 9 than from Gen 3 to 8. I will admit there may be very many valid reasons for that, but starting over is always a hassle.

     

    https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/6864466/

    https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/507676/script-plugins-thougths-about-ds-5

    https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/506346/daz-studio-5-development-update/p56

    Post edited by hjake on
  • backgroundbackground Posts: 413

    I think your best option for existing plugins is to keep an instance of DS4.x, which should keep working until some dependancy breaks it ( most likely video drivers ). 

  • hjakehjake Posts: 895

    background said:

    I think your best option for existing plugins is to keep an instance of DS4.x, which should keep working until some dependancy breaks it ( most likely video drivers ). 

    Excellent suggestion. Also make a list of your plug-ins and download copies of them too. Then you can manually install the old version. The product library only shows the latest version of items.

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 101,002

    It has already been said that DS 5 will have a new SDK and so will break existing plug-ins. There will also be changes that may break scripts, though it isn't certain. Some plug-in makers hae died or simply moved on, so those are unlikely to get updates; for the rest it will probably be a matter of what the author wants to do with the plug-in (or script), whether they want to take the oportunity to add features, and how much rewriting is needed - some may be simple enough to offer free updates, others may require a new verions that will need to be purchased (we may hope for an upgrade price). In any event the latest version of DS 4 will remain in out product libraries so we will still be able to use the plug-ins that don't get DS 5 versions, or which we choose not to upgrade.

    Anything beyond that is pure speculation, so I am locking thios thread.

This discussion has been closed.