New to DAZ; some questions about getting started
I'll probably be adding to this as I go along, but I've decided to finally try to sit down and learn DAZ. I've been using Poser for about 10 years and personally, I find it much more intuitive. I've tried DAZ a few times in the past and just ended up uninstalling it because I found it so confusing and annoying. However, I've got a few Genesis products that, sadly, don't work in Poser the way they should, and I'd like to give DAZ a proper try so that I can use both programs as needed.
So first question: over the years, I've manually organized my Runtime folder to be exactly what I want. I only really have Poser content installed right now (about 400GB of it), so I don't have much to play around with until I re-download the DS files for certain products. However, I did install the DS files for one environment that I recently bought: Lake Village. I can see the environment prop when I browse to the right folder in Content Library but when I load it, the textures aren't there. I get an error message listing the textures that couldn't be found (which is all of them). The path shown was something like textures/lakevillage/etc. However, I have textures, as well as all of my folders, sorted very specifically. In this case, the proper path is textures/sets/fantasy/fairy tale/lake village. I didn't see an option to manually find the files like you get in Poser. It just informed me that all of the textures at that particular path were missing and didn't give me any way of selecting the right folder. How can I direct DAZ to pull texture files from the correct folder?
Second question: I'm still not entirely clear on how Genesis works. I installed the files for G3F and G3M Starter Essentials. I tried loading G3M but just got a blocky figure and the texture error message again. Once the texture issue is sorted out though, how exactly do I use Genesis? Do you just load the base figure for either male or female and then absolutely anything for Genesis can be applied to them (characters, clothing, etc.)? What about V4 and M4 clothing, characters, etc. - can those also be applied to the Genesis figure or is it completely separate?
If focusing on newer products, would be process be, for example, to load G3M, then apply a base character like Gianni 6, then apply the additional morphs/skins like Svengar for Gianni? Could, for instance, Svengar simply be applied to G3M directly? Would that work / would he just look a bit different? Can a Gianni 6 character be used for Gianni 7 and vice-versa?
Are characters like M5 and V7 part of Genesis? I always see them listed separately from the Genesis characters and I'm confused about what purpose they serve as far as the generation 4 - Genesis leap goes.
In regards to clothing, are the male and female bases interchangeable? Can I put a G3F character in the Prince of Sands outfit easily enough? Or put G3M into the Jungle Goddess outfit? Not that I'd necessarily want or need to do either of those; I'd just like to get an idea of how easy or complicated it is to apply Genesis outfits to different G3 characters, genders and body types.
Sorry, I know this is a lot; I'd just like to get past the basics quickly this time, instead of stumbling around, getting frustrated and ditching the program again. I know that there are things, like Genesis, that I'd love to try out in DAZ, but it's hard to adjust to when I'm so used to something else. I'd like to give it a chance though, so any help would be appreciated. I am watching through the tutorials and all as well.
Thanks!
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I would suggest that rather than posting in this forum you move over and post to the New Users forum, where you can get your questions answered, as the New Users Froums are designed to help people who are just starting with New software.
You can move this thread over yourself, by clicking the gear cog at the top of your post, select "edit" and change the Category to New Users by clicking on the panel which gives you a drop down list to select from.
Done, thanks.
And Welcome to the New Users Forum. I will see if I can find someone to pop in and help you get started.
I can tell you if you expect to navigate the DAZ library content with a Windows file explorer and easily find what you are looking for you will be disappointed. Even more with 4.9 with it's new DAZ Content Manager way of scattering content. So to find things in DAZ, you often can right click and 'browse to', not always though. For texture like images, I can tell you navigating the Surfaces panel to find all the locations of the various texture image components in DAZ for a mesh is aggravating because you sometimes accidently change the selected image and have to hope to notice you did so you can change it back.
Thanks but my question is how to set DAZ - the program itself - to search for the correct files. For instance, in Poser, almost every item loaded automatically searches the entire Runtime folder, if needed, and finds the appropriate files, regardless of where they are within each library or texture folder. So it doesn't matter if you've got the files for Twelfie Hair in library > character > hair > male > twelfie hair instead of library > character > vendorname > hair > twelfie or whatever the original path is. Poser will find it. On the very rare occasion that it doesn't automatically find the file, it pops up an explorer box and lets you navigate to the appropriate folder and select the first "missing" file. From there, it finds all of the other "missing" textures or morphs simply by locating them within that same folder.
So what I'm asking is, does DAZ not do this? Does it really give me no way of easily locating files that aren't located at the product's default path? Right now, in DAZ, I'm trying to load the Lake Village environment and it's loading the scene and models but not the textures. It's just telling me I'm missing the texture files, and listing them all at runtime > textures > lakevillage. As I explained, I have those textures located in the folder runtime > textures > sets > fantasy > fairy tale > lake village instead. And I don't see any way of pointing DAZ there, so that it automatically loads the textures from the correct folder for that item.
EDIT - I just tried copying the Lake Village texture folder, pasting it to runtime > textures and changing the folder name to lakevillage. Now the environment is loading just fine since that's the default path DAZ was looking for. However, that doesn't work as a long term solution because I'm not going to ruin the very intuitive, simple way that I've customized my runtime folder by installing all textures to the exact paths DAZ wants. How can I get the program to automatically or manually locate the correct folder, at the path where those texture files are currently located?
If you've created custom content loaders for your Poser content and they are correctly defined they should still work with DAZ Studio unless they have newer features of Poser that DAZ doesn't support.
The locations of configured in 2 places:
I assume that you either saved a new cr2 with the changed path or accept tha 'missing texture find it' dialog each time you load something?
Well, you can do the same...
Load the item, don't worry about the missing textures...then in the surface pane, for each surface, manually navigate to the new folder you moved the textures to and add them. Then save an updated asset file.
It is my understanding that the files cannot be changed from the set up without breaking the paths. DS does give you the option to set up Categories and some people sort their content into different runtimes. I do not use these methods myself and will leave this part for someone who moves their content around.
It is possible to use V4, Genesis, G2F/M and G3F/M clothes on the others but you may need some of the various add-ons to make it work. I am not sure if there are any PA products to apply Skin Textures from V4, Genesis and G2F/M to G3F/M.
The majority of characters have their own loading icon. You do not need to load G3F/M base before loading say Gianni. If the character required V7 or M7 you need to own them for any character that is based on them to work properly.
G3F/M have different UV’s from the G2F/M series. There are no products that I am aware of that can make the morphs and skin textures work from G2 to G3.
V4, Genesis, G2F/M and G3F/M are all different generations. There is a good tutorial/breakdown of the different generations. I will try to find it and provide a link.
It is possible to get different Generations of figures to wear the clothing of other generations. Some will require product add-ons and the fits may not be perfect and will require additional adjustments.
You might find this Compatiblity Matrix helpful. Not exactly what I was thinking but still good information.
Another good breakdown of the different generations: http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/1009763/#Comment_1009763
Thanks but I'm not sure I understand. I don't know what is meant by "custom content loaders" or "correctly defined." Can you please clarify what you mean? The screencaps were helpful in opening those preferences but I don't really know what to do with them. The content that I've got in my runtime, at least the content that has DS files available, do already show up. As in, the program is already finding those folders in the content library. The issue is DAZ failing to find the related texture files. It's locating the textures folder but seems to want me to place the files within a specific subfolder, instead of finding the files wherever they are within the textures directory.
No, there's no need. As long as the textures for a particular item are located somewhere within the runtime > textures folder, Poser automatically loads it. You don't need to adjust any settings or do anything special. Occasionally, it will fail to find morph files in the runtime > libraries > morphs directory, but that's very rare. And when it does happen, it simply pops up a dialog telling you to locate one of the files, at which point you can navigate to the proper directory, double click the file in question, and then it automatically finds the rest of the files from there.
For Poser, products are either downloaded as zip files or exe files. Either way, I simply extract the product to a separate folder and then place the individual subfolders one by one into my Runtime. So if I download a hair product, I'll end up with folders like Character, Pose and Textures. I'll place the items from the Character folder into runtime > libraries > character > hair > female > name of hair. The poses (hair color and positions) would go into runtime > libraries > poses > hair > female > name of hair. And the textures would go into runtime > textures > hair > name of hair.
When I load the hair in Poser (the cr2 file), it automatically finds all of the related files throughout the runtime folder and loads them as normal. If I want to change the color or style, I go to my library > pose > hair > hair name and load whatever poses I want. The texture jpgs are normally untouched unless I want to customize them and load them individually for specific things (i.e. create a rainbow streak in the hair).
In contrast, DAZ seems to be saying that I can't sort my files the way I want to within those folders. That I have to place the files in very specific locations in order for them to load properly. With Poser, as long as the texture files are in the runtime > textures folder somewhere, they will load. If I'm understanding correctly, you're saying that DAZ can't do that. That I'm forced to put the files in very particular locations or they won't load, and there's no way to change that?
Maybe I'm misunderstanding but it sounds like you're saying I have to manually load the texture for every single surface of every single item that way. Is that correct? Because that would be far too time consuming to do for every single item! Does DAZ really not have a way to simply browse, click the proper directory and automatically recognize the files within it? I have 400+ GB of stuff...it's not realistic to load textures individually or to have to save some sort of reference file for every single item. Hopefully I'm completely misunderstanding though...this is all very new to me :-)
Kismet2012 - thanks so much for all of the information on the Genesis characters! It's a lot to absorb but I'll go through the links you provided. I guess the main question for me would be whether products made for G3M would easily fit G3F and vice-versa or if, like V4/M4, there would be incompatibilities based on body shape and anatomical differences. Like if I wanted to put the "Norseman for G3M" outfit on a female G3 character, would it automatically adjust to accommodate breasts, etc.? Or in reverse, would a G3F outfit like "Jungle Goddess" conform to fit a flat-chested male body? If they are completely interchangeable, then why are they marketed differently (i.e. why say Leather Warrior for Genesis 3 Males instead of just Leather Warrior for Genesis 3)? I just want to make sure that I understand how that works!
This is just a hunch on my part, also because I don't have any experience with Poser (other than the Runtime folder which also appears in Daz Studio). Now, to rule out the obious: the items which you want to work with appear in DS. Do you refer to the 'Smart content' pane or do you refer to the "Content library" pane?
There are 2 ways in Daz Studio to find your contents. The preferred one is the Smart Content pane; here it finds products which have so called 'meta data' assigned to them. This 'meta data' is basically extra information which helps DS determine what kind of files it's working with. However, it doesn't always manage to sort this out on its own. So sometimes you'll be left with files which do not have any meta data assigned to it and therefor don't show up in the smart contents pane. Also important to note: if you're working with the smart content pane you're not really looking at files and such, but items which are stored & retrieved from a database.
The second one, used to find all of the stuff which doesn't have any metadata, is the "Content library" pane. It allows you to access your real content folders and can distinguish between DS format files and Poser ("PS") format files. Some layouts already show this pane, if not then you can use the Windows menu: Panes => Content library.
DS also allows you to manually assign any meta data to your files so that you'll be able to use them in the smart content pane, but that can be a little tricky to start with. Here is a good guide which explains that process quite well:
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/20018/metadata-tutorial-adding-new-items-to-your-smart-content/p1
So if your textures do not show up by themselves (I assume you're refering to the smart content pane) then I'm pretty sure that you'll be able to find them in the content library pane.
Hope this helps a bit.
Hi ShelLuser, I actually don't even see a Smart Content pane. I'm able to locate and load the environment (Lake Village) through the Content Library. Unfortunately, if I navigate to the folder where the textures are, nothing shows up. I don't know if that's because the textures are jpgs and the content library only shows actual DAZ files, which is how Poser does it (you can access character, pose, props, materials, etc. from the library within Poser, but textures are separate jpg files that the Poser files simply reference through the cr2 and pp2 files). They aren't accessed within Poser separately, which is how DAZ seems to do it too, and that's fine.
My issue is not that the textures don't show up ever...like I said, the environment will load with all textures present if I create the exact directory that DAZ wants and place the jpgs, bmps, etc. in there. If I don't, then it says the textures are missing from such and such path, and doesn't give me any option to select the directory it SHOULD be pulling those files from.
If you can navigate to the Runtime>Textures folder in the Daz Studio interface then the files are not installed correctly; that folder should be hidden in the content panes as it is in the Poser library. Exactly where is the Runtime folder on your disc, and what are your content directories set to?
Hi Richard, the Runtime folder is set up for Poser. When I installed DAZ, it prompted me to select that Runtime folder. I'm not sure exactly where the problem is occurring but you're saying the files aren't installed correctly - by that, are you confirming the frustration I'm having, in that DAZ absolutely requires you to place textures into very specific directories and subdirectories? Because as mentioned, the textures load without a problem when I move them from the textures subdirectories that they're already in to the textures subdirectory that DAZ is looking for them in.
I don't know if I'm just failing to communicate the situation properly, so I went ahead and did a couple of screen recordings, which will hopefully show exactly what I mean.
1. I load Lake Village in DAZ, with the textures in their normal custom directory: http://s704.photobucket.com/user/creativejunkyard/media/Daz.mp4.html
2. I copy the Lake Village texture folder to the main textures directory and rename it to fit the file path that DAZ is looking for: http://s704.photobucket.com/user/creativejunkyard/media/Dazalt.mp4.html
3. I load Lake Village in Poser, with the textures in their normal custom directory (after deleting the extra copied folder): http://s704.photobucket.com/user/creativejunkyard/media/Poser.mp4.html
As you can see, in #1 the textures don't load in DAZ. In #2 they do. In #3, I don't need to do anything special; Poser simply finds the texture files in their custom directory and loads the scene as it should (I apologize for the slow loading of the Poser scene but my computer caught for a minute due to the screen recorder slowing things down).
Ah, I understand - you have moved the textures and want to point the loader to the new location. I think the inability to browse to and select missing fils is a bug - in the Change Log for 4.9.1.26 there is an entry reading
so if you aren't using the Public Beta either try that (currently 4.9.1.27) or wait until the release version si updated and you should eb able to revert to your prior method. You could then save an updated version of the material settings.
(You paths look correct, I was thrown by misunderstanding something you said in the post I quoted - sorry.)
Perfect, thanks! I downloaded that updated version and it's working now, asking me to find texture files where needed and automatically finding the rest after I choose the correct folder.
Okay, I've been messing around with it a bit but am not sure what to do about posing G3. Obviously, I have a ton of poses but they are for Poser. Most of them work equally well on all figures in Poser but I'm guessing that's not the case here. The Genesis character barely moves. I downloaded a freebie pose pack for Genesis (the original) but it's still not doing the trick. Is there somewhere I can download free poses for G3M/F to see if they work? For poses that I already have, can they somehow be set to better fit to this character? I'm finding most of the poses I try either result in the same basic pose (where his arms don't move much or at all), or his arms are the only thing to move a little bit, and everything else stays still. Any suggestions? Thanks!
You could check out the Freebie forum. This thread for starters has some free poses, made by one of the PAs here http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/67779/free-poses-for-g2f-and-g3f-updated-26-02-16/p1
I haven't used the G3's much yet but I did test a G3M outfit on V7 and I was able to autofit it to her. There are some basic outfits that are included in the Starter Essentials. Perhaps you could try fitting one of those outfits for G3M to G3F?
Hi there ummm depending on which generation of Genesis you are using ,will make a difference in what poses work ,Genesis 1 can use V4,M4, poses but there is some wonkiness to the hands and feet , Genesis 2&3 poses need to be in DUF format I think ,I'll go check ,but you need to look at Zev0's and DragonStorms stores for their pose builders for the Genesis's(is that a real word?) ,there are free scripts to adjust the wonkiness,I'll try to find them too.
Okay so I was wrong about the Genesis 2&3 not being able to use pz2's ,but the poses are not backward compatable ,you can't use Genesis 2&3 poses on Genesis 1 ,result is only a bit of movement happens .......but you should be able to use Genesis1 poses on2&3 ......there might be some oddness cause of different bones ,but still .
hi im vijay i installed daz 3d 4.9 and when i use animate 2 on my character it walks with its heals the whole feet is not landing on the floor i get this issue in every model i animate plz help me guys