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Studio is not a modelling program. Blender3D and Wings3D are two free modelling programs.
You mean I cant use hexagon to model ????
Sue
Yes of course you can use hexagon. Hexagon is a modelling program. WE have a hexagon forum http://www.daz3d.com/forums/categories/65/ and you can fin d help there
I understand that it is not a modeling program, but they do have the figure maker built in to the daz software those. My modeling would be done in hexagon , but then I would transfer the model into daz where I would like to turn it into a figure. Just some simple stuff like transforming a primitive like a sphere of course I would do some work on it like cutting a hole on top and then 2 holes on the bottom where I can turn it in to an article of clothing like under clothing. Or a base for some thing else but where I can then pose it the way I want it. I hope I explain myself better.
Sue
The problem is that a primitive won't have mesh in the right place - since only the vertices can have weights assigned, you need to have vertices where you are going to be bending so that there is something to work with, and so that the folds look natural rather than being jagged as the bending line jumps up and down to follow the available mesh. Similarly, if you are going to morph the wearer the geometry needs to have a similar flow to the base figure or the results will be very rough. If you are modelling for Genesis or Genesis 2 the rigging can be fairly quick using the Transfer Utility - getting the shape right can be the tricky thing. That said, I think you should find some tutorials on creating clothing with Hexagon in the forums though the techniques are broadly similar whichever modeller you use.
But can't you create a mesh in those area's if need be?
Sue
Yes, my point was that a primitive won't be a terribly useful starting point. At least, not a sphere. You'd probably do better with a cube, with a few divisions, and then add more divisions and adjust the placement of the edges and vertices as you developed your shape. There are different ways to approach the modelling of clothes - box modelling, which is closest to starting with primitives, or drawing curves and stretching the mesh across them (hexagon has several tools for that), or laying down strips of polygons with a pen tool, and probably many others too.
Its a shame you guys don't sell a more detail book on the software. I would prefer to have a book in front of me to look at as I try all of this out instead of a pdf file. Its a pain to switch back & forth from file to software. Same thing goes with the daz software as well I would love to see a more detail book of all of its features that's in the software. I think it would be cheaper to buy a more detail book than trying to print out the pdf file and less time consuming as well. Oh well may daz will do that some day .
Thanks
Sue
As a fan of manuals I sympathise. It's the one thing that tempts me to consider getting a tablet, so I could have the manual open (or even the video playing) there while the application was up on my monitor. Unfortunately this is an issue across great swathes of the industry - indeed even software that is still available in a box rarely includes a manual (I was just looking at the ridiculous great boxes from Windows 7 and the last few versions of the Adobe software, which contained a DVD case, perhaps some kind of advertising flyer, and a lot of air).
..., well, there IS Adobe AIR ... ;)
And some manuals are mostly hot air.
i want to now what i click on to start this game to create the stuff i want because i have the manager install but how do i start the pruduckt after its done?
hi, I just returned to DAZ studio and I just hate 4.7 display the 4.0 was much better and easier to use I could find everything now with 4.7 I cant even find my sunsets is there any way to change back to 4.0?
Are you starting over with a completely new installation, or is there an old version on your computer that was updated? A new install will fall back to the default layout, which is pretty much a limited "training wheels" setup that actually gets in the way of many people familiar with an older version.
Go to Window>Workspace>Select Layout and see if any of the options there are closer to what you remember. FWIW, I use the City Limits layout, slightly customised to match as best I can the old D|S3 Classic setup, with the Highway colour style (some people prefer Darkside).
(BTW, you're not alone, many of us old-timers consider the recent default layouts to be less easy to use and understand than older ones. Fortunately the whole thing is completely customisable, so it's usually possible to get something pretty close to what we're familiar with.)
I bought the first book a while back. An interesting read.
~ perhaps an print out ~
Is this true? Is there a "render quality" setting? Is it not in DazStudio Pro (like I use) or is this info out of date?
A big part of my question is CPU vs Graphics card and trying to understand that for myself.
I looked up "rendering" to find this info (below) about my question.
Then, I looked for the quality setting to try 4 vs 3 to see the difference (CPU vs Graphics card) and could not tell the setting actually exists?
Or...
Did I miss it?
8.3 - Render Quality
The 'Render Quality' setting is available in both the General and Advanced pages of the Render Settings pane. This setting is fairly straight forward - Higher quality means a slower render and vice versa. With this setting you can choose to sacrifice quality for speed. This setting has a prominent location at the top of the Render Settings pane.
The highest quality render setting is 4. At this setting DAZ Studio uses the software render engine to render your scene. You will see the full effect of your surfaces, lights and shadows with this render setting. A software render uses your computer's processor to do the calculations required for the render. This means that your processor will be a big factor in how long the render takes.
The lowest quality setting is just an OpenGL preview. It is essentially a snapshot of what you see in the viewport. A render at this level will have lights at their lowest quality, and no shadows. This render setting is useful for creating a 2D image of what you see in your viewport. You will find that the render is quick - almost instantaneous.
The other two settings are a compromise between speed and quality. Settings 1, 2 and 3 all use your graphics card to do the render calculations. This means that the speed and quality are determined by your graphics card. However, no matter how nice your graphics card is, a software render will always be of higher quality. Levels 2 and 3 are good for previews, but final renders should always use the best quality.
I am not absolutely sure, but I think it is for 3Delight renders. This is the User Guide for 4.6. Iray came with 4.8 ...
That is the old, pre-Iray, Render Settings pane - or dialogue, as I recall. It selected between 3Delight (the highest setting) and various versions of OpenGL. The Render Engine option has repalced it.
Ok, thank you!
Is there a way to determine how much rendering is CPU vs GPU?
In Windows there is the system performance monitor that shows memory, CPU and disk but not GPU.
I can see it in my task manager ... Windows 10 Professional 64 bit ... Graphics card is a NVIDIA Geforce RTX 2080.
Maybe one of these helps:
https://www.google.com/search?q=task+manager+does+not+show+gpu+usage
Wow awesome!
I had forgot the "task manager" even existed. I am very new to Windows again after years of being away.
Thanks, I'll make a note of that! Since it doesn't seem t ocover the common setup of Daz (assets on D:, program on C:) I don't know if this will be useful for anyone else who wants to do it that way. As well as D: being larger usually, this means if they reinstall Windows or get a new PC and so do a fresh install of Daz Studio, Daz Studio will be able to find and use those installed assets exactly as before, so they don't have to download and install the assets all over again. Note this is just my procedure!
STEP 1: PREPARATION
If necessary, uninstall all current Daz stuff from the PC to start fresh.
Use Daz Central (DC) or Daz Install Manager (DIM) to uninstall Daz Studio (DS) and content (whichever one you used to install DS in the first place), then uninstall DC/DIM through Windows.
Then do any manual cleanup - see the instructions at https://helpdaz.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360055963392-How-do-I-uninstall-delete-Daz-Studio- but note that some of the folders names may be different, and the guide misses out a few folders (e.g. I had a Daz 3D folder on the root on my C: that needed deleting).
STEP 2: INSTALL AND RUN DIM
Download DIM from https://www.daz3d.com/install-manager-info/
Install DIM on the C: at its default location.
Run it, tick "Work Offline" (so you can set preferences). This will temporarily disable the password box. Enter your email and click Start.
STEP 3: SET UP DIM
We want to set locations on the D:, so they can be easily backed up and will also survive Windows reinstalls.
In the top right corner is a small Gear icon (Settings). Go to Settings>Advanced Settings.
Go to the Downloads tab – this is where we set the location to save the files you download from your store account.
It has two options. There is a Package Archive C:/Users/Public/Documents/DAZ 3D/InstallManager/Downloads and a Thumbnail Archive C:/Users/Public/Documents/DAZ 3D/InstallManager/Thumbnails
Package Archive is the zip files downloaded from the Daz store.
Thumbnail Archive is apparently optional, some kind of preview in DS. Nothing is added to it by DIM installing assets, so things are probably only added by DS. However, since it will get downloaded anyway, and they don’t take up much space compared to the main assets, it makes sense to back them up too.
Since I want to back them up, and they are different content types, I will be using a nested folder structure where the downloads and installed files all go under D:\image creation\Daz 3D\assets\
So I set the Package Archive as D:\image creation\Daz 3D\assets\downloads
and the Thumbnail Archive as D:\image creation\Daz 3D\assets\thumbnails
Leave all other settings alone.
Next go to the Installation tab. This allows you to set and add Content (Runtime) install paths.
Again, there are multiple options.
There is a Manifest Archive at C:/Users/Public/Documents/DAZ 3D/InstallManager/ManifestFiles
There is a Content Database Base of C:/Users/NA/AppData/Roaming/DAZ 3D/cms
And there is a Recommended folder of C:/Users/Public/Documents/My DAZ 3D Library (which has an ellipsis after it but clicking it does nothing).
Manifest Archive is for the files that DS uses to track what it has installed.
Content Database Base is the database used by the Content Management System. It is accessed and managed by PostgreSQL and has no DS content in it. DS and DIM update it based on product metadata. To avoid losing any metadata it should be on the D: drive and included in back ups. This location will be the same as the ContentCluster path you can set in DS Edit>Preferences>CMS Settings.
So I set the Manifest Archive as D:\image creation\Daz 3D\assets\manifest
and the Content Database Base as D:\image creation\Daz 3D\assets\cms
However, I had an issue with this step! Every time I changed the Content Database Base to D:\image creation\Daz 3D\assets\cms, and Accepted it, then went back in, it had reset to C:/Users/NA/AppData/Roaming/DAZ 3D/cms (there were no error messages). This seems to be a bug. One option was to skip this step temporarily, let DIM go online, install DS, then try changing it inside DS (Edit>Preferences>CMS Settings, the ContentCluster location). But I found that once I installed DS and logged in, then came back to DIM, DIM then let me finally change the location of the CMS, so all was good. For some reason it would only let me after I installed DS.
We also need to set a folder (a fifth location) for the actual files that DIM unpacks from downloaded zips and installs, which is the key ones to move to the D:. By default this is the Content Folder, which shows as C:/Users/Public/Documents/My DAZ 3D Library. First click the + in the bottom left of the window. Give the path a label such as “content” and choose a location on your D: (for me it was on my D:\image creation\Daz 3D\assets\content). Any added locations will be available in the Content Path Shortcuts drop-down selection box above, so change it to the one you want there. You can then delete the original default option so you only have the D: option for content.
You can confirm the path etc in the main interface window “Ready to Install” tab: click on Show Details.
That’s five folders set, so the hard work should be done.
STEP 4: SET UP DAZ STUDIO
We have set up DIM. If you haven’t done it already, let DIM go online and install DS. DIM should have transferred all the correct paths into DS, but we can double check for peace of mind.
Open DS.
Edit>Preferences>Content tab>Content Directory Manager.
(You can also open preferences with F2.)
That lets you expand the path trees for where thinsg will be stored.
The CMS Cluster Directory should be whatever you set in DIM (D:\image creation\Daz 3D\assets\cms).
Content (in both DAZ Studio Formats and Poser Formats) should be whatever you set (mine were both D:\image creation\Daz 3D\assets\content as I expected).
Daz Connect Data isn’t something set by DIM, so will be a C: location. Daz Connect means installing content from within DS rather than via DIM (and doesn’t work for all content). As such, since we are using DIM, it makes sense to ignore that and install everything via DIM. So you can leave that alone.
This hopefully just confirms that DIM correctly set the directories and transferred those locations to DS.
I don’t think there’s a way to set a default for saving your scenes etc in DS, but I created a folder at D:\image creation\Daz 3D\my presets and will manually save scenes and characters there, so they get backed up and can also be transferred to a new PC or survive Windows reinstallation.
icon_png files: see this https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/225611/daz-studio-creates-icon-files
I had that problem, icon files all over my desktop. So need to change
Render Settings>General>Image Path and point it to some folder with no images in (can I set it as none? Chooce C:?). Then when save a render, browse to the desktop.
STEP 5: DOWNLOAD AND INSTALL CONTENT/ASSETS
Now that everything is set up, we can install all the assets we bought.
Open DIM. Make sure you are “Working Online” (enter your password).
The “Ready to Download” tab should be populated with everything you bought on the Daz Store, plus Daz Studio and some freebie starter content.
TIP to save space and time: hide anything that you don’t want to download and install that might be things you don’t need such as Hexagon, or a bridge for Photoshop (if you aren’t going to use that). To the right of each line is a right-facing triangle. Click that for a menu, and you can hide any items you don’t want to install and they’ll disappear (you can view the hidden items at any time by clicking “Display Hidden”, and unhide them in the same way).
My big tip is that many things I’d bought had the same file twice – once with ds at the end, once with ps. According to https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/28450/ds-ps they are pretty much the same thing, and the ds version will work better in Daz. Also, the ps (Poser) version would often not work as smart content anyway. So, we want to just download and install the ds versions, and hide the ps. Installing both just doubles the storage, and unfortunately that is the default DIM chooses. So it may be worth filtering it – type ps onto the top right filter box. Ignore false positives (e.g. files where ps are next to each other liks “special ops poses” but identify real ps files and hide them using the right triangle menu I mentioned. For me that prevented DIM downloading and installing 94 items, or 12.3GB of unnecessary files. The downside is that I had to hide all 94 items individually, two clicks for each (and since the button is small and right next to the install button, I accidentally downloaded a few and had to delete them again). The little menu ignores the fact that you may have selected multiple items with the check marks on the left, making you hide each individually. Also be aware that if you hide ps packages in DIM in this way, then if you ever you reinstall DIM (e.g. on a new PC, or reinstalling the OS), you may well find them all back again and offered for install, so will need to hide them again (another 188 clicks …).
If ever you use the filter box, remember to click the x in it when you are finished, to cancel the filter and reveal all the files again. Also, the filter box is handy for finding a particular item.
A big bonus of DIM is multiple downloads. Daz Central (and Daz Connect) only let me download items one at a time (if I tried to download multiple items in DC it cancelled previous ones and only downloaded the last one I clicked on). But DIM lets you download multiple items – or even everything – at once. You can re-sort the packages by size or name and select groups. If you tick “Install After Download” it will do it for you. Because I don’t have superfast Internet, and have to share it with my partner (and use the same network for work), it took me three days to download and install what I currently own. That’s why I don’t want to ever have to do it again if I get a new PC or reinstall Windows – hopefully this method means the content will be there on my D: for future installs of DS!
DIM downloaded and installed everything to the folders I set.
(Also, I did NOT click “Delete Packages Once Installed” on the “Ready To Install” tab; this way, if something goes wrong with my plan, at least I can reinstall the assets from the downloaded files, saving the three day task of downloading them all again. The downside is content appears twice on my D: and takes up twice the space – once as the installer, once as the installed version. Maybe one day, if I find this system works even after reinstalling Windows or getting a new PC, I will then have the confidence to delete the downloaded installers and free up a lot of space – currently the installers alone take up 119GB).
STEP 6: TEST CONTENT IN DAZ STUDIO
Check the items show up fine and work in DS, showing up as Smart Content if applicable, that there are no problems that might require a refund.
Note that in DIM the installation tab shows if a product has installed Metadata. If so, there will be a checkmark underneath the “Smart” column, letting you know it will show under “Smart Content” in DAZ Studio 4 and higher. Most items will have metadata, but some may not have user-facing files (e.g. morph sets may add new sliders to the figure without having any presets to click). Additonal parts of a file that is so big it is in more than one part may not show as having metadata either. If there are properly installed products which don't have the data to appear in database-driven views (Smart Content) but which do have user-facing files you should still be able to find them in the Content Library pane under daz Studio formats (or Poser formats) and then the content directory name. This often applies to older items.
I have noticed one problem: some items I installed via DIM show up in DS, but are greyed out, as if they aren’t installed. I’m not sure what has happened there, or how to fix it. If I right click install within DS then it uses Daz Connect, so would download the item again (when it is already downloaded and stored on my D: by DIM), plus it would store it on the C: unless I change that path too. Using multiple install methods is perhaps asking for trouble, so I want to work out why DIM is not working for some items instead. Is this a known issue? Some of the items it applies to: Genesis 3 Starter Essentials; Rocker Outfit for Geneis 3 Females; Shadow Thief Outfit for Geneis 8 Females; Genesis 8 Starter Essentials; Nyala HD for Genesis 8 Female; Daz Studio Iray HDR Outdoor Environments; and others.
STEP 7: REGULAR BACKUPS
I do a full backup of my D: regularly. So this would now mean I am also backing up the downloaded asset zip files in one folder, the installed Daz assets in another (doubling the storage requirements but meaning I am covered for a few potential scenarios), and things like the cms, thumbnails, manifests, and my presets in other D: folders. I also save one caleld “previews” which lets me browse what I have bought – each product gets a folder within a structure that categorises it (people, hair, lighting, poses etc), with a link to the product page, a txt file with the full description, and all the preview images from the product page. This is really useful to store as products are sometimes withdrawn, and that information is no longer available – there are a few items where I can no longer get the preview images, which si a shame as they give ideas for how to use the content, or illustrate all the options. Ideally all that info would be available in a zip for everything you buy, which would save manually having to save every image via the browser.
NB: do backups only when DS, DIM, and other applications using the cms are all closed and there are no PostgreSQL processes running.
STEP 8: REINSTALLING WINDOWS / GETTING A NEW PC
If I reinstall Windows, or get a new computer (where I'd copy my D: backup contents to the new PC's D:) I would perform steps 2-4 above, choosing the same paths (so they actually now point to installed content on the D:). That should mean DIM and DS see and use all my existing content, so it doesn’t need redownloading or reinstalling again, saving me days.
Worst case scenario is that I reinstall Windows then all the Daz software, as above, but DIM and Daz Studio don't "see" the previously-installed Daz assets. In that case, as long as DIM can see the downloaded zip files, I can manually delete the installed assets from my D:, leaving that folder empty; then point DIM at my previous downloads and reinstall everything from the downloaded zip files. (Which at least saves downloading everything again.)
The thumbnails are for DIM, not DS, but they are not downloaded by default - if you want thumbnails in the tool tips when you hover over an entry in DIM then you need to right-clickand choose the option to download the thumbnail for the item under the mouse or for all selected items, or all missing thumnbnails in selected items.
The manifests are used by DIM, not Daz Studio. Daz studio (or rather the CMS) cares only about relative location within the content directory - if you move the entire directory and update the location in the directory list then the files will still show in the database-driven views - but DIM needs to know the absolute location of files, for one thing so that it can install content if it isn't in a current content directory (manifests store other information too).
this is great info above about uninstalling and reinstalling Daz content on the D drive. that's exactly what i want to do too. but i'm wondering if it's strictly necessary to uninstall. could i possibly just change the file paths in the Content Directory Manager? i'm not even using the Install Manager at this point as the new Daz Studio doesn't seem to indicate it's absolutely necessary. but i see it is available to download among my free products. i've just started so all i have are my free products, a very few that i've bought, and a Getting Started render, which I could lose, if necessary. i would not move any App Data paths because, from what i read elsewhere, they can't be moved anyway.
Chapter 2 of the User Guide (2.4.2 - The DrawStyle Options Menu), describes a Drawstyle Options Menu that should be in the top right hand corner of the screen, along with the Scene navigation tools. The navigation tools are there, the DrawStyle Options Menu is not. How do I find it?
It should be here