Save as Material Preset

SikSavant

I just tried saving a material preset for Genesis, but when I looked at the file contents, all the material zones are named Material_0, Material_1, and as a result they do nothing when asked to reload those settings. I had to change the file manually to get it to work at all. Is there a proper way to use this feature so that it works? Is this corrected in 4.5? Cheers!

Richard Haseltine

Which version of DS, and which file format (.duf/.dsf or a script)?

SikSavant

Studio Advanced version 4.0.3.47
File format: DSF

I am invoking the menu option: File>Save As>DSF Materials File

Richard Haseltine

Odd. I can't test that as I have 4.5 installed, but I don't recall other reports of this issue.

NeilV_1

SikSavant said:

Studio Advanced version 4.0.3.47
File format: DSF

I am invoking the menu option: File>Save As>DSF Materials File

To be quite honest I have never even tried this out most of us still save out our Materials settings as .dsa or .dsb so we just save as Material preset ( Or Shader preset when saving shaders). I am not sure of any set that supplies material setting in .dsf format.

adamr001

Yes, I'm with the others, .DSF is not really for Material Presets (even though that option exists in 4.0.x). It has been replaced by DUF in 4.5. DSF is for assets only (think morphs, shaders, etc.). I'd save it as .dsa for now via 4.0.x.

Kerya

I seem to remember something about dsf being broken sometimes ...

http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/software/dazstudio/4/change_log
Fixed the loading of older version dsf top level files to properly find node definitions.
or
http://forumarchive.daz3d.com/viewtopic.php?p=3173317&sid=642688e62968479a7bf7dd71aae49cf7

Richard Haseltine

.duf is largely .dsf with a new extension to distinguish between assets and user files, it was certainly intended to be working for presets in 4.0 - which is why the scripts were ticked away in a sub menu for deprecated formats.

There was an issue with spaces in texture path names, at least in character files, but it sunds as if the problem here may be more than that - though, SikSavant, if your texture paths do have spaces you might try changing a diffuse colour to bright blue, save that as a .dsf preset and see if the colour change works.

SikSavant

It's very likely that I've not expressed my problem as clearly as I could have. I don't feel there is a problem with the Texture path but with Studio's identification of the material zone. For example, below is a chunk of the DSF file before and after my edit. I had to manually enter the material zone name for the "groups" tag which defaulted to Material_0. I hope this helps clarify.

  "materials" : [
   {
    "groups" : [ "Material_0" ],
    "specular" : {
     "color" : [ 0.37, 0.43, 0.49 ]
    },
    "specular_strength" : {
     "strength" : 0.20
    },
    "glossiness" : 0.70,
    "extra" : [
    ]
   },

  "materials" : [
   {
    "groups" : [ "3_SkinLeg" ],     <------------ The Edit
    "specular" : {
     "color" : [ 0.37, 0.43, 0.49 ]
    },
    "specular_strength" : {
     "strength" : 0.20
    },
    "glossiness" : 0.70,
    "extra" : [
    ]
   },

Richard Haseltine

Yeah, that does look wrong - looking at the .duf file for one of the presets supplied with 4.5 there are two areas with materials, one I think linking them to the mesh (which is like the section you show) and one settings the properties. But I am surprised there haven't been more reports if it's always doing this. Have you used the Polygon Group editor for anything on this figure?

SikSavant

No, I sure haven't. I literally just wanted to make a MatPreset file that would only affect Specular Values without harming any underlying map. I have dialed in another Morph that was generated from the Generation X plugin. I seriously have no idea what that tool does under the hood to pull off the magic it accomplishes.

vwrangler

Richard Haseltine said:

Yeah, that does look wrong - looking at the .duf file for one of the presets supplied with 4.5 there are two areas with materials, one I think linking them to the mesh (which is like the section you show) and one settings the properties. But I am surprised there haven't been more reports if it's always doing this. Have you used the Polygon Group editor for anything on this figure?

For what it's worth, I've never EVER gotten the File > Save As > DSF Character File or Materials File to work in 4.0.X. I didn't open the DSF file in text editors to see what was going on, because it just never occurred to me that it would be that obvious. I never reported it as a bug because the DSB save was right there as an option, and worked perfectly, to say nothing of making smaller files (though we're not talking particularly large files anyway). To be honest, I've never understood why there were two options for doing the same thing next to each other in the same menu, but as long as one worked -- and made thumbnails, which the DSF save doesn't -- then I was fine.

The Save As > DSF pose file does work, as does the Support Asset option, but not for characters or materials.

Richard Haseltine

The old script-based files are deprecated, but kept available for compatibility (and because, being code, you can hack them to do extra stuff if you know scripting). The new .dsf file format (now split into ,dsf for hidden support asset and .duf for files visible to the user) is a pure data format and so will work in other applications that don't have DAZ Script, as long as an importer is written.