Can I Get DS4.6 to Read DSI Layered Files (I Hope)?

Ladies and Gents,

I've been using DS4 for a while, and most of my characters are customized textures with a lot of tattoos and tanlines and such. I've been using the templates and methods set up by the old Inked series by Shana, available at Rosity, and the Perfect Tanlines setups by Dimension3D to make them (learn by tinkering :D), and both methods seem to use DSI files for layers.

However, when i open one of my characters in DS4.5, the layered parts are white. I was told by Ralf Sessler (Dimension 3D) that there's a bug in DS4.5 that won't allow it to recognize DSI files. I've written to them about it but haven't yet heard back.

Does anyone know if this was fixed in 4.6? Ralf said he's written to DAZ about it multiple times to no avail.

Is there a way to get them to read in DS4.6, and failing that, how do you create a new layered file in DS4.6? This has kept me from using DS4.5 since it came out...

Thanks,

T.

Comments

  • ReDaveReDave Posts: 815
    edited December 1969

    That's a good question, I unfortunately have a very slow render going so I can't check in the latest DS4.6. However, what kind of layering method are you using? If it's "Normal" (i.e. cover the underlying layer) it should be fairly straight-forward to make a simple Shader Mixer network to emulate it. The other layering methods are probably doable as well, but may require some work.

  • edited December 1969

    ReDave, thanks for the quick reply! I feel your slow-rendering pain, man! :D

    I generally use a multiplicative layer for tattoos. The tanline files are a color fill multiplicative layer with a mask layer, all over top of the character skin...

    T.

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 96,219
    edited December 1969

    Products like Marieah's which use the layered image editor are working in DS4.5 - I haven't checked in the very latest version but I have applied them recently. I haven't tried applying a .dsi file, though they are certainly still listed in the available formats for image import. Have you tried rendering the scenes that appear not to be loading correctly?

  • edited June 2013

    Yes, in Luxrender, and the parts seem to be white. Lux is all I have ever used in DS...

    I'm going to try installing 4.6 tonight and trying my figs with dsi in them again. I'll report back with my findings, but if anyone is ahead of me here, PLEASE let me know the science of it!

    Thanks,

    T.

    Post edited by mrtatterscratch_2227cf4e78 on
  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 96,219
    edited December 1969

    Well, I'd say always try a 3Delight render too -that gives you a better idea of where any problem lies (in DS, or in the exporter to Lux Render, or in a limitation of Lux Render itself).

  • BWSmanBWSman Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    I have tried D3D's tanlines & it does not work in DS4.5. The torso area loses all diffuse images whe the presets are applied.

  • edited December 1969

    Good idea to be thorough, but something tells me BWSman is right. I talked to the creator of the tanlines prog and he said it's been a problem, and that he's written to DAZ several times to no avail. Any chance this could be tackled in-house for the next release, Mr. Haseltine?

  • BWSmanBWSman Posts: 0
    edited June 2013

    It looks like some of the coding has changed and it doesn't appear to read the .dsi properly (images referenced in .dsi aren't loaded or don't disply).

    Opening up DS3 & looking at the LIE; and then recreating that in DS4 appears to work; but it's time consuming & I haven't tried to save the results.

    Post edited by BWSman on
  • BejaymacBejaymac Posts: 1,835
    edited December 1969

    A friend of mine "dropped" this issue in my lap several months ago, but as I've never used LIE (and didn't have a copy until it was included in DS4) there wasn't much I could do, it also didn't help that I was busy.

    I've since gone back to it, however since I didn't have LIE before DS4 I don't know how it used to work, but from what I can see in DS4 there have been a lot of internal changes, so it's no surprise the DSE script and script generated DSI files are having problems. For a starter DS4 doesn't apply the DSI to the surface any more, it gets put through LIE and a TIF is created in your Temp directory, now going by the TIF being generated by Ralf's script generated DSI, I get the feeling there have been a few internal code changes made to LIE, as a result they don't work in DS4.
    On top of all that I can't find any way to create a DSI in DS4, just a DUF LIE preset, so I can't even do a cross reference to see where the changes are.

    I don't think the ShaderMixer would be of much use with Ralf's product, the "masks" are only partial overlays, they don't cover the entire texture, as a result SM would just stretch them over the whole UV.

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 96,219
    edited December 1969

    Please make a bug report.

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 96,219
    edited December 1969

    Bejaymac said:
    I don't think the ShaderMixer would be of much use with Ralf's product, the "masks" are only partial overlays, they don't cover the entire texture, as a result SM would just stretch them over the whole UV.

    I think that could be worked around - using a Tiler brick to get the right size for the overlay and comparing its S, T values with the real U,V values to apply it to the right area of the map.

  • edited December 1969

    Wow, you guys are talking waaay above my head, but it sounds like I've found the men for the job. Mr. Haseltine, can you direct me to the correct place to report this? I should write to Ralf and ask him to get in on this...

  • Dimension3DDimension3D Posts: 464
    edited December 1969

    Please make a bug report.

    I made a bug report nearly one year ago when the problem was brought to my attention for the first time:
    https://bugs.daz3d.com/view.php?id=47424

    The problem is confirmed by the developpers, but obviously, it has no high priority.

  • edited December 1969

    What do you say, Mr. Haseltine? Could the DAZ wizards do anything for Mr. Sesseler and myself?

  • DraagonStormDraagonStorm Posts: 748
    edited December 1969

    What do you say, Mr. Haseltine? Could the DAZ wizards do anything for Mr. Sesseler and myself?

    What is your work flow to save your characters and reload them?

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 96,219
    edited June 2013

    What do you say, Mr. Haseltine? Could the DAZ wizards do anything for Mr. Sesseler and myself?

    I don't know, though it MAY help to add a comment to the linked bug report (you will need to create an account, if you haven't, since it's a separate system from the store) so that they know it is affecting users.

    Post edited by Richard Haseltine on
  • edited December 1969

    Most of my original characters were built in Poser and saved in my Poser runtime. I import them to DS and that's worked fine until now, even in DS4.0. I'm not as familiar with DS and the proper save methods, and I only tinker with the LIE because I've had to. But this problem makes DS4.5-6 unusable for me until I can tackle it...

  • edited December 1969

    Okay, left a note at the bug post...

  • DraagonStormDraagonStorm Posts: 748
    edited June 2013

    I think I have found a manual fix.

    Using a scene where I put tanlines on V4 in DS3.. Saved as scene then opened in DS4.6

    Go to the Surface tab and select the material (ie 2_SkinHip)... I'll bet you see a grey box were you would normally see the torso. Left mouse click on that box and select Layered Image Editor.

    Select the bottom item (I see it as named Skin)

    Look for Blend Mode: In my test it was set to Mutiplicative Blend, it should be Alpha Channel Blend.

    When I change it to Alpha Channel Blend that fixes it.

    Post edited by DraagonStorm on
  • Dimension3DDimension3D Posts: 464
    edited December 1969

    Using Alpha Blend in LIE will not work for the tan-lines. It will leave a white border where it should be black (or vice-versa, don't remember exactly).

  • DraagonStormDraagonStorm Posts: 748
    edited December 1969

    This is only a guess..

    When 3D3 creates the .dsi file he may not be including what the Blend Mode is suppose to be, and DS4.6 is defaulting to Multiplicative Blend...

    The products that I have done using LIE (some of them partnered with Marieah) I do not use .dsi initially. I script all of the steps to create the Layered Image, and set the values for each layer as needed, and then save a .dsi file that would be used if another Layer is added from my products.

  • DraagonStormDraagonStorm Posts: 748
    edited December 1969

    Using Alpha Blend in LIE will not work for the tan-lines. It will leave a white border where it should be black (or vice-versa, don't remember exactly).

    In preview you see a little difference in color, but not after render.

  • Dimension3DDimension3D Posts: 464
    edited June 2013

    Right, for most part of the body, it will not be visible thanks to UV-mapping. But there is a small area at the neck where it is visible. And the problem is a bug in LIE, where only the Alpha Blend mode is working, the other modes are no longer working in DS 4.0.

    Post edited by Dimension3D on
  • DraagonStormDraagonStorm Posts: 748
    edited December 1969

    Right, for most part of the body, it will not be visible thanks to UV-mapping. But there is a small area at the neck where it is visible. And the problem is a bug in LIE, where only the Alpha Blend mode is working, the other modes are no longer working in DS 4.0.

    Ah, I see that now...

    I guess I'm not seeing that in my products where I use a mask, because I'm lazy, and don't want to mess around with moving the x, y. I just make the mask as big as the UV map, and then resize it in the script to fit the actual texture it is overlaying.

  • edited December 1969

    Okay, so after all this, has anyone found a way to convert DSI layered files into Studio 4.6?

    I've written and called and just finished another round of asking tech support, all DAZ will say is, "Sorry about making you lose all your work, kid". Way to back it up, dudes.

    Can anyone do their job for them, please? I've still got a bunch of built layered files that I can't use because someone decided not to finish what they started.

    A step-by-step solution for someone who tends to stumble his way to a solution would result in the burning of incense and the slaying of the fatted calf... :)

  • Dimension3DDimension3D Posts: 464
    edited December 1969

    Here's the actual state of things as far as I know it.

    1. The bug with blend modes was fixed (not sure for which version of DS, but it is now).
    2. The way empty areas are handled will not be changed. The way it was done in DS3 is now considered a bug.

    This implies that old materials with overlays from my Perfect Tan Line script will not work in DS 4 or future versions. Also, the script has to be updated with full size image maps for the overlays (or maybe by doing the overlays with shader builder instead of LIE). I'm rather busy at the moment, but I promise I will do it this year. (That's better than "soon", isn't it?)

  • Dimension3DDimension3D Posts: 464
    edited December 1969

    I updated my DS tanline products. They now include 2 scripts. The DS3 version will work in DAZ Studio 3 and 4.0. The DS4 version will work in DAZ Studio 4.6.1 and up. DAZ Studio 4.5 and 4.6.0 are not supported because the Layered Image Editor is not working correctly for these versions. Because of changes in DAZ Studio, tanlines created with the DS3 script will still not work in DAZ Studio 4.6.1.

    Customers of the tanlines for V4 can download the updates at Renderosity. Customers of the V3 version will receive a notification with a download link (requires to allow Renderosity to send notifications) or may contact me for the update.

    I apologize that the scripts could not be used for a rather long time. I hope that all bugs are fixed now in Layered Image Editor and there will be no more changes, so that the actual update will keep working in future versions of DAZ Studio.

  • Dimension3DDimension3D Posts: 464
    edited December 1969

    Sorry, wait until the update at Renderosity has _UD2_ in its name ... I just found and fixed a bug I made in the update.

  • Dimension3DDimension3D Posts: 464
    edited December 1969

    The update for the update is out. Be sure you have version 1.11, not 1.1.

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