Digital Art Zone

One general question to the DSF and DUF file confusion.

If I understand correctly, DS 4.0 introduced one new file format which was intended to handle the new Genesis platform. The files in the Data folder as well as those located in the Content Library folder were both carrying the same extension: DSF.

Since version 4.5 unfortunately things have changed. The files in the Data folder kept their DSF extension (and shouldn’t be touched or moved around anyway), but the files in the Content Library have been replaced by the newer DUF format, indicating that they are more “user” specific, always pointing to the same location.

So far so good. But what if a DS 4.0 user likes to install one of the Genesis products which only ships with DUF files which are placed into the library? Does that mean the whole Genesis figure cannot be used in case of a DS 4.0 installation? I hope that inconsistency is not intentional meant to exist, as there might be many users buying an ordinary Genesis product, and then they end up with a character, hair or clothing they cannot use in their application just because of a format re-definition. I always thougt that Genesis is generally supported from DS 4 + on, and I’m really not planning to make any experiments with my working configuration like upgrading to DS 4.5 until it’s running stable.

Yes, I know there is also that new DSON stuff enabling Poser users to use the Genesis platform. But what about DAZ users? As I couldn’t find any clear statement here in this forum, maybe someone can tell me, what are the restrictions or differences between DSF and DUF file formats, as they should carry the same information. In may case I bought the following DAZ package:
http://www.daz3d.com/shop/cat-character-and-hair
It seems it has DUF files only included. Does this mean I cannot use the Genesis portion of that product in my DS 4.0, as it can only handle DSF files?

Is there any converter available from DAZ which offers the opportunity to convert DUF files back to the original DSF file format, the one the original Genesis figure is based on? If not, it’s really a mess, because version 4.5 is just indicating a new application subrelease, not a whole new standard, causing some products not to work as they are intended to. Are there really compatibility issues between older and newer product releases or application releases? I can’t believe it!

However, maybe you have good ideas how to convert such DUF files back to DSF.
Thanks a lot in advance.

The item you linked to says:

Compatible 3D Software

DSON Importer for Poser, DAZ Studio 4.5, Poser

So it is only usable in DS 4.5.  DS4 cannot read DUF files, DS4.5 can read both DSF and DUF.

For many items now, there is a ‘Legacy’ version in your downloads which is for DS4, The DSON ones are for Poser and/or DS4.5.  Poser also needs the Poser Companion Files.

I don’t believe that there is any way of converting from DUF to DSF, they are based on a completely different format.

Okay I see your point, but then DAZ shouldn’t hide this important information somewhere down in the bottom lines. If someone’s buying a Genesis character, then the user expectation will always be that it can be used in the program, in which Genesis was first introduced: DS 4.0!

Of course I understand, that files in the data folder are meant to hold the figure data. However, there must be a workaround to create an equivalent to the delivered DUF file LOCATED IN THE LIBRARY, just based on a DSF file (here they should contain the same information as before), otherwise the DSON/Phython script extensions couldn’t also do any conversion from DUF to the Poser internal format via python code. After all, why should Poser users be able to use such a newer Genesis product, but DAZ users not?

Is there really no way to make an original DSF out of a DUF?

Now I’m really surprised and I don’t understand why DAZ is making such a mystery out of the differences between the DUF and the DSF format by not specifying any details somewhere.

As I expected first the DUF (DS 4.5) and the DSF (DS 4.0) files are supposed to include similar information in order to fire up the Genesis character, at least when they are in their role being located in the CONTENT LIBRARY folder structure (compared to the other type residing in the DATA folder structure).

So I just tried to rename the .DUF extension for my new Genesis character back to .DSF, and what can I say: IT REALLY WORKED!!!

At least I could load a blank but morphed character in DS 4.0, even though it was initially considered to work in DS 4.5 only. The only drawback I expected is the fact that materials which are also included in this renamed DUF - or in other material files based on DUF format -  cannot be loaded at all in DS 4.0, even if they are all renamed to DSF. The log file shows that the DS 4.0 DSON interpreter is complaining about unexpected objects or material based nodes which cannot be found.

But hey, as long as all materials are also available in .DSA file format, which is the case for my new purchase, I’m not limited to the V4 version of this character!

The changes between the files goes a little more deeply than just the file extensions, the code format inside them is different, so while the files you find in the data folder might all be .DSF the code in them is different, so it’s not just the files you see in the content library that you would need to convert.

I still don’t get why people won’t “upgrade”, I mean why use a very buggy alpha with extremely experimental software, when you could be using a buggy beta with experimental software instead.

Now I’m really surprised and I don’t understand why DAZ is making such a mystery out of the differences between the DUF and the DSF format by not specifying any details somewhere.

http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/dson_spec/start  DSON

http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/dson_spec/format_description/file_types/start Difference

I’d like to tell you why I’m not very confident to upgrade to the new version very soon. Just to give an example:

As I know personally from the “Perfect Tan Line DS” developer, there is still a major bug in the Layered Image Editor for DS 4.5 which has been reported long ago but still hasn’t been solved. The same applies to many other script-based stuff which doesn’t seem to be very important for the DAZ developers, but for other users who have purchased stuff like that. Of course they’d like to continue using products they have payed for. So COMPATIBILITY is the magic word!