Digital Art Zone

DAZ 3D is pleased to announce the next public version of the DAZ Studio Pro BETA - version 4.5.1.49!

What is a BETA?

Despite our best efforts, DAZ 3D cannot possibly test the software under all possible conditions. So, we are providing this version of the application to the general public in order to uncover problems that were not discovered during internal testing. We expect that there will still be problems and we hope that when users encounter any problems, they will report them to the Bug Tracker so that they can be validated, prioritized and fixed.

As with any software classified as being in the BETA phase of development, you should expect to encounter bugs. Any bugs you do encounter while using BETA software can vary in terms of severity, from minor features that do not work correctly to problems that cause your computer to crash. Before choosing to use BETA software for production purposes, you should decide whether the benefit of new features and bug fixes provided by the BETA version outweighs the risk of instability you may encounter.

What is new in this version? Do I need to update my copy?

The 4.5.1.49 version resolves several issues and implements many improvements since the 4.5.1.6 General Release. More detail on specific fixes/changes/improvements can be found in the Change Log, which can be viewed online within the Documentation Center portion of our site. All new downloads of the DAZ Studio Pro BETA product (SKU: 12000) will be of this version.

BETA 2 (4.5.1.49) highlights are:
1) Added support for Blended Weights (blend between TriAx Weight and General Weight in a single figure)
2) Fixed light color when rendering shadows (and colored shadows when using DS Defaults)
3) Fixed script access to enums on abstract base classes (fixes things like scripts for custom shaders and some utilities/tools written for previous versions)
4) Fixed loading of some types of content (rigidity w/ rotations, resolution of nodes where names do not match asset id)

BETA 1 (4.5.1.41) highlights are:
1) Fixed crash when loading dynamic clothing that has a material applied to it
2) Fixed Transfer Utility to not remove unused bones if not projecting weights
3) Extended Filter Weights to allow filtering of multiple maps at the same time
4) Updated 3Delight libraries to version 10.0.70 - for details see 3Delight change log here

Has the Genesis Starter Essentials content been updated too?

Yes, the Genesis Starter Essentials content that is provided with the product has been updated to version 1.11.

BETA 2 (1.11) highlights are:
- Fixed bone positions in the hand of the BasicChild morph
- Changed limits on Genesis hip translation properties to fix a bug with applying BVH files

BETA 1 (1.9) highlights are:
- Changed min/max values on scale properties to 0.001/1000
- Merged metadata into one product
- Changed uberEnvironment Occlusion Samples Max Limit to 512
- Changed uberEnvironment Maximum Trace Distance default to 150
- Some files were moved from Genesis Starter Essentials to DAZ Studio

NOTE: If you are NOT updating to this version of DAZ Studio Pro, do NOT update your version of Genesis Starter Essentials

How do I get the latest version?

If you have previously added the DAZ Studio Pro BETA product to your account, simply locate it within your Itemized Order History and then click the “Reset” link on its immediate right. This will cause new links for downloading the latest version to be added to your My Downloadable Products list.

If this is your first time downloading DAZ Studio Pro BETA, simply follow this link, click the “add to cart” button on the page and then follow the checkout process.

Is there any documentation?

Yes, some documentation is located here.

11-24 I did a reset for DSPro beta and got DS4.5.1.41 and it’s still(!!) at my downloadable products page, also the GenesisStarterEssentials 1.9
Can I download them again to get the latest? Or do I have to reset again so it will add more to my downloadable products? (which is already at 205 products)

Love, Jeanne

I didn’t check what I had ‘downloadable’, I went straight to my history and reset the beta (found it eventually on page 7 or 8).

That put 4.5.1.49 and ‘essentials 1.11 in the downloadbles list straight away.

I am so interesting about, blended weight mode,, how it work?

Added blended weight mode to skin binding

Added save/load support of blended weight

Added an action to convert to blended weight mode

if it can keep ghost bones weight of rigged clotings when I use auto-fit or transfer utility?

or if I can switch weight map style about each node of rigged clothing which fit to genesis? @@;

and how can I blend weight map?

Well, one big difference…this version runs on WINE.  Not sure if it is just this build or if it is the combination of this build and Wine 1.5.19…but I’ve been throwing everything I can at it for the past couple of hours and so far no problems.

Nice and smooth…and there is a bump up in rendering speed with raytraced shadows.  Several of the 3Delight fixes/improvements were speed improvements, overall, and some with the raytracing engine, specifically, so they seem to have transferred well.

mjc1016 - 17 December 2012 09:48 PM

...and there is a bump up in rendering speed with raytraced shadows.  Several of the 3Delight fixes/improvements were speed improvements, overall, and some with the raytracing engine, specifically, so they seem to have transferred well.

Reason enough to download and install it

One of the scenes I use to test the versions…it has transmapped lace, hair and UberEnvironment AO w/soft shadow…went from over an hour it half an hour.  Another, that usually takes about half an hour to render dropped to 20 minutes.  And a fairly simple scene with simple lighting…not much change.

Now one fix I want to complain about…

- Fixed bone positions in the hand of the BasicChild morph

Now I’ve got to go adjust a bunch of poses in saved scenes.  The fix while great does shift the hands a bit.

On a Mac, exactly which files should be backed up in case I want to revert to 4.5.1.6?

I got 4.5.1.6, installed it and the Genesis Starter Essentials, that all went without a hitch. Even my ATI/AMD video card is fully compatible. No CMS issues at all either. I then upgraded to this beta and everything went just fine.  During this, the CMS installer told me that, as I hadn’t made any changes, I didn’t need to reinstall it and it told me to quit. I did and the rest of the install went without any issues at all. The updated GSE went in fine too.

I guess I got lucky, now to get the Gen 5 figures and a bit more content installed…..

CHEERS!

After two weeks, I’m happy to say that for the most part this build is pretty stable.  It does, most of the time render faster, but there have been a couple of odd crashes with very long renders that I haven’t been able to nail down as to what caused them…because after a restart, they render just fine.  It’s just annoying to get to 99% and then crash…in a multi-hour render.

I just installed this AND all the plugins this AM before leaving for work.  Is the GoZ bridge working?  I didn’t have time to test that.

All I know so far is the installations worked, I haven’t had much time to check anything else. I’ll have to see what I can do tomorrow. The only plug in outside of what DS came with that I installed was the beta of Garibaldi, that’s one thing that looks incredible.

There’s no way in the world I can afford ZBrush so GoZ has no use for me. I’m not sure my version of Photoshop is compatible so I doubt I’ll even install the 3D bridge for it.

Hopefully I’ll be happy with what I have for the time being

CHEERS!

Rogerbee - 02 January 2013 02:02 PM

All I know so far is the installations worked, I haven’t had much time to check anything else. I’ll have to see what I can do tomorrow. The only plug in outside of what DS came with that I installed was the beta of Garibaldi, that’s one thing that looks incredible.

There’s no way in the world I can afford ZBrush so GoZ has no use for me. I’m not sure my version of Photoshop is compatible so I doubt I’ll even install the 3D bridge for it.

Hopefully I’ll be happy with what I have for the time being

CHEERS!

Same here…Zbrush is a bit out of my reach….and my copy of Photoshop is so old, I’d have to brush the dust off the floppies to install it.  Been using Blender and GIMP since nigh on to forever.  I’d love to see bridges for either/both of those…

mjc1016 - 02 January 2013 02:58 PM

Same here…Zbrush is a bit out of my reach….and my copy of Photoshop is so old, I’d have to brush the dust off the floppies to install it.  Been using Blender and GIMP since nigh on to forever.  I’d love to see bridges for either/both of those…

Yes, I’m still using PS 7, bought in a box from one of those liquidation and surplus outlets, must be 10 years ago or more.  The Gimp is great, but after all those years with PS I can’t get used to it.

I’ve slightly toyed with the idea of buying ZBrush, but I don’t really have any talent for sculpting, which I think is the main focus of it and I think it would be a waste for me. I’m happy with Blender for traditional modelling, UV mapping, etc. (and of course it does a lot more). I’d love someone to do a “GoBlender” bridge. I have import/export down pat now, but a bridge would be amazing.

OK, well thanks folks.  I’m almost through with my day.  I’ll check it out when I get home tonight. 

I finds it saves and loads a lot slower it also has “jammed’ & crashed a few times. I use the Luxrender so not sure about render times not a worthwhile upgrade from 1.6 but I now have scenes built with it that would not go backwards