Digital Art Zone

I was using primitives to make, for a Daz Studio scene, a 3D “remote” —by “remote”, I mean the little rectangular box you press buttons on to switch the channels on your television. 

In the scene, I wanted to create a dozen primitives—to be the buttons on the remote—I needed 12 identical rectangular little boxes.  I would then position them in a somewhat larger rectangular box, parent them to that larger box, color the buttons slightly differently from the box, which would be black, and that would be my 3D “remote.”

So when I had made one button the size, shape and color I wanted, how could I then quickly make 11 duplicates of it?  I know a rather slow one-at-a-time way to copy, but wondering if there’s a quick way.

If you have 4.5RC2, it has instancing which works pretty neatly.

Skiriki, thank you for your reply.

What is 4.5RC2 ?

That would be Daz Studio version 4.5 RC (Release Candidate) 2.

My advice would be to save your scene and then delete everything barring the primative you are wanting to duplicate. Then save that as a different scene. Then open your main complete scene again and use the “File > Merge” command to load in the primative, repeat until you have all your buttons.

EdwardEdwardEdward - 04 July 2012 04:05 AM

Skiriki, thank you for your reply.

What is 4.5RC2 ?

You can get it from here. Just add to cart and go with clicking.

Warning: your current plugins, if you have any, won’t work with it yet. But very s… errmmm… when the time is right. Anyway, if you’re like I am, and don’t have lots of plugins (like GenX etc), then it could be worth it—it is very stable (at least been so to me) and it retains morphs on auto-fitting things, which is a huge huge huge huge huge plus to me.

You can use “Send in the Clones”  there are different versions so type the words into the store search for the various versions.

here’s one.  http://www.daz3d.com/shop/send-in-the-clones-ds-pro/ 

it can literally place hundreds of the same prop almost instantly in an array or randomly.

I do like the New Instancing in DS4.5 RC2. I just tested it and it works great.  No need for Send in the Clones anymore. You will find the new Instancing command in Create, (obviously you will need something in the scene for it to work). You can create multiple instances or just one. You can move each instance around placing them where you want them. You change the master and all the instances will change with it.

I will say though that Send in the Clones is better in one way as it has arrays, DS 4.5 RC 2 doesn’t. But the new instancing is better for memory usage as I beleive it is true instancing and not duplication with memory using geometry.

Thank you all for your helpful answers.  3 different methods.

If I download and install DS 4.5 RC 2, will it mesh smoothly with my current version of Daz (free version of 4 pro, I think)—or will all the scenes I have created disappear from my library or stop working in the new version?

Also, will there then be two versions of Daz Studio on my computer, and tons of excess files I no longer need from the old Daz Studio version?

I assume my current version is not DS 4.5 RC 2, otherwise I presume I would see “Instancing” as an option under “Create”.  I don’t see “Instancing.”  I’ve attached hereto an image of my create menu.

For me I always install the updated version over the top of the old and it will ask you to Unistall DS4 Pro and do it for you.

Also I have never had any trouble opening older scenes in the updated version. But 4.5 RC 2 is still a beta release and has a few bugs. I haven’t come across many myself yet.

For future reference you can go to “Window > About Daz Studio” and that will open a window with your Version number.

Szark and all, thank you for your helpful replies. 

Based on what you said, Szark, I started looking for “About Daz Studio” —found it in the Help Menu.  My version is 4.0.3.47 Pro Edition (32 bit).

Next time I need multiple instances, I’ll download 4.5 RC 2…

My pleasure to help.

Opps my bad sorry about that. Being having a bad few days. But at least you found About Daz Studio:

Szark,

No bad.  You led me to it.

In 4.0, for a rigid prop, I would export as a .obj and import as many as needed.

Oom