DAZ Studio 4.5 RC1!
This release candidate is available to all customers and will run either without a serial number (although you will be asked to enter one each time you run DAZ Studio), or with your current DAZ Studio serial number. Installing 4.5 will uninstall 4.0, and we recommend installing only one of either 4.0.x or 4.5.x on the same machine.
The purpose of this build is to provide early access to the new features available in DAZ Studio 4.5. This is a release candidate, which means we are looking for prompt feedback about significant issues that may still exist in this build as we approach full release. To help our test and development teams, please focus issue reports on items that are significant workflow blocks, crashes, or other major issues rather than new feature requests, UI changes, or desired workflow changes.
New in DAZ Studio 4.5:
1. Full implementation of the DSON file format. This enables full scene save in a lightweight scene file (DUF format). These scene files can be loaded and used by anyone who has installed the products used in the scene. If one or more of the products is not found upon loading the scene, a warning dialog will indicate which files are needed.
2. Selective item save/load. Save only selected items in a scene, then drop them into another scene using lightweight preset files.
3. Viewport speed dramatically increased. For many viewport interactions, speed will be 2-5x faster than DAZ Studio 4.0.
4. DSON file save includes the ability to load and use most Poser files as if they were native DSF files. DUF scenes that contain items in Poser format are also sharable (i.e. only contain references to the needed Poser files).
5. Property Settings now consolidates more information about each property into a single interface (e.g. presentation editor).
6. FBX Import FBX files can now be round-tripped through DAZ Studio, including rigged and animated items in the scene.
7. The Darkside style is now included as part of the base installation package.
8. No serial number is required to run either the 32-bit or 64-bit versions of DAZ Studio Standard
9. Shader Mixer has significantly improved workflow and documentation.
10. New “Ready to Render” scenes have been added as part of the content that installs with 4.5. Loading these is a great way to start tweaking and playing with some cool scenes.
11. A number of Lesson Strips have been added. These are quick lessons about DAZ Studio basics. There are also instruction on how to create your own Lesson Strips on the DAZ Documentation Center.[/list]
Along with all the new things in DAZ Studio 4.5, you will also find new documentation on some of the deeper functionality in DAZ Studio on the DAZ Documentation Center in the Publishing and DAZ Studio sections.
If you find any serious issues please report them with as much detail as you can in the DAZ Issue Tracker
What you need to know about this build:
1. Many, many issues and workflow improvements have been addressed since we released 4.0.3. Too many to list here. Please see the DAZ Issue Tracker and the DAZ Studio 4.5 Change Log for details (this will be included in the download of the product).
2. Files saved from this version of DAZ Studio are not backward compatible with older versions, including version 4.0.x.
3. Plugins that run in version 4.0 will not run in version 4.5.
4. When installing the plugins that come with DAZ Studio, you may see warning dialogs indicating there was a problem with installation. These warnings do not affect installation, but we are addressing the warnings in a later build.
5. Not all features of FBX are supported on import, so characters from other 3D applications imported in FBX format may or may not come through with all their components.
6. All presets are saved in lightweight DUF format and scripted presets (DSA files) have been deprecated. DSA presets will still save and load, but the new preset format should be used in their place.
Thank you for helping us make DAZ Studio great!
You can get this version of DAZ Studio here: DAZ Studio 4.5
