Useful tip for the day

j cade

I discovered something cool in Daz Studio today! I'm sure some other folks have figured this out too, but I haven't seen it get a lot of mention and it is supremely useful. It is especially useful for items that use hdmorphs or just a lot of morrphs in general for their shape.

Its the bake smooted morphs tool. What does it do? Well it takes a morph (or several) and smoothes it out.

Put another way, smoohing basically is applied at the end after everything else this enables smothing to be applied to a morph at the beginning and then everything else,  like other morphs,  is applied after.

 

Picture time!

A shirt on the default G3f

An "extreme" morph applied (breasts gone) resulting in an ugly chest demon.

Smoothing gets rid of the chest demon, but also gets rid of all the wrinkles as they are applied as a morph

Use the bake smoothed morphs tool with your clothing object selected and mesh smoothing settings that look good (I generally use bass shape matching and values up in the 50s).   You can get to the tool in several locations (its also under edit>figure>geometry)

Select the offending morph(s) and make sure everything else is deselected

Look! No chest demon and wrinkles!

 

*edit To keep the morph for the next time you load the object go to file>save as>support asset>morph asset(s), select the morph or morphs you have fixed and hit accept

fastbike1

Thanks. Appreciate the tip.

FSMCDesigns

Nice tip, will have to try this out since I use smoothing and collision quite a bit and I hate when I lose the details because of it.

Esemwy

Cool! Thanks!

barbult

Wow, this is nice. Isn't it necessary to save the morph asset if you want it to load in the future when you use the shirt again?

j cade

barbult said:

Wow, this is nice. Isn't it necessary to save the morph asset if you want it to load in the future when you use the shirt again?

Yes. I should add that to the main post

ThatGuy

Awesome tip!  I must give this a try, most especially with G3M clothing.  Thank you.

joseft

cool tip. seeing little functions like this makes you wonder what other simple effective functions are sitting there that people are not using because they dont know about. i wish there was full tutorials that explained each and every little function inside daz studio one by one

RAMWolff

Very useful info.  Thanks so much! 

Toonces

It would be cool if someone posted the next 'useful tip' to this thread. :)

The bake smooth morphs is awesome, but the way it's being saved (morph asset) makes me think it's altering the original clothing, which I'm ususally hesitant to do.

j cade

Toonces said:

It would be cool if someone posted the next 'useful tip' to this thread. :)

The bake smooth morphs is awesome, but the way it's being saved (morph asset) makes me think it's altering the original clothing, which I'm ususally hesitant to do.

 

As long as you're only smoothing and baking autogenerated morphs (easiest way to check is to load a version of the clothing not fitted to anything turn on "show hidden properties" in the parameters panel and see what morphs are already there, those are custom morphs made by the original creator, anything else is getting autogenerated by DS whenever you dial in a morph to the figure it's fitted to), you're only adding new morphs and not overwriting anything.

 

I should totally add some more tips. I have a few other features of DS that I have a feeling lots of folks aren't aware of.

 

I actually recently had a thing where there was a feature I was really wishing DS had. Time passed and then one day poking around looking for something completely different I realized hey, that feature I really wished DS had was there all along.

Toonces

That would be awesome!

I used your blender tip to make a V4 mermaid clone a few weeks ago. Being the first time I'd ever used blender, it wasn't easy, but I managed to get it done. Got to learn the software a little and make something useful.

So I welcome more hidden nuggets of wisdom like the ones you've posted so far!

AllenArt

j cade said:

Toonces said:

I actually recently had a thing where there was a feature I was really wishing DS had. Time passed and then one day poking around looking for something completely different I realized hey, that feature I really wished DS had was there all along.

It's really frustrating that without a manual or even a 3rd party book, most of DS's features will remain a mystery to the bulk of it's users. *sigh*

Laurie

smaker1

AllenArt said:

j cade said:

Toonces said:

I actually recently had a thing where there was a feature I was really wishing DS had. Time passed and then one day poking around looking for something completely different I realized hey, that feature I really wished DS had was there all along.

It's really frustrating that without a manual or even a 3rd party book, most of DS's features will remain a mystery to the bulk of it's users. *sigh*

Laurie

I agree!

And many thanks J Cade for sharing!

Scavenger

Hmm.. I'll have to try this out..didn't quote understand it intotal from the post, but it sounds promising.

Richard Haseltine

AllenArt said:

j cade said:

Toonces said:

I actually recently had a thing where there was a feature I was really wishing DS had. Time passed and then one day poking around looking for something completely different I realized hey, that feature I really wished DS had was there all along.

It's really frustrating that without a manual or even a 3rd party book, most of DS's features will remain a mystery to the bulk of it's users. *sigh*

Laurie

I think it was a Scientific American column discussing the demise of the computer manual (which is a gernal issue), but apprently back when Office came with a thumping great manual it was nevertheless the case that a high proportion of feature requests for Office were for things that it already had, and that were documented.

Chohole

Richard Haseltine said:

AllenArt said:

j cade said:

Toonces said:

I actually recently had a thing where there was a feature I was really wishing DS had. Time passed and then one day poking around looking for something completely different I realized hey, that feature I really wished DS had was there all along.

It's really frustrating that without a manual or even a 3rd party book, most of DS's features will remain a mystery to the bulk of it's users. *sigh*

Laurie

I think it was a Scientific American column discussing the demise of the computer manual (which is a gernal issue), but apprently back when Office came with a thumping great manual it was nevertheless the case that a high proportion of feature requests for Office were for things that it already had, and that were documented.

Demonstrated most aptly by documentation on my fave program in it's older versions.   I could pass on a manual (and did) for Bryce 4 in mint condition to another user;  but would never part willingly with my well thumbed copy of "Real World Bryce 4", even now.

Toonces

Agreed. I'd never read a Daz manual.

However, I love to read tips and tricks.  In my IT days, that meant StackOverflow and similar sites.

Tips and tricks show how to solve real problems. They often have personality. They aren't boring. They sometimes have pictures. Much better than a crusty old manual.

Wish there was a StackOverflow for Daz, if only for the enhanced searching capabilities.

Often I'll read a tip/trick and can't find it again (e.g., I'm currently trying to find Will Timmins succinct explanation of geo shells).

AllenArt

I would read a paper manual. For some reason, I have problems with online/on screen manuals. While they are certainly better than nothing, it's difficult for me to read for any length of time on a computer screen. I can read all day off of a piece of genuine, old fashioned paper ;). I'm old school. LOL. Plus I like the experience of that well-used, folded and wrinkled book with tattered various sticky note bookmarks hanging out everywhere :P. My Marvelous Designer book is beginning to look like that...heh.

Laurie

Ptrope

Thanks for the tip! Very handy for those of us who really don't want all of our Genesis females to be D-cups or larger ;).

Richard Haseltine

AllenArt said:

I would read a paper manual. For some reason, I have problems with online/on screen manuals. While they are certainly better than nothing, it's difficult for me to read for any length of time on a computer screen. I can read all day off of a piece of genuine, old fashioned paper ;). I'm old school. LOL. Plus I like the experience of that well-used, folded and wrinkled book with tattered various sticky note bookmarks hanging out everywhere :P. My Marvelous Designer book is beginning to look like that...heh.

Laurie

Me too - which is why I scorn digital versions of magazines and newspapers.

j cade

AllenArt said:

j cade said:

Toonces said:

I actually recently had a thing where there was a feature I was really wishing DS had. Time passed and then one day poking around looking for something completely different I realized hey, that feature I really wished DS had was there all along.

It's really frustrating that without a manual or even a 3rd party book, most of DS's features will remain a mystery to the bulk of it's users. *sigh*

Laurie

Ironically, this time I actually discovered the feature in the Daz Wiki. I mean, this is possibly the only time that ever happened and I don't know how I found it given I was searching for something comepletely unrelated but still.

 

I personally subscribe to the manual of googling. Just type in what you're trying to do and the software you're using and generally google will find something whether it be a wiki page or a forum thread or a youtube video. (I really got into the habit of doing this with blender, where you can always find something)

But yeah I can see wanting something physical as someone who still buys books and cds I hear you there.

 

 

Oso3D

I don't mind digital manuals. I love wikis.

they just have to be, you know, maintained.

 

I can't process video tutorials. I think at least half the reason I've never really dove into Blender is that I'd have to rely almost entirely on video 

j cade

timmins.william said:

I don't mind digital manuals. I love wikis.

they just have to be, you know, maintained.

 

I can't process video tutorials. I think at least half the reason I've never really dove into Blender is that I'd have to rely almost entirely on video 

Tbf, the blender wiki/manual is so beautiful it almost make me cry. If DS had something like that there'd be a lot less complaints about it's documentation.

However blender is (unavoidably) a more complex piece of software so it's harder to just use the wiki and learn how to use

Scavenger

Well daz book wise, Paolo's book is pretty good, though getting a bit dated now.