Transfer of Hair and Shader Settings in the LI Strand Forge Hair System

3DIO

One of the best (but sadly most frustrating) purchases I made recently is:  LI  Strand Forge Hair for Genesis 9

I do like it, very much so, and I'm really pleased I purchased it.  But please can someone out there tell me there's an easy way to transfer hair and shader settings between hair modules?  Since you can fully customise the hair and shader settings of each hair module, in effect, this is a full hair system!

So what's the problem?

Well, the problem is, say, when I add a single hair module.  Sure, it's a single clump of hair, so that means you get to enjoy a more fluid experience while adjusting the hair and shader settings, and all live in the viewport as well.  Great stuff.  But then when I add another hair module, it appears as if I'm expected take every parameter of the first module, and manually dial in those settings on the second module, and third etc, to make them match.

Surely there's an easy way to do that, or at the very least save the hair and shader settings as a preset.  Better still, if possible, would be to save the hair and shader settings separately, but in a way that they can be applied to any hair module in the system.

Any help on this appreciated, since I'd really like to start using it.  I mean, other than the problem outlined here, I think it's a great product!

 

3DIO

Looks like this is a no-go too :-(

Makes me wonder what exactly Copy and Paste (Surfaces) actually does then, cause it definitely is not copying the settings attached to any surface I've tried to copy.  If it at least did that, it would be better than nothing, although I'd still need to re-dial hair the paramaters to make them all match across modules.

What a bummer!

 

Silas3D

Copy and paste surfaces (assuming you're referring to Surfaces tab copy/paste) only works if both surfaces have the same shader applied. So if you paste to a surface that has a different shader (eg iray uber vs pbrskin) then it won't work. The workaround is to apply a shader/material preset that uses the same shader type, before pasting.

chevybabe25

Save one as a shader or material preset? Apply it to the rest. Just make sure you uncheck the simulation settings.

3DIO

@Silas3D
I wasn't aware of those specifics, but with a bit of luck then I'll finally be able to copy the shader settings at the very least.  I'll be giving it a whirl tonight, and a hurl if the bloody thing still doesn't work!

Cheers, and much appreciated.

@chevybabe25
I'm ashamed to say that saving anything other than a whole Daz scene is something I've never gotten into so far with Daz Studio, but I'll take a look.

Cheers, and much appreciated.

 

 

nemesis10

I was using the product last night. I wanted to use a particular omnishader. I selected the appropriate strands in the Surface Tab, applied the prep shader which decides which flavor of omnishader is used, applied the appropriate color shader, and adjusted the gloss. The important thing is that you can only paste like to like so that you have to do the prep work.

3DIO

@nemesis10
I'll keep that lot in mind when playing with it again tonight!
Cheers, and much appreciated.

 

3DIO

Absolutely un-bloody-real.  Now that I've got a bunch of information to be going on with, I'm no longer able to select items via the viewport.  Worse still, is that if I try to work around it by using the Scene View to select objects, none of the hair parameters are visible other than a few to do with distribution-type stuff.

I did have this issue before of not being able to select stuff in the viewport, but I can't remember what it was and how to stop it happening.

 

Silas3D

That's usually because of the tool you've got selected in the icon bar at the top or in the tool settings pane. Make sure you're using either the node selection tool or universal selection tool

3DIO

I am, I always use the Universal Tool as the main one.  I was playing with it dog tired last night, so I must have done something without realising it.

Also, after another reboot of Daz Studio, I can select parts of Genesis 9 again, but it ignores the hair modules, won't highlight them and won't make them clickable, and as I said, no hair parameters other than some strand distribution stuff.

Before, I was able to access parmeters for waviness, frizz and that sort of thing!

 

Uthgard

Sorry if you've already tried this, but are you on the surface tab or on the parameters tab? Parameters has some controls for dforce hair, but frizz and the like are surface settings. Also, when something is fitted to a Genesis figure (fit, not parented), the universal tool doesn't select it, as it only operates on the parent figure. You can instead use the surface selection tool to select clothes, hair, etc.

3DIO

Cheers Uthgard.  I think I've accidentally switched something on or off somewhere or somehow, so I'll just have to live with it until I can do a reformat.
I've been through the damn thing with a proverbial fine-toothed comb!