Very little written on Geometry Editor - why?
daveso
Posts: 7,789
I decided to give the geometry edtor a go after posting in the PC+ forum about a new dress that had big billowy sleves that I didn;t like much. Someone posted about using the GE to delete or redo the material zones, etc.
I've never ventured into that editor, much like a lot of others I've never tried, so looked for tutorials. Found one on Youtbe done in German, and one other that gave me a lot of hints,
Only one here in the DAZ forums, which surprises me ... or that I found
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/166896/the-material-zone-geometry-tool-tutorial-shaders/p1
Even more surprising is the lack of coverage on the geometry editor, even in the DS documention and help sections .. why is that?
this is one powerful deal going on here and really should have a good thorough tutorial ... a video tutorial.
or is it just assumed everyone knows how to do that stuff. And it goes right along with the surfaces editor, and probably other things as well.
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I doubt it's assumed, but for me, once i knew about it, i dove right in and played with it till I knew what it was capable of and now I use it often.
BTW I answered your post in the PC forum.
Because, frankly, DAZ hasn't ever bothered to create decent documentation for most of the advanced features in DAZ Studio. They're pretty infamous for it. A few years ago they made a big announcement about starting to FINALLY updating the online manual, which is basically the guide to version 3.0 with only a few minor mods, but that effort fell by the wayside almost as soon as it began. Hell, they barely documented Iray and most of the info that's out there on dForce came from PAs.
DAZ Studio lacks proper documentation. There are so many things I want to learn (eg. shader builder, weight mapping, geometry editor, rigging, advance scripts, etc.) but I'm required to look for third party websites. The official one-page tutorials are not working for me.
I’ve been saying for a long time that Daz or a collection of PAs should write a comprehensive manual with screenshots and sell it on Amazon. It would be an extra source of income for them and bring more people to the store when Amazon recommends the book to those who do searches for 3D art...
I would kill (or better yet, pay) for a good manual. There's so little I don't know and so much that I find out almost by accident. Most of the time, I feel pretty helpless in the program because the wiki doesn't really explain a whole lot, even when there's documentation on a subject I'm looking for :( At least with Poser I could RTFM. I could buy every tutorial that comes down the pike, but that would be ridiculously expensive and I don't expect ANYONE to do that.
Laurie
Yea, in general I've found the Geometry Editor pretty much self-explaining via the menu texts and a little experimentation. But that's not necessarily true for a lot of other features.
As for a tutorial in general, if I were paid enough (mark the word "enough"), I wouldn't mind creating and maintaining one. The problem is mostly getting the necessary information I guess. And if DAZ were to give all the necessary information to a third party it would probably be just as easy for them to redirect it to the online tutorial instead. So the obvious thing would be that they do it themselves.
That's been my experience. The Geometry Editor I did figure out, but so many of the others I'll play with and think I've got it, but then the next time I sit down to try it, it's all gone out of my head. And I really resent the idea that I'm supposed to waste my time trying to figure out how something works when DAZ should just give us decent documentation. The only reason it's barely acceptable is that the program is free now, but I'm one of those who actually bought DS 4 when it first came out...
This is actually incorrect and we have linked to various pages on a number of topics as they come up in the forums.
It simply seems that neither Daz nor any PA believes that they could be sufficiently well recompensed for the effort required to produce the necessary documentation in this or a number of other areas. We are dependent on those with the time and good-heartedness to do it for 'the greater good' alone.
One could probably say that it's a choice between huge discounts and better service. Just like in stores in the real world.
Whether or not it is or isn't correct, it regularly seems like it is the case. I had a complete nightmare trying to work out JCMs and MCMs because the information on doing so in the guide refers to panels and tools that have been removed from the current version of Daz, and I eventually had to go through any number of Google searches and forum threads before I found information that was sufficiently up-to-date and complete to work with.
Lots of people, myself included, try to follow the principle that you make a respectable effort to research your problem first before you pester a forum* (lest you seem like a lazy sod who expects other people to do the work for them), so using the forum as a substitute to actually putting that information into an up-to-date guide is just going to frustrate a lot of people.
* In fact, I did it just this morning; I saw a character I liked in some promo art, and did everything I could to see if the question had already been answered before I potentially clogged up the forum with repeat questions. (Irritatingly, I did eventually find the answer on the forum, but because the topic never linked to the product in question, the thread didn't show up in the "forum references" links added by the "Daz Deals" plug-in, which would have meant I could have found the answer in seconds, not minutes).
There are a couple of books but I have no idea how good or bad they are.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B06XFK9DHB
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Complete-Guide-DAZ-Studio-ebook/dp/B00FWIP0T6/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=daz+studio&qid=1554974691&s=digital-text&sr=1-4
I have both these books. Although you get a small sample of some more advance topics, they are aimed towards beginners.
then there must not be any links for this topic ?
The "Comprehensive Guide to Rigging Tools in DAZ Studio" by Thomas Windar has a good amount of detail about the geometry editor, 14 pages (see picture of cover below). It is a great resource, but does not seem to be in the store anymore. It is based on DS 4.9 but most info still applies.
Ciao
TD
Time may be as much or more of a factor than compensation. Depending on the complexity of what you're documenting, this kind of thing can easily be a full-time job.
bummer..did some google searches and found nothing..all leading back to DAZ.
OK .. used different search terms and found some stuff ...
https://issuu.com/philatdsc/docs/ds_creative_14 there is a short tutorial on GE
http://howto3drenderart.com/the-book/about-a-primer-for-daz-studio a section on GE ..no idea how in depth or just a glimmer
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewthread/42088/ right here from 2014 ..not sure how much things have changed
http://orig07.deviantart.net/667c/f/2015/053/4/7/mini_tutorial__daz_material_groups_by_deslea-d8j1vny.pdf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlD9L3kA6gk Replacing Geometry in DAZ Studio
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6myMz6lJrBE Flipping normals and other quick tricks with the DAZ Studio Geometry Editor
The current version of both the QuickStart and User Guide list Version 4.6 on the covers. Since 4.7 came out in November of 2014, that makes the information in both documents over 5 years old, at best, and neither of them cover the current default renderer for DAZ Studio, Iray, at all, let alone anything to do with the Genesis 3 and Genesis 8 figure lines since they didn't exist. There's also no coverage in the User Guide for geometry shells, the geometry editor or just about any other advanced tool. As for the new feature descriptions in the updates, they're described by DAZ itself as "This section presents a brief overview of the new features added to a version of the application." I think that "brief" is pretty much the key word there, with most subjects getting two or three sentences of description and no step by step documentation, with the entirety of the Iray launch for 4.8 containing less than a page worth of text.
In the end, good documentation needs to be up to date, comprehensive, and easy to find. What DAZ currently has doesn't meet any of those bars.
it is quite frustrating to click a link within DS for help and be bought to something that says..this is an old wiki or some such with out of date , inpertinent material. BUT ..the program is FREE ... content, not so much, but possible.
would the documentation be complete and updated if this were a pay for software? I see documentation from a lot of compaqnies pretty terrible complared to what was given with programs during the box years. Bibles pretty much.
Couldn't agree more. I mentioned this in a related thread recently — there is a lengthy and pretty comprehensive listing of all the Iray surfaces parameters and a brief description on this docs page, but that's about all it is, a listing and brief description. Definitely nowhere near enough to solve the headscratchers I've frequently encountered trying to wrap my poor abused grey matter around the subject of Iray materials. Some of what I've learned about converting 3Delight to Luxus materials have been helpful, because there are some similarities, but most of the time I'm one of the blind men examining the elephant.
Dreamland Models and Khory_D just released a tutorial on the Geometry editor over on Rendo.I get the impression from the store page that it is both video and .pdf.
Looks like it's only the very basics and rather pricey at $12.99 for an 8 minute video amd a 7 page PDF. Still, for someone who doesn't know anything about the geometry editor though, it might be worth it.
Okay, I'll ask - what does the geometry editor do? What does "edit" geometry mean? Is that like putting a Victoria 4 head on a Genesis 8 body?
No it's like selecting polys and making them their own matt zone. Or, for kitbashing, deleting the parts you don't want in order to mash it up against another model.
There are probably other uses as well, but those are the first ones that one tends to deal with.
You can also use it to stop morphs from affecting a particular area.
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