Essentially, here's proof that the dsf information is cached and not used directly from the existing file: I exited Daz, renamed Character.dsf, restarted Daz, opened a new scene and put a new 8.1 male in it. When I went to the FaceGen morphs, not only was "Character" still an available option, it still worked - it did the morph created a month ago. Daz doesn't even seem to care if the file isn't there anymore.

So ... is there a "Refresh" utility to get Daz to refresh cached elements/configs/settings? If not, is there a way to delete old things, like since-improved morphs?

Hello. As I make my way through learning Daz and related products, I've been fine-tuning some early FaceGen exports. So this question is based on my experience with that, but I suspect that it will apply to changes made to other existing dsf files. I find that Daz does not seem to respect changes to existing dsf files even after exiting/restarting Daz, which suggests to me that this must get cached somewhere. (I see a recent thread about surfaces, but in that thread, it appeared that restarting Daz was enough.)

I exported a FaceGen morph dsf file to a file of the same name. I checked the contents of Documents\My DAZ 3D Library\data\DAZ 3D\Genesis 8\Male 8_1\Morphs\FaceGen and see that the relevant dsf file now has the current timestamp, indicating that the existing file has been overwritten. However, Daz does not respect the changed dsf file. Even after exiting and restarting Daz, it's still using the old morph. I confirmed by resaving the same morph to a new file that the morph itself is reflecting my new change; it's acting as though Daz cached the dsf information when I first created the file and subsequent resaves to the same file name does not affect that. In short: Character.dsf was exported from FaceGen a month ago. Today, I exported a new file named Character.dsf, but in Daz, when I try to use it, it shows the exact same thing as the Character.dsf created a month ago. Meanwhile, I also saved Character2.dsf (which is identical to the newly created Character.dsf), which works as expected.

Thoughts? I was hoping just to be able to refine existing files and not have to proliferate umpteen Character1,2,...n.dsf files every time I make a change.

melissastjames said:

MeneerWolfman said:

melissastjames said:

certaintree38 said:

I have recently discovered two things:

2. Conversely, if you want to use a G8.1 morph on a G8, all you have to do is drop a copy of the 8.1 morph into the proper G8 morph folder. (Content Library> data > DAZ 3D > Genesis 8 > Female /Male > Morphs ).

I read something that took me through some crazy notepad++ guide to get 8.1 morphs to show up in 4.12 and I was like nopenopenope because there were some characters that had like tons of jcm's etc that I'd need to edit code for one by one. Do I not need to actually do those steps? And what about the G8.1 face morphs, such as the "look" eye movements? Those are 100% of the reason why I do prefer 8.1 over 8...it's all the eyes. 

You do realize the whole point of using Notepad++ is that Notepad++ allows you to find/replace all instances in all files in a subfolder? 

If you ever end up making your own characters or jcm's, Notepad++ is a requirement. Because Daz, in it's usual never works proper way, will start saving the parent line of the jcm file incorrectly. So you'll have to go in and use notepad++ to replace all instances of the f'd up parent line that Daz doesn't save correctly.

I just converted Kota 8.1 to 8 last week. It took me 3 minutes tops.

Even so, is there a way to get the 8.1 facial expression morphs to work/show up on G8...because those are legit the only reason I stick with 8.1 when doing portraits/close-ups. It's the eyes...those "look" morphs.  

Yes. You have to copy the FACS and FACS Expressions to the g8m->morphs->daz 3d folder and then do the similar steps of replacing genesis 8.1m references with g8m, as well as replace the #Genesis81MaleGeom with #geometry in the parent field.

I would recommend regrouping them after you successfully confirm they load and then resave them out using the correct product name and vendor as the original. Otherwise you're going to see some duplicates between g8m facial poses and the g8.1m's

See below with G8M using G8.1M facial poses

Please put some clothes on the female figure or use the Smooth Sahded drawstyle, though the issue is clear with only the male figure.

Almost cetainly this is due to a male character morph for Genesis 8.1 having incorrectly set up corrective morphs for arm posing - they should be used only when the character shape is applied, at which point tey will make the pose look better, but they are triggering even when the shape is not applied, and so they cause distortion. In the Parameters pane option menu (the lined button in the top corner, or right-click the tab) turn on Preferences>Show Hidden Properties, then with the distortion showing (use the simplest pose that will show it) go through the Currently Used group of properties and try each in turn to see if it is the cause - when you do note the name of the character it belongs to, make sure you haven't missed an update to that character, and report it to the store (for Daz products) or vendor (for products from other stores).

AHutchins Art said:

videoninja719 said:

i understand its genesis female 8.1 is new, but i can get the free face transfer to work with 8.1. i wonder will headshop support genesis 8.1? so far i only use headshop and face transfer free for cloning. i think headshop is good as i gets but the textures can screw up, so i just reskin with other character mats

Do it on Gen 8 then apply the morph to  8.1

HeadShop 14 fully supports Gensis 8.1 Male and Female Base figures. HeadShop 14 has been submitted to DAZ for QA and publishing.

Anybody? I thought it was a simple question. Which projection template should be used in Transfer Utility to rig footwear for Genesis 8 (and 8.1) ?

MeneerWolfman said:

melissastjames said:

certaintree38 said:

I have recently discovered two things:

2. Conversely, if you want to use a G8.1 morph on a G8, all you have to do is drop a copy of the 8.1 morph into the proper G8 morph folder. (Content Library> data > DAZ 3D > Genesis 8 > Female /Male > Morphs ).

I read something that took me through some crazy notepad++ guide to get 8.1 morphs to show up in 4.12 and I was like nopenopenope because there were some characters that had like tons of jcm's etc that I'd need to edit code for one by one. Do I not need to actually do those steps? And what about the G8.1 face morphs, such as the "look" eye movements? Those are 100% of the reason why I do prefer 8.1 over 8...it's all the eyes. 

You do realize the whole point of using Notepad++ is that Notepad++ allows you to find/replace all instances in all files in a subfolder? 

If you ever end up making your own characters or jcm's, Notepad++ is a requirement. Because Daz, in it's usual never works proper way, will start saving the parent line of the jcm file incorrectly. So you'll have to go in and use notepad++ to replace all instances of the f'd up parent line that Daz doesn't save correctly.

I just converted Kota 8.1 to 8 last week. It took me 3 minutes tops.

Even so, is there a way to get the 8.1 facial expression morphs to work/show up on G8...because those are legit the only reason I stick with 8.1 when doing portraits/close-ups. It's the eyes...those "look" morphs.  

melissastjames said:

certaintree38 said:

I have recently discovered two things:

2. Conversely, if you want to use a G8.1 morph on a G8, all you have to do is drop a copy of the 8.1 morph into the proper G8 morph folder. (Content Library> data > DAZ 3D > Genesis 8 > Female /Male > Morphs ).

I read something that took me through some crazy notepad++ guide to get 8.1 morphs to show up in 4.12 and I was like nopenopenope because there were some characters that had like tons of jcm's etc that I'd need to edit code for one by one. Do I not need to actually do those steps? And what about the G8.1 face morphs, such as the "look" eye movements? Those are 100% of the reason why I do prefer 8.1 over 8...it's all the eyes. 

You do realize the whole point of using Notepad++ is that Notepad++ allows you to find/replace all instances in all files in a subfolder? 

If you ever end up making your own characters or jcm's, Notepad++ is a requirement. Because Daz, in it's usual never works proper way, will start saving the parent line of the jcm file incorrectly. So you'll have to go in and use notepad++ to replace all instances of the f'd up parent line that Daz doesn't save correctly.

I just converted Kota 8.1 to 8 last week. It took me 3 minutes tops.

I also find if you are using anatomic elements like Golden Palace genitals the GEO shells will ruin the skin tone and will not even replace the skin using a transfer material script that would normally work leaving a grey texture where the anatomical elements are supposed to be. I don't use GEO shells on the more detailed anatomical products that are available from other sites because they always break the material, Gen 8.1 also causes an issue with products that should work with base gen 8 so they have changed something to break older scripts that would fix material issues like skin losing texture.

I only use geo shells on non anatomical models since there is no issue with materials glitching.

I didn't mean you had used it, but rather who ever made the morphs did.

DS4 uses animated joint centers, this allows the bones to be adjusted to better match the shape of a morph, without that the new shape would bend "poorly".

From the sounds of things one or more of the morphs you are using has changed the orientation of that bone, more specifically the X rotation.

Finding the "bad" morph is one thing, fixing it is something else.

I see the promo with the tail applied to a different character. Does the skin apply to a different morph as well? How smoothly does it join up?

That sounds like a DIM issue rather than a Daz Studio issue, because most of the stuff DIM installs is just content. All it does is place that content to the location you choose. It is not really 'installing' content as much as it is dropping it into place.

You have several options.

The easiest one. You can simply pop the old drive into your new PC. After doing so, open Daz, go to the content tab, highlight Daz Studio Formats and right click. Select add a base directory and point it to where that content is located. Done! No downloading or anything needed. However, if you wish to keep the old PC like it is, then this is not an option. To see where the files are on the drive, that is below.

You could copy your library to a new drive. Where it is located can vary as you can change the location. You can find the location on the old computer by either opening DIM or Daz, and looking at the settings. In Daz, you can look at the content tab again, in the top corner will be the options with a little triangle and lines. When you click select content directory manager. From here you can see all the content drives you have, and what their file paths are. So now you can find that path and copy past away to the new drive. Depending on how much content you have, and how fast the drives and PCs are, it could take a good while for Windows to perform this.

Or you could install content manually. But that involves download it all and moving it to the Daz folder paths as well. This could take even longer than copy/paste, as now you have to factor in download speeds from Daz.

I have all my content on a secondary drive, so when I move to a new PC, I just transfer that drive to the new PC and skip the whole content install process. You could also use an external drive for this, though many externals can be pretty slow.

Catherine3678ab said:

Hellboy said:

I don't know hot to create autofit clones, but as mentioned, you could rig it. But you would need to export it first as OBJ, reshape it for Genesis 3 Male in a modeler software, import back, use Transfer Utility and then clean the weight maps. Probably also creating JCM. Another option is Dforce it, especially if the under part won't be visible.

This would be your best option I think. You cannot create autofit clones without having said figures, i.e. Dusk. 

You can get Dusk SE at Rendo now (instead of Hivewire) for $29.95. He also comes free with Poser Pro 11.2+, according to the Dusk SE page at Rendo.

Hellboy said:

I don't know hot to create autofit clones, but as mentioned, you could rig it. But you would need to export it first as OBJ, reshape it for Genesis 3 Male in a modeler software, import back, use Transfer Utility and then clean the weight maps. Probably also creating JCM. Another option is Dforce it, especially if the under part won't be visible.

This would be your best option I think. You cannot create autofit clones without having said figures, i.e. Dusk. 

TheMysteryIsThePoint said:

Gordig's and felis's suggestion is a must.

Do you use Blender at all? I'd add that another must is to use a Boolean Modifier (Difference) to carve the figure's position out of the chair so that there are no intersections. You can export/import the chair via obj and use it instead of the original chair, just for the purposes of collision calculations. If this seems hard, rest assured that it's really not.

It's a PITA but I've also found that not trying to sim from a zeroed pose to the final pose in one step helps. The problem is that the cloth builds up velocity as it moves from its initial position towards the final position and that either makes it overshoot the final position and look unnatural, or it outright causes intersections and explodes later even though there were no intersections at the start. So sim a little, make a morph, and use that as the initial position for the next sim, where everything will start out with zero velocity again. You can, in that way, "ease" everything into position. This will really help if the character is doing something like hugging her knees to her breast while sitting. If this sounds like an ordeal, it's because it is, but O what we do for art.

Another option, which I don't know will be attractive to you, is to forget dForce and try your hand at Marvelous Designer. Marvelous Designer will just work.

Good luck, either way.

I really appreciate all this but its all over my head. I have no idea what to do. Thank you for trying.

Serene Night said:

One thing I'd really like is a 'wave' to surf on. There are some fairly decent ocean surfaces, but no surfable waves

Yeah, me too. In suitable PBR sets of surf waves that morph.

Only time it works for me - unless it's actually a Genesis character (Or, apparently, one using the tech even if it's not got Genesis in the description)  is if I use "Environments and Props". 

Doing so sadly horribly botches the rig - messed up weighting, all joints oriented the same, etc  -  and won't create a Morph Tag.... But it loads it at least. 

Gordig's and felis's suggestion is a must.

Do you use Blender at all? I'd add that another must is to use a Boolean Modifier (Difference) to carve the figure's position out of the chair so that there are no intersections. You can export/import the chair via obj and use it instead of the original chair, just for the purposes of collision calculations. If this seems hard, rest assured that it's really not.

It's a PITA but I've also found that not trying to sim from a zeroed pose to the final pose in one step helps. The problem is that the cloth builds up velocity as it moves from its initial position towards the final position and that either makes it overshoot the final position and look unnatural, or it outright causes intersections and explodes later even though there were no intersections at the start. So sim a little, make a morph, and use that as the initial position for the next sim, where everything will start out with zero velocity again. You can, in that way, "ease" everything into position. This will really help if the character is doing something like hugging her knees to her breast while sitting. If this sounds like an ordeal, it's because it is, but O what we do for art.

Another option, which I don't know will be attractive to you, is to forget dForce and try your hand at Marvelous Designer. Marvelous Designer will just work.

Good luck, either way.

...another interesting observation I can share is that at least some dForce hair - for example - Electro Hair ( here, which I happened to use on M3 a coupla posts ago ) is not generated as RiCurves, but rather as PointsPolygons. Which is a bit insane as well, since it means that certain vectors have to be swapped in the shader for the ones orthogonal so that everything looks the way it's supposed to. And it also royally messes up the idea to use the v position as the root-to-tip coordinate - which is actually already messed up in Garibaldi and its child SBH, but, well, I thought that this could be applied to those dForce models imported from zBrush or whatever. Well, nope. The UV mapping of the resulting "mesh" is pretty mysterious actually. Will need more work to figure out. I looked at the mixer network of the Iray shader, but couldn't find any UV info there.

To be honest, while I know that DS is now an Iray-based ecosystem, this sort of information would be somewhere in the readme, if I were in charge of those.

Looks like I will need to go through my collection and compile a table of sorts listing what dForce models are 100% RiCurves and what are, well, something else - for the sake of hypothetical lurkers who might need it ten years from now.

What's most annoying - again :P - is that not every dForce hair model (if any) uses that super awesome salting/peppering feature from Garibaldi/SBH. Alright, it gets basically hardcoded into Cs, but what's actually wrong with working with Cs?.. unless whatever scene description format that Iray uses doesn't have anything analogous. Who knows...

I'm thinking about simulating salting/peppering by loading two hair models and combining them with a slightly different RNG seed and, say, 20% of desired density in one and 80% in another. These may be subtle effects, but they mean the difference between a natural hair colour and a dye job. And of course, when it comes to natural colours and longer hair, the sun bleach effect towards the ends is also very important (this is what the root-to-tip gradients are for, not just for purple ombré effects).

https://www.daz3d.com/rocco-hd-for-genesis-81-male - the uniformity of colour is one of the reasons why the hair (most likely it's this one) looks this off on a character who's supposed to be a cisgender man, i.e. the sort of person you'd not expect to get dye jobs. And of course, the way the hair puffs out on top near the parting is also rather artificial.

The character itself (himself? I'm always wondering if we should talk about characters as inanimate products or fictional people??) has me on the fence big time: I really like the face morph and texture. But I don't like the photo-based ample hair on the chest and especially the arms. Not only does it limit the versatility of the texture - it also looks too fake too often.

Decisions, decisions...

Coincidentally, most clothing in the promos also looks rather meh.