@nicstt Should work now. I recently changed to a new computer because my old one died, and on my new system I don’t have the clothes-specific jcms installed. Therefore the plugin always does auto-transfer of jcms, and the bug did not bite me. However, I do have custom body morphs for the clothes installed. The same problem arose when I tried to transfer the pear figure from body to shorts, and that bug is gone now.

@nicstt I can confirm that transfer jcms seems to not work anymore, though I get a different error. Thomas is coding a new morph system so may be something broke up. Now it's reported at diffeomorphic thank you for pointing this out.

https://bitbucket.org/Diffeomorphic/import_daz/issues/142/transfer-jcms-doesnt-work

That idea of yours looks very close to what Daphne should look like.  I may consider this idea when I have some extra money.  I already do have the Lollipop Hair, so the hairband is taken care of.  I do have a scarf, but it was a bigger one and it was a freebie on another site.

So all I really need is Ruby, The Girl 7, Aiko 7, the Layered Fringe hair, and the Super dress and leggings.  I may already have restaurant server shoes, as I believe I have a waitress uniform in my inventory, unless it's an underestimation.

So now that we got Daphne taken care of, all we need is to find out how to do Shaggy and Fred and even Scooby.

I wasn't all that happy with my previous attempt, so I gave it another go, using FSWA Finley for Victoria 7 along with some other morph tweaking:

This looks a bit closer to the cartoon art IMHO, for the face (body is a bit wider ATM).  What do you think?

What is the difference, if any, between starting with the DO HD model or starting with the standard version and dialing in the HD?

If you start from the DO HD model you don't have to dial the morph or change the subdivision level, it does it automatically. That's the only difference.

Question, if I dial in HD body of one character to replace the non-HD body of another character, should I remvoe the normal map of the non-HD character now that he/she has a HD body morph?

Not necessarily. If it looks bad or doesn't give you the result you want, you can remove it, but there's no rule saying you have to do it.

All the morphs for Genesis 2-8 figures are installed and stored following the same logic ...\Data\DAZ 3D\[Genesis generation]\[Gender]\Morphs\...

The morph for Genesis 2 Female can be found in ...\Data\DAZ 3D\Genesis 2\Female\Morphs\... Do a search for *bends and it should give you short enough list to locate the sub-folder which is used for storing the files for "Beautiful Bends" and delete those files = Problem solved for all Genesis 2 Female figures

Genesis 3 Female morphs can be found in ...\Data\DAZ 3D\Genesis 3\Female\Morphs\...

Genesis 8 Female morphs can be found in ...\Data\DAZ 3D\Genesis 8\Female\Morphs\...

As Genesis 1 is the same base figure for both genders, the morphs for them are located in ...\Data\DAZ 3D\Genesis\Base\Morphs\...

A .pmd file - of just the rachel head morph - would work for Poser users as it is, as far as I know, just the morph deltas. Perhaps soemone else could then help with making an INJ pose (which is possible just by cutting sections out of the CR2, with External Binary Morph targets off, but I can't recall the steps and searching wasn't being helpful).

Question, if I dial in HD body of one character to replace the non-HD body of another character, should I remvoe the normal map of the non-HD character now that he/she has a HD body morph? 

A follow-up question: the product HD Body Shapes for G8 from Daz Originals does not come with textures while the HD character I owned has bump map (I assume it functiosn similarly as normal?).  Does this mean I can remove normal/bump map if I replace the character body with the Daz Orginal HD Body Shapes dial but if I use body dial of the said HD character I still need to apply the bump/normal map of the source character? 

I honestly use both normal maps and the HD add-on...most of the time. So for example with Babina 8, I would use her add-on and the normal. It's really down to your preference and what you want to see. Personally, the combination of HD add-on and normals adds just a bit more pop to me in terms of visual detail. But again, that's my preference. 

I normally end up turning down bump maps...they're generally set entirely too high and that's what creates that odd clay or gumby-skin look. 

I would like to use both HD add-on and normal but the difference in rendering time as shown by outrider42 is just too great...

Thanks for the tip on bump map.  I hate the gumby-skin look but always afraid to mess with textures.

Question, if I dial in HD body of one character to replace the non-HD body of another character, should I remvoe the normal map of the non-HD character now that he/she has a HD body morph? 

A follow-up question: the product HD Body Shapes for G8 from Daz Originals does not come with textures while the HD character I owned has bump map (I assume it functiosn similarly as normal?).  Does this mean I can remove normal/bump map if I replace the character body with the Daz Orginal HD Body Shapes dial but if I use body dial of the said HD character I still need to apply the bump/normal map of the source character? 

I honestly use both normal maps and the HD add-on...most of the time. So for example with Babina 8, I would use her add-on and the normal. It's really down to your preference and what you want to see. Personally, the combination of HD add-on and normals adds just a bit more pop to me in terms of visual detail. But again, that's my preference. 

I normally end up turning down bump maps...they're generally set entirely too high and that's what creates that odd clay or gumby-skin look. 

Question, if I dial in HD body of one character to replace the non-HD body of another character, should I remvoe the normal map of the non-HD character now that he/she has a HD body morph? 

A follow-up question: the product HD Body Shapes for G8 from Daz Originals does not come with textures while the HD character I owned has bump map (I assume it functiosn similarly as normal?).  Does this mean I can remove normal/bump map if I replace the character body with the Daz Orginal HD Body Shapes dial but if I use body dial of the said HD character I still need to apply the bump/normal map of the source character? 

Hi all

I have used Daz for a while but just started with Genesis 8 and bought Chirstabel HD from Lyoness

She is great

Only thing I am struggling to figure out is that it came with genitals.duf file and no matter what I try this is not loading onto the model.

Also if I tick filter by Context that doesnt show up so I thought maybe it was for Gen 3 or something but this figure/character is only for Genesis 8.

I have tried 

• Loading a default genesis, then applying Chistabel, then the Genital file - no effect. It "flashes" as if its loading but I dont see it on the figure.
• I have read and tried what others have said with similar issues to no avail

Thoughts

Is it possible this file needs some other morph file that I dont have yet perhaps?

Any other ideas would be apprecaited.

As for the morph bloat : The script should not try to turn this figure into a direct copy of what it is in DS. It is sufficient to simply bake the shape into a main morph, include base JCMs and leave everything else off, otherwise it will be total madness. And I absolutely agree that expression morphs should not even be duplicated onto other figures. The scripts need rulesets to exclude morphs in some way.

OOPS............hit the wrong button, didn't mean to post that so I'll finish the thaught.............

"OK, I have tried dialing all manner of combinations, and I cannot nail down the Daphne look. She seems to have a fairly simple face but getting her to look right in 3D just might be impossible. Tj I'm not having any luck replicating what you did either...........*sigh.

No worries!  I wasn't very happy with my 'stand in' so I took a more serious stab at Daphne.  What do you think of this one?

She's based on FWSA Finley for Victoria 7, with some additional morphs.  I was trying to keep the angled eyes without her looking Asian, if that makes sense...

If you like this version, let me know and I can post up my morph dial settings.  I have a number of different morph kits in my collection, so hopefully you have some/most of them...

Also, I used the mesh grabber tool to adjust the hair so some of it draped over the head band better, while pushing in other parts of the hair underneath the headband, in an attempt to clean up the headband area so that I wouldn't need to do a lot of post work/edit out a bunch of strands that were poking thru the headband.  I didn't do any post work to this image, other than to apply the gradient background behind the render after resizing the image and adding my sig.

This is a question some have been wondering about. For most Daz Original main characters, they offer HD Add On products separately from their bundles. So what do they do?

First of all, they replace the normal maps that the standard model comes with. If you click the character preset for any DO HD add on, it will load the character with no normal maps and at subdivision 3. The regular character will load at subD 2.

So, what does it matter? What are the benefits of buying this HD shape? Does it look different? And what about performance?

I don't think anyone has really discussed performance of these HD add ons. I have always assumed they were more resource intensive, but I never tested that aspect. Many people will say they see little difference between the standard version and the HD version, or that the differences are very subtle. Well yeah, that is by design. The normal maps are doing the job that the HD morph does, so you are getting that detail by texture rather than mesh, that is all. But...the performance may surprise you.

I do not have many HD add ons. I have tended to avoid them. I have Zelara HD, so I tested her.

I created a basic scene at 5000 pixels high of a full body shot, hopefully enough to see the detail. One spotlight, one distant light, default HDRI. No hair, this is testing the character, not hair. I used the help file to get the render times, and I MSI Afterburner to report VRAM usage during the render. I used one of Zelara's bundled poses.

I have two GPUs, both are 1080tis. The 2nd GPU is my monitor GPU, so it always uses more VRAM. I believe the non display GPU is the most reliable one for VRAM use since its only task is rendering Iray. But I will report both VRAM values.

The first test was Zelara's standard default preset, the one that includes normal maps. No HD morph subD 2. No changes or alterations.

Total rendering time: 6 M 12 S, VRAM: 3300 & 4115 MB

So that is our baseline. Next up is Zelara HD. The normal maps are gone, and her subD is at 3.

Total Rendering time: 3 M 55 S, VRAM: 3261 & 4089 MB

And BOOM goes the dynamite! Not only does Zelara HD render much faster, but she even uses a little less VRAM in the process. The surprising thing here is just how wide a gap the difference is, over 2 minutes off of a 6 minute render. Just think how much time that saves over the course of a much longer render. Zelara uses TIF for her normals, but the file sizes are still modest, ranging from 3 to 4 MB each. That may be why the VRAM dropped by a small amount, even though we increased subD to 3. It turns out that trying to resolve topology through normal texture maps is quite expensive for Iray.

I did some additional tests, to see how far this goes.

Zelara HD level 4

Total Render time: 4 M 20 S, VRAM: 3959 & 4788 MB

Now the VRAM is starting to climb. This is due to the subdivision level more than anything. I found that increasing subD adds to VRAM even if you have no HD morph applied. After all, it is still subdividing the mesh. However, the render time is still much lower than the time it took for the normal maps.

I did not do subD level 5, though I can. I had already tested level 5 on a bluejaunt character, and I found VRAM shoot up quite a bit and the render time did as well. This time, the render did take longer than the normal mapped version. But it took cranking up to level 5 to do this!

You get a little more speed by dropping subD to level 2 and even 1, but the gains are surprisingly small. In particular, going from 2 to 1 had almost no changes to speed and VRAM. 2 or 3 seem to be the sweet spot.

Then I went back in time to Genesis 3. I wanted to see if HD rendered faster on older models. Back then we did not have dual lobe specularity. We also did not have chromatic sss, and boy is chromatic sss an expensive option. I chose Mei Lin 7 HD, so a fairly early G3 release back in the days when we were all just starting to grasp this thing called Iray. This was also when Daz was trying to figure out eye materials, remember the sparkly eyes that just refused to resolve?

So I did Mei Lin at her standard default, with the same setup as Zelara at 5000 pixels.

Total render time: 2 M 45 S, VRAM: 3490 & 4475 MB

Wow what a difference a generation makes. And not using chromatic sss. She renders in less than half the time as standard Zelara in the exact same setup. So perhaps this time, the HD morph cannot possibly beat this? So no normals, HD morph and subD 3.

Total render time: 1 M 55 S, VRAM: 3449 & 4435

Holy smokes, Mei Lin blazed by Zelara! However her VRAM usage was actually higher. Mei Lin has normals that are in TIF which are 48 MB each. However, removing those had little impact on VRAM, so that is interesting. But the difference in render speed is pretty high for Mei Lin as well.

Pics of standard with normals vs HD level 3, you should be able to right click to see the full image if you wish to nitpick over them. There are differences, but they are quite minor.

I have replicated these results with other models, and Divamakeup has seen similar as well. So I think we can confirm this, HD Add Ons, when you do not use the normals, can actually save both VRAM and time over using normal maps on standard models. But this mainly holds true of the Daz Original main cast. Outside of them, the PAs may create normal maps to work together with HD shapes, meaning you cannot simply delete them like you can the DO line or you will lose detail.

What does this mean for the future? Well, maybe we don't need normal maps so much! Though including them for people who export is still a plus, I think it would be great if more characters could be created this way. Even though GPU technology is advancing fast, it still helps to be able to get an edge anyway you can. The gains in performance are huge, and many users would appreciate being able to shave off a large percentage of render time like this.

I did discover that not every pose works yet

The official daz documentation states that poses are not supported so I'm not sure if they maintain the #get pose command. So technically this is not a bug but a feature request. Unless the daz docs are wrong that may be possible as well.

https://helpdaz.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360046244152-FAQs-for-Blender-Bridge

Poses will not successfully transfer to Blender.

Maybe I missed it, but what gpu do you have @divamakeup? Is it RTX? We have seen that RTX does better as geometry becomes more complex, which could explain why the HD rendered faster. It could also be how Iray calculates multiple surfaces. The fewer surfaces Iray needs to calculate for, the faster it will be.

 

I recall recently the Unreal 5 demo that Epic showed. They spoke about how it handles geometry, and that because it could handle geometry so well the environmental assets in the demo were not using normal maps. This may not relate to Iray, but it shows that technology is reaching a point to where we may not need normal maps much anymore. The same can be true of bump maps.

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti

Very interesting. A powerful card but not RTX. I wonder if other weaker GPUs would get results like yours. I cannot say...I have two 1080tis, LOL. I could try this with other models and see if they get similar results. I may try some bluejaunte characters. I wonder if the file size of the normal maps have an effect. Some models have normal maps in less compressed formats that are huge.

Which brings up another question, how about VRAM use? Turning off a bunch of normal and bump maps may help VRAM, depending on how much VRAM each HD subdivision takes. There are lot of things to look at here. I am thinking we might be able to save VRAM skipping the normals and using HD. That could be a big win for those looking to squeeze as much into their scene as they can.

Yeah, it's an interesting topic, imo - it would be neat to do some more testing to see if there is a way to pin down "optimal" set up for speed for different types of renders. However, there are so many different variables that can factor in performance and render speed, that it might be difficult to pinpoint "optimal" setups that are "universal" across different machines and video cards (not to mention different versions of Daz Studio as well). Still, I find the subject pretty interesting and it would be nice to be able to pinpoint more optimal surface settings and HD vs Normals vs Bump usage that could make more clear what may be more useful for different types of scenes. 

I did some testing with a bluejaunte character, and found some similar results. Using the normal maps took a few seconds longer. However, what I discovered with this character is that the HD shape is not a replacement for the normal maps. They work together to complete the character, so removing one or the other was not ideal. I imagine a lot of non DO characters are like that.

So for this to work, the characters in question must use HD as a full replacement for normal maps. It is likely that only Daz Originals do this, since the HD morph is usually sold as a separate product.

But I did get some data. Increasing the subD from 1 to 3 had almost no effect on render times, it didn't even effect VRAM usage much. SubD 5 however ballooned both quite a bit. SubD 5 used over 1GB more VRAM and took over a minute longer to render. I feel pretty confident that this trend would hold up for a lot of other characters. Deleting the normal maps improved render times by 20 seconds in a 2 minute render, and all levels of subD still rendered faster  without normals, except for 5.

However, I don't have a ton of HD morphs for DO's. I have Zelara's. And looking at her, she has separate character presets. Zelara HD has her own preset, so I loaded both. It turns out that loading Zelara HD's preset contains no normal maps. I cannot believe I never noticed that. I made a render of her two versions side by side at 6000 pixels, and the difference is very hard to spot, if at all. I will try some more testing on her tomorrow to see if the HD renders faster.

I might make a separate thread to avoid cluttering this one. Or you can. Doesn't matter.

Yeah I believe all the Daz Original "Official 8" HD figures load without any normal maps. And I've tested the HD vs Normal Maps again and consistently keep seeing slightly faster render times with HD with No Normal Maps (or Normal Maps dialled to 0) vs NON-HD figures with Normal Maps. If you end up starting a thread about it let me know. I'd love to check it out. :) Maybe we could get people with other video cards to also do a couple of test renders. I find it pretty interesting since I always thought Normal Maps where a good replacement for HDs that gave faster render times vs HD. It would be interesting if that turns out not to be the case - with the tests I've done so far, it's kind of starting to look like that. lol So weird.

I could be wrong, but I think as far as VRAM is concerned, dialing a texture to zero may still load the texture in memory. I could possibly check that.

I think that we all just have normal maps so ingrained into model making that we probably do not consider the possibility of them no longer being necessary. For games, they do things differently. Like the new Final Fantasy 7 Remake, which has pretty nice graphics. The characters have 3 textures per surface at most. The face has the base color, a normal, and a gloss map. So no bump at all, the normal basically handles that. The face mesh is actually pretty high poly, more than a base Genesis, even though it is a PS4 game. However it is not as dense as a HD subD mesh. It is running on outdated hardware. There is going to be a massive polygon increase on the next generation consoles. We will soon see gaming models with significantly higher poly counts than Daz Genesis, even at HD subD.

I am thinking this change has come as Daz models use more and more maps. We used to see 3 or 4 textures per surface. But today that is shifting as people pursue more realistic skin. So now we not only have more textures per surface than before, but those textures are often larger file sizes. Even when we use the same texture, we may use it for different settings, like a base color is used in the translucency map. For ever new setting, Iray has to resolve these. And as has been pointed out in the past, ray tracing is only one short part of Iray rendering. Most of the render process is resolving the shaders. And what have we done? We have made shaders much more complicated today. So I think that is probably the big factor here. Perhaps testing out past generations of Genesis HD will see different results because those figures did not have as many surface settings and textures.

3D Art Freebie Challenge July 2020 "...Only at the circus"

[Best watched at full size for details.]

"Ladies, Gentlemen, Girls and Boys..."

Starring: Linda and Walther

The tale:

"Ladies, Gentlemen, Girls and Boys, for the next three hours..."

Soundtrack:

Britney Spears - Circus (©2008)  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVhJ_A8XUgc

COUNTABLE FREEBIES: (Alphabetic order)

#01! Background Curtains by ArtTailor
https://www.renderosity.com/mod/freestuff/background-curtains/81296  **

#02! Ball Cane by AllenArt
https://sharecg.com/v/95943/browse/21/DAZ-Studio/Ball-Cane  **

#03! Border Tribe Outfit for G8M by ocelot1300
https://sharecg.com/v/94622/gallery/21/DAZ-Studio/Border-Tribe-Outfit-for-G8M  **

#04! Cute Boy/Girl Comic Tattoos for G8F & G8M by MysticArtDesign
https://sharecg.com/v/92173/gallery/21/DAZ-Studio/Cute-Boy-Girl-Comic-Tattoosby-MysticArtDesign-08-2  **

#05! Dante DMC5 Free Stubble for Genesis 8 Male by InTheFlesh
https://sharecg.com/v/94752/gallery/21/DAZ-Studio/Dante-DMC5-Free-Stubble-for-Genesis-8-Male  **

#06! DOA 6 Marie Rose - Head and Body Morphs for G8F by TritiumCG
https://www.deviantart.com/tritiumcg/art/DOA-6-Marie-Rose-Head-and-Body-Morphs-for-G8F-825236730  **

#07! ED's Brick Shader (Iray) by Edheldil3D 
https://www.deviantart.com/edheldil3d/art/Freebie-ED-s-Brick-Shader-Iray-788871766  **

#08! Eyes Dilate for Genesis 8 Female by felldude
https://www.renderosity.com/mod/freestuff/eyes-dilate-for-genesis-8-female/82869  **

#09! Flo Makeup For Genesis 8 Females by AprilYSH
http://shop.aprilsvanity.com/flo-makeup-for-genesis-8-females.html

#10! Iray car related shader presets 'megapack' by Tom2099
https://www.deviantart.com/tom2099/art/Iray-car-related-shader-presets-megapack-539622361  **

#11! Iray Jewelry Shaders by AllenArt 
https://sharecg.com/v/95893/gallery/21/DAZ-Studio/Iray-Jewelry-Shaders  **

#12! Kristen Stewart - Head and Body Morphs for G8F by TritiumCG
https://www.deviantart.com/tritiumcg/art/Kristen-Stewart-Head-and-Body-Morphs-for-G8F-841957993  **

#13! Leotard for G8F VER2.0 by aemi1970
https://sharecg.com/v/95820/browse/21/DAZ-Studio/LEOTARD-FOR-G8F-VER2.0  **

#14! Let's Put On A Show by Blondie9999  (DAZ3D Bi-weekly Freebie Jul 6 - Jul 20)
https://www.daz3d.com/let-s-put-on-a-show  **

#15! Linda - Character for G3F with texture maps by Edelzwicker
https://www.sharecg.com/v/89731/related/21/DAZ-Studio/Linda-Character-for-G3F-with-texture-maps  **

#16! Long Morph for Toulouse hair for G8F by DireWorks
https://www.renderosity.com/mod/freestuff/sometimes-they-come-back-long-morph-for-toulouse-hair-for-g8f/83745  **

#17! Mic Set by MDP
https://sites.google.com/site/mdp6gdl/  (item 9)

#18! My Heart Necklace for Genesis 8 Female by amyaimei
https://www.deviantart.com/amyaimei/art/My-Heart-Necklace-for-Genesis-8-Female-729010047  **

#19! Mystical Flowers by MysticArtDesign
https://sharecg.com/v/95862/browse/21/DAZ-Studio/Mystical-Flowers  **

#20! Nero DMC5 Free Hair For G8M by InTheFlesh
https://sharecg.com/v/95400/view/21/DAZ-Studio/Nero-DMC5-Free-Hair-For-G8M  **

#21! Pretty Look for Genesis 8 Female(s) by zoro_d
https://www.renderosity.com/mod/freestuff/pretty-look-for-genesis-8-female-s-/83823  **

#22! Realistic Curtains by Cherubit
https://www.renderosity.com/mod/freestuff/realistic-curtains/83637  **

#23! Scottish Kilt for G8M by Wilmap's Digital Creations
https://www.wilmapsdigitalcreations.co.uk/view_product.php?id=476  **

#24! Shimmery Sheer Fabrics II by AllenArt
https://sharecg.com/v/95898/gallery/21/DAZ-Studio/Shimmery-Sheer-Fabrics-II  **

#25! Shiny Wood Tiles Free PBR Texture by CGAxis
https://free.cgaxis.com/product/shiny-wood-tiles-free-pbr-texture/  *1

#26! Spotlight Prop by DrBoots
https://www.deviantart.com/drboots/art/Freebie-Daz-3D-Studio-Iray-Spotlight-Prop-582958157  **

#27! STRONG for G8M Character Morph & Pose by Mar3D
https://www.renderosity.com/mod/freestuff/strong-for-g8m-character-morph-amp-pose/82833  **

#28! SY 200 Morphs for Genesis 8 Head and Body by SickleYield
https://sharecg.com/v/91888/view/21/DAZ-Studio/SY-200-Morphs-for-Genesis-8-Head-and-Body  **

#29! Vergil Devil May Cry 5 Hair for G8M by InTheFlesh
https://sharecg.com/v/93892/gallery/21/DAZ-Studio/Vergil-Devil-May-Cry-5-Hair-for-G8M  **

#30! Walther for G8M by Ruslanomar
https://sharecg.com/v/92848/browse/21/DAZ-Studio/G8M-Walther  **

Oops, and I would almost forget these three;

#31! dForce_French Twist Hair for Genesis 8 Female(s) by zoro_d
https://www.renderosity.com/mod/freestuff/dforce-french-twist-hair-for-genesis-8-female-s-/81937  **

#32! Diamond Dome Earrings for G8F by AllenArt !
https://sharecg.com/v/95897/gallery/21/DAZ-Studio/Diamond-Dome-Earrings-for-G8F  **

#33! Suit for Genesis 8 Female by Most Digital Creations
https://www.most-digital-creations.com/g8f_suit.php  *1

NO-COUNT ITEMS:

++   Basic Wear for G8M by DAZ Originals
---    Bezel Cut Ring for Genesis 3 & 8 Female by AllenArt
---    Cute L.I.E. Makeup by Cherubit  (The Holiday Loyalty Sale 2019 Free Item)
---    Free Iray Outdoor Lights by Dreamlight
---    IDG Vibrant Light Probes  (The Holiday Loyalty Sale 2018 Free Item)
---    Iray Fabric Shaders by AllenArt
---    Nose Ring 01 for G2F, G3F and/or G8F by AllenArt
---    Sneakers for G8M by Tab
++   Toulouse Hair for Genesis 8 Female by Daz Originals

PURCHASED/PAID FOR ITEMS: Uhmm, let me see... no, none   100%   Freebies  :)

*1     E-mail address required
**     Registration required
#x!   Countable Items (Bold ones are used by me for the first time I think.)
---     No longer available freebies
++    Free with DAZ Studio (or the Essentials)
$x.   Purchased/Paid For Item

Rendered with DAZ Studio 4.10.0.123 (nVidia Iray)

Other free software used: GIMP v2.10.18 and Irfanview 4.54

Postwork: used the AltaLux Image Enhancement Filter (Effect) by Stefano Tommesani that comes with Irfanview and some filters (oa) that come with GIMP.

"Ladies, Gentlemen, Girls and Boys..."

To all the respondants.  Thanks for the information,  I'm relieved might be able to transfer my license one way or another.

To Kenshaw...Um..., I know what "OEM" is but what is "CS"?  

Yeah, I have a Microsoft account, several of them accidentally established over the years, but I hate the damn things cause I can never remember which one is which or which one I established last.  I doubt that I've ever logged into a Microsoft account with this particular computer.

The whole concept of a Microsoft account has confused me from the beginning.  Can I use 3rd-party mail domains?  Do I have to use Outlook domain?  And the way they nag you to establish an MS account when installing a system and setting up your user accounts without telling you that you don't have to have an MS account and that it can be bypassed if you find the teeny tiny print that says continue without one.  It always seemed like slimy business practice and I feel like I'm being herded into the gas chamber.

I'll do it, and use one if necessary but just for the record it's under protest.

Meanwhile:  COMPLAINT:  I just got notice from USPO tracking that my package with my new CPU chip has been delivered, ... 1200 miles away from here.  Grrrrr.  Now I have to fight with Amazon or the vendor or the USPO to either find me another chip (relatively rare 2nd generation, refurbished) or get my package redirected to me, or get my money back.  I should have payed attention when I noticed that the Amazon 3rd-party vendor had a 20% unsatisfactory rating.

Sorry about the screwup I had that happen last fall with a much less important part but it was still really annoying. It was like "How did you decide Chicago Il was Bangkok?"

I have my Microsoft account through a single 3rd party email, created just for the purpose. But it lets me move that license around as needed. Makes my life so much easier. This rig is the 4th or 5th mobo and the 6th, I think CPU, using it. I'm not really a fan of it and the way things are going I think in the not distant future Windows will just be full on free but till it is I'll deal.

A little off topic but I do DAZ work on the machine so. ...

BACKGROUND:I have a valid license for my existing Windows10-Pro machine.  It was originally bought 10 years ago with Win7-home, then upgraded to Win7-Pro and recently (about a year ago) upgraded again to Win10-Pro.  The original  1TB "C:\" hard drive has been replaced twice.  First with a newer 1TB hard drive and then recently (about 3 months ago) with a 1TB solid-state drive.   Licensing transfer from Win7-Pro to Win10-Pro was no problem, it just worked automatically as Microsoft said it would.

HOWEVER, I know that sometimes if too many parts of a computer are replaced, then the licensing can be a problem because they think you are trying to spread the same license over multiple machines.

MY QUESTION:  I am currently ready to again upgrade this computer with a newer and better SSD, and a better CPU chip.  The motherboard stays the same though.  I plan on saving my files then removing my existing "C:\" SSD and archiving it just in case of disaster.  At the same time, I'm replacing the CPU chip and installing a completely fresh download of Windows10 from the Microsoft website and then reinstall all my needed applications from scratch onto the new SSD (essentially discarding all the problematic baggage of old apps from 10 years of accumulation and iffy upgrades).  Can I expect that the existing license will work on the upgraded system?  If it doesn't work, then do I have recourse to petition Microsoft to let me license my system?

Howdy LeatherGryphon,

Asssuming you have an OEM licences, vices a retail license (OEM license would be on a sticker that is on the case, and have the letters OEM somewhere in it), as long as you keep the same motherboard, you are in the clear legally.  You may have to activate by phone, one-time which is quick, usually automated and easy.  When prompted, just say that the licenes is on only 1 PC.  If that doesn't work, they would have you talk with someone, whom you can again explain that it is on 1 PC, and you have the same motherboard, and they should acitvate it for you no problem.  Once you have succesfully activated on that system, you should be able to automatically activate again in the future.

Now if you have a retail version of Windows (7 Home, to 7 Pro, to Windows 10 Pro), then you can replace 100% of the PC, and as long as it s only on 1 PC, you are legally clear.  You may have to go through phone activation as above, but as long as you have it on only 1 PC, you should be fine.  Good luck!

Rich S.

Some key notes here: Exporting clothing from MD to DAZ, ensure two things.  First, export as thin mesh, not thick.  Also, export as quads as these smooth and collide better in DAZ.  The transfer utility is helpful for initial setup, but you'll need to edit weight maps to get things moving just right.  Last, design the clothing on the default pose.  Export the figure from DAZ as an OBJ and import as an OBJ avatar.  There's a good tutorial in one of the recent threads, so scroll or search through this forum.

TJ I appreciate your vote of confidence on Velma. So you think I need to make her less busty? BTW, I tried my best to get Ruby like what you created to no avail, Could you possibly share your dial settings for your Daphne character?

I think her bust size may be fine, it's the spare tire that is distracting me. Velma is a bit stocky, but in the cartoon art she doesn't seem to be carrying a lot of extra weight on her belly...

As for my Ruby settings, that's a bit complicated, but off of the top of my head I narrowed up her torso/hip/chest area a bit to make her look more slender without making her arms too in (i.e. didn't use the 'thin' slider).  I also reduced her breasts (breast smaller) by say 75% as Ruby is very busty. 

The face involved adusting the 'round/square/heart' shape, dialing down the round/square-ness a bit, then increasing the jaw size a small bit, tweaking the cheeks, dropping the iris size a bit, and adjusting the eye angle and round-ness.  I have a number of different morph packages for G3F, so you may not have all of the morphs I do.  If I were to adjust her further, I'd probably tweak the cheeks some more (I shifted them down and adjusted the outer curve btw), as they are still looking a bit too prominent to me ATM, IMHO.

I also shifted the nose and mouth down a bit, thinned the lips slightly, 'un-flattened' the face using the 'flatten face' morph whatever that one is called at say -100%, and adusted the nose tip depth to bring it forward a small bit. 

The big thing was swapping out Ruby's textures for Aiko 7's, and then giving the Aiko skin a bit of a 'tan' with the base, translucency and glossy color and such, she looks better with the Aiko textures in this case IMHO.  Aiko's eye choices were all too light (I like them otherwise) so I tried a few other 'slightly darker purple' options, I picked purple because of the dress color... dark brownish eyes might be fine too.

There mey be other characters out there that'll work fine too, I just picked Girl 7 for my starting point as she's more stylized.  Also, some might suggest going with Genesis 8 characters, so that choice will depend on what's in your library at the moment.  I always have trouble with shoes going between Genesis 3 and 8 when it comes to shoes, and most of my library is older so Genesis 3 is my 'default' starting point..  Older shoes will sometimes autofit OK up to Genesis 3, but due to the pose change weird things can happen going to Genesis 8.  There's a suggested workaround for this, but it's been more 'miss' than hit for me r.e. shoes.  But that's a different discussion...

You could go with Genesis 2 characters as well, those characters seem to lend themselves to 'stylized' a bit better, I went with Genesis 3 as I have more morphs for G3F than I do for G2F, and Genesis 3 seems to be a 'happy medium' r.e. autofitting.

In any case, I'll have to look at the settings later to see what exactly I did, but that's what I remember off of the top of my head.  Hopefully I put you on the right path in the meantime.