Hi guys. It may be a newbie question, so be it.

After losing a lot of my Poser content because of a defective external HDD (which prompted me to embrace DAZ about 1y ago), I'm curious on how you guys manage your content libraries. 

I've recently bought a new rig with a 500gb SSD drive for Windows, and I'm storing my personal content library on a portable 2TB Western Digital disk so that I can use it also on my laptop. However, it looks fragile, and I'm afraid of losing my content again. Should I transfer all the content to an external (tabletop eSATA) HDD? Or should I buy a newer, bigger, internal one?

Which kind of HDD is best for storing libraries? Do you save it on an external HDD? A portable one? An SSD (which may be expensive, as DAZ3D libraries tend to be bigger than Poser ones)? Or just a good old internal drive? What are the pros and cons of each option?
Thank you for your replies! :)

Yeah, I've been using Image resizer for years. It is quite useful for many things.

If you were wondering what Rarestone's Minto would look like with Edie's skin, look no further! No Edie morph, this is just her skin on Minto.

Nice. I really like Edie's skin. Very detailed.

That is why it is important to fully explain what you've done.  If you are expecting to do a morph, you cannot use anything in ZBrush that will add geometry, such as ZModeler. You can only reshape the mesh. Most brushes (standard, clay, move) do not add geometry. ZModeler most definitely can.

There's morph which lenghtens hair aprox. 30%, because this haircut was intended as long hair. Shorter hair needs to have completely different dForce weight influence-maybe next time... Hey, you are not ignored, we were just trying to fit it on G3F...load hair, do not fit them on figure, in scene identification change preferred base to G3F and then fit. It should work. We'll be out of reach for a while now, but we'll answer all the questions ASAP.

Thank you for your answer. 

Would it possible to update the the product with G3 support for a more comforable usage? As long there is nothing like GenX for transphering morphs to G8 I am stick with G3. I heared G3 support for a G8 hair should be a easy to do. 

If you do an new dForce hair product I would a very intersted into a hair which is morphable from ear length (or shorter) to shoulder length. It should be fit from the styling to your current long hair product (means hair middle parting). The idea is to have hair growth on the same character from short to very long. Or maybe this could be an add on to this long hair product?

Using G8 content on G3 is super easy. The only thing that doesn't transfer well is shoes. Here's a tutorial by the awesome SickleYield:

There's morph which lenghtens hair aprox. 30%, because this haircut was intended as long hair. Shorter hair needs to have completely different dForce weight influence-maybe next time... Hey, you are not ignored, we were just trying to fit it on G3F...load hair, do not fit them on figure, in scene identification change preferred base to G3F and then fit. It should work. We'll be out of reach for a while now, but we'll answer all the questions ASAP.

Thank you for your answer. 

Would it possible to update the the product with G3 support for a more comforable usage? As long there is nothing like GenX for transphering morphs to G8 I am stick with G3. I heared G3 support for a G8 hair should be a easy to do. 

If you do an new dForce hair product I would a very intersted into a hair which is morphable from ear length (or shorter) to shoulder length. It should be fit from the styling to your current long hair product (means hair middle parting). The idea is to have hair growth on the same character from short to very long. Or maybe this could be an add on to this long hair product?

Can you please list exactly what you did from the time you exported your figure? You exported the full figure at base mesh, correct?

Did you bring the model back using Morph Loader Pro or did you import the obj?

Is there a morph to shorten the hair to ear or at least shoulder length? If not @Linday could you add?

Why no G3 support?

There's morph which lenghtens hair aprox. 30%, because this haircut was intended as long hair. Shorter hair needs to have completely different dForce weight influence-maybe next time... Hey, you are not ignored, we were just trying to fit it on G3F...load hair, do not fit them on figure, in scene identification change preferred base to G3F and then fit. It should work. We'll be out of reach for a while now, but we'll answer all the questions ASAP.

No, you saw me recommending people watch Mada's tutorial. :D  She's the best.

Alternately, with my own pants that have down morphs, the best way to make them work sitting is to conform to the figure once to pick up morphs, unconform the pants, morph them, and parent/position them around the legs.  This means you may have to manually scale or dial in the body morphs, but it avoids the distortion issue.

Okay, by conform and then unconform....  do you mean as in, apply the pants to the character (say, G3M) so they get the (G3M) morphs, then unparent the pants from the character?  Is there a tutorial somewhere on doing what you're describing here?

Is there a morph to shorten the hair to ear or at least shoulder length? If not @Linday could you add?

Why no G3 support?

NEW CHARACTER

Was messing in Blender anf FaceGen Artist and created this morph

NEW SHIRT

Now this is a much tidier mesh. Tried the easy way this time and started with a cylinder.  Also, I used Blender's mirror modifier to cut my work in half.

I think the best budget card for iray right now is the Nvidia 1060 6gb edition. Right  amount of vram vs price and performance.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814487260

 

The list price of the NVIDIA reference card is $299 (out of stock), vs. $289 + shipping for this EVGA model in the link.   So, this price is not inflated. 

Well, if you consider the 1060 is approaching 2 years old it kind of is still high. Normally the bigger cards would be at least $50 to $100 cheaper than launch at this stage of their life. But aside from that, I worry about it only having a single fan. Iray can be harder on GPUs than video games, though it depends on the user. I know the 1060 is much more efficient than most cards (that's why miners love it so much,) but I'd still be paranoid about it.

Anyway, KEEP WAITING if you can. Everybody is expecting the market to plunge, including the board makers.

https://wccftech.com/nvidia-and-amd-graphics-card-aibs-are-expecting-a-plunge-of-up-to-40-in-demand-in-april/

If demand really drops that much, whoa, prices will drop like a stone. Now this could backfire. If the AIBs cut production and there is a sudden spike, we'd all be screwed over yet again. Still, I strongly advise holding out, especially as the 1100 series looms. The Pascal cards are now entering a lame duck phase and should drop.

Just to note, every single GPU I have ever bought has been from ebay. Granted, I'm only one person and I haven't bought a ton of them, but they all have worked. I bought from people who have sold other things besides electronics. Basically they seemed like normal people who were simply upgrading their PCs, which is what they claimed. I didn't do auctions, I just can't stomach that. If you are willing, you can get super deals, but an auction requires fighting for the item and I don't have time for that. A buy it now item doesn't have that, you just click and buy. Done. And again, if the item isn't too old, it may still have a warranty which can transfer. GPUs generally all have 3 year warranties. But the 1000 series is not 3 years old yet. That means most of the 1000s out there should still be under warranty. You can check with each manufacturer to see if they allow the transfer of a warranty on second hand sales. I'm pretty sure most do. The serial number tells them exactly when it was made.

When I tried her with other textures and a few morph tweaks, she was no where near as bad as the promos.  Stephanie 8 was even worse with her native textures, but adding a bit of her morph to other characters can look surprisingly good.

Thanks. You have a good point. How else can you make Barbie's look less fantastic plastic. I'll give it a go. And for the record I love 'ugly' Ollie and Edie because I think they are nothing short of gorgeous creatures.

Yes, I love them too. But they were meant to be that quirky characature look, not the flagship Victoria. But the truth is, the original Victorias, gen 1,2,3 were more like generic Genesises, without much of a distinctive look to them and not particularly attractive as is, because you were meant to MORPH them. That was the whole point. It wasn't until V5, that Victoria or Stephanie and all the original Daz characters to come had distinct looks. V7 was so ridiculously gorgeous that it was my incentive to learn DS after being a die hard Poser user (and IRay too...) 

I really like the look of Edie 8 and her alter-egos but I don't have any other G8 characters or morph packs or all the Zev0 stuff that I normally use with G3 to fashion my own version of characters. I see here some lovely mixes with other characters which makes me even more envious.

I would beg for a G3F version but I'm pretty sure that DAZ and the PA would not be open to that. Oh, and I have the toon generations for G3 which I bet would mix so well with an Edie G3. Ah well, never mind.

When I tried her with other textures and a few morph tweaks, she was no where near as bad as the promos.  Stephanie 8 was even worse with her native textures, but adding a bit of her morph to other characters can look surprisingly good.

Thanks. You have a good point. How else can you make Barbie's look less fantastic plastic. I'll give it a go. And for the record I love 'ugly' Ollie and Edie because I think they are nothing short of gorgeous creatures.

Hi,

I made figures based on the G8F.
However, Power Pose loads "Default (Genelic)" instead of "base (Genesis 8 Female)" of G8F.
The original G8F loads the default Power Pose correctly, but in morph figures this symptom often occurs.
I guess that this phenomenon occurs because Power Pose can not find the geometry name from Templates.dxe.
However, Templates.dxe of G8F is encrypted and can not be confirmed.
When loading the figure of G8F, if loading "Default (Genelic)" of Power pose, please tell me how to change to "base (Genesis 8 Female)" of G8F.

Or how do I display the geometry name of the corresponding figure?

Thanks.

I just loaded up Pix Tilwig and the pixie ears got added automatically.  I actually didn't want her to be a pixe - I was trying to create a child for Edie.  So I figured I'd turn off the ears. I turned off all the Pix Tilwig morphs and the ears are still there.  Jeesh - I just zereod Genesis 8 and the ears are still there!!  I clicked on Currently Used.  Nada.  It looks like the ears are baked into the character.  I got around it somewhat by turning off the limits on the Edie 8 Ears morph.  Hair would take care of the rest.  But on the whole, I think I'll just start over with Edie and see what Growing Up does to her.  Just thought I'd mention it.

There's a "Tilwig Ears Remove" setting in her folder. :)

I did some adjustment to Tilwig to make a younger version. Here's a side by side of the default Tilwig next to the younger version:

Here are the adjustments I made, if you're interested. If not, no biggy. Just thought I'd share just in case. heheh :) I don't have Growing Up, so had to do some tweaking without it. 

 

 

 

She is cute!

I just loaded up Pix Tilwig and the pixie ears got added automatically.  I actually didn't want her to be a pixe - I was trying to create a child for Edie.  So I figured I'd turn off the ears. I turned off all the Pix Tilwig morphs and the ears are still there.  Jeesh - I just zereod Genesis 8 and the ears are still there!!  I clicked on Currently Used.  Nada.  It looks like the ears are baked into the character.  I got around it somewhat by turning off the limits on the Edie 8 Ears morph.  Hair would take care of the rest.  But on the whole, I think I'll just start over with Edie and see what Growing Up does to her.  Just thought I'd mention it.

There's a "Tilwig Ears Remove" setting in her folder. :)

I did some adjustment to Tilwig to make a younger version. Here's a side by side of the default Tilwig next to the younger version:

Here are the adjustments I made, if you're interested. If not, no biggy. Just thought I'd share just in case. heheh :) I don't have Growing Up, so had to do some tweaking without it. 

Yeah, I've been using Image resizer for years. It is quite useful for many things.

If you were wondering what Rarestone's Minto would look like with Edie's skin, look no further! No Edie morph, this is just her skin on Minto.

i see the 50% of Edie and someone else, but my mixes surely don;t seem to come out the same. they still look more like Edie.

Try the Nose Small morph that comes with Edie. I should be under: Shaping Tab >> Nose.

It's called "Edie 8 Nose Small" - it's pink and should be easy to spot. :) I find that if I dial that in a bit (between 35% and 45%) when I use a 50% Edie mix, it helps tone the Edie look down a bit and blend a bit more naturally with ot
her character morphs (that's just my opinion and preference, of course). :)

thanks will find that . i get lost in a llot of things with DS ... its why i didnt use it at all until just months ago with 4.9 just before 4.10 came out

I've been using it for about two years and I still get lost in DS sometimes. heheh But it's gotten WAY easier to find the things I want - it's like anything, the more you use it the easier it is to navigate and find things. :)

i see the 50% of Edie and someone else, but my mixes surely don;t seem to come out the same. they still look more like Edie.

Try the Nose Small morph that comes with Edie. I should be under: Shaping Tab >> Nose.

It's called "Edie 8 Nose Small" - it's pink and should be easy to spot. :) I find that if I dial that in a bit (between 35% and 45%) when I use a 50% Edie mix, it helps tone the Edie look down a bit and blend a bit more naturally with ot
her character morphs (that's just my opinion and preference, of course). :)

thanks will find that . i get lost in a llot of things with DS ... its why i didnt use it at all until just months ago with 4.9 just before 4.10 came out