@crosswind: Thanks for the suggestion!

@Padone:
YES - that was it! Nice!
I shut down CMS before saving to a new scene file, and DS was done saving it immediately.
Now I just have to figure out how to fix my CMS instances. I use a lot of custom categories and need CMS to quickly find assets.
I seem to remember that you can export that database and then re-import it. I wonder if that will get rid of any corruption issues that have caused those saving delays.

But - at least now I know what's causing this issue! Thanks again!

Update:
OK, to wrap this up;
I've exported the db and reset it. After re-importing it, I got all my categories back AND it not longer hangs while saving a scene for the first time.
Never would have guessed that CMS might have been the issue here, so, thanks again, Padone!

Does it happen just on some specific scene or all of them ?

You may try with a clean content folder with just the G8 pack installed. If the issue goes away then it means it's some conflicting assets in your project, or you may also have nested content folders.

It may also be that for some reason it takes a long time to update the metadata, that would explain why it happens only the first time you save. If you use manual install instead of dim then there's no metadata to update. Also you may avoid "smart" content and use the content librray directly. Or you can stop the CMS and/or reset the database and see if it does the trick, the daz assets will work just fine without the CMS apart that you have to autofit by hand.

You used DTB to have this imported in Blender ?!  It seems a pure FBX import... Yes, DTB works but strongly recommend Diffeomorphic Daz Importer.

felis said:

Succees...

Here it is as an obj.

Import it into DS in scale 10000%.

Thank you so much! Very kind of you.

Succees...

Here it is as an obj.

Import it into DS in scale 10000%.

Diomede said:

Hmm.  Just brainstorming.  Can you isolate it in obj form and reimport it?  At least you would not have to remke it.  Thinking of something like exporting as obj, selecting its shader domain, inverting, and deleting.  Then import it.  Or perhaps essentially the same process using the Hexagon bridge?  Or, is this reimporting-OBJ approach what you are trying to avoid?  

I did try exporting it from the G8 shirt and going through the same conversion process I did with the shirt geometry, but the verticies were not in identical places on the converted shirt and the converted addon geometry, so I think that means that it will not work as a dForce dynamic addon. 

Hmm.  Just brainstorming.  Can you isolate it in obj form and reimport it?  At least you would not have to remke it.  Thinking of something like exporting as obj, selecting its shader domain, inverting, and deleting.  Then import it.  Or perhaps essentially the same process using the Hexagon bridge?  Or, is this reimporting-OBJ approach what you are trying to avoid?  

Categorization is one specific task that networks typically perform in many cases, and this appears to be a great way to leverage the metadata for DAZ assets. Combine this with the ability to understand text prompts (another thing that networks are already trained to do) and it seems like a perfect fit to me.

The video I watched didn't look like it was promising anything that isn't achievable - just a useful application of the technology. It's like a layer of abstraction above dial spinning. Personally, I'm excited to try it out and signed up for the beta.

- Greg

Hello all,

I recently had to install a new drive and transfer all my Daz studio content onto the E drive because my C was nearly full. It was a bit of a head ache. I had to uninstall and reinstall twice, but I finally got everything transfered onto the new drive and working. The only problem is now I can see anything in the Local User tab!

I have a number of custom characters that I shaped and saved as scenes and then I would use the Local User tab in smart content to import my characters into scenes because I'm making a comic book. But now the Local user tab no longer shows up under saved files. I have to search for it in All Products. And when I select Local User, I see nothing. I have made several test scenes and saved them to see if it would populate the Local User tab in smart content and nothing happens. 

I have all my original characters saved as scenes in another duplicate file that I can use to load the characters, but now I have no way of loading more than one into a scene together. I really need the Local User tab to do what it did before and show my all my save files.

Does anyone know how to fix this?

I've got 2 images for reference but can't get them to upload to daz because that's just the way my day is going lol. Here is the link: https://www.deviantart.com/mademoiselle3dart/art/Local-User-001-966111754 ; and: https://www.deviantart.com/mademoiselle3dart/art/Local-User-002-966112421

Any advice appreciate! Thanks in advance.

wildbillnash said:

Okay, Crosswind, I did it and this is what I got when I clicked on it.

I'm terribly sorry !! I must've been sleepy at that time!

As below: Right click menu - Edit Metadata...

Mada said:

outrider42 said:

USD is going to be a big deal, it's in the name...Universal. We need a standard. With USD new doors will open in every direction. Anybody who doesn't use USD will get left behind. If DS gets it then that will change everything. DS FBX import sucks, it sucks unbelievably bad, and DS has no good options to import a model with rigging or even most textures in place. DUF is not a standard, and is proprietary to Daz. I can see a future where DS content will natively support USD for easy export. They will not need to do a separate download for Unreal, Unity, Blender, ect, ect. They can do it all with one format.

From the blog : "  and its next update will include NVIDIA’s Omniverse via support for Universal Scene Description (OpenUSD)OpenUSD. "

https://maketafi.com/newsroom

I saw that, I was mainly responding to a comment that USD was still niche. 

outrider42 said:

USD is going to be a big deal, it's in the name...Universal. We need a standard. With USD new doors will open in every direction. Anybody who doesn't use USD will get left behind. If DS gets it then that will change everything. DS FBX import sucks, it sucks unbelievably bad, and DS has no good options to import a model with rigging or even most textures in place. DUF is not a standard, and is proprietary to Daz. I can see a future where DS content will natively support USD for easy export. They will not need to do a separate download for Unreal, Unity, Blender, ect, ect. They can do it all with one format.

From the blog : "  and its next update will include NVIDIA’s Omniverse via support for Universal Scene Description (OpenUSD)OpenUSD. "

https://maketafi.com/newsroom

This isn't generating something like the AI generators do. This is basically TEXT Controlled Daz Studio, nothing more, and a simplified DS at that. It uses the morphs and textures that they have rights and access to, it is not creating new morphs or textures in its process. There is nothing wrong with the concept, if it makes things easier, that's great. But I question how well this works in practice. While there is a ton of content that Daz can pull from, there are still limitations on what you can do. If a morph does not exist, or if the combination of morphs do not work well with the clothing, what can the user do about it? You will not have access to every morph and texture ever made, only the ones this app has.

I assume that Daz/Tafi retains rights to the created characters in some way, given it retains 3D rights to the characters created in Daz Studio.

USD is going to be a big deal, it's in the name...Universal. We need a standard. With USD new doors will open in every direction. Anybody who doesn't use USD will get left behind. If DS gets it then that will change everything. DS FBX import sucks, it sucks unbelievably bad, and DS has no good options to import a model with rigging or even most textures in place. DUF is not a standard, and is proprietary to Daz. I can see a future where DS content will natively support USD for easy export. They will not need to do a separate download for Unreal, Unity, Blender, ect, ect. They can do it all with one format.

Well, must have [messed] up something about the import settings the first time around, because I tried re-importing the objs (no difference in parameters) and this time it worked, so? No idea what I must have checked wrong or maybe misclicked the first time.

Dodger said:

BTW my guess was correct. That second value is the actiual vertex index, not the vertex-of-the-poly index.
I have, at this point, successfully extracted the G8M geometry (base resolution) from the DSF and saved it as a OBJ, scaled to 0.41010499% (centimetres to v6+ Poser Normal Units, that is, 8 feet) all from the command line.

It's the index of the vertex in the mesh that is used by the polygon, it isn't the index of the vertex within the set defining the polygon (setting the winding order) - you could call it vertex_index_of_a_vertex_used_by_the_polygon, but that would be unwieldy.

I am now starting in on the DSF->CR2 conversion. The weight maps look pretty straightforward, too.

A big part of my reason for doing this is, sorry DAZ guys, but frankly the Poser weight map editing tools are just vastly superior to the weird "smooshy blue with yellow edges" DAZ ones. Being able to easily and quickly switch between limiting by group or material (and, since the figure can be swapped out by changing two lines in the CR2, you can map ANY material groups you want for whatever precision of selection on a geometry copy and then just swap the figureResFile out to one without a zillion usemtls to the actual intended use geometry).

The colours used for weight, or no weight, are user-configurable.

Selection by group, surface, or selection set (which allows you to cerate and store mutliple selections, including overlapping selections (which I suspect is why you want to swap), without having to redefine groups and/or surfaces) is available through the right-click menu>Geoemtry Selection>Select By, and of course you can use the Geometry Editor (which gives direct acess to adding or removing groups, surfaces, and selection sets from the current selection via the Tool Settings pane) to do the ground work.

By all means use the tools you know, if thet gain enough speed to offset the preparation stage, but I don't think being known in this case amounts to inherent superiority.

Since DAZ seems to be able to import Poser content complete with weight maps now, well, as a result, I am going to rig my content in Poser and just use DAZ to set the materials and finalise the package for any DAZ content. (Or, what do you call them, surfaces?) But in order to do this, I will need to be able to take any DAZ-only content and load it in Poser. (I mean, I can't very well copy the rigging in Poser if I can't get the rigging in Poser, right?).
And since ther'es no way to load DAZ-only content in Poser, I'm *making* myself a way.
And hey, maybe such a piece of software would even sell, I dunno. Maybe some people want to use G9 in Poser, after all. It could happen. And while I certainly cannot distribute such a conversion, nothing says I can't distribute a Python library to load a DSF into Poser, after all.

As for diffeomorphic. Yes the shaders you import from daz studio are converted from iray and in general may not be the best solution for cycles. The point is we need to convert iray features that cycles doesn't support or does in other ways so apprxomations are done. For best results you can replace some materials with native cycles shaders if you need to.

BTW my guess was correct. That second value is the actiual vertex index, not the vertex-of-the-poly index.
I have, at this point, successfully extracted the G8M geometry (base resolution) from the DSF and saved it as a OBJ, scaled to 0.41010499% (centimetres to v6+ Poser Normal Units, that is, 8 feet) all from the command line.

I am now starting in on the DSF->CR2 conversion. The weight maps look pretty straightforward, too.

A big part of my reason for doing this is, sorry DAZ guys, but frankly the Poser weight map editing tools are just vastly superior to the weird "smooshy blue with yellow edges" DAZ ones. Being able to easily and quickly switch between limiting by group or material (and, since the figure can be swapped out by changing two lines in the CR2, you can map ANY material groups you want for whatever precision of selection on a geometry copy and then just swap the figureResFile out to one without a zillion usemtls to the actual intended use geometry).
Since DAZ seems to be able to import Poser content complete with weight maps now, well, as a result, I am going to rig my content in Poser and just use DAZ to set the materials and finalise the package for any DAZ content. (Or, what do you call them, surfaces?) But in order to do this, I will need to be able to take any DAZ-only content and load it in Poser. (I mean, I can't very well copy the rigging in Poser if I can't get the rigging in Poser, right?).
And since ther'es no way to load DAZ-only content in Poser, I'm *making* myself a way.
And hey, maybe such a piece of software would even sell, I dunno. Maybe some people want to use G9 in Poser, after all. It could happen. And while I certainly cannot distribute such a conversion, nothing says I can't distribute a Python library to load a DSF into Poser, after all.

If you're keen on composing your scenes with the assets on hand and having them rendered ASAP, your first priority should be focusing on DS as it's much easier than using Blender to get the final results.  Well, you still can learn Blender at the same time, especially the essential skills of modeling and sculpting, which could multiply your capability of enhancing the scenes in DS. However if you're not in urgent need of getting renders in DS, you may certainly focus on Blender first.  There's a pretty good add-on, Diffeomorph Daz Importer, which can import assets from Ds to Blender. So you can compose your scenes and have them rendered in Blender efficiently.  I've seen quite a few guys are doing so in here... They don't really use Ds but just Daz assets and manipulate them in Blender most of the time.

I'm a Blender user as well, 6+ years with Daz, nearly 2 years with Blender, but I always regret that I should‘ve learned blender earlier. Still, it depends on the preference of your own eventually. In general, go for the software you really like,  then you'll have momentum and enthusiasm to have 'happy learning and happy rendering'.  IMHO...

They,re there before selecting Auto IK but dissapear after?? 

BTW tried every workaround advised nothing works, so dont waste your time.

Did someone say C4D is much easier to animate? maybe basics but back to blender for me