I just went with using DAZ content 

the stuff I shared was 90% rendered in iClone, some Carrara and Twinmotion... and a bit of UE4 too

I almost exclusively used DAZ mesh as iC6 I import FBX not port to Character Creator like iC7 users can

Rosa used DAZ content in Blender AFAIK as well as DAZ studio 

felis said:

It sounds like you are missing the data files?

How are you installing, and what does your log say Help > Troubleshooting > View Log File?

Directly through zip file. Log says this:
2022-08-23 16:58:24.437 WARNING: ..\..\..\..\..\src\pluginsource\DzIrayRender\dzneuraymgr.cpp(359): Iray [WARNING] - TRIT:GEOMETRY ::   1.0   TRIT   geo  warn : Object DS_shape_4414_347: the parametric approximation level is set to 4. The original value of 5 would produce too much geometry in a single mesh.
2022-08-23 16:58:28.747 Iray [INFO] - IRAY:RENDER ::   1.0   IRAY   rend info : Geometry import (1 triangle object with 15394k triangles, 0 fiber objects with 0 fibers (0 segments), 1 triangle instance yielding 15394k triangles, 0 fiber instances yielding 0 segments) took 4.332s

It's "transfer shapekeys" in the morph section, as explained in the docs. Or you can use "easy import".

https://diffeomorphic.blogspot.com/p/morphs-section-version-16.html

Was there any output log in Unreal indicating the cause or it crashed without being able to output the log?

There are possible reasons related to the importing process or compatibility issues:

Incompatible materials not working with the master material provided by Daz to Unreal bridge when the bridge tries to rebuild the materials.

Importing too many models together which makes the total poly count exceeds millions and that'll crash the Unreal FBX importer which the Daz to Unreal bridge uses to import assets.

It has everything to do with the changes they've made to the UVs. Dforce and strand based hair are UV dependent and as such, Genesis 8.1 breaks them.

I'd suggest you do the following.

1: Export Genesis 8 female base as a OBJ.

2: import as a scene object

3: Use the transfer tool to equip to Genesis 8.1 like a set of clothes.

4: Put the opacity of the dummy up to 100%

5: Equip the hair to the dummy. It will have all the proper UVs and will display all the hair.

Mark_e593e0a5 said:

arstropica said:

Mark_e593e0a5 said:

RiverSoftArt said:

arstropica said:

Not sure if this has already been addressed in a previous post, but is there a way to completely remove products installed through CW? 

I've tried copying the zip file to the DIM directory and install/uninstall from there, but the files and metadata are unaffected.

Thanks

No, there is not.  You need to uninstall the product (using DS Smart Content) and then delete files (which can be tricky and very manual unfortunately)

If you have to stick to a one-machine workflow, that is indeed a limitation of mainly DIM, not CW.

DIM tries to be smart, and does not allow to delete files it has not installed. If you install a CW ZIP file with DIM, it checks if a file already exist. If it does, it will not install the file (as it have to overwrite the original). Thus, it will "know" that it has not installed the file - so it won't uninstall it, no matter what.

There is a work-around, but it requires a workflow involving a second machine. I am using a virtual machine on my primary system. I create all CW sets using that "second" installation. Then, I am moving the ZIP file CW creates to the primary system's DIM install directory and let DIM continue. This time, as DIM installes it "fresh" without overwriting existing files, it can also fully uninstall the product should need be.

As said, this requires a sort of "second" machine with a minimum installation of DS plus its default products plus CW.

Due to the falling-out between Apple and NVidia, I've maintained a second install on a Windows machine which powers my main GPU.  So I design on my iMac and render on my Windows machine. I guess I've been using the system you described to install CW products on my second machine, but a VM may be an even better way to go.

Can DIM install product metadata from a zip file without RiverSoft's .dsa script? I've never looked under the hood of Daz's smart content system.  

Yes, it can. You can just throw the created CW ZIP file into DIM's installer file directory (e.g where your downloaded DAZ store content goes) and install it from there. 

Yup.  You need to use the suggested filename for the zip or follow the guidelines for zip filenames for DIM.

arstropica said:

Mark_e593e0a5 said:

RiverSoftArt said:

arstropica said:

Not sure if this has already been addressed in a previous post, but is there a way to completely remove products installed through CW? 

I've tried copying the zip file to the DIM directory and install/uninstall from there, but the files and metadata are unaffected.

Thanks

No, there is not.  You need to uninstall the product (using DS Smart Content) and then delete files (which can be tricky and very manual unfortunately)

If you have to stick to a one-machine workflow, that is indeed a limitation of mainly DIM, not CW.

DIM tries to be smart, and does not allow to delete files it has not installed. If you install a CW ZIP file with DIM, it checks if a file already exist. If it does, it will not install the file (as it have to overwrite the original). Thus, it will "know" that it has not installed the file - so it won't uninstall it, no matter what.

There is a work-around, but it requires a workflow involving a second machine. I am using a virtual machine on my primary system. I create all CW sets using that "second" installation. Then, I am moving the ZIP file CW creates to the primary system's DIM install directory and let DIM continue. This time, as DIM installes it "fresh" without overwriting existing files, it can also fully uninstall the product should need be.

As said, this requires a sort of "second" machine with a minimum installation of DS plus its default products plus CW.

Due to the falling-out between Apple and NVidia, I've maintained a second install on a Windows machine which powers my main GPU.  So I design on my iMac and render on my Windows machine. I guess I've been using the system you described to install CW products on my second machine, but a VM may be an even better way to go.

Can DIM install product metadata from a zip file without RiverSoft's .dsa script? I've never looked under the hood of Daz's smart content system.  

Yes, it can. You can just throw the created CW ZIP file into DIM's installer file directory (e.g where your downloaded DAZ store content goes) and install it from there. 

@SofaCitizen, well I have been trying to do some renders, I have not been happy with the model placement, the lack of extra environments is frustrating.

Sure you have mentioned some Daz items do not have metadata, it just happened to me when I was working, the Smart Content pane got one item grayed out; I rebuilt the metadata and nothing.

Then, when right clicking the item in question, I had the opportunity to fix that, because I was worried I needed to install it in Daz Studio, even thought this item was installed in DIM.

In other instances the model I had been working tried to move to a different position, the hair did not stick to that model, even when rotating the figure it did cause me some problems. I had to close the program and did not save the work.

Daz Studio is a very interesting program, but not easy to work with as is suppossed to.

Mark_e593e0a5 said:

RiverSoftArt said:

arstropica said:

Not sure if this has already been addressed in a previous post, but is there a way to completely remove products installed through CW? 

I've tried copying the zip file to the DIM directory and install/uninstall from there, but the files and metadata are unaffected.

Thanks

No, there is not.  You need to uninstall the product (using DS Smart Content) and then delete files (which can be tricky and very manual unfortunately)

If you have to stick to a one-machine workflow, that is indeed a limitation of mainly DIM, not CW.

DIM tries to be smart, and does not allow to delete files it has not installed. If you install a CW ZIP file with DIM, it checks if a file already exist. If it does, it will not install the file (as it have to overwrite the original). Thus, it will "know" that it has not installed the file - so it won't uninstall it, no matter what.

There is a work-around, but it requires a workflow involving a second machine. I am using a virtual machine on my primary system. I create all CW sets using that "second" installation. Then, I am moving the ZIP file CW creates to the primary system's DIM install directory and let DIM continue. This time, as DIM installes it "fresh" without overwriting existing files, it can also fully uninstall the product should need be.

As said, this requires a sort of "second" machine with a minimum installation of DS plus its default products plus CW.

Due to the falling-out between Apple and NVidia, I've maintained a second install on a Windows machine which powers my main GPU.  So I design on my iMac and render on my Windows machine. I guess I've been using the system you described to install CW products on my second machine, but a VM may be an even better way to go.

Can DIM install product metadata from a zip file without RiverSoft's .dsa script? I've never looked under the hood of Daz's smart content system.  

RiverSoftArt said:

arstropica said:

RiverSoftArt said:

arstropica said:

Not sure if this has already been addressed in a previous post, but is there a way to completely remove products installed through CW? 

I've tried copying the zip file to the DIM directory and install/uninstall from there, but the files and metadata are unaffected.

Thanks

No, there is not.  You need to uninstall the product (using DS Smart Content) and then delete files (which can be tricky and very manual unfortunately)

I can see the product in the smart content tab, but there is no uninstall option.  I've even tried installing and then uninstalling the generated zip through DIM, but the product metadata still remains.  I feel there must be a solution to this as it is just a scripting issue with the smart metadata.  BTW Content Wizard is such an awesome product, I don't know what I'd do without it.

Sorry, I slightly miswrote.  I start in Smart Content so I can find the product to then delete.  From the manual:

Unfortunately, it does not seem possible to delete a product from Daz Studio’s Smart Content using the scripting interface. If you find you want to delete a product from Smart Content, you need to do it manually. To delete a product: 1. Find the product in Smart Content. 2. Right-Click on the Product and Select “Show Product in Content Library”. After a few moments, Daz Studio will show the product in the Products list of the Content Library. 3. Right-Click on the title of the product and Select “Delete…”. Click Ok when the confirmation dialog appears. The Smart Content for the product has been deleted. Note that this procedure does not delete the content files from Daz Studio.

(I am so glad you like CW.  I am very proud of it )

Thanks RiverSoft. 

I think that did it.  I should be able track down and delete the actual files using the DIM installer.  The main thing for me was to eliminate the bloat caused by thousands of metadata entries relating to a handful of products.

3Diva said:

I used to set up custom categories but it was too hard to keep up with since I purchase content pretty regularly, and most of it is new and has pretty good Smart Content metadata (so already much easier to find than older content). If you don't purchase much content and/or use a lot of older Poser content then it might be worthwhile to do custom categories. If however you mainly buy newer stuff it's mostly already set up in a pretty intuitive way in Daz Studio. Between Smart Content and the category folders it's not hard to find the products you want when you need them. :)

Er... the problem here is that this assumes that you only buy products at DAZ that are correctly set up for smart content.  Unfortunatately, that's not the case by a long shot for many of us with large libraries... who are, needless to say, the ones who are most in need of organization.       

@Halcon Bluesky, yes, that is true. While the items in the Daz store are not always perfect (mainly with metadata) they generally are a very good standard so you know what you will get.  With the freebies it's a bit more of a wide range with what you can get. However, there is still some great stuff out there just some of them will require a bit of work to make them suitable for Daz - particularly regarding the size and materials and also if you want them to be rigged etc.

I think also, learning how to optimise the scene is also a good skill to learn - but not until we are much more familiar with other things.  Obviously, the power of the hardware available to you is a big factor into how important this becomes but in general terms worrying too much on early optimisation is not a good idea.  Presumably, like me, this is a hobby for you and so waiting a little bit longer is not the end of the world?  The very last render I did was pretty basic and was completed in around 2 or 3 mins but one of the ones prior to that took almost 2 hours to complete. For now this is not a problem, just a little bit annoying if I have to re-do it a few times due to spotting that I have missed something or an item has accidentally fallen through the floor etc. However, in the future it may become more important and so I have a handful of optimiser plugins in the wishlist for later consideration.

You should definitely keep at it tho. I get what you mean about being dissapointed that you are not always able to produce the images that you want to but we all improve with practice. You can always put one idea on hold and try something a bit different or something a bit simpler and eventually when you go back to that more complicated idea you will be more skilled/experienced and have more chance of brining that idea into reality :)  I do have quite a few ideas in my head that I have had to move about a bit in my head and bring other things to the front if I feel they require more skill/experience than I currently have.

ekajuan_9f765a669b said:

I think I know now what's the problem with my pJCMs creation.

I used imported obj from marvelos designer for the pJCMs.
When I posed, MD changed the whole cloth vertices position.
When I imported back as morphs and both collar are rotated.
The whole vertices changes from both morphs are all calculated, resulting the mess.
What I should do was only fix the distorted area, and keep the rest. [correct]

 

Now, how to delete the morphs that I have imported through the morph loader and get back to the original?

ekajuan_9f765a669b said:

@Catherine3678ab
I read your tutorial.
I have a question regarding page 38.
When both pJCM of the legging legs are dialed at 100%, spreading the legs.
There's a bump at the middle. You fixed it in hexagon.
Then, all that I can see you import it back using a bridge to daz as a morph named Splitsideways.

How you triggered the Splitsideways latter on, is it triggered automatically when both leg pJCM are activated, or does user dial it manually?

As I mentioned on the 1st page of text, the Gem [the answer to your question] is on page 47.

How to delete morphs, page 52. With D/S closed, go to the folder in which you had saved the morphs and manually delete them. [delete button on keyboard]

This is not a bug but well known limitation of official plugins, i.e. Daz To Unreal or Daz To Blender they both don't support geografts and geograft morphs.

To merge geografts and import geograft morphs it needs the Diffeomorphic plugin.

Method 1: Export to Blender with Diffeomorphic - Merge geograft and import geograft morphs with Diffeomorphic - Import back .obj into Daz - Rig and skin weight the model to genesis 8 rig - Transfer the normal morphs and geograft morphs to the new figure - Export to Unreal from Daz (Did not test this method because of too much effort but it may work)

Method 2: Export to Blender with Diffeomorphic - Import geograft morphs with Diffeomorphic - Convert Daz Morphs to shapekeys in Blender - Merge geograft and export to Unreal from Blender

Method 2 is what I'm using for some additional features:

Diffeomorphic rebuilds full daz materials in Blender, it also imports animations and pose presets, and it can convert the Daz expressions / bone drivers to exportable shapekeys for Unreal. These features can not be reserved if export the .obj back to Daz.

Diffeomorphic does not use the FBX and thus not limited by FBX limitations, instead it rebuilds the Daz scene description inside Blender, reserving the Daz material settings, morph settings etc. Using Diffeomorphic in Blender is almost like using Daz, plus all the powerful features provided by Blender e.g. modelling, rigging, integrated with other plugins etc.

Daz To Unreal is still useful for me to quickly send NPCs and animals, monsters etc. to Unreal, those NPCs do not need geografts and they could use the mannequin animations from Unreal market, Daz To Unreal gives a nice animation retargeter for reusing Unreal animations. However making a photorealistic player character with working geografts it needs lots of work especially for female characters. There is almost no usable animation resource in the market place for realistic female player characters, have to make hundreds of animations both in Daz and in Blender, and keep them as feminine as possible with modified genesis 8 female skeleton adding additional breast and butt bones etc.

Update: I've understood why there's almost no usable animations in Daz market after experimenting with animating in Daz. Posing is fine there with PowerPose and other plugins but to animate it... better to export the poses to Blender to animate them. If Diffeomorphic can import the Blender animations back to Daz someone could sell animations in Daz market.

Diffeomorphic can import the Blender animations back to Daz: https://diffeomorphic.blogspot.com/2021/04/save-pose-preset.html

@Catherine3678ab
I read your tutorial.
I have a question regarding page 38.
When both pJCM of the legging legs are dialed at 100%, spreading the legs.
There's a bump at the middle. You fixed it in hexagon.
Then, all that I can see you import it back using a bridge to daz as a morph named Splitsideways.

How you triggered the Splitsideways latter on, is it triggered automatically when both leg pJCM are activated, or does user dial it manually?

nemesis10 said:

First, halt!  Don't do anything drastic.  You should pick a method of install.  It does make a difference how you install.  Very quickly:

Daz Central is very easy but little to no flexibility about where you install
DIM a little more complicated (not much more) and you decide where you will install; there are some things that can only be installed via DIM (generally scripts)

Next, once you decide, deinstall content installed by the method you don't want to choose (we can give you those details when you decide), and reinstall by the method you do want to use.  Rebuild metadata and you are done.... it isn't a big problem to fix but having duplicates causes conflicts and wastes disk space.

 Thanks for your reply, greatly appreciated.

You said: "Daz Central is very easy but little to no flexibility about where you install."

I had no issue installing D/Central on the D:/drive. However! This could've caused an issue as explained above. I am waiting for tech support or forum staff to answer. Library management software also known in other circles as HUB can be installed on the C:\drive (NVME SSD) because it does not take up much space, whereas all content libraries can go on the D:\drive (SSD), it plenty fast enough.

-

I am curious about what you said: "Next, once you decide, deinstall content installed by the method you don't want to choose (we can give you those details when you decide), and reinstall by the method you do want to use.  Rebuild metadata and you are done.... it isn't a big problem to fix but having duplicates causes conflicts and wastes disk space." 

I would like those details. I will likely do a thorough uninstall of all DAZ.

I am considering upgrading my custom build, UEFI and other updates, that includes an upgrade from GTX 1660Ti to RTX with more oomph, and a fresh clean, full retail install of Windows 10 Pro (yeah, I paid $200 for that version of Windows) currently in use. My current Asus Hero motherboard can be configured on path for upgrade to Windows 11, but I will skip that until a much later time in the future, as I plan further 'major' upgrade to MeteorLake by late 2023, probably early 2024 and of course that will require a new motherboard. I could put this beast together while blindfolded with one arm behind my back. 

All my documents, projects and content libraries are on the D:\drive, and that's where I want em.

I am concerned about what you said reagarding Duplicates (installed), troubling because I sent Tech Support Ticket a week ago, I also replied again but still waiting for their reply. Zzzzz they must be very busy.

What I also like to know is, how did I end up with duplicates (DAZCentral and DIM), this was not intentional! That is the mystery I would like to solve so it does not happen again, and so that others don't fall into that rabbit hole.

Again, Thanks for your reply! Cheers

First, halt!  Don't do anything drastic.  You should pick a method of install.  It does make a difference how you install.  Very quickly:

Daz Central is very easy but little to no flexibility about where you install
DIM a little more complicated (not much more) and you decide where you will install; there are some things that can only be installed via DIM (generally scripts)

Next, once you decide, deinstall content installed by the method you don't want to choose (we can give you those details when you decide), and reinstall by the method you do want to use.  Rebuild metadata and you are done.... it isn't a big problem to fix but having duplicates causes conflicts and wastes disk space.

You could just export it out as an obj and that'll import into Daz just fine. You'll have to reattach all the textures in Daz, and if you want doors or windows to open, you'll have to rig it in daz as well, but I bring stuff into daz all the time exported as an obj. 

felis said:

You have somehow overwritten the metadata, so that G8F only is compatible with that.

I assume you have saved the dress after changing scene id. But how did you save it?

well like i said before, there was no figure in the scene while i was doing the scene ID for the dress - in the past i have had clothing parent itself to figures and not want to let go, so now i always add the figure last, and did so in this case. 

after i had done the ID thing, i loaded up G8F and selected Fit To... for the dress, G8F as the parent, and saved the dress.

the dress was saved as a wearable, exactly the same way as i've done it over a thousand times before. the only thing odd about this was the G8F ID changing. 

You have somehow overwritten the metadata, so that G8F only is compatible with that.

I assume you have saved the dress after changing scene id. But how did you save it?