Okay, a potentially weird one: anyone have any tips/best practices on creating a character/figure in Daz who looks like a blending of two other characters? That is: say I wanted to create a character who looked like the child of Michael 8 and Victoria 8, is there any way I could do that without simply eye-balling it? 

Obviously, it'd be easy enough to make a male figure who looked a little like Michael 8 by tweaking some sliders (or a female figure who looked like Victoria 8). But is there any way to make that male or female figure take on some of the characteristics of a parent who's of a different gender?

I did a fit test some time ago on G3 or G8 (don't remember) and used iray metal and gem shaders on the non cloth peices. As mentioned previously, when using autofit, any hanging cloth or pieces that extend from the figure do not do well. I have picked up SY helper for V4 clothes, just haven't tested it with this outfit yet.

 

Just curious, were you trying to "AutoFit" the paldrons and draping cape elements, thus resulting in problems?  Even for the intended figure, Victoria 4, Gareee cautioned that piece as well as the "crown" should be "parented" to the chest and head respectively, not "conformed".

Sincerely,

Bill

Ok... so this sale and coupon probably had the opposite effect DAZ intended. Instead of making me feel thanked, it made me feel rushed and a little cheated. 
I wanted 3 new releases, which made me eligible for the $30 in credit. I actually wanted 5 new releases. But if I got 5 new releases, I couldn't get ANY free items. I saw that small print after I posted the coupon here. 
So, I had to dump two of the new items, getting 3 new items and PART of the total of the $30 in credit I wanted (I would have just taken one of the more expensive items, but I pretty much own all of those already). 
As far as the UTC - 6 MDT... I guess it is back to Timezones for Dummies for me. Mea culpa. I just read it as 6 MDT. 
It was like this sale was a disincentive to buying the new items. The best way to go would have been to buy discount legacy items - the Gen 3, 2, 1 and Victoria 4 stuff, get the discount on 5 of those items, and skip the new items and the new item discount. 
It was really frustrating. It should have stacked. Up to 5 paid items (Free items do not count to cart toal). 
I guess we're even for all the times I took advantage of DAZ when you were having glitches every evening. 
:P 
You still got my money. Just not as much as I thought I was going to spend. So... Win/Win, I guess. At least I got to support some of the PAs who put out work I like. 

M4 Enhanced???

Enhanced how?

Why?

Where?

I'm totally tweaked now - how did I miss this (when it was available)???

I'm curious too, and I think I missed this one.  (It is a pity how difficult it can be to find info on older discontinued products and how they can vanish with their creators to never be seen again.  Myself I'm trying to find out who made the Chicken Raptor from the Desolation Earth stuff to see if maybe they might be able to sell a copy of it or if the licensing would be prohibitive in that regard.)

Mina Enhanced was a female morph of M4. It was so you could have a female figure wearing M4 clothing without the work of manually fitting it to Vicky, or so my 3d art mentor told me. No autofit clones, you know. [Insert GIF of Bones McCoy's "Stone knives & bearskins" rant]

(V4, and I think V3 as well, had a Male morph named Vincent. In those ancient times, when a new Victoria was released, it would be several months before the new Michael was, so Daz would release the Vincent morph so Latest Victoria wouldn't be lonely waiting on Latest Michael.

?? Conflicts? Problems?  Any Carrara issues after installing Daz Studio 4.12?

Here are all the supported human figures - this scene was fun to put together. I used this to test all the hand cameras, to make sure I named them all correctly and that they could all live happily in the same scene. Just like any other objects, the cams will put a (2) after the name if you load 2 of the same one in the scene, but each figures cameras are named specifically to them and their body parts, so that won't happen too often.

Let's see if I can run down what everybody is wearing here. The figures are holding up numbers of fingers to identify themselves. All of them have had the Iray uber base shader applied to all of their surfaces after loading their materials, which is a quick & not particularly beautiful way to convert surfaces. For a solo portrait I'd use one of the custom human shaders.

Aiko 3: 3dU High Tops, Aiko Toon skirt, Oriental Seasons top, Sherri Hair. Character texture is probably Rei, I use that one a lot.

Michael 3: The Privateer outfit, Uptown Boy hair. Default face - wow, M3 is a dork.

Victoria 3: GND2 Shoes, Morphing cocktail dress w/Fisty & Darc's iray mix & max shaders. Character is one that got taken off the market a long long time ago, unfortunately, but if you want pretty V3 characters, look for Kiera's metamorphosis set at that other place - it's terrific. It's also on clearance so get it while you can.

Victoria 4: Medusa character, Bonbon dress by Esha, Cuban diablo shoes. I'm not sure which hair this is, but the shader/texture on it is from Sloshwerks' first or second Iray set (I have all of them, they are all must-have sets!)

Michael 4: Elven hair, Azrael character, Dark Thorn pants, not sure about the shirt.

Genesis 1: Pure Hair Wild, Homeslipperzz, and I think the jeans are by Hongyu. The top has a texture from a shader set, probably from ParrotDolphin.

Genesis 2 Female: Urban Girl outfit, Soleil hair

Genesis 2 Male: Sulaiman character, Eldritch seeker outfit

Genesis 3 Male: Lee 7 character, Rugby shirt. Not sure about the jeans.

Genesis 3 Female: Cork wedge shoes, 3d Wizard's jeanz skirt, Sveva's tethra jewels necklace, Trend Setter blouse with a texture that's probably from one of Diane's FabTex sets

Genesis 8 Female: April Rain top, jeans are some V4 ones by Hongyu that I converted. Hair is OOT's updo without the bangs.

Genesis 8 Male: Hipster outfit shirt, Alt style outfit pants and beanie, Grunge outfit boots. Owen 8 character. Basically all just stuff from the Owen 8 pro bundle!

Io ci ho provato 4 volte prima di poter diventare un PA, mi pare di averlo raccontato qualche volta. Non sono uno che si arrende facilmente, sono caparbio. Ma non è semplice, però lavorare per loro è fantastico!

Si, ho avuto modo di vedere quanto sono rigidi prima di accettare un prodotto.

Per curiosità, che cosa gli avevi inviato che non volevano accettare?

Un set di pose per Michael 2, al tempo era l'unica figura che avevo preso, ma parliamo di anni fa ormai, poi passai a Victoria 4 e boom...dall' oggi a domani sono diventato un PA :) 

OK, that soudns like an issue with the metadata for the Database. You could try opening the Content Library option menu, the lined button in the top corner or right-click the tab, and then seelcting Content DB Maintenance, checking ReImport metadata, and in the final dialogue find Victoria 4 under Products and check her - if she isn't there then something more is goign on.

No matter what I have tried I still can't get the thumbs to show up in 4.12 for

V4.2 base, body shapes, Elite body shapes, morphs++...etc.

The install option does not appear when I right click under the content library

not sure what is going on or how to fix it.

Victoria 4 and most morph expansions cannot be installed through Connect. Can you load the figure through the Content Library>Poser Formats>content directory used>Figures>Daz People?

Turning A New Leaf requires a new Haircut. 

*dForce French Twist Hair for Genesis 8   https://www.renderosity.com/mod/freestuff/dforce-french-twist-hair-for-genesis-8-female-s-/81937

*EA Sidecut hair for Genesis 8    https://www.renderosity.com/mod/freestuff/ea-sidecut-hair-for-genesis-3-amp-8-female-s-/82972

*Retro Heroine 8 Outfit   https://www.renderosity.com/mod/freestuff/retro-heroine-8-outfit/77959

*Retro Heroine Outfit Expansion Nr 4 part 1   https://www.renderosity.com/mod/freestuff/retro-heroine-outfit-expansion-nr-4-part-1-of-2-/76906

*Retro Heroine Outfit Expansion Nr 4 part 2   https://www.renderosity.com/mod/freestuff/retro-heroine-outfit-expansion-nr-4-part-2-of-2-/76907

*Simple Bathroom by Jura11  https://www.renderosity.com/mod/freestuff/simple-bathroom-wip-freebie/77689

*scissors  https://www.renderosity.com/mod/freestuff/scissors/61987

*Freckles for Genesis 8   https://www.renderosity.com/mod/freestuff/freckles-for-genesis-8-female/82719&ca

*Mirror for Daz 4.9 https://www.renderosity.com/mod/freestuff/mirror-for-daz-4-9/76698

Victoria 7

Genesis 8  

*denotes site registration

Hello, for some time i was using DAZ Studio just fine on my Win 10 PC.

When, suddenly...

problem like this appears:

https://helpdaz.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/207812393-PostgreSQL-Connection-Error-and-No-Smart-Content

Probably i was done not very clever thing and just uninstal everething, to try fix things.

From this moment i can't install Daz3D and PostgreSQL neither.

DIM give's me...

...time after time.

What log shows:

OS bits: 64

Platform bits: 64

Qt Version: 4.8.7

Locale: ru_RU

Running on Windows 10, Build 9200, No Service Pack Installed

Physical Memory:

Total: 19.9 GB (21438021632)

Avail: 15.3 GB (16483483648)

Virtual Memory:

Total: 127.9 TB (140737488224256)

Avail: 127.9 TB (140732945481728)

Current Memory Usage: 23%

Current DateTime:

Loc: Сб 28. сен 15:01:38 2019

UTC: Сб 28. сен 12:01:38 2019

Application Data:

Location = C:/Users/IvanS/AppData/Roaming/DAZ 3D/InstallManager

Disk Total: 231.8 GB (248907395072)

Disk Avail: 99.1 GB (106452336640)

Reading dzInstall.ini

Cannot locate dzInstall.ini

Current Account: Account

Current Download Path:

Location = C:/Users/Public/Documents/DAZ 3D/InstallManager/Downloads

Disk Total: 231.8 GB (248907395072)

Disk Avail: 99.1 GB (106452336640)

Current Content Install Path:

Location = C:/Users/Public/Documents/My DAZ 3D Library

Disk Total: 465.7 GB (500100493312)

Disk Avail: 114.6 GB (123077554176)

Current 64-bit Software Install Path:

Location = C:/Program Files

Disk Total: 231.8 GB (248907395072)

Disk Avail: 99.1 GB (106452336640)

Current 32-bit Software Install Path:

Location = C:/Program Files (x86)

Disk Total: 231.8 GB (248907395072)

Disk Avail: 99.1 GB (106452336640)

Starting CMS...

WARNING: dzvalentinaobjectdatabase.cpp(38): DB Register Open error: Cannot establish VC_Connection with remote server. 

Make sure the server address and port number are correct.

WARNING: dzvalentinaobjectdatabase.cpp(38): DB Register Open error: Cannot establish VC_Connection with remote server. 

Make sure the server address and port number are correct.

Error connecting to CMS. Cannot be started by client.

Current Account: Account

Product 42071-3:Genesis 8 Starter Essentials Mimic has no tags

Product 16281-2:Victoria 6 PoserCF has no tags

Processed 38 products with 93 unique product downloads

Saving Account Settings: Account

Installing product : PostgreSQL CMS (Win 64-bit)

WARNING: Killed Process 

WARNING: QProcess: Destroyed while process is still running.

Product installation failed : PostgreSQL CMS (Win 64-bit)

Install Queue finished in 1 min 1.8 sec.

What i tryed:

Deinstall and clean anything i can found about DAZ and CMS including clean up AppData and registry check with CCleaner.

Install all manually.

Change ports in CMS settings.

Make custom exception for Firewall.

Made this for the PC+ Insperation contest.

Used: Egyptian Artifacts , Alley Scene , Hip Hop Outfit for Genesis 3 Male(s) , Summer Girl For Genesis 2 Female(s) , Glider Hair , Iggy Hair for Genesis and Genesis 2 Female(s) , Kyle HD for Michael 7 , Teen Josie 6 Starter Bundle​ , Zoey for Victoria 5 

Done in 3Delight, AoA Lighting, no postwork

Titled: A Back Alley Barter

Shania needs cash fast so she set up a deal with a known fence Chelly. She arranged to meet her in the back alley of the Local bar, She showed Chelly all the artifacts she had from the last dig she and the professor had been to. Neither of them noticed they were being watched by non other then the professors son Liam.

In the V4 to Genesis 2 pose converter I get an error saying it cannot find (data/daz 3d/genesis 2/female/uv sets/daz 3d/victoria 4/victoria 4.dsf) when I start it up. It doesnt seem to affect the conversion at all as far as I can tell but would like to fix it if I can.

I get an error saying it cannot find (data/daz 3d/genesis 2/female/uv sets/daz 3d/victoria 4/victoria 4.dsf) when I start it up. It doesnt seem to affect the conversion at all as far as I can tell.

From the Victoria 7 product promo pics - what is this background scene product?

Over the past 19 years, I've dragged millions of files around in order to setup my Poser and DAZ Studio files the way I wanted them. I'm convinced that all that file moving killed several of my hard drives.

I watched as the hard drives shuddered, "screamed," and often threatened to crash. The last of my desktop hard drives shows signs that it too is dying. I plan to start replacing my hard drive with 8TB desktop hard drives. It will take a few months.

I won't drag my files around any more. I'll rely on "DIM" to install the files!

This is the most common-sense approach, but dragging files around has zero to do with hard drive wear and tear.  And the same applies to SSDs too.

Over the past 19 years, I've dragged millions of files around in order to setup my Poser and DAZ Studio files the way I wanted them. I'm convinced that all that file moving killed several of my hard drives.

I watched as the hard drives shuddered, "screamed," and often threatened to crash. The last of my desktop hard drives shows signs that it too is dying. I plan to start replacing my hard drive with 8TB desktop hard drives. It will take a few months.

I won't drag my files around any more. I'll rely on "DIM" to install the files!

Moving files around on the same drive should be a relatively lightweight action, find the directory file it is in now delete the entry, find the new directory and add the entry for the new file.

Agreed.

Moving a file to a new drive is a much heavier operation as the data needs to be written to the other drive.

1.  "new drive" meaning a different physical drive or a different drive partition on the samne physical drive.

2.  But I disagree with the term "much heavier operation".  Come on.  I've got 8 and 10 TB backup hard drives that get 100% rewritten over the course or 3 or 4 backup cycles.  Ever since my first backups taken with Acronis True Image in the 1990s (later changed to Macrium:Reflect), I've never had a backup drive fail due to "overuse", so I completely disagree with the implication of the words "much heavier operation" in the context of wear and tear.  I've replaced my backup drives due to lack of capacity as my data content has grown over time, but never due to wear and tear.

Drives can last for years in normal use. And what is described in the op is normal use.  Things that tend to actually kill drives: running them hot, buying cheap ones, having too little RAM (swapping memory into the swapfile always involves a write operation so when you have maxed out your RAM and the activity light is going full blast that is very bad), having malware and/or viruses and failing to keep the drive defragmented (if the data contained in one file is all over the disk it will require a lot more spinning of the platters and a lot more moving the read head to get the data.).

I agree with the heat comment above.  Heat kills everything.

Have you considered raiding a whole bunch of El'Cheapo drives? I think the sweet spot for spindle drives is about 3TB now, you could get 3 of the cheapest you can find and use them in a raid 5 config. Gives you double the bandwidth and if any 1 drive fails you're still good.

RAIDing drives for what is mostly static data (such as your DAZ content library) is a wasteful and time-consuming use of RAID, and it's even less of a good idea to use cheap drives crammed into a small space that will undoubtedly generate significant heat.

RAID your database drives.  Raid your NAS.  I wouldn't bother setting up a RAID just for Victoria and all of her Gucci clothing.

I've had many different computers since I started with a home-built PC and Poser in 1999. (I switched to DAZ Studio a few years later.) I'm now on my 3rd Macintosh computer. I normally drag and drop files. I sometimes use Forklift, a Mac file manager. Sometimes I just open two windows and drag and drop between them. On average, my hard drives last somewhere between 3-5 years. In the past, each "data" drive had another hard drive, with a clone backup of the original drive. Over the recent year it's been hard to maintain that ratio since some original desktop hard drives died.

Now, I'm quickly running out of hard drive space in my 3TB hard drives. That's why I'll go to a new 8TB hard drive later this month.

8TB is a good choice.  But are you ALSO planning to buy a couple of 12TB backup drives?  Please do it right and budget for your backups ALONG WITH your new drive expansion plans.

3 to 5 years is not an unusually short lifespan for drives that see regular use. BackBlaze is a major cloud storage provider and publishes failure rates for the enterprise drives they deploy. Those drives fail at between 1.6% and 1.8% per year. That does not mean drives should be expected to last 50 years. The failure rate goes up as drives age. BackBlaze retires their drives at around 50 months of deployment. Now these are enterprise grade drives, which in theory have significantly better reliability, but they are spinning 24/7 so things should sort of average out in regards to consumer drives. I'd guess that a lifespan of around 4 years is what to expect from consumer drives HDD's in normal, 8 hours (roughly) up time per day, usage.

It also really doesn't matter how you do the moves. All that really matters is if you're moving the file from one drive to another or doing a copy rather than a move or if you're simply moving it to a new directory on the same drive. A move on the same drive is very low impact. The other operations are much higher impact but still shouldn't seriously impact lifespan.

This is very common-sense.  The OP should stop worrying about this.

I really doubt the way you handle files is leading to unusually short lifespans for your drives.

Also very common-sense.

My personal solution for production is to keep the current project on ssd, and everything else on external backup. This works fast and keeps your data safe.

Even this is too fussy for me.  That's why I have all big SSDs and even bigger HDDs for the backups.

The only thing I can suggest: External drives, and using a strict system system for deciding what files go on which drive.
It's a long-term wish, but I'd totally love to have an external drive sometime dedicated to DAZ assets, and absolutely nothing else, so effectively, the contents of that drive would rarely change, except for occasionally adding new stuff and updates to the installed assets. In theory, such a drive should last quite a while.

External drives can be very handy in certain situations, but they're not necessarily the Golden Ark of data strategies.  Drive enclosures require more cables, sometimes a power supply, and space on your desk.  They make noise, aren't always good at eliminating heat, and have to be kept track of, especially if you're on travel.  For these reasons, I prefer larger INTERNAL SSD drives, with external drives only for backups or for temporary expansion (you know, until I can afford to enlarge the internal drives).

It's MUCH simpler to travel if I can throw my laptop into my backpack and one single external drive into my checked luggage.  This allows me to have one or more recent backup cycles with me while on travel while also being able to keep taking backups over the course of a longer trip.

Good reminder for everyone to back up your files.. ideally in two locations too.  Also, actually check your back ups are working.. :)

There's little excuse these days not to, and it's a good habit to get into.  For me, when I'm done for the day, I run KLS Backup, it backs up all the work folders onto my NAS, then turns the machine off.. so literally its a couple of clicks and it's done.  Each work machine automatically images itself onto the NAS too once a week so I have a means to get a machine back up and running if something goes awry.

 

You could have been reading my signature! 

But he's right, folks!  3 backups on 2 mediums with at least 1 copy stored offsite from the computer.  This is called "321" backups.  My backups have saved me from my own foolishness several times.  And my foolishness has been the cause of data loss far more often than a hard drive failure.  Since my first PC in the Gateway 486 days, I think I've had only 2 hard drive failures.  One was new, the other was a couple years old.  Neither was likelly due to "overuse" or "wear and tear".

In BOTH cases, my backups got me back to business.

In several OTHER cases, I deleted a data or program folder.  In ALL of those cases, my backups got me back to business.

To use V4 textures on G8F you'll need this. (You'll need to resave the materials as .duf first)

Converting the morphs is a bit more tricky: You can use GenX2 and its G2 and G3 add-ons to go from V4 to G3F, but unfortunately the PA passed away before G8 was released so there's no G8 add-on. But there's now this product to convert G3F characters to G8F, and Zev0 has another one in the works.
There are also ways to do it manually with a bit of work.

this is just SOOOOO annoying. again, a clear and obnoxious preference towards female characters. same happened recently with victoria 8 (and other vics before) - only she was offered but no michael alternative, which would be the natural pendant to vic. why does this "gift" from today only contain a CHICK?

so, since i don't collect female charas, today i get NOTHING again. thx daz, very appreciated. is it so hard to offer both alternatives - male + female - and let the customer pick one of both as they like? it's segregation imho. :( *not happy*

I  saw your reference to "Female Charas" and it reminded me of a little Russian dive I used to visit in Germany.
Sounds like a descriptive term I'd hear there. Thanks for the memories.

eeeeh.. what's so special about the term "female charas (characters)"?? same as female figures more or less... maybe the 3d community uses figure more than character, but i don't quite get the point. anyways, happy i offered you a little time travel :D

Because "Female charas" sounds like a Russian derogatory slang term for some some bar patrons?
Using "charas" as a slang word in itself, not as a short form of "characters".

Never mind.

okay, might be - but in fanfic or manga fandoms and pretty much anywhere i hang around, i always saw chara used as a short (absolutely not derogatory) form of character. never crossed my mind it could be anything else, derogatory or not. also i must say that i hardly meet/met any Russians at all where i live.. let alone in a bar, lol.

this is just SOOOOO annoying. again, a clear and obnoxious preference towards female characters. same happened recently with victoria 8 (and other vics before) - only she was offered but no michael alternative, which would be the natural pendant to vic. why does this "gift" from today only contain a CHICK?

so, since i don't collect female charas, today i get NOTHING again. thx daz, very appreciated. is it so hard to offer both alternatives - male + female - and let the customer pick one of both as they like? it's segregation imho. :( *not happy*

I  saw your reference to "Female Charas" and it reminded me of a little Russian dive I used to visit in Germany.
Sounds like a descriptive term I'd hear there. Thanks for the memories.

eeeeh.. what's so special about the term "female charas (characters)"?? same as female figures more or less... maybe the 3d community uses figure more than character, but i don't quite get the point. anyways, happy i offered you a little time travel :D

Because "Female charas" sounds like a Russian derogatory slang term for some some bar patrons?
Using "charas" as a slang word in itself, not as a short form of "characters".

Never mind.

I gave the Face Transfer thing a whirl. I came out way tanner than I am, looking like I'm 12, my lips were super thin, I look confused, and the Daz tattoo is on my forehead rather than a tramp stamp.

I should DL the new version and try it out... I already have a DAZ logo on my forehead though... more of a scar... I got it battling one of those stupid DAZ Victoria 28 terminator robots from the near future... Which was very disappointing since they aren’t as naked as you’d expect when they time travel... that stupid purple “bikini” texture is so fake too... better than the angry Roombas though.

Have an online friend who has just bought a roomba, a very angry and fierce roomba,  or at least that is what one of his dogs thinks.  Took him 2 days to stop telling everyone that there was a fierce angry monster around.  Now he is just hiding in another room hoping the monster will stay away.