You could use Blender to convert the DAE to OBJ... but that requires a little bit of knowledge about Blender, it's basically just- import DAE, export OBJ.

There are free online file converters which would probably do the same, but I've never used them... 

At the moment, these are the only two I can find links to...

https://www.meshconvert.com/

http://www.greentoken.de/onlineconv/

Please note, that I've never used them, I've just heard of them... there is another one that I know people here have used, but I can't find the link anywhere in my collection of links and crap.

Another option is Ultimate Unwrap 3D... that's paid software for UV mapping, the pro version is around $60, but it imports and exports a ton of different formats, particularly SKP... I use SketchUp often and it's very good at converting my models to other formats.

I wrote a mini tutorial a while ago for people who are interested in converting SketchUp and 3D Warehouse models for use in DAZ studio, but nobody really seems interested and at the moment I have no idea which hard drive or computer that's sitting in.

EDITED TO ADD- Sorry, I didn't realize which thread this was, I came here from another thread and thought this was related to the Car And Bike Lovers thread, so sorry if I interrupted a thread of links.

nabob21 said:

Does anyone know where I can get a free or somewhat inexpensive armoured bank van?

The only one I know of was by Cronoz-artes at 3D warehouse... but that's going to be in SKP format (SketchUp) or DAE (Collada), so you'd have to convert it... and do whatever tweaking might be necessary to make useable in DS.

empty said:

I've got an HP G2 Reverb and I love it. I won't be buying anything from Zuckerburg if I am expected to join his universe. Beat Saber is absolutley insane and a great workout. I really got into the game 'Form' which is kind of like 'The Room', as it gets my brain hemispheres buzzing. I have also bought Alyx and am only just starting into it, but am VERY impressed with it so far. I've also bought Star Wars Squadrons which can be played in VR but have yet to try it. I'm still recovering after watching a GoPro rollar coaster video standing up and fell over - yes, I am an idiot. 

One thing that really impressed me about VR is the absolute sense of space. After watching alot of GoPro videos of different places around the world etc I feel this technology could also be used to assist with various mental health issues. I watched a brilliant 4K video amongst the California Redwoods and some calming music and was just blown away by the sensory experience. Although nothing beats getting your @ss outside and experiencing the real thing, it could really help people who live in overcrowded cities and cramped accommodation etc., - but alas, I hear you saying the technology is far too expensive for the average person to afford...but who knows what the future will bring. 

Zuckerberg doesn’t own the Metaverse. There are many companies creating their own Metaverses and it’s really just an umbrella term (as I look out the window at the rare rain in LA lol.) Most of the FB/Meta apps are still in beta and not accessible to the general public. I have access to and tried FB/Meta Horizons (still in beta) and it pretty much sucks. Can’t compare the slightest to Altspace VR (free and owned by Microsoft who doesn’t charge anything or control much really. They seem fairly hands off.) I generally do not like Microsoft but they bought out AltspaceVR and so far have only improved it. They don’t require any information and it appears to be pretty much self-governing in the sense that you can make any bullies or harassers disappear and if they are really bad, you can report them. You ARE in a public place, just like these forums are public (to anyone with an account) or any RL party or event so you do have to be aware of that. 

There are several metaverses way more advanced than Zuckerberg’s and unless something radically changes, he's going to be very low in the Metaverse ranking. Horizons is toony, doesn’t use Unity, doesn’t even allow you to import jpgs into your world, the creation tools are awful. It’s pretty much at the bottom of all the competing metaverses so I wouldn’t worry too much about it. Zuckerberg is trying to take credit for creating a metaverse, but the truth is, he’s late to the game. Many companies are way ahead of him and have been using the term “Metaverse” for years. Maybe if he bought out all the other competing companies, we could start to panic, but right now his metaverse is useless. BUT I do think the Quest 2 is probably the best and most affordable headset out there and there’s really no association with FB except to log in. They don’t even seem to use algorithms because the Oculus store always recommends games “for me” that are clearly not what I would buy if they were tracking my purchases or FB timeline for marketing purposes.

I think in the future the Metaverse will refer to ALL the different companies combined, like the Internet. Does anyone own the Internet? I think the different social apps or metaverses will be like different cities or countries you can visit or build houses in or attend parties in but all from the comfort of your home. It will start off like the Wild West, but soon some cities will flourish, others not so much, and people can virtually travel to all of them. No one will own it anymore than someone can own planet Earth. Wealthy people will buy virtual real estate when they own enough physical real estate and less wealthy will use free apps or save up to buy virtual mansions which will be a lot cheaper than a real mansion and Unity creators will be making $$$ creating these mansions and real estate lots. Artists will sell art jpgs in frames to decorate people’s houses, Blender/ZBrush/sketchup artists will create furniture and cars, avatars and clothes. It will be a booming time for CG creatives and probably many kids will start learning at a young age to create their own assets. Party/event planners have great jobs creating virtual events, musicians have virtual concerts that you can view from the stage if you want, artists will have galleries everywhere, comedians do stand up shows... It’s starting to be an amazing time for creatives! It’s already happening in AltspaceVR! I have three art galleries there! (Visit my martini lounge pinup art gallery with drinks you can pick up and rooftop pool/jacuzzi in AltspaceVR code ISQ763) 

If you like Beat Saber, try Audio Trip and Synthriders!

I agree about nature in VR. Although I have a pretty view of trees right outside my window, I live in the heart of a major city (LA) and as beautiful as it is and as filled with zillions of fun events it is, I love to go into VR and escape into nature, whether real or CGI. Nature Treks has some beautiful CGI nature scenes and you can grow trees, feed animals, go from day to night, rain or sunshine, create butterflies... Guided Meditation has some beautiful nature scenes too. There are some 180 3D VR videos of Venice that are so real, you actually feel like you’re there traveling on a water bus. There are some gorgeous videos flying through Iceland, so many amazing VR travel videos that I’m “traveling” all over the world to many places I couldn’t travel to in real life even if I were a millionaire and Covid was over. My VR headsets have been the best money I’ve ever spent, I use them daily, sometimes for many hours especially during Covid when social life has been slowI

I’m Alicia and I’m a VR ADDICT lol! 

Sphinx Magoo said:

kenmo said:

Richard Haseltine said:

With a post like this you need to be more specific - what exactly are the issues, and how would you like it to behave?

 

The posing tools in Daz have not improved much in the past 15 years. They are still as awkward, tedious and unintuitive it has been since I first used Daz. I like Daz. It's a stellar product. But the posing tools are complete garbage and need to evolve to something more user friendly and less tedious/frustrating.

I can not comment on Poser but do own Poser 11 Pro. However I find ALL of the features and tools in Poser a complete pain in the butt. Not sure if posing in iClone and their line of products is easier or worse. Maybe one day I will download their trial and see for myself. 
 

Just curious: might you have experience with a different software package which has more intuitive posing/animation tools? Sometimes I watch videos from people who use Maya or Source Filmmaker and I'm amazed at the seeming ease they have with making good poses quickly. Mind you, I know the video makers are experienced and know what they're doing, but it sure seems amazing to me. I've been using DS since it was first released, so I'm only used to its posing and animation tools. Just curious if you're coming from a different angle. 

My experience with 3D tools is mostly with the modeling apps like Wings3D, Hexagon, Silo3D, Blender, 3D Coat, MOI3D and a little bit of Curvy3D & Sketchup. For rendering and compositing a scene I prefer Vue.

I am more of a photographer as I have  seven DSLR cameras (two Olympus and five Nikons). Most of my computer time is spent in Lightroom, Photoshop and a little bit in Rebelle, ArtRage or Corel Painer.

I've used Poser 7 & Poser 11, MakeHuman, Fuse/Mixamo. I find Mixamo the easiet to pose in. And Posers the worst. Daz is too fiddly and tedious for me. As I said earlier, perhaps my expectations are too high and unrealistic. I like to compose a scene in Daz using their excellent figures and props that are availble. I will then bring the scene into Vue and render as I prefer Vue or Iray. Sometimes I will render the scene in Daz and then bring it into Photoshop, Painter, Rebelle or Artrage to use it to paint over.

Cheers & many thanks...

Chapter 4: Building a building for Daz.

The next thing I wanted to learn, was how to build a building that I could use in Daz. With hide-able walls. So, a simple house it shall be.

First start out with a simple floor. Say 12x20 feet, and let’s make it 6” thick. (Picture 50) We’ll use the offset tool to make the walls 6” thick. Then, make the floor concrete and wood. (Picture 51). Finally, what I do, is draw lines in each of the corners, these will become the footprints of the walls. (Picture 52). Now, to make it separate, make it a group. Again, this is very important. Since the floor is a group, and not open for editing, you can use it to trace wall information.

Next, the walls. Make sure the floor is not “open” for editing. That’s important. For the first wall, follow the lines for a wall, I’ll do the left wall first. If you then “hide” the floor, you’ll see the surface that will become the bottom of the wall. (Picture 53) And I’ll use the push-pull to make it 8 feet tall. (Picture 54) I added some color to the inside, and some siding to the outside. And again, before moving to the next wall, make it a group. Now that both pieces are groups, within Sketchup I can hide or unhide either group as I need it.  Repeat for the other 3 walls. (Picture 55).   To repeat, it is very important to make each floor or wall its own group. It’ll make things easier when it comes time to export.

Finally, the roof, also its own group. (Picture 56) As you can see, I have the walls hidden to show the roof is its own group.

It’s ready to export to Daz. (Picture 57)

The export process is almost identical as before, with an added step or two. Before exporting click on each individual group, Sketchup will only export what is selected, or the entire drawing if nothing is selected. So select a group, export it, give it a good file name, like “Roof” for the roof group, and move on to the next group. I hide the group once I export it.  This helps when there are interior walls. Now, each component of our house has its own individual file, ready for Daz.

It is very important, NOT to move any of the groups within Sketchup before you import them. When you import them into Daz, they’ll come into Daz in the same locations as they were imported. So if you move them in Sketchup, they’ll be in their new location within Daz. So it’s best to have them all placed properly before you do any export.

Once all the components are imported, its only a matter of applying surfaces to all those defined when you made it during sketchup. And as you can see, each file, upon import became its own prop within Daz. (Picture 58) And, just like previous examples, I apply shaders to all the surfaces within Daz.

And, just like other props, I can make them visible or invisible so I can render what I want. (Picture 59) Picture: House Render Sample

Chapter 3: Material Surface work around.

So what about things you design in Sketchup, but you have all your materials in Daz?

I have many surface shaders in Daz, but not that many in Sketchup. And I don’t want to try moving materials between the two. Well, don’t try. Just let Sketchup note what shaders you want where, and call it good enough.

In Sketchup, I made four 3” cubes. Then, just to make them look unique, I used the move tool and moved one or more corners of each cube to bend them a little. (Picture 38)

I’m going for four shades of glass. Red, Green, Yellow, and Blue.  I’m going to use the material creator to create some pseudo materials. Good enough to know what I want in Daz, and that’s what really matters.

Under the Materials tab, on the far right, there’s a “Create Material” icon (Circled in Picture 39) Click on it to open the Create Material window. (Picture 40)

Use the Picker to change the color to something random, it doesn’t really matter what. I’m shooting for some red glass, so I’ll find some shade of red. (Picture 41).  Then, and this is key, In the text field, enter the new shader name. (Picture 42) and click OK.

I’ll select all the surfaces on the first cube by triple-clicking on it. (Picture 43). Notice there is only one face icon under Entiry Info in the upper right? It’s telling you there are many surfaces selected. Since the material is already selected, use the paint can and color all the surfaces of that cube. (Pictures 44 & 45)

I’ll repeat the process for the remaining cubes. (Picture 46)

Well, that was fun, but just one more indulgence. I added a pyramid with each of the four colors on a face (Picture 47)

I’ll export it like normal (filename: test cubes) and import it into Daz. There were five materials exported. The fifth “FrontColor” threw me for a moment, then I realized. I didn’t color the bottom of the pyramid. So it’s still the default color.

Now import it into Daz like the rest. Granted, the materials don’t look all that impressive, but we only need the names. And, as you can see, the surface names came through the export/import process. (Picture 48)

Now it’s just a matter of applying the shaders. (Picture “cube renders”) OK, I’ll admit, I’m not that good with glass, but you get the idea.

Chapter 2: Manipulating Surfaces.

Let’s go back into Sketchup and manipulate some surfaces of the fire pit. This will demonstrate how I work around different surfaces, and make it easier leverage Daz’s surface tab.

First, let’s add some surfaces to the fire pit. (Picture 21) Next I’ll highlight one surface. Two things happen, the surface is highlighted, and under the “Entity Info” sub-pain on the upper right you’ll see two faces listed. (Circled in red, Picture 22) The important thing to see in the upper right are the two faces shown. Currently both have the default grey/white icon shown. I haven’t changed their color.

Now, let’s reverse the face on the highlighted surface. (Right click on the surface, and select “Reverse Faces”) As you can see, the face we reversed is darker now. (Picture 23)

This is a fire-pit after all; let’s change all the surfaces to a concrete material. Under the materials tab, I selected “Polished Concrete New” and painted all the selected surfaces one at a time. (Picture 24) Looks good right?

As you can see, the surface we reversed earlier looks like all the rest, but let’s take a closer look.

First let’s select one of the neighboring “right side out” surfaces. (Picture 25). I selected a surface to the right of the suspect surface. Notice the Entity Info in the upper right. The upper Face icon is different. Let’s drill into this and look more closely. Click on it to give you a “Choose Paint” sub-window. (Picture 26)

Click on the “Edit” button. You’ll get the Edit Material sub-window. (Picture 27). Notice near the top it says “Polished Concrete New”.  This is the material we selected earlier. This will come in handy later, but for now, we know where it is.

Now, let’s look at the inside-out-surface. We select it, and notice the differences in the faces in the upper right of the screen. The “Front Face” is still shown with the default icon, while the “Rear Face” (the lower icon) has the icon of the concrete. (Picture 28)

Let’s see what happens when we export it, and then import it into Daz. First we export it like we did before. (file name “fire-pit-2”) But the results screen is now a little bit different. (Picture 29) It now says there are 3 Materials. Last time it said only 2. (Picture 14)

Now we import it. Just like before. But this time in Daz the suspect surface stands out. (Picture 30). Let’s give it a real concrete surface and it’ll show up even better. (Picture 31).

So how do we fix this?  In a simple example like this one, it’s easy. In Daz, simply apply the same shader to the “FrontColor” surface, and it’ll look fine. But, the right way to fix it, is at the source; 1) Select the  surface. (Picture 32) 2) Right Click and “Reverse Faces” (Picture 33) 3) Click on the Front Face icon under Entity Info. (Picture 34). Then select the proper paint and click OK. (Picture 35 & 36)

But notice under “Entity Info” both faces have the concrete icon. To do it right, you should change the back face to the default paint. If you try to merge two surfaces that different surface properties, the results can be unpredictable.

Now, as a double-check, let’s export/import it again, see what happens.

I exported it as “fire-pit-3”. Imported the new file into Daz, and applied the concrete shader to the surface. (Picture 37)

Hello,

It took me weeks to figure this out, and I thought I’d share what I discovered if it will help others.

I’ve seen this asked many times, how to import/export drawings between Sketchup and Daz. I’ve tried multiple things and I find the following works for me.

As of this writing I am using Daz 4.16 Pro, and Sketchup 2018 Pro. Also, for metric readers, I apologize, I’m used to imperial measurements, and I’ll be using them throughout.

I’ll write this as a walk-through. I hope it helps.

First, to export from DAZ into Sketchup.

We’ll start by creating a primitive within DAZ.  I’ll start by making a cube 3 feet on all sides. (Picture 1 & Picture 2)

Next, we’ll export it as a COLLADA (*.dae) document. (Picture 3) Under Export options, I believe these are the defaults. Click Accept. (Picture 4)

Now we move to Sketchup. (Picture 5) I have a few added plugins, but I will I use them for this tutorial. Click File > Import and navigate to the file you imported. I didn’t change the Collada import options, but I have them shown just in case. (Picture 6 & 7) Next, I changed the measuring units to Architectural (Imperial). Click on Window > Model Info and under Units (Picture 8)

To verify the object came over properly I added dimension data to the drawing. (Picture 9). Three feet equals thirty six inches.

Now, to move it back into Daz. Before I do, let’s add a little something. I added a 6’ diameter octagon. 6 inches thick, with the center area cut out. I want to make something simple, like a fire pit, and this is a start. (Picture 10)

IMPORTANT:

Before Exporting it.. Go back into Window > Model Info and change the dimensional units back to decimal and mm.   If you don’t the scale will be all wonky. Trust me, this got me multiple times. Notice the measurements in the drawing have changed. (Picture 11)

To export it, click on File > Export > 3D Model. Choose to export it as an object file, give it a name, and choose the options. (Pictures 12 & 13)

I chose to NOT export texture maps. As your sketchup drawings become more complex, this adds to export time, size of the file, and even a subfolder with images. I do not believe DAZ imports this very well, so I don’t even tempt fate here. BUT, I learned a work-around to help you with textures and surfaces I’ll cover later. I deselected “Export two-sided faces” and “Export Edges”. I tested all 8 combinations, and only the exports that had deselected “Export two-sided faces” worked. I couldn’t tell the difference between the exports that had “Export Edges” checked or unchecked.

Once you click on OK, it’ll chew on it, and eventually give you a results screen. (Picture 14) Sketchup will create two files, an .obj file, and a matching .mtl file.

Importing back into DAZ.

Now.. Back into DAZ. Notice I have the original cube still in my scene (Picture 15)  I am keeping it for comparison to what we import back in.

Click on File > Import and browse to your file. Choose as a Wavefront Object file. (Picture 16) Click “Open”. You’ll be shown a list of options. The most important here is the scale. I believe Daz’s units are in centimeters. And you’ve set the sketchup units to millimeters. So I set the scale to 10%. (Picture 17)

As I type this, I think I could set the sketchup units to centimeters, and then in DAZ set it to 100%, but this works for me, so I don’t fiddle with it.

Click “Accept.” The object will come in and added to the scene. A couple items of note. First, it comes in with the same name as the file that was imported. Second, it comes in as one unit. If you exported multiple items from Sketchup, they’ll be one item in DAZ. There is a way around this, but I’ll cover it later. (Picture 18)

One last thing. Let’s look at the surfaces. (Picture 19)

Under the “Tool Setting” tab and the “Geometry Editor” (on the left) and the “Surfaces” tab on the right, we see there are two surfaces listed in our import:

“_auto_” is the name Sketchup gave to the surface it imported off the original cube. If your Daz export has multiple surfaces it’ll number them “_auto 1” and so on.

“FrontColor” is Sketchup’s version of “Default”. It’s the name of all surfaces that haven’t been given a non-default surface color and texture.

IMPORTANT:  Sketchup will only export the “Front” surfaces, so if you import something into DAZ and it doesn’t look right, it might be because the surfaces in Sketchup were reversed. (I see this happening a lot when using the push-pull tool.)

You can use the “Tool Settings/Geometry Editor” tab and the “Surfaces” tab to manipulate these surfaces just like normal. (Picture 19 & 20).

Would any of these Spanish guitars be close enough:

https://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/spanish-guitar-3d-obj/588516

https://www.cgtrader.com/3d-models/various/various-models/acoustic-spanish-guitar

https://free3d.com/3d-model/spanish-guitar-6617.html

https://free3d.com/3d-model/spanish-guitar-1317.html

https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/model/fecefd8313bb5bcdd86d4f3257dfa437/Spanish-guitar

TBorNot said:

I downloaded Octane X™ Prime last week and found Mac Big Sur/Metal  packages for Blender, Cinema 4D, Maya, Lightwave, Sketchup, etc., but the only actual DAZ Studio plug-in I've been able to find so far says Windows Only.

 

What it looks like is that they are in Beta test for the Mac Metal version, and are updating their web pages for general release when the download page will update.  Soon, soon.

If I had to guess (and that's all it is) I would guess that they're not going to have a new Mac plug-in for DAZ Studio until  version 5 is out and plug-in development is stable, otherwise they'll need to revise it. There are Mac Metal versions for most of the other 3D packages now.

-- Walt Sterdan

I downloaded Octane X™ Prime last week and found Mac Big Sur/Metal  packages for Blender, Cinema 4D, Maya, Lightwave, Sketchup, etc., but the only actual DAZ Studio plug-in I've been able to find so far says Windows Only.

What it looks like is that they are in Beta test for the Mac Metal version, and are updating their web pages for general release when the download page will update.  Soon, soon.

TBorNot said:

 

I believe there is for Windows, but not Mac (at least not for DAZ Studio, yet)

• AMD, Intel and Apple GPUs supported on macOS Big Sur

https://home.otoy.com/render/octane-render/mac-pro/

I downloaded Octane X™ Prime last week and found Mac Big Sur/Metal  packages for Blender, Cinema 4D, Maya, Lightwave, Sketchup, etc., but the only actual DAZ Studio plug-in I've been able to find so far says Windows Only. If you have a link for a Mac version, I'd be grateful. If I'm misunderstanding how it interfaces with DAZ Studio and a DAZ plug-in isn't needed at all (totally possible, but there is a Windows version...) please fill me in. I'd love to try it in the next few days before my holiday ends.

Thanks,

Walt

mmitchell_houston said:

tkdrobert said:

csaa said:

@tkdrobert,

Yes, Yamato 2199! Knights of Sidonia would be a good reference. Of course there's Gundam too, particularly the Zeon mechs.

Have you shared your thoughts to the Product Suggestions forum?

Cheers!

tkdrobert said:

Begin rant:

Dear PA's.  With only a few exceptions, I'm not impressed with the Starfighters I've seen in the Daz store or any other Daz related store.  The ones I like are displayed in this gallery.  It's mostly a style issue.  If you care (I doubt most of you do) to know what style I would buy, look no futher than:

• Robotech (Alpha Fighters from season 3 with sleeker cockpit. Think F22.  I already have jet fighters from Season 1.  Not a fan of 2.  Don't need to be transformable, but would be awesome.  Pleanty of reference marerial online.  The show is only on Funimation now with paid sub.).
• Macross II, 7, Frontier, or Delta (all available on Youtube).
• Star Blazers 2199 and 2202 (aka Battleship Yamato 2199 and 2202.  The show is currently free on Funimation). 

The starfighters in the Daz store and other stores selling Daz products are not sleek enough.  More often than not, they are too boxy or trying too hard (and failing) to look like Star Wars.  Some of the fighters even look like clones of each other.  Don't be so humg up on Western styles.  Branch out.  I've made the same complaints about mechs.  What makes me think I can say this too you?  99% of the products I buy are SciFi.  More and more, I'm looking elswhere. 

Dfire makes some cool spaceships and aircraft, but no good startfighers.  Love his new dropship.  Will defiantly get that.  Big fan of aliens.  I love Kibarreto's Shuttlestar and Jet Star (have both).  His startfighters, not so much.  The Pocketstar and Jet bike are missing something.  They don't do it for me.  I will probably pick up his Jetcarrier at some point. 

End Rant

As far as mecha are concerned yes.  As far as startfighters, I can't remember...probably  The mecha requests were completely ignored in favor of the same old western style mechs I complained we had too many of.  I figured any PA who watched this thread would be more inclined to listen, but I don't really have any hope.  I assume the PAs don't believe they will make any money, but they have not tried what I've suggested with any level of high quality, so how would they know?  All past attempts are not to the standard I'm speaking off, so of course they didn't make any money (or not enough).  I've seen some outstanding startfighters and mecha made in other programs.  I know that quality can be made in Daz because many other simular products are (I own some of them). 

I can't afford the other programs and I don't have time to learn Blender or learn modeing.  Hopefully, when I retire, if I'm healthy, I can learn to model and my my own stuff.  If that happens, I'll cease to be a customer of the PA's and become a PA.   

Way back... (like 15+ years ago) I had Lightwave, 3D Studio Max, Strata 3D (still have Strata) and even had access to a full copy of Maya for about 18 months. And, of course, I now have Hexagon... Even though I did some modeling and made a few specialty props that I needed for work I was doing, I found out pretty quickly that modeling figures and complex props weren't rewarding for me because it was taking time away from making illustrations and telling stories, which is what I wanted to focus on. If you guys have a specific model or ship you want to use, I'm afraid you will probably have to model them yourselves (or hire someone to do it for you).

I guess there's no point to this story – definitely no moral – other than, "good luck with it. I tried it and found it really wasn't something I wanted to do."

I've dabbled with Hexagon,Blender, and Sketchup.  I don't think it's something I can learn without taking formal classes.

In regards to the OP's point... I'm kinda surprised too that there isn't a dedicated forum for Zbrush... 
They literally went through the trouble of making a bridge for Zbrush, but there is no forum for it?...
Like somebody realized there was enough interest in Zbrush to create GoZ (pronounced "Goz", right?), but then someone else was like "No, let's give them an NFT thread instead... and while we are at it, someone change the name of the PC+ club to something nobody will find interesting or memorable... maybe the DAZ$ Club or Discounts At Daz Plus other Stuff Too Club... or something tedious like that..."

Theres a 3ds Max forum, but no Zbrush?... there are like 55 threads there, that's forty five more than the saddest forum ever... the NFT forum... and in my thirteen or so years here I've never seen anyone deliberately ask a 3ds Max related question... as far as I know... maybe once... but I'm pretty sure it was a cat pretending to be a human and phishing for people's credit card info... regardless, I've seen more people ask SketchUp related questions than 3DS Max and yet that got its own forum while Zbrush users are left out in the cold wilderness of the forums to beg naked and alone for scraps of information or to share their troubles with any stranger who will listen as they search restlessly for somewhere to call home... 

Okay, that was a bit dramatic... especially since most of us are probably naked right now too... am I right?... no?... whatever, it was a pandemic, I just assumed everyone was doing that now... judgy much?... jeez...

Anyway, I don't get it.. if it's a lack of moderators or something, I'm sure whoever is moderating the NFT forum has lots of free time... aside from having to delete the occasional "questionable" post I or someone who is opposed to homeless polar bears makes over there, it's not like that is a rocking' happening place and if a Zbrush forum does get a lot of traffic, I'm sure they could just clone one of the other moderators.

Not that I'm suggesting I don't value the moderators or they are all clones or something... I'm just saying a Clone-A-Tron is like what $1700 now... and a new cartridge of meat byproduct to print a full clone is like $50... come on DAZ, throw the poor Zbrush people a bone here... (and not the leftover bones from those cheap knockoff Clone-A-Tron cartridges)... maybe make up for that god awful NFT thread and try and balance the scales a bit, yeah?

Whatever... just say'n, that's all.

Ralf1958 said:

Epic82 said:

Hello, Ralf1958. This looks like an incredible product that I would definitely purchase. But it looks like no updates have been posted about it since September of 2020. Do you plan to release this in Daz's store? 

Hi Epic82! I am glad you like it. Actually I did't create it thinking about a release. For different reasons. The first one is, that it wouldn't run on many computers since it's extremely heavy on resources. Second reason, it's not built in a standard manner, created in Sketchup so it has a very weard mesh and because of that, the textures are applyed in a way only I understand how it works. Third reason, I am not working on this project anymore. The last time I started DAZ was last year in december. I just lost the flow. I don't know how many hours, days, months I already spent on this Circus. Many parts aren't even completed yet. Who knows, maybe if I'll find someone that wants to keep going on with the project in team work with me, I could think about sharing it. :-) But until then, it will be "the sleeping beauty" waiting for someone to wake it up :-)

That's the way it is with these personal projects, sometimes you just lose the spark. No worries, I hope you are finding lots of other things to spend your time on. Taking a break is no bad thing - maybe one day you'll decide you want to work on it once more. I know we'd love to see the results if you do!

Ralf1958 said:

Epic82 said:

Hello, Ralf1958. This looks like an incredible product that I would definitely purchase. But it looks like no updates have been posted about it since September of 2020. Do you plan to release this in Daz's store? 

Hi Epic82! I am glad you like it. Actually I did't create it thinking about a release. For different reasons. The first one is, that it wouldn't run on many computers since it's extremely heavy on resources. Second reason, it's not built in a standard manner, created in Sketchup so it has a very weard mesh and because of that, the textures are applyed in a way only I understand how it works. Third reason, I am not working on this project anymore. The last time I started DAZ was last year in december. I just lost the flow. I don't know how many hours, days, months I already spent on this Circus. Many parts aren't even completed yet. Who knows, maybe if I'll find someone that wants to keep going on with the project in team work with me, I could think about sharing it. :-) But until then, it will be "the sleeping beauty" waiting for someone to wake it up :-)

Thanks, Ralf1958. 

Epic82 said:

Hello, Ralf1958. This looks like an incredible product that I would definitely purchase. But it looks like no updates have been posted about it since September of 2020. Do you plan to release this in Daz's store? 

Hi Epic82! I am glad you like it. Actually I did't create it thinking about a release. For different reasons. The first one is, that it wouldn't run on many computers since it's extremely heavy on resources. Second reason, it's not built in a standard manner, created in Sketchup so it has a very weard mesh and because of that, the textures are applyed in a way only I understand how it works. Third reason, I am not working on this project anymore. The last time I started DAZ was last year in december. I just lost the flow. I don't know how many hours, days, months I already spent on this Circus. Many parts aren't even completed yet. Who knows, maybe if I'll find someone that wants to keep going on with the project in team work with me, I could think about sharing it. :-) But until then, it will be "the sleeping beauty" waiting for someone to wake it up :-)

None of the auto-save features in the programs I use are out of the user's control--they can all be turned on or off. They best ones also allow control over the time period between saves or the number of changes made or background save without interrupting the flow of work. A complex scene in Daz often crashes---it's gotten much better over the years but if you push it, it will bite back. That's a fact with all 3D programs I have ever used--I use Modo, Zbrush, Substance Painter and the 3D features in Photoshop and I've been a Maya, Blender, Sketchup, and Mudbox user. All of them crash and all of them have autosave. I appreciate that some people have had a crash-free experience, but one only needs to look at other posts in the forums to realize that is most certainly not the case for everyone--far from it. I don't think there are any disadvantages to having a user-controlled autosave and the advantages for those of us who do more complex scenes is obvious. Daz presents some of the professional work being done in Studio--if they want to expand that market, autosave would only be a plus.

While I was writing this, the forum software autosaved this post a couple of times. To those who don't want DS autosaving, you should be able to turn an autosave off. No one is forced to use a modern auto-save and most can be adjusted to the user's needs. I really don't understand why other users are resistant to the idea--have they never lost work to a crash?

A free sketchup model which may be transferrable somehow: https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/model/bbc7ceae1d9b9e9be3bf13b8cd77dc4e/MST3K-The-Satellite-of-Love-v-11?hl=en

Regards,

Richard

WendyLuvsCatz said:

you mean Sketchup Catherine

Sketchfab is a 3D model market (very recently bought by Epic games)

You're right. I didn't even realize that there was another program with a similar name. Thanks for catching this.