didnt cost me a single penny

**FBX Plug-in for DAZ|Studio

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Is what I see right now at DAZ.

Thank God I didn't buy Pantomine!  

I wonder if the hand grip will ever work again :0(, but I guess you can get similar results with Pantomine.

I wish I hadn't just reinstalled version 1.5 on my redone desktop.

I guess D/S 2.0 is still a way off.

For a free program you cant complain but??????? the same bugs are in this one, even 1 bit bad.
Add run time normally   program wont find the obj when load figure, but if you do auto search program will work when load character, but.
If you try delete a run time it wont show in correct order as i have 6 p4 folders showing and want delete 4 but don't show correct order, but.
The dreaded pose bug and rescale bug still in program, load a character with a nice pose most time you will have to repair in studio, or you get some clothes either have 30% scale increase or shrink 90%.
Their is away round it but its a bloody pain and this program has not been beta tested other wise the same bugs would have been reported.
Every 3d program ya buy from America every time a new version comes out they keep most bugs in from previous version.
But as i say you cant complain that much as program is free but i wish they would get people to beta test the next version before release.
They have not improved cartoon render at all but i have noticed the normal render option gives you even more high resolution renders, and am still impressed with the quality of studio render output.

Perhaps I'll hold off. . .  I dread the idea of reinstalling all my plugins, but I never had Pantomine and would like hand grip to work again so I'll probably end up installing it.

Quote - Thank God I didn't buy Pantomine!  

I wonder if the hand grip will ever work again :0(, but I guess you can get similar results with Pantomine.

I wish I hadn't just reinstalled version 1.5 on my redone desktop.

I guess D/S 2.0 is still a way off.

Tom, all you need to do is redownload and install Hand Grip.  Works just great for me in this new version of Studio!!

Back to D|S:  I downloaded the free content from DAZ and installed it to the Studio folder and it won't show up in D|S even though the new runtime I created in Poser just for that content does spiffy.  Any ideas what the problem might be?  I also posted the same question to the DAZ forum.

Did you run the search tool or add the runtime in using the Prefs dialog under the Edit drop down menu??

I used the Prefs tab...I had already run the program and downloaded and installed the other content this morning.  I'm thinking of just deleting all the new stuff and setting up a seperate Poser runtime on the drive where the D|S program is and seeing if that works.

Perhaps I'm a dolt but I can't even figure out how to add or find any content in this program.  It says in the quick start guide that something would automatically start and look for content for me.  Didn't happen.  So I found a way to add directories myself but all that shows up are the readmes.

Are PW Ghost, Shader, and Surfaces really plug-ins?  Will I have to reinstall them too.  If so they were restored from a backup runtime so I will manually have to delete them before reinstlal.

Quote - Perhaps I'm a dolt but I can't even figure out how to add or find any content in this program.  It says in the quick start guide that something would automatically start and look for content for me.  Didn't happen.  So I found a way to add directories myself but all that shows up are the readmes.

yes it should have done a search though I have heard that Vista isn't allowing the search not sure about for anyone else. as for manually setting your runtimes, when you go into prefrences-directories. you need to switch from studio content libraries to Poser content libraries, and then select the folder that the runtime is in, not the runtime folder itself. you can also retry the search feature at this point but if it didnt work when you installed the software it might not work by manually starting it.

yeah I don't have vista running XP.  Think I might as well uninstall.

nm managed to figure it out, but it sure is a pita compared to posers.  Or maybe I am just more used to the other system.

Yes the PW shaders need to be reset as this version of studio uses a new version of the 3Delight renderer and the shaders needed to be recompiled. I had no problem just running the installer without uninstalling. By the way anyone who says Studio doesnt have an advanced materials room might want to take a look at what QuillofVulcan has developed. http://forum.daz3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=61508

Could someone check to see if Cr2 Taper dials are supported? I know the taper dial code has been unsupported in previous versions.

 It would be appeciated. Cheers and thanks.

I coudldn't find any instance of the taper dials showing up Anton.  Perhaps Will can answer that one better than I.  Sorry my friend!!

No problem. It's support should be added in the future though. It exists for specific reasosn and uses.

Ok, I FINALLY got D|S to recognize the poser content package stuff.  I had to go and physically add the whole new runtime folder as a new folder.  I now have over 10 "runtimes" that Studio is complaining about.  giggle  Lets see what happens when we poke it with a large prop!

Alot of complaining for a free program.  I'd hate to hear what you'd say if you'd bought Poser or something.  Are American programs that bad?  I like Japanese, German and Italian myself...

Ok i know D/S is free and i payed something like $129 for P7, BUT after i have bought the plugins for D/S wouldnt P& work out cheaper or not?????????

thats P7 not P& as i said in the last post, as im currently missing spelloing version 5....lol

I would dearly say to you that your used to the other system and once you get the hang of how to add and subtract Runtimes you will see it's not very hard at all.  There is a tiny tiny learning curve but it's not really that much!! 

Here is a very easy to follow guid I set up for you and others that need the help. I know I needed when I was first getting started! 

Hope this resolves your issue.  If now not sure what's going to then hon!!

*Are American programs that bad? * No, not really, but for some reason there is a tendency to let the purchaser beta test commercial programs and use their problems and complaints to work out the bugs in the program.  I don't know if this is done in other countries, I don't purchase a lot of software that isn't already in American Standard English.  Not a predudice thing, just a "keep the money at home" thing.

I also buy local if at all possible and don't give my money to mega-corporations if I don't have to.  Small business and local business is the heart and soul of the free enterprise system and I just don't see the point of sending my hard earned dollars (US) to some faceless, "gormless" corporation working out of a holding account in the Bahamas or in another country if that same money will help feed, clothe and house one of my local folk.

I do practice "Think Local, Act Global" much of the time but there reaches a point where you have to turn that idea around...IMHO.

Attached Link: Eilir: A material Room for DAZ|Studio

OK then.... yea, if you want the extend the functionality of Studio you will need some plugins.  It just depends on what you want to do with it.  It is not set up for rigging as of yet and a Material Room plugin is being developed (I hope this guy will stick with it, he's really run into a few walls and he's sounding quite frustrated.  If anyone wants to take a stab at helping to mature the development a bit more for Eilir then please see the thread link above.... )

Better lighting then Dreamlight has some phenominal lighting solutions.  See the DAZ3D.com store and do a search for Light Dome Pro

Better Material and Surface works then see Poserworks stuff in the DAZ3D.com store.. Search for Poseworks

Scripts are many and free.  See the DAZ Freepozitory for those at the DAZ Forums: http://forum.daz3d.com/viewforum.php?f=62

For more goodies directly pertaining to DAZ Studio then see this page for more info: http://www.daz3d.com/i.x/software/studio/-/? On your left you will see a list of what's what including a link to more Studio Plugins!!

Hope that helps you out!!!

sorry I have no idea how to even test for taper settings, taper is usually a hidden setting. as far as what ends up being more expensive, no offense to you RAMWolff but I don't mind responding. Yes plug-ins can start costing money and it is possible by buying all of the plugins that you may actually reach the cost of buying a new copy of poser but there is one thing about the D|S system that is totally different in concept to poser, with Poser the concept is that if you want new features you wait till a new version of poser is created and purchase the whole upgrade. and you will be buying all of the features that poser has whether all of them are wanted or not. whereas with studio you are only adding the plug-ins that you actually want, no purchasing annual upgrades. so who knows what ends up being more expensive in the long run. its going to depend on the individual user. I know a few people who never upgraded poser from poser 4, certainly getting new features with either program is going to be more expensive then sticking with Poser 4(or whichever version you purchase and decide to stick with). Of course with studio you can do the same thing, some plug-ins seem to be added to the free base with major upgrades so if you simply want to wait it is possible that the plug-ins you want will be added and you won't have to pay a thing for them, of course that is up to the creator of the plug-in.

No offense taken.  I don't mind informational posts I just don't want this thread turning into a debate thread on who's got what and how much in the long run kinda stuff, that's all!!

It seems to me that Daz studio is a platform for viewing and using brokered content.  Things like the upcoming cloth plug-in which is free until you wish to make your own clothes lead me to this opinion.  Thing is, alot of people never make anything new.  They are, I suppose, happy with the fantasy/military/medeival/sci-fi selections already available.  These people will be using created content, but not creating it, so it makes sense to charge them this way.  Poser, OTOH, uses a different buisness model, but at their current pricing I see no reason to complain.  I suppose I paid for features I haven't used, and bug-fixes to the ones I do use.  Nothing new there.  My biggest fear was that Daz would nickel-and dime me on basic stuff (eg: unlimited undos plug-in, $19.95, Interactive camera widget, sale price $9.99, etc.) but that hasn't really happened so far.  If they can keep the plug-ins reasonably priced, and provide a useful program when devoid of plug-ins, then I'm cool with that.

i was only wondering the cost of D/S, not the "Who is better",and i don't want a debate either, i just (like everyone else) want to render as cheap as possible, and i dont mind things being free and having to pay for extras, but i do want to know is will i be living in a card board box once i start that rollercoaster ride?????
Hell, im half way there already with poser,lol.

LOL... no, you can pick and choose what plugins you want or need for Studio.  You don't have to buy them all at once ya know!!!

Quote - i was only wondering the cost of D/S, not the "Who is better",and i don't want a debate either, i just (like everyone else) want to render as cheap as possible, and i dont mind things being free and having to pay for extras, but i do want to know is will i be living in a card board box once i start that rollercoaster ride?????
Hell, im half way there already with poser,lol.

It's really going to depend on what you need. frankly between the free base program and the freebie scripts you can get away with doing a lot with studio at no added expense other then the content you already purchase for poser. at this point studio without any add-ons is at about a level between Poser 4 and 5, meaning that it has more advanced materials and renderer then poser 4 with displacement and raytraced reflection and refraction, and there are freebies for advanced shaders with more features and hdri that goes far beyond Poser 4(there is even a freebie shader construction room availible from a 3rd party as has been mentioned earlier), but dosent have dynamics or rigging as of yet and the animation capablilities are frankly still extremely basic. I think the added PW shaders add a lot to the material and rendering options so I would add that but there isn't really much more that you actually have to have to render stills. any added plugins add features that may be useful but are not absolutely manditory to make decent images. It's all dependant on what you are looking to do with the software. I still need poser, as Studio does not yet have rigging capabilities, but if I am going to assemble and render a scene I will reach for Studio becouse I just find it much faster to work in studio, it has tools that make posing a lot faster for me, but your milage may vary as they say. at the very least it doesn't cost anything to try it.

That Elixir thing is frightenly like the Poser Shader Room which I loathe and despise!  I admire you guys who can texture anything using all those weird settings plugs and node thingies! 

Well, I think I'm happy in the sub $500 category.  I'd prefer to be in the sub $250 category, but I went and got the new Truespace again.  I really almost threw everything out last year and tried to switch to blender.  I lasted about 20 minutes before screaming like a monkey at a vending machine.  My big problem is that there's just no take-it-or-leave-it yet.  No one really talks about this, but all of these programs are serious commitments and you can't just get by with logic.  And trial and error?  Gawd, try that in zBrush.  I got the 3.0 upgrade in June for buying it at the old price in 2002.  I never could figure out what it wants from me, but the art in the galleries is sooo good.  I launched it about 2 weeks ago and had to ctrl-alt-del because I couldn't find undo or quit.  Cost is relevant when you think of it as an over-time thing.  How many plug-ins could I buy in 5 years time versus how many times you might upgrade a full version of another package?  I'm really anxious to see how this new cloth thingie turns out!

Me too!!  (cloth engine, I'm really anxious to see it do it's thang!)

I have ZB3, I don't know sticks for stones in that program but aside from a few rough moments and asking inane questions and then sitting down and reading part of the manual I got it a bit more and can't wait for my 9 days off week after this one to really sit down and do my thing with it.  Out of all the modeling and high end apps I have I can see myself doing stuff in this one and yea, it is overwhelming but you just have to say "slow down, let's learn this first and then move on to the next".  Doesn't work all the time wtih me, I'm so damned ADDA, but I'm getting better as I'm getting older!!!   Don't give up.  READ THE MANUAL!! LOL

I've gotten some nice shaders that weren't that complex at all.  Initially, they were essentially the same materials as my P4 materials.  Everything from the P4 room is in there, and getting them to look as they did in P4 wasn't too much work.  I just try to link everything direct and avoid the math nodes.  I'll often use copies of the same texture at different strengths to give a little more control (since it's already being referenced) over each channel. The material room is one of my favourite parts of the program.  I can't believe how long it took me to try UV scaling!

Can someone please explain exactly what the D|S SDK actually is or does?  The description on DAZ's site says absolutely nothing.

Mike

Although I'm not sure what the initials stand for, the SDK gives developers access to Studios code so that they can create plug-ins for it.

I'm being ignored on the Daz Forum.  Can anyone tell me how this program is working with Vista?   IFf there are problems with it I want to stick to 1.5 version for the time being on my laptop.

I installed the new D/S on my XP desktop and like the new color of the intereface.  I also perfer to be able to access all the controls without having to switch rooms, so I set my settings back to the traditonal D/S layout with the new color sceme/icons.  To me this is more intuitive and easier.

Although I've been reading through these threads it's often confusing the way we jump from one topic to another, it's also difficult to sometimes separate people's opinions from actual facts.

It's the D|S SDK, as in Software Developement Kit.

It gives you access to the internals and code that runs D|S so that you can write plugins for D|S. Like eg if you wanted you could code a plugin that recreates the flocking behavior of birds and add it to D|S. The SDK would give you a library of functions to read various parts of the D|S scene, change it to your needs and finally send it back to the scene. And if you thought it would be a popular tool, you could also sell it.

I wish poser had something similar.

Quote - Well, I think I'm happy in the sub $500 category.  I'd prefer to be in the sub $250 category, but I went and got the new Truespace again.  I really almost threw everything out last year and tried to switch to blender.  I lasted about 20 minutes before screaming like a monkey at a vending machine.  My big problem is that there's just no take-it-or-leave-it yet.  No one really talks about this, but all of these programs are serious commitments and you can't just get by with logic.  And trial and error?  Gawd, try that in zBrush.  I got the 3.0 upgrade in June for buying it at the old price in 2002.  I never could figure out what it wants from me, but the art in the galleries is sooo good.  I launched it about 2 weeks ago and had to ctrl-alt-del because I couldn't find undo or quit.  Cost is relevant when you think of it as an over-time thing.  How many plug-ins could I buy in 5 years time versus how many times you might upgrade a full version of another package?  I'm really anxious to see how this new cloth thingie turns out!

You could always use Blender, POVRay, and Make Human. Those are free.

Cloth Engine??  I know I'm not too observant, but where do I find out about that thingie?

Quote - Can someone please explain exactly what the D|S SDK actually is or does?  The description on DAZ's site says absolutely nothing.

Mike

There are two tiers of Studio development tools, the first tier is the free scripting interface and tools this is the equivelent of Poser Python. one can use these tools to write scripts or shader implementations, the scripting language is moderately easy to learn about on a par with python. The second is the SDK or software development kit. this is to write new functions for Studio. all of the plugins for Studio were written using this kit and you can pretty much write any kind of add on with this kit assuming you are a programmer you would need to know C++ programming to get the most out of this. tom I have tested 1.7 on my Vista Laptop and it runs without a glitch for me.

Quote - Cloth Engine??  I know I'm not too observant, but where do I find out about that thingie?

Ah you were not aware that Studio will have it's very own dynamic cloth engine within the next month or so??  Yup!!

first tyme i used it it crashed opening its own file(.daz)

RAMwolf, I'll keep an eye out for the dynamic cloth engine thingie plug-in scripty doohicky.  Is it going to be....choke...Free?

The base engine will be free but DAZ does need to make SOME money off of it so there will be 2 additonal plugins available in the coming months.  One will allow you to maipulate the cloth as much as you want instead of being restricted to the defaults that are built in to the cloth.  The other will actualy allow you to make your own dynamic cloth!! 

I'm hoping when this hits Studio will finally be able to work with tiled materials at long last!!!

Fingers crossed!!

Quote - It's the D|S SDK, as in Software Developement Kit.

It gives you access to the internals and code that runs D|S so that you can write plugins for D|S. Like eg if you wanted you could code a plugin that recreates the flocking behavior of birds and add it to D|S. The SDK would give you a library of functions to read various parts of the D|S scene, change it to your needs and finally send it back to the scene. And if you thought it would be a popular tool, you could also sell it.

I wish poser had something similar.

Python should give you access to all those things, and you can combine it with ordinary C/C++ code (PoserPhysics is one plugin that does that). Do you have something specific in mind? If you want to do something that's not available from Python, make sure to send a feature request to e frontier.

Uninstalled 1.7, didn't like it no timeline features & you need too many plugins to make it worth while for a few extra bucks you can invest in Poser instead. The only thing worth downloading was the free 3D Starter pack with figures. and it's not like anyone cares what I have to say about it anyway. (MHO)

The render quality with the high end light sets in Daz Studio, I feel, is surpassing Poser right now.  I'm sure more animation features are in the wings, it will be needed for the cloth dynamics.  

I use both programs, but I feel in the coming year Daz Studio will be a force to be reconed with in the human model 3D arena.

A few extra bucks?  You mean a few hundred, maybe.  I have Poser, and I love it.  I don't see these plug-ins that bring it anywhere near Poser's price.  Hopefully the SDK will bring some forward.  Hmmm... how much would you pay for working softbodies?  Fluids?  Atmospheres?

Poser has a $50 plug-in for physics, and many other shaders and such are commercially available.  I can see complaining about the lack of certain features, but I think this is a very good free program, even if end up becoming someone's expensive new hobby.

Isn't Poser an expensive hobby anyways? Content isn't free... :)

The general interface is much improved, but I much prefer Posers Library system. Trying to find things in DS is long & tedious, especially when a lot of branches in the menu tree are open.

Also it used to crash on my old computer after or during rendering. It still does this on my new computer with 3-4 times the memory of my old.