Hi,

My morphs are pissing about constantly and I'm about to smash the whole thing to pieces and never attempt 3D shit again because I've had enough of all the niggly, stupid, shitty problems. The amount of problems I face with this stuff is mind-blowing but I'm just going to focus on this project stopping one now: MORPHS!

Ok, so, it doesn't matter what it is, be it V4, a hair piece, a clothing item or a vehicle; sometimes the morphs load, sometimes they don't, sometimes I can re-load them (V4++) from the library, sometimes I can't, sometimes some morphs load but others don't (I apply an expression from the library and only her lips move) and sometimes none load at all and it behaves like a fucking rock.

I'm trying to work with this, I've hunted, I've searched, I've trawled the internet and asked for help for an absolute age, as well as trying things myself (reloading the libraries, creating new projects from scratch, saving external morphs with the project, reinstalling Poser...) but NOTHING has worked at all and I'm sick to the hind teeth with it. My rage right now is at a higher level than ever and I'm seriously considering just ditching the entire thing because this is meant to be a nice hobby, something in my life I enjoy. I've had more stress from this than I have from anything else in my life and I've had enough.

PLEASE HEEEELLP!!!!!

1.  Calm down. You're not going to achieve anything while angry - it will blind you to the solution. Take a breath, step back for a minute and think about the steps you're using that may be causing the issue.

2. Sorry, should have said, What morph option are you trying to load - a Full Body Morph or an Object Morph (they are different)

3. Can you state repeatable steps so that we can spot where you're going wrong

4. If not (or in addition to that) can you post images to illustrate the problem

5. refer back to step 1. 

PP2014

No repeatable steps, that's half the reason I'm so angry, the only repeatable step is starting Poser

Images of morph dials being maxed out but having no effect will provide no more evidence beyond what me saying that's what's happening will provide.

Trying to remain calm... not really working.

Gah, I feel sick. -.-

For example. I have Roxie. I'd like to load a full body morph that I created in another program. As the name implies, it is a morph that affects her entire body (or more than just one body part). So to load it, I go to Figure>Load Full Body Morph.  

Example 2:  I have a head morph I made in another program for Roxie. I want to load that. So, with the head selected, I go to Object>Load Morph Target.

Any of this sound familiar? This is what I mean by repeatable steps. Without knowing what you're doing, I can't - and no one else can either - help you. So walk us through it.

Ok, just an example here:

I have V4.2 with ++ and Lali's Bits as a standard custom character in the default position. She has AS's Desir Hair, I use the default 'Country' lighting to keep it neutral.

Sometimes the hair will pose when I add a library pose to it, sometimes it stays static and I have to delete it and reload it. Same for V4, sometimes the Daz morphs are there and everything works (expressions mainly, but breast morphs (up, down, in, out) and grasp morphs often don't) and sometimes there are a bunch of morphs missing. Most of the time the LB morphs are wrecked and won't budge, forcing me to load the default LB V4 figure and 'copy morphs from'.

I cannot tell what steps I'm taking which are causing it.

Also, if I load a clothing item with morphs, then conform it, sometimes it works, sometimes there's tons of poke through because the morphs haven't taken. Literally everything's wrong when it's wrong, but not everything is always wrong. -.-

Ok, I can't help with the Vicky morph thing - I don't use her and have no expereince to provide with the morphs++ issues you may be having. Someone else will likely be able to chime in on that though.

As for the hair, if it's a conformer, with the hair selected did you go to Figure>Conform To  and choose Vicky.  That should make it stick to her head regardless of the pose being used.

One thing occurred to me with the morph issue: Maybe it's the order in which the morphs are loaded. Again, I don't use Vicky, so I could be talking out of my butt on that one.

Re: the hair.

If you load the hair with Lali's bits selected, it will sometimes parent to that and act as you describe. Always make sure you have the figure selected before parenting/conforming anything to it.

Do you have these problems with figures other than this custom one? Perhaps it is corrupted. Build a new version of the figure and see if the problems are repeatable.

My point is it has nothing to do with the type of morph or the figure, it's just morphs in general. I don't know if it's a PC problem, to be honest because I'm having various issues with this.

For starters, I can't render scenes with too many objects (even V4 wearing too many clothes can't be rendered, it just stops rendering while calculating shadow maps), so a cluttered room is a no-go.

Secondly, the preview window appears very oddly (I might take a screenie to show what I mean), because the yon/hither of the cameras seems weird, with patchy clothing/eye layers and flickering everywhere.

Thirdly, when I change something on the desktop, it doesn't always show straight away. It's strange, I can delete an item from the desktop but it still appears, I can click on it and try to open it, but it gives me an error, telling me the item cannot be found. The same goes for when I save items to the desktop; they sometimes don't appear... I need to refresh the desktop to see the changes.

It's not an acceptable system by any stretch but it's all I've got right now. Sometimes it works, sometimes it makes me want to smash it to splinters. I'm not sure if the problems I'm facing are a result of a Poser problem, a migration of data problem, a Windows problem or a hardware problem, but something's up.

Honestly, I need some kind of relaxant, this is getting beyond a joke.

I wonder if I'm loading too many morphs at once into one scene/figure? Is that possible? What are the limitations in PP2014/on V4, on a 32-bit system (I know, I hate 32-bit too, ought to be banned under the Geneva Convention)?

Well, since you're on a 32 bit OS, like any 32 bit application it will use no more than 3GB of ram and then start using the hard drive as virtual memory. I would suggest loading only what you need to complete your scene if possible - again, unfamiliar with Victoria's workflow.  It sounds to me like your system may have some memory/hard drive issues and/or a display card that may need upgrading. Manually refreshing your display often shouldn't be needed.  That's not really a Poser issue though, that's more about your system in general.

I always load clothing, props and everything with the correct figure selected first... been doing so since P6 but thanks, heh. I thought I knew what I was doing with this shit but it's just driving me skits!

I had big problems with LB to begin with, I had to toand fro emails with the guy right after buying it just to get it to work so I'm not sure if it might be that which is messing everything up. Funny thing is, I just want it for realistic artistic renders, none of these gaping monster morphs, it's just silly, just a shame I need to load all of those just to get something that looks natural in its natural state. Same with everything Poser I guess... perhaps a new feature of Poser should be loading individual morphs if the user doesn't want all of them? I'm sure I'm loading too many morphs into the scene and it's shitting its pants because it's totally useless.

I also have the Perfect V4 and the Overhaul morphs I think... Maybe I just need Genesis and to recreate Annie on that instead of over-morphing all of V4's silly glitches. Or I just need a super computer, which I should have by now but has taken two months to get here 'within two weeks' my arse. -.-

I am away from my Poser computer on business till Friday night, so this is off the top of my head. But in the case of V4 there is a init script supplied by DAZ you have to run that loads-sets the moprhs channels in the main V4 character that has to be in the base runtime and in the same folder name that Daz installed V4 under. Move V4 or rename the folder and the init won't run right. After you have confirmed the morphs work after injecting them (a second step) then you can move V4 to the runtime of your choice or rename the folder she is in. The init program rewrites-alters the cr2 file. Make sure you don't have mulitple copies of V4 in your runtimes. One with the Daz modified cr2 and the other without.

One way to check that the init worked properly is to select the body actor and dial the breast moprphs form there. (the way it should work). The other is to select the chest actor and dial from there. If they work in the chest actor and not the body actor then the init of V4 is hosed and you have to redo.

Plus make sure you selected V4 and not the bits when you injected the breast moprhs into V4. This is a common error I make all the time. Wrong thing selected when I inject. Some 3rd party breast morphs don't work form the body and have to be dialed from the chest. 3rd party magnet breast morphs you will most likley have to dial the magnet found under props and make sure they are parented to V4 and not the bits.

Lalibits and the perfect morphs do not really work together and will cause pokethrough issues because both of them try to correct the same thing and this will exaggerate the corrections. It is much more as just the hip morphs

There is a limit to the number of morphs in V4. Unless the products make their own custome channels, they may overwrite eachother. This may be the case with lalibits and the other morph sets.

Depending on your OS you may have only 2GB available and you will run out of memory pretty quickly. 2 V4 figures with clothing may already be a problem

Thanks for the replies folks.

The reason I mentioned all the problems with the system was because it might be a system problem linking all of these issues together. I didn't think my desktop problem was a Poser issue, I thought my Poser issue and desktop problem might be common to, say, a 32-bit OS being shit, for example.

I have run the init tool for V4 and it made no difference, however, I do think I'm experiencing a number of issues all at once, namely having more than one V4 (the LB one is a figure in its own right, as I said, I had to mangle through it with the developer of LB and he guided me through the whole process, so I have a separate figure with just the gen prop and the morphs).

However, I think I *may *have overcome the problems with this particular project by starting an entirely new project with the LB V4 and injecting just the basic morphs I need (V4 basic morphs, ++ morphs), then applying Annie's morph and mat poses. With just the LB morphs, Daz morphs and the mats I made, Annie seems to be pulling all the right faces for me.

I've a feeling one big problem was conflicting morphs, but I can't figure out why it'd be doing it now, on this system, and not on the other system, because all my older projects are now messed up. It may well be that I need to initialise the LB V4 and I'll try that next, but for now it's rendering, so I'm going to walk away from the bloody thing and take a breather. 

I'm thinking, actually, that I likely have multiple problems here, being that the morphs are conflicting with each other (they're not now because I've not injected them all), the LB V4 isn't initialised (is that likely, as it's working fine now?) and my system is crapping itself due to the high number of morphs (extremely likely, it really is a hideous thing!).

Damn this thing stressed me out today, it's been messing me about for weeks! Let's just hope I can get this render out today without any further problems.

Thanks for your help folks, please excuse the rage.

Been down this road before and know whereof I speak...

Running the init file does not affect figues saved before you ran it. You will have to load a fresh, initialized V4 and re-add all the morphs and Lali's bits to get it to work. There is no way that I know to initialize olkd figures either in PZ3's or in the library.

Not sure if it helps at all but I am running Poser 2014 on a Windows 7 system with 32Gb of memory and use V4WM with the perfect morphs and, so far, I have had none of the problems that you describe.  I do not have Lali's Bits so I cannot test any interaction in that respcet.  I only mention this as I hope it will encourage you to find a solution because Poser can be fun.  I do understand the frustration mind, and could happliy have thrown my earlier PC through the window on more than one occasion.  A few years on and I am really glad I stuck with it.

Good Luck.

If I had to guess, I would bet it is due to OS permissions...

If the content is in the Application Folder (a no no for Windows Vista and later) I bet if you go and look in the folder, it is not there. It is really in the virtual store.

This is one reason why Poser optimal Content location is the Public Documents.

Also where you save your scene can be a factor...Public or Username Documents is best.

With that said, all is not lost if the content was installed to the Application folder (Program Files).

When you get the Scene right and saved, before closing, run the Collected Scene Inventory Script, using the Folder option and save to a Folder in the Public Documents. If you have errors, there is a permission issue with Poser even accessing the content.

See if that opens correctly the next time loading from the Collected Scene Inventory folder location.

For the poke through, even using incompatible morphs as someone suggested, use the Morph Tools in Poser to pull the clothing or if feasible, make the body part invisible.

Well it's been a while for V4 and I (we had to break up, the relationship was getting WEIRD).  But I have noticed random issues with V4's injection system where the standard morphs do not operate right.  Consistently, I mean.  Usually it's okay, sometimes its weird.

Also with community morphs, unless they are EXP for V4, there can be conflicts if using different morphs from different 3rd party packages.

Remember if you're using clothes (though Lali bits sounds like a not really clothes type thing) that you'll need to magnetize the clothes or you'll get pokethrough because of all the deformers embedded in V4 are adjusting the figure.

Flickering does sound like a graphics card/driver/something going bad issue.

Sorry couldn't be more helpful!

Thanks for all the help folks, if absolutely nothing else, it makes me feel like I'm not alone in having issues, which kinda calms me down a little, but I do think you make some valid points. The permissions idea sounds highly plausible, even probable, as it's an old company machine with different user accounts still on it; I'm not sure which one is the 'admin' one but I'll find out. As it stands, it's still rendering the same scene... as I said, this machine sucks, lol!

If you need some one on one help with these issues, you can always contact Support for Poser. I know this guy there that will try and help sort out what the issue may be and give you some ideas where to look.

With regards to Rendering... If it seems to hang, look at what is Rendering. That can give a big clue (if hangs Precalculating, you may have two many bounces for some specific item in your scene. Using the Script, to turn down Reflection Bounces and keep IDL bounces the same, may allow it to get over that hurdle.

(I have a Car at night under a street light with a Wet Look Material for the road and car paint Scene that can get hung like that)

Hi, yeah it regularly drags its arse when precalculating IDL on the hair, Desir Hair is the worst for that, but it looks great! I'm not sure about the script you mention, I've never heard of such a thing.

Quote - Hi, yeah it regularly drags its arse when precalculating IDL on the hair, Desir Hair is the worst for that, but it looks great! I'm not sure about the script you mention, I've never heard of such a thing.

I find that using the script to set chnage the gamma of Bump, transparency, displacement and so on can have a major improvement on the render time of some hair products.

Off the top of my head I think it is scripts, materialmods, change gamma then set to 1, next screen for props and figures and final screen, all of the above.

There are other methods I have seen in the forum when rendering hair products but I do the above on all my figure renders.

Interesting, thanks! Yeah, I'm getting very odd results this time around with IDL... it reaches a point in the precalculation and then just gives me a wall of red, as though the IDL is going nuts. I have a mirror in the scene, which I guess may be causing this; this is the first time I've tried rendering with idl, sss and a raytraced mirror. I think I'm doing it wrong. :p