hello everyone,

Until now I've only worked with V4.2 and poser... But as I see more and more good things about V6 I decided to give it a go :) (yeah, better late then never :) ) And after a long struggle and searching the net high and low for howto's, resulting in lot's of try and errors, I finally managed to get V6 into poser.

The only two things I haven't found an answer to so far are :

1. how to get rid of that shiny plastic doll look in the preview sceneI've been trying with my meanwhile familiar try-and-error methods to remove that glossy shine but with no luck so far ... (e.g. amongst other things, I tried deconnecting every node one by one in the advanced materials tab to see what happens, but nothing I could come up with removed the reflections, also playing with the preview settings in rendertab doesn't change a thing. neither does switching Sreed-OpenGL ... . (is this plasticlook texture related ? lighting-related ?) (pic 1)

and second : V6 appears always outlined. How can I turn off this outlne ? the only explanation I found on the net about this seemed only to work for some people. not everyone. (guess what ? i'm not one of those lucky ones LOL :) ) . It was simply to set subdivision OFF in the DSON script. But this only results (in my case) into V6 "jumping" out of the outline into the basic zero position. As soon as I move the camera or anything in the scene, V6 "jumps" right back in the outlines. (pic 2)

I'm sorry if these questions are asked before, (yeah, i'm laaaate with switching from V4 to V6 :) ) but as I said, I haven't been able to find any explanation regarding these two problems which bother me a lot while working with V6.

Already thanks in advance for any info and tips ! :)

Preview and render are not the same thing. How does it render instead of how does it show in preview? 

The outline is the Sub-D cage. Again, only in preview. 

After turning off the Subdivision, try changing the display setting.  This should improve the Preview.  Also, is your library set to undock in General Preferences?  There are speed and posing issues if it is not.  

haven't tried this yet, but as preview lites aren't same as render lites, may be possible in mat room to decrease preview specular.

Thank you both for replying ... Render shows no problems ... texture quality is good and no outlines ... it's just that It's not comfortable  working with V6 when she looks like this in the preview :) that's personal opinion ofcourse, but render is perfectly ok.

slight improvement in the preview : I did as you said hborne : screenshot : turned of supbdivion and switched display from Sreed to OpenGl: lesser outlines, I can move V6 (or any action in scene) without problems, but i'm loosing the eyetexture in preview.  Oh yes ... and the shinyplasticlook is gone too  :) :) :)

I'm not sure what you mean with library set to undock. This is what I have in General preferences :

launch behaviour: external.

hi miss Nancy, sorry, overlooked somehow your reply ... will try that specularlight thing right now .. thanks for the tip :)

this is where I am now : gloss gone, lesser outlines ... so far so good :) see image above

subD off - Display OpenGl - library launchbehavior external.  Can't get the eyetexture back though... 

miss Nancy, decreasing the specular has some effect but doesn't remove the gloss completely (in Sreed)

something weird happened though: when switching to external (do I need to check on item load and/or poser foreground as well ?)  I needed to install and update adobe air (??) poser is much slower and my libraries palette keeps jumping to the taskbar at the bottom of my screen (can't keep it positioned to the right side as I'm used too ... 

you can switch back to embedded.  I don't notice speed difference, however my firewall blocks connexion attempts to 5 URLs assoc. w/library.  if these are allowed (normally invisible to user), it may slow things a bit.

Remember to set Sub-D to 1, 2 or 3 right before your final render. (3 if it is the HD version of Victoria 6)

OK thanks for replying, sorry it took me a while to get back here. Meanwhile I've been experimenting with everything said inhere, but but there seems to be no fixed workflow to follow. So I ended up with the DAZ3D V4 skins batchconverterscript.  What I do now is convert my V4 skins with the script. then I load V6 in Daz and apply them. In Daz I then create a CR2 from DUF with the "create poser companion file".

For the CR2file to work (because it doesn't from the folder where it's saved by the script - Neither in DAZ neither in POSER) I copy the new CR2,DUF,PNG and PY to my poserruntime  libraries-haracter folder. 

and voila ... a fully morphed V6 with no plasticlook and no outlines... YAYYY :)

no determined/fixed howto's were one of the main reasons I started with poser instead of DAZ as there is no fixed workflow to follow, it's always try and error... DAZ has so many folders, I don't even know where to begin ... there's DAZ in programfiles, there's Daz in programfilesX86 (yes, 32bit and64bit) but then there's a DAZ in C: next to programfiles then there's one in my documents ... and this one bothers me the most ... this is the main folder to work with where all content needs to go and that is placed in "my documents" (?????) . then there is the smart content issue ... then there is rutimefolder in data,people,content folders  and all this besides another runtime folder next to the data,people,content ones...

I have installed DAZ in the original path, I have installed content in the original path and nothing shows up in DAZ (left pane) ... I still have to work by selecting DAZstudio formats in the right pane...and then, best of all ... I select V6 and when I apply the createposercompanionfile i get the error message ..."...content could not be converted because of unknown/unsupported file type ;..' (!?!?!?!?) I mean, REALLY??? ... DAZ not recognizing it's own DUF files ??

But besides that I don't feel comfortable at all with a program deciding what should go where on my computer.... In poser, you can organize runtimes as you want them...  (yes, i like to be in control of things and have an overview... not the other way around lol). but anyway... this is just nagging and complaining from a diehard poser fan LOL

so, now ...up to the next challenge ... copy custom character morphs from V4 to V6 ... Feel free on any comments or tips please :)

You should probably post in the DAZ Studio forum on this, but the left pane is Smart Content - it shows items listed in the CMS as working with the selected item in the scene. If it's empty and DAZ Studio Formats lets you access your files then the CMS isn't working or isn't getting information on the files installed.

Um ... How did you turn off that shiny-plastic look in preview again? Bugs the heck out of me, and dinking with the settings I see in the mat room doesn't change anything. (PPro2014, Display|Preview Drawing = OpenGL h/w)

Cheers,
Ian

Um ... How did you turn off that shiny-plastic look in preview again? Bugs the heck out of me, and dinking with the settings I see in the mat room doesn't change anything. (PPro2014, Display|Preview Drawing = OpenGL h/w)

Cheers,
Ian

Hi Ian Are you using OpenGL with H/W,which is located under Render settings-> Preview-> Enable Hardware shading and Optimize simple materials ?

If yes please turn off both and try again,as this will take big hit on performance if you do have both enabled,I would rather use Raytrace window for showing how shadows works and how G2F looks or do test render with just Area render if you want to see how she will look

Hope this helps

Thanks,Jura

RHaseltine : Sorry I'm not sure what you mean with CMS ? I'm a DAZstudio noobdummie as I only installed studio as a necessity for getting V6 into poser :)

Ian : here's a more or less on how i did it : first you need Draagonstorm's V4skinsbatchconverter.  assuming you have created textures from V4 to V6 with this one,

you load V6 in Studio. you apply one of your converted textures.  Save this new V6 into DAZstudioFormats/my library/people

highlight the newsaved V6 and rightclick content library and press "create poser content file.

in the new window that pops up leave paths to there origin as they load .. (things often don't work when you change directories...

base source path should be set to : ....../my library

Relative path should be set to /people

click use all .DUF files and check include all .DUF files in subfolders as well

Destination base path should say : ..... /my Library

Relative path : /Runtime/libraries

Supplemental path : /DSON Conversions

Don't use the metadata setting. it will not work;

check instead : use libray and file extension (set it to CR2)

I don't know what it does, but I check "copy relative source path as well and check also "trim from....."

hit accept and the script should run.  Close or minimize Studio and in explorer go to Destination folder C/users/.../Documents/................../Libraries/DSONconversions

Copy the .DUF, .PNG ..CR2 and .PY from your new converted V6 and paste them into your poser runtimes libraries character folder of your choice.

launch poser, add the  my documents/DAZ3D/studio/my library as an external runtime.. I don't really use it in poser , but it seems that it needs to be loaded as ext runtime  for things to work properly in poser. pulled my hair out serveral times before I figured this one out. LLOOOLL  (i think....)

If you now load V6 from the characterfolder you just copypasted her to, she should load with the DSON importer. If you have outlines, set  SUBDivision to O in the DSONimporter script.

Remember, as BHOINS said, don't forget to switch back to 1. 2 or 3 before rendering.

Let me know if you need more ellaborate explanation on any of these steps ...

Now next issues to figure out would be : copy the custom character morphs from V4 to V6 and load (converted) textures on V6 within poser.  In Dazstudio I haven't experimented yet with creating PZ2 files in the "createposerecompanionfiles"script...

Forgot to mention about the textures : V6 textures always seem to appear shiny and glossy. that is why I use the V4 textures. In most V4 textures you have often the option to choose between normalmats (also sometimes called poser9andbelow) and SSSshadermats.  With Draagonstorms textureconverter I create V6 textures from the normalmats. Once that is done, I do the above workflow to get a V4textured V6 into poser.

Thanks DayWalker - very helpful!

As Jura pointed out, hardware shading doesn't help with the shinies (V6 or V4) - unfortunately (for me) I prefer the quality of the hardware shaded preview in many other respects, the SreeD view just looks too muddy YMMV.

Cheers,

Ian

RHaseltine : Sorry I'm not sure what you mean with CMS ? I'm a DAZstudio noobdummie as I only installed studio as a necessity for getting V6 into poser :)

The Content Management System, Valentina or PostgreSQL. > I don't know what it does, but I check "copy relative source path

It places materials, poses etc. that are in a sub-folder of the selected folder in a sub-folder of the destination folder, with the CR2 etc., rather than putting poses in the Pose Library, materials in the Material Library and so on.

OK thank you for clarifying that Rhaseltine !  Still no succes in transferring morphs from V4 to V6 . perhaps I should open a separate thread for this ?

Genesis Generation X2 and GenX2 AddOn for Genesis 2 by Dimenstion3D is about the only script which will transfer morphs from V4 to V6.  Or technically having both V4 and V6 morphs present in Genesis 2 Female(s) model.  But this method creates and saves the morphs in DAZStudio, once you import G2F or it's derivatives, the morphs will be present in the Properties/Parameters Panel.   

 I don't like that shiny look either because it makes the figure look like plastic.  I usually go the Material and disconnect Blinn and it gets rid of it.  If that doesn't work or Blinn isn't available then I blacken the Specular Color.  This usually works for me.

OK thank you for clarifying that Rhaseltine !  Still no succes in transferring morphs from V4 to V6 . perhaps I should open a separate thread for this ?

I've transferred head morphs from V4 to Genesis 2 in PP2014, with varying degrees of sucess (issues are usually around the mouth), but the V4 shape for Genesis 2  is needed to have it look right...