In February, I bought the Send in the Clones for Poser product at Daz Studio; https://www.daz3d.com/send-in-the-clones-for-poser. It is an older product for cloning props in a scene.

The Clone scripts appear in my Poser Pro 11.3 Scripts menu but I cannot get the scripts to do anything. Has anyone used this product or know whether it works in Poser 11? Poser 8? Poser 9? Has anyone had success with the corresponding Send in the Clones for Daz Studio?

The vendor, DraagonStorm, provided no documentation for the Poser version and, based on what I learned in another forum, died two years ago. The only Poser documentation that I could find is his short 2010 YouTube demo video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNQqdIcDX-U). He created the same product for Daz Studio 3 and Daz Studio 4 along with a short PDF tutorial for each but no PDF tutorial comes with the product for Poser. Send in the Clones has three short Python scripts that each collects Poser path information from the operating system and then launches its corresponding Python file that does the cloning (instancing). The launch files are uncompiled but the work files are complied. The three pairs of files clone a prop into a line, matric, or randomly. Below is launch script for the in line cloner:

import sys import poser pathname = os.path.split(poser.AppLocation())[0] pathname = os.path.join(pathname, 'Runtime', 'Python', 'poserScripts', 'DraagonStorm', 'SendInTheClones') sys.path.append(pathname)

if float(poser.Version()) < 9.0: import P8InlineClone P8InlineClone.DoIt()

if float(poser.Version()) >= 9.0: import P9InlineClone P9InlineClone.DoIt()

Thanks in advance for any feedback/help.

From the YouTube video:

A half dozen or so PoserPython scripts require a small free fix called AVfix, available from the Dutch poserlounge.nl website. This is one of them. Run AVfix first, then Send in The Clones will be able to work in Poser 11.

AVFix

HartyBart,

Thanks much for the info!  I'll look into it today.

After reading your reply and doing to the download site, I rediscovered that someone else had pointed me there back in February. Nevertheless, I tried again by following the directions in the readme and installation instructions file that come with AVFix. Unfortunately, I did not have success in getting the Send in the Clones python files to run properly. I never got the Send in the Clones menu that the vendor did in his YouTube video:

Each time, a process would start in Poser but then several panels turned white and Poser would exit completely. I tried running AVFix before launching Poser as well as after launching Poser but before trying the Clones scripts.

I also could not get the Send in the Clones scripts to work in Poser 9.

AVFix has its job done if the script starts. It tries to return another Poser version to the script. That's it.

You can do the same (what AVFix does) manually in your Poser Shell:

poser.AppLocation = lambda: 11.123456789

where "11.123456789" is any number you like (your script to start needs). As long as you don't close Poser, this new "version number" stays active.

Maybe your script does not work because the Python version it is compiled with is pre 2.7.

DAZ claims that the script "runs in Poser 7 and above". Obviously it does not. What about money back?

There is a mutch better script here in the shop as far as I know.

Although I've studied a few programming languages in the past, I’m not a programmer. I’m a recently retired math teacher. I’ll explore more your Poser Shell idea.

Although I bought Send in the Clones for Poser in February 2020, the product is a decade old. The vendor uploaded his video to YouTube in 2010. I don’t know what version of python he used to compile his scripts. I checked to see if that information might be in the Properties for a compiled script but it was not. What I did discover was something that I’ve never seen before in a Properties window. All of the scripts have a Security warning and an Unblock box.

I ticked the Unblock box for the P9InlineClone.pyc and its launcher file Inline Clone.py and tried again both with and without running AVFix before attempting to launch Inline Clone. No success.

I only paid $7.47 for the product and at this point, it’s more about getting the product to work if that is possible. I'll also check the Properties window for the Security warning on my other computer running Poser 9 to see if that has any effect there.

Yes, sorry for the earlier casual advice. I was told it runs with AVFix, but while it does I find on testing that it then crashes in Poser 11.2 too. I too only picked up Send In The Clones recently, on a sale.

From the manual for the Poser version of Send In, which appears not to ship with the zip files. The following lines from the maker may be useful:

"I know for sure, that Poser Pro 2012 needs SR3, or this script will cause the PP 2012 to stop running. Not sure about Poser 9 as I already had SR3 installed before writing this script."

So those are probably your two targets, each with their SR3 patch applied. Presumably one could then load the saved successfully "clone propped" scene into Poser 11, and work with it from there.

It seems the "Scatter Tool" for Poser may be a partial replacement for "Clones"? It does have one demo picture of a brick wall, and I found the Scatter Tool's maker explaining this in a forum...

"The way I have shifted the brick rows was to create a morph on the scatter plane to push every other vertex line to the right, so the dial controls the brick shift. I imagine we could create other patterns this way. It's not an array tool, but hey, how long would it take to do this by hand?"

It sounds rather complex. But perhaps less complex than getting "Clones" working?

It appears that you have the manual for the Poser version. How did you get it? I've put in a ticket to D3D Support asking about getting a copy of the PDF tutorial that is supposed to come with the DS version of Clones. Having the Poser manual would be even better.

I bought UltraScatter Pro for Daz Studio last year but haven't gotten around to launching it yet - like so many other products that I've bought over the years. UltraScatter Pro most likely does all that Send in the Clones can do and much more. But it's the principle of buying a product that should work and have the documentation to inform you on how to configure it to work.

For the manual, I went to DuckDuckGo and plugged in "Send In The Clones Pro for Poser". Google "knows nurthing..." and is full of spam, in this case. Always use multiple search-engines - Google, Duck, Yandex (the Duck is partly Yandex, but mostly Bing), as increasingly what's in one is not in the other, or not surfaced by the other.

Also, there is a free Daz Studio script that does something similar, "mcjSnapToGrid" - "Align objects along imaginary grid lines". Also, by the same maker, the script "mcjreplacethesebythis" - "Replace Instances of an object by copies of that object". You might make arrays and lattices in Daz, save to OBJ and take to Poser?

Thanks for the latest advice. I'll do a Duck search as well as look at the other DS scripts. Since I have UltraScatter Pro for DS, I'll launch it on its maiden voyage soon and, if desired, save cloned objects and take them into Poser. I've been a hobbyist/tinkerer at this for about 12 years but retired for good last so so I have time to throw at all of this.

A Duck search for the Send in the Clones for Poser manual found it, so I have that now. I could not determine from the Poser 9 splash screen or Help menu aby info as to whether SR 3 was installed for my Poser 9. Because I download and save executable files and zip files for any software and content that I buy, I was able to locate the SR 3 update file from 2013. I ran it but Clones still refuses to launch even with AVix. Time to move on ...