I'll echo diogenese19348's comment. I keep my good (ie: expensive) monitor for just the working window in whatever program I'm working in and have a second (ie:cheap) monitor for all the pallets. I arrange pallets in sorta, kinda the same arrangement so that similar tools are always in the same place. It's easy with Adobe stuff, and even Blender and Studio can be beat into submission. This gives me a nice, big and uncluttered window to work in.

Thanks Razor42 for the help you're giving Toomuchtime. I'm learning some new stuff too.

I had a similar problem some years back when most of my Poser formatted items disappeared along with some of my Daz stuff. I didn't do anything, it just 'happened' one day. My graphics computer doesn't go online so I know it wasn't a virus or some strange web glitch. I re-imported all my content folders and got everything back, although to this day Studio can't find some textures for a few Poser items even though they're obviously where they're supposed to be.

My suggestion is to....darn...My screen capture tool wont grab the drop down box so I can't show you. In your content pallet go to the far upper right corner and bring down the drop down box with selections for 'View as list', view as tree', and so on. There's numerous tools in there for 'scanning known directories for files', 'migrating old content', and the 'content directory manager'. Try any and everything there, this worked (sorta) for me. From all the constant complaints I see in the Daz forums and the Discord servers, this is a known problem with Studio. Let us know how it goes.

Hi Centriq, I've been chatting and trading tips with a group in a Discord server that caters to Studio users. It's full of people who got tired of Daz's overbearing forum moderation and enjoy helping each other learn how to model for Studio.

Anyway, I learned a lot there and am moving ahead with my first model for Studio; a fully articulated operating table. I'll be making a short tut on edges for both regular models and Sub-D items. Some time ago a content creator over at Daz started a series of tuts on various related subjects but stopped after only releasing three of them. It's quite obvious that either Daz management or the other content creators made her stop. There's also the well documented episode where a user in the forums who was leading a long thread for content creation was threatened by an anonymous content creator. I urged her to call the police over this and have them investigate and lay charges of online threats and harassment. She was reluctant and in the end eventually started the thread back up again after changing her name. This is the sort of short sighted attitude from Daz management that has made so many of us furious, and makes it so difficult to learn content creation. The tutorials are horrible and outrageously overpriced, forcing people to form secret and hidden forums where we can learn this stuff. Thanks goodness for Discord.

Renderosity could profit from Daz's insular outlook by providing detailed instruction on all aspects of content creation for Studio, AND providing it's own forum. The more people making stuff translates to more people selling stuff...something Daz doesn't seem to understand.

...and I promise to keep my mouth shut about this from now on.

I see now that there's a difference between sub-D items, and props that have only one level of mesh. I played endlessly with three non-Sub-D items and tried every different combination of settings in both the Parameters pallet ('Mesh Resolution') and Surfaces ('Smoothing'). Nothing made any difference in my renders. I'm not going to worry about my edges and just get to work on my fully articulated thing-a-ma-bob. I'm also going to make a short tut (PDF format) on this since Daz doesn't want to document stuff for users, and content creators try to keep everything a secret to stifle competition.

Please post a screenshot of what your looking at.

Aaaah...so after importing my model and doing the rigging and texturing, I should at that point select the settings in the parameter and render pallets and THEN save it(?) These settings will then be used when someone else loads the model and it will look the way it was intended...unless the user then changes something(?) This would make modelling much easier since it eliminates the need to make support loops on every corner, AND it reinforces what I'm seeing on other models I've examined.

I'm going to make another little tut so that others don't have to nash their teeth over something that turns out to be simple.

Thanks for that info. I'm looking more for settings, or modeling techniques to be used as a vendor. Can these selections be 'burned in' or added to my item's file so that they render as desired without the end user having to do anything? These are going to be props so I assume there's no sub-d involved; ie: they'll render with the mesh I've made. I also know about edge creases in Blender and am wondering if that's the same thing as what Studio calls edge weights. I've done considerable modelling, but never for Studio. Poser was easier since everything is well documented and there is (or was) a huge community of folks who made stuff for it and shared information freely.

I'm taking a stand with centriq. I expect this kind of overbearing forum moderation in Daz's forums but I thought this place was a lot more grown up and less hysterically terrified of controversy. I won't be making any more contributions here.

....and thanks for replying! Sometimes (most of the time) I feel that content creators aren't reading these suggestions. It's nice to have some acknowledgement.

The number of different figures for Poser does nothing but splinter the user base. Each figure has a wildly enthusiastic, but small fan base and even collectively have nowhere near the number of different characters and the massive wardrobe that Vicky Fourpointtwoplusplus enjoys. With all the fixes that have come out over the years, Vicky works just fine and looks great in Iray after applying the uber shader conversion.

Sorry jennblake but it's YOUR store, YOU tell vendors what to do. Make it a requirement, it's simple.

I'd like to point you towards this fork (version) of Blender ( https://www.bforartists.de/ ). It's exactly the same as Blender but with an interface that's much more friendly. Blender programmers assume you use no other software and will spend every waking second memorizing an endless stream of shortcuts and cryptic instructions. Bforartists assumes that you're normal.

I have two PC's. The best (fastest and most amazingest) is used for graphics and doesn't ever, ever, never, ever go online. It has no antivirus or similar cycle-sucking dead weight and boots from cold in a microsecond. My older one is used for online stuff and runs Linux. I transfer stuff via USB sticks. At some point I build a new graphics computer; the old one gets reformatted and turned into the online toy, while the older online toy becomes a media server, or backup box or...well....something.

You mean https://www.bforartists.de/

You're preaching to the choir here. I looooove the program and got kicked out of the Blender forums for promoting it. I don't use Blender often enough to become totally familiar with the hotkeys and shortcuts. I'll usually spend several weeks making something then not touch it for awhile, making me rusty.

I grabbed the latest Teleblender this morning and will play tomorrow (today is make beer day and do the stupid laundry day).

Thanks again.