Hi there~ maybe someone can elaborate on this question for me~ or at least let me know that I'm not imagining this.

I'm a DAZ user and occasionally when trying to apply MATs to clothing or other models, they simply will not load & I have to go searching for them in the runtime folders and apply them manually. This has happened with such regularity that I am assuming it is normal for DAZ...or am I doing something drastically wrong here?

I would consider myself and 'intermediate' user of DAZ and have gotten to understand the runtime structure pretty well, able to move things if they're not packaged correctly, etc. But when items are packaged perfectly I still get the same issue if the product is both Poser and DAZ compatible. I don't own any versions of Poser and therefore not at all familiar with this software.

Also, just to note, I have downloaded/purchased textured objects, clothing, etc where in the ReadMe file the creator has specified that DAZ users may need to load the textures, bumps, et al manually~ another reason I am thinking this is normal.

Any confirmation on this? Thanks for reading =) hope to hear back from someone soon!

What do you mean? That a material file (is this a Poser pz2, or a DS native .ds, .dsa or .dsf file) has no effect and you have to find and apply the textures manually through the Surfaces pane? Or that you are getting error messages? Or that you can't find the material files (pz2, ds?) in the Content pane to start with? What version of DS is this? Could you give some examples of things that don't work?

My apologies, RHaseltine, I see that the info I provided wasn't clear enough; I will try again.

Firstly, I am getting no error message. I am using DAZ Studio 4 (32-bit), and all the .ds and .pz2 files are in the correct folder with the exact same names.

However, when I navigate to the 'pose' folder to apply the MAT poses, some of them work and some do not, in which case I have to use the 'Surfaces' tab, select the clothing area and navigate to the maps themselves to apply.

Here's something else odd which happens along with this issue~ although the maps do not apply, the diffuse, specular, etc actually do change. I'm almost convinced that it's the gremlins that got into my DAZ program, but then why would creators advise DAZ users to be prepared to apply maps manually?

Just wanted to know if any other DAZ users, or people who use both DAZ & Poser, have come across issues with applying MATs through the 'Pose' option or if this typically happens when using DAZ.

Hope this info explains my query better than my original post~ Thanks for your response, I do appreciate it.

That does sound odd - are there any freebies that do this? (I'm pretty sure I've never seen it in a product I've paid for, though in case it was something system specific it may be worth listing a few examples, from different vendors or stores.)

Only times I've ever had DS presets (.ds, .dsa, .dsb) not apply is when  a) I've tried to apply it to the wrong item, b) when the file is corrupt.

With Poser format files there are only two things I can think of that would cause this, one is a typo in the code near the start of the file, but I haven't found one of those in a while so I have no idea if DS still fails to load them. For the second all texture references are in the 'shader tree' part of the material settings, and because DS doesn't read that part it takes it that there are no textures for it to load, you won't find this in any DAZ product (atleast I haven't found any) but I have found it in content sold elsewhere.

Thanks to both of you for the info, I do appreciate your responses~ @Bejaymac, I've not had any issues with DAZ products, either, but then I would expect DAZ products to work in DAZ Studio with absolutely no issues.

After many months of very careful checking of the files which I've had these experiences with, I'm almost 100% certain that it's the DAZ gremlins & not the products or files.

If anyone else finds the same, or similar, issues, please feel free to add info here~ I think it would be beneficial for both DAZ & Poser users.

Hi TheOwl68,

This kind of issue was very common in DS3, specially in Runtimes out of the Studio Default Directory. In DS4 could happens with old products, but most work pretty well.

Hi marciushess,

Thanks for your input, I do appreciate it~ I will keep this in mind as I learn more about DAZ & hopefullyl Poser as well =)

You vey welcome.

Quote - Hi marciushess,

Thanks for your input, I do appreciate it~ I will keep this in mind as I learn more about DAZ & hopefullyl Poser as well =)

y'know, at first I thought perhaps you were trying to apply material files - as in, .mc6 etc - but I've just remembered I actually had this exact problem on an outfit myself, using DS. They were definitely mat files...pz2 actually. I ended up having to change a line in teh file to make them apply to the outfit. I'm going to go back and try and remember which outfit it was and what I changed to see if that will help you...although that was the ONLY product it's ever happened to me. And if I remember rightly, it was Richard Haseltine (RHaseltine above) who told me what to change. :D

I buy alot of products and occassionally pick up some items at Sharecg freebies. I haven't experienced that problem, but admittedly I do have my runtimes in the default locations. So perhaps it is a file path issue. I have both Poser8 and DS3A and DS4pro installed, and I point DS directories to the Poser runtimes for content. No problems. :-)

Thanks jakiblue & bbost, I truly appreciate your input here~ I'm still learning myself, so I'm glad it's not just me imagining things grins

@jakiblue~ are you the same jakiblue who provided the tutorial on organizing runtime files? I downloaded that about 2 years ago & have been using the format ever since =)

I noted something very similar to your problem, Owl, concerning studio's occasional inability to read random/legacy mat5 and mc6 files, but they work fine if you were to manually change the file extension to pz2. It was found to be a confirmed flaw after Mr. Haseltine informed me to submit it through the bug tracker. It's there with ds4 and even ds4.5 apparently (I don't have 4.5 as it came out while I was on vacation. Oh well)

Add: I reread your second post about items that don't change textures/mats, but the colors do change. Sometimes this could be confused with a shader effect rather than a texture or mat pose. I couldn't begin to tell you all of them, but there are a great number of shaders that, in my experience, actually can be used to 'stack' an effect on top of a mat pose. You might not notice a big change until you render them. One I've noticed in particular that has more of a layered or stacked shader effect is Cloth FX. I'm still trying to find where it came from, but it was a freebie and one you can use to turn a material into either a leather or spandex look.

@superboomturbo~ Thanks so much for the info, I do appreciate it.

I'm especially interested in learning more about the issues occuring in DAZ regarding clothing available outside of DAZ 3D's site store. There are far too many amazing outfits which are meant to be DAZ compatible but end up having annoying & sometimes strange issues.

I want to learn how to troubleshoot and test issues of this nature, so any and all info would be most helpful to me.

Quote - One I've noticed in particular that has more of a layered or stacked shader effect is Cloth FX. I'm still trying to find where it came from, but it was a freebie and one you can use to turn a material into either a leather or spandex look.

I think the cloth fx was from this:

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/freestuff/details.php?item_id=66943

I used his for a long time, they are excellent -the chrome one in particular I loved.

Quote - > Quote - One I've noticed in particular that has more of a layered or stacked shader effect is Cloth FX. I'm still trying to find where it came from, but it was a freebie and one you can use to turn a material into either a leather or spandex look.

 

I think the cloth fx was from this:

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/freestuff/details.php?item_id=66943

I used his for a long time, they are excellent -the chrome one in particular I loved.

I looked through my freebie bookmarks and runtime files for a readme, but I still haven't found anything as far as creator names. That link looks close enough for me. I never had the other shaders, but I do now! Thanks for the link

Quote - @superboomturbo~ Thanks so much for the info, I do appreciate it.

I'm especially interested in learning more about the issues occuring in DAZ regarding clothing available outside of DAZ 3D's site store. There are far too many amazing outfits which are meant to be DAZ compatible but end up having annoying & sometimes strange issues.

I want to learn how to troubleshoot and test issues of this nature, so any and all info would be most helpful to me.

Clothing for me has been hit and miss. Places like Rendo usually have reviews where people who've bought before list whether or not they've had it work for Daz, and I go off of that if I'm buying. rDNA has cool stuff, but as you've stated, it's kind of a crap shoot. I'm a lot more leery after buying some expensive stuff that goes haywire in Daz and not poser. Live and learn...

These days I work with the conforming morphs for clothes (when they aren't daz exclusive) to get around restraints. You can also hide parts of the character that cause poke through when you can, like a thigh in a dress that would normally be hidden. It's a lot easier than working the character morphs to make it fit.

Last but not least, there's always freebies, and if it goes bad, all you loose is time.  I recently got into Optitex's dynamic cloth, one feature that Poser excells at. All this time I thought one had to have the dynamic control plug-in, which is fifty bones at Daz. Turns out it works well enough with just the pack-in tool in DS4. Optitex runs the gamut on what works, unfortunately, but they do have a ton of free stuff for DL off their site to get you started. One more tool for your tool box.

DS is far more strict on looking exactly where a jpg is that it has called. Poser quite often does not have problems but for DS to find a file the syntax and spellling etc must be perfect. That is why sometimes when using a pz2 file you will find you have to go searching for the jpg.

Thank you, Bea, I do appreciate your addition to this thread =)

Quote - Thanks jakiblue & bbost, I truly appreciate your input here~ I'm still learning myself, so I'm glad it's not just me imagining things grins

@jakiblue~ are you the same jakiblue who provided the tutorial on organizing runtime files? I downloaded that about 2 years ago & have been using the format ever since =)

oh i missed this, sorry! yep that's me. :D You can still use that for DS4, but it WILL bork your metadata if you have MD for a particular product, as the MD is based on where it is in your runtime. So if you use MD, then either don't use the tut OR you can always fix the MD yourself.

ok i finally found a fix to the issue i had where a poser mat pz2 wasn't apply to the outfit piece.  I've had this happen to me twice - once on a texture addon for an outfit, and once for a full skin mat for a character.

I hope this shows up properly in the message here - if it doesn't, or if I have confused you, pm me and I can whip up a pdf and email it to you.

• Open up the .pz2 file in a text editor - Editpad Lite or Notepad++ are good, I don't use the Notepad that comes with your OS.

• At the top, you should see something like this:

{

version
    {
    number 4.01    }
figure    {
    material sole

(this is for a pair of shoes, hence the "material sole" - the sole will change depending on what the mat is for)

• It SHOULD read:

{

version
    {
    number 6    
    }
figure    
    {
    material sole

Note how the formatting was changed - an extra line was added before that } after the number 6.

Save the .pz2 file to the same place as it is (obviously).

That SHOULD make it apply now.

(oh, i change the number 4 to number 6 as I believe the number 4 can cause issues in later issues of Poser....something like that. I don't use poser but that's been ingrained in me so I just do it automatically now, I don't know if it affects DS)

That's just one possible reason why a .pz2 mat may not apply automatically in DS. It's not a fix for every reason - as I don't know ALL the reasons a mat would not apply. :D

Thanks so much for this, jakiblue, I will give this method a try once I sort through some items in my Runtime & find the ones I had trouble with~ 

And thanks for the info re: your tut on organizing the Runtime files. I set them up so well according to your directions that when I installed D|S4 Pro a few months ago, everything just fell into place in the Poser content files and I could find & accessing it all just as I could with D|S3 :biggrin: AWESOME tutorial!