For those helpful folks who don't want to read my rant, feel free to scroll down to the questions...

In the last six months it seems like support for V4 has all of a sudden come to a screaching halt on Renderosity and RuntimeDNA. Both of these sites have been flooded with Genesis products and have a paucity of new V4 content. It's been so bad I didn't even bother to renew my Prime membership for the first time since they instituted it (two or three years I think).

Given that my two go-to content sites seem to be abandoning V4, it basically means they're abandoning Poser. Genesis content runs like garbage on Poser Pro 2014 and so much of it that gets released, especially at DAZ, isn't even able to be natively installed on Poser.

So if they're abandoning Poser, I figured I would try to get with the times and adopt DAZ Studio. I have tried several iterations of DAZ Studio and frankly I hate it. It isn't even close to being as intuitive as Poser. I still feel that's come to the point of using DAZ Studio or giving up new content completely and working with my current V4 library (which is at about 200gigs).

In giving DAZ Studio a much more serious try, I am stumped by a few basic yet obscure problems that my Googlefu/Forumfu has failed me at solving:

1. How do you get rid of the headlamp? My googling only found that it's called the headlamp. I can't seem to make any scene I do actually have some semblance of the lighting I want to give it. Everything is so washed out that I can't even tell what different morphs look like. In Poser, I had my default lighting set to give me good contrasting shadow effects so lines on faces and the such were readily apparent. Very frustrated that I can't figure out how to do this very basic thing in DAZ Studio.

2. How do you change the size of icons in you libraries and windows. I'm working on two 23" monitors at 2k plus resolution and everything in the tabbed windows such as parameters and content library icons are almost too small to read. In Poser this was fixed by right clicking and options right in the pane. I can't figure out how to do it in DAZ Studio.

Thanks for your help and sorry about the ranting. At least this old dog is trying to learn some new tricks and broaden my horizons...

I can try to answer 1. I'm guessing you are using Iray. Look on the render tab in the Environment section. By default, Iray sets the Environment Mode to Dome Only or Dome and Scene with a low resolution HDRI on the Dome. The Draw Dome property also defaults to off, so you cannot see the Dome in the render (but you will see it in reflections if you have a hightly reflective object). To render with only scene lights, set the Enviroment Mode to "Scene Only". This will turn off the dome.

Don't be surprised if your scene then renders rather dark. Spot lights are not very bright by default in DAZ compared to the Sun. You can turn up the light intensities or you can adjust the Tone Mapping properties on the render tab. Turning up the ISO will make the scene brighter.

Rather than doing an actual render, you can use NVIDA Iray display mode instead of the default Texture Shaded mode. This will give a preview of lighting and lets you adjust it more quickly. You can do this even if you do not have a Nvida graphics card, although it will be slower.

Welcome to the Daz forum onimusha. I understand your despair, however PA's at Daz and elsewhere will make products and follow the trends, that being to suit new products produced by Daz The shop fronts ie Renderosity and RDNA will accomodate the vendors to sell their products they can only offer whats being produced. V4 is a great product and considering how long vendors continued to supply products for it V4 itself outlived many OS updates from all the major software companies V4 was the Windows XP of the character world and the advancements in tech have kind of bought it to an end. But still has a use :-) Using Daz will only increase your ability to utilize Poser and vise-versa so it is a best of both worlds situation here. Sometimes you will find that Poser will give you the render mood you are looking for even if it is 100% Daz Figures and props as I did yesterday.

In addition to markht. In the render settings you can access the headlamp by default it should be only when no scene lights. Click the setting cog on the top right of headlamp panel and you have choices to never have it come on and make further adjustments

I am not sure you can change text/folder size. You can change the size or more format of the library from little thumb/text description to large thumbnail. I solved it with a 40 inch monitor coz I am blind in one eye and can't see out the other

Have a great day

- Johnny G

"Try animation to get things moving"

lpr001@renderosity.com

The only way we currently have to change text size is by changing the style: Main menu/windows/style/select style. Which is severely limited but may be enough for your needs, I'm using 'Highway' on a single 23" screen.

regards
prixat

Parameter tab: Camera: Headlamp: DropDown menue: Auto, Off, On. + the Headlamp intenisty and XYZ offset.

I'm personally glad that V4 got sorted out. She's old, I'm allways searching for new digital meat. ]:) I aggree, that DS is not as userfriendley as Poser. I didn't hate DS, I just prefered Poser. That latest update of DS changed it all. IRay and G3Females, who look better, than anything, I've seen before in that Poese/DS universe changed it all. Right now, I am exclusivley using DS, and I am learning to use it, and actuallyy have fun with it. Excited about the next release of Poser though. If 2016 Poser release looks good to me, I'll switch back. So what, I don't have to keep the faith.

The Headlamp can be turned off one of several ways.

1. Add a light to the scene. This will automatically turn off the headlamp. a. Note this has to be an actual light, not an HDRI Map, not a mesh light created by adding emission to a surface. b. This light can have an emission value of zero or be made invisible (which means it is off and emits no light.)

2. Under render settings, under "General" there is a line that says Autoheadlamp Set it to never.

I personally created a scene called Default which has an invisible pointlight in the scene. I then opened it in a text editor (after using 7zip to uncompress it) and removed the authorship information. This way I will not accidentally overwrite it. Then I gzipped it and put it back. I set the preferences to open this scene whenever DAZ Studio starts and whenever I hit new. Now I never see the headlamp. :)

Thanks for the replies... I'm finding DAZ Studio kind of bewildering but these tips are making it clearer to use. Still haven't gotten to do what I want, but I feel like I'm closer because of your tips.

Have you tried the interactive tutorials that are included with DS?

I find those wonky and difficult to use, but I'm trying them. I have such limited time that all I want to do is just play with it when I'm sitting in front of my machine...

Welcome to the Darkside... I've bounced around between Poser and DS for years. Sometimes using both as they have strengths. These days I'll primarily use DS because I find it a more updated toolset. No morph brush and dynamics room leaves me little choice at times to go back and forth. The new Genesis figures made it an easy choice to support DS over Poser. I've used Poser since it was a pup and it annoyed me to learn a new system but in the end I find it was worth it. The renders you can get out of a "free" software are quite impressive. Poser just feels old to me now which is kinda sad. Once you get used to the different interface I think you'll find it a breeze to work in. It'll take time and a little knowledge to feel comfortable enough to just play around. But that's how I learned it. Playing with this and that, making new discoveries as you go makes it fun. At least it did for me. I am in no way an expert in this type of software. But just keep pluggin' away. I'm sure you'll find a lot of people willing to help you figure certain things out. Either her at Renderosity or at the Daz forums. Saying goodbye to V4 and welcoming V7 didn't hurt me much. Especially if you like armpits to fold under the shoulder instead of the ears:) IMHO, I strongly disagree that Poser is more intuitive than DS, it's just different than what you're used to.

So here's another nitty gritty question. I have a dual monitor setup and with poser, I always had my content library and parameters window on the second monitor so could maximize my viewing pane in the first monitor and see as many parameter dials as possible on the second (my second monitor is rotated 90 degrees so I can see really long lists of dials).

I really like the tabbed parameter window but I can't figure out how to move the whole thing to my second monitor. I can undock specific tabs, but would love to have the whole tabbed window on my second monitor. Is there a way to re-dock them in separate window back into tabs?

Still haven't figured out how to make icons or text bigger in my content library, even after trying suggestions. Still appreciate the help though.

Well just figured out the tab part and according to the people at DAZ, you can't make the icons bigger.

I am also in transition to Daz Studio at the moment. I play around with it every now and then but have always had a Daz3D membership since like 2002-03?

I do not like the interface of Daz Studio but that is only because I have been using Poser for so long.

I am praying that Smith-Micro and Daz3D can come to some type of agreement but if not, I will be done with Poser.

Poser is becoming less supported every month.

Supposedly Smith Micro is about to release a new Poser that is supposed to wow us. It doesn't look like the new features they've teased so far are anything to write home about. If it doesn't integrate Genesis 2 and 3 models as seamlessly as DAZ, I'm not going to bother with it because there will be no point. They're also releasing a new line of figures to go with it, but their figures have always been vastly inferior to what DAZ makes in every way, and are almost never worth putting money into. They get almost no content and never pose or morph well. Even Miki 4 didn't look human unless you were looking at its face.

That being said, I can do some very powerful things with Poserpro 2014 and will probably continue using it for a long time to come. It's intuitiveness and ease of use will keep me from switching over to DAZ Studio 4.8 for a long time...

onimusha posted at 5:25AM Wed, 30 September 2015 - #4231549

Supposedly Smith Micro is about to release a new Poser that is supposed to wow us. It doesn't look like the new features they've teased so far are anything to write home about. If it doesn't integrate Genesis 2 and 3 models as seamlessly as DAZ, I'm not going to bother with it because there will be no point. They're also releasing a new line of figures to go with it, but their figures have always been vastly inferior to what DAZ makes in every way, and are almost never worth putting money into. They get almost no content and never pose or morph well. Even Miki 4 didn't look human unless you were looking at its face.

That being said, I can do some very powerful things with Poserpro 2014 and will probably continue using it for a long time to come. It's intuitiveness and ease of use will keep me from switching over to DAZ Studio 4.8 for a long time...

I wouldn't really call Poser intuitive, you're just used to the interface. I find it absolutely clunky, especially when developing content, posing figures, making materials. Those dials are the worst things ever. Selecting a figure part and it chooses the light? Huh? How about can you pose a figure in Poser by pinning a body part, and dragging another to adjust a pose? I don't think you can do that in Poser. Moving the around the scene you have to use 3 separate controls instead of a universal one? Can you find out what morphs your figure is using at a glance in Poser? Go into edit mode and modify values on multiple parameters? Change a pose by choosing the symmetry option so your figure is facing a different direction? Look through a light so you can position it in a scene? Create a light or camera based on the position of a selected light or camera? Use keyboard commands to do a fly through of your scene? Nope. How about setting a material to multiple zones without an external tool? Not at all.

Not intuitive, you just need to learn a different way of doing things.

Well if you're using DAZ Studio already, the new Poser not going to wow you as the features they're trying to get you already have, except for HD morphs, which most likely will be misused. The thing you have to understand is how to manipulate a low poly morph first; if you're trying to high poly everything you're just going to waste polys and most likely HD things that don't need it. If the implementation of it is bad, you run the risk of locking your program with a high poly morph that no one will use. And knowing SM, it won't work on anything but their figures, and won't handle the poke through issue if you attempt to HD body morphs (subdivided meshes are smoother and expand). It's doubtful they took any of that in account when developing a character from start to finish, but we'll see. Also, unless you have a copy of Zbrush or Mudbox, you are wasting your time with HD morphs because that's really the best tool to get your results. Few programs will smoothly handle million poly meshes. If your scene gets sluggish with 4 V4s or polymesh hair from Zbrush, imagine what a high poly mesh will do.

Also the morph injections seem solution seems clunky as they're using those pmds that you can't directly edit. Hopefully you can send out only what you need for your projects and not need an external purchase to do it. But since it's being touted as compatible with earlier versions, then you most likely will.

I'd put the whole genesis thing to bed as well, even if the weight mapping issue was resolved, many vendors have shut the door on poser compatibility and won't be going back and that's where the support comes from. I've quite a few stories from vendors buying new machines with nvidia cards, and not installing poser on them. Hopefully those figures will be adequate for Poser users, or expect the figure wars to rage in their forums for a few more years.

But most of what can be done with content development can be done right inside of DS without leaving, and with Allegorithmic signing an agreement with Nvidia in August to use Iray as their secondary viewport in the 5.3 version of Substance Designer (with Painter getting the feature a bit later), it will be even harder to support Poser when you can see what your output will look like in other applications without tweaking.

onimusha posted at 8:19AM Wed, 30 September 2015 - #4231308

Well just figured out the tab part and according to the people at DAZ, you can't make the icons bigger.

On the other hand you can make bigger tooltips. Use a bigger image (256x256 recommended) put it in the folder next to the icon, with the same name adding the extension .tip.

I thought I'd post, and write something from a Daz user's perspective. When I was first considering which to use, and I tried both, it fell to which I could come to terms with better; I looked at the quality of art that folks produced, and decided that neither was better, only one suited a person more, or the other did.

I could never get the hang of poser; I'm a blender user, so understanding that some don't like an interface is not a new experience. There were still aspects of Daz I didn't like, and I just persevered.

The main aspect that persuaded me to go the Daz way, was the content, sure I'd have loved Poser's dynamics, but using content in Daz has always been easier for me, and the advent of Genesis 2 made it easier still; I didn't want to stay with Victoria 4, as I came to that party late, and wanted to try what was new. Genesis 3 looks like being impossible unless Smith Micro make a determined effort, and that doesn't seem likely.

I hope they do pull it off, and produce something awesome - I like competition, it makes a company slightly more 'honest'. :)

I too am a convert after using Poser since version 2 and up until PP 2014. I had played with DS ever since it came out and couldn't stand the interface either. What changed things for me was up to date content and the add-ons that I was seeing appear for DS. Pose converters, Measuring tools, hair plugins that were WAY better than Poser's hair room, easier to import homemade models, etc.. Simply put, DS seemed to be the more progressive system, so I persisted and now I use DS 4.8 Pro exclusively. So I'd encourage the OP to just keep trying. I also got a lot of help from the New User area in the DAZ community. So don't be afraid to ask.

One tip: My biggest hurdle was understanding the way the view-port works. You don't get any default cameras or lighting when you open DS like you do in Poser. I couldn't for the life of me get the perspective of my scenes right. Everything looked like I was viewing it in a "fish eye" lens. To make the transition easier and make the view-port more "Poser like" I set up a base scene in Poser ( say with a plain V4) and saved it as a pz3. I then opened it in DS and I got my "poser cameras" and base lights in DS. I deleted V4 and saved what was left as a scene preset ( File Menu-Save as- scene). I also made myself a "floor" out of a large plane primitive. Now when I start a new project, I first load my startup scene and things look a lot more familiar.

You can tell DS to create a default camera in a new scene, in Edit>Preferences>Scene

Also, using Iray the settings will default to using the Ruins HDR file as an environment so you will get lighting. That doesn't affect 3Delight, and doesn't give in-scene lights that can be selected and adjusted directly.

@mjmdvm

Hit F2 for preferences.

Under the tabs Startup and Scene you can set Daz to load a default file. I do that, I also set the file: right click on it (wherever you keep it) and General > Read only; tick the check box for: Attributes, Read Only. That makes it so you Daz can't accidentally overwrite it. If you want to ammend the default file you select to load, then just unckeck the read only option save and then set the attribute again.

@WritersBlock

Thanks for the tip! That'll be quicker than having to navigate to the scene folder every time I want to start a new scene.

@RHaseltine

Thanks!

Welcome.

about the cameras in DS................ the cameras load with a 65mm focal length as default. changing that to 125 or 150mm will get rid of the fisheye effect that you are getting.