which is here https://www.daz3d.com/bits-n-pieces-dogtags-and-chain-for-michael-4 I tried conforming the tag base to the necklace and then the tag to the base but that hasn't worked. I have no instructions in the runtime for some reason. DAZ doesn't seem to have readmes anymore for older products.

It's hard to tell by the description ... but it looks to me like the chain might be conforming, but the tags might be smart props. My guess is that you have to smart prop the tags to the chain?

Well the tags r a cr2 in the same folder as the chain in the figures folder

Maybe both the tags and the chain are supposed to be conformed to M4? I don't think conforming something that's already conforming to something works. At least, it didn't back when this item was likely created.

I didn't try that. willl give it a shot.

Which bodyparts are there in the tags? Maybe parent the body of a tag to a link in the chain.

in the older daz products with the old installers there used to always be a readme, but not anymore. there are two characters besides the chain. A tag base and a tag. I think they each have a body part.

Conforming the tag to M4 instead of the chain didn't help.

Not clear if chain_secondary is a child of chain_primary or a child of neck and a sibling of chain_primary, but yes parent the body of the tag to the chain that is closest to it.

FWIW, this vendor is someone who used to sell at RDNA. I suspect this item is one of those that was ported over. Maybe someone who bought it there has a readme?

Yes, I'm hoping someone has this and knows how to use it. Love esther

It doesn't have a readme for that one because it was a RuntimeDNA product that got ported over. None of those have working Readme's that I know of.

I dont know if this is the case, but I've found a number of cr2s that are to be parented, not conformed, so I suspect that the tags are parented to the chain and the chain is conformed to M4. But that's just a guess.

Hmm that's a thought SeanMartin. Thanks.

Just a really late thought. Are you installing via the DIM? If so, there is an information tab on the product. It might lead to an HTML page. By the way, the tags look kinda cool. I hope they work like you wish.

Thanks, i have a huge scene that i'm working on right now so i haven't had a chance to play with the tags. I have a feeling that one of the first things i did was tried parenting. I didn't install by DIM but i have found a lot of those HTML pages are dead ends these days and don't have any info on them anyway. I used a weird method for installing all my daz content. I copied the cloud folder which has all the external runtimes ever from daz. But some of them don't have the poser stuff. For those ones I downloaded manually directly from the website. It was too fiddly to create all the paths required using DIM and remembering to select them, as a lot of my stuff goes in separate external runtimes.

I totally dig where you're coming from. When I buy content from DAZ I always download the zip (rar) file and install it myself. When I know I'm going to be out for a few hours I might set up the DIM to install the DAZ stuff. I do end up with dual installations sometimes but I have Huge external drives so I don't mind. The only issues I really run into is converting stuff that has no PoserCF files. DAZ is NOT ensuring compliance with PP11.

How are you doing your large scene files? For my biggest most complex scenes I used to use layers. The battle with Cancer (not me buy My Love) took years but I'm ready to get back to my own comic as well.

I like your cartoon look to this. Funny you should ask about large scenes - i just happen to be working on one and it is killing. just placing things on the ground when the ground has displacement is difficult. Also i've used some daz cars and that slows everything down. I rendered a spherical texture for a dome using vue.

sadly i spotted a mistake in the scene so i have to redo all the pictures except for the birds. Where they were walking dind't make sense as everyone wold park closer to where they are going.

Ohh! Good writing! I love good writing.

I totally understand your frustration. People see a comic page and don't realize that it's actually averaging about 4 renders a page. When you see one of them is wrong, you have to dial up that PZ3 and fix it then render all over again. AND then there is toonification process that the page must undergo again. But it's all worth it when you see that page and someone (ANYONE) comments.

so true. and that scene takes more than 10 minutes to load. My wacom cintiq pen is acting up and i have to use the mouse to change things in photoshop. it's really slow. i shoudl restart computer with new wacom driver but the scene is nicely loaded in poser. oh my goodness. And i'm just doing a motion blur now where the angry mercenary leader kicks a chair and sends it flying.

One thing I love about wacom is that they don't care how old your tablet is. They'll still support it and personally help through any difficulties. I have two wacom tablets. One large one and another smaller that my nephew gave me. I used them for inking after the render is done and again for graduation of colors. Sometimes, I hit. Sometimes I miss. The first one, I tried blending colors and inking. Something never looked right afterward. I won't say what it is, so I won't bias you. The second one I think I got completely right. Good comic tones. Both are from the story set in my Universe called "Interlude".

10 Minutes to load your scene!!??? That's a long time. How big is the scene?

well the scene is big with about 10 fully dressed daz figures. It also has some DSON imported which slows things. But i think the thing that really slows my poser is all my attached external runtimes. Thousands of them. Nice work on your comic. I like the second look better. Really vibrant and nicely tooned. Story looks interesting.

Oh! I almost forgot. I have the dogtags. I picked them up for like .69 cents during the last RDNA giveaway sale. Did you master them yet?

The DSON importer does slow things. Plus Poser has this habit of asking for Genesis OBJ's with some long ass name. I can never find the proper genesis files. The things is, I do like a lot of DAZ stuff. Maybe we can steal one of their hot artists or lure a favorite to come back or god forbid, we can use DUF files in Poser. Why not?

I just have two large runtimes that I run on an external drive. One for Rendo and other third parties and the other for DAZ. Does have many runtimes slow things down? I have a friend who I think makes a runtime for each project and then deletes the runtime when he's done. I am way too lazy for that.

Thank you for the kind words. I love what I am doing. I'll inflict the story on you if you ask. Some of the stories were done to simply practice setting up scenes. Doing a battle is a lot of work but HUGE a payoff!

Hi QR, yes, I think having multiple runtimes slows poser, but the advantage is that all your mats are with the right hair and you don't have to go scrollling to look for them. I have a thing from rDNA that is no longer available that is incredibly useful. it is advanced library manager 2, and one of the things it does is i can search my external runtimes say for the word tropical and then i can open as many of the tropical externals as i ike and if i want i can open them as one virtual single runtime. Ok glad you ahve the dog tags. no I haven't worked them out so yes, please let me know how you get on. I would love to see your comic. is it up on a website yet? If you ahvent got a website i have a spare that i have put a friend's comic at renderforever.com . Love esther

I feel sheepish! I don't have the dog tags. Apparently they were giving away the material settings for the dog tags for free. I'll have to wait to until DAZ drops the price (which is possible now they have some competition again) before I pick them up. What I picked up was the seal ring. It was dirt cheap and I have a project that I failed at. I want to take a rings flat surface and using displacement maps raise the center into a symbol of the four playing cards and more. You could have a Hearts Ring (Easy to find) or a Spades Ring (Impossible to find). I think the best way is to just model them from scratch, unfortunately, I used up my request model slips with one person that hooked me up.

That might be the most frustrating part of making a comic. There are simply things which I want that were never invented, poorly invented and pulled from the store. Like a fur coat. You think it would be easy to find one. It's not.

Headsup! dogtags on sale at daz 3 dollars

Got 'em. I collect dogtags for my figures. It's difficult to find one that can adjust to all of my characters. 3-D-C has free ones that are great but are unconventional.

I'm stopping plugsuit tests, testing 'em out now. I'll see what I can do and report back! (Salutes)

Yes, they look like a nice set if we can work out how to use them.

Esther,

These (to me) are a lot harder to use then they should be. The premise is great. I can customize them to my hearts content. But the final execution with no instructions? I found it easier to use the dogtags from Pretty3D!

The neckchain does conform properly but there is much parenting of everything else.... I'll come back to them. I have a lot of military from Earth that will need identifying!

Perhaps they do need to be conform to each other some way. So far when I conform the dogtag to the necklace...IT DISAPPEARS!

Sigh!

yes, once we get it sorte dwe could save the whole thing so we don't have to do it again maybe.

Try these instructions estherau, they're not for the dog tags but are for the Bits n' Pieces necklace for M4, which seems to be set up very similarly.

RDNA B&P Necklace

Here's an old Wayback snapshot of the RDNA page for them in case that helps a bit too.

RDNA dog tags

Thanks raven! I think that has the answer. I can't try it yet as I have a different scene. but i will. Love esther