Woe is me ...
Pascal Comics
Posts: 137
Hi,
Where do I start? First, I downloaded the latest DS 4.5 on Win64. Worked like a charm. Smart Content was alive and well. Then I started adding new content. Something trashed my Smart Contents (could have been me but I installed all to the default libraries) and I did all the database resets, re-imports and checking to see if the service was running in Task Manager as outlined in other posts but it's dead and gone. Re-installed Daz. Smart Content remains dead but I still had the Content Library on another pane so I could find stuff. I got good at navigating the Library and all was good until I downloaded the Genesis Ethnicity Bundle. I can find it in Win Explorer under:
C:\Users\Owner\Documents\DAZ 3D\Studio\My Library\data\DAZ 3D\Genesis\Base\Morphs\DAZ 3D\Ethnicity
but nowhere does it appear in the Content Library Pane. I even got a million individual dials for them on the Parameters Pane but nowhere can I find a way to apply them in one shot to a Genesis character. I clicked on every folder showing to see where it's hiding. No visuals, no Morph/Base folders at all, no surface material files, no nothing in the Content Library Pane. I'm stuck. Other than a complete failure of the content manager database and maybe Daz installers, everything is fine. Stable program. Great renderings. So, could someone kindly help me get my content organized and working?
Brian
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Comments
Someone who has one of the packages will have to answer for sure...but there's a chance that there isn't a 'preset' for them. That the only way is to dial them in, either in the Parameters or Shaping panes...
Say it ain't so. There's gotta be 53 million dials to twirl and how do I know what an Asian leg is supposed to look like? I can do the head in one shot OK but do I gotta dial in the colour too? Hopefully I'm doing something wrong and someone will point the way. I simply can't believe you gotta put an Asian together one eyeball at a time. Thanks for the response.
Brian
Some of the other 'shaping' morphs don't have presets, but most of those I'm familiar with are freebies, so that could be why.
I've been looking at at least the Asian set for a while now...just haven't needed to get it, so I haven't.
Yeah, I agree that it doesn't make sense not to have a preset, to at least get started.
Certain packages like this and the Beasts & Brutes, Evolution, Manly Men, Feminine Touch, etc.. are meant for adding to your ability to roll your own characters or tweek other characters you already have.
Agreed, I have only ever seen them in shaping or parameters...
This is what happens when you're a noob like me and don't know what you're buying. Learning is expensive. But I gotta say, the ethnic head morph is excellent. So my next question is how do I change the skin colour of the character I'm currently working on all in one shot? I mean change the hue/saturation/brightness etc. without changing anything else. I can see the UV map used for the character but don't know where to make these changes. Thanks, everyone, for all your input and looking forward to any assistance you can provide.
Brian
You can apply the skin of any Genesis character to any other Genesis character simply by selecting the Genesis character in your scene, navigating to another character in the 'Library' section and finding their skin presets... choose one you like and double click. If you do everything right, your character will have that skin applied. You can even use Gen4 character skins but it's a little more involved and don't want to confuse you at this point. Just work with Genesis skins first, then once comfortable you can expand to Gen4 character skins.
Edit: when I say 'select the Genesis character in your scene' I should be more specific. You need to select the character in the 'Scene' tab. If you select the character in the viewport you will get inconsistant results as it might select the character or it might select a portion of the character, like the arm. They don't do the same thing.
But what if I don't have an African Male skin? Am I out of luck? Is there no way to change the Hue/Saturation of any of the existing skins I do have in my library? Does this mean I have to buy the skin too? Just asking.
Brian
Good question. You can play with hue/saturation of an applied skin to quite an extent. Start with changing diffuse color/strength under the 'Surfaces' tab. The skin will have a material loaded in the box next to the slider. By changing the color here, it will change the hue/saturation of that material. There are a lot of settings here in the 'Surfaces' tab which effect the end result and it is a whole area of study in itself. Dive in and play ;)
Edit: It is of course more challenging to get good results taking one skin and changing it as much as you asked vs buying a complete skin, but doing it both will save you money in the long run and be a great exercise in understanding surfaces.
OK, I hear you. I have come to a momentous decision. I'm off to buy skin. Thanks for all your help.
Brian
In the end it's all about the art. Good luck and good journeys on your new endeavor :)
Guess what? I fixed the mysterious loss of all my Smart Content and I got it all back. In the database maintenance dialog box with a hundred checkboxes, I was checking both 'import metadata' and 'reset the database' because in a few posts I read, that's what I understood you had to do. This time I just 'imported metadata' and didn't reset the database and presto, there she was. It was a spiritual experience to gaze upon the pane's clutter once again. But between me and you, I kinda like using the Content Library a tad better. Sure, Smart Content has it's attractions but the good old file and folder layout gives me goosebumps. OK, just one more thing. The renders of skin textures up close are simply outstanding. Bravo to the skin content producers.
Brian
You can take any texture in to GIMP/Photoshop etc and change the Hue and Saturation or whatever you want to do with them. Then using the Surfaces Pane manually reapply the texture maps.
That's what I ended up doing. I only have Genesis stuff in my library. Although they put out the Genesis ethnic face morphs, there's currently no Genesis ethnic skins to buy or so it seems. Looking forward to learning Daz so I can put 'real' people in my artwork. There's a link below to the stuff I created with another program. Thanks for the input.
Brian
www.bwpascal.com
My pleasure..I took a look at your gallery and you make some nice artistic images...What program did you use...Vue and Postwork?? Look forward to seeing what yu can do with Daz Studio.
I used only iClone and some post-processing in Photoshop to blend the colours and distress the images. It's a great animation program but I use it only to create stills. And it's now part of the Daz pipeline. Thanks for the kind words.
Yep Iclone, nope never used it. I have enough on my plate with Blender, Bryce (rarely now), Carrara, Daz Studio, Poser (rarely now too) and Vue. :)