Grrrr....why Studio only Props and Settings?
mambanegra
Posts: 580
I know this is probably not going to help any, but there are a few venders who make DAZ Studio only props....and that's about the only thing DAZ sells these days that I am interested in. Sure, I could use the importer to use it with poser, but I don't understand the point of that. Why not just release either two products, one for studio and one for poser? Or is there some technical issue that I'm not aware of that the importer allows the artist to take advantage of special settings in studio. There are two folks here that I would buy from, if their products didn't have DSON Importer for poser...
As a person who has tried to make models (that didn't go particularly well:), by far, the hardest part is creative part. For props, especially those that have no moving parts, it's pretty easy to get them in and get the texture maps set up reasonably. So, it seems like a lot of wasted potential sales not to spend a little bit more time creating native poser compatible files.
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In the past, all props and even characters were in Poser format.
What Props are you referring to that are only in DAZ Studio format that you can't use without DSON?
Bluebird is one of the artists. Their stuff looks really good, but I've never made a purchase, because I don't use Studio.
It's not that I can't use DSON, I just don't want to have the dependence on some bridge tool and another tool, that is otherwise not useful to me.
If I were to use DSON to import the scene and props once, would I then be able to save it in a Poser native format without much hassle?
I think that line of thinking would require that:
1) The person knows how to use Poser and use the rigging tools or material room, which they may not.. and
2) The person has $200-400 to put down to buy Poser Pro.
Right now, that could be a investment in time and money that couldn't be justified in potential sales.
Actually my first DSON promo used one of BlueBird's sets (that was DS only) and imported it into Poser 9 with no issues. The good thing about DSON is that saving a scene that was previously DS Only into a DSON Scene subset can be imported into Poser. This method opens up a lot of older products previously unavailable to Poser users that PAs probably won't update.
DSON is fine. I guess it's just a choice of selling to people like me who don't want to use it or not...and they have made their choice:)
As you have. You have a solution, it's up to you whether you use it or not. It's a lot easier than waiting for a vendor to pay and learn an app and tools.. then send it back through a QA process... after an intro period for just a few more sales.
You are correct. I have made the choice, and I don't think it's unreasonable. There is a possibility that in a future update for poser, any DSON only content will not work. It might just be a few months while DAZ updates the script, or it could be simply that it will never work due to any number of reasons. At that time, my options will be to use the content only with old Poser or not use it. So, for that reason, I will only buy native content. If the importer allowed me to save the content as native poser content with no reliance on studio at all, I would consider it, depending on the effort required for saving it.
Hi mambanegra! That is a fair question. :) Before I get into answering it, I want to thank you for complimenting my work with your curiosity. You made me smile and I appreciate that.
The honest (and shorter) answer is:
I don’t fully understand how to make my prop sets compatible with Poser without using DSON yet. I am getting there, though.
Longer explanation:
On the technical side, DSON allows me to make custom materials in Poser without having to make any changes to the geometry files. I did that with Chambre d’Amore. The Studio set will load with Studio materials and the DSON settings I used tell Poser to ignore the Studio materials and apply the custom Poser ones instead.
In order to make my prop sets truly compatible with older versions of Poser without the use of DSON, I have to change the geometry files. This process requires me to open every .obj file in a text editor and remove a chunk of technical jargon that looks like Swahili to me, resave the file and then open in Poser and create a native file such as a .cr2 or .ppz. This process is fine for PC users. There are scripts everywhere to aid with making a dry, repetitive, tedious process go faster. However… I am also a Mac user. There are no scripts for us so that means this is 100% manual and if I accidentally remove even one bracket more than I should have, it breaks the obj. That is so frustrating for me because at the end of the day I am not a developer or a scripter. I just want to make pretty things. :)
That said…
I get it. Everybody has their preferred software and some feel more strongly for Poser or Studio, depending on the person. I’m not here to judge or say use one or the other. In order to help accommodate more customers, I just got a new PC laptop. It will be a bit of a process learning how to use it. I have to remember how to use windows and also figure out Windows 8 which is what it shipped with. I then have to get the right software installed, figure out how to use those scripts I mentioned and THEN I am closer to looking at what I can do with these sets going forward.
Realistically… this is going to take time. I have something in the works for March Madness and then I can look at making my previous releases backwards compatible with previous versions of Poser.
So there is the why. I hope you can forgive the wordy response. It was hard to trim it without losing the explanation.
~Bluebird
Very nice answer, Bluebird. This is how communication should be made.
Yes. I appreciate the message very much. I didn't realize poser was so picky with obj files these days. It's been a while since I did any sort of modeling, and those worked fine even when I just dropped them into the Geometries folder and hand edited the pp2 file with the paths to the various textures and obj file.
You can install DAZ Studio, take your prop and export it to OBJ from there. You don't need to use DSON.
I ran into this block too. I fully understand not wanting to provide any poser specific formats for the reasons given, but a simple thing to include (and which would please most people who don't use D|S) would be an obj file.
For static props, there is no need for a pp2 (or any other poser specific format), an obj exported from the modeler the vendor uses would be a possible way to boost sales beyond the Daz Studio only crowd (I think).
The only drawback I can see is the boost in file size to download, but if it's offered as an extra, like the dson files are, it may be a possible solution.
I don't even use poser, just Carrara, but this would even work for those crazy Bryce, Cinema4D, and even 3DSMax users.
Is this a crazy idea, or does it make sense?
EDIT: This was typed before I saw wancow's post - but I'm at my work and walked away before hitting the post button!
Would work as long asit wasdone in such a way that finding the textures wasn't a chore. When I export an OBj from Poser i get an MTL file as well.
Signed:- One of them crazy Bryce users
well, I seriously doubt DAZ would support plain .obj files, since it would be more for advanced users...and they don't even trust us with zipped up content to install ourselves:)
I do like wancow's suggestion. I probably think I knew that you could export stuff using pro (isn't that the only one that lets you export?) but I never got around to installing that one. I guess since it's free, it's worth a try. For well made, static props, it's a reasonable solution as long as there aren't too many pieces.
i was bummed the City Roads only came in .duf.
what is .duf?
Zips are coming, that's what made DIM possible, or is it the other way round DIM made Zips possible. Whichever way round it is, some time in the future you will find that all your content will come in zips.
.duf is a DS4.5 file format.
Yep. I was glad to see that DIM keeps the zip file. Now, if they'll just store it as such and not want to install it anywhere I can stop being mad at DAZ for breaking the past purchases functionality in the website:)
I never thought about folks who use carrera and bryce. I guess you've always lived through the objs inside of a poser's geometry file? Doesn't carrera have some sort of import functionality to pull content directly out of studio?
NO, I don't use the obj from the geom folder. I set up in Poser and then export a set up character or Prop, tweak materials as necessary in Bryce. Can even export the last frame of a clothroom dynamic animation.
DS has a bridge to Bryce.
Carrara reads poser formats directly, but since the issue here was not wanting to include poser formats, I didn't mention it. Bryce has a bridge to Studio, so they're taken care of (unless the bridge doesn't work on D|S 4.5).
Works fine on DS 4.5. Even A DSaphobic I know manages to use it.