Genesis & Genesis 2 "Body" poses RESET (Zero Out) "Facial" poses/expressions
Why do so many “full body” poses RESET “facial poses and expressions” when using Genesis and Genesis 2? This happens in Studio as well as C8.5.
This makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever. If I want to have the same expression on a character, but want to do so on a series of poses I have to redo the facial portion over and over again.
The “full body” poses that do this, simply seem to ZERO OUT all the facial pose/expression elements. That is, they are NOT creating a facial pose/expression at all – they simply set all the other parameters back to zero.
This happens regardless if the facial pose/expression was dialed or done with a pose preset.
Is there no standard for what a product (pose or otherwise) does? I am always seeing that products have been submitted to DAZ and are waiting for testing and approval from BEFORE they are offered for sale here.
As some poses have this affect and others do not – it is very confusing!
This does NOT happen with the Generation 4 characters at all! At least I have never had it happen and I have thousands of Generation 4 poses.
I do not want to list all the examples of this, but here are a few:
Poses that RESET the facial pose/[removed]these are for Genesis but there are Genesis 2 poses as well):
Action Poses
Basic Child, Female and Male Poses
Dark Priest for M5
M5 General Poses
M5 Studio Poses
On Foot Poses
Pinup Poses for V5
Posed for V5
And many more
Poses that DO NOT reset the facial pose/[removed]these are for Genesis but there are Genesis 2 poses as well):
April Showers
Gorilla Poses
Hula Kahiko
Teenage Poses
Effortless V5
Before Poses
And many more
Has anyone else experienced or noticed this?
I feel that this is extremely counter-productive and a big PITA.
What I find extremely disconcerting is that this is such a departure from the way I have been able to work, all these years, with the Generation 4 characters.
Again, this just does not make any sense – to me anyway.
*Edited to change topic title*
Comments
I share your pain. In addition to that, I'm getting a little tired of poses that "break" genesis figure controls and even change the orientation of the manipulator in Daz Studio. I will apply a pose and then all of a sudden the arm "side to side" parameter is now undefined so it doesn't work. This is one of the most agonizing things about using Daz. And let's not forget my personal favorite where the pose resets the figure position to zero --causing you to have to go back and either re-position the model or undo the pose and then copy the translation information apply the pose and then pasted the translation information back.
They ought to publish a guide that PA's need to follow in order to keep this kind of thing from frustrating customers. If they don't get a handle on this kind of thing soon, they're really going to end up shooting themselves in the foot.
These products should be reported as defective.
Here's a feature request for Carrara: an optional dialog when applying presets that allows user to choose which elements are to be affected by the preset. This would be a decent workaround for bad poses, and it would also extend the usefulness of all presets.
Right now the options are to edit the files or to redo them in DS. A relatively simple program to fix them should also be possible but I haven't done any programming in a long time...
I understand the frustration, I've run into it too many times myself. The reason the faces reset is that the creator did not "deselect" those parameters when saving the pose. Same holds true for moving the character back to center axis. I know of one pose set that does the opposite. The creator must have moved the character off the center line because when the pose is applied, he moves to his left the equivalent of 3 feet!
As for the "side to side" parameter breaks (using your example), this at least is an easy workaround for you. Simply go to the edit menu and turn off limits (rotation). This will "unbreak" those chains and allow you to adjust these dials again.
I'm not trying to knock the venders. You guys do a fantastic job of creating all manner of useful things that make things easier for the rest of us. Hell, I spent the last three weeks playing with your Toon Girls and SPEX --but I know that you guys aren't perfect and that's true of any creative environment. It seems that the people at Daz are trying to make some changes to that effect, but this is a big no-no when it comes to selling things. Most of the time, I'm working in scenes with more than one or two models so when you have unexpected events occur it isn't just a minor inconvenience. Having a more thorough screening process for the products that vendors create is going to don't riddle users with "unexpected feature enhancements" that take all the fun out of working with DAZ Studio. If it were just one or two products --we could chock it up to murphy's law. But as users, we're seeing this frequently enough for kakman to make a post about it and for the rest of us to chime in on the subject.
These "unexpected feature enhancements" are becoming more and more prevalent in the Daz environment. From what I see as a consumer, it's like they are afraid to alienate Vendors by setting down standards and enforcing them, and that's a shame. And since users aren't able to give feedback directly on products in the store like you can do on 99% of the other online sites when you purchase goods or services --there's little incentive for the vendors that do do it to go back and fix their products. Now there are certainly a lot of vendors who do it right and update their products when they find something wrong, but there are just as many who don't seem interested in it.
It's unfortunate to say, but I really agree with this.
These products should be corrected and updated.
I do know a fix, however, for the meantime:
Using Fenric's (to the rescue again, eh? lol) BVH/PZ2 Export plugin, we could load the problem pose and export it as a PZ2 (Poser pose file) (I think you can use this on Genesis, I'll have to test it - but I'm not absolutely certain at this point) - and during that process, tell it not to store morphs.
Bummer though. I truly feel for the vendors whom this relates to. But if I were any of them, and saw this thread... I would already be fixing mine. :coolhmm:
I'm not trying to knock the venders. You guys do a fantastic job of creating all manner of useful things that make things easier for the rest of us. Hell, I spent the last three weeks playing with your Toon Girls and SPEX --but I know that you guys aren't perfect and that's true of any creative environment. It seems that the people at Daz are trying to make some changes to that effect, but this is a big no-no when it comes to selling things. Most of the time, I'm working in scenes with more than one or two models so when you have unexpected events occur it isn't just a minor inconvenience. Having a more thorough screening process for the products that vendors create is going to don't riddle users with "unexpected feature enhancements" that take all the fun out of working with DAZ Studio. If it were just one or two products --we could chock it up to murphy's law. But as users, we're seeing this frequently enough for kakman to make a post about it and for the rest of us to chime in on the subject.
These "unexpected feature enhancements" are becoming more and more prevalent in the Daz environment. From what I see as a consumer, it's like they are afraid to alienate Vendors by setting down standards and enforcing them, and that's a shame. And since users aren't able to give feedback directly on products in the store like you can do on 99% of the other online sites when you purchase goods or services --there's little incentive for the vendors that do do it to go back and fix their products. Now there are certainly a lot of vendors who do it right and update their products when they find something wrong, but there are just as many who don't seem interested in it.
Well, DAZ 3D does set some tall standards for us to live up to. Unfortunately this sort of thing, right here would truly be easily and accidentally missed during testing - at least until such a thing comes up like this. I bet QA will be keeping an eye out for this now with a simple check - It really is simple and quick - but I can see how they just didn't check this - they test for all sorts of issues in poses - they just missed this part on these poses is all.
I took a quick look at the dufs and it seems like a fairly easy fix with a script of some sort.
Maybe I should go ahead and do it, and then submit the fixes as a product to be sold at DAZ. That's how it's done now, yes? :coolsmirk:
One of things that probably got lost in my original post is the fact that I have THOUSANDS of poses for Generation 4 figures and NOT ONE “Body” POSE eradicates the facial pose/expression!
Also, I am not attempting to castigate any of the vendors at all. If anything I feel the alleged quality control standards that DAZ supposedly has for product approval has let EVERYONE down.
I know that there are fixes (you can this, you can do that, and so forth) but that is about all I get to do these days. I discover problems and issues, do everything I can to ensure it is reproducible, try to discover a work-around or fix, post to this forum to be sure, and then plead my case to DAZ’s deaf ears and hope that someone else (Fenric) can come to the rescue.
None of this should be necessary.
I keep spending money here to support DAZ in the hopes that they will honor their commitment to Carrara and put out software and content that works the way it is supposed to.
I know this is my choice and at this point stupidity.
I am reminded of Einstein’s definition of insanity:
“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
I agree with a previous post, in another thread, that I am among those to blame for the current state of things. By continually supporting DAZ with my wallet, I am failing to hold them accountable for their failures.
I do this as a hobby – to have FUN. I am NOT having fun encountering obstacle after obstacle and searching for ways to overcome them.
I say go for it - it would be most welcome, by me anyway.
I am fairly confident (based on past performance) who will NOT fix it - and that is DAZ, probably not even DAZ soon, as they seem quite content to ignore the myriad of issues that come to light - little by little every day.
I am constantly perplexed by their willingness to "shoot themselves in the foot" over and over again!
Just for fun, here's a quickie regex that removes all the head parts from a pose duf:
\{\s+"url"\s+:\s+"name://@selection/(head|rEye|lEye|tongue\w+|\w+Jaw)[^\}]+\},
So using grep one might fix the poses as follows:
1) extract all to another folder (they are gzipped and at least grepWin couldn't deal with that)
(the extracted files don't have extensions, that is fine)
2) run grepWin on the folder containing the extracted poses and use the regex provided above
3) have fun renaming all the files so they have the duf extension :P no need to compress
(actually there are many programs to do this easily, like ReNamer)
Let's just say I was a wee bit bored, 'tis prolly not worth all the hassle... :P
I was kidding about selling the fixes, but you're right in that DAZ doesn't have the best track record when it comes to fixing content.
I was kidding about selling the fixes, but you're right in that DAZ doesn't have the best track record when it comes to fixing content.
They don’t have a particularly good track record when fixing software or adding much needed features to software in a timely fashion either. Can anyone say “Dynamic Cloth”, just to name one!
In all fairness, Bullet Physics library was a beta feature added to version 8 as a new feature to try. It was not scheduled to go any further for the 8.5 release, as that was only set to include Genesis support.
Kind of sorry for being such a DAZ 3D defender, I guess... but they do seem to be true to their word, in my opinion, since I've been frequenting the DAZ website.
Here's my take on things, truly and honestly - not just as a DAZ defender, which I am, but also as someone whom has been here a few years and have been following some stuff, and somewhat blind to others:
DAZ 3D and Software
Daz Studio Beta version 0.7 (which I still have a saved .exe copy of ;) ) was a fairly straight-forward Pose and Render application intended to save the world if Poser would be forever discontinued, which is what, at that time, looked like what was to happen.
Poser never died. Daz Studio remained a sort of pet project hobby of DAZ ever since - with the exception of its popularity growing and growing and requests were being demanded upon DAZ to further their wonderful creation, which they did. For the most part, Daz Studio remained a free gift to anyone who cared to use it. During the relatively short period of time that they did have a price on it, they certainly deserved to get some return for all of the hard work and success that they've achieved over the many years of working on it and literally mastering the software to the incredible workhorse that it has now become. Whether you like to use Daz Studio or not, it has grown into one amazing piece of software, capable now of even creating what DAZ does best - creating content for either Poser, Daz Studio, Carrara or all of the above.
DAZ 3D and 3d Content
Allow me to back up a bit. DAZ 3D started off as one of the hottest vendors of content for use in Poser. A software application capable of allowing anybody to create art by assembling scenes in front of a virtual camera and shooting pictures. It came complete with scene creation materials, human figures, cartoon figures, animation tools, material tools, draping, dynamic cloth and hair, and the ability to turn obj files into props, conforming content, dynamic objects, etc.,
DAZ 3D stepped up to the plate with some very talented modelers and created all sorts of high quality products for use in Poser. Many of us have found the DAZ 3D figures to just blow away that which Poser came with, even though Poser's figures have always been pretty cool. This whole section of the field of CG art was just blossoming in its own realm, somewhat cast apart from the professional side of working with 3d models. I know that many people can, will, and should argue that statement. But I know enough professional modelers in the field to know that it was and still is, in many circles, true. DAZ 3D had some amazingly gifted subcontractor-style artists selling through their store as well. People like Stonemason with his very incredible props and scenes, Harvey Mann (now called Magix101) with his unique, hand painted style of conforming hair products, and many others. Michael and Victoria took the Poser world by storm, and the second generation of them made them even stronger, faster, and better. Stores like Renderosity started distributing addons for DAZ 3D's incredible stuff. Poser's new content store is filled with items that support the DAZ 3D content.
Daz has grown up to be known and respected as supplying the top-notch stuff for Poser. This is where you go for the Best stuff. Again, that statement can be rather arguable, as other venders, including renderosity and content paradise have obtained some of the very gifted artists in the field to sell products in their sites as well. It's all good. It's nice to have a whole circle of varieties and, above all, competition.
DAZ 3D and Carrara, Hexagon, and Bryce
DAZ 3D fell upon the opportunity to acquire three wonderful applications, known by many of their customers, employees, and fiends. By taking over these wonderful additions to the world of CG, they were able to truly keep them from becoming unavailable to anybody. But they didn't stop there, they have made numerous fixes and additions to these software offerings over the years. I'm sure, or rather, I know that I am missing numerous details in the whole process and what has gone on behind the lines. But when it comes down to it, that's really nobody's business but theirs and those directly involved. Having shared several conversations with Philip Staiger, of Project Dogwaffle, whom used to work for Eovia, as with Ringo and Jack Whitney, never once have I heard any of them speak ill towards or of DAZ 3D.
The fact that DAZ 3D still carries these products is a true blessing. And when it comes right down to it, they don't really owe us anything towards our demands of what we want these applications to suddenly be capable of. Especially when such things are not asked for nicely, but instead, demanded upon them as if there is some unfulfilled contract that they have with us. They sell these amazing apps for incredibly reasonable prices and, for quite a long period of time, given DS Pro, Bryce Pro, and Hexagon away for FREE!
"Oh come on Dart, they did that to gather a larger clientele to help fill their greedy pockets"
Okay, first of all, the last word that I would use to describe DAZ 3D is "Greedy". These folks have given e more content than what I've paid for as long as I've been visiting their store. I mentioned that I have Daz Studio Beta version 0.7 and I've been coming to the store for a little while before that came out. Not sure on the actual dates, if anybody knows what year that was, I've been coming here ever since and had an account, but haven't paid DAZ a dime until 2010, when I signed up for the Platinum Club Yearly Membership, Bought a book (from DAZ) for $20 to get Carrara 6 Pro and Hexagon and a pile of content along with Daz Studio, which I've already had, a book that is still available via Amazon, new, I believe, an upgrade from Carrara 6 Pro to Carrara 7 Pro, which came with an upgrade to Carrara 8 Pro once it was release - and access to the Carrara 8 Pro beta as it was at the time, and lastly a nice pile of content to get myself going strong in my brand new Carrara Pro! Now there were quite a few years between there. I just kept taking advantage of those times when suddenly they'd give away Victoria 3 and Michael 3 - and then the Freak, Aiko and Hiro - Th Girl! They gave me boats, gas cans, all sorts of items that helped a poor, overwork slave of industry to have a little fun. Why? Well their answer to that question was this: We love the hobby and the profession and we want to do our part to help anybody and everybody who wants to make digital art to do so. Ask my wife how 'into' this stuff I was - even when I couldn't afford anything.
DAZ 3D has given us Daz Studio, Hexagon, Bryce, and Carrara. All of which are very fine pieces of software. Occasionally I'd see a post that would say something on the order of: "We need Carrara to do this:" and it would have a YouTube video of one of the latest features developed by 3ds Max, Maya, or LightWave - perhaps some other specially designed and super-expensive CG process. Well then a whole discussion would blow up out of line, blaming DAZ 3D for not keeping up with the times. Then DAZ 3D comes out with Genesis 2 Female and get blamed for producing her too quickly, as Genesis 1 is only two years old! My goodness.
First and foremost I am sincerely glad that you are happy with DAZ and the value of the purchases you have made from them.
It is obvious that you are knowledgeable and talented; I have learned a lot from you and hope that I will have the opportunity to continue to do so. I have been extremely happy with all of your products and feel they are a great value.
I do agree that DAZ should not be described as greedy; however I would not say they are altruistic either. They are running a business, and despite how things appear at times – they are in it to make a profit.
I do understand how people, who frequent these forums, can get very frustrated with DAZ. What keeps me coming back to the forums is to find fixes and work-arounds for the many issues I have with Carrara. I come back to learn and to see the many amazing things that others are creating. I continue to come back “here” because I already have invested a great deal of time and money in their products. My time is limited and this is a hobby and I do not wish to begin a new learning process with another piece of software, and I do appreciate the amount of pre-made content available that Carrara can use.
I don’t view them as an “evil corrupter” but I do feel they are quite disingenuous at times and often make statements about a variety of issues that are patently untrue.
They did not survive for “us”. They are in business for “themselves”.
I feel that they have made several missteps along the way and seem hell bent on following a path to continue doing so.
In just the recent past, they have totally crippled their store, these forums and now the bug reporting and tracking system. They still do not have a way for “us” to post our system specifications to our profile, so as to eliminate the constant dialogue of asking for and then posting system specifications over and over again.
Through their performance and attitudes DAZ has recently estranged a great many respected artists, content producers and users. I do not think it is necessary to list them here again.
I feel that they are making it difficult on themselves to attract a healthy amount of new users due to the flaws and inconsistencies of their software and content. They seem very content to let folks like Fenric (whom they have estranged) produce an endless stream of fixes and utilities that DAZ themselves should have fixed and supplied. The absence of any updated competent documentation speaks for itself.
For many reasons (some of them selfish) I would like to see DAZ prosper and improve. But I think it is fair to say that they do need to improve in many, many areas. I fear that at some point too many people are going to come to the conclusion that there is nothing to see here and then move along to something else.
Dart,
I am quite sure that just by the length of our recent posts, we have sent most of this thread’s readers scurrying for the exits. So I will add a few more points to the “general” part of the discussion.
Everyone has their own point of view and perspective. Part of my outlook is based on the fact that I have been involved with the “business” side of things for a very long time. For most of my career I have been an independent business consultant.
Many times when I am venting about my clients to my CPA (who shares a number of the same clients with me as our areas of expertise are different), he tells me that if everyone knew what they were doing, they would NOT need us. It’s a valid point.
I have learned over the years that there is a huge difference between having 1 year of experience 20 times over as compared to having 20 years experience. I think that in many ways, DAZ is slipping into the former rather than the latter.
I fear that this will eventually catch-up to them and will have less than desirable results for their company and customers.
I feel it is the responsibility of the individual to make their issues known. If you do not, then you have no one to blame but yourself when things go awry.
Hey kakman :)
thanks for bringing these problems to light.
I hope that because of yours and dart's and areneldon's etc attention they will all be history when I finally load up Genesis :)
obliged for the hard work.
Glad you liked OZ, we are much better than kiwis, regardless of not having affairs with sheep :)
Kakman,
I imagine, via my overly long, passionate argument in the defense of DAZ, that you can gather my utter lack of business sense. LOL
The point that you made regarding my comments, I hope you know, I know you know that I was not referring to your post.
I was going into lengthy discussion mode, and that's when my writing just wanders about.
I do love the feedback and request, tests, reports and comments that you post. Sorry my lengthy jazz disrupted your thread. You want me to cut it shorter? I just wanted to express my views about DAZ and the whole software side of things from my perspective as I see it - since there seems to be a lot of misconceptions on what this release was supposed to provide.
Also, I agree with Head Wax in thanking you - not just for this finding, but the many others as well. I should tell you though... you should go out and have some fun in Carrara once in a while - instead of spending lengthy hours testing problems over and over. :)
Another point I'd like to quickly share. I know that this web stuff is crazy and horrible. I hop that they get it fixed soon... and I hope that, if you're correct, that they do turn around for the best and 'get it together'. I am really quite ignorant to a good many things - and very... no... extremely passionate about DAZ 3D. Love this place.
Heh heh Dart, I always make it a rule to keep my posts so that they will stay on one monitor without having to scroll :)
Mind you, sometimes I still fall asleep reading my own posts!
avagoodweegend :)
I really wish I could do the same. Well... I don't know. I guess it's a mix between whatever recently shorted in my brain pan and my in-born love to just write and write and write.
You, too!Thank you for that... I shall try :)
That is a great point. I should have some fun with Carrara. There are certainly enough things that do work, especially with Generation 4 characters, to keep me entertained and moving forward.
It is never my intention to be a "wet blanket". I do not want to deter the enthusiasm of others. Stay passionate, my friend.
"Passionate" is my middle... I mean... okay, well O keep it in my middle sock drawer! :)
Yeah, I'm glad that you get me. I could see someone taking my posts the wrong way - but I just try to express open views from my eyes. I see a quite a bit. And when I started writing into the fact that we're not really supposed to have working soft-body clothing just yet, I was under the impression during the beta testing that there have been some slight improvements to it. But from the other side of the token, I have never tried the Poser script yet that allows us to bring in calculated dynamics via morphs (?) or something like that.
I just feel sometimes that many people seem to look upon DAZ as some giant conglomerate oppressor instead of the team of real people that they are. I certainly don't want to go off and sound like I'm just making excuses for them, either. But this web store switch is much larger of an issue than I think some of us realize. Doing that, plus repackaging every product in the store and keeping the DSON system tweaks at a constant test while incorporating that in with Carrara. Then to come and express, what they thought was exciting news for us, and people thrown apples at them. That hurts people. Sure they have to learn to have some stones in their underpants. I have to deal with that stuff in RL all the time. People can be pretty cruel. Well it sucks when the crowd that you're trying to please is just constantly pissed because they didn't do all of the stuff that they didn't say anything about doing - yet.
Sorry. I really like our development team. They don't know me... but one day that just might change. I notice stuff that they do to my Carrara Pro... and I love it. The stuff that they do comes from a list of to dos that they have to accomplish. The list mostly comes from us as well as others, who may never post in the forum. There are many Carraraists.