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I'm a little old school - preferring to copy important files off to a spare HDD as and when. My config files (almost all lodged in ~/.config) are mirrored in git. I don't bother snapshoting the entire system (/) as it's the work of a half an hour to reinstall Linux with a log of previously installed packages, and most of that is waiting...
I do keep all the DAZ Dimm downloads - it's getting rather a heavy load, but I recently managed to pick up an 8GB drive quite cheap (about a week or two before corona virus hit) - I no longer keep freebie zips individually, preferring to create themed runtimes and zipping those up (people, clothes, sci-fi, animals etc.) - although it's hard work keeping on top of bits and bobs I download in a month, unzipping, copying over to the right locations and replacing runtime backup every so often.
It works well
I also manually copy files to a separate drive if they're really important. I've actually never used backup software except in school when we learned backups. But I guess I'd better start automating things. I recently got an 8TB too, so I need to get a handle on things before they get out of control.
Thanks, I'm definitely going to look into it.
Good Morning everyone! I just wanted to share a solution I found to getting the Daz to Blender bridge working in Linux (I've only tried it with DIM).
The plugin itself should install fine with DIM, but the Blender portion probably won't unless you installed Blender through wine. So to find the Blender addon, check the DIM installed files and it should be under Application Data
Once you've located that zip file, it's just a matter of unpacking it and putting it in your Blender Scripts folder. This location will vary depending on your Blender version and how you installed it.
So now the DS plugin should be working and the Blender addon should be working but they won't be able to see each other because DS is installed through wine so it's export directory (in my case) is /home/user1/.wine/drive_c/users/user1/Documents/DTB , but Blender, being installed natively, is simply looking in /home/user1/Documents. The fix for this is the Global.py file in the addons folder. First, make a backup copy of Global.py in case something goes wrong.
After you've made your backup copy of Global.py, open the original and search for RootPath. There should be only one entry for RootPath and it's a function that sets a path for the plugin to find your DS directory. Look for the line that says hdir = "/Documents/DTB/" and change it to reflect wherever your Daz Studio is actually exporting the files to.
Once you've done this, Blender should be able to import from Daz Studio correctly. I hope I explained it correctly. Questions and comments are welcome.
Neato
I was just mulling picking up the Blender Bridge to try out, even if it meant installing Blender alongside one of my DazStudio Wine prefixes.
I'll admit, it doesn't do as much as I hoped it would, but it appears to let you export to higher subdivision levels and it's definitely easier to pose figures than the diffeomorphic rigging. Hopefully Daz expands on it in the future.
I've only used the Hexagon bridge -the others until the recent release, zbrush and photoshop, I never had the target s/w for.
There already was a couple of alternatives to getting Daz stuff into Blender - I'd only used mcjteleblender, and I had to edit the resulting script the Daz export produced after you loaded into Blender script window every time before you ran it to change Windows file paths to linux. There's also the diffomorphic.
I hope the c4d version is a little more complete - I know an artist who'd like to be using more recent Daz figures, but has rigging problems and has to stick to Gen-4.
Teleblender looks good, but for some reason it didn't work for me. Diffeomorphic works great for me, my biggest obstacles are that I don't know much about Blender plus I'm not much of an artist.
I don't think I've used photoshop since the 1990s, and zbrush is definitely out of my price range. I miss Hexagon, it's what I learned on.
I've not used Teleblender in a while, I had problems with it with Cycles, but it's mostly my ignorance of Blender shaders that were the issue, but Blender render worked great - but cycles was fairly new at the time.
Hexagon, at least (of Dazs non products that aren't studio) works, the Bryce ui comes apart like a warm wafer biscuit, and Carrara don't run on Wine. You even get a little more memory than Windows users do with the 32bit version. The 64bit is a little crashy, but not more so than for Windows users.
I've been trying to learn Blender for a while now, folloing Blender Gurus Doughnut Tutorial - but I usually get so far before my doughnut starts to look like the result of a transporter accident...
Lol, I did most of the donut tutorial. I just barely finished the coffee cup and then got distracted by something else. Once I learned how to do those Keva plank simulations, that's pretty much all I did for a month or so.
I told myself I was going to stick with Ubuntu for about a year then switch to Arch or something else, but I don't know if I can wait that long. Ubuntu's UI is really starting to annoy me. These big playschool type window borders and icons take up unnecessary space. Plus there seems to be only one option to open each file type, like if I open an image, it uses Gimp every time, or I can switch to the standard image viewer and it'll use that every time. I miss the right-click dialog that gives you a few options to open, edit or whatever. I'm guessing Ubuntu/Gnome can do it, if I can find a tutorial.
I might try KDE window manager. I've had good results with in the past (but that was over a decade ago).
You are further ahead than me, I'm still trying to get the icing drip right without it looking like dformed icicles on one of those wide eaved scandinavian dwellings.
There is no reason why you need stick with the Ubuntu desktop, even when using the Ubuntu distro - apt install xubuntu-desktop or apt install kubuntu-desktop will switch your ubuntu flavour - well it'll switch the boot splash screens but not remove ubuntu-gnome (so it will add a lot more software to your system - adding the kubuntu/xubuntu desktop - Check you package manager - There might also be alternative options of i.e. kubtuntu-full for the full application stack, i.e. all the K applications as well as just the desktop - or plasma-desktop, which will include the desktop, but not change your splash screens from Ubuntu to Kubuntu etc.
What's nice about Arch (apart from the wonderful Wiki and helpful community (as long as you don't ask silly questions, and have read manuals and attempted to engaged your brain to try and solve your problem yourself before asking), is the install is just the base with no Gui - and you can pick whay desktop you want. The installation process is a little scary, it's all commandline - no helpful ui or menu choices. You spend a couple of days reading the installation and beginners guide (latter goes into more detail on the former). I took notes when so I had my own step guide, covering issues I thought I was going to have bumps with.
Currently, I use a bespoke setup based on i3wm, with some other bits, sxhkd for hotkeys, Rofi for application launcher, Picom for a compositor (I like transparent terminals), Feh for wallpaper fixer and applications from KDE, LXQt, Enlightenment...mostly...
I can't recall how GNome Files works, but Qt based file associations presents you with a shortlist of associated programs to launch a filetype with, and if you want to add another, you can customise from settings or rightclick menu Properties.
I really like KDE (used it mostly continuously 2000 through 2010), but find Plasma pretty glitchy with Nvidia proprietary drivers - even with the X-windows config to minimise the problem.
I just switched to KDE a few minutes ago and the difference is like night and day. It just feels a lot more organized. There was nothing really wrong with Ubuntu/Gnome, but like you said it's geared more toward phones or tablets. It's kind of silly on a big screen to have icons that are 150 pixels wide.
KDE already has the menu options I was looking for (Open with: Gimp, Shotwell, etc). It's definitly aimed at desktop users.
Edit: On a sidenote, I had to fire up the old Windows machine to get my resume. It's funny how I thought I would be helpless without Windows, but I hardly think about it now. I do miss some of my old utilities, but ya gotta move forward I guess.
"geared more toward phones or tablets"
Gnome? It does sort of look that way, but (as far as I know) Gnome currently are behind KDE on thinking about their desktop on a phone or tablet ui.
The Gnome redesign was more aimed at incorporating touch, hence the larger icons for fat fingers to paw at.
What old utilities from windows do you miss? I used to miss one or two after I switched (of course this was 20 years ago, and mostly it was DVD playback - as there was - and still is a problem with including DVDCSS to play encoded DVDs, also GUI cd writers on Linux i found patchy at the time, and I missed the freeware one i used on windows for a while until I learnt to use the linux cli one).
The biggest thing I miss is MSI Afterburner; it's a GPU monitoring utility that also shows CPU info, clocks speed, memory clock, % usage, all the basic stuff. Plus it can overlay that info while you're playing a game or record it to a log file. Also it can record your gameplay or pretty much any program you're using so it's good for making tutorials. I can do most of that with different programs in Linux, but I'm going to miss having it all in one program.
I guess I'm going to miss 7zip. I have Ark and some type of package manager which can do the job, but they don't feel the same. You know how you just get used to using a tool? Especially after a decade or two?
It'll just take me a while to adjust. I remember I was reluctant to upgrade from 98 to XP and I fought tooth-and-nail to keep from upgrading to Win7.
I've been thinking of building a machine with 2 or 3 boot drives. That way I can run just about anything by rebooting. W10 (ugh) in case I need DX12, W7 for if I want the old reliable, and Linux to fall back on. Then I wouldn't care what Wine likes or doesn't like. I bought a case that has all those plug-in bays, they seem to work well. I already have a couple of 1TB SSDs. I expect to build this thing in a few weeks.
Yeah, that's the thing with 'Linux, hardware monitoring or control programs provided by hardware vendors with the product are mostly non-existent - this includes printer and scanner utilities, motherboard and GPU and anything else like the backup tools some HDD vendors include.
Depending on your hardware, you can indeed log and monitor all that - you might want to look into Conky for screen overlay - of course if you are using Plasma, there might be a suitable collection of widgets.
I mostly just right click and select 'Extract here' (I have Ark and xarchiver installed - I currently use pcmanfm-qt for a file manager).
A good idea if you can afford it and might be lost without a particular heavy duty windows program, but in my experience, dual booting is never a longterm thing - people either get used to linux or go back to windows after a bit.
I expect you're right about favoring one over the others. I probably wouldn't think about it either, except that I blew my virus check on computer parts, and I now have a couple of extra parts. :-) That, and I just like building them.
I built a Linux box a couple of years ago, I liked it. It's simple and stable, and it networks well. The limitation on compatable graphics applications, though, turned me off from keeping it. Things have changed a bit since then, I'm thinking the limitations may be fewer. There are more "artist" distros around now. I do think W7 is living on borrowed time, and W10 is sent from hell, leaving Linux as the OS of the (near) future. Wine looks to me like mostly another resource-sapping level of complexity with less than 100% results - am I right?
Wine is improving fast - when i started using Daz at end 2016 (and hence looked at wine again, when I'd not used it since 2010 or so), it was just moving into version 2 (having been around since early 2000's, now it's on version 5.
Wine isn't emulating the entirety of windows in a VM, it's a compatibility layer, so there isn't the kind of resource sapping that a VM eating up memory and cPU cycles would have.
There sometimes are a few caveats running windows program on linux, Daz, for example, the sliders didn't work right for a long time, resulting in having to enter numbers manually, they began working with Wine 4 and Daz 4.11. GPU rendering is an issue, I find loading large saved scenes slightly undependable, and Wine sometimes has problems dealing with Windows multithreading.
You can do this on a single drive with GRUB and partitioning, but long ago I decided dual booting was too much of a pain (although I do still bave multiple boot partitions for testing Linux versions). I used Virtualbox for a while to run Windows, but eventlually built a dedicated Windows box and use a KVM switch to share the monitor...
There are pros and cons no matter how this is done. The simplicity of a one drive/one OS setup appeals to me. Seperate boxes (I have enough parts to go this way) is a simple, versatile and reliable option, but adds heat and energy usage. A single box with removeable boot drives, while heat and energy are less, is a bit more of a pain, as there are times when running two systems at the same time is handy. My original goal, and it still is the goal, is primarily a render box. At least one additional box would be desireable, so I could dedicate the render box to a single task. As you can see, I'm not really nailed down on this. I guess I'm here to solicit opinions. I do like Linux, hence I landed on this thread.
Thanks for the update on Wine. I don't wish to commit to a work in progress, but you give me some cause for optimism. I've seen the recent Wine Compatability List. It's not as complete as I wish it was.
Your comments on DAZ's behavior in Wine don't exactly fill me with joy. Sometimes DAZ can be quirky even in Windows, and Nvidia's overall driver quality does not impress me. I'm not sure I would go down this road. Sounds like character development would work out OK, possibly animation, and of course DAZ is an excellent source of props and sets, but Blender or Unreal might be better for putting the pieces together. Hmm...
These days, all software is a work in progress. Yep, I've seen the Wine compatibility list, it's not as accurate as you'd hope. But there are a fair few applications that just won't run. Of other Daz software, Carrara and bryce are pretty much not runable on Wine - one doesn't run at all one will run, but the ui comes apart like a wafer biscuit. Hexagon works fine though.
Apart from the issues I've noted, Very little issues with rendering at all I much prefer to use the standalone 3Delight engine to render 3Delight renders (render to rib file with collect and localise), but the Iray engine works just fine in Wine - possibly more stable than the wine 3Delight engine.
Using the various plugins, (Diffeomorphic, mcjteleblender) it's possible to transfer scenes to blender to render - I've tried the McCasual script, but it was whane Cycles was fresh out, and the shaders were a little touchy in cycles, but blender render worked great. I know an artist on DA who used C4D with Daz assets. But all generally come with more workflow oddities which make the procedure more of a chore than just waiting for a slow CPU iray render.
The only real limit is your Memory, and if you want reliably GPU, a card with as much memory as poss. From what I've gathered ffrom Windows users experiences, I don't think Daz Studio on Linux crashes any more often than the Windows version.
To be honest, under Nvidias current mindset, I couldn't possibly recommend Nvidia GPU - Nvidias attitude to Linux is sucky, it seems unlikely that by the time Nvidia stops supporting any GPu you buy that OSS Nouveau driver will be ready to support it currently, the proprietary driver is fairly incompatible with the new Wayland display server still, and not great with Plasma desktop on X either...
A good CPU and lots of memory can do fairly well, with good enough renders inside even the default 1hr 40.
They are improving it, but Studio still is far too awkward and slow to do animations - both 3Delight and iray take ages - Studio needs a engine with the speed of eevee.
As has been said many times before what we need and will probably never get is a Linux version of Studio
Yes, this has been my conclusion too. That's one reason I think a stand-alone render box is needed. I'm going to throw a 12-core Ryzen and 128GB of RAM at this task and see what happens.
Your point about workflow oddities is well taken too. In a world of no classrooms, no teachers and no professional documentation, unexpected workflow oddities are worth avoiding. There are only so many years in a lifetime. "Push every button and see what happens" is just not realistic.
Ray tracing has won my heart. I get by with Nvidia, but I lust after real time raytracing. I eagerly await AMD's raytracing offering, which they hint may arrive by the end of the year. I will walk any path to have real time raytracing. Any hardware, any OS, any workflow excursions.
The Linux user base here is just not big enough for a small company like Daz to also cater to ontop of the apple version.
I'm sure not holding my breath for this. In fact I'm hoarding copies of W7 OEM. If I need to, I'll build a box that has nothing but DAZ on it.
I'd be delighted if some bright spark could do a Prorender plugin for Daz.
I'd like to think Nvidia GPU rendering would become more reliable, but I just don't see it, Nvidias implementation of OpenCL will only use the GPU, no fallback to CPU (I'm constantly having to wake Nvidia OpenCL up by running Clinfo, otherwise finding after launch of Studio, that it can't find opencl, so no dforce.
A 12 core Ryzen and 128GB RAM would be a beast, I've an 8 core Ryzen and 32GB RAM, been thinking of doubling my RAM...
Even if an AMD raytracing plugin for DAZ came to pass, I don't see it being likely in less than 18 months. Zzz... I will say that DAZ's 3rd party support goes far towards keeping DAZ viable. I do like the new mocap stuff.
Nvidia is well used to being the only game in town, and takes much advantage of it. I imagine the clocks are all stopped at Nvidia. For the moment it's what we got. Unreal 5 has caught my eye, and Blender looks better all the time. These are part of the reason I have Linux on my mind.
Yeah, this is the biggest pile of hardware I've ever had. It's the first time I've had a 32GB DIMM. It's all sitting in my home office now, while I crawl along on a 12 YO I7. I do stop short of running water into a box full of electricity.
Well a watercooled system is supposedly the coolest. I've a ruddy huge fan and heatsink contraption, does the job, just about. Today is hot here in the east midlands and it's barely keeping up.
I have one water-cooled system that I built specifically for 3d
AMD Ryzen Threadripper 1950X (16-core/32-thread)
ASUS ROG ZENITH EXTREME sTR4 AMD X399 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 Extended ATX AMD Motherboard
CORSAIR Dominator Platinum 128GB DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 Ram
2x SAMSUNG 960 EVO M.2 500GB NVMe PCI-Express 3.0 x4 Internal Solid State Drives
4x MSI Gaming GeForce GTX 1070 8GB GDDR5
2x Thermaltake Core X9 Black Edition E-ATX Stackable Tt LCS Certified Cube Computer Chassis
EVGA SuperNOVA 1600 G2 120-G2-1600-X1 80+ GOLD 1600W Fully Modular Power Supply
EVGA SuperNOVA 750 P2, 80+ PLATINUM 750W, Fully Modular, Power Supply
CPU and all graphics cards are water-cooled and cases and hard drives of which there are eight are a combination