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I often get asked how to package products before offering them to Daz3D. I was asked again today, and it occurred to me I should just do a tutorial I can link.
As I've said elsewhere, how you package the product does not matter initially because Daz is going to accept or reject it based on your renders alone. But should your product be accepted for testing, you need to have it correctly set up in its own directory so that you can easily zip it and know that all the files are in one place.
Separate from my Daz3D library, on a totally different drive, I have a folder called Daz4Test. Beautiful Skin Iray G2F goes into its own subfolder folder called "testbeautifulskinirayG2F". The data, library and Runtime folders of my product all go in testbeautifulskinirayG2F.
Then, in Daz Studio, I right-click on the words "Daz Studio Formats" in the Content Library tab. Then I choose "Add a Base Directory." This creates a popup that lets me navigate to the new directory. Then it will appear as a new folder in Content Library that only contains the new product.
Then you should also have a base directory that, instead of containing your whole library, only contains the Iray Lights and Shaders, Genesis 3 Female/Male, and otherwise only the products you need to test your product. Name it "Test Directory" or something similar.
Now add that in the Content Library as well.
Now in the Content library, right-click on your Daz3D base directory (It is probably called "My Daz3d Library" or something similar) and "remove base directory." Don't worry, you're not deleting it, you're just hiding it from DS for testing purposes.
Now Daz Studio can't see your entire huge library, only your testing files and your test "environment" made up of the base dependencies. This helps you determine dependencies of your product and make sure all your files are in the right place.
When you save something with data files, like a figure or prop asset, there will be a dropdown on the top right that lets you choose to save those data assets in your new directory. This is very important. If you don't change the dropdown it may save in the wrong directory and cause errors down the line, especially with morphs.
Your data files should go in data/yourname/your productname. There will be a popup that asks you where to save these when you save a product with data, such as a figure or prop asset.
Your texture files should go in Runtime/textures/yourname/yourproductname.
Your library files should go in People (or Props, Environments, etc.)/Necessary Subfolders for G3F if necessary/Yourname/Yourproductname. Some vendors now choose to omit the vendor name from the library files. This is an acceptable practice, it's just a matter of whether you want the extra promotion or not.
Now, when you're ready to create your zip file for upload, you can just zip up the contents of your test subfolder. There's no hunting through a large library of content and hoping you didn't miss anything. You can just zip the main data, library and Runtime folders. You don't have to create a "My Library" or "Content" folder to put them all in first. Daz is going to repack your zip file for the store anyway when it gets tested and approved.
This is the set of practices that is recommended by Daz's Quality Assurance as of this writing (and as of my last communication with them about it). Missing file errors are the most common problem that Daz's Quality Assurance testers find, so nipping this in the bud before you submit is a good way to make life easier for people that, if you're fortunate, you will be working with frequently in the future. Good luck with your new products!
As I've said elsewhere, how you package the product does not matter initially because Daz is going to accept or reject it based on your renders alone. But should your product be accepted for testing, you need to have it correctly set up in its own directory so that you can easily zip it and know that all the files are in one place.
Separate from my Daz3D library, on a totally different drive, I have a folder called Daz4Test. Beautiful Skin Iray G2F goes into its own subfolder folder called "testbeautifulskinirayG2F". The data, library and Runtime folders of my product all go in testbeautifulskinirayG2F.
Then, in Daz Studio, I right-click on the words "Daz Studio Formats" in the Content Library tab. Then I choose "Add a Base Directory." This creates a popup that lets me navigate to the new directory. Then it will appear as a new folder in Content Library that only contains the new product.
Then you should also have a base directory that, instead of containing your whole library, only contains the Iray Lights and Shaders, Genesis 3 Female/Male, and otherwise only the products you need to test your product. Name it "Test Directory" or something similar.
Now add that in the Content Library as well.
Now in the Content library, right-click on your Daz3D base directory (It is probably called "My Daz3d Library" or something similar) and "remove base directory." Don't worry, you're not deleting it, you're just hiding it from DS for testing purposes.
Now Daz Studio can't see your entire huge library, only your testing files and your test "environment" made up of the base dependencies. This helps you determine dependencies of your product and make sure all your files are in the right place.
When you save something with data files, like a figure or prop asset, there will be a dropdown on the top right that lets you choose to save those data assets in your new directory. This is very important. If you don't change the dropdown it may save in the wrong directory and cause errors down the line, especially with morphs.
Your data files should go in data/yourname/your productname. There will be a popup that asks you where to save these when you save a product with data, such as a figure or prop asset.
Your texture files should go in Runtime/textures/yourname/yourproductname.
Your library files should go in People (or Props, Environments, etc.)/Necessary Subfolders for G3F if necessary/Yourname/Yourproductname. Some vendors now choose to omit the vendor name from the library files. This is an acceptable practice, it's just a matter of whether you want the extra promotion or not.
Now, when you're ready to create your zip file for upload, you can just zip up the contents of your test subfolder. There's no hunting through a large library of content and hoping you didn't miss anything. You can just zip the main data, library and Runtime folders. You don't have to create a "My Library" or "Content" folder to put them all in first. Daz is going to repack your zip file for the store anyway when it gets tested and approved.
This is the set of practices that is recommended by Daz's Quality Assurance as of this writing (and as of my last communication with them about it). Missing file errors are the most common problem that Daz's Quality Assurance testers find, so nipping this in the bud before you submit is a good way to make life easier for people that, if you're fortunate, you will be working with frequently in the future. Good luck with your new products!
Default VS. PBR Skin Shader: Alexandra 8 Tests
User @DigitalHallucination had some interesting comments and questions about shaders under the old Iray Surfaces tutorial from 2015. That led to some experimentation with shaders this morning, the results of which I will share now. Please, please feel free to comment and debate. I think this is an issue of interest to more or less all of us. I commented offhand that I didn't think the PBRSkin shader was an improvement, but that the maps in use were what made the difference, and DH disagreed with this and provided some comparison renders using Alexandra 8. They definitely looked definitive, so I decided to run my own tests. At first I tried it with base G8F, but that wasn't an apples to apples comparison because G8F originally uses the old glossiness method, so she's going to look worse compared to any shader that uses the new spec. So, like DH, I went to Alexandra. In this case I used the default lighting with the camera headlamp turned off, Subd1, Alexandra 8 at 100%, and the
Deviantart's Default AI Opt-In
EDIT: They put in a mass opt out! Thanks for letting me know when I missed the news, lovely watchers! I'm not thrilled about dA making AI opt-out and not opt-in, and putting it so you have to opt-out on each individual artwork. I have little to lose from this, because my product is 3D models and not the 2D promotional images, but it's especially predatory of people whose product and ouevre is 2D art. I don't know how many people are still here, but it's one more reason for people who draw and paint to delete their accounts.
Color Differences in DS 4.20.1.38
This was introduced by my notice by Snarl, and verified by my own render testing. I will show my results in the following discussion. There is a visible color difference in Iray render results in Daz Studio 4.20.1.38 vs. the pre-VDB, pre-ghost light fix 4.16.1.21 build I was able to test against. I rendered out to pngs and looked at both pngs on the same monitor to account for that type of differences. Here shown is G8F up close in default lighting on both builds. I checked all of the render settings to make sure they were the same, too, because if we could just change a render setting it would be an easy fix. This difference is relatively subtle. Let me show those separately so you can download them separately to compare. Here's 4.20: And here's 4.16: You might have to zoom in and set them overlapping so you see top part and top part or right and right, etc., but it's there. I don't know how or why this change has happened. Maybe it's because Daz decided the default was too
Babbling About Fluid Simulation
I have some feelings about sims right now. I have a lot of them, and I've just had caffeine. So I'm going to share them with you all. So, I recently submitted a water set for Daz Studio. Three times. You see, Daz3d didn't like either of my first two interpretations of the slosh pieces and pouring pieces that were simulated in Blender, so I ended up having to hand-sculpt parts of it and combine that with parts of the simmed pieces. The sloshes are entirely hand-sculpted from me staring at photo references, except for bits of the flying droplets I salvaged from the original simmed meshes. I wouldn't even have gotten that far if not for the very specific and detailed feedback they gave me, a privilege of working with the Review committee since 2011 and, I sincerely hope, demonstrating an eagerness to accept professional criticism when it gets me paid. I know for a fact that they have some artists where they just say an unvarnished yes or no because it's not worth getting yelled at
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This guide is infuriating and it’s not your fault. Daz has files everywhere. I haven’t even been using it six months in the and it would be an impossible effort to extricate every single default dependency from “My Daz 3d Library“ and copy it to this new directory. Every solution that l’ve seen suggested for how to get the default files difficult and time consuming. This wouldn’t be a problem if there was a separate folder for default files. I’m fixing someone else’s design mistake