Yes. I Use DAZ3D 4 Pro, 64 bit. I have been using it mostly on V4 hair and meshes, but after reading your question here, I got two DAZ program crashes in a row with some Genesis hair I intentionally aimed Decimator at.

However, the Hampton hair worked for me. Guess the correct linking of the nodes could be a factor and obviously theres a bug as well when a crash occurs.



http://www.youtube.com/user/elektron2kim?

Thanks, elektron2kim. I have the Hampton hair now so i'll try it out.

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Dissapppointig.

a) DAZ Content is only structured if you buy the newest content ! Otherwise you go crazy finding the stuff you created

b) all characters imported from DAZ cannot be animated in the face. This is disabled :-(

Machines :
MSI Gaming Laptop, I7, GTX 1080, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, 1 TB HD
Acer Predator Helios 300 I7 10750H, 16GB, 1TB SSD, RTX 2070

Daz content structure in Daz studio is something else I agree ..

The facial animation stuff is coming in 3DX5 just have to wait a bit ...



I Make My Mates Do The CanCan For The Amusement Of Killer Robots

Content Management can be a real headache with DAZ Studio. At least version 4 has the Smart Content system, even if it only works with the newest stuff. Older versions of DAZ did not have that luxury even. DS does seem to have a sharp learning curve, too.

Unfortunately, with the recent changes on the DAZ website, most of the forum content is gone - including a lot of tips and helpful advice. May I suggest some helpful DAZ articles and tutorials? The following is from the DAZ Knowledgebase and applies to version 4.

* Content Configuration in DAZ Studio 4

This next one is part of the official DAZ 3D Docs, though it applies to DS versions 2 and 3. However, principles 1, 2, and 3 still seem to apply to using older content in version 4. In particular, principle 3 is important: Most content is in Poser format, not DAZ Studio format, so most stuff in the Content Library will be found in the Poser folder.

* Understanding Content Installation in DAZ Studio

I might also recommend a series of videos for version 3. (Mileage may vary, due to being for an older version): DAZ Studio for Beginners. In particular, I found Tutorial Number 5: Advanced Content Management to be useful.

There are other methods and tutes on organizing content, such as:

* Reorganizing Your Content in DAZ Studio
* DAZ Studio Content Management Tips

Even if these are for version 3, these are still useful in understanding how content is organized and how to organize older content to make it easier to navigate and use.

Myself, I originally purchased DAZ Studio 3 Advanced as part of the "3D Essentials Bundle". So I have the option of using version 3 and version 4 and can "Migrate" my old content database from version 3.

BTW: If you can't find the Content Library in version 4, you can get it to appear by clicking Window->Tabs->Content Library. You can then drag it to the top of the Smart Content pane on the left and it will "dock" to the top of that pane. Once you've positioned and resized the panes to your liking, you can use Window->Workspace->Save Layout As (F4) to save the layout.



I recently came across this offsite forum thread which suggests using certain powerful plugins for 3dsmax as a "better way to bring the polycount down". Apparently, the Decimator "tend to leave the mesh a bit hacked" while these plugins do the job while "still preserving the structure of the mesh".

PS: TopoGun can be found on topogun.com. (Searching for "Tube Tool", I had trouble finding it at first... )

bsperan, thanks a lot. This is very useful.
Yes, with old DAZ forums tons of great materials gone away, and from now on I will grab whole sites I visit and find useful to have them offline. Starting from your links.

.

I started using the internet back in '93. And I've seen a lot of websites disappear over the years. It's sad, really. And sometimes, like with DAZ's website restructure, a lot of data is lost.

As such, I've gotten into a habit of grabbing stuff on the Internet that truly interests me, such as how-to pages and tutorials, by saving them locally. I used to save them as .html, but that often creates a separate folder of images and stuff. Now I prefer to save as a single "web archive" file or .mht format in either IE or Opera.

As for grabbing entire sites: It's a hassle, takes up a lot of HD space, and it's a big drain on the website's bandwidth and other resources. (Websites generally frown on it's use.)

Alternatively, you might consider using the Internet Wayback Machine or www.archive.org. It's amazing what it can do (and other stuff it hosts, such as public domain works). It has archives of many old websites which are long gone and can show previous versions of even existing websites. Sometimes I'll use it to grab a page from a website that disappeared.

Unfortunately, Archive.org does not catalog all web pages. And some pages it has it won't show due to a "robots.txt exclusion". Sadly, it does not have DAZ forum pages.

However, you can use Google's web page cache to read old DAZ forum pages. Next time you do a Google search, hover your mouse to the right of a search result. A panel will appear with more info and possibly a preview. There you will find a "cached" link. Click it to see an archived copy Google saved the last time it crawled the page.

BTW: I see from the DAZ Introductory Content Pack page on the CS that it comes with a lot of stuff. If purchased seperately, the Genesis Starter Bundle, Ethnicity for Genesis Bundle, aniMate Martial Arts Kicks, and aniMate Belly Dancing for V4 would come to a total of $115.80. And that's not including the extra content it comes with in iClone Format.

DAZ is really brilliant in screwing things up. Since I'm using DAZ Studio more now (or trying too), I was also looking for the existing forum. Many, many links on other websites that refer this forum of course no longer work. I was looking for information about Mimic (the product) and even DAZ's own links don't work anymore.

It's like pulling teeth to find a straight answer (everybody's just in awe about the new forum...), but finally, finally, somebody asked the question and got a response. The former forum is at: http://forumarchive.daz3d.com. So at least the old information is accessible, but the Search function gives an error, so finding it is another matter.

It would be very simple to program a redirect from forum.daz3d.com to forumarchive.daz3d.com, since the new forum is at www.daz3d.com/forums, but that would be too convenient.

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For searching, have you tried Google "site:/domain name/ /search terms/" ?

General Picture - animating now to life itself(tm)
Member of Content Wizards

I can not remember the name of it off the top of my head but Firefox has a plugin that can grab the page you are on and save it and index it and lots of other cool stuff with it

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/zotero/?src=cb-dl-users



I Make My Mates Do The CanCan For The Amusement Of Killer Robots