News about the DAZ Studio and Poser software

Category Archives: Vue

Poser 12 to Vue test – success

Posted on by Posted in Poser, Poser 12, Tutorials, Vue 1 Comment

I’ve tested the Vue import of a standard .PZ3 scene saved from Poser 12. Works fine, with a couple of setup caveats.

An older Vue such as mine does not know about Poser 12 and its own dedicated runtime location(s). It only knows about Poser 11 in its Options…

There Vue needs a path set to the Poser 11 .EXE and it also needs to be set to use the Poser 11 SDK. These are easily set, just a drop-down and a file-path. No plug-in is needed, as Vue already knows about Poser and visa-versa. There was a long relationship between E-on and Smith Micro, and the importer was worked on intensively for many years.

Vue presumably needs to see the Poser 11 .EXE folder for two reasons: i) Poser knows about the runtime locations to be searched to accurately rebuild the scene inside Vue, and ii) because Vue has to locate and run the Poser 11 SDK. The SDK is presumably what then does any Poser-Vue material auto-conversions and adjustments that are needed.

Thus for a scene file with Poser 12 content, I find that you must also tell the Poser 11 Library about the new runtime at C:\Users\Public\Documents\Poser 12 Content\Runtime\ (and probably also the P12 ‘Downloads’ if that also has its own Runtime). Give Poser 11 time to index this new runtime then exit.

Your Poser 12 content, if saved to a Poser scene file, will then load into Vue. This is done in the usual way in Vue: New Scene | File | Import Object, load the Poser scene file and apply a Vue atmosphere…

Poser 12 content, “Pink 2.0”, in Vue. Real 3D clouds, not a photo backdrop.

It only takes a minute. To Vue the Poser 12 scene file must seem to be just a normal .PZ3 scene file from Poser 11, 2014 etc. It’s just the file paths in it that may differ, if your scene was built using content from Poser 12’s new runtime. If you only build scenes with your regular Poser 11 runtime content, you may not even need the above steps — even though you are importing a scene file saved with Poser 12.

So far as I am aware the Poser-to-Vue SDK has not yet been updated in the new subscription Vue to handle a few of the funky new Blender Cycles 2 (aka SuperFly in Poser 12) nodes. Thus the very latest Poser 12 SuperFly materials with strange funky new Cycles nodes may not convert so well. But Vue has its own fab funky materials to use, and it looks like everything else should work as with any previous Poser-Vue import.

Note also that Vue has excellent exporters… “includes integration plugins for 3DS Max, Cinema 4D, Maya and Lightwave”, though I’m uncertain what would happen to the scene if it were no longer connected to the Poser shader tree via Vue. I guess you try it and see. However, Vue is very capable on its own and a great adjunct to Poser for large expansive scenes that could also benefit from a generous scattering of foliage and some misty atmosphere.

Things to do with Poser 12

Posted on by Posted in Poser 12, Vue Leave a comment

Ok, after a few days most things are fixed / created / done / decided now, re: Poser 12. Note to self… still to look at for Poser 12 in future…

* DONE. Stress-test ‘scene compatibility’ with the old Vue 2016 R5. Success. Also works with the modern subscription Vue.

* DONE. Can a DAZ DSON import, saved as a scene from Poser 11, then be opened in Poser 12? Fail.

* SuperFly now does shadow-catching. How does the shadowcatcher work, and can it be automated via a script? Can the script(s) output varying intensities / hardness of shadows?

* What nodes are needed for PBR materials in Poser 12, and when loaded how much does fancy PBR slow down renders? Are there PBRs that are fast and funky and useful? Do they jar with regular materials (i.e. they look too good, and show up the plainer/old materials). Can output from Material Maker be instantly whisked into Poser and connected up, by a script? Or could Material Maker even simply output straight into the Poser format, via a plugin or script?

* The new Pillow module for scripted image processing in Python 3. What can it do? Where is it documented, with simple examples? Can it, for instance, cleanly knock out white from a line-art render, then layer it onto a Sketch render at 80% opacity? Can a Pillow script auto-combine two auxiliary .PSD renders from SuperFly and Firefly, into a single layer-stacked .PSD?

* The new Python “method to find a parameter specifically by internal name”. Sounds useful, but… where, and how?

* See how well my mo-cap works with it.

* Fix my various as-yet unreleased commercials scripts for Poser 12.

Digital Art Live #69 / PlantCatalog’s new ‘English oak forest’

Posted on by Posted in Companion software, Freebies, Spotted in the News, Vue Leave a comment

The latest Digital Art Live magazine is now available as issue 69. Free, but small donations are now encouraged via Gumroad to help keep it going. This month’s theme for the midsummer issue is “The Misty Isles”, loosely based around mythic and mystical ideas of our own British Isles.

In related ‘British landscape’ news, which sadly came just too late for inclusion in Digital Art Live #69, Vue’s grand English oak forest official pack is now available…

“This PlantCatalog update adds everything you need to create a full English oak forest, including trees, mushrooms, ferns, dead undergrowth and more.”

Brilliant, just add Robin Hood. Also in the pack are native lichen, moss, and even ‘pollarded’ willows (they grow alongside English rivers and large streams, and are harvested for their withies)…

Accessed for Vue via E-on’s standalone sister-software PlantCatalog. The PlantCatalog plants… “can be used both within [the subscription] VUE as procedural files and within any other 3D application as baked polygon meshes, with or without wind animation.”

Also interesting is that with this update to the software, all… “existing PlantCatalog species files are now up to 60% smaller than before.” Thus saving hard-drive space.

Vue scenes sale

Posted on by Posted in Special Offers and Discounts, Tutorials, Vue Leave a comment

Raffy Raffy has a 50% sale at ArtStation. I picked up three big Vue scenes I didn’t yet have. 430Mb in total, for the three. They all populate their ecosystems with items that should be standard library items for most Vue users.

Incidentally I discovered there are obviously two types of store on ArtStation, and for the same vendor. Click on the vendor name in a product, and you go to…

1. https://www.artstation.com/raffyraffy/store

Raffy has his older Vue scenes missing here. I did some tests and the missing items are not due to ArtStation removing my already-purchased items (I purchased them when he was on CGTrader) or because my Web browser’s uBlock was blocking a further page of the store. To see the full range, the URL then needs to be…

2. https://raffyraffy.artstation.com/store

At this version of the store URL you see no sale discounts, but you do see the full range, including Raffy’s older Vue items. Half are missing from version 1 of the store, in favour of Blender scenes.

Click through on one of these and… hmm, still no discounts…

But… if you copy-paste the desired product title into the main Marketplace search, it will then reveal the page for the same product… but this time it will have the sale discount.

It appears that ArtStation gives two versions of the store to a vendor. I’d suspect that one is search-engine friendly and shows up in Google etc, while the more dynamic one with sale discounts does not. Just a guess.

Thus, if you discover a vendor you really like and want to wishlist from their full range, it’s worth trying both store URLs and playing spot-the-difference. I’ve now been able to wishlist at ArtStation two further Vue scenes, that I thought had not made it across from the old CGTrader store. These are Path Forest in Vue and Dangerous Canyon in Vue, and will be picked up on Black Friday.

Release: VUE R6 provides a Poser to 3DSMax / Maya / C4D / Lightwave route.

Posted on by Posted in Companion software, Poser, Spotted in the News, Vue Leave a comment

The subscription VUE R6 is out, and it’s a big update. I hadn’t realised that the new subscription Vue now includes major compatibility with…

* 3D Studio Max 2016 to 2021
* Maya 2015 to 2020
* Cinema4D R20 to R23
* Lightwave 11.6 to 2020

Or, if it didn’t before, then it does now with the new R6. Therefore, since Vue still has excellent Poser scene import… this could be a way to get your Poser scene over to those big beasts, if either: i) you can no longer get the PoserFusion plugins; or ii) your PoserFusion variety can’t support the very latest edition of Cinema 4D, Maya etc and your boss needs you to.

Poser to the forthcoming Omniverse modules too, via Vue…

* “We’ve also included a direct export preset for Nvidia’s Omniverse.”

Other changes:

* Export via Pixar’s Universal Scene Description (.usda, .usdz, .usdc).

* Control clouds based on their altitude in the scene.

* Support for “non-photorealistic rendering” in the Path Tracer, and supports for the Substance GPU engine in the viewport. It’ll be interesting to see demos of those.

* Python 3 since R5. Therefore those relying on Python 2 scripts either need to get them updated or stick to R4.

* Terragen .TER import is back, from R5. Had been broken.

* I see that “SkinVue fixed and added to VUE” since R2, which is important for Poser scene imports with figures.

* Vue’s developer are obviously spending a lot of time aligning the software with NVIDIA’s doomed Omniverse project.

All in all, I still don’t see a big need for a hobbyist to move from the old Vue 2016.

The Vue from here…

Posted on by Posted in Poser, Spotted in the News, Vue Leave a comment

A translated report from the German forums…

The import of scenes from Poser 12 Early Access does not seem to work so well with the current Vue version. According to Walther Beck, from Vue Support, there are apparently inconsistencies.

Vue import of Poser scenes has always been excellent, something that was honed and crafted and aligned over many years. There was a minor glitch with the Vue 2016 R4 patch (Poser 11.2 scene saves may not open correctly in Vue 2016 R4), but this bug was fixed in Vue 2016 R5. But after that, the compatibility has so far continued under the new ownerships.

Let’s hope the problems are not too difficult to fix, and that Vue keeps the ability to nicely import Poser scenes. Vue R6 should be out relatively soon, and that should hopefully fix it.

The Vue from Big Sur

Posted on by Posted in Spotted in the News, Vue Leave a comment

Oh dear, like DAZ Studio, Vue is the latest software to have been totally bjorked by the new Mac OS. E-on’s Black Friday page states of the new subscription version…

“VUE and PlantFactory R5 will not run in MacOS 11 (Big Sur)”

I’m not sure if previous versions will still run, but that was not the case with DAZ Studio. Which suggests that older Vue versions may also be dead, and like DAZ Studio will require nine months to fix. Reports on DAZ also say the fixes will break many plugins and scripts? Again, one wonders if that will also be true for Vue?

What’s next to break on the Mac? Well, at least it won’t be Poser. Forum reports say that Poser 11 and 12 are apparently running fine on Big Sur, if you were wondering. The final Poser 12 Mac version may of course have extra stuff that changes that picture.

Vue Solutions webinar

Posted on by Posted in Poser, Spotted in the News, Vue Leave a comment

Vue Solutions Community Workshop, as a group webinar for users of the E-on Vue software. Sunday 1st November 2020 and booking now.

Still a great bit of software and able to load full textured Poser scenes (not just T-posed figures) with extreme ease, especially if you have the ‘last good’ non-subscription version at 2016 R5. As I wrote here earlier…

A small bug introduced in R4 meant that Poser 11.2 scene saves may not open correctly in Vue 2016 R4, but this bug was fixed in R5

‘Look At My Hair’

Posted on by Posted in Companion software, DAZ Studio, Poser, Special Offers and Discounts, Spotted in the News, The Animation Industry, Vue Leave a comment

The DAZ Studio fur-and-hair plugin Look At My Hair 1.6 is currently on a 50% off deal at the DAZ Store. Its companion LAMH 2 iRay Catalyzer plugin is also 50% off at around $7. Note that the latter iRay addon only works with a few “LAMH models [creatures] compatible with the Catalyzer”, so it you want LAMH for some other use than DAZ LAMH-enabled creatures then the extra iRay addon may not be needed.

Just be warned that it’s well known that LAMH is extremely crash-prone, and it needs to be learned fully and worked in the correct way if you’re to try to avoid some of the crash points. I can confirm that it’s crash-prone, and that it will usually take down DAZ with it. Check the forums for advice and some possible workarounds for such common problems. One of the worst problems is when it crashes DAZ on trying to load a finished scene that was saved with LAMH hair in it — users might save two versions of such a file just in case, one with the preset applied and one with it removed from the scene.

That said, when LAMH can be made to load/render, a preset is simple to operate in terms of fur colour and density and it renders reasonably quickly in 3Delight. Very quickly in default lighting, less quickly in complex lighting. For instance here I have dear old DAZ Millennium Cat with a black cat texture MAT (Classic Cats pack?), a fairly tough ‘Caressed by Light’ light preset #05, and the LAMH short preset for the MilCat ramped up to 260,000 hairs. Even with the tough lighting and many hairs, this render is done in five or six minutes for me. And that’s with me not using the Xeon workstation, just the normal desktop PC.

3Delight. Raw render, no postwork.

Since version 1.5 LAMH has also offered easy export for Poser and Vue and even .OBJ…

New in 1.5: LAMH will now create optimized FiberHair for rendering in Poser and Vue … applies compression to the fibers to control the size of the exported hairs. … LAMH will include the UV’s and custom textures with the FiberHairs, providing a complete asset” for export. Also… “provides the option to write the FiberHairs to .OBJ format.

… and export is relatively straightforward (provided you can actually load the LAMH preset and pose, without DAZ crashing-to-desktop). Such exports alone may thus be worth the $25, when LAMH is on a 50% discount. Indeed, it may even enable iRay (I’ve yet to test that myself) as Kendall in the forums gives some possibly good advice re: taking LAMH FibreHair exports to iRay…

“Do not generate the FiberHair until right before render. [Because FibreHair doesn’t auto-follow the pose]. The FULL version’s FiberHair export will put the generated hairs DIRECTLY on the model in the DAZ Studio viewport.” I also read a little later that “It is no longer necessary to export out FiberHair specifically for iRay … LAMH takes care of determining the rendering engine and adjusting accordingly.

Nice, if that’s the case. And apparently FiberHair exports can also inherit the colouring of the base diffuse texture (.OBJ export of strands don’t).

And I guess that if one then intends to do a lot of iRay rendering with FiberHair, DAZ 4.12.1.83 is current minimum — as that was updated to include “NVIDIA iRay RTX 2020.0.0 (327300.2022)”. That’s important because the iRay devs reported in the early Spring that their new iRay… “2020.0 final has just been released” and strand fibers do “especially well” with the new iRay 2020 + an RTX graphics card. Even fibres with dense intersections do very well, they said. Thus I presume that DAZ running iRay 2020 should help with the speeds on LAMH strand hair, if you have the required graphics card type. Possibly even if you only do CPU rendering, though that’s another guess. According to the forums this ‘Speed’ setting, in particular, might also help…

The current public beta of DAZ Studio is at 4.12.1.117 for the very latest, which is what I’m now running on. As well as the addition of iRay 2020, in recent 4.12.1.x releases the technical Changelog notes several dForce version updates and .OBJ import/export improvements.

For people looking at fur options I should note that Poser 11 Pro has a Hair Room built in, in which basic fur is relatively easy to make and quick to render. I seem to recall that Hair Room fur colouration can automatically take up from the diffuse material’s pattern, if needed. But I hear that LAMH can also do that, though not for .OBJ exports.

There’s also the new DAZ Studio Strand-Based Hair Editor, which is similar but more stable than LAMH. But the problem there is… it has no cat presets! In the meanwhile, LAMH has excellent cat hair, both the old MilCat and the new Hivewire HouseCat. And actually, thinking about it… I have yet to see a single animal preset produced for the native DAZ strand hair. You’d have thought that, a year after release, we’d have fifty or more animals furred by now. Is the absence because such hair can only be saved if there’s a base mesh to ‘grow on’? And that mesh can’t be redistributed, as it’s part of the commercial model?

What’s new for Poser and DAZ: August 2020

Posted on by Posted in DAZ Studio, Poser, Special Offers and Discounts, Vue Leave a comment

It’s getting near the end of the month, and so here’s my pick of the new Poser / DAZ Studio items that have appeared since my last round-up.

Steampunk:

Vampire Hunter for M4, for Poser and DAZ Studio.

Your hunter probably rides the new Steam Motorcycle.

Where’s he going to chase a vampire? Could be the Steampunk Arboretum for Poser, now at Renderosity. Formerly known as the Great or Grand Arboretum and part of the Steampunk City Volume 1 set from Meshbox. Be aware that their models are older, but well made. Check your Vue content to see if you already have it there under the name “Grand Arboretum”. If not, there’s a Vue version at Mirye.

All that glass may need a defence force, so you may also want the Zeppelin Station for Poser.

For lights for the Steampunk Arboretum, see the hanging lamps and low-poly Antique Street Lights which both match the Arboretum.

Science-fiction:

The free MC saucer add ons for Alien Invasion Saucer.

Got aliens landing their UFOs on your lawn? You may need the new dForce Slime and Goo.

City Container Houses Set from 1971s, for Poser and DAZ Studio.

The Saturn System for DAZ Carrara and DAZ Studio. Saturn and its system of moons, useful for scientific illustrations as well as pictures of of robo-kitties surfing the rings.

Storybook:

Hr-237 hair by Ali, with a suitably storybook look to it.

Exnem Ice Cream Props and cones for DAZ Studio, as “fit to hand” smart props and poses.

Realistic dForce Blankets for DAZ Studio. Could also serve as ‘magic carpets’, perhaps.

dForce Fur and Feather Boas for G8F.

dForce SY Capes II for Genesis 8. This second set has a more superhero look, but could also be used for storybook characters such as a wicked queen.

Historical:

A free Temple of Venus in .OBJ and for DAZ Studio.

Deepsea Adam HD for all Genesis types. Appears to be very suitable for renders that recreate classic ‘old master’ paintings and Biblical scenes.

God Of The Sea Tentacles Props and Poses for Genesis 8. Again, very suitable for renders that recreate old mythic scenes. Not that I recall seeing octopuii men in old paintings, but you never know…

A British canal 3D canal narrowboat. In low-poly, so you could have an armada of them converging on Dunkirk.

A free Painted Teapot, circa 1895, for DAZ Studio. Not canal-ware matching the narrowboat, but close.

15th Century for M3 is available again.

A vintage Letterpress Case for Poser. Metal letters were sorted into this, ready to be picked out and assembled to make a page for a printing-press.

Animals and nature:

The HiveWire Tiger for Poser and DAZ. This requires the HiveWire Big Cat as the base. There are also Tiger LAMH Preset and Animations for the HiveWire Big Cat.

There’s a new Cat Rig for Cinema 4D.

A new Peregrine Falcon for Deepsea’s Eagle.

Ken Gilliland’s new Nature’s Wonders Bee Swarms & Nests.

A free pack of Bubbles and Rays for underwater Poser scenes.

Landscapes:

Pebbly beach for Vue 11 or higher, from RaffyRaffy who makes a welcome return to Vue after a run of Blender scenes. Very nice. I’ll be picking this up on Black Friday, along with a few of his others for Vue.

ShaaraMuse3D’s HD Shrublands, a dry setting suitable for smaller desert cats and the like. Though possibly the uplands of India has areas that look like this, where tigers roam.

Olive Grove with Ancient Olive Trees and Mediterranean Shrubs Vol 1 for DAZ Studio.

The free Easy Terrain in .OBJ, suitable for Halloween or First World War winter battlefield scenes.

For figures:

Free Vellus Hair for Genesis 8 Female, this type of hair being faint downy cheek hair.

A free morph set, Gone LF for La Femme. Removing eyes, or nose or mouth. Possibly useful for those who manually intend to ink or paint in these features on the render. Possibly also interesting starting-points for a science-fiction or horror makeover.

A free supermodel body type for La Femme and a younger body type for La Femme for Poser.

A free pack of chest morphs, EMB for La Femme for Poser.

A free Ball Joint Doll for G8F in DAZ Studio.

Shutterbug Pose Collection for Genesis 8 Female. Being an unusual set of “making pictures” poses for a SLR photographer.

Obvious fan-art:

For non-commercial fan-art use, obviously.

The Man Without Fear for G8M, a Daredevil-alike for DAZ Studio.

Free Star Trek Uniforms for G8F.

Fur, shaders, materials, geo-shells:

Hair settings transfer for Poser. Fairly easily build a preset library for fur, and apply these in the Hair Room.

Me195’s free but WIP mt5 and node screenshots for cat hair in Poser. Don’t just grab the first link, you need to read the whole thread and notice that there are later updates to the freebie based on tester feedback. It’s still not complete.

Basic Shader Pack for Poser, possibly useful for comics work with the real-time Comic Book Preview mode. “30 open source shaders for you to use. Develop yours for sale or as freebies, using this set.”

RAMWorks ShinyShaders for Poser. Mottled and shiny, perhaps especially useful for natural things like shells.

Geoshell Skinz for G8F. “This pack is sure to be a major resource for your artistic renders. Utilizing DAZ’s Geometry Shell feature, this product is a simple, one-click solution … problems with extreme poses and clothing layers becomes a thing of the past.” Even if you don’t care for the presets, it’s presumably fairly easy to build your own on top of this by replacing textures etc?

Tutorials:

A useful Vital Tips in Getting Started with DAZ Studio webinar recording.

Edgy to Smooth with Subdivision Surfaces for Primitive Objects in DAZ Studio. Smooth the edges off cubes and the like.

How to make custom Poser thumbnails, with Windows freeware and a free Python script.

Change Shadow Intensity of Selected Lights in Poser.

Making billboards in Poser, with auto-masking.

Offers:

I see there’s a “50% off” moving sale at Teknology3d.

That’s it, more picks next month!

How to clean the old Cornucopia ~~. files from your Vue content folders

Posted on by Posted in Companion software, Poser, Tutorials, Vue Leave a comment

Vue users will know how annoying it is to encounter apparent content that has the file name ~~. These were not real content, just thumbnails with links that led to the now brutally-closed Cornucopia online store.

How to mass delete these now-defunct spam link in your Vue content folders? Thankfully they all have the extension ~~. For instance:

Realms_Art_Rope_Bridge_25_~~.vob

So we need to delete everything with a ~~ in the name. What the Vue user can’t do here is have Windows Explorer just search for ~~. or *~~. and then delete the lot. Explorer doesn’t play nicely with symbols, for some unknown reason. All it will do, with a search like that, is to find everything.

Of course, it’s possible to do this with arcane command lines or wrestle with PowerShell, but that’s total overkill and requires skills unknown to ordinary mortals.

The solution is a handy little Windows freeware utility, of course. Alternate Directory is a finder-deleter for Windows that can do the job. It’s a little mis-named, and should probably have been called ‘Search and Delete Files by Mask’ or something like that.

1. Download and install.

2. Make sure you’re going to ‘Recycle’ rather than ‘Clean’. Then go: View | Options | Edit.

3. Paste in *~~.* at the top of the list. Then select and delete all the other file name-types on the list, and save. Congratulations, you’ve just configured Alternate Directory to only find files with ~~. in the filename. (The * here, for those who don’t know, is a wildcard — it tells the software to find ‘anything’ in the search string).

All the other file-types were just the sort of cruft that system administrators encounter on their servers and need to bulk delete.

4. Now use Alternate Directory to navigate to C:\ProgramData\e-onsoftware\Vue xStream 2016 (or whatever top folder your Vue version indicates for its content files)

5. Making absolutely sure you have ‘Recycle’ selected run “Diagnosis” on the folder. All sub-folders are also looked into.

6. Look at all that crap it found, nearly 5,000 bits of defunct system junk. Pressing “Clean” deletes it all to the Recycle Bin.

Alternate Directory will then take a while to delete that many found files, in this case about five minutes. Once it’s finished you empty the Recycle Bin, and enjoy an extra chunk of disk space.

Now re-index your Vue folder in any 3D content indexing software you have, such as PzDB.

Alternate Directory is a useful bit of freeware that does the job simply and effectively. You may also find it handy in future for similar bulk deletion jobs, where there’s a filetype you want removed or where there’s a repeating filename for it to hook onto. It could, conceivably, also be carefully used for cleaning massive Poser runtimes of certain unwanted old filetypes.

It can also be useful for cleaning junk that comes across when you copy parts of a hard-drive. Such as _Zone.Identifier files. In which case the mask *Zone.Identifier does the trick.

You can also have Windows Explorer become a partial Content Library with pictures for Vue:

1. Open Windows Explorer and go to your content folders at C:\ProgramData\e-onsoftware|Vue xStream 2016 or wherever you have your content stored. Set it to something sensible like View: Large Icons.

2. Over on the left panel, select the topmost folder for your content library, right-click it, Properties, Customize.

3. Choose “Optimize this folder for Pictures”, and tick “Apply to all subfolders”. OK.

You now get thumbnails and previews in folders, and can easily search by keyword.

Magic Object Mover for Vue

Posted on by Posted in Companion software, Freebies, Vue 1 Comment

At last, there’s a simple “object mover” script for Vue! It’s the equivalent to Poser’s vital SnapTo script.

Select any two objects, run the script. With one click the second object moves to the location of the first, with a slight offset… so that it doesn’t land on top of the camera or inside a building/tree etc. The offset can be precisely adjusted in the script. Optionally you can also have the object scaled up at the same time, which may be useful if it’s a tiny object in a vast landscape.

Download Magic Object Mover for Vue v1.0. If you find it regularly useful, please note that it’s donationware.