Can you rename your characters to help editing scenes?

Keeping up with "Genesis 3 Female", "Genesis 3 Female (2)", "Genesis 2 Female", etc can be difficult when you have several models in your project, is there a way to name them in the project "Sarah", "Lucy", "Stan" and so on? I haven't found a way yet, like right clicking in your Render Library or File Management for reaching a selection for renaming function in the menu. At least it would be nice to label them "Red Dress", "White Boots", etc.

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Comments

  • MistaraMistara Posts: 38,675

    in the scene list, clicking the name should allow rename.  worked in ds4.6

  • nonesuch00nonesuch00 Posts: 17,890

    Yes, there is a rename in the Scene tab with 4.9 too

  • waltn3mtjwaltn3mtj Posts: 112
    edited October 2016

    Thanks, @MistyMist and @nonesuch00! Doing this from Scene never came to mind as I'm still getting to know the program.

    Post edited by waltn3mtj on
  • Silent WinterSilent Winter Posts: 3,610
    edited October 2016

    Also I think you need to hit 'enter' after renaming (rather than clicking away) for it to 'take'

    Edit: Just tried it, and no you don't need to hit enter (must've been thinking of something else)

    Post edited by Silent Winter on
  • kyoto kidkyoto kid Posts: 40,514

    ...I do it all the time. Really helpful when you have eight or more characters.

  • waltn3mtjwaltn3mtj Posts: 112

    I'm glad I'm not the only one who doesn't like keeping up with the generic (n) names. It makes putting a series together when the characters are simply moved for the next stage.

    I'm sticking with three characters at the moment as rendering takes longer for each additional one.

  • PetercatPetercat Posts: 2,315
    waltn3mtj said:

    I'm glad I'm not the only one who doesn't like keeping up with the generic (n) names. It makes putting a series together when the characters are simply moved for the next stage.

    I'm sticking with three characters at the moment as rendering takes longer for each additional one.

    I always add the generation to the name (i.e. Judy G2) just to make it easier to keep track of things.

  • waltn3mtjwaltn3mtj Posts: 112
    Petercat said:
    waltn3mtj said:

    I'm glad I'm not the only one who doesn't like keeping up with the generic (n) names. It makes putting a series together when the characters are simply moved for the next stage.

    I'm sticking with three characters at the moment as rendering takes longer for each additional one.

    I always add the generation to the name (i.e. Judy G2) just to make it easier to keep track of things.

    That's a good idea, too for helping keep up with clothing, etc. Especially since I have Victoria 6 and 7...even though I often name them differently in any series I may be making.

     

  • srieschsriesch Posts: 4,241

    If there are a bunch of figures in the scene, I also find it helpful to rename them to distinguish which is which.

    person sitting(G1), person jumping(G1), person holding chair(V3), person in background(M3), etc.

  • Steven-VSteven-V Posts: 727
    Petercat said:
    waltn3mtj said:

    I'm glad I'm not the only one who doesn't like keeping up with the generic (n) names. It makes putting a series together when the characters are simply moved for the next stage.

    I'm sticking with three characters at the moment as rendering takes longer for each additional one.

    I always add the generation to the name (i.e. Judy G2) just to make it easier to keep track of things.

    Oh yeah I never used to do that and I just started... it helps SO much to have the original name in there, or part of it.

    Also I name clothing and such too. So if my Josie 6 female is named 'Abby' in the scene, and is wearing a town and country shirt, I'll name it 'Abby's town and country shirt.' Just to keep things straight.

  • An alternative way to do this:

    Select the Joint Editor. Select the figure you wish to rename in the scene tab (note, select the figure and not a body part).

    Right click in the viewport and go to Edit -> Rename Node. Here you can change the node name and its Label (the label is what is shown in the Scene tab, while the Node Name is how its called in the program).

    Yeah... its an alternative way of doing this.

  • Stryder87Stryder87 Posts: 899
    kyoto kid said:

    ...I do it all the time. Really helpful when you have eight or more characters.

    I do it for lights too... quite helpful.  yes

  • EtriganEtrigan Posts: 603

    Being the complete nerd and terminally anal-retentive. All my characters are named. Additionally, when saving the character I use the following convention:

    FirstName_LastName_Version-Actor_[ethnicity]_[Clothing]_versionNum (ex. Katy_McGonigal_G3f-Caitlin_ExoSuit_001). the clothing and ethnicity are optional as sometimes it's obvious. Not too many Irish girls named Mei-lin Tang, and clothing is only needed when I have multiple variations on my character (business suit, bikini, exo suit, medieval peasant, etc).  In one case, I included age as I had three age variants for one character. 

    By being so anal about file names, I can easily sort through my character portfolio and see who needs employment that image. Note, underscores prevent the dreaded "%20" error in file searches. Best used for images, as well.

  • JQPJQP Posts: 504
    Im a digital neatnik. Probably to compensate for my real life slovenliness. :) I add a prefix, usually a number, so things sort in a way that keeps things organized. I also add the name of the character, and the figure acronym (G3M, G2F, etc.). One thing to keep in mind, hierarchical poses don't like it when you change names. At least, that's been my experience so far - I've only just started using them. They're very useful, but make sure you've settled on your naming conventions and scene hierarchy before you do.
  • JQPJQP Posts: 504
    *Bows to Etrigan's superior AR-ness* I just wish there was a way to change the name an asset loads into the scene with. I've tried everything, including hacking the duf, but nothing sticks. Re-saving things with changed names is too tedious and space-wasting to be practical. I guess I might be able to get away with saving stuff as wearables, with no materials if they take up too much space...
  • EtriganEtrigan Posts: 603
    JQP said:
    *Bows to Etrigan's superior AR-ness* I just wish there was a way to change the name an asset loads into the scene with. I've tried everything, including hacking the duf, but nothing sticks. Re-saving things with changed names is too tedious and space-wasting to be practical. I guess I might be able to get away with saving stuff as wearables, with no materials if they take up too much space...

    There's no nerd like an old nerd; same goes for AR-ness. I actually save them out as scenes onto my external drive. Given the current life-span of any given base, I don't get too many to handle, plus like Hallmark channel, I just reuse the same actors. devil

  • FistyFisty Posts: 3,416

    Scene tab, select the item, wait like 1/2 a second and then click on it again.  It's effectively a very slow double click.  Annoys me 'cause I alwasy do it too fast..

  • Peter WadePeter Wade Posts: 1,602

    One thing I often do when I apply a character preset to a figure is I change the name of the figure to that character. That way if I've been fiddling with a scene for a long time, or if I re-open an old scene and decide I want to change the eye colour or makeup on a figure I know which character preset to go to to change the options.

  • Now if only there was a way to rename the file in the content library as well.  Sadly, you can only rename things there if they're 3rd party.

  • JOdelJOdel Posts: 6,246
    edited October 2016

    A lot of what I do is illustration. And most of it is fanfic illustration at that. Which means I'm working with continuing characters.

    For setup, I open a new scene, load whatever base character I'm planning to use for a given character, do whatever morphs changes of skin, eye, hair, teeth, that I consider necessary. Add the character's basic costume (which may well get changed later on if the character shows up in multiple scenes, but you might as well start somewhere). Parent all the components (wig, clothing items, hand props) into the main heirarchy for the figure. Rename the figure as the character, and save the scene as the character name. You can build a whole library of continuing characters for future use that way.

    From there you just merge each character into each target scene, and re-costume, or pose them as needed. If the target scene is really complex, then you can save that, and then open the separate character scene recostume and pose there, save changes, and then repoen the target scene, merge in the character and do whatever final tweaking is needed.

    Don't be afraid to parent things into the main heirarchy of what they are associated with. Particularly things that you've already 'Fit to'. That way when you merge the character 'scene' into the target scene it will all come in as one scene list item, which you can open up to get at the sub-items if you need to, instead of as a whole collection of items cluttering up your scene list.

    Same thing with groups of props. If there is a table *and* chairs, *and* the stuff on top of the table, parent everything to the table and if you are going to use that table to build a dining hall, then save it as a scene, and merge in multiple iterations of that scene and just move the tables around where you want them. Name them Table 1, Table 2 once you get them into the target scene and make it easier on yourself.

    If, once you have a group of tables and want to move those, then create a Null, and parent the tables to that. and move the Null. The tables should all move as a group. You can select the individual tables inside the group if you need to tweak their placement.

     

    Post edited by JOdel on
  • Fisty said:

    Scene tab, select the item, wait like 1/2 a second and then click on it again.  It's effectively a very slow double click.  Annoys me 'cause I alwasy do it too fast..

    It's actually the same as the OS behaviour for file renaming - click to select, click again to rename.

    You can also rename items from the Scene Identification dialogue, available from the Scene pane option menu under the Edit sub-menu or from the main menu bar under Edit>Figure>Scene Identification or Edit>Object>Scene Identification.

  • FistyFisty Posts: 3,416

    And not the same as general renaming conventions in most programs which is a regular double click or a right click context menu which is why it throws me off.

  • waltn3mtjwaltn3mtj Posts: 112
    Fisty said:

    And not the same as general renaming conventions in most programs which is a regular double click or a right click context menu which is why it throws me off.

    That's where I got confused. There's nothing wrong with this way now that I know it, it was different enough to throw me for a loop.

  • waltn3mtjwaltn3mtj Posts: 112
    JOdel said:

    A lot of what I do is illustration. And most of it is fanfic illustration at that. Which means I'm working with continuing characters.

    For setup, I open a new scene, load whatever base character I'm planning to use for a given character, do whatever morphs changes of skin, eye, hair, teeth, that I consider necessary. Add the character's basic costume (which may well get changed later on if the character shows up in multiple scenes, but you might as well start somewhere). Parent all the components (wig, clothing items, hand props) into the main heirarchy for the figure. Rename the figure as the character, and save the scene as the character name. You can build a whole library of continuing characters for future use that way.

    From there you just merge each character into each target scene, and re-costume, or pose them as needed. If the target scene is really complex, then you can save that, and then open the separate character scene recostume and pose there, save changes, and then repoen the target scene, merge in the character and do whatever final tweaking is needed.

    Don't be afraid to parent things into the main heirarchy of what they are associated with. Particularly things that you've already 'Fit to'. That way when you merge the character 'scene' into the target scene it will all come in as one scene list item, which you can open up to get at the sub-items if you need to, instead of as a whole collection of items cluttering up your scene list.

    Same thing with groups of props. If there is a table *and* chairs, *and* the stuff on top of the table, parent everything to the table and if you are going to use that table to build a dining hall, then save it as a scene, and merge in multiple iterations of that scene and just move the tables around where you want them. Name them Table 1, Table 2 once you get them into the target scene and make it easier on yourself.

    If, once you have a group of tables and want to move those, then create a Null, and parent the tables to that. and move the Null. The tables should all move as a group. You can select the individual tables inside the group if you need to tweak their placement.

     

    You may have just answered my next question! However, I'm still figuring out what parenting does and that may solve something. I also use the same characters mostly dressed the same way and I haven't figured out how to recall the same character in the same wardrobe. I thought I could do this by "Save As", but it simply saved her poses, not wardrobe and makeup, etc. Hopefully if I parent clothes, makeup etc to the figure, I can then recall him/her for the next time around. I learned long ago to save the set once I got it the way that looks half decent.

    Now I know how rocks and trees get grouped, via Null. Every time I do something I try to add something new and it is nice being able to custom name things now.

    Thanks for your advice! You answered questions I had and some I had but didn't know how to put into a question.

  • gederixgederix Posts: 390

    Save as a scene subset to retain the complete character with clothes, props, etc. Allows you to select just the parts of the scene you want included. Parenting is simply a way of attaching one thing to another within the scene but does not make the parent/child items a single 'thing' that becomes a discrete, saveable object.

    To load the scene subset into a scene use file/merge (r-click merge).

     

  • waltn3mtjwaltn3mtj Posts: 112

    Thanks. I haven't been parenting things, not knowing exactly what that meant.

  • JOdelJOdel Posts: 6,246

    Heierarchies are fairly important in 3D work.  (Probably other things as well.) *Usually* whatever you do to affect the parent level of a heirarchy will affect all of the child levels as well. i.e., Move the thigh, and the shin, foot, and toes will also move. Resize the hand and the fingers will (usually) also resize.

    Parent a sword to a hand:

    You've loaded the sword into the scene, and if it was a smart prop, it probably came in pretty close to the hand already. If you had the character selected when you loded the sword, it may even have come in already parented. If it did, you won't find it out in the main scene list. You'll need to open up the scene list of the figure so all of its parts (bones) are visible and see if the sword is now showing up when you click on the triangle next to the hand bone. When the heirarchy of the hand opens up you will probably see a list of Thumb 1, Carpel 1, Carpel 2, and sword. 

    When a prop is parented to a hand, when you move the hand, the prop wll come with it.

    I often find I have more control if I load the prop, maneuver it into position, pose the hand to grasp it, adjust the position of prop and hand until I have them as I want then, and *then* parent the prop to the hand, by dragging it into the heirarchy of the hand.

    You will find that once something it parented, its XYZ axises may swap about, making further adjustments a bit dicy (it doesn't always happen, but it's a bit of a surprise when it doesn't).

    When I build a character file for merging into other scenes, I don't *have* to drag all the associated components onto the body part that they are associated with in order to parent them to the figure (wig to head, shoe to foot, etc). Most of them have been fitted to the figure, and will come into the scene when I merge the character file scene into the target scene anyway. But for the sake of organization it makes a scene list rather less untidy if all of the items associated with one figure have been dragged into that figure's heirarchy. Particularly if you build complex scenes with multiple characters. (Such as, for example: http://www.redhen-publications.com/1999.html)

    You can just imagine what a mess the scene list would be if all the characters and all their wigs and costumes were scattered at random throughout it. The various props are also parented into groups just to keep things organized.

  • gederix said:

    Save as a scene subset to retain the complete character with clothes, props, etc. Allows you to select just the parts of the scene you want included. Parenting is simply a way of attaching one thing to another within the scene but does not make the parent/child items a single 'thing' that becomes a discrete, saveable object.

    To load the scene subset into a scene use file/merge (r-click merge).

    A Wearables preset will also save items parented to a selected figure (it won't work if the parent is itself a prop).

  • waltn3mtjwaltn3mtj Posts: 112
    gederix said:

    Save as a scene subset to retain the complete character with clothes, props, etc. Allows you to select just the parts of the scene you want included. Parenting is simply a way of attaching one thing to another within the scene but does not make the parent/child items a single 'thing' that becomes a discrete, saveable object.

    To load the scene subset into a scene use file/merge (r-click merge).

    A Wearables preset will also save items parented to a selected figure (it won't work if the parent is itself a prop).

    I'll try that as well, then. I'll try both methods and see which serves best when, thanks.

  • JOdelJOdel Posts: 6,246

    FYI, parenting wigs to the head without 'fitting to' can sort of bypass some of the issues that happen with hair when the character has elf ears. You have to position it globally and then parent when you have it in place.

    I've also used parenting and scaling sometimes when I want to use a clothing item for a figure it wasn't built for, and autofit wrecked it. (V4 footwear on Genesis, for example.) I think the worst was trying to dress some of the characters for one of the Oz books on my site.

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