Question on Copying things...
So more newbie questions here. It's clear Copy and Paste doesn't work to copy items. Instances seems to work, but the new items are not the same as just importing the same item over and over...right? So the only way to have two items is to just import the item twice? If an item is a group of things...like a group of rocks...is there a way to delete things I don't want? I can make some geometry invisible, but that's not the same things as deleting it.
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The typical copy+paste in Daz Studio copies the attributes of an item, not the item itself. What this means is that things like scale, position and (where applicable) morphs are all duplicated onto the target. Instances are just that, an instanced copy of the original. If changes are made to the original, this will be reflected in all of the duplicates as well. This is great if you want several identical objects, but not recommended if you want each item to be different (such as different material settings).
To answer your other question I'll use your example of a group of rocks as a single object. The easiest way to remove a single rock from the group would be if that rock had its own material group. Generally speaking, it probably won't though, but there's a way to assign your own material groupings in Daz Studio.
You can do this by clicking the Polygon Group Editing Tool and selecting all of the polygons which make up the rock you'd like to change. Right-click and then go to Polygon Assignment -> Create Surface from Selected. Give it a name like "Invisible" and then change that surfaces opacity to zero. Voila, the rock is removed from the scene. You can also use this trick to render individual parts of an item using different texture sets.
What excellent timing for the OP; I'm having the same problem!
CTRL+C followed by CTRL+V do not seem to result in a pasted "new instance" of the object that I copied. Using right click + "paste to" doesn't seem to do anything either. No new copy, new instance, new-whatever is created.
I would like CTRL+V to be standard with other Windows applications. Whether it's Word, Excel, or my website or audio editing applications, CTRL+C copies the currently selected items ("instances") into the Windows clipboard memory. Then, CTRL+V will drop whatever I copied as a "new instance." Whether the item is a copied word, sentence, paragraph, spreadsheet cell, an audio clip or portion thereof (wave form), an entire audio track, or multiples if I did the CTRL+C with multiples selected.
Even the old and justified ancients Bryce and Hexagon behave in a more standard way, at least when working with objects.
So in the DAZ Studio world, just what does "instancing" mean? I am confused, because I would call each "pasted" copy an "instance", because that's what it is in programming.
Instances that are "cloned" from a root instance should probably just be called clones if they still have some sort of binding to the root instance. If they are tightly tied to the root instance (so much so that if the root is changed, then the clones inherit the changes), then maybe these should be called "Inheriting Clones". Or "Quantum Clones," heh!
Yeah, I know nobody is going to change what they call things based on what I say, but man oh man, this is confusing and (even incorrect) terminology, made only more difficult by DAZ being the black sheep. >:(
LOL! it is Standard, as the Copy paste in DS does exactly what it does in 90% of text programs, copy paste TEXT. 3D mesh files are a bit larger than the normal TEXT the clipboard was designed to handle in most cases, and as the Last Copy is left on the Clipboard Stack it would be like you HAD 3 items in your RAM when only 2 are in use. And I personally think that is the very reason a Copy Paste of Obj was not included in DAZ Studio. So you have as much Free Ram at render as possible, the Textures alone eat enough ram as it is.
The term Instancing is 3D standard for most programs that support the feature. So DAZ Studio uses it to be consistent with other terms in use by other 3D software vendors I do believe.
Thanks for the great information. Just so I get this straight...what is an "Instance"? I can't seem to select geometry of an Instance. I can for the original. And when I reopen a project...the instances seem to be gone.
Okay, thanks. I always forget about the RAM thing (I have 64 GB). But whatever we call it, copy/pasting an object (such as a wall) still does not produce a second iterance of that object. I'll try it again and if it still happens, I'll start my own thread so that we don't take away from the OP's topic.
An Instance is a 100% copy of any Item selected in your Scene Tab tree, example Genesis, it only copies full items even grouped items so select the Figure Name as displayed in the Scene tree and do Create> Node Instance. They display centered on the Copied item and then need moved to a new position. They should Save in all SAVE as> Scene Files and Scene Subsets as long as the Original item and the Instance are Both selected in the Save as Scene SubSet version.
Okay, thanks. I always forget about the RAM thing (I have 64 GB). But whatever we call it, copy/pasting an object (such as a wall) still does not produce a second iterance of that object. I'll try it again and if it still happens, I'll start my own thread so that we don't take away from the OP's topic.Copy paste will never make a second set. That is NOT built into DAZ Studio. to make a Instance you Select it in the Scene Tab then do Create>Node Instance... that is the only way to do it.
I guess I still don't get it.
And neither does this young lady, because she uses Bryce too. :lol:
Daz Studio and Bryce are VERY different. They simply do not both work the same way. They are not designed to work the same way. You might as well be asking for Photosop functions in MSPaint. It's just not going to have functions that were never built into the software. Bryce has it DAZ Studio NEVER did, and still don't. DAZ Studio has the Create Menu with the Node Instance command. That is how it was built.
Ignor...no comment
To duplicate an object in DAZ Studio, you either need to load the content item a second time (or save it and reload it), or create an instance.
To create an instance, select the object and select Create > "New Node Instance" (or "New Node Instances" to create more than one at once). Instances are identical to the original, and thus cannot be edited; editing the original object will also change the instance. (with one or two exceptions, for example you can rescale the instance.) Instances are more efficient, but generally only work if you want identical copies.
If you have an object that you changed in some way and can't just load a second copy from the Content Library without a lot of extra work modifying it, or can't locate it, you can also select the object and then from the menu selecting File > Save As > "Scene Subset" to save it, then load that saved scene subset. "Scene Subset" only saves part of the scene, rather than the entire scene, and thus can be used to add the saved partial scene to your existing scene. Yes, that's a bit clunky, but it does work. You could try feature requesting a new "copy/paste object" or something, but I suspect it won't get implemented anytime soon, as I think I did try feature requesting that years ago. But perhaps if there are enough votes, that could change.
The various options in the copy/paste menu, while they do not copy/paste an object, can copy and paste some attributes of it. I always forget what does what, so you'll have to experiment. For example, if you have two identical objects, I believe you can copy and paste the position/pose from one to the other, etc.
Copy Paste will copy all settings I believe. Position, rotations, and I think everything Except texture files but it will copy the settings of the surfaces except the actual image files. Unless it now does those as well, I've not tried.