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So where is the texture ZONE, also called Material zone?
Expand the PANTS in the surfaces tab. That little ARROW shows it can be OPENED. If it only lists the one section it only HAS one material zone, the Item I used has MANY. Not all items do, many only have one and a UV mapped texture.
does it say material zone?
I lost my Net. No Here this is Genesis selected and expanded. Everything that lists here is a Material ZONE, and each ZONE has the Diffuse and other channels. So if a item only has one it will only show the ONE in there.
Ok so I pick the diffuse? I still don't get I picked diffuse everyone down the list then went to shsders nothing.
As has already been explained -
To use a Shader, you MUST select the item in the Scene pane AND then select the Surface of that item that you want to apply the shader to, in the Surfaces pane, and THEN apply the shader.
You do not need to select Diffuse or any other sub item. Just select the surface. If you wan to apply the shader to all of the object, select the named object in the Surfaces pane. If you only want to apply the shader to a part of the object, select that part. A handy tool is the Surface Selection Tool (Alt+Shift+M) which will show you what areas have been mapped. Use this when you only want to select a particular area of an item.
The viewport in DAZ Studio uses OpenGL, Shaders only appear at Render Time as they are a function of the 3Delight render engine, OpenGL cannot display shaders correctly, as they are only calculated by 3Delight at render time.
I did that the grundge rag thingy doesn't show in the shaders
I would need a lot more information to help you. I have this product, so please tell me EXACTLY what you are trying to apply it to, and I may be able to help.
Also have you rendered the scene, because if you haven't, you wont see the shader anyway.
iam trying to apply it to the shirt but I don't see it to select it.
It may not have Smart Content enabled, it is always best to check the Content Library pane as well, as it hold everything that you have installed.
Go to the Content Library pane, select DAZ Studio Formats > My DAZ 3D Library > Shaders > Hybrid Grunge > Rag-Erator.
Ok. Can you add to smart content? I have both urban sprawls and they are in the library not the smart content.
It is possible to create your own metadata/smart content entries for items, but that's another discussion and cridgit has a thread elsewhere that explains how to do so.
You do not need to use Smart Content, let's see if we can track it down for you. I see, in the screen shot above, you have a set of tabs docked on the right side of the screen, labelled (top to bottom) 'Scene' (which is currently selected there), 'Parameters', 'Content Library' and 'Tool Settings'. With the Shirt still selected in the Scene tab click on the 'Content Library' tab. At the top of the new display in the right-hand side panel will, hopefully, be something named 'Daz Studio Formats'. There will be a little triangle to the side of the text. If it is pointing to the side it means it can be expanded, and this is what we want to do. Click on the arrow if you need to expand it, and there should then be an entry named 'My Library' with an triangle next to it. Click on that triangle to expand it and you'll likely get a long list of sub-entries listed.
Scroll down until you see one called 'Shaders' (just Shaders, not Shader or ShaderPresets). Expand that by clicking on the relevant triangle and you'll see a list of shaders. Scroll down until you see 'Hybrid Grunge', expand that and inside you'll see the shader sets that fit into this category (there can be up to four depending on which ones you have purchased - I have all four: Gore-Dom, Grime-Inizer, Rag-Erator and Rust-Icator).
Just click on the shader type you want (not the triangle this time!), which from what you say sounds to be the Grime-Inizer one. In the bottom half of the panel you should see the eight shader style this product gives: Cracks, Dirty, Filthy, Grimy, Gritty, Mud Splatter Fine, Mud Splatter, and Scratchy. You'll perhaps notice they all have .ds after their name, indicating they are scripts. This is because the way they are applied is not a simple 'add this to that' - which is why manually adding them to diffuse map is not the best way of handling these!
Now, on the left side of your screen you have a set of docked panels labelled 'Smart Content' (currently selected here), 'Shaping' and 'Surface (Color)'. It is that last one we want, the 'Surfaces (Color)' tab, so click on that. Since you (still) have the shirt selected int he Scene tab you should see the basic overview of the shirt in that panel. You may have to click on the little triangle next to the item name to expose all the names of the various material zones. Click on any of those (it may have just one, it'll depend on the creator as to how many zones an item will have - though more is not always better!) - use Ctrl-Click to add/remove zones to the selection. Then you can go across to the Content Libray panel on the right of the screen and double-click on one of the shaders to apply it. You SHOULD see the effect of these as they work on modifying the existing maps on the item via the Layered Image Editor.
Thank you all it was in the content library. I will have to find that thread to add to smart content.
It looks (from a quick search) his tour de force work on the subject is in the archives from the old forum, and not at the moment available. There is some information by both him and others dotted around - often you can find a link to more within the thread. What I found on a quick scan of stuff may be a handy starting point:
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewreply/277891/
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewreply/171849/
Honestly I search for stuff and I just can't find what I am looking for perhaps its just wording or terminology.
I am not convinced of how good the search engine here is, so don't worry! I have never, ever, manged (for example) to get it to find a post using a forum account name. As for 'normal' searches, it can be useful having a flexible idea for wording and patience as you try and hone the query :)
I can't ever find stuff with a forum search. I use google to search
I never USE Smart Content or the Smart TAB I use the Content Library Tab only. That way I know where to find my stuff instead of expecting the Database to have the info. At least in the Content Tab everything shows up, even if it does not have Smart data for it.
content library takes to long
I hope this thread isn't too old to resurrect.
I've just picked up the rag-erator hoping it would help with some scenes but I have yet figured out how to use it the way I was hoping.
I've just gotten the 'tear' applied to a texture but what I'm trying to do is create a hole in the ground (I believe it's mentioned in the description "holes in floors and walls") and it seems the only option I have is the opacity strength. So either I have little fabric tears all over the ground, or the ground is a big invisible square.
I figured the trick to creating the afore-mentioned holes, would be to adjust the size and positioning of the rips, but I don't seem to have any options for that :( (I tried messing with horizontal and vertical tiling but that wasn't working too well or the way I hoped)
*edit*
Nevermind, I just re-read through the description and I think I was getting it confused with another product. Now I'll have to see if I can find that other product again...
Yeah, isn't it just? :)
The terminology involved does seem a touch ... irregular? But it does pay dividends in coming to grips with. Pretty much everything render-related is a shader (that's lights, materials, cameras ...). It is easier to think of camera as cameras, and lights as lights. For surfaces you tend to get materials and shaders. The main difference (in my mind at least) is that materials are dependent on the underlying surface zone names: thus is you have a table, say, selected which has surface zones called legs and top, and you double-click a Michael 4 skin texture you don't suddenly see Mickey 4 spread out across the table! Usually a material preset will only apply to the figure or prop for which it was made. In addition it will apply to a figure or prop that has the same names in it's surfaces (you CAN apply a V4 texture to M4, for example).
What is referred to as a shader is surface agnostic, and will apply to any surface selected - the only 'trick' being that the root item(s0 must also be selected in the scene tab (that one used to drive me bonkers to begin with!!!!)
you don't suddenly see Mickey 4 spread out across the table!
hahahahah for some reason that line tickled my funny-bone immensely!
:)
I see the product description at http://www.daz3d.com/rag-erator-for-daz-studio states "These next-generation Shaders for DAZ Studio 2 and 3". Do they actually work fine in the current version of DS too, and that description is just leftover from when those versions were the newest?
They do indeed still work.
Since the issue of Smart Content vs. Content Library has been mentioned...for those of you who are used to (and prefer) the Content Library- how do you keep track of quirky names for items?
Most of you must have huge collections. Do you maintain a data sheet to remind you of all the items that can be used with an older character?
If I'm looking for a piece of clothing for V4, M4 or The kids 4, I have to remember somehow that "pants y" or some cute name for an outfit will work with one of them. I understand that absolutely everything is in the CL, but items just get lost in the maze.
Any tips on how you keep track of such things?
I intend to try making my own Smart Content. I believe Herald of Fire posted a good article on the subject. Will have to check my "office" to find the info. Will post link to thread, if possible.
Memory, sadly, is what I tend to use. Which may explain why I have probalby not used half my runtime/content! ;)
I simply build my notes right into the content library category names as I add each product to the library, because there's no way I could every remember it. For example, I have a category for each figure, so if I want clothes for V3, I just go into the "Victoria 3" > "clothing an accessories" and I know it all fits. In the case of Genesis 1 that has autofit ability, I have both the Genesis 1 clothing and all generation 4 clothing combined together, but each product or group of products is marked so I know what it was supposed to fit. For example, if you look at the far right column, I have "buccaneer basic pants (G1)", so I know the buccaneer basic pants were for Genesis 1. I have "shadow dancer for ...s(V4 autofits ok)" so I know shadow dancer is for V4. If it was an accessory that wasn't designed for any specific character, like maybe a generic hat, I might put "(unknown") or "(nonspecific)" so I know to not to try to autofit and that I'll have to manually move it around for the best fit. If it's something like hair that fits multiple figures, I might call it "ProductNameHere hair (V3,M3,V4,M4)". If I had a lot more figures this might be harder, but mostly I only use V3,M3,G1.
I haven't quite settled on a naming convention. that "(V4 autofits ok)" is going to just be "(V4)" as soon as clean this up. I have a "WITH FLAWS" folder that I put a bunch of V4 clothing items that fail autoconvert in various ways, but I'll probably move them up into the pants category and prefix them with "FLAWED" and put a description of the failure in the folder name. For example some things might fail lower down, but if only the waist and up is visible in the render, I won't care and I can still use them. Others fail by horribly distorting the texture, but if I make it a solid color with no bump it would be invisible and I can still use it.