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How do I get DAZ Studio to save material files that are model agnostic

SquishySquishy Posts: 460
in Technical Help (nuts n bolts)

I want to publish various models with a shared set of material files. I want the material files to not depend on specific models, because users may not have every one of my items. Is there a way to save material files to be independent of specific models? A seriously unhelpful feature, I can't imagine a situation where this would be at all useful.

Comments

  • felisfelis Posts: 4,195

    You could save it as a shader preset, i.e with textures that are not limited to a specific UV.

  • SquishySquishy Posts: 460
    edited April 2022

    These don't have any maps, and I have two surfaces I want to save together as a set. I will take another look but it didn't appear that Shader presets can do that.

    I guess I could try to exclude the UV checkbox, it's a real pain in the ass to test this on a single PC because the problem doesn't manifest unless you don't have the model the material file is linked to, for months I wasn't even aware this was an issue.

    e: yah shader presets only permit a single material

    Post edited by Squishy on
  • SquishySquishy Posts: 460
    edited April 2022

    kind of suspect I have to uncheck the entire geometry block actually

    e: actaully I lied a bit, I do have a couple of maps I'd like to use in a few cases, but they are simple flood fill type maps and the UV of the model is not connnected to those maps at all.

    Post edited by Squishy on
  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 99,341

    Material presets are indpendent of the actual models, all they care about are the surface names. If you make sure that the name are consistent then the same preset will apply to all. If the names are not consistent then how will any preset knoww hat to affect?

  • SquishySquishy Posts: 460
    edited April 2022

    The surface group names are consistent, and on my own computer I don't get this error, but I have had several users tell me my common material files refer to a specific model when they don't have it installed. It drives me nuts because I can't reproduce this locally but I don't think they're lying or just wrong.

    Post edited by Squishy on
  • SquishySquishy Posts: 460

    Well? Is this a version thing, or what? Why do people keep reporting this error to me?  I've thought of a pretty safe workaround, make a 2-poly placeholder model (one poly for each of my surfaces) and stick it in the materials directory and just include that + the materials in every download...

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 99,341

    What is the exact error?

  • SquishySquishy Posts: 460

    Yeah that's the problem I have, I haven't been able to reproduce it but I just this second realized I probably have to hide the runtime directory folder located files (where the geometry/UV is stored) for the linked model rather than just the *.duf file. Let me get back to you in a little bit please, thanks for responding.

  • SquishySquishy Posts: 460
    edited April 2022

    Aha, that was the trick - I moved data\vendorname\productname\itemname to a different directory and it finally showed me the error other people are getting:

    it repeats the error for each surface the material file is trying to apply (as I'd expect). so, how do I exclude this from the material file preset when saving it? if that works then I can release a set of materials with whatever option unchecked and get my users to apply that last, I can live with that.

    Post edited by Squishy on
  • SquishySquishy Posts: 460

    this works

  • SquishySquishy Posts: 460

    I guess the least painful way to distribute this in my case is to update and re-release the models that share these materials in a set, I have been wanting to add some features in that I didn't know to include in the earliest releases anyway (smoothing modifier, push modifier etc).

  • richardandtracyrichardandtracy Posts: 5,506

    One thing I did note with your low hip bikini was that the problem seemed to be with applying a texture to the trim edging, as if the UV's hadn't been saved for that bit. When a plain colour was applied to the edging, the error didn't occur. It might narrow down the area to look for it.

    Regards,

    Richard.

     

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 99,341

    Yes, excluding the UV Settings should work - it isn't really needed as long as there is only the one UV set.

  • SquishySquishy Posts: 460

    thanks, I am going to repackage and redistribute all of these items together as a set with some standards applied to all of them.

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 99,341

    You don't want the preset to load the wrong UV set as the details of the geometry will not match.

  • SquishySquishy Posts: 460

    I really don't want it to load a UV at all, my materials are all flood fill type stuff even though I do take the trouble to UV the models pretty well in case anyone actually wants to do real textures for them. Unchecking UV Maps seems to be doing exactly what I wanted, glad of that at least.

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