I also rely on the shaderworks scripts by semidieu (who no longer does any poser at all). I also love his advanced figure manager. but I can't do without the advanced library manager (partial poses, instant finding of my external runtimes etc), and I also use my tooning script for my comic - art materials toon. These are the things I really need.
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RELEASED The "Scatter Tool" plugin for Poser
Yup. We have to write our own scripts from now on, since most of these guys have retired from Poser (Dimension3D, ShaderWorks, PhilC, and NetherWorks). I have already created my own "Parameters Manager" that includes [almost] all features from the ShaderWorks version. This makes it quick to find and set 1 or several dials at once. My workflow depends on it, so I had to make my own version to make sure it will work in Poser 12. I still have a few more features to add before I would call it done,
Next in line is D3D's XS advanced shader editor. I will have to create my own version of that as well, as complex as it seems. What choice do we have? Everything Python we have now will stop working in P12.
It's still early to say, since these new scripts will have to be modified to work in P12, and I still don't know what will be required. Until then, people can keep using what they already have. There is still a few things to add before I can call this new "Parameters Manager" complete, and I still want to create a "Materials Manager" as well. Considering ALL Python scripts will stop working after P12, there is a lot to be done to make up for that.
It's important to diversify the portfolio these days, and since I was a programmer before being a 3D artist, Python kind of falls right into my alley. Thanks to Chuck Taylor kindly advancing to us that Poser will migrate to Python 3, we already know nothing we have will work on it. This will give us time to start coding the next generation of Poser plugins that will comply with Python 3. You can be sure there will be a Scatter Tool for Poser 12 that will have more features than the current version, and I already have a working version of my upcoming "Parameters Manager". I plan on also making a "Materials Manager" as well, to automate dealing with multiple materials editing. One thing at a time. 
PerpetualRevision
Admirable
I previously used XS, but when it stopped working for me (maybe about a year or two ago?), I got Netherworks' MAT Writer Panel to see if it could do some of the same things and was blown away by how much MORE it could do and so much more EASILY! I think you know I'm a huge fan of Netherworks' script sets and have nearly all of them, but I use MAT Writer by far the most. The only thing I DON'T use it for is the one thing I wrongfully thought was its chief claim to fame: I don't use it to save material presets, since the Poser library interface works just fine for that. But I use it all the time for copying materials between zones on the same object and across zones (including copying/pasting multiple zones), for switching out image maps, and for making adjustments to the Poser Surface node across all zones.
AND, although the script set is called MAT Writer Panel 2014, it works just fine in Poser Pro 11.
I've also made fairly extensive use of ShaderWorks' Advanced Shaders to create my own material presets to "fix" a variety of common problems with existing materials and to make it easy to adjust things like an HSV node value across multiple material zones.
XS still works for me in Poser 11. I basically use it in all scenes to mass-edit materials. I wonder why it doesn't work for you. I also have NetherWorks MAT Panel, though I don't use it as much as XS.
One of the things I like the most on ShaderWorks Advanced Material Manager is the ability of auto-selecting MAT zones that share the same shader settings, and/or texture maps. After we set our filtering options, when we select a MAT zone, it auto-selects all others that have the same settings. Once these zones are auto-checked to fit your criteria, editing one of them updates all the other automatically. If we disable maps, we can edit, for example, all skin MAT zones at once in a single pass, like changing the skin tone, specularity, and so on. Here again, editing one updates all. I find this a very smart way of doing things.
On XS, I like the ability of rewiring shader nodes from multiple MAT zones to different places. For example, I select all skin MAT zones, and rewire whatever is plugged to the bump to the specular channel, disconnect alternate diffuse, alternate specular, and change the diffuse color, change the bump value, all in one pass over all skin MAT zones at once. This is super easy and fast.
XS has loads of extra utilities, like remove all orphan nodes, reset MAT zones to a specific setting, change all texture maps in all channels by different ones in one pass, and so on. It's a single panel, and it does so much, and so well. It has become an essential part of my workflow.
One of the things I like the most on ShaderWorks Advanced Material Manager is the ability of auto-selecting MAT zones that share the same shader settings, and/or texture maps. After we set our filtering options, when we select a MAT zone, it auto-selects all others that have the same settings. Once these zones are auto-checked to fit your criteria, editing one of them updates all the other automatically. If we disable maps, we can edit, for example, all skin MAT zones at once in a single pass, like changing the skin tone, specularity, and so on. Here again, editing one updates all. I find this a very smart way of doing things.
On XS, I like the ability of rewiring shader nodes from multiple MAT zones to different places. For example, I select all skin MAT zones, and rewire whatever is plugged to the bump to the specular channel, disconnect alternate diffuse, alternate specular, and change the diffuse color, change the bump value, all in one pass over all skin MAT zones at once. This is super easy and fast.
XS has loads of extra utilities, like remove all orphan nodes, reset MAT zones to a specific setting, change all texture maps in all channels by different ones in one pass, and so on. It's a single panel, and it does so much, and so well. It has become an essential part of my workflow.
PerpetualRevision
Admirable
Here's the error I get whenever I try to run XS:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "C:\Grafik\Poser 10 Pro 64\Runtime\Python\poserScripts\ScriptsMenu\Dimension3D\XS.py", line 4944, in <module>
File "C:\Grafik\Poser 10 Pro 64\Runtime\Python\poserScripts\ScriptsMenu\Dimension3D\XS.py", line 4942, in main
File "C:\Grafik\Poser 10 Pro 64\Runtime\Python\poserScripts\ScriptsMenu\Dimension3D\XS.py", line 17, in __init__
File "C:\Grafik\Poser 10 Pro 64\Runtime\Python\poserScripts\ScriptsMenu\Dimension3D\XS.py", line 258, in __init__
IndexError: list index out of range
Maybe you know what that means?? I thought it might have something to do with those incorrect paths, but since XS.pyc is a compiled file, I can't open it in a text editor to fix them.
There's a lot of overlap in what XS and MAT Writer Panel can do, but each also has some nifty features the other doesn't. I haven't even used all of MWP's nifty features (like the ability to save "selection groups"), although the next time I'm doing a bunch of work on V4 skins I may do that, to isolate the skin mat zones from the other ones.
Also, just in case anyone else reading doesn't know this, Poser comes with a "Remove Detached Nodes" wacro that will remove orphan nodes from all zones if you shift-click on it.
I also find Netherworks' Dial Manager Panel extremely useful when I'm setting up my own rigged props (or setting up a "starter" of a figure I intend to use a lot), given that I can change multiple dial values so easily and far faster than doing it by clicking on each dial in the Poser parameters tab! I also discovered that Dial Manager has even more utilities for saving poses and expressions than Pose Writer Panel, so I use that to actually save poses to the library (since I can limit what gets included and have it "resolve" compound pose controls). The main thing I use Pose Writer Panel for is quickly selecting and zeroing specific body parts, like hands or arms.
Another Netherworks' script set I only recently started using more heavily is Scene Toy Pro, and while I've only barely scratched the surface of what it can do, it's been a huge time saver to use it to conform all loaded items of clothing with one click AND to set all those items of clothing to follow morphs and scaling. For some reason clicking on checkboxes the Poser properties pallet causes my Mac to pause (and its fans to kick on) and the tick mark appears only after a few moments of spinning beachball cursor. Super annoying!! So I was thrilled to discover I could do it all in one fell swoop with Scene Toy!
I'm so glad you're working on some new script sets for parameter dial and materials management (and probably other things too) that will work in Poser 12 because without those, I'll be using Poser 11 for a long time to come!!
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "C:\Grafik\Poser 10 Pro 64\Runtime\Python\poserScripts\ScriptsMenu\Dimension3D\XS.py", line 4944, in <module>
File "C:\Grafik\Poser 10 Pro 64\Runtime\Python\poserScripts\ScriptsMenu\Dimension3D\XS.py", line 4942, in main
File "C:\Grafik\Poser 10 Pro 64\Runtime\Python\poserScripts\ScriptsMenu\Dimension3D\XS.py", line 17, in __init__
File "C:\Grafik\Poser 10 Pro 64\Runtime\Python\poserScripts\ScriptsMenu\Dimension3D\XS.py", line 258, in __init__
IndexError: list index out of range
Maybe you know what that means?? I thought it might have something to do with those incorrect paths, but since XS.pyc is a compiled file, I can't open it in a text editor to fix them.
There's a lot of overlap in what XS and MAT Writer Panel can do, but each also has some nifty features the other doesn't. I haven't even used all of MWP's nifty features (like the ability to save "selection groups"), although the next time I'm doing a bunch of work on V4 skins I may do that, to isolate the skin mat zones from the other ones.
Also, just in case anyone else reading doesn't know this, Poser comes with a "Remove Detached Nodes" wacro that will remove orphan nodes from all zones if you shift-click on it.
I also find Netherworks' Dial Manager Panel extremely useful when I'm setting up my own rigged props (or setting up a "starter" of a figure I intend to use a lot), given that I can change multiple dial values so easily and far faster than doing it by clicking on each dial in the Poser parameters tab! I also discovered that Dial Manager has even more utilities for saving poses and expressions than Pose Writer Panel, so I use that to actually save poses to the library (since I can limit what gets included and have it "resolve" compound pose controls). The main thing I use Pose Writer Panel for is quickly selecting and zeroing specific body parts, like hands or arms.
Another Netherworks' script set I only recently started using more heavily is Scene Toy Pro, and while I've only barely scratched the surface of what it can do, it's been a huge time saver to use it to conform all loaded items of clothing with one click AND to set all those items of clothing to follow morphs and scaling. For some reason clicking on checkboxes the Poser properties pallet causes my Mac to pause (and its fans to kick on) and the tick mark appears only after a few moments of spinning beachball cursor. Super annoying!! So I was thrilled to discover I could do it all in one fell swoop with Scene Toy!
I'm so glad you're working on some new script sets for parameter dial and materials management (and probably other things too) that will work in Poser 12 because without those, I'll be using Poser 11 for a long time to come!!
These error messages only mean something if we had the source code. Don't worry about the incorrect paths. Python does that when it finds an error on a compiled PYC file, which points to where it was before being compiled, so it means nothing. The only thing that matters are the line numbers, but we don't have the source code, so it also means nothing to us.
I also love the Dial Manager, though it cannot do the thing I wanted the most - moving dials to a specific group. We can see the groups, but cannot do anything with them in relation to dials. I actually bought it thinking it would allow me to do that, but no. It is still useful to set properties to multiple dials at once, though.
The Scene Toy is yet another gem from NetherWorks. I use it a lot, especially when I need to conform or parent lots of things at once. It's also useful when creating morphs or painting weights on clothing, where I use it to quickly switch between figure and clothing without loosing the selection. This is difficult in Poser because we are stuck to drilling through menus. With the Scene Toy, I can just click items from the list.
I already have a working version of the Parameters Manager, and I have been gradually using it to replace ShaderWorks Parameters panel, which is part of his Advanced Figure Manager. It's still missing a few features, but I can already search dials by keyword, filter by type, by value, and by visibility. I can set or reset multiple dials at once, and I have introduced some new features to control the dialing precision without having to alter the parameter properties. What's missing now is to filter by morphs included on the clothing, so we visually know which morphs the clothing can follow (they show in green). I am trying to add that now.
I also love the Dial Manager, though it cannot do the thing I wanted the most - moving dials to a specific group. We can see the groups, but cannot do anything with them in relation to dials. I actually bought it thinking it would allow me to do that, but no. It is still useful to set properties to multiple dials at once, though.
The Scene Toy is yet another gem from NetherWorks. I use it a lot, especially when I need to conform or parent lots of things at once. It's also useful when creating morphs or painting weights on clothing, where I use it to quickly switch between figure and clothing without loosing the selection. This is difficult in Poser because we are stuck to drilling through menus. With the Scene Toy, I can just click items from the list.
I already have a working version of the Parameters Manager, and I have been gradually using it to replace ShaderWorks Parameters panel, which is part of his Advanced Figure Manager. It's still missing a few features, but I can already search dials by keyword, filter by type, by value, and by visibility. I can set or reset multiple dials at once, and I have introduced some new features to control the dialing precision without having to alter the parameter properties. What's missing now is to filter by morphs included on the clothing, so we visually know which morphs the clothing can follow (they show in green). I am trying to add that now.
I also use Scene Toy, though I'm not a vendor, so only use it for "ease of use" for an end user. I like it because I can group things together, which I was able to do in my old DS 3A Scene tab, but can't do in the Poser Heirarchy Editor. It makes it easier to find all related items in one place.
This is good to reveal some parts of Poser that need improvement. Much of Poser is about selecting things from a drop-down list, so only a single thing can get picked, and the list closes right away. Even on the Hierarchy Editor, we can select multiple items, but the actions are limited to a few, like deleting. Everything else has to be done by item, one at a time. That's where these 3rd party tools come handy.
Yes Rich, I have a group for all my lights, and a group for all my cameras, but that's not how I created them, and they show up in the Hierarchy as a single item, like the Ground, so I still have to use the Parameters panel to choose which light/camera I want to work with, but I choose the Group name, and then I get a list of all the Cameras to choose the one I want.
I'll have to try your method and see if I like that better. I just don't like having them all taking up a lot of the Editor, so I have to scroll way down to get to everything else. It's one of the reasons I like Scene Toy, as it works as my Scene Tab did in DS 3A.
That said, in DS 3A, I used to group all my Props together, and then I'd set up a group for my character, her clothes, hair, etc. That way it was all together, and easier to find.
I'll have to try your method and see if I like that better. I just don't like having them all taking up a lot of the Editor, so I have to scroll way down to get to everything else. It's one of the reasons I like Scene Toy, as it works as my Scene Tab did in DS 3A.
That said, in DS 3A, I used to group all my Props together, and then I'd set up a group for my character, her clothes, hair, etc. That way it was all together, and easier to find.
The way I handle clutter in the Hierarchy Editor is to parent all objects that belong to a figure (clothing + props) to the figure itself. This way, no matter how many items is used by each figure, if I have 3 figures on scene, I only see 3 items in the Hierarchy Editor.
I keep lights and cameras off the Hierarchy Editor, since they have their own managers in the Poser interface.
I keep lights and cameras off the Hierarchy Editor, since they have their own managers in the Poser interface.