• Welcome to the Community Forums at HiveWire 3D! Please note that the user name you choose for our forum will be displayed to the public. Our store was closed as January 4, 2021. You can find HiveWire 3D and Lisa's Botanicals products, as well as many of our Contributing Artists, at Renderosity. This thread lists where many are now selling their products. Renderosity is generously putting products which were purchased at HiveWire 3D and are now sold at their store into customer accounts by gifting them. This is not an overnight process so please be patient, if you have already emailed them about this. If you have NOT emailed them, please see the 2nd post in this thread for instructions on what you need to do

BETA TESTING - IMPORTANT for all Beta Test AND CA's to read!!

Alisa

RETIRED HW3D QAV Director (QAV Queen Bee)
Staff member
QAV-BEE
You've signed on to help a CA do their beta testing - HOORAY, and THANK YOU!! The QAV team has gathered some info to help you help them, and therefore, help us!

SOME BASIC THINGS TO KNOW:

1-You need to own the product you are testing and all required products. If you don't have all of them, you may be able to test with what you have, but be sure to tell the CA this. For example, if you're testing an outfit for Dawn that requires the Starter Morphs and Body Shapes, and you don't HAVE the Body Shapes, let the CA know. They'll need to find someone else to test those morphs or they may not have you test that outfit.

2-Beta testing isn't just playing and doing some pretty renders. Your job is to help the CA have their product ready for the store when they submit it to us.

3-The usual "payment" for beta testing is a copy of the final product. This is handled between you and the CA - we don't place orders for products for beta testers, but they can give you a copy when the product hits the store.

TESTING BASICS:

1-It is always best to test things with the product being tested and any required items as the only active Runtimes (other than the main ones which for both Poser and DS have basic required items.

What you want to be sure of is that someone who ONLY owns Poser or DAZ Studio, the item you are testing, and the required items, will not get error messages.

So, if you are testing something for Baby Luna, only have the basic Poser or DS Runtime/Library, Baby Luna, and the item you're testing active.

2-Test EVERYTHING, and push the limits...see if things hold together. Check EVERY morph that is supported in a figure or outfit, and see if it looks ok at all stages. Check and at least spot render every texture.

3-Check for seams. For clothing, you should be testing the uv mapping using texture checkers. A great set of them is here, from Fisty:
Texture Checkers for 3D UV mapping - 2D Resources - ShareCG

For figures, the most common areas for seams are, of course, wherever the different maps meet - typically the top of the head, the shoulders/arms, legs/torso.

4-Turn, turn, TURN!! Turn that item around and around. Render and look from all angles. In many cases you want to turn the FIGURE and not the CAMERA, so that the lighting remains the same.

5-Test Renders - do lots of these, with different lighting if possible.

6-Render in all render engines that the materials support. If you can't, let the CA know.

a) In DAZ Studio: Go to the surface tab and ensure that EACH part of EACH item is using Iray shaders (such as Iray Uber) if it is an Iray material and one of the 3DL shaders (such as DAZ Studio Default, AOA, Uber, etc) if it's a 3DL one.

b) Look for any strange surface settings - like places where there are no maps, or there is a map and the diffuse color is black.

c) Note that in Iray (if you're testing in DAZ Studio), if there is a displacement map, SubD MUST be on and set above 0 - otherwise, the displacement will not work!!

d) Look for anything that looks "off" in the settings.

7-Make usability suggestions. Be nice about it, of course. Be aware the CA may not change things and take your suggestions, but you are helping them by making suggestions. Example "I'm finding it difficult to pose the feet for those cute shoes in the outfit. Is it possible to have a fit pose for them?"

8-REPORT YOUR FINDINGS!!!!! Don't assume it's just you, or that you're doing something wrong, or be afraid you will hurt the CA's feelings. Express issues in a positive, friendly way...but EXPRESS them! That's what you're there for :).

SPECIFICS

POSER LIBRARY SEARCH


When testing, you need to have your Library Search set to SHALLOW or Poser will find textures in other paths. Go to Edit > General Preferences. Click on the "Library" tab and set Search to Shallow.

TESTING POSES:

1-Poses should not move the figure's body in the XYZ axis, unless it is a specific "go to" pose (like a pose specifically designed to put a figure on a particular item).

Test this by changing the xyz trans numbers for the body to something like 2-2-2 or 10-10-10. Then click each pose and ensure that it still says those numbers.

The only poses that would be exceptions are default/restore poses.

2-Try the poses OUT of the order they are in. Sometimes that turns up issues.

3-ZOOM ZOOM ZOOM in any areas where one body part touches another or where they touch the ground. A bit of overlap is fine, if it is normal "body pressure". Bodies compress, but 3D Bodies don't:). If in doubt, get in front of a mirror and put YOUR body in the pose you're looking at. Note that when you stand, there is some "Squishing" that is going to show in the pose as a slight intersection of the ground plane and the feet, just as one example.

******
This should help in Poser to make it easier to find pokethru in the ground.

Turn ON ground shadows.

Right under the Preview window, there are some little squares and circles with dropdowns. The third from the left allows you to do this.



Turning the Ground prop off will make it even easier.
This is done in the Properties tab (next to the Parameter tab)

You can then zoom in and rotate the scene to see if there is too much pokethru

******

4-Turn, turn, Turn. People render from all angles, so the poses should be ok from all angles, too!

5-Check, as you are turning and zooming, that body parts look NATURAL. You often need to do a lot of little bits of combining twist/bend/side-side, and sometimes that's not done and the twist or bend ends up with broken looking body parts - pay particular attention to necks, legs, hands, fingers, legs, feet, and toes.

DYNAMICS:

1-Try the dynamic outfit doing just what the CA has provided in terms of instructions, if any. Make sure that their instructions are clear and correct. If you want to add other things, extend times, etc., that's great!

INSTRUCTIONS, SPELLING AND GRAMMAR:

1-Please read over any printed material given you and make sure it make sense.

2-Report any words that are misspelled or are incorrect grammatically, or things that have incorrect punctuation. This includes things in the product folders and file names.

At the end, the CA will hopefully give you a version of the product that is ready for submission. Delete all the old product and at least do what we in QAV refer to as clicky-click. Click on each file to ensure there are no missing files or path errors.

POSER USERS-LIBRARY SEARCH:

This is for both CAs and Beta testers.

When creating and/or testing products in Poser, you need to set the library search to NONE. When you do not do so, we are likely to find missing files and path errors in QAV.

To do this: Edit > General Preferences. Click Library tab and go to where it says "File Search".

There are 3 options: None, Shallow, and Deep.

To paraphrase from the Poser Manual, here is what each does:

None:
This will disable file searching and only look at the file locations (like Geometry and Texture) specified in the Poser files. If they are not correct, you will get an error message.

Shallow:
This looks in all Runtimes for the file, using the relative path and file name if possible.

Deep: This is the default setting, and will mean an extensive search will be done.


HAVE FUN and THANK YOU :)
 
Last edited:

Doodle Designs

Eager
Contributing Artist
1-It is always best to test things with the product being tested and any required items as the only active Runtimes (other than the main ones which for both Poser and DS have basic required items.

Thanks for this!

My current project consists of 9 products and I thought my beta testing was finished but, when I read the above, I realized that I hadn't tried testing each product individually. When I did, I found several issues that hadn't shown up when testing all nine products loaded into the same runtime. Such as a reflection map that is used by all the products, but which I hadn't included with each product's textures. I had several times accidentally used the reflection map from one of the other products. This was caught only after I tested one product at a time.

This is also an issue that neither of my beta testers caught either because, just like me, it didn't occur to them to test each product separately, since all nine products are related.
 

Hornet3d

Wise
Some good information and and should help to ensure there is a consistency in beta testing. I know if I ever do any I will come back to this to ensure I cover what is suggested.
 

Faery_Light

Dances with Bees
Contributing Artist
Thank you for posting this!

Most of my testers already know that they won't hurt my feelings if they tell me they find something not right but I have had one or two testers at other sites (before here) that said many vendors actually got huffy.

My feelings wont't get hurt nor will I get cranky or huffy with you.
I want to know what is wrong, I want my products to be the best they can.
If you are a tester and the vendor gets huffy, do not test for them again.
 

Alisa

RETIRED HW3D QAV Director (QAV Queen Bee)
Staff member
QAV-BEE
I've just added this to the first post

POSER LIBRARY SEARCH

When testing, you need to have your Library Search set to SHALLOW or Poser will find textures in other paths. Go to Edit > General Preferences. Click on the "Library" tab and set Search to Shallow.
 

Glitterati3D

Dances with Bees
Just a note for testers. Poser 11 has a nice set of lights for testing - in the Lights folder, Poser 11 Lights, Developer Work Lights.

I use these lights when rigging because they will show even the tiniest bit of pokethrough or crushing.
 

Glitterati3D

Dances with Bees
And, as testers and vendors, your goal should be that by the time it gets to HW QA there's nothing for them to find!

I'm not asking my testers to be kind to me - I want them to report even the most minor issue. Because when I get to HW QA, I look more professional and my products aren't thought of as difficult to test and get into the store.

That should be the goals of the vendor and testing team.
 

Alisa

RETIRED HW3D QAV Director (QAV Queen Bee)
Staff member
QAV-BEE
:yeahthat:

Hmmm...that's interesting, Satira. I think, though, with a combination of setting to Shallow and ONLY having your required files for the program and the relevant products available, that should help. Particularly important not to have other products of the vendor you're testing for active (unless they're required for using the product you're testing)
 
Last edited:

Faery_Light

Dances with Bees
Contributing Artist
I try not to have overly long names on my maps but it helps to try for unique naming.
For instance I always put my vendor lower case initials in front of the texture name.
And add the product name or initials so it doesn't conflict with my other sets.

If here are many textures with same names, no matter which folder or product, Poser will find them instead of the one you want.
 

esha

Admirable
Contributing Artist
Note that in Iray (if you're testing in DAZ Studio), if there is a displacement map, SubD MUST be on and set above 0 - otherwise, the displacement will not work!!
Just to clarify:
It depends on the base geometry and the displacement map. Displacement does not necessarily need SubD, only in many cases it won't be noticeable if the mesh is too low-res.
For a lot of fine details you will need SubD, either on the mesh itself or in the shader setting. But if the displacement map matches the base geometry (rough shapes, no small details) you will get a displacement effect also without SubD.
 

Willowisp

Adventurous
I've just added this to the first post

POSER LIBRARY SEARCH

When testing, you need to have your Library Search set to SHALLOW or Poser will find textures in other paths. Go to Edit > General Preferences. Click on the "Library" tab and set Search to Shallow.

Like Satira said, shallow search will still find the files. The only way to make sure Poser won't find them, is to completely unlink all your runtimes except the testing runtime. This is what I do. Might be tedious, but it's the only way to be sure.
 

quietrob

Extraordinary
I try not to have overly long names on my maps but it helps to try for unique naming.
For instance I always put my vendor lower case initials in front of the texture name.
And add the product name or initials so it doesn't conflict with my other sets.

If here are many textures with same names, no matter which folder or product, Poser will find them instead of the one you want.
As I rebuilt my runtime after a hard drive failure, This is something I've been forced to deal with. I have one texture that kept popping up simply named, "05". This made it impossible to find the proper texture folder or this particular texture. Another would be something like Silver_Reflection. A simple addition of FL_Silver Reflection and a search would've found the proper texture. @Alisa Thank you for posting the proper procedure for doing QA. I tried to be as exhaustive as possible. When I did my own poses to test out the product, I saved the poses and sent them to the vendor so they could add them or tweak them for their product. Every buyer likes extra's! This list and the suggestions makes testing and reporting even better.
 
Top