Converting Between Poser and DAZ Studio

[unreal]

That's an improvement, for sure. Didn't EZskin do something like that? A little more rigidly and single purpose? But I'm thinking of linking like instancing. fwir, a mat is defined in a poser file. Then the actor references that mat. But if the same mat (ie: node collection) is used in more than one place, it's actually duplicated?

Also, those materials. And orphaned mat zones. When you click a Poser file for the wrong thing, it creates mat zones on the target. You can't get rid of them, I thought? I remember having to clean the poser file itself. Actually, there's a lot of hand cleaning those files. Which can really screw things up.

Like making a character pose. I save the full body morph as a binary. Which has a bunch if UUID and morphs for each body part. There's no way to make the binary morph file include only the actors I want, without using an external editor. Since I'm on mac, I have to use Wine ro run the windows app. I wonder if it's worth it to make a python script for editing the binary morph file. At least cross platform.

 

[Ken1171]

EZSkin would be more comparable to my "SkinEdit" script, which is dedicated to editing skin materials on figures. MAT Edit is for general materials, meaning it can edit anything. It has a command to remove orphan nodes (the "Cleanup" button). If you paste materials in Poser, you may end up with duplicates, which can be removed with that button. But the advantage of MAT Edit in this case is that we can select the figure instead, and remove duplicates and orphan nodes across the entire figure at once, instead of doing it once for each material. It removes the tedious repetition out of it - turning it into a 1-click action.

As for linking, Poser handles those things internally, and I don't know how it does it. Even when editing a single MAT zone, when I connect the same texture to multiple inputs on the root node, after saving and loading the material back, Poser can create duplicates of the texture instead of reusing the same one. That doesn't mean it's using twice the memory - it may be pointing to the same map internally, but there is no way for us to know if that's what it does.

As for cleaning up PMD files, D3D has a PMD editor I use exactly for that purpose. You can find the PMD Editor at Renderosity.

 

[unreal]

Indeed. I bought Mat Edit. For exactly the reasons you state

Time savings alone makes it worth it. To say nothing of the annoyance it removes.

I would have to look in a pz3 file to see how it's setup. It's been ages since I've edited one of those.

PMD is what I use as well. I have to run it under WINE since it's a windows only program. Wish there was documentation on the PMD format. I'd write something in python so it would be integratable in Poser AND cross platform.

Actually, I wish there was documentation on all the file formats. There are bits and pieces that people haver hacked over the last 25 years. Scattered, gone, out of date. But still...

 

[Ken1171]

Indeed. I bought Mat Edit. For exactly the reasons you state
Time savings alone makes it worth it. To say nothing of the annoyance it removes.

Thank you! There is an update coming for MAT Edit next week that will fix some things, and add new features. ^^

I would have to look in a pz3 file to see how it's setup. It's been ages since I've edited one of those.

I recommend checking B. L. Render's "Secrets of Figure Creation with Poser 5" book, which tells a lot about what happens under the hood with Poser files, gives excellent hints on how to properly rig for Poser, how to make proper grouping, and provides many troubleshooting hints. It was hard to read at first, but later things started making more sense. It's amazing the book is still available, and if you really want to know those things, that's the book to read.

PMD is what I use as well. I have to run it under WINE since it's a windows only program. Wish there was documentation on the PMD format. I'd write something in python so it would be integratable in Poser AND cross platform.

There must be documentation somewhere, or Dimension3D (Ralf Sesseler) has reverse engineered it somehow to create his PMD Editor. We already know what's in those files, so it shouldn't be hard to open them in a hex editor and figure it out. However, his editor already does everything, so there is no need to reinvent the wheel.

Actually, I wish there was documentation on all the file formats. There are bits and pieces that people haver hacked over the last 25 years. Scattered, gone, out of date. But still...

Poser files are a kind of JSON derivative that is very easy to read. If you really want to learn the ins and outs, check B. L. Render's book to learn more.

 

[unreal]

You're a tinkerer, aren't you?

PMD Editor is fine for what I need. except it's written for a windows environment which I stopped using that sometime around the turn of the millennium. Except for security research such as reverse engineering worms, viruses, trojans, protocol attacks, etc. And that I stopped doing a couple of major versions ago. But it was fun

in any case, Wine is only meta-stable.

Also, docs are good. There's no good excuse for missing docs.

 

[unreal]

Nice. There's a kindle version. Usually I don't buy amazon ebooks. But in this case, I made an exception.

 

[Ken1171]

Nice. There's a kindle version. Usually I don't buy amazon ebooks. But in this case, I made an exception.

I have the physical book so I can have it on my desk when I need it, and work with it along with the task on the computer. But if you have a Kindle, that might work the same for you. That's a book well worth having, but I recommend reading it first to get a feel on the contents, because it's a lot to absorb and you might want to read it multiple times. Some things we have to try hands on before we really understand it, and I am saying this from my own experience with it. ^^

 

[RAMWolff]

I HAD the physical book but I need bigger fonts so the kindle version was more up my alley so I just bought it. $10 bucks

 

[Ken1171]

It's an old book now, so it should be cheaper than what I've paid for back when Poser 5 was the current version. But the contents are still as relevant as they were 18 years ago. Still worth having. ^___^

 

[unreal]

I find graphic heavy ebooks (comics, etc) work better since the advent of the retina 12" iPads. Big enough screen, high enough definition.

 

[adp]

You're a tinkerer, aren't you?

PMD Editor is fine for what I need. except it's written for a windows environment which I stopped using that sometime around the turn of the millennium. Except for security research such as reverse engineering worms, viruses, trojans, protocol attacks, etc. And that I stopped doing a couple of major versions ago. But it was fun

in any case, Wine is only meta-stable.

Also, docs are good. There's no good excuse for missing docs.

Not a doc, but I published the Python source code to deal with PMDs 4 years ago at sharecg. Including some samples how to use it.

PMD-File reader/writer (WIP) - Script - ShareCG

 

[adp]

PMD lib now also downloadable from here (no registration necessary and updated to run with Python 2.7 and 3.x):

"ADP's Python Page - Downloads

 

[unreal]

PMD lib now also downloadable from here (no registration necessary and updated to run with Python 2.7 and 3.x):

"ADP's Python Page - Downloads

Sweet, thanks!

 

[Electro-harpist]

You can preview the Secrets of Figure Creation with Poser 5 book at the Internet Archive, where it's available as a public-library like "borrow".

 

[Ken1171]

You can preview the Secrets of Figure Creation with Poser 5 book at the Internet Archive, where it's available as a public-library like "borrow".

Thanks for the heads up! Anyone who wondered what's inside Poser files, how they work, what each part means, how to rig in Poser, how Poser files store dependencies, and all that stuff, that is the book to read.