How to Save Poses in Daz Studio

[Fjolsvith]

Okay, so I followed your instructions and saved a couple of poses. I copied them over to my wife's computer for her to use, but Daz doesn't seem to register them. Do I have to do anything special in her Daz to make it import the poses for her to use?

 

[Pendraia]

Hi Fjolsvith and welcome to the Hive...

Okay poses, so my first question is how is your wife's version of Daz Studio set up? Is she using connect and smart content?

If so they might be an extra step to get things recognised in them. I know that smart content would require Metadata and so would connect I would guess to be able to recognise the poses.

So you would need to set up metadata...give me a moment and I'll see if I can find a tutorial on metadata for you.

 

[Pendraia]

Okay some url's I found for metadata the third one discusses non daz products. Ram who posts a lot here started the thread as he was having trouble with the icon.

Adding Metadata to Products * [Documentation Center]
Metadata tutorial - Adding new items to your smart content
Creating Meta Data for NON DAZ products

 

[Fjolsvith]

Hi Pendraia,

I figured out what was going on. Daz imported them fine, we just had to navigate in the Content Library to find them.

I had copied them to the "My Library/Presets/Poses" folder, and when we looked in the top-most item in the content library ("DAZ Studio Formats") and drilled down under My Library, there they were.

Thanks for taking the time to offer help!

 

[Pendraia]

No problem...that's how I normally find new items myself and then categorise them. I just wasn't sure if your wife used the smart content as that requires metadata...I'm glad you got it sorted.

 

[Seliah (Childe of Fyre)]

Hi Pendraia,

I figured out what was going on. Daz imported them fine, we just had to navigate in the Content Library to find them.

I'm glad you got it sorted out.

I have never used metadata, so I'm glad Pen was able to help with that. In general, yes, you have to "drill down" through the daz studio formats when using the Content tab.

 

[pommerlis]

I have a question because it's driving me bonkers.
I'm trying to create some poses for Gen3 Male & Female but certain bodyparts - hands and arms - only move to a certain value. Can I turn those limits off all in one go and if so where do I do that? Or do I have to turn the limits off for every bodypart seperately?

 

[RAMWolff]

Honestly, I was always told to keep the limits on as most folks don't tend to turn them off. Try twisting the forearm a bit to get it posed. Found for "hands on the hips" for most figures when I couldn't get the right position that was the key...

 

[pommerlis]

Thanks for the tip but that won't do for the poses I have in mind. It would take more then just twisting the forearm.

 

[RAMWolff]

Hmmm, well I look at it this way... everyone has limitations to how far their joints will allow. I've often had to rethink a pose I was creating and actually liked the newer one better. Darn those double jointed people! lol

 

[pommerlis]

They don't overstretch that much further as they do in Poser. These are poses I have created for other characters in Poser but somehow Daz doesn't agree with how far I want an arm to bend.
I tried applying them as they are on Genesis 3 but no dice, the two stayed as stern an rigid as in the default pose so I have to create them manually. Guess Gen3 doesn't have that kind of rythm in their veins LOL

 

[RAMWolff]

Yea, I think because of the new rigging it's just too different to bring over. Now I get why so many of us just stay in the platform we are used too because it seems both platforms are getting further and further apart in how things are done. Rigging, Surfaces, Weight mapping... Oh well.

 

[Seliah (Childe of Fyre)]

Honestly, I was always told to keep the limits on as most folks don't tend to turn them off. Try twisting the forearm a bit to get it posed. Found for "hands on the hips" for most figures when I couldn't get the right position that was the key...

Thanks for the tip but that won't do for the poses I have in mind. It would take more then just twisting the forearm.

Honestly, Wolfie, Pom is right in my experience. There are just going to be times where we have to turn off the limits on the figure's bends. I do it constantly with Dawn and Dusk and Harry, and I've done it with every Daz figure going as far back as Vicky and Mike 2 and the Generation 2 Preteens and Preschoolers. Sometimes, it simply is unavoidable to achieve a specific pose. I have found over the years that making a comment on the download page (or store page) that warns people that some poses require limits to be turned OFF, does help. Likewise, I make a habit of including that in my ReadMe documentation. At that point, if the customer/downloader has difficulty turning off limits, I'll try to help them insofar as showing them how that's done.

For any of my poses, whether they're made for Poser or Daz Studio... you can pretty much assume that I have turned off limits to create the poses. Turning limits off is not a bad thing; you just have to be mindful as a pose creator, that the mesh does have it's limitations before it begins to warp and distort.

Usually, when I'm turning limits off, it's because I've already run the full gamut of adjusting all the surrounding body parts and the factory "limits" simply, flat out, DO NOT provide enough range of motion. So, I disable the silly limits and I make the mesh do what I want. And then I make sure that there's something on the download or store page, and in my read-me, to let my end users know that they may need to turn limits off on their figures for my poses to apply correctly. That's all. It's worked like a charm for over 10 years.

@pommerlis - To address your original question :
Yes, there is a way in DS to turn off limits for the entire figure at once.

1.) Load your figure.
2.) Go to the SCENE tab.
3.) Select your figure.
4.) RIGHT click and choose "Expand."
5.) Now choose "Expand All" or "Expand From Selection."
6.) Now, make sure your figure is selected still (it ought to be still highlighted in yellow at this stage). Once you've verified that the root node is selected (where it says "Dawn" or "Dusk" or "Genesis 3 Female" etc), scroll all the way down to the very last body part (node) in the list for that figure. When you get to the bottom of the list, hold down your SHIFT key, and THEN left-click the FINAL body part/node of your figure. This will highlight the ENTIRE figure and all of it's body parts in yellow.
7).) Once that is done, go to the top of your DS window. Click on EDIT --> FIGURE --> LIMITS --> LIMITS OFF (ROTATION)

The limits will now be turned off for your entire figure.

If you need screenshots/images to help with the text step-by-steps, let me know, and I'll get you some visuals to look at.

Hope this helps.

 

[pommerlis]

Thank you Seliah!
I'll have a go at this tomorrow.

 

[Seliah (Childe of Fyre)]

I'll have a go at this tomorrow.

You're welcome. My best advice is to turn the limits off BEFORE adding anything else to your figure (hair, jewelry, clothes, etc). It's just a LOT easier to select only your figure's body parts in the hierarchy when you do it before adding anything else to it.

Good luck.

 

[mininessie]

tahnk you for the tips!

 

[kaji_h]

Thank you very much for the tip. That's really informative.
I've started using DAZ Studio just recently. There still are tons of things I'm not sure about the application.
This was definitely one of the questions I had.

If you may, could I ask some other questions related to "saving poses in DAZ Studio"?

By the way, I'm using DAZ Studio 4.9 Pro in Windows 7.

1) How could I delete the saved preset poses completely?
In Content Library, by right clicking and selecting "Remove Reference" or by pushing "-" button or by selecting "delete" in the active pane options menu, I can somehow "erase" the unnecessary saved preset poses. However, in "Poses" folder (My Documents/DAZ3D/Studio/My Library/Presets/Poses), there still are .duf files and icons that were to be "erased".

To delete the saved preset poses completely, do I have to delete those .duf files and icons manually after "removing reference" in Content Library? Is this the correct procedure I should take?

2) How could I bring back the "removed" saved preset poses then?
I "removed" a saved preset pose in Content Library. Now it's invisible in the pane. However, in my "Poses" folder I mentioned above, the .duf file and icon are still there. How could I bring back the "removed" saved preset pose to Content Library again?

I've been trying bits of things to learn DS and my "Preset Pose" folder is getting very messy with lots of unnecessary saved preset poses. I just would like to clean them up.

 

[RAMWolff]

Hmmm, not sure I agree with the limits off direction hon. I like to create my poses with limits on so I don't push the mesh any further than it was intended to be pushed. IF your having issues with getting the arms positioned just so just remember you have 4 sets of rotations to investigate, collar, shoulder, forearm and hand to get things looking natural in their positioning.

 

[DanaTA]

I have a question! What if you want to save a pose that's related to a prop, say a chair for instance, and you want the pose to position the figure on that prop? How would you do this and save it so that it could be distributed?

Dana

 

[NapalmArsenal]

I have a question! What if you want to save a pose that's related to a prop, say a chair for instance, and you want the pose to position the figure on that prop? How would you do this and save it so that it could be distributed?

Dana

You would parent the figure to the prop do the pose with the prop and model and save out the translation settings of the figure with the prop, but if the prop and figure are moved from the loading point and then the pose is reapplied it will go to the loading point of the pose. Generally as a rule you don't want all your translation settings to be saved in a pose, therefore, applying the pose does not effect the movement of the model when applied. So, for example, if you move the model X degrees from zero load position and apply the pose it doesn't move the model back to the zeroed loading position every time the pose is applied.