Comments on: DAZ Studio and Victoria – a crash course in terminology

By: El Zagna

El Zagna — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 16:27:01 +0000

Well, again, you've done an excellent job of capturing the essence of the problem. It's a shame that those who are responsible for writing the official documentation can't be so lucid. My limited experience with DAZ was that it had taken Poser's content management and actually made it worse. Poser has made some significant improvements in content management starting with v7, but incredibly they forgot to document any of it. And, no, they didn't leave it out because it wasn't thoroughly tested or anything, they just forgot. Oops. For example, you can organize your content in any of the existing library folders (Characters, Poses, Hair, etc) so long as you don't mess with the Geometries or Textures folders. Unfortunately you still can't come up with your own Library folder names, e.g., Outfits. You can also drag and drop from Windows Explorer which has the potential of rendering the Library Window useless. My own experience with drag and drop is a little iffy, but everything in Poser is iffy, so the jury is still out on using that method exclusively. By the way, I use P8, and P9 is the latest version, but I'm unfamiliar with it.

By: mstum

mstum — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 02:30:46 +0000

Ahh, good old Poser Content Organization I think this all goes way back to Poser 4. P4 only had a few categories - Figures, Poses, Props and a few others, with no way to have custom categories. In order to make reusable Material settings and do some other stuff that wasn't readily available, people abused the Poses Library (That's why these things are called "MAT Poses"). Because there was no Hair Library, Hair went into Figures (and sometimes, rarely into Props).

DAZ Studio is a very young product, only coming out in 2005, 10 years after the first Poser. So all Content had to fit into these categories. Since Poser still had the limited Categories and since Vendors are used it and since not everyone uses Daz Studio, Vendors are still using these categories.

Only vendors that create specialized Content for Daz Studio or that are willing to abandon compatibility to Poser 4 and 5 make use of the Daz Categories.

I think Daz Studio 4 tries to organize the content better somehow, but I'm staying on DS3 for the time being.

By: El Zagna

El Zagna — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 00:23:27 +0000

I've been working with Poser and all the DAZ products for over a year now, and I've read volumes of tutorials, manuals, user guides, etc. but this is hands down the best introduction I've seen yet. I'm a little jealous of you for being able to figure all this stuff out so quickly. It took me... well, I don't want to talk about it. So your next assignment is to explain to all those poor slobs getting started with Poser or DAZ what the thought process was (or wasn't) behind the content organization of these products. For example why is there no hair in the Hair Library? Why is it all (almost all) in the Characters Library? Why are some poses not poses at all but changes to a materials texture or color? Why are most outfits in the Characters Library, but their texture collection in the Pose and Materials Library?

By: Chayen

Chayen — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 10:35:13 +0000

Thank you for the great article!!

By: John

John — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 09:13:09 +0000

^ What they said. A zillion thanks for an excellent article.

By: David

David — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 09:43:22 +0000

Hi
At last a clear and plain language guide to the basics. I spent a lot of time trying to decipher techno babble, when all i really wanted or needed was something like this, clear, concise and understandable. Thank you so much.
Be really good if you would consider some tutorials, or writing an understandable version of the Daz studio manual.

By: Richard

Richard — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 00:19:03 +0000

I will echo many of the former posts and say thank you for the important and thoughtful information and insights. I am new to Poser and 3D and frankly find much of the material poorly documented and somewhat bewildering. Your simple, straight forward definitions and ideas are very welcome and have helped enormously with trying to learn this stuff. Thanks to you and a couple other sources I am gettting it - 1mm at a time.

All the best

By: isisrae7

isisrae7 — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 22:35:44 +0000

Thanks so very much. It is good to read something so cocise, helpful and clear when you are just starting out.

By: Nada

Nada — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 16:15:22 +0000

Nada J'aimerais vous poser deux questions: .Dans l'utilisation des jeux de Magnets le tutorail que vous citez precise de mettre à zéro le "Joint éditor"J'ai vainement cherché dans "Poser 7 français"Je n'ai rien trouvé de semblable? De plus à votre avis pourquoi le personnage "Sydney g2"semble avoir été abandonné au profit exclusif de "V4.2"? Merci pour votre travail Répondez moi en français s.v.p

By: David

David — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 12:46:45 +0000

I agree with your other contributors. Your explanation of the terminology is extremely useful for those starting out in Poser or DAZ Studio.
One very minor suggestion: when you have time, it would be useful to add a sentence or two under HAIR on the difference between Hair as a character and Hair as a prop. This one is always catching me out!

Many thanks for your hard work on this very useful glossary

By: mstum

mstum — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 08:59:49 +0000

Glad that it helps. INJections are used in two contexts usually, and it simply means "Apply". If you INJect a Morph into a character, this gives you the dials in Poser or DAZ Studio in order to tune them. For example, if you INJect the Morph++ Pack and then click on Victorias Body, you should have Dials for LegsLength or ShoulderShrug. The other use is with Character Preset. For example, you can INJect a Face, which means that the preset settings are applied. It's essentially the same technology behind: Some INJ just add new settings, others are just Presets, while some do both. Just replace "Inject" with "Apply" and the meaning is clearer.

By: DBax

DBax — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 23:57:49 +0000

I second Eugene's thanks... Getting started in this is proving to be an enormous headache, and a lot of it IS vocabulary that seems to exist for no other reason that "we need a cool name for this!". Example, I'm STILL trying to figure out what an "injection" is! (example, a pack I'm thinking about buying says "...includes a body injection and two separate custom head/neck morph injections, in versions for both V4.1 and V4.2.".. and I'm left thinking, "OK, and I guess that is good?"). Your article helped me get my head around some of the other terms/concepts, so thanks alot!

By: Eugene Frank

Eugene Frank — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 22:30:39 +0000

Thanks so much for your write-up. I have been working on DAZ Studio for 16 hours these past two days. If I had known what you have written it would have helped greatly. The problem is vocabulary. Knowing the essentials is so important.

Thanks

Gene

By: Xiayuo

Xiayuo — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 23:34:39 +0000

I can't stop starring at that picture, in the last sentence.

By: Xiayuo

Xiayuo — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 23:31:58 +0000

This was really good, the picture looks amazingly real. I was in Aww. Very helpful! =)