Choosing between Manga Studio 4 EX and Sketchbook Pro 2010

It's my dilemma of running Manga Studio 4 EX and Sketchbook Pro 2010 on my Windows 8 RC installed devices:  I have to choose one app or the other.  The situation happened because Sketchbook Pro 2010 runs properly on the default tablet driver, but Manga Studio 4 EX requires me to install the WAcom driver.  Once I installed the Wacom driver, Manga Studio 4 EX will work great, but Sketchbook Pro 2010 will fail to have any pressure sensitivity.  So that means I have to choose, either use the native tablet driver, or the Wacom driver.

Damn you ... whoever caused the problem.

Manga Studio 4 on Lenovo X60T

I started using my X60T as creative device, and found that by default, Manga Studio EX4 does not recognitize the Tablet PC digitizer.  So I went to Wacom web site, download the driver (ISD_DualTouch_701-8.exe).  Once I was done, I tried Manga Studio EX4, found that same problem still existed.  But after I brought up the "ISD Tablet Properties", the problem went away, and continue to work properly with touch sensitivity even after I closed the property window.  I have to do the same trick everytime I start Manga Studio EX4 from scrtach, but I am good as long as I found the pattern.

Setting up Daz Studio ... again ..

My system screwed, and so it's time to reinstall OS again.  And for Daz Studio, I have to remind myself to put the Studio and Studio3 files back to the "C:\Users\xxxxx\Documents\DAZ 3D" folder, and yes I am still stuck in Daz Studio 3 Pro.

Toon Boom Studio: no pressure sensitive stylus on dual screen

Found something very odd about both Toon Boom Studio 4 and 6:  when I run the application while Windows is in dual monitor mode, I DO NOT get pressure sensitive on my Wacom stylus.  Turned screen mode to single monitor, and pressure sensitive comes back.  Not the end of the world to me since I can live with one screen, while I run other application on another PC.  But it's still kind of odd.

Corel Painter 11 and animation = crash

This morning I suddenly got interest in doing animation.  And since Painter 11 for Windows supports frame by frame animation, so I tried the animation feature.  However, everything I played my animation, stopped and then played again, the application crash.  It was getting so annoying that the animation feature becomes basically useless.

So I then tried Painter 12 (with 12.1 update), and there was no problem so far.  Granted, the first time I used it, the brush was ultra slow, but then I read this and follow the instruction.  Interesting enough, the slowness problem does not exist after I logged out and logged in again.

BTW, Painter 12 (same as 11) can't be made portable.  (some experiment I did).

At the end, though, because of the lack of hotkey and such, I still think it's better to do animation in ToonBoom Studio instead.

Find a workflow of using Daz Studio that make sense to me

I still don't like using Daz Studio 4 mostly because of the fact that it doesn't intergrate with my pre-DazStudio4 content well.  So eventually I continue using Daz Studio 3 Pro 3.1.2.24 to create the scenes, set contents and so on.  And if I really needed, I can open that scene on Daz Studio 4 anyway.  That works nice in my case.

Daz Studio 4: how to make all your files successfully open anywhere

Once again I have Daz Studio (this time it is Daz Studio 4 Pro 64 bit) installed on a new machine, and once again the file did NOT open properly, claiming that some files are missing.

I already tried to mimic the file structure to match perfectly even down to physical location and still didn't work.  Finally I found out, by reading the log file (which is in C:\Users\xxxx\AppData\Roaming\DAZ 3D\Studio4\log.txt) that a whole directory tree "C:\Users\xxxx\Documents\DAZ 3D\Studio\My Library\data\4_0" is missing, and so I copied the whole directory and now it's working relatively OK.

Now my next step is to set up SyncToy to make sure that the following 2 directories are perfectly match among my installations:

C:\Users\xxxx\Documents\DAZ 3D\Studio\My Library\data
C:\Users\xxxx\Documents\DAZ 3D\Studio3\content

Daz Studio 3 64bit vs Daz Studio 4 32 bit ... OF COURSE Daz Studio 4

Tried to compare the performance between Daz Studio 4 32 bit and Daz Studio 3 64 bit, and found that performance-wise it's pretty much the same, but Daz Studio 4 has SO MUCH BETTER a user interface.  Once I get used to 4, it becomes too hard to go back to 3.

How to make move your files among differnt Daz Studio 4 enviornment

At first I thought the scene are not showing up properly because the Daz Studio 3 content didn't map properly. But turns out it was because some meta data is missing.

On my M6500, it stores in : D:\Documents\DAZ 3D\Studio\My Library\data\4_0\...
(Notice that it's NOT C:\Users\dkwan\AppData\Roaming\DAZ 3D\Studio3\DAZ Built-in Content\data\4_0)

On Mac: \Users\[your name]\Documents\DAZ 3D\Studio\My Library\data\4_0\...

Once I got the metadata copy over, the files got show up properly. But then this also means that I need to back up the content of this "data\4_0" folder if I want to make sure that scenes show up properly in my future installation of Daz Studio 4 in another environment.

BTW, To see the log file, go to [Help]->[Troubleshooting]->[View Log File]

Daz Studio 4 blue ...

Installed both Daz Studio 4 on Windows and Mac, and found that following stuffs that I really do not like:

• Once again the Daz Studio 4 files that I created on the Mac FAILED to open on the PC side.  Really really lame.
• The current Windows version is 4.0 32 bit.  The 64 bit version is not available yet.
• Daz Studio 3 cannot open Daz Studio 4 files (actually this is kind of expected)

Nevertheless there seems to be a new way to organize files, so let me spend some days to learn it.

DAZ Studio: how I resolved some stupid database related problem

I spent most of my time yesterday to make Daz Studio 3.1.2.24 working on my Windows 7 (running MacMini), and finally everything is working as I expected.  Before I move on, I better write down what I learned so that I won't repeat the same mistake again and again.

The problem started when I switched to my Windows 7 on My MacMini, and found that I couldn't search any content in the database, and then when I tried to refresh the database by scanning the content, the scanning process always died prematurely, either just finished without anything done, or brought down the whole application all together.

So here's the tricks I learned:

• The best way to rebuild the database is actually DELETING the database and start from scratch.  All the attempt to rebuild a messed up database is waste of time at the time.  To delete the database, simple go to C:\Users\{user name}\AppData\Roaming\DAZ 3D\Studio3 and delete the file "Content".  There's also another "Content-journal".  I removed that away too, and did seemed to harm anything.  The next time you start searching new content, a new database will be built.
• If, after create the database, and the scanning process still die prematurely, try MOVE everything else out of the content directory (in C:\Users\{user name}\Documents\DAZ 3D\Studio3\content) and left "Runtime" folder there.  Try scan content again.  In my case it always work out.  And then you put bacl the rest of the other content and scan again.  That resolved my problem.
• If you want all the machine running DazStudio to be able to open any of the files you created on any of the machine, then make sure that the content directory structure used by Daz Studio on all machines are the same.  I struggled about why one machine failed to open the file created by another machine, and eventually found out (by reading the log file) that the daz file expecting some materials that were in different folders.  So I realign all the content structures on all machines, and files were then opened properly.
• Log file is important when there's something wrong.  You can find the log file at "C:\Users\{user name}\AppData\Roaming\DAZ 3D\Studio3", and the file is log.txt.

So this is how to get the same Daz Studio file show up properly on both Mac and Windows

I was using the network "Ultimate Poser Vault" resource approach for a while, and didn't realize the major pitfall of using such a scheme, and that is, the file you create on the Windows CANNOT BE read properly on the Mac, and vice verse.  That is because of the way how Mac and Windows store the network path on the daz file.

So starting from now I am using a different approach.  I copy the whole "Ultimate Poser Vault" content to the "content" folder of the corresponding Daz installation folder on both Mac and PC.  The result is that the file I created on my Windows Daz Studio shows up properly on my Mac Daz Studio.  Yeah!

32 failing, so stay with 24 for a while

I was trying to install the DAZStudio 3.1.2.32 for Mac, and kept getting stupid (application) "Abort Unexpectedly error".  So I will stay with 3.1.2.24 for a while, and the Windows version (on the M6500 machine) will also stay at 3.1.2.24  so that there's no compatibility problem.

Once again, fustrated by DazStudio

I was trying to spend this weekend to learn about how to use lighting effectively on Daz Studio, but at the end I found out other headache that I wasn't expected to deal with.

It started when I found out that, on my Mac, not all old files could be opened.  I have to set the [Preference][Directories] setting so that all 3 types (DAz Studio Formats native, Poser Formats (import), Other Supported Format (import)) point to the same "Volumes/Ultimate Poser Vault" folder, and even that, there still some files couldn't be open.  That's the moment when I realized that the daz files has some directory dependent information in it, much is bad.

I also found out that Daz files that create on my Mac doesn't open properly on my M6400 PC, and so is the vice verse case.  I think the network reference are not the same.  That's why the problem.

Interestingly, older files are working ok on both the Mac and the PC.  I think they were created in the era where those resource are still natively installed on the Application local folder, instead of the network drive.

it's not totally hopeless, though, because by seraching the name in the Scene, I can find the "missing" item, and then I can drag and drop them back to the scene.  So the materials are indeed still available.  Just the reference got messed up.

So what should I do.  Well, I think from now on I should:

• Use the Dell M6400 to create scenes, since the performance seemed way better than on my Mac Mini.
• Do documentation to write down clearly:
• Which platform I create the scene with, Windows or Mac
• What is the path of the the 3 reference paths.
• set only the Poser content path to point to  "Ultimate Poser Vault".  I am worry that the more reference, the messier it gets.

Hopefully that will make reopening the file in the future less painful.

BTW, I did "serarch content" on the Windows DazStudio and the app crashed. so I have to reinstall ... but still crash.  So I am now downloading a newer version 3.1.2.32.  Sigh, this DazStudio continue to be the bitter sweet.

Daz studio problem and solution

Daz studio is always my bitter sweet.  On one hand, the application allows me to create 3d scene with characters in no time.  On the other hand, the application seems to always have problem remembering the preference and setting I entered .

For instance, I was trying to load a scene, and I kept getting file missing message, and even after I located the file path for the app, it still failed to load the scene properly.  After being frustrated for a while.

Later I found out that the "ultimate poser vault" (my repository of all the poser resource files) path was not in the preference page for poser file.  Once I set that path up, files start loading up properly.

The thing that ticked me was that I clearly remembered that I did that setup before.  Somehow that setting seems to be vanished.

Well, in the bright side, at least I got it working.

Setting up Poser repository for 64 bit Daz Studio

Found out that in order to get content scanning recognize my Daz Studio (Poser) Repository on remote Z drive, I have to MAP a the directory to a drive.  Otherwise even after I added it in preference, the content scanning still doesn't pick it up.  Strange, but at least I find a pattern.

Setting up Daz Studio 3.1.2.19 on Mac Mini

After my MacMini crashed months ago, I haven't got time to reinstall Daz Studio 3.x on my MacMini.  I decided that today is the time and so here I go.

The first thing I realized is that the free serial number that I used doesn't seem to work anymore.  No problem, as I got the new serial number after I logged into my Daz account.

Then I realized that the content important structure seemed to be a little bit different than what I used to.  Again, no huge problem.  I'll just adapt it anyway.  So here's the new rule of thumb: to map your whole previous Daz/Poser content tree (for me it's "/Volumes/Install/Ultimate Poser Vault"), you should ONLY map it to "Poser Formats (import)", and don't put them in "Daz Studio Format" or "Other supported format", otherwise you'll get duplicated entries on the Content tab.

Search content is something extremely important to me, and here's how to enable it:

• In Content tab, select "View Category - Quick Start" view, and it will prompt you to scan directory to add to the database.  Click "Yes" and it will start scanning.  This scanning will take for a while, and it's well worth the effort because this allows you to quickly access your content.

 Happy DazStudio fun!

Daz Studio 3 runs so fast and smooth on M6400 64 bit

I think I said this before but this Windows 7 64 bit running Daz Studio 3 64 bit on DELL Precision M6400 is pretty darn fast, especially since I have 8Gb of memory. It's so much better an experience then running on my Mac Mini with only 2Gb of memory.

Adding Content to DazStudio 3.0

On my DELL M6400 running Windows 7 64 bit edition, I found out that I need to first map a network directory to drive first, and then add the content entry in the preference of Daz Studio 3.0. Otherwise the serach content feature won't pick up the content in my repository.

ZBursh 3.5 R3 keeps crashing

I was always interesting in learning to use ZBrush. The problem is that I always have negative experience with ZBursh. Like recently I am trying to get back to learning ZBursh again, but ZBursh 3.5 R3 just keeps crashing on my Lenovo X60T laptop. Since I have tons of other stuff to learn, so screw you ZBursh, and I'll get back to you say ... errr ... 6 months later.