Tired of this plugin dropping textures!

[Spectralis]

I've spent hours of work creating a Genesis character. I have saved this character with different outfits as separate scene subsets to load into other scenes. Suddenly, for no apparent reason, the body textures have disappeared. No matter what I do I cannot get them to show up in the OR viewport. I've tried reloading them in DAZ and in OR but they will not show up whatever I do. This character and all of the scene subsets that worked perfectly a few moments before are now utterly ruined because the skin textures are missing and stubbornly refuse to show up in the viewport.

When I load this character in clean then all the skin textures are visible in the viewport but in all of the scenes and scene subsets created previously the skin textures (except the face) are missing! Somehow OR has corrupted those scenes and will not allow me to reload the skin textures correctly. These scenes and scene subsets are not overloading my graphics card, I have checked this, so that is NOT the problem.

I'm sick of this problem! Days of work ruined and no way to correct it. Does anyone have a bloody clue how to stop this from happening? Again and again, hours of work setting up scenes are ruined by this problem reoccurring.

I have not updated to the latest plugin version because it is not compatible with the scenes I've been working on for the last few months so I'm not prepared to risk throwing away months of work updating. Why hasn't there been a fix for this problem before the latest release for those of us who need it?

So now I sit here, unable to continue any work until I solve this problem, hoping, praying that someone, anyone here can help me solve this latest texture disappearance. Any help appreciated!

[t_3]

I have not updated to the latest plugin version because it is not compatible with the scenes I've been working on for the last few months so I'm not prepared to risk throwing away months of work updating. Why hasn't there been a fix for this problem before the latest release for those of us who need it?

simply because there is no possible fix. the way the previous version material system worked could not cope up with merges from i.e. subsets esp. if they once had the same source. the new version is the fix for that; there was no other way than to write everything from scratch, and it couldn't be directly compatible, as otherwise the problems would remain the same.

you won't throw away moths of work when updating; you only need to make sure to keep stuff saved with the prev. version backed up (e.g. to don't overwrite it). there will be an update (rather soon), that reads materials from old scenes back one by one, and if you use previous stuff with the new version - means without old octane data, you will still be able to get the materials back later on. it will be also possible to copy octane data between two open studio instances; i.e. open and old scene which reads back old materials, and directly copy & paste the material data into a new scene in the other studio instance, without the need to save presets to transfer materials...

[Spectralis]

simply because there is no possible fix. the way the previous version material system worked could not cope up with merges from i.e. subsets esp. if they once had the same source. the new version is the fix for that; there was no other way than to write everything from scratch, and it couldn't be directly compatible, as otherwise the problems would remain the same.

you won't throw away moths of work when updating; you only need to make sure to keep stuff saved with the prev. version backed up (e.g. to don't overwrite it). there will be an update (rather soon), that reads materials from old scenes back one by one, and if you use previous stuff with the new version - means without old octane data, you will still be able to get the materials back later on. it will be also possible to copy octane data between two open studio instances; i.e. open and old scene which reads back old materials, and directly copy & paste the material data into a new scene in the other studio instance, without the need to save presets to transfer materials...

Ok, thanks t_3. It's good to know that when I do update the plugin there will have cross compatibility sometime soon but until then I will hold off updating. I've managed to rescue some of the materials by trying various methods while the others I've had to recreate.

[t_3]

Ok, thanks t_3. It's good to know that when I do update the plugin there will have cross compatibility sometime soon but until then I will hold off updating. I've managed to rescue some of the materials by trying various methods while the others I've had to recreate.

btw, as long you don't save over a scene, there is probably nothing really lost, as the mats are still there. only after saving over, the current state is the remaining one.

i know it's a bit lame advice, but if you have scenes (with mats worth to keep) that no longer load back - the plugin version that will be able to read the old format should allow to even get them back, as it will not even try to establish links (what is usually the problem). the "raw" octane data should be nonetheless there and most probably it is possible to get it back into a new working material...

[Jeepers]

My apologies for butting in this conversation here but I’m in a somewhat similar situation as Spectralis. For the past couple of days, I've been reading many posts here in the forum about the new release of Octane for Daz and whether or not I should update. With all these posts and various octane versions I'm becoming quite confused. I too still use one of the very early beta releases (beta 1.0 R1.11 dated 25 March 2013) and am of course also experiencing the missing textures as well as missing geometry which often doesn’t want to load after you have saved and reopened the scene. When I saw the update, my initial reaction was ‘Yeah Great!’ and wanted to install it immediately until I noticed it wasn’t backwards compatible with older scenes yet.
I can’t quite grasp what the new update will bring in terms of how it relates to my older work within daz, some questions that are going through my mind are:
-What happens when I open a scene that I used to render with an older version of octane? Is it gonna crash automatically? Or I can still open older scenes, just not rendering them anymore?
-With this new update, will I be able to transfer my lighting settings I have in older scenes of Octane to new scenes at some point?
(in my old version I can’t save any presets of lighting setups. I wrote down all the settings but sometimes they still end up differently from my initial target render and have no clue how to fix it. So I mostly do now is reuse a scene that still opens and that has the lightsetup the way I want it and go from there ).
-Before I install this update, do I uninstall the older daz pluging? (I did a manual install the first time with your help)
-Do I need to update the standalone version of octane as well? (I’m still on an old version of that too.) Will the new standalone octane open up older scenes I did in the standalone version fine?
-Does the new update still include all the older settings like the amount of CGU you could set for rendering? I’m sorry to say I’m limited to 900 mb so it’s quite important for me to have that function just be able to work with the software. (I’m using a notebook and can’t change my graphics card sadly, already checked in the shop :/) My cuda driver is up to date, I just installed that update a few days ago.

I looked into having both versions installed on the computer as an alternative but that raised some questions too: by “daz studio program dir” I assume these are the files which are located in my “program files” folder on the C disk but I have 2 program files folders (1 has X86 written behind it) and both contain daz folders. And then there’s the hidden folders in my AppData Roaming which also has Daz folders. And I have no clue where to put any of these if I back those up, because will the program still find your runtime directory if you make an identical copy of those program files? And won’t it conflict?
I think this option is a little bit too high tech for my capabilities. I don’t wanna jinx my entire program just to have both versions But still curious whether or not I understood it correctly.
Sorry for the very long post an many questions. Just don’t quite know how to proceed... I don’t know if it’s gonna set me a lot back in trying to get the same lighting settings as before. I also don’t want to have my scenes it become unavailable to work on for the next couple of months. But I’m very glad there is a new update  thanks for all your hard work in this T_3! It’s an amazing plugin and one I really enjoy.

[t_3]

ok...

multiple installations

- you can have as many ds installs as you like; daz itself installs i.e. beta updates into new folders into the
C:\Program Files\DAZ3D\ or C:\Program Files (x86)\DAZ3D dirs.
note: the x86 means 32bit applications, the one without the suffix are normally 64bit applications (as long as the installer follows microsoft guidelines when copying files.
additional note: if you have a 64bit windows (e.g. you have both those folders), you should definitely prefer 64bit versions - at least for 3d apps.

- this means: you can always copy your current daz studio root folder (and only that) from i.e.
C:\Program Files\DAZ3D\Studio4 into sthg. like C:\Program Files\DAZ3D\Studio4_test
and then create a link to the DAZStudio.exe on the desktop, to run it.

- you don't even need to care about ...\Roaming\AppData\ or C:\ProgramData\...
any of the studio installs will use the same settings, and you will have the same interface layout, content database, runtime folders, etc. for any of the copies - by just copying that one folder and its contents.

- when you install the plugin, the installer asks you into which of your 1-n studio installs it should put it.
note: you need to run the copied studio install at least once in order to have the installer recognize it.

- this means: you can choose to install the new version into a new copy of studio, and so keep both versions and work with both; as the new plugin version also uses a new place for its settings, they will be also separated, and if you use the default path setup, both plugin versions can still access the live db map & thumbnail cache (as the new version also uses a new format to save the live db node data, it will be needed to be filled up again anyway).

old plugin scenes with the new plugin version

- currently such a scene just opens like any other scene without octane data; apart from additional octane camera properties - they are directly appended to the daz camera node, so you should still get them back. means there will be a new set of auto mats created (if the setting to do so is on), and you can render them like anything else, you (currently) just won't get your octane settings back.

- if you like to keep the octane data saved with previous plugin versions, you should back them up - once you overwrite such a scene with the new version, the old date is finally gone!

- you don't need to update the standalone - any of the plugins runs completely independent from the standalone (and other plugins) - they all bring their own octane versions with them, so it is no problem to run different octane versions in different plugins and/or the standalone, or even multiple of each of them.

- a new version that reads back old data (render settings, environments, materials/mesh lights) is yet to come... as far i can tell now, it will be this month; it will extract anything it finds in the old data (any of the above written), and convert it to the new format. it will not be able to recreate the oc mat <> daz surface links (as they were the root issue for all depending problems).

updating process

- you don't need to uninstall; the installer does replace what needs to be replaced, and keeps what needs to be kept; apart from that the installation is pretty self-contained, no services, changes to the windows registry, etc.

- you can change plugin versions back and forth without problems. the worst thing that might happen is that you need to activate again (put your credentials in), and set a few checkboxes in the preferences tab to what you had before - any of the work you put into creating a scene is saved into the respective .duf file, and as long you keep them save, you will be always able to switch versions if sthg. is not working.

old standalone scenes with the new standalone version
AND settings compatibility between octane 1.2/3, 1.13, 1.11:

- especially from 1.13 to 1.2x there were a few changes that can make materials appear different; most notable the glossy index parameter which wasn't there in 1.11 - it defaults to 1.3 and might need to be set to zero (1.13) or 1 (1.2x) to have a glossy material look correct again. additionally the bump map interpretation changed from 1.13 to 1.2x - to maintain the bump direction you need to just tick "invert" on such images (imo only necessary if the inverted direction is at all visible).

- in general old scenes will load back also in the standalone, but it might need some tweaking here and there.
note: you can also run multiple standalone installations to get sure you can bring back previous scenes identically.

- a note about the latest (unstable) standalone versions 1.3x: there were some fundamental changes to the node system, which may bring additional issues here and there but in general it should still work.

gpu type concerns

- when running a notebook gpu in the 4x/5x range (or even older) it _may_ be in the end better to stay with an older octane version, as new versions _might_ perform less well.

- esp. because of that it would be indeed a good idea to test the/any newer version by creating a copy of the studio installation (or install a newer standalone into a new folder), before finally switching to that version.


PS: are you sure you really still run the plugin 1.0 R1.11? afair the gpu priority settings did only come with 1.0 R1.13 (and are still there btw).

if you actually are on this version, you might want to at least try a later 1.0 R1.13 version, as they had quite some problems sorted out (though not all of course)...

[Jeepers]

Thank you for your fast reply! As for the version I am currently using, octane tells me it's the 1.0 R1.11 one ( I attached a screencap which shows the version number) but I can only make the plugin work on the lowest gpu setting so I have most likely updated manually updated to version 1.0 R1.13.

Especially as some of the 'known issues' mentioned look familiar like empty dropdown boxes, missing geometry, merging saved scenes with octane material etc.

I know understand better how the plugin will handle new scenes and treats the exsisting octane data. This may be a silly question but I always assumed the octane data was saved in the daz duf file, but I guess that's quite unrealistic now thatI think about it. I now see my 'backup' folder in 'octane render' is filled with OCZ files, are those the files I need to keep safe if I want to keep my settings?

Thank you for the extra info for multiple installs of daz too. Like you suggest it's probably my best option to try this out in the near future. Should it backfire for technical reasons I can always go back to the original version. If I have progress I'll post the results

[t_3]

Thank you for your fast reply! As for the version I am currently using, octane tells me it's the 1.0 R1.11 one

apparently i had forgotten to update the banner image in this version

This may be a silly question but I always assumed the octane data was saved in the daz duf file, but I guess that's quite unrealistic now thatI think about it. I now see my 'backup' folder in 'octane render' is filled with OCZ files, are those the files I need to keep safe if I want to keep my settings?

the plugin indeed saves its data first and foremost to the .duf file. the files in the backup dir are just that - backups for the same data, created whenever a new scene is saved (and on every save). i have not made up my mind yet if or how to use the backups, since importing them all may just create an awful long list of different, similar or identical oc mats.

so, the main thing to keep are of course the .duf scene files. you can then load them back one by one, to save some oc mats within them as new presets, or to reestablish all links and keep it for later use.

ps: the new save format is very, very straight forward and flexible, so such a change won't happen again...

[Spectralis]

Thanks! Some very useful information so far. Just to clarify, if I update to the new plugin version will it still be able to load all my old scenes as normal? If this is the case, and I've understood correctly, then when I save these scenes with the new plugin version I won't be able to open them with the old version?

All I want is for all the DS/OR scenes I've made so far to open correctly in the new version of OR. I don't need backward compatibility with the old plugin because I won't be using it any longer when I update.

But then again, maybe I've not understood all this updating information correctly?

[t_3]

Thanks! Some very useful information so far. Just to clarify, if I update to the new plugin version will it still be able to load all my old scenes as normal? If this is the case, and I've understood correctly, then when I save these scenes with the new plugin version I won't be able to open them with the old version?

if you would update now, you would be able to load old scenes but without your saved/custom octane materials, render settings & environments.

All I want is for all the DS/OR scenes I've made so far to open correctly in the new version of OR. I don't need backward compatibility with the old plugin because I won't be using it any longer when I update.

and this is what the version yet to be released will do - read and convert also custom octane materials, render settings and environment data...