Other Vam To Daz 2

[BStarG2]

Alright so I have a new problem...

I'm using the VAM to Blender to VAM guide to create a custom morph.

Guides - Vam to Blender to Vam

Juno submitted a new resource: Vam to Blender to Vam - Guide to export your vam character models to Blender for sculpting then back to Vam as a morph Hey All, Here is a guide to allow you to export your Vam character model as an obj, import it into daz then import into blender where you can...

hub.virtamate.com

Now, I'm doing it for a custom character. First, I needed to Export the character as an .OBJ file. That worked fine, and almost everything in the guide worked, except for one thing; basically the very final step. The guide says that after I create a custom Morph and export it (from DAZ3D), I simply need to take the .DSF file and put it into my VAM's female morphs folder... but there's zero .DSF files there, they're all .VMB and .VMI files. Still, the guide states that all we need to do at the end is to simply put that .DSF file into the female morphs folder and that it should then appear inside VAM in the Female Morphs tab when browsing for the morphs. I tested that, and as expected it doesn't work (so I have no idea why that guide says that at the end, there's no mentions about having to convert the file into .VMI / .VMB format).

Just in case, I quote what the .PDF guide says (Page 18/19, near the end):

" Now you need to locate the newly saved morph and then drop this .dsf into the subfolder of your
choice under \\your vam folder\Custom\Atom\Person\Morphs\female\
Fire up Vam and test the new morph "

So here comes your program. I was thinking of simply using your program to take that .DSF (custom morph) file I made, drag-and-drop it into that top left corner square and that it would generate new .VMB / .VMI files so I could then put those files in the female morphs folder of my VAM installation.

However... nothing happened. After I dragged-and-dropped the .DSF file in the top left Female square of your program, the Command Prompt window reports the following:

" Found 0 to process. Finished with all files "

I checked the folder location just in case, where your program reports it will save files to, but indeed there's nothing there.

Post #86 above in the discussion (by hankb) mentions this on point 4 of his post:

" 4. Dropping the .dsf into the VAM female morphs folder so that it generates the new .vmi/.vmb files "

That's exactly what I did and nothing happened. I was confused a moment, because then I started to wonder if your program is actually supposed to convert .DSF files back into the original .VMB / .VMI format. And it looks like it should. But nothing happens at all, the folder is empty. I searched for a possible other location where perhaps the file could have been created, but the Command Promt does report that "Found 0 to process" so it's not like it did generate the file but I'm simply not looking at the right place.

I even checked _everywhere_ according to the Registry where all the locations being used by DAZ are found:

https://imgur.com/QZPLnLg

So now I don't know what to do.

Because...

1) Simply dropping a .DSF file in the VAM female morphs folder doesn't work, the morph does not show up in VAM at all.
2) Apparently your program does not recognize that file, or something is going on... not sure what, but it's not converting the .DSF file back into .VMB / .VMI format.
3) Either the guide I followed is right, and I'm wrong about something (*User Error), or the .DSF files made as a result of that guide are somewhat different than usual? I don't know.

I need guidance on this, because everything seemed to work just fine. I even tested that custom morph in DAZ and it worked fine when moving the slider, the changes I made in Blender were applying in DAZ (as a custom morph). That specific morph is what I'm trying to convert back into a .VMB file so I can then apply it in VAM on the character I need to apply it to.

EDIT: I got it working...

Ok so I checked around more and I found a post (in another thread) where I learned that VAM is apparently supposed to automatically convert .DSF files into .VMB / .VMI, which is why the guide said to just put the .DSF file in the morph folder. However, it turned out that it wasn't that simple, but I did make it work. I went back in DAZ and checked exactly what I did again, until I realized that I did type in an Author name, and a Product name, which by doing so created subfolders where the .DSF file is saved (after Exporting from DAZ). Taking all those folders and placing them in the female morphs folder of the VAM installation seems to have done the trick. Now the morph appears in VAM, tested, and working on the intended character I made it for.

So basically it was a matter of folder naming and/or structure. It wasn't as simple as just putting the lone .DSF file in the female morphs folder, which is why it wasn't working. Now I'm tired and I need a coffee... or two.

 

[MrGiggly]

Hi

,,,

Hi
It is actually as simple as dropping the .dsf in your VAM morphs folder
VAM will search the morph root folders and all subfolders within them and create .vmi's and .vmb's for any .dsf's it finds without them.
It doesn't care what those subfolders are called and it has no relationship to what they were in Daz either

Did you have VAM open when you added the .dsf?
It only scans the morphs folders at launch or after a hard reset so they won't show without this.

 

[Chokaphi]

Hi

Hi
It is actually as simple as dropping the .dsf in your VAM morphs folder
VAM will search the morph root folders and all subfolders within them and create .vmi's and .vmb's for any .dsf's it finds without them.
It doesn't care what those subfolders are called and it has no relationship to what they were in Daz either

Did you have VAM open when you added the .dsf?
It only scans the morphs folders at launch or after a hard reset so they won't show without this.

also iirc VAM will not process the .dsf if a .VMI/VMB file with that name already exists. So make sure the there is not an already existing file in VAMs morphs folder. If you update/replace the dsf in VAM you will need to delete the VMI/VMB to get VAM to reimport the morph.


This specific tool is only for turning the VAM vmi/vmb back into a Daz usable DSF, it will NOT convert a DSF into VMI/VMB.

 

[BStarG2]

It was my mistake... I did not read properly in post #86 (which I ironically quoted in my post, above).

" Dropping the .dsf into the VAM female morphs folder so that it generates the new .vmi/.vmb files "

For some reason my brain registered that as " Dropping the .dsf into the VAM2DAZ tool ". Because that mistake on my part I was under the assumption that this tool's role was to convert a .DSF file back into .VMB... also because I did not know that VAM was supposed to do that by default automatically on its own. So those factors combined together created this weird narrative in my mind that had no reason to exist. If anything, at least, I figured it out on my own; just took me some moment (but I knew something wasn't right anyway, and I usually do associated that with 'user error' on my part most of the time).

Anyway, it's all good now. Ironically, I ended up not using this tool at all, in the end. I simply exported my model as an .OBJ into DAZ, and from that exported it for Blender, made adjustments to the Morphs in Blender (sculpting edits), sent it back to DAZ to create a custom morph (of the changes made in Blender), and that new custom morph from DAZ back into VAM. It all worked out.

 

[Chokaphi]

It was my mistake... I did not read properly in post #86 (which I ironically quoted in my post, above).

" Dropping the .dsf into the VAM female morphs folder so that it generates the new .vmi/.vmb files "

For some reason my brain registered that as " Dropping the .dsf into the VAM2DAZ tool ". Because that mistake on my part I was under the assumption that this tool's role was to convert a .DSF file back into .VMB... also because I did not know that VAM was supposed to do that by default automatically on its own. So those factors combined together created this weird narrative in my mind that had no reason to exist. If anything, at least, I figured it out on my own; just took me some moment (but I knew something wasn't right anyway, and I usually do associated that with 'user error' on my part most of the time).

Anyway, it's all good now. Ironically, I ended up not using this tool at all, in the end. I simply exported my model as an .OBJ into DAZ, and from that exported it for Blender, made adjustments to the Morphs in Blender (sculpting edits), sent it back to DAZ to create a custom morph (of the changes made in Blender), and that new custom morph from DAZ back into VAM. It all worked out.

Glad you have it sorted. I do have a different tool that converts DSF to VMI/VMB so I was not sure at first if you were using that.