Daz Optimizing Character Load Time

[xer.0]

I have a Genesis 8 Female character that I've adjusted sliders around from a couple different characters to get to my liking, nothing crazy or that I haven't done before. This new character takes at least twice as long if not more to load into the scene or even load the saved scene than other characters I have created through the same methods.

Going through the Daz forum posts wasn't much help, but it sounds like it has to do with morphs that are on. I have lots of different morph packs loaded in general and a lot aren't even used so I can understand why this would slow things down but not why it effects this character more so than others.

I guess two part question: how can I remove unused morphs from the one character? And are there other/ better ways of optimizing?

And as an add on, when simulating, this character also takes a hell of a lot longer to simulate very basic things. Sometimes simulations can take 20-30 mins when other characters take 8-10 mins. Is it because of the same reasons with the load times?

 

[Rich]

There are a few inter-related bits here.

First, yes, the more morphs you have on the character, the longer it takes Daz to deal with it. There are some non-obvious bits here, in that there can sometimes be many more morphs involved than you realize. Depending on the character morph you dial in, it can "enable" a lot of "hidden" morphs. (Joint-controlled morphs, full-body morphs, etc.) So, turning one one dial can sometimes have way more effect on DS's performance than turning on 5 other dials. Similarly, joint-controlled morphs get involved, then bending a joint can result in morphs suddenly getting loaded and applied, which can slow down animations, dForce, etc. (For dForce to work properly, DS has to calculate the mesh positions at each sub-frame, so it needs all the morph information.)

The second thing I've noticed is that, many times, Daz Studio seems to save information about morphs and other things that aren't used in your .duf files. Thus, the files can get larger simply because you've added more morph packs to your studio installation, even though you haven't turned any of them all. And, of course, all those "not used, but there" references can slow down the process of DS loading your character up. In theory, it should be possible to prune that stuff out of your .duf files, but there's no good way to do that. Note - this doesn't seem to be character-specific.

So, the character-specific behavior you're seeing is probably just a matter of there being a lot more morphs involved than you think. One way to tell is to use the hamburger menu in the Properties pane, turn on "Show Hidden Properties," and then click on the Currently Used bit - that will show you all the morphs that are actually involved, including the normally-hidden ones.

 

[xer.0]

There are a few inter-related bits here.

First, yes, the more morphs you have on the character, the longer it takes Daz to deal with it. There are some non-obvious bits here, in that there can sometimes be many more morphs involved than you realize. Depending on the character morph you dial in, it can "enable" a lot of "hidden" morphs. (Joint-controlled morphs, full-body morphs, etc.) So, turning one one dial can sometimes have way more effect on DS's performance than turning on 5 other dials. Similarly, joint-controlled morphs get involved, then bending a joint can result in morphs suddenly getting loaded and applied, which can slow down animations, dForce, etc. (For dForce to work properly, DS has to calculate the mesh positions at each sub-frame, so it needs all the morph information.)

The second thing I've noticed is that, many times, Daz Studio seems to save information about morphs and other things that aren't used in your .duf files. Thus, the files can get larger simply because you've added more morph packs to your studio installation, even though you haven't turned any of them all. And, of course, all those "not used, but there" references can slow down the process of DS loading your character up. In theory, it should be possible to prune that stuff out of your .duf files, but there's no good way to do that. Note - this doesn't seem to be character-specific.

So, the character-specific behavior you're seeing is probably just a matter of there being a lot more morphs involved than you think. One way to tell is to use the hamburger menu in the Properties pane, turn on "Show Hidden Properties," and then click on the Currently Used bit - that will show you all the morphs that are actually involved, including the normally-hidden ones.

Thanks for the knowledge. I'll take a look and see what I can figure out.

Cheers!