.......................................................................... SPARKLING DD (Delicious Devil) Copyright (c) 2025 by Pushee-Ri. All rights reserved. This is not a merchant resource. .......................................................................... * Intro * Creating material presets * Packing a project INTRO .......................................................................... Of course I can't give a treatise on assigning colors etc. here ... but I do have a few little tips and infos for you. Important: in this project I did not use UVs, but pure shaders. I.e. the UVs are scary and useless ... but you can experiment with the sliders of the "Surfaces" pane. I have divided this manual (if you can call it that) into two parts: the first is about creating material presets and the second is about packing and testing (!) a project. CREATING MATERIAL PRESETS .......................................................................... DAZ 3D has a number of tutorials for you to learn how to work with materials. So if you don't know how and where to start, here is a link: https://www.daz3d.com/help/surfaces How to start? Of course, everyone has to decide for themselves - I'll describe how I started: my idea was something golden with colored gemstones. That's why I started with larger Surface groups of the horns and colored them in gold. Then came the gemstones on smaller Surface groups ... and a lot of fun experimentation. That's all ;) Speed up working By right-clicking on a selected Surface group, you can copy all of its settings ("Copy") and assign them to one or more other Surface groups ("Paste"). This also applies to different objects. For example, I was able to quickly transfer the materials of the horns to the chin spike. Fast rendering vs. not that fast rendering Some surface options slow down rendering (just in case you're wondering about my base material preset). The worst "slowers" (which I like to use often) are: Refraction, Top Coat and Metalic Flakes. You should use these options with caution if you also want to take weaker PCs into consideration. Some tips * Use Refraction etc with caution (see above) * Refraction beats Cutout Opacity: You should use Refraction for transparent materials, as all the options of Glossiness and TopCoat are retained. With Cutout, all options - including those mentioned - are weakened. * You cannot use the Base Color to color transparent materials. Instead, assign a color to Glossiness that is not too dark or too intense. * Material presets cannot simply be copied. In most cases, copied presets do not work. This means that if you have developed material presets for GF8 and also want to offer them for G9, you can assign the presets to the G9 objects, but you must then also save the material presets in the G9 directory. PACKING A PROJECT .......................................................................... Of course, you do not have to use the option described below. You can also store your material presets in a different location. I am only suggesting this option because it is the simplest and most logical way for users to quickly access different presets. Let's assume your user name is "Idefix" and you want to create and publish your own material presets. 1. "Idefix" gets going The best way to start is to create a new folder under "Sparkling-DD -> Materials -> Iray" and/or "Sparkling-DD -> Materials -> 3Delight": Sparkling-DD -> Materials -> Iray -> Idefix Sparkling-DD -> Materials -> 3Delight -> Idefix You can then decide for yourself whether you want to create extra folders for the individual objects as I did or whether you want to put everything in one folder. Keep in mind: Use the user name under which you want to offer your project to name the folder. This gives your fans the opportunity to find your material presets quickly. 2. The UI After you have created your material presets, you may want to replace the standard icons that are automatically created when saving with more attractive images. This is quite simple. DAZ uses 91 x 91 px .png files for the icons. However, the size is not fixed. If you want to show your materials more clearly, you can also use formats such as 250 x 250 px or 500 x 500 px. Let's assume you have created a material with the name "Ebony and Gold". The preset is saved by DAZ under the name "Ebony and Gold.duf" - and the automatic icon under the name "Ebony and Gold.duf.png". So all you have to do is overwrite the icon with your own .png image. 3. Tying up your package If you do not want to annoy the users of your product, you should adhere to the DAZ standard for packages. Yep, I know: Rules suck ... but sometimes, sometimes, sometimes they have something good after all You can find some important information here: https://www.renderhub.com/learning/proper-folder-structure-for-daz-content-best-practices Since your product is an add-on and (theoretically) no texture maps have to / can be created, you only need one folder or a maximum of two folders (if you want to add a readme.txt etc). I have prepared a folder structure for you into which you can simply copy and paste your material presets. Right-click on the "Material" folder of the installed project and select "Browse to Folder Location" from the pop up menu to open the folder. You will see a .zip file "folder-structure.zip". Copy this and unzip it in a new, empty directory. You now have the correct folder structure for your add-on, into which you can copy your work: "Documentation" and "People" The "People" folder If you expand the "People" folder in your new directory, you will see the following: People Genesis 8 Female Accessories Sparkling-DD Materials 3Delight Iray Genesis 9 Accessories Sparkling-DD Materials 3Delight Iray Now go to the DAZ folder where you saved your project, copy the "Idefix" folder (or whatever you call it) and paste it into the corresponding folder (Iray and/or 3Delight) of the empty directory. That's it! Only copy what you have created yourself under your user name and only copy it into the "Material" directories "Iray" and / or "3Delight". Files that you copy to other locations are either not displayed or confuse / annoy users. If you want to provide copyright or other information, you can simply create a readme.txt in the empty directory before you pack everything into a .zip file. As far as I can remember, however, some platforms - such as Renderosity - want to have a specific place for the information ... and also the testers of CGbytes / Renderotica are happy if they don't have to search long for documentation. It is therefore best to do it right from the start: all information in the "Documentation" directory! The "Documentation" folder In general, the following structure is assumed for this directory: Documentation -> user name -> product name. It is best to stick with this. Therefore, create an "Idefix" folder (or your user name) in the empty directory under "Documentation" and a directory with the product name in this folder. If you are not using your own product name, simply use "Sparkling-DD": Documentation -> Idefix -> Sparkling-DD You can now store all text files, licenses and other readable data in the "Sparkling-DD" folder (or whatever you have named it). Now all you have to do is pack it all into a .zip file - and your DAZ-compatible package is ready :) A FEW WORDS ABOUT TESTING .......................................................................... Even if your add-on only contains a few DAZ stumbling blocks (i.e. possible sources of error) - there are a few. You should therefore definitely test your package. The easiest and safest way to do this is with a second PC on which the basic "Sparkling-DD" project is installed, but not your own material presets. If you don't have a second PC, you can ask a trusted friend or someone from your community to test your product, for example. Testing is really important - and it's still better than being picked on or rated down by users of your published, untested product. And if you want to publish on platforms where the products are first tested by testers, your own tests are even a must.