A collection of miscellaneous utilities for DAZ Studio.
| # | Utility Plugin | Description | Version | TODO | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | Console | Console plugin displaying DAZ Studio Log file | 1.4.2 | TODO | dzUtilities/console |
| 2. | Preciment | Plugin with a shortcut for precise adjustments | DEV | TODO | dzUtilities/preciment |
| 3. | Render Statistics | Render data aggregation and statistics plugin | 1.4.2 | TODO | dzUtilities/renderstatistics |
| n. | Tests | Unit test project for all utility plugins | - | - | dzUtilities/tests |
Visual Studio is used for the build process and all project configurations are provided inside this repository. There is one solution provided which keeps all single projects and can be compiled into individual dynamically linked libraries.
In the scripts directory is a deployment batch file, which is triggered by post-built event to copy the final DLL into DAZ Studios plugin directory. The batch file can only copy the DLL when DAZ Studio is not running in the background, especially when the DLL is to be replaced. Do not run this batch file directly, it is supposed to be started by the build process of Visual Studio.
Following environment variables are necessary for the build process. When you are using your own variables so please update additional include directories for the preprocessor, library directories for the linker and post-built event setup for the deployment in the project configurations accordingly.
| Variable | Description |
|---|---|
| DAZ_SDK | The full path to DAZ Studio SDK (Used for generating metaobjects with moc) |
| DAZ_STUDIO | The full path to DAZ Studio (Used for post-built deployment) |
| QT_SDK | The full path to Qt SDK 4.8.x (Used for unit tests) |
- Visual Studio 2017 (Developed and tested with platform toolsets v141 and v140, both at x64)
- DAZ Studio SDK > 4.5.x
- DAZ Studio > 4.5.x
- Qt 4.8.x (Only needed for unit tests)
- boost 1.65.1 (VC 140)
- boost_date_time 1.65.1 (VC 140)
Console is a plugin for DAZ Studio for displaying the internal log file in a convenient and searchable window pane, which is size- and dock-able. With the signal/slot concept the display is automatically updated as soon as new lines are written to the log file. Furthermore, it offers searching and highlighting of search terms. Next to these features it is possible to update the display manually, clear the displayed lines and set the font size in a property dialog.
The purpose of this plugin is development and testing while discovering the DAZ Studio SDK and Qt during studies, creating little utility plugins and in search for possibilities to develop a rendering interface for the CLI - making (scheduled) batch rendering possible.
This journey for developing a rendering interface for the CLI stopped when I encountered following message: Rendering cannot be performed without the interface.
Nevertheless, this disillusioning result I wanted to provide this utility and encourage users to dive into developing plugins. It is challenging to work only with an SDK without being able to ask Google for help and turning often to the Header files itself and it is rewarding after hours of try-and-error to finally getting an idea to work or not.
Preciment is a plugin for a more precise adjustments of parameters. It is offering a shortcut to increase/decrease the nudge of all present parameter settings of the active node. Next to this shortcut it enables to switch resolution and subdivision levels and for legacy models enable/disable applied smoothing modifiers for a more responsive display while precisely adjusting parameters.
It's still in an early stage of development, for details please see the TODO.
Renderstatistics is a work-in-progress plugin for collecting different rendering data. Following data is aggregated during rendering time and displayed in a pane. All this data is only stored in the current session and is not yet saved after closing DAZ Studio.
| # | Data | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | Rendering Engine | Engines like 3Delight or Nvidia Iray |
| 2. | Amount of Nodes | Amount of all nodes in scene (at the moment it contains also invisible nodes) |
| 3. | Date & Time | The date and time when the rendering was started |
| 4. | Duration | The rendering time in seconds |
| 5. | Rendered Image | The final rendered image |
There is way more data to acquire, collect and aggregate. The collected data is not yet persistent and saved. It is only stored in the memory allocated to the current running DAZ Studio process. In near future it is planned to persist the data either in a global or in a scene-based storage inside the DSON Scene files.
Furthermore, the idea is to go one step ahead of plain statistics in integrating a thumbnail image of the finished rendering and to store render settings and the rendering camera which have been used for quick and convenient access.
Additional Visual Studio Project containing unit tests of all utility plugins. The unit tests use QTest and test at this early stage the console and statistics layer beneath the plugins. These layers are completely independent of DAZ Studio and only to some degree rely on Qt.
The tests can be run by wither executing tests inside the build directory and passing the full path to a directory with the log fixture. Or by building the project inside Visual Studio the unit tests are started by a post-build event and results are logged in the usual output window. The log fixture file is copied by a pre-build event into the build directory and passed by argument to the test runner.
For the build process the separated configuration Tests is provided which is targeted to x86 and build the plugins as a static library for linking with the test executable. Best option currently is to use the batch build offered by Visual Studio to choose the Tests configuration for the plug-in and the test projects.