Making FaceGen Artist > Daz Studio Export Possible on MacOS Crossover

[Vladislav Baranov]

Hi everyone!

First of all, I would like to thank the development team for developing such an amazing product (FaceGen Artist). It seems that it can solve my problem and if I can make the demo work, would definitely make a purchase.

The app itself works superb on MacBook Pro M2 Pro through Crossover.

However, I have encountered a problem with exporting to DAZ Studio.

Here's the message I get:

Daz Studio does not appear to be installed.

* Install Daz Studio on this computer,

* Run it and load the desired Genesis mesh.

* Restart this program.

I've installed Windows version of Daz Studio through Crossover as well after getting this message with the MacOS version installed.
What I did:

1) I've enabled disk access for all apps involved in this process. 
I2) I've followed the instructions as in "Run it and load the desired Genesis mesh", 

but it didn't help. Still get the same message

So my question is the following: how do I enable Daz Studio exporting to either native Mac OS Daz or Windows version working through Crossover?

best regards,
Vlad

[Vladislav Baranov]

Dear Development team,

I've tried (as far as my understanding goes) this method posted by FaceGen Guru in 2018:

"Hi JD,

I will talk about FaceGen Artist which is the program used to create custom faces for Daz Studio Genesis 1,2,3 and 8 figures (latter 2 require pro version).

It's a Windows-only program that is designed to work with Daz Studio Windows version.

.FG files are FaceGen internal files to store the face and have nothing to do with Daz.

Exporting is done from the 'File' -> 'Export' tab and choosing the tab for the desired figure.

Exporting writes files into one of you Daz Content Directories (the program lets you choose which) from which Daz Studio for Windows can load them.

The paths for the Daz Content Directories are found in the Windows Registry under:

\\Software\Daz\Studio4\NumContentDirs

\\Software\Daz\Studio4\ContentDir#

So if you goal is to get FaceGen Artist under Parallels working directly with the MacOS version of Daz Studio, you will need to discover your MacOS Daz Content Directory, then manually add it to the Windows registry (using a path accessible from within parallels) and hope that the formats are the same between the Windows and MacOS versions of Daz Studio.

Please let us all know how it works out !

Best wishes,"

What I did exactly:

1) Installed both Mac and Win (Crossover) versions
2) In Crossover I accessed registry using regedit command on a Daz 3D bottle.

the registry files Guru mentioned are located at: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\DAZ\Studio4

There are two files: ContentDir0 and ContentDir1. (also CloudDir but I didn't touch it)

3) I tried playing around with the values, changing it to c:/.../Library/Application Support/DAZ 3D/Studio 4, c:/Applications/DAZStudio4 64-bit, but neither worked.
By not "working" I mean that I launched the MAC OS version, loaded the Genesis 8 basic male mesh and then opened FaceGen Artist and it still shows me the "Daz Studio does not appear to be installed." message.


P.S. 1: I should mention that registry folder "Studio4" contains some other "Dirs" like PoserDir, RenderDir, ImageOpenDir and maybe some others.

P.S. 2: Is it normal that registry files opened with Daz Crossover bottle (windows app) should control the relations of Windows (FG Artist) to Mac native (Daz) app?... I'm confused here

P.S.3: When I installed Windows version of Daz for the second time after deleting it (1st time the Mac ver was uninstalled when I installed the Win ver) along with the Mac app already existing on the machine, it started showing me some PostGreSQL error: Now I can't access the libraries of assets on the windows version so can't really test if it would work with FG Artist

I'm on MacBook pro M2 Pro with Sonoma 14.2.1

среда, 10 апреля 2024 г. в 00:03:50 UTC+4, Vladislav Baranov:

[Vladislav Baranov]

I should probably add that my goal is not necessarily make it work with native Mac version. it's fine if it works in conjunction with Win crossover version

среда, 10 апреля 2024 г. в 02:40:53 UTC+4, Vladislav Baranov:

[Andrew Beatty]

Dear Vlad, thank you for your note !

We don't officially support FaceGen on Mac but I'll try to help.

FG Artist is only designed to work with the Windows version of Daz Studio.

FG Artist reads the Windows registry to find out where Daz Studio is keeping the user's content directory.

If it can't find the appropriate registry entries, you get the "does not appear to be installed" message.

From your description, it sounds like each bottle in Crossover keeps its own registry, so you would have to have both programs installed in the same bottle for things to work automatically.

Alternatively, you could manually copy the registry values from the Daz bottle to the FG Artist bottle, however this would require that both bottles use the same physical directories for account storage, so that Daz can access the files output by FG Artist.

As you suspect, it's unlikely you could get FG Artist to work with the MacOS version of Daz Studio.

Best wishes,

[Vladislav Baranov]

Hey Andrew!

Thanks so much for the feedback. Installing everything in the same bottle worked!

Appreciate your answer very much,

Best regards,

среда, 10 апреля 2024 г. в 03:17:21 UTC+4, Andrew Beatty: