Thursday, September 21, 2017

RE-Enable Old Default Clip Studio Materials in 1.6.7

When you install Clip Studio Paint 1.6.2 or 1.6.7 it will automatically disable all your previous default materials (that huge ZIP file you used to have to download separately and install manually) and automatically download the new default materials from their Assets “cloud” site.

Actually if the material file size is >250KB it will only download the thumbnail and overlay the “cloud” icon it, indicating you have to manually tell it download it.  However, that still means it automatically downloads a LOT of the materials with smaller file sizes.

That can be a significant problem for people who have limited internet bandwidth or low data caps on their internet service.

Ok, so how do you STOP it from disabling the materials you’ve already downloaded and installed, or at least RE-enable specific old default ones you already have?  Or make it not download everything from the cloud?

DISCLAIMER: you do this at your own risk, I make no guarantees, don’t expect Celsys or Smith Micro to help you fix it if you mess everything up.  Also keep in mind the old default 3D materials are also in a “legacy” format, while the versions from the Cloud may be in the “new” format (or will be updated to it sometime in the future).  For now that legacy format is still supported, but Celsys could drop support for them in a future release.


RE-ENABLE SPECIFIC OLD MATERIALS


Go to your “Local User” Materials folder:
/Documents/CELSYS/CLIPStudioCommon/Materials/Install/

You’ll have to drill down into each folder looking at the contents of “thumbnail” to find the material(s) you’re looking for.  When you do, one level up from the thumbnails is a file named “cloudSyncAlready” which you can open in a plain text editor.  It only has a “-1” in it.  Delete the minus sign so it just says “1” and save the file.  Repeat this process for every old Material you want to re-enable.

Open Assets app and run “Gear —> Maintenance Menu —> Organize Materials” and wait for it to finish.

Your old Material should now re-appear in your Materials list.

Note that many of them have EXACTLY the same names as the ones available in the Cloud, and if you also download the ones from the Cloud you’ll have no way (within the Materials list) to differentiate the two.


MAKING THEM PERSISTENT?


It is possible that a future update could re-disable them if they’re in the “Install” folder.  If you want to prevent that potentially happening you should drag them to your canvas and then use “File —> Register as Material” and re-register the material with a custom name or tag (something that will help you differentiate them from the originals).  They’ll be copied into a new User Material sub-folder (one of those ones with a number for a folder name like “56” or “94” etc.)  You can go ahead and delete the original ones from your Materials list in Paint if you want (note that doing so only deletes them from the Local User Materials folder, it does not delete them from the Global folder).

An update to the software should NEVER disable your custom materials, so the re-registered default material will now be treated as a custom material and won’t be automatically disabled or deleted.


RE-ENABLE ALL OLD MATERIALS


Ok, so all that stuff above is about re-enabling the old default materials, but it has no effect on Assets also downloading the Cloud versions.  But re-enabling ALL the old materials can trick the Assets app into not downloading everything.

First, get the Materials back-up from the “Global” folder:

Mac:
[MacDrive]/Library/ApplicationSupport/CELSYS_EN/Common/Material/Install/

Windows:
C:\ProgramData\CELSYS_EN\CLIPStudio\Common\Material\Install\
(Note: "ProgramData" is a hidden folder)

If you don’t see the “PAINTxxx” folders in it, try looking in the \CELSYS\ location instead, assuming you’ve never had the Japanese language versions installed, the “Install” contents there should work too.  If you can’t find them elsewhere then you can use the contents of the “Install” folder in your Documents folder, but you’d have to edit each and every one of the “cloudSyncAlready” files - and there are a LOT of them.

Navigate to the “Local User” Materials folder:

/Documents/CELSYS/CLIPStudioCommon/Material/Install2/

DELETE any sub-folders that are already in “Install2” (those are Cloud stuff) and paste the copies from the Global “Install” folder into the Local “Install2” folder.

Run “Organize Materials” operation from Assets app.  Assets will mistake the copied local materials for the identical ones it usually downloads from the Cloud.  However there are some that are different and it will still want to download those.

Subsequently, if you run “Gear —> Sync All Materials Installed from Cloud” it will still take forever and a year to go through them, but it will ONLY download the new materials that weren’t included in the original, old default download pack.  At least when I did this it didn’t overwrite any of the materials that were already present, it only added the ones I didn’t already have.  I don’t know if the Assets app does the “Sync” operation on its own or not.


RESTORING CLOUD MATERIALS


Ok, let’s say you decide this arrangement sucks or you get better internet service or whatever and you want to put it back the way it’s supposed to be.  How?

1. Inside the Local User Materials folder DELETE the “Install2” folder.  
2. Open the Assets app (if you look at “Material” many of them will be blank)
3. Go to “Gear —> Maintenance Menu —> Organize Materials” (the blank ones will be removed)
4. Go to “Gear —> Reset Materials Installed from Cloud”

It will take forever and a year, but when it’s done you should now have a bunch of materials in your list with the little “cloud” icon on them.






Friday, September 8, 2017

Clip Studio Assets 1.6.7 Adds UPLOAD Materials

The English version of Clip Studio Assets now allows users outside of Japan to upload their original materials to share with other users.  Any Material you can "register" for use in Clip Studio Paint can now be uploaded to the Assets site.  Users outside of Japan, however, still do not have non-Japanese versions of the apps for creating native 3D content.  Nor can users outside of Japan SELL their custom materials through the Assets site.