DAZ Crowd Spawner

The DAZ Crowd Spawner is a custom DAZ Studio 4.24 scripting system designed for procedurally populating crowd scenes using precise marker/figure logic, a clean locked UI, and reproducible randomness.

This repository serves as the single source of truth for all canonical components of the DAZ Crowd Spawner system.

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Purpose

This project provides artists and technical directors with a consistent, non-destructive way to spawn randomized, yet controlled, character instances into complex DAZ Studio scenes. It aims to be highly deterministic, lightweight, and simple to use.

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Core Principles

• Locked Logic: All spawn logic is defined and version-controlled. No implicit rewrites or regenerations are allowed.
• Locked UI: The UI is fixed using DzBasicDialog with strict geometry-based layout, no frills.
• Reproducibility: Seeding is supported to produce identical crowd layouts.
• Minimal Assumptions: The spawner infers only what is explicitly defined in the configuration.

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Canonical Files

The following files represent the locked system definitions:

• crowdspawnerui.dsa – The exact dialog script that collects spawn configuration from the user.
• crowdspawnerlogic.dsa – The logic that performs marker-to-figure placement, randomization, and instancing.
• crowdspawnerdesignguide.md – The full specification governing the UI layout, behavioral expectations, and design rules.

All changes to these files must be intentional and documented.

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Usage

To use the DAZ Crowd Spawner:

1. Open crowdspawnerui.dsa in DAZ Studio's script editor.
2. Run the script to configure your crowd settings.
3. Hook the configuration output into crowdspawnerlogic.dsa for placement.

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License

MIT License unless otherwise specified.

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Contributions

This repo is not open to public contributions to ensure the integrity of locked components. Forks are allowed for customization, but must not be represented as canonical.

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Status

Actively maintained by the original author. Locked components are stable unless explicitly versioned.

📘 Function Reference: cspawnfunctions.dsa

Function Name	Description
readFileToString(path)	Reads a file from disk and returns its full contents as a string.
loadCrowdSpawnerJson(path)	Loads and parses the crowd spawner JSON config file.
getNodeByLabel(label)	Finds and returns a scene node with a specific label.
applySkinToFigureByLabel(label, path)	Applies a skin material preset to the figure with the given label.
applyHairToFigureByLabel(label, path)	Applies a hair material preset to the figure with the given label.
randomFromArray(array)	Returns a random element from an array.
weightedRandomGroup(obj)	Selects a random key from a dictionary-style object (used for style groups).
getHighestSpawnIndex(prefix)	Returns the highest numeric index of figures with the given label prefix.
spawnCrowdFigure(charConfig, actorFile, spawnIndex)	Spawns a figure, finds the newly added node, sets its label, and selects it.