Blender into Daz?
texjones
Posts: 0
Is there a way to bring a Blender file into Daz Studio. I hate Hexagon, so far. I can not control it the way I can Blender..In Hexagon when I want to do something simple as extend a face it goes wild and all over the place. In Blender all I got to do is touch the face and can bring it out slowly to where I want it and keep building from there.IN hexagon I bring it out and try to stop at the point but it won't stop, it goes and goes. I've even just about figured out the material UV in Blender. From Blender there is a 3ds tag that opens in Hexagon but naturally you can't select the object to send to Daz. I want to be able to create object content and bring into Daz, that in itself is proving difficult with just using Photoshop for the materials and textures. I have Photoshop Elements 8, the 3D Bridge won't work but I can bring in the files with the Organize function with P.E. I don't want to spend a fortune for Hexagin tutorials when I can do better in Blender.
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sure you can import a obj file that you made in Blender
Okay, I'll try that. My head is about to explode trying to figure out something (that should be) so simple.
I hear you - been there ;-)
Last week, I was on/in Daz for 24 hours learning this thing. I normally work over nights and am off on Tues & Wed nights. So come Wed afternoon I realized I had been on for 24 hrs. SO much to learn and do. I love it!! Time goes fast playing on with thing.
drink lots of water :cheese:
The reason I was asking about Blender is because I am creating a service counter to go with the Gym, since I couldn't find one. And also wanting to add an entrance wing to the side where the doors are, for an 'outside' shot. And since the outer sides of the gym is black, wanted to make it with a brick wall. I also have Illustrator 10 (I've had it for 10 years), I do all kinds of stuff with that program (I finally got it to go into Windows 7, with the Service Pack it now works like it did in XP), and now I see I can use it with Daz if I can get the texture mapping in Blender figured out correctly.
never could get into Blender - fool with it of and on for years
see there is a new guide out for it
edit to add link -
http://blendercourse.com/English/blendercourse-basics-v2
HA! I got it...in Blender, if I save it as obj all I get in Daz is the basic grey smoothed out object. BUT if I save it as (hard flat, not smooth) Carrera dae it comes in the way I did it. Also I can see where lighting is VERY important, as I have learned in Daz so far, but when coming from Blender there needs to be LOTS of lights on the object. Plus I just made it too dark. I didn't do the UV mapping this time, just colored it. But it worked, it actually worked!!!! It's a service desk and in Daz it looks beautiful!!! Dark brown, with a black top and two black bands just under the counter and on the baseboard. I need to lighten it up and see what happens. I LOVE Blender, I haven't done anything in a while because I got frustrated with it all, but just three weeks ago I started playing Daz again, figured out some things and I've been understanding and learning more since then. Since Daz takes care of the Human figures, now I can create the other stuff to put in a scene. Except for clothing, I'll still need Daz for that.
A fast method I found for myself is to export the scene as FBX and open that in 3D Studio Max. Then use 3DSM to export as OBJ.
Concerning Hexagon, I highly recommend the tutorials over at Geekatplay.com to quickly teach you the way the program works.
Ok, now I see when I bring the object into DAZ from Blender, delete the lights that came in from Blender, and let Daz do the lighting instead. I put the counter into the gym and it looks as natural as anything else in the scene. Add a Daz light and it looks great (you gotta add lights to the gym inside anyways, as I've learned). This is the simplest method I find. Something I've already in mind for the sake of memory, is to set up the background scene and render it and bring it back in as a backdrop. And with that being the case, then that's where I can make changes to the object(s) in Photoshop or Illustrator until I can get the UV mapping figured out. But I see where Daz will send it into a mapping, haven't tried it yet. I got the Backdrop Package but haven't tried it yet.
Well, I finally got Blender to render the texture, saved it as dae, but it still won't show in Daz as textured wall, it only brings back the basic wall flat.. I saw the geekatplay, that was cool. I'll give Hex another try...but I found it interesting the Hexagon will open Illustrator...hmm, gonna have to see what that does, after my head explodes then I can try that out. The way I understand now, Daz will open dae only if I physically manipulated it in Blender without the textures. I sure hope Hexagon keeps the textures...:coolgrin:
Hey, just look at your post. Nice to find someone else ventured to DAZ/Blender integration. I always use Wavefront OBJ format to export/import between DAZ & Blender. FBX format works great to, if only Blender have a working importer for it.
As for textures carry over between the two, I always distrust it when importing from any given package, be it DAZ. Blender, Max, Lightwave, or whatever. I must re-edit the materials after import anyway, cos all 3D package have their own material system which are largely incompatible. The most important thing when export/importing is that the material region and UV coordinates is preserved. With OBJ, all that is achieved. Materials can be re-created in DAZ from the Surface tab as usual. Just be sure to name the material regions sensibly in Blender cos DAZ can't edit those names and use them as is.
Also, cos when I started venturing on DAZ/Blender integration is as a way to export it to Thea/Indigo/Maxwell render, scale is an important factor (cos they are unbiased renderer). As a way to keep the scale, I recommend to model your objects/scenes in Blender with Metric units settings on (found on the scene tab of the properties window), then model according to real world measurements. Export the objects from Blender normally.
When Importing to DAZ, set the scale to 10000%. Going from DAZ to Blender, export with scale set to 1%. Note that this will give you 1:1m scale between the two, only if Blender is in Metric mode. If Blender is in it's own units setting (not in Metric) then DAZ/Blender ratio will be around 1:1.2m. When in doubt, export a 1x1m cube from DAZ and import it to blender, then look at the dimension there. Similarly, export a 1x1m cube from Blender and import to DAZ and look at the dimensions. This for me gives consistent results across DAZ, Blender, Thea, Indigo, and Maxwell, in terms of scale.
HTH
PS: BTW, anyone have tested/suggestions on exporting animations from DAZ to Blender? I've tested FBX, but Blender doesn't have a working FBX importer. Tested DAE directly from DAZ to Blender but it'll always crash Blender. Tested FBX, then use the free Autodesk Converter 2012 tool to verify and convert to DAE, same result. Tested MDD but the resulting animation deforms the object unrecognizable (just how exactly to export the reference object for use of the MDD?).
I am watching the geekatplay tutorials, the UV mapping looks to be a WHOLE lot easier than Blender's way. If I can get real control over Hexagon like I want that changes everything. I did an experiment where I created a building in Blender, and colored it. Saved it as obj and in Daz it was basic grey and totally reversed of how I created it, but as dae it held together exactly as I did it. But also, one of the really cool things about Daz that blows me away is the lighting. I had colored the building a sandy color with darker sandy trim and a couple of brownish-terra colored bands around the building (it's actually based upon a couple of buildings where I work, I liked their shape so I re-created them). Anyways, in Daz, zoom in I got into the inside of the building added a couple of lights and it was freakin' COOL as S****. THAT is the one thing about Daz that amazes me. I really love Daz and so glad to have figured out a few things about it. Now I'm learning like crazy. Now back to studying Hexagon....
http://www.rendering3d.net/it2008/index.php?lang=en&do=Main.php?mainpage=Download&lang=en appears to contain a Blender addon for exporting to DAZ. I have no idea how/if it works.
For DAZ -> Blender conversion there are good instructions in http://maddieman.wordpress.com/2012/04/23/exporting-daz-studio-4-figures-to-blender/ . After that, you'll probably want to use http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Extensions:2.6/Py/Scripts/System/Cycles_Automatic_Node_Editor to convert materials to Blender's new Cycles renderer.
I just noticed this thread, and I've been wondering about importing between Blender and Daz too.
I've imported Daz models into Blender before, but never Blender models into Daz. I do know that you can import Daz models as .obj files into Blender, and I assumed I could import Blender .obj files into Daz.
But I've noticed before (in both Blender and Daz Studio) that the Collada .dae file format is mentioned as both import/export commands via the top menu. Does the .dae file format work well for both import and export in both Blender and Daz? And does it import the pose also? I noticed before when I imported a Daz model into Blender with .obj extension, the pose never gets exported into Blender. Is that even an issue? Well, I hope to get some answers before I try exporting and importing between Blender and Daz. Would save me some work if someone does have any answers to my questions...
At least, genesis or gen2 (triax figures) with clothing ,hair (fit to)
can export as collada with rig and weight-maps to blender,and you can poze them .
about parented obj (prop or hair) ,, you may better separately import as obj to blender.
then re-parent Collada rigs figure.
(there seems scale problem.)
About mat files, I use script (mcjtelblender2) then export same figures as obj frist.
it auto convert daz shader setting to cycles nodes with textures,
then I apply material of the obj imported scene to the scene where imported figures as collada.
Though I may need adjust cycles node, (or add new node) about some surface setting,
but it is really useful,, without it I may need to make cycles node from scratch,,
(blender 2.70 have material preset,, then I think it make more easy to apply material setting,
but I have not tested them ,,)
and if you hope to export as collada with animation files, actually they work.
But you may need to free hip node from root node. in bone prorperty setting.
when you export triax figure as collada, at first glance, the arrangement of bones
not so clean,, (I think it is because imported collada
change quartanion rotation) but at least it work keep weight and pozing.
And you can export bvh from daz, (with zero poze )then change amature of the Actors as exported bvh node from collada.
(the pic is Actor exported to blender from daz as collada,
I change amatrure to bvh, and apply bvh robot dance animation,,
and set camera , tweak some motion etc..
I think,, collada is very dificult to tweak and modify animation curve,,, in blender,,because of quartanion,,
I do not clear understand how to tweak them at current,, then,, I prefer to use bvh animation,
but if you manually adjust pozing in each frame,, collada rig is better than bvh.
Hi.
I made a prop in Blender, then exported as obj with all that boxes checked, as you said before. I import that to Daz, and everything is ok, but the UV, that is missing.
Thanks
here's some very basic things I've discovered early on exporting obj's from Blender to Daz Studio.
Basics:
If your not going to render any of it in Blender delete your lights and your camera.
Daz Studo seems to like OBJ files the best out of the other formats, of course I could be wrong but this is what seems to be the happiest merger between the two applications in my use.
When you export an obj with textures you need the MTL file created with the OBJ, you also need to tell Daz Studio to use this file when you import or your textures will not be on the object in Studio.
I always try to keep one file with all the live modifiers in it in the event I want to go back and change something drastically.
Texturing:
Setting up textures needs to be done in the UVEditing room,not in the materials palette
Select your object, go into edit mode, select the UVEditing window from the choose screen layout drop down.
go back to your object in the other screen and KEY U, unrwrap and go to you tube and so a search for UV Mapping Tutorials Blender because it's far too much to discuss here.
Smoothing and hard line:
Blender does not display hard geometries as soft when you work on them, you import them into Studio and suddenly the wall you just made looks and renders poorly. To fix this go into Edit mode and select the edges that need to be straight and KEY CTRL+E > Mark Sharp
Next go to the your modifier tool (it looks like a wrench) and select Edge Split. You can apply this now or keep it active.
Exporting
When exporting you can select a single object or a group of them, then when exporting use the "selection only" checkbox (you'll see this when you go to File>Export>Wavefront OBJ)
I like to group objects into layer, view only that layer and group the layer and export the selection that way.
Again Google Blender Layers.
any dark areas you see in Daz Studio are showing the normals flipped the wrong way, you need to go back into blender and recalculate or flip those faces or possibly a nearby face. There are tools in Blender to show you which way the faces are "facing" so it can take out the guesswork.
Before you Export for final use
You may want to flatten (apply) all your modifiers then select your geometries and remove doubles, double click scale to set it where it is on the object and move your "center" of the object (where all rotation and transfering is going to happen) to the center of the object or to the edge of an object if it's a door or some other thing you dont want to roll from the exact center.
Youtube and the Blender Artists forms are great for finding out new functions and learning how this software works.
Obviously I'm doing something wrong, because there's no UV shown in DAZ, even doing all these steps.
Not sure what you mean that there is no UV shown in DAZ Studio. Did you assign any material zones? Did you UV map the model (create seams and unwrap)? By the way never use split edge to make edges sharp. This actually does split edges so they are no longer connected just adjacent. Using Sub-D or even displacement maps on a model with split edge will cause the edges to separate.