I’m writing to ask a simple question: is importing Bryce content to DAZ Studio 4.5 possible? I’d like to use some of Bryce Free Content Pack in DAZ scenes, but I could not find any tutorials on how to do so. I’ve got DAZ Studio 4.5 on 32-bit Windows 7. Any help is greatly appreciated . Thank you in advance!
Best regards.
PS I’m not familiar with Hexagon, so that would be of no use for me.
Install Daz Studio, Install Bryce 7 pro, use the bridge between the two programs.
Some things do not transfer over seamlessly, or even well doing it in that direction, but it can be done for some part of the content, once it is set up in Bryce.
Thank you. I would like to convert: bridge, cathedral, cottage house, lighthouse and chapel as well as 30 islands from Bryce 5.5 Content Kit Volume 1 and possibly stuff from Bryce 5.0 Content Pack. They are avalaible in the freebie section of DAZ store and as I’m a total beginner, I would rather start working on free stuff than purchasable content. Thank you all again for instructing me about this bridge between DAZ Studio and Bryce, I’ll try to do so.
First item, the bridge from the Bryce 5.5 Content Kit Volume 1:
In Bryce, load the Bridge, then from the menu bar select Edit > “Select All”, then File > “Send to DAZ Studio”. Transfer is flaky for me, but should transfer eventually, although you might need to try a few times.
The first time I tried this I got an error message “Error launching DAZ|Studio!”. However after testing that a cube worked and then exiting and restarting and trying again, it worked and I didn’t see the error. On a second PC I tried, Bryce displayed a message indicating it was transferring, and it seemed to never end. Turns out the transfer completed, the Bryce screen just didn’t refresh to indicate completion; when I selected DAZ Studio in the Windows taskbar, the bridge was there.
30 islands from the Bryce 5.5 Content Kit Volume 1: I can’t seem to find mine, so I can’t verify this. However I’m assuming they are just terrains, in which case the following information should be valid:
The terrain materials are not going to transfer normally into DAZ Studio. Studio doesn’t use materials the same way as Bryce. However Bryce does make an attempt to paint something onto your terrain when exporting, which you can experiment with if you want, or just not use if you want.
Exporting a terrain: Don’t use the Bryce/Studio bridge. Instead, select the terrain, then from the menu bar select File > “Export Object”. Change the filename to have no spaces, or it won’t work (the default name may be bad). Change the “Save as type” dropdown to “Wavefront OBJ Files (*.obj)(Mesh Export)” and press the Save button (I haven’t experimented with formats other than this). Drag the slider at the bottom of the next window farther but not all the way to the right to increase the resolution to the desired level (the default is far too low) and press the green checkmark.
Cottage House (Country House) from the Bryce 5.5 Content Kit Volume 1:
Although you can send this from Bryce to DAZ Studio via the bridge (“Send to DAZ Studio”), the materials look really really bad in Studio. Instead, in Bryce use File > “Export Object”, with steps similar to the terrain steps above but without the terrain slider and options. In DAZ Studio, use File > Import, and in the OBJImportOptions window, change the “From:” dropdown to “Bryce (1 unit = 8ft)” and press the Accept button. The materials aren’t the same in Studio as they were in Bryce, but they seem a lot closer this way.
Probably you’ll want to experiment with the other objects to see if they work better using the bridge ( (“Send to DAZ Studio”), ) or are better when exported and imported into Studio.
30 islands from the Bryce 5.5 Content Kit Volume 1: I can’t seem to find mine, so I can’t verify this. However I’m assuming they are just terrains, in which case the following information should be valid:
The terrain materials are not going to transfer normally into DAZ Studio. Studio doesn’t use materials the same way as Bryce. However Bryce does make an attempt to paint something onto your terrain when exporting, which you can experiment with if you want, or just not use if you want.
Exporting a terrain: Don’t use the Bryce/Studio bridge. Instead, select the terrain, then from the menu bar select File > “Export Object”. Change the filename to have no spaces, or it won’t work (the default name may be bad). Change the “Save as type” dropdown to “Wavefront OBJ Files (*.obj)(Mesh Export)” and press the Save button (I haven’t experimented with formats other than this). Drag the slider at the bottom of the next window farther but not all the way to the right to increase the resolution to the desired level (the default is far too low) and press the green checkmark.
Another thing that you could do with terrains…render them out to image files and use as backdrops in DS…
Mostly, it would depend on what you are wanting to do with it, in DS, as to whether you’ll need it as mesh or if just an image will suffice. While DS can do large landscapes it has a fairly small ‘world space’ by default, so it’s often better to use a smaller ‘foreground’ terrain prop and images for the backdrop/distant elements.
The WWII Destroyer (USS Kidd) from the Bryce 5.5 Content Kit Volume 1:
Use the Export/Import method, but be warned, it took hours to export from Bryce on my slower PC and created what seems to be 178 copies of the same two texture files in the process. Half a GB of space isn’t a big deal these days, but I do wonder what different objects might do in this situation.
I can’t get this to transfer completely via “Send to DAZ Studio”. It crashes Bryce on both PCs I tried it on. It transfers the hull and most of the top structure, but it’s missing the gun turrets and radar at least. Unless you are creating a render of a decommissioned ship, you don’t want this option. If you or anybody else can get this to work, let us know.
Another thing that you could do with terrains…render them out to image files and use as backdrops in DS….
Good idea. Looks like you should be able to get Bryce skies (the backgrounds, not things like fog though) into Studio this way too; I’m going to have to experiment with that.
If you import something into DAZ Studio, remember that even if you save as a .duf, you are still referencing the original textures. You don’t just want to export to a temporary folder that you plan to delete or move after importing, or the next time you try to open the .duf file in DAZ Studio it won’t find those textures and won’t work.
EDITED TO ADD: Similarly, if you use the Bryce/Studio bridge, apparently it creates these temporary files in C:\Users\... so it will appear to work just fine, but will fail when transferred to another PC or presumably the next time you reinstall your OS.
To avoid this, in the example of the USS Kidd above, In DAZ Studio I imported from the temporary folder and put a copy of each of the textures in a mapped content folder. Then in the Surfaces (Color) tab I browsed to change each parameter that referenced one of those files to the new file location, adjusted the camera to make a nice thumbnail, then saved as a Scene Subset (not a Scene; that way you can add it to a new scene instead of replacing the current scene with it when loading.) I was also able to condense all of those duplicate image sets into a single set this way.
I can work some Moderator magic and have it in both forums at the same time. Which forum do you think the original should be in, and which should have the ghost copy.
. Thank you in advance!
