Virtual Reality, is there a future for Daz without it?
nickalaman
Posts: 196
I’ve had an Oculus rift for a few months, last week I decided to see If there was any software similar to Daz, but could work within a VR environment. I thought to myself, if someone could program this, it could be really fun. To my surprise I found 2 companies that did this, one is from Japan and one is local. Both work sort of like Daz in that you have a model, you can pose, morph, dress her, etc.
Imagine my delight when I put on my VR helmet and in front of me is a life size model in the middle of my room. I can look up, down walk around, cool I thought to my self. With a click of a button I have a floating pallet in front of me giving me access to morphs, wow is all I can say. I can play with the nose and guess what, I can actually see what I’m doing in 3D, I don’t have to zoom in and zoom out. I want to zoom in, well I just move my head closer to the nose, I want to rotate the model, I just take a step to the right and turn my head, just like real life. I’m just blown away.
You want to pose, now this is fun, honestly, I hate posing models, it takes forever, and I never get it right. But this, this is the way posing should be. If I want the models’ right hand over her mouth for example; I just grab her right hand with mine and lift her hand as I would in real life until it covers her mouth. I mean how easy is that, complicated poses can be done in seconds. And there’s also soft body dynamics, so when you move the person, their entire body reacts. Oh did I mention that they blink and breathe.
I know VR is just a small part of the market at the moment. And most companies don’t think it’s worth the investment. Things will change in few years, virtual reality will become affordable, and consumers will demand applications that embrace VR. I hope Daz figures that out sooner than later. Just because you are the market leader today, doesn’t mean anything 5 years from now.
I’ve tried many programs in VR, from gaming, flight sims, to educational., some work well some don’t, my opinion is VR was made for applications like Daz.
Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
224 S 200 W, Suite #250
Salt Lake City, UT 84101
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2024 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
well there is definitely a VR market and no doubt DAZ 3D models can be used in it hence export options and interactive licensing.
but
no I cannot see DAZ studio using it, at least at the hobbiest level it is marketing to now.
Platforms like Unity and Unreal game engines not only embrace VR but very easily import the Genesis 8 figures too and probably is the software you should be using if doing it.
I even can with my limited skills retarget a G8M/F FBX export from DS in Unreal to use all the third person motions and interact in any game assets with physics collisions.
I somethimes think that it would be nicer to watch a movie, 3D or not, with VR headsets than on the TV attached to my wall but haven't tried it yet because I've yet to purchase a DayDream headset with a good set of earbuds that attach to the phone. I don't like Bluetooth earbuds because of the requirement of yet another device that I have to charge to use and running out of power while in use.
I can't see Daz Studio going VR in the near future, but it would make an excellent plug-in. Imagine having your scene there in front of you with the figures full size. Use a controller to move around the scene, then call up a menu to add morphs, load props or other figures etc. Even better if you could reach out with a controller and move parts of the figure - I always find hand poses fiddly, but could see it being easier in VR.
@nonesuch00 - There is a program called Bigscreen that works on the Oculus and the Vive. You can use it to sit in a virtual cinema and watch Netflix, Amazon, Youtube etc. It's not as comfortable as being in the real cinema because of course you're wearing a large headset, but you have the advantage that no one gets up to go to the toilet, rattles sweet packets, plays with their phone or asks questions about the film. I think that eventually, when the VR technology can be put in a pair of glasses, this might replace a cinema screen altogether - especially for 3D animated films.
...would love it (along with a pair of digital gloves that have feedback) for modelling.
glad you added for modelling
I daresay a few would like feedback for other reasons and not just gloves
I’ve been waiting for my Oculus Rift for a month now. I think the importer cannot keep up with orders from vendors in this part of the globe.
Still, I hear that you can load your own models, perhaps interiors also, to Tilt Brush software. Can’t wait to try it.
Might be interesting to see if DAZ is still in business when Virtual Reality really hits the mass market... like in... 20 years or so.
Considering that most innovation in the IT field goes from military uses to games and then to other areas of use, and that there aren't that many games yet with virtual reality - and mostly bad ones - I guess it will take quite a while before we see any real movement there.
...or, Daz buys Autodesk ;-)
I agree that it would be nice to be able to pop into a Daz scene without having to redo lights and materials - make a video fly through of scenes etc.
Its still a small market because you need suitable hardware to run the headsets and not everyone has a gaming level laptop. There's also not a lot of interest from people who haven't tried it yet, but I haven't had anyone walk away from trying it for the first time and not amazed at the immersive aspect and how much fun it is, especially with higher end sets like the Vive and Rift.
Modo now has a VR viewport so that you can step directly into your model and walk around it just by clicking on the tab, and I think Blender also. I personally think VR is going to become more and more part of a 3D workflow, especially as the headsets and hardware improve.
Daz will do just fine with or without VR, most likely without. A few years ago, 3d TVs were supposed to take off, but it never happened. The mass market didn't go for it, and it's starting to look that way for VR. It's not a matter of Daz adapting to support VR, it's a matter of VR becoming useful and convenient enough that people want to use it in Daz Studio. Otherwise, it'll be a niche application like 3dTV, Google Glass, Kinect, the 3D mouse, and so many others. They all have their specific uses, but they're not universally used.
3D tvs were not that great. If you watch 3D anything in VR, the difference is quite extreme. Watching VR, even just regular 3D in VR, is much more emmersive in every way. I love watching things on a headset, its like having your own movie theater space.
In short: 3D TV was a gimmick. VR is no gimmick, and it is not just going to go away.
The problems with VR are mostly related to price and availablity. Few people have the hardware, the money, and the space required for VR. One more hurdle is the chicken and the egg factor. Right now most games for VR are small and cheap. Studios are avoiding VR until it gets more widely adopted, but the problem with that is by avoiding it that means less quality software. Its a problm. It is not going to happen overnight, and it will take time. Better hardware at better prices will make it easier to get into.
However, there is a bright spot. Sony VR has surpassed 3 million units sold. That is a milestone. And as more people get the chance to experience VR it will get more acceptence. Even phone VR can amaze people, in spite of its obvious limits.
Right now most of the development happening is in education and not in gaming (but Skyrim in VR is amazing). China and India are already using it in 1000s of classrooms for teaching some subjects, kids love learning in it and retention of information is much higher. The headsets are similar to the OculusGo, connected via wifi to a computer that controls all the headsets and start the experiences at the same time. You don't need a super computer to run the headsets and the resolution is excellent.
Start at 1.30 to skip the fluff :)
I think with 32 cpu CPUs being offered at $1700 retail this year that there is a good chance that in a few years entry level smart phones, tablets, and PCs will be able to do realistically lit games on mobile class hardware and with that, creating lots of expensive VR entertainment will make sense.
LOL!! When VR becomes like the "OASIS" in the Film
" Ready Player One"
Both in terms of uniform standards for content creators and Hardware Affordability for the general public, particularly the sedentarylot,.. that is when it will become as mass market as the smartphone is today.
As to the question the OP raised about the future of DAZ.
Well all long as they can keep the sales volume up in the content
store, they Might survive.
a video of my very feeble attempt at using Genesis 3 in this case, in Unreal Engine
I have no skills and just followed a video tutorial like anyone else can
I certainly cannot show others how to do it!!!!!!
I cannot create Blueprints and all that stuff just walk around in premade assets
I don't own an Oculus rift so did not cook the "game" as a VR but you can
as using unlicensed DAZ stuff its only on my PC for video capture
I suppose I'm a skeptic by nature, but I'm not sure I get all of this interest in VR. Yeah, I know that most of the new technology goes towards personal entertainment (FB, smartphones, youtube, ipads, etc.), and yeah this is just one more entertainment market they can develop into a zillion $$ business, so I guess it will become a new type of entertainment. But it seems like we're going more and more towards being locked in our own little high-tech worlds rather than being involved in the real world. We're getting divorced from reality. And I'm not sure of the real educational value. Yeah, I suppose engineering simulations using VR might be useful if that's what they actually use it for. Unfortunately I think too many of us assume any new technology is, by defintion, totally awesome and perfect, so I suppose it will become the next awesome new technology, without a whole lot of critical evaluation.
There is one big issue with VR is having the room, I would think that not everyone has the room to use VR properly.. And at this point in time VR and AR are still very much in their infancy and also really still as a gimick to most..
It is seen as a reason to flog us more kit we don't need.
I think DAZ
Like any new technology we have to learn to use it responsibly. But I have no doubt there will be VR junkies in the future. Or people who only dare to meet on-line, not in real life. Headsets should already come with a warning (Dont know if they do right now) Also reminds me of that movie with Bruce Willis, was it Surrogates? Where people got lost in their virtual persona.
That said, VR is interesting as it opens up the third dimension for communication and display. We have been using 2D since the beginning of the computing age as the predominant representation of what a computer can deliver as an interface. There is no reason for it not include a 3rd dimension, especially as many of us are more easy to remember where something is in a 3rd dimensional space.
...aaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!... [another satisfied customer]
An old header from a section of the Shadowrun RPG rules about BTL ("Better Than Life") technology where you simply "jack in and enjoy".
Hehe... and all that Shadowrun and Cyberpunk stuff was supposedth have happened when? Five years ago? Ten?
In my opinion, one of the severest problems of Virtual Reality is the lack of a real input method, which is intuitive and adaptive to different circumstances and applications. As long as people have to make a certain hand movement to let their avatar walk forwards calling it virtual REALITY (!) is just hype. It's only "3D enhanced display" and that's it.
So yeah, until a real functioning cyberjack is a) available and b) accepted by the public and not only some basement dwellers, Virtual Reality won't be really reality.
And it's nice to see, that even the people making the rules for the Shadowrun RP - which I loved! - had severe problems to make their Matrix/Virtual Reality rules work together with the rest of their rulebooks. Even implementing something as abstract as magic and an Astral Sphere was easier to do.
So... give me a Cyberjack and I might be ready to try out Virtual Reality
The real world is boring and predictable. One of the reasons i am a gamer is to immerse myself in a virtual world. I love sandbox games with different environments. Last week I spent 6 hours in the Hunter Call of the Wild stalking wild game and just moving thru the virtual forest, it was a ton of fun. Can't imagine how cool that would have been if done in VR.
I have used my friends Occulus and Vive several times and it's pretty cool. I plan on getting one once it becomes more mainstream with more titles to explore.
While I think it would be very cool to set up a scene in VR and lifesize, it's not something I am lobbying for in DS, but wouldn't mind the option.
...actually for the tech, about 25 years from now as the first data crash which led to the rise of the matrix is still a decade away. But yeah, we are about 7 years overdue for the "awakening" (bugger, I should be a dwarf by now, barkeep, I need a pitcher of Black Boss Porter...and a straw!).
...mmm DNI based 3D modelling, morphing, posing, and rendering. Now there is the ultimate "make art button".
The point is there are companies similar to Daz the have products that are doing exactly this in VR right now. Where you have a life size Vicky in front of you breathing and blinking, where you can take her hand and pose her. This is more than a gimmick, this is a tool. For example, if i had 2 Daz newbies and we gave them a challenge to make a dual pose where 2 figures are dancing a waltz for example. One did this the traditional way and the other using VR. The traditional method of setting up a new pose would be way too complicated for a Daz newcomer, on the other hand the one with the VR would be able to setup such a complicated pose in a minute or 2. How can i be so sure? Because that's one of the first things I did.
Still images are nice, but I'm getting bored these days, with Daz as a hobby. Therefore, spending less money, VR brought back the excitement and opened up my wallet, unfortunately the only 2 companies that have what I'm looking for, have hardly any content.
You can drag-pose in the viewport, using the Universal Tool or Active pose tool. I can't see any reason to think doing that in VR would make the process any simpler.
Maybe the same reason why drawing on a Cintiq is easier than drawing on a normal Wacom. It is a more direct way of interaction. I was once a traditional pencil animator, that is a very intuitive way of approaching movement. I'd draw broad interesting graphic shapes with strong lines of action and add in the details later. No can do in CGI. Graph editors are fully unintuitive and indirect. Software still puts too many layers between the artists and the art. Manipulating characters without a mouse and the ability to just walk around the pose in a virtual 3D space could be interesting.
There is a way to get VR viewing from Daz 3d but its not a plugin although it won't be world space because you will not be able to walk around but you can navigate it seated or standing with controllers. But it will allow 3d viewing of Daz 3d. Basically use a virtual desktop vr program in SBS, load Daz and create pseudo SBS view by having two viewports side by side, and then you can create a camera rig that will give you SBS and then have left viewport on a left camera view and right on a right camera view, I have one created a SBS camera rig and can dig it up and upload to freebies later although I think there might be one already.
The only functioning VR app I have seen in the modeling software I am using is for Modo, (Blenders VR is not a good example, it is Alpha and only developed by a few people). The VR that Modo has is quite good and if you want to see real world representation you can always export to FBX and import to Modo, although adjusting maps that Modo eff's up from FBX is a PITA. That said, the full version of Modo is 1,800.00 perpetual. There is an alternative though.
The steam version of modo indie also provides VR capability and is super cheap and that is what I am using for viewing in VR with a windows mixed reality headset.
The issue with VR in modeling software is that when there are many poly's and texture is eating up video memory be prepared to have to either bring down the quality in VR or suffer motion sickness due to low FPS. Unless you have dual high end graphics cards it would be difficult for any modeling software to push out vram to the application and also to a VR display. Modo lets you downscale or upscale the quality of the VR feed for this reason.
Wacom has tablets and pens that are equally as good as what comes with the Cintiq. The only difference is you pay for the display, personally, I prefer the tablet for saving space. I have used a Cintiq and found that I prefer the tablet, it really just comes down to a users personal preference.
I have 3 oculus rifts in my household. It would be insanely fun to create environments the others where they could walk around an explore, multiplayer would be even better. Oculus and steam run the 3d off of the game engine. I have to disconnect extra monitors and close down everything else to use it. So I don't know how you could also run software like daz.
Current Game 3d is really low-res compared to DAZ. So it would have to be severly simplified for VR. The assets in the DAZ store aren't really optimized for Unreal engine.
I would use Unreal Engine, because it's easy to get started but still complex.