Singular3D: It's funny: I was thinking of using the term Joint-Controlled-Joints (or JCJ) as well. I just wasn't sure if there was a formal name. What you've done for Cinema 4D sounds very interesting. I don't have a whole lot of experience with the Cinema 4D SDK beyond the basics, but I hope to learn more about it.
I actually prefer HD morphs and I'm an animator trainee. Because of the way the Genesis 3/8 figures were made, the base mesh's teeth really suck even when you manually subdivide it in Maya, and I'm too lazy to edit all my figure's teeth lol, so I'd rather just influence the SubD1 mesh. I like using normal maps (especially for pores) a lot but some people want their character's to have more depth in their wrinkles and veins. Displacement maps are an option for sure, but it's time consuming and not super reliable from what I've experienced because of the multiple UVs, you might get seams. I'd rather just animate my figure via SubD0 (base mesh), and pull out the HD SubD1-3 once I'm ready to render, saves so much time. And I encourage people to figure out a method to use their HD morphs for animation because you PAID for it, I certainly wasn't going to let it sit in Daz Studio.
Also, it's very possible to mix your SubD mesh and animate it in Maya, I do it all the time. Some characters only need their head to be subdivided, the rest of the body most likely doesn't need all of those polys, normal/bump maps are admittedly good enough for the lower portion of the body
Singular3D: It's funny: I was thinking of using the term Joint-Controlled-Joints (or JCJ) as well. I just wasn't sure if there was a formal name. What you've done for Cinema 4D sounds very interesting. I don't have a whole lot of experience with the Cinema 4D SDK beyond the basics, but I hope to learn more about it.
I'm a beginner with the SDK as well, but a long time C4D user and C/C++ programmer. I tend to do the plugin this time with Python though. I sent you a PM with the link to a document that might be interesting for you.
What you do for Maya is wonderful and I wish you would do it for C4D as well.
I actually prefer HD morphs and I'm an animator trainee. Because of the way the Genesis 3/8 figures were made, the base mesh's teeth really suck even when you manually subdivide it in Maya, and I'm too lazy to edit all my figure's teeth lol, so I'd rather just influence the SubD1 mesh. I like using normal maps (especially for pores) a lot but some people want their character's to have more depth in their wrinkles and veins. Displacement maps are an option for sure, but it's time consuming and not super reliable from what I've experienced because of the multiple UVs, you might get seams. I'd rather just animate my figure via SubD0 (base mesh), and pull out the HD SubD1-3 once I'm ready to render, saves so much time. And I encourage people to figure out a method to use their HD morphs for animation because you PAID for it, I certainly wasn't going to let it sit in Daz Studio.
I think we should clarify the difference between subdividing a base res mesh at render time and the Daz Proprietary "HD" morph system
that is only available to Daz PA's.
You cannot not actually export " true Daz HD" only your chosen level of subD (1,2,3)
As an animator I am a strong advocate of using the nondestructive subdivsion, in my output program, at render time in fact it is an industry standard practice AKAIK.
I was suggesting to Dexplugin that trying to implement the Daz Proprietary "HD" morph system in a DSON based Maya plugin is likely a wasted effort Not only because the DAZ HD Morph system is proprietary DAZ IP,( thus not exportable) But frankly not needed for High detailed final renders in Maya or C4D,LightWave etc.
You cannot not actually export " true Daz HD" only your chosen level of subD (1,2,3)
wait, what's "true Daz HD"? Educate me because I thought the HD were just regular subdivided static mesh.
I never used their HD morph system because I'm not a PA, but it seems like the PAs just import their High Poly OBJ and Daz automatically assigns the materials and calculatively creates other Static SubD with lesser or higher polys than the original "HD" OBJ (Mult/Div by 4). "HD character" is just a fancy name, brilliant marketing. But the details do retain when you export the mesh via OBJ, MDD or ABC.
I was suggesting to Dexplugin that trying to implement the Daz Proprietary "HD" morph system in a DSON based Maya plugin is likely a wasted effort Not only because the DAZ HD Morph system is proprietary DAZ IP,( thus not exportable) But frankly not needed for High detailed final renders in Maya or C4D,LightWave etc.
I agree it's impossible to directly export all of the SubD levels using the DSON method (I assume, hope I'm proven wrong). But if someone knows how to influence a mesh with the same UVs, recreating this system would be very simple, I know because I'm doing it right now with someone else's plugin in Maya. I could easily add on to the plugin I'm using and make a similar "HD" morph system, only thing that needs to be added, is for this plugin to automatically copy the base mesh's materials to the SubD 1,2,3
From what I gathered from my testing, I feel like I need the subDs because normals look incomplete on a realistic human figure (unless it's for pores, or it complements the displacement map or SubD mesh). And displacement maps create seams on Genesis 3/8 characters if you look closely. But it's all personal preference, I'm using normal maps on my background characters for crowd simulation and it seems like your style of art handles normal maps pretty well
Your definitely right about it being industry standard, I don't usually have good luck with it regarding the Genesis 3/8 teeth, so I stay stick with the HD mesh. Rendertime will be the same, so I don't bother with Render engine's subD if I can get better/faster results just grabbing the holy poly HD mesh compared to making Displacements and using the Render engine's subD system.
I think we can both agree that "HD" morph system is not worth the trouble of making for Michael, Daz Users need to figure this out themselves.
I had to come back to this to eat my words, there is certainly a way for Michael to add a SubD slider for Daz characters as shown in this video that I made
It was around 1:48 where I used the SubD slider. Seems a little bit better than the Daz Studio SubD slider because the Daz Studio slider ruins the teeth when it's set to SubD0 (at High resolution)
Every time there is a reply to this thread i get a tiny bit excited that it may be something from the developer with some news, but alas, life is full of disappointments!
Every time there is a reply to this thread i get a tiny bit excited that it may be something from the developer with some news, but alas, life is full of disappointments!
Our team over here is working with this Maya plugin developer.
There is still plenty of work happening, but since have our team working with them including sharing some internal SDK's the feature list of the final plugin has definitely grown so there is still more work to be done.
No estimates of when it will be complete, but if you have worked with Daz in the past you might understand that we try not to announce any release plans in advance, so you'll just have to watch the store to see when it pops up.
Our team over here is working with this Maya plugin developer.
There is still plenty of work happening, but since have our team working with them including sharing some internal SDK's the feature list of the final plugin has definitely grown so there is still more work to be done.
No estimates of when it will be complete, but if you have worked with Daz in the past you might understand that we try not to announce any release plans in advance, so you'll just have to watch the store to see when it pops up.
i was going to dismiss this thread since the likelyhood of myself or many other users having access to Maya is slim to none, but now that I see DAZ is helping with it's development and endorsing it I guess I need to start saving (or sell a kidney)
Our team over here is working with this Maya plugin developer.
There is still plenty of work happening, but since have our team working with them including sharing some internal SDK's the feature list of the final plugin has definitely grown so there is still more work to be done.
No estimates of when it will be complete, but if you have worked with Daz in the past you might understand that we try not to announce any release plans in advance, so you'll just have to watch the store to see when it pops up.
i was going to dismiss this thread since the likelyhood of myself or many other users having access to Maya is slim to none, but now that I see DAZ is helping with it's development and endorsing it I guess I need to start saving (or sell a kidney)
they do trials/student licenses so i would try before you buy! it can take quite a long time to become proficient with high end software like Maya. Particularly when you have not learned similar software suites before, it seems like the more you learn the more you realise how much more you dont know.
This plugin already looked promising, but hearing that Daz are this involved in its development and the feature list is growing as a result is very good to hear.
but now that I see DAZ is helping with it's development and endorsing it I
guess I need to start saving (or sell a kidney)
Maya is the worlds number one Character animation program
all of the epic battle scenes in last seasons "game of thrones" were done with Maya.
If you do not animate your Characters, then the only advantage of G8 in Maya is to use the
Arnold CPU render engine or perhaps Redshift and hope all of your Daz IRay texture convert over with fidelity.
Do you really want to pay Autodesk a monthy fee just to render your still images in Arnold??
but since have our team working with them including sharing some
internal SDK's the feature list of the final plugin has definitely grown
so there is still more work to be done.
Many Iclone animators use Daz content( it is much less costly)
If Daz could somehow copy some of the Maya human IK tech and bring it to studio
They would have an influx of new customers coming to studio for Character animation as Daz does not
make you pay extra to import /export.
but now that I see DAZ is helping with it's development and endorsing it I
guess I need to start saving (or sell a kidney)
Maya is the worlds number one Character animation program
all of the epic battle scenes in last seasons "game of thrones" were done with Maya.
If you do not animate your Characters, then the only advantage of G8 in Maya is to use the
Arnold CPU render engine or perhaps Redshift and hope all of your Daz IRay texture convert over with fidelity.
Do you really want to pay Autodesk a monthy fee just to render your still images in Arnold??
but since have our team working with them including sharing some
internal SDK's the feature list of the final plugin has definitely grown
so there is still more work to be done.
Many Iclone animators use Daz content( it is much less costly)
If Daz could somehow copy some of the Maya human IK tech and bring it to studio
They would have an influx of new customers coming to studio for Character animation as Daz does not
make you pay extra to import /export.
To be fair, its not just Maya that they used for Game of Thrones. Its probably the tool they use the most, but they would also be using other programs for different things. Maya is not the best at doing everything, so the big studios will have pretty much every tool that is the best at some part of CGI/VFX. For example, you can be certain they would use Nuke for compositing, and probably Houdini for the bulk of the particle effects.
Also, access to different render engines is not the only advantage to gain by using Daz characters in Maya if you are not animating. There are many other things you can do.
Maya can handle much much greater poly counts without slowing down, so you can navigate bigger scenes easier. Simulation tools, not just for cloth but plenty of other things. Fluids/soft body/collisions. soft body/collisions is probably a good one, those can be very useful making a still image look more realistic. General mesh manipulation tools, can be used for a variety of things. Like fixing small geometry errors like pokethrough etc that you either need clothing morph products, goz/zbrush or export/import as morph to do inside DS. Or working on a HD/subdivided mesh, something that only daz PA's can do inside Daz, and by my understanding being able to do this directly in Maya is much more effective than the way it works inside DS. Direct UV editing. You even mentioned something from maya that you wish Daz had - FK/IK systems, not just good for animation but makes posing for still images easier too. I could go on, but you get the point.
Is all of that worth the cost if not animating? well thats a different story and each person will have a different answer. For the average person, probably not.
This is in no way a dig at Daz, its just the reality of what each program is intended for
Maya animator here, been doing this for more then a decade, this would blow my blow if it comes out. There's just no comparing the animation tools in Maya vs Daz. I'll gladly pay all the monies if it does everything as advertised!
eg: this is one of the tools that recently came out for anim support in Maya
I hope it's affordable or open to Patreon for plugin+updates. Right now I have a whole lot of models using another method [g84maya+studio library], but don't want to ruin my flow if I commit to a transition to this here.
The plugin is very beautiful, and really do hope it comes out soon or have a BETA for us to try it out. Cause this unique idea has struck my interest. But need to be sure if it's a workflow I can rely on. Since I start modifying in Daz and animate in Maya.
Comments
Singular3D: It's funny: I was thinking of using the term Joint-Controlled-Joints (or JCJ) as well. I just wasn't sure if there was a formal name. What you've done for Cinema 4D sounds very interesting. I don't have a whole lot of experience with the Cinema 4D SDK beyond the basics, but I hope to learn more about it.
I actually prefer HD morphs and I'm an animator trainee. Because of the way the Genesis 3/8 figures were made, the base mesh's teeth really suck even when you manually subdivide it in Maya, and I'm too lazy to edit all my figure's teeth lol, so I'd rather just influence the SubD1 mesh. I like using normal maps (especially for pores) a lot but some people want their character's to have more depth in their wrinkles and veins. Displacement maps are an option for sure, but it's time consuming and not super reliable from what I've experienced because of the multiple UVs, you might get seams. I'd rather just animate my figure via SubD0 (base mesh), and pull out the HD SubD1-3 once I'm ready to render, saves so much time. And I encourage people to figure out a method to use their HD morphs for animation because you PAID for it, I certainly wasn't going to let it sit in Daz Studio.
Also, it's very possible to mix your SubD mesh and animate it in Maya, I do it all the time. Some characters only need their head to be subdivided, the rest of the body most likely doesn't need all of those polys, normal/bump maps are admittedly good enough for the lower portion of the body
I'm a beginner with the SDK as well, but a long time C4D user and C/C++ programmer. I tend to do the plugin this time with Python though. I sent you a PM with the link to a document that might be interesting for you.
What you do for Maya is wonderful and I wish you would do it for C4D as well.
I think we should clarify the difference between subdividing a base res mesh at render time and the Daz Proprietary "HD" morph system
that is only available to Daz PA's.
You cannot not actually export " true Daz HD" only your chosen level of subD (1,2,3)
As an animator I am a strong advocate of using the nondestructive subdivsion, in my output program, at render time in fact it is an industry standard practice AKAIK.
I was suggesting to Dexplugin that trying to implement the Daz Proprietary "HD" morph system in a DSON based Maya plugin is likely a wasted effort Not only because the DAZ HD Morph system is proprietary DAZ IP,( thus not exportable) But frankly not needed for High detailed final renders in Maya or C4D,LightWave etc.
wait, what's "true Daz HD"? Educate me because I thought the HD were just regular subdivided static mesh.
I never used their HD morph system because I'm not a PA, but it seems like the PAs just import their High Poly OBJ and Daz automatically assigns the materials and calculatively creates other Static SubD with lesser or higher polys than the original "HD" OBJ (Mult/Div by 4). "HD character" is just a fancy name, brilliant marketing. But the details do retain when you export the mesh via OBJ, MDD or ABC.
I agree it's impossible to directly export all of the SubD levels using the DSON method (I assume, hope I'm proven wrong). But if someone knows how to influence a mesh with the same UVs, recreating this system would be very simple, I know because I'm doing it right now with someone else's plugin in Maya. I could easily add on to the plugin I'm using and make a similar "HD" morph system, only thing that needs to be added, is for this plugin to automatically copy the base mesh's materials to the SubD 1,2,3
From what I gathered from my testing, I feel like I need the subDs because normals look incomplete on a realistic human figure (unless it's for pores, or it complements the displacement map or SubD mesh). And displacement maps create seams on Genesis 3/8 characters if you look closely. But it's all personal preference, I'm using normal maps on my background characters for crowd simulation and it seems like your style of art handles normal maps pretty well
Your definitely right about it being industry standard, I don't usually have good luck with it regarding the Genesis 3/8 teeth, so I stay stick with the HD mesh. Rendertime will be the same, so I don't bother with Render engine's subD if I can get better/faster results just grabbing the holy poly HD mesh compared to making Displacements and using the Render engine's subD system.
I think we can both agree that "HD" morph system is not worth the trouble of making for Michael, Daz Users need to figure this out themselves.
What's the estimate date release of this amazing product?
I am curious if this plugin is still being developed?
certainly hope so
I am looking forward to the release
I had to come back to this to eat my words, there is certainly a way for Michael to add a SubD slider for Daz characters as shown in this video that I made
It was around 1:48 where I used the SubD slider. Seems a little bit better than the Daz Studio SubD slider because the Daz Studio slider ruins the teeth when it's set to SubD0 (at High resolution)
Does anyone know what happened to this amazing plugin?
I am told it is still being developed.
Good to hear it is still being developed, i had assumed it was abandoned. I will certainly be buying this when it is released
I have my eye on this very promising product!
Every time there is a reply to this thread i get a tiny bit excited that it may be something from the developer with some news, but alas, life is full of disappointments!
Rest assured, he's working on it. It's coming.
This product is a game changer for a lot of creators! you should start a Patreon page and get some extra funds.
Our team over here is working with this Maya plugin developer.
There is still plenty of work happening, but since have our team working with them including sharing some internal SDK's the feature list of the final plugin has definitely grown so there is still more work to be done.
No estimates of when it will be complete, but if you have worked with Daz in the past you might understand that we try not to announce any release plans in advance, so you'll just have to watch the store to see when it pops up.
i was going to dismiss this thread since the likelyhood of myself or many other users having access to Maya is slim to none, but now that I see DAZ is helping with it's development and endorsing it I guess I need to start saving (or sell a kidney)
they do trials/student licenses so i would try before you buy! it can take quite a long time to become proficient with high end software like Maya. Particularly when you have not learned similar software suites before, it seems like the more you learn the more you realise how much more you dont know.
This plugin already looked promising, but hearing that Daz are this involved in its development and the feature list is growing as a result is very good to hear.
Maya is the worlds number one Character animation program
all of the epic battle scenes in last seasons "game of thrones" were done with Maya.
If you do not animate your Characters, then the only advantage of G8 in Maya is to use the
Arnold CPU render engine or perhaps Redshift and hope all of your Daz IRay texture convert over with fidelity.
Do you really want to pay Autodesk a monthy fee just to render your still images in Arnold??
Many Iclone animators use Daz content( it is much less costly)
If Daz could somehow copy some of the Maya human IK tech and bring it to studio
They would have an influx of new customers coming to studio for Character animation as Daz does not
make you pay extra to import /export.
To be fair, its not just Maya that they used for Game of Thrones. Its probably the tool they use the most, but they would also be using other programs for different things. Maya is not the best at doing everything, so the big studios will have pretty much every tool that is the best at some part of CGI/VFX. For example, you can be certain they would use Nuke for compositing, and probably Houdini for the bulk of the particle effects.
Also, access to different render engines is not the only advantage to gain by using Daz characters in Maya if you are not animating. There are many other things you can do.
Maya can handle much much greater poly counts without slowing down, so you can navigate bigger scenes easier. Simulation tools, not just for cloth but plenty of other things. Fluids/soft body/collisions. soft body/collisions is probably a good one, those can be very useful making a still image look more realistic. General mesh manipulation tools, can be used for a variety of things. Like fixing small geometry errors like pokethrough etc that you either need clothing morph products, goz/zbrush or export/import as morph to do inside DS. Or working on a HD/subdivided mesh, something that only daz PA's can do inside Daz, and by my understanding being able to do this directly in Maya is much more effective than the way it works inside DS. Direct UV editing. You even mentioned something from maya that you wish Daz had - FK/IK systems, not just good for animation but makes posing for still images easier too. I could go on, but you get the point.
Is all of that worth the cost if not animating? well thats a different story and each person will have a different answer. For the average person, probably not.
This is in no way a dig at Daz, its just the reality of what each program is intended for
Maya animator here, been doing this for more then a decade, this would blow my blow if it comes out. There's just no comparing the animation tools in Maya vs Daz. I'll gladly pay all the monies if it does everything as advertised!
eg: this is one of the tools that recently came out for anim support in Maya
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=43&v=VAgPvYEhHvE
I hope it's affordable or open to Patreon for plugin+updates. Right now I have a whole lot of models using another method [g84maya+studio library], but don't want to ruin my flow if I commit to a transition to this here.
The plugin is very beautiful, and really do hope it comes out soon or have a BETA for us to try it out. Cause this unique idea has struck my interest. But need to be sure if it's a workflow I can rely on. Since I start modifying in Daz and animate in Maya.
There was a thread a couple of weeks ago asking for testers, so i guess you could call that being in its beta phase
Thanks Joseft. Wonder if I can still get in on that. Would you happen to have a link to the thread?
Thx