true iray skins for blender are on the way ..

SadRobot

Ideally the detail would be baked to normal and displacement maps, for what it's worth.

davidtriune

Padone said:

@davidtriune

HD geometry needs to be baked to normal maps in blender. It wouldn't make sense using HD geometry for animation. As for transmapped hair that's normal, since the viewport approximates transparency so you don't get the same as in cycles. The diffeomorphic plugin already imports alpha maps with the best option for the viewport so you can't do any better.

If you need to fit the alpha map to the viewport you can edit it by changing the gamma until you get it. For cycles there's no need.

p.s. I want to be sure there's no misunderstanding here. The plugin is entirely by Thomas I just gave some help with materials.

It wasn't a viewport render it was a cycles render. see pics for daz and blender setups. both are using the same textures.

Ironically if I switch to viewport render mode it looks correct, lol. Also looks correct in eevee, just not cycles for some reason.

davidtriune

Nevermind, fixed by increasing transparency max bounces . 

TheMysteryIsThePoint

nonesuch00 said:

Padone said:

@Masterstroke no need

https://bitbucket.org/Diffeomorphic/import-daz/issues/30/major-subdivision-bug

I thought it was already known that you aways are supposed to export models out of DAZ Studio at Base with no subD?

Up until several months ago, it wouldn't have mattered. Even exporting at base resolution, the subd in Blender was totally different. But I can happily report that since Blender 2.80 switched back to OpenSubD (and I simply hadn't tried it in that long a time), exporting at base resolution and applying the subd modifier in Blender works much, much better now... there are still slight visible differences, for example the lips of my character appear less full and more parted, and she is ever so slightly less muscular, but now it can easily be compensated for with morphs in Daz such that it ultimately has the desired appearance in Blender. This is excellent news. If @Padone had not mentioned the "problem" in the plugin, I would not have thought to try it again since the change to the subd algorithm in Blender.

Padone

Going to check with 2.79 .. The issue with the plugin is it reads smoothed vertices though, that's subd zero vs base mesh. So opensubd is another matter by itself.

 

EDIT. Done. Exporting at base resolution works fine in 2.79 too. No rounded teeth there either.

TheMysteryIsThePoint

Not sure if I'm recalling the history precisely as to when the regression occurred. I just saw all the blog posts about how much everyone hated the new subd and multires with 2.8, and it was fixed relatively shortly after. I can't recall if it was before 2.81 or not.

TheMysteryIsThePoint

Padone said:

Going to check with 2.79 .. The issue with the plugin is it reads smoothed vertices though, that's subd zero vs base mesh. So opensubd is another matter by itself.

But even if the plugin had corrected read the base mesh, which is the subd cage, the results would have been quite different. Blender was using (I think) C-C, while Daz used OSD.

TheMysteryIsThePoint

It looks like Blender used its own subd implementation, and from the ba forums, it looks like OSD replaced it in July of 2018.

Padone

Some improvement is done for geografts. Now most of them should work out of the box. Anyone interested may help with tests and eventually bug report now while Thomas is working on it.

https://bitbucket.org/Diffeomorphic/import-daz/issues/38/better-geografts

davidtriune

Does anyone know why when I hide everything but the eyes, these blue eyelid lines show up?

 

TheKD

That's bizare looking lol. Did you look at the eyeball texture map and see if any of that weirdness is there?
 

 

 

davidtriune

edit: Random Walk caused it. Switching to Burly-Christensen SSS fixed it.

Padone

@davidtriune The random walk is much better than burly as for sss effects, but since it "crawls the surface" it tends to make artifacts when multiple non-connected geometries are in the same object. A possible fix is to separate the geometries in different objects.

select the geometry in edit mode then mesh > separate > selection

nicstt

Padone said:

@TheKD

The plugin is primarily designed to convert single assets from daz studio to blender. From characters to scenes. That said it shouldn't have any problem importing a scene with multiple characters. I did it myself many times so far. If you find a specific scene that doesn't work please report it at diffeomorphic. Or let me know what the scene is so I may be able to look at it.

The plugin log to check for errors is in the file you specify in the path section. I'd strongly advice you to read the plugin documentation before trying to use it "blind". Since there are many useful features to learn about and it's worth the time. Plus you may have better success doing your things.

https://diffeomorphic.blogspot.com/p/setting-up-daz-library-paths.html

Is the number of paths still limited?

I have upwards of 25?

... No matter, I see it's 9.

 

Padone

UPDATE. I feel the work on geografts is really done we tested many of them and they all seem to work fine. Thomas did a very great job on this just grab the dev version and have fun. Also the plugin now exports subd correctly without any action needed from the user it's fully automatic.

https://bitbucket.org/Diffeomorphic/import-daz/issues/38/better-geografts

https://bitbucket.org/Diffeomorphic/import-daz/issues/30/major-subdivision-bug

TheMysteryIsThePoint

Padone said:

UPDATE. I feel the work on geografts is really done we tested many of them and they all seem to work fine. Thomas did a very great job on this just grab the dev version and have fun. Also the plugin now exports subd correctly without any action needed from the user it's fully automatic.

https://bitbucket.org/Diffeomorphic/import-daz/issues/38/better-geografts

https://bitbucket.org/Diffeomorphic/import-daz/issues/30/major-subdivision-bug

This is HUGE, @Padone... thanks to you and the whole team for this. It will be the end of a long journey when I can finally see a G8 in Blender, with mocap retargeted to it, and all those beautiful JCMs working.

Padone

UPDATE. We solved an issue with makeups so grab the new version please.

https://bitbucket.org/Diffeomorphic/import-daz/issues/48/makeup-problem

@TheMystery As for animations the plugin can already import them and jcms too. Plus there's a retargeting app at diffeomorphic I never used it but it's designed specifically for daz characters.

Paintbox

Hey everyone, the plugin works great. Excellent work! I am currently trying to get renders to equal those of daz / iray. Does anyone know of a good tutorial on how to pose a character in Blender? I am having trouble with it.

TheMysteryIsThePoint

Padone said:

UPDATE. We solved an issue with makeups so grab the new version please.

https://bitbucket.org/Diffeomorphic/import-daz/issues/48/makeup-problem

@TheMystery As for animations the plugin can already import them and jcms too. Plus there's a retargeting app at diffeomorphic I never used it but it's designed specifically for daz characters.

Hey @Padone, thank you, I will take a look.

spleenrippa

Just installed the new verson of the plugin (from zip) in a clean Blender 2.82 install. Deleted the old script from Daz Studio and exported G8F using the new "export to blender" script.

Unfortunately, the exported .dbz file doesn't show up in Blender's file explorer. I can only see .duf... The .dbz definitely exists, as I can see it in Windows Explorer.

Blender plugin shows as 1.4.2 and hasn't given an error. Nor did the DS script. Plugin paths to my libraries are fine.

I did have an existing 2.81 install with 1.4.0 of the plugin installed. I deactivated and removed the old plugin from there, just in case. Didn't make a difference. Just for fun, I removed both installs and deleted everything from appdata to make sure. Reinstalled 2.82 and the plugin... No joy.

This is weird. Am I missing something?

 

Padone

@Paintbox The plugin can convert to rigify or makehuman mhx rigs. Then how you pose the character depends on the rig and you need to refer to the rig documentation. Personally I don't like too much either of them because they are too complex for my needs and I do my own.

http://diffeomorphic.blogspot.com/p/finishing-section.html

 

@spleenrippa That is how the blender explorer works. You have to turn off filters.

spleenrippa

Padone said:

@Paintbox The plugin can convert to rigify or makehuman mhx rigs. Then how you pose the character depends on the rig and you need to refer to the rig documentation. Personally I don't like too much either of them because they are too complex for my needs and I do my own.

http://diffeomorphic.blogspot.com/p/finishing-section.html

 

@spleenrippa That is how the blender explorer works. You have to turn off filters.

Ah, well that solves one issue. Operator error! Thank you :)

I'm now getting an error from the plugin in Blender, though. Perhaps I am still missing something?

1. Load G8F, hair, clothes, pose

2. Save scene, "Harper.duf"

3. Run script ""export_to_blender" to create Harper.dbz

4. Select Harper.dbz in Blender... Plugin says "Found no .duf file matching" I've attached a pic showing the error and files present in the export directory.

Using the old JSON+DUF export seems to work fine.

Padone

@spleenrippa The dbz just replaces the old json. You have to always select the duf to import in blender. The dbz and duf files have to be in the same folder with the same name but this is default behaviour if you didn't change anything. Please read the docs they may help you better than me.

http://diffeomorphic.blogspot.com/p/import-into-blender.html

spleenrippa

Padone said:

@spleenrippa The dbz just replaces the old json. You have to always select the duf to import in blender. The dbz and duf files have to be in the same folder with the same name but this is default behaviour if you didn't change anything. Please read the docs they may help you better than me.

http://diffeomorphic.blogspot.com/p/import-into-blender.html

Haha, that does it then. I was just confused and under the impression the new exporter had meant there had been some change in functionality for the Blender side of importing as well. Nevermind!

Padone

UPDATE. We have a new super cool feature by Thomas. Basic support for HD characters is here. Yes you read it right .. That doesn't allow much since the HD mesh is not suitable for multires. But the cool side is we can render it with cycles because materials are preserved. Below an example rendered with cycles.

https://www.daz3d.com/mutation-morphs-hd-for-genesis-8-female

https://bitbucket.org/Diffeomorphic/import-daz/issues/53/use-the-multiresolution-modifier-for-hd

Jack of Spades

Great to see the work on this! Blender is going to have to be my way forward since Iray on the Mac's days are all but over.

davidtriune

this is really awesome, can't wait to try it!

davidtriune

Padone said:

@davidtriune The random walk is much better than burly as for sss effects, but since it "crawls the surface" it tends to make artifacts when multiple non-connected geometries are in the same object. A possible fix is to separate the geometries in different objects.

select the geometry in edit mode then mesh > separate > selection

 

ah, that works! thanks!

Singular3D

You do an excellent job. Seems that I have to take the Blender/Cycles route as well.

marble

These advances are great news and I am encoraged to give the plugin another go and really try to get to grips with it this time. 

On a side note: I wonder if Thomas (or anyone) would be interested in also creating a simple bridge for exporting from DAZ to Blender in a similar manner to the way GoZ does it for ZBrush? Just for morphs and perhaps material zone changes. The export process, compared to GoZ, is a bit long-winded with object hiding and selecting, remembering to set base resolution, setting the export parameters in DAZ and the import/export parametrers in Blender and then figuring the best way to use Morph Loader. I don't have ZBrush but remember how easy it was when I tried it, or how simple it is to export to Hexagon (although I prefer Blender to Hexagon for these purposes).