Exporting From Blender to Daz: Keeping Materials

docbadwrench

I have successfully used Daz Bridge-to-Blender to move my assets from Daz into Blender. But what about the workflow from exporting objects from Blender to Daz? For the purposes of this exercise, I'm trying to move this chest of drawers into Daz so that I can rig the drawers.

I understand that I can export assets from Blender to Daz via the OBJ or FBX format. So far, I've had the best results with OBJ as it appears to be more straightforward. But I'm stuck on one detail: retaining the materials.

In the blender file noted above, I have done the following:

1. Made use of properly UV mapped materials that includes seams and rational island-layouts.
2. All textures are saved to a subfolder within the Blender project folder.
3. When exporting the OBJ, I have selected Path Mode: Absolute (so that Daz can read the MTL file and know where to go to fetch the appropriate maps).
4. Each drawer is not parented to the main structure, because I intend to manually export each object so they can be on their own, sliding in and out of the main structure (I have not discovered how to keep each on their own via parenting in Blender so this is my stop-gap solution in lieu of a proper workflow for that).

Ultimately, this is about retaining the material work that I have done in Blender. I would like to avoid re-texturing if I can, if for no other reason than I find Blender's UV-tools to be a bit more user-friendly than Daz's. However, if it is prohibitively difficult to import materials in this fashion, I can use Daz to do it; I'd just like to explore my options before I head in the more labor intensive direction.

For now, I can just go in and plug the maps in manually, but I'd like to figure out a better solution so I can get a pretty decent workflow going on. 

Thanks in advance for your attention.

Padone

In general you can import only geometries and basic textures in daz studio, then use the daz tools to edit the materials and do the rig. Your best choice for this right now is fbx.

docbadwrench

I did a manual OBJ import of the chest and all the drawers. It wasn't terribly hard to reconnect the maps so I can just plan on doing that. I hadn't been able to import the FBX with any success, but will look into that. Thanks! 

gregsgraphics_cafd0962a0

docbadwrench said:

I did a manual OBJ import of the chest and all the drawers. It wasn't terribly hard to reconnect the maps so I can just plan on doing that. I hadn't been able to import the FBX with any success, but will look into that. Thanks! 

I've been hearing that complaint a lot from both DS and Poser users.  I attribute this to just poor support for the FBX SDK.  OBJ imports should never, ever be easier than FBX in any software.  FBX can support things like texture packing, which will completely allow all textures to be packed into the single FBX file, and then extracted automatically once the object is imported in the scene.  It supports normal maps and other PBR textures, rigging, animation, even scene lights and cameras.  OBJ is extremely primitive by comparison.

So the fact that DS appears handles OBJ better than FBX makes me think that it's poorly programmed into the import/export features of the software.  This may not be entirely Daz's fault though.  I think Autodesk needs to license out the SDK, and they've only made it open source to certain companies.  I think Blender does have the open source rights, and I know for sure that Unity has them.

docbadwrench

OBJ imports should never, ever be easier than FBX in any software. 

I'm still relatively new to 3d stuff, so this is new to me. Thanks. It is also unfortunate information because every single FBX export I have attempted - with any figure - has failed. In every case, my models imported to Blender sport some kind of extreme deformations - with really long fingers or body poses that are ultra-exaggerated versions of my originals.

I'm still fully open to the possibility that I am doing something wrong. I'm new, after all. But I have tried virtually every permutation of options in those export dialog boxes with no luck. So far.

docbadwrench

UPDATE: Thanks to another great Daz user, I now know why I was unable to import FBX's properly. Daz was fine, it was the import that was the problem. Here's the thread. I had to uncheck Use Pre/Post Rotation. Thanks again to UpL8Rendering.

UpL8Rendering

docbadwrench said:

UPDATE: Thanks to another great Daz user, I now know why I was unable to import FBX's properly. Daz was fine, it was the import that was the problem. Here's the thread. I had to uncheck Use Pre/Post Rotation. Thanks again to UpL8Rendering.