OFFICIAL DazToCinema4D Bridge 2022 (JULY UPDATE): What's New and How To Use It
danielbui78
Posts: 326
The July Update for the DazToCinema4D Bridge is now available on Daz Central and Daz Install Manager. It has some changes to the UI which may take users familiar with the old version time to get used to. Here's what's new:
- Expanded support for Daz Store JCM/Morph Assets like Bend Control.
- Support for OneDrive backup compatibility and custom Documents path.
- Improved UI, better GUI help text with built-in links to YouTube videos and Daz Forums, and better console output.
- Basic support for earlier versions, R22 and 21.
New Menu Location:
You will need to install the Cinema4D Plugin using the new integrated Cinema4D Plugin Installer. Access this from the Advanced Settings box of the new DazToCinema4D Bridge UI.
How to Install the Cinema 4D Plugin
- Cinema 4D no longer requires a Plugins subfolder in the location where Cinema 4D was installed. Since R20, users should set a plugins path inside the Cinema 4D Preferences window and install plugins to that folder. We recommend creating a "\Documents\Cinema4D\Plugins" folder in your user's home folder and selecting that as the Plugins path in Cinema 4D. Please refer to this link for more information: Where do I install plugins? - Cinema 4D Knowledge Base
- The Daz Studio Plugin comes embedded with an installer for the Cinema 4D plugin. From the Daz To Cinema 4D Bridge Dialog, there is now section in the Advanced Settings section for Installing the Cinema 4D Plugin.
- Click the "Install Plugin" button. You will see a window popup to choose a folder to install the Cinema 4D plugin.
- Navigate to the plugins folder path which you set from the Cinema 4D Preferences window, and click "Select Folder". You will then see a confirmation dialog stating if the plugin installation was successful.
- If Cinema 4D is running, you will need to restart for the Daz To Cinema 4D Bridge plugin to load.
- In Cinema 4D, you should now see "Daz 3D" in the Cinema 4D main menu.
You can find more information about the updated DazToCinema4D Bridge with these resources:
- Download latest updates and bugfixes (Github)
- Daz To Cinema 4D Bridge FAQ (daz3d.com)
- Daz To Cinema 4D Bridge on Github
- How to Install Daz To Cinema 4D (Github Readme)
- Where do I install Plugins for Cinema 4D? (Maxon Knowledge Base)
- How to Use Daz To Cinema 4D (Github Readme)
How to Install and Configure Daz To Cinema4D 2022
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Post edited by danielbui78 on
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Comments
Hi Daniel , I do step by step like your video , but when I export the model it only show the black version as the picture I have attached . Hope you can help me with this, Thank you.
My impressions thus far :
(versions used were S24.111, R25.010, R26.013)
Basic devload figure without morphs except for the basic arm,leg,torso jcm works in all three. I was positively surprised that you got the correct joint alignments working on import. For that alone will fix alot of issues that were previously a massive headache for the end user. And finally having properly setup erc within expresso I am really glad about. Another user and me already had a python based way to assign those automatically but having something that works out of the box is definately great to have. I will have to see if any other erc morphs other than the basic ones you can export will also be setup automatically, but this is definately a step into the right direction. I surely hope the plugin is somehow able to pick up on erc based connections that exist in the file and automatically set these up in c4d, this way you could even use more elaborate fix morph packages.
What did not seem to work for me was a figure with clothing etc. The import would simply stall out and hang up C4D on all three versions. this was a simple one figure setup with 4-5 clothing items, an FBM and FHM and base jcm export.
I really thought this bridge was dead in the water but you came around and fixed the joint alignments and added the erc connections. The rest I can make work myself, so for me this is already a big win and the most important stuff to have, but you really have to iron out what causes those hang ups with more complex exports.
Oh another thing I noticed. The weight tag for the skin weight is set to linear on export, but should be set to spherical for the correct look.
Question : what does the "Auto JCM" button do? I could not see a difference between using that or leaving it off; the jcms seemed to work regardless.
While further playing around I noticed that when you export animation data to C4D from DS and want to apply these poses to the joint corrected figure in the c4d scene, it is all wrong due to the animation data still coming in with default joint alignments and data being in HPB and not the fixed ones. In order to fix this you will have to create a sort of offset mechanism for the imported animation data or this will be useless for exporting poses or animation from DS to C4D. You are on a good track right now though, so keep it up. The export of poses would go a long way to have a good base to work from, but I understand that it might be a bit tricky to figure out how to properly offset the joint alignments for the animation data to match up with the corrected joint rotations on the exported figures.
Try to test the most recent version from Github, but whenever I hit the button Daz instantly crashes and I get an error report.
I added a screenshot.
Hope you can help me.
There are some figure + clothing/asset combinations that seem to be crashing the C4D bridge scripts. Please provide exact names of the Daz Figure and Clothing/Assets that you are using. Then open the Cinema4D console and switch to the Python tab before you do the import. When you do the import, if there are any script errors, they will show up in the python console of Cinema4D. Please post any error messages along with exact names of figures/assets/etc. This will help me track down and fix the issues. Thanks.
Thanks! Will look into fixing this.
Auto JCM is a feature taken from DazToUnreal bridge. For other bridges, it should automatically include all JCM morphs for all exported meshes without having to manually add them. I have removed it for other bridges in the latest version until I can do more testing and UX fine-tuning.
Correct. For now the workaround is to click "No" for Fix Bone Orientation popup to use animation. We are looking into a good bone/joint orientation solution that will work for animations.
I have fixed a crash when using figures or assets with Geoshells. Please try the latest version here: https://github.com/daz3d/DazToC4D/releases
I wonder if it would be worth to try and see if you can write something that works with .duf files directly? Quite a few plugins for blender have done this, the latest that comes to mind is the diffeomorphic plugin. That way you might move around the fbx axis conversion middleman and simply read data directly from the DS files.
The July Update for the Daz to Cinema 4D Bridge is now available on Daz Central and Daz Install Manager! Please refer to the main post for more information about this update.
Seeing a LOT of issues with this latest release. The last one worked really well. For one, here is my figure in DAZ post export...
What if I wanted to revert to the last version?
If you would like to help us fix these issues, please include:
Any previous version can be downloaded and installed using this:
Absolutely thrilled that work on the Bridge is back! I've given it a quick try with a few figures, some old and some new, and here's my results:
Cinema 4D R23 / D|S 4.20 Pro
'Hydra' ( https://www.daz3d.com/hydra )
-Imported badly deformed. Needed to reset the figure in D|S before export to solve.
-Morphs were selected for Export, but no Morph Tag was present in Cinema 4D
'MGM' ( https://www.daz3d.com/mean-green-mutha )
-A dialogue saying "Import Failed" pops up. (Plugin suggests checking the console. Console only says "Import Failed" after trying to load the FBX from the temporary folder.)
-Only the plant's Body imports. The 'Maw', 'Petals', and 'Tendrils' do not.
-No morphs are imported.
Morphing Python
-Morphs import correctly!
-Half of the 'Jaw' joint's weighting is applied to the head. This is not the case inside D|S
Dinoraul's Brachiosaurus
-No morphs import
-Wieghting on the neck-spikes bleeds over into other joints (Older versions of the Bridge did this too, but much worse)
Dragon 3.0 with Chain Saddle
-Plugin says "Import Failed" when loading
-Some morphs do not function (In the batch that I tested with, only Dragon__PHMHornsRidgedHD 1, 2, and 3 did not work)
-All Joint axes are aligned incorrectly and do not match their alignment in D|S (All joints orient with Y perfectly up)
-Chain Saddle imports/merges just fine(1)
(1) I noticed that the Chain Saddle copies the Dragon 3's rigging information instead of using a separate joint hierarchy like I've experienced in the past with other figures. Interesting to know and saves a lot of time messing with Constraint Tags!)
I haven't gotten around to testing with human figures - legacy (Michael 3, Hiro 3, etc) or Genesis-eras. As for steps taken, it's just 'load figure -> Send to C4D -> Import via Genesis option'. In the case of the UD Hydra however, I needed to reset the figure in D|S first otherwise it'd import incorrectly.
Overall I'm seeing some wonderful improvements, huge thanks to everyone working on this!
Would delete this post, but can't. But editing to point out that this post and the next several are irrelevant now - it was a dumb mistake on my part and not the Bridge's. FBX Import preferences had Materials disabled this whole time, and I never noticed until just now.
Edited, as I finally discovered that the issue wasn't with the Bridge or D|S's export options but an option in the FBX Import preferences being changed.
<Disregard this post. Found the solution and it was Import preferences and not Export issues>
EDIT - Okay so the textures failing to import was actually because the preferences for FBX Import at some point was set to "Materials - None". I'm embarrassed to admit it took me this long to notice
Hi Daniel, thank you for all your hard work on this. Unfortunately I've been having little luck, even for what I assume are very basic, vanilla exports. I really would like to export a character and preserve a morph, any morph.
Basic Genesis 8.1 Male, in default pose, exported with a handful of facial expression morphs (see screenshot).
And even though I'm exporting morphs, C4D never shows me the "Morph Controller Group" which I assume is supposed to appear after importing. Am I missing something?
DazToC4D 2022.1 / Cinema4D r26 / Daz Studio 4.20.17 / Mac Studio M1 Max with OS 12.5 Monterey
That's just a long-running problem with the C4D Bridge. Most of the time Morphs aren't actually included with the Import, regardless of options picked or model used. Past versions had that problem, this version has that problem.
Unrelated; I just had a weird thing happen with this dragon model. While easily solveable within Cinema it's still a tad annoying. I load the figure in D|S, make sure its at a reset/unedited pose, but then when I import it into Cinema 4D the mesh takes a completely different pose than what was seen + what the joints are doing. Attached is what 's happening - Reset Figure Pose, nothing changes. Once I click OKAY the wing mesh changes position.
This is what I'm experiencing. DAZ Studio won't do anything when I say Reset figure/pose, but then the pose changes when its readying it for export?? Imports as it shows in DAZ Studio up until I click out of it, then it warps into a different pose while leaving the joints behind in their old positions
Google Drive link, since the forum doesn't seem to approve of Animated GIFs
Morphs still aren't exporting, and I don't think Oso's Mosasaur is compatible with the Bridge?
Sending it to Cinema 4D as-is with no adjustments, it rejects any of the Dragon 3 textures whjen in DAZ Studio they work fine (And visa-versa, Dragon 3 can't use any of the Oso Mosasaur textures). Secondly, since the Bridge STILL can't export Morphs 99% of the time I have to move them over by hand one by one and once each for both variants of the model - one exported with a Mosa texture and one exported with the Dragon 3 textures, and I do need to do it twice each since this is what happens if I try using a Morph made from one onto the other:
Pictured is the "Angry" facial morph exported from the Oso Mosasaur while using Dragon 3 textures, trying to load it onto the Oso Mosasaur using the Mosa textures. The original was sent over with the exact same settings, only the texture was changed.
Same here: everything is imported into Cinema with no materials at all — plain shape with no materials assigned, and with materials tab empty.
DS 4.20 with latest bridge version, Cinema R26.107 on macOS