How to transfer pose from daz3d to unity correctly.

James

I've manage to transfer a pose using daz3d to unity bridge. 

In Unity I use animator controller assing to the character. 
But the problem is, though it poses, but the position changes. It goes very high in the sky and rotate a bit. 
So how to apply the pose in unity but the position stays exactly the same as when it was in daz3d?

Artini

Just keep trying.

Could you post a screenshot from Unity, to see your problem better.

You could also ask AI to guide you further.

 

James

https://prnt.sc/rTdNRHvjHd4d

I asked AI, but not giving me any useful information. 
There's a youtube video, showing the same problem, but he can't do anything about it, except, pulling it manually to the desired location. 

Artini

Ok. I have not transferred any of Daz3D characters in a pose different from default pose in Daz Studio to Unity myself.

The characters are coming positioned on the ground automatically after Daz to Unity bridge in such case.

Since you want to show them in Unity in the specified pose only, pull them manually to the desired location.

 

James

I'm looking a way not to do it manually. 
Because I'm going to do a lot of pose in multiple scenes and characters. 

Or if it's possible to have something that makes posing easier in unity. Then I don't have to go back and forth daz3d - unity.

Artini

There are many ways to do it.
There is a freebie in Unity store:
Scene Poser - Match Animation Poses Fast
to quickly apply animation poses to objects in the scene view.
Otherwise create a Unity script to implement such feature for you.
Using AI is pretty easy to create Unity scripts. 
I am doing it all the time.

 

 

 

jeronimocollares

James said:

I've manage to transfer a pose using daz3d to unity bridge. 

In Unity I use animator controller assing to the character. 
But the problem is, though it poses, but the position changes. It goes very high in the sky and rotate a bit. 
So how to apply the pose in unity but the position stays exactly the same as when it was in daz3d?

Short or long explanation? 
 

Short explanation or long one? Either way, Daz models will continue to cause issues because they weren't designed for game engines, but rather for animations strictly within Daz itself (a poor decision by Daz's owners, in my view; today, other software surpasses Daz for this very reason—they didn't want to lock themselves into a proprietary ecosystem).*** But all is not lost—the short answer to your question is that you will always, invariably, have to put in work to rebuild models, shaders, and animations in Unity when using Daz (and don't rely on the Daz Bridge; it's broken, outdated, and extremely resource-heavy).

 

There are ways around this, though they do require effort. Don't use the "Humanoid" setting; use "Generic." The Humanoid system cannot handle the sheer number of bones found in Daz models.

 

Rigging Facial - Unity's Humanoid system is limited. It maps only a standard set of human body bones and ignores complex structures. The problem with Humanoid: The Genesis 8/8.1 skeleton features dozens of extra facial bones for micro-expressions and precise eye movements. The Humanoid system discards or breaks the hierarchy of these bones. The advantage of Generic: It imports the bone structure exactly as it was built in Daz. This ensures that your facial animations for speech (lip-sync) and blinking (crucial for idle states) work perfectly.

 

Prevents Joint Deformation (Shoulders and Fingers) – Daz’s mesh and skeleton are hyper-detailed, featuring automatic weight corrections for complex joint rotations such as shoulders and hips. The Humanoid issue: To force the character to fit Unity’s "standardized avatar," the Humanoid system recalculates rotations. This often results in displaced shoulders, crooked fingers, or bizarre armpit distortions during movement. The Generic advantage: Unity does not attempt to "guess" or remap rotations; instead, it reads Daz animation data directly and purely (1:1 scale), preserving the visual integrity of the Genesis 8 anatomy.

 

CPU Performance and Usage – The Humanoid issue: At runtime, Unity must constantly calculate the remapping of animation data to the humanoid avatar before applying it to the model. The Generic advantage: Animation data is applied directly to the corresponding bones. There is no intermediate translation layer, resulting in slightly lower CPU usage in your game.

 

When does using the "Generic" option become a disadvantage? You’ll have to animate everything in Daz Studio, and Daz’s animation system is still stuck in the last century; unfortunately, not much has been improved, in my view. That’s where Cascadeur comes in: there’s a script (in the top "Commands" menu) that makes it easier to export FBX files to Daz Studio, and even helps prepare your Daz model for export to Cascadeur.

 

The fact is that animations produced in Daz, using humanoids, will always be problematic. But there are alternatives, fixes.

 

Regarding your specific problem – even if you – by sheer luck – eventually fix a small problem in a specific animation in Unity, you'll have a thousand others on the other side of the door when trying to import other sequences to your Daz Studio character. There's no 'easy fix' here, unfortunately. But I've given you the path.

 

Don't use Daz Bridge, export directly via FBX. Rebuild the shaders (there aren't many) in Unity itself using Unity's own resources (HDRP preferably). Don't use hair from Daz Studio, it's not 'game ready', use solutions (Unity's own Strand) from the engine itself (there are tutorials online about it). For clothing, use Magica Cloth 2 (there's a free and a paid version).

 

***And don't be fooled by other software like CC5, for example... they will have the same problems, although it's more geared towards game engines. Use Daz Studio; it's the best available today, whether for the vast array of assets the library possesses—but not especially for that reason, but for the number of people who currently use Daz and will quickly evolve to 'game engines'—despite the tons of problems due to the current limitations of the software (apparently they are working on this, updating the core of the program/Daz).

 

And even if you insist on Daz Bridge, you will still be limited to certain versions of Unity—an engine that is also undergoing a general overhaul, from its core to its edge. Daz Bridge would only be useful and functional if it were updated in line with Unity's own engine:

 

- Use 'generic' instead of humanoid (in retargeting);

- Use the hair offered for free by Unity (search for it) based on 'strand' and accurate physics;

- Recreate your shaders from scratch, obviously using maps from Daz Studio/the template you acquired - just rearranging them (note that HDRP shaders are different, there are condensed channels in 'mask', but Unity also has a native solution for this, search for 'mask converter' or SubstancePainter in the export);

 

(Good tip for you: search for Google AI Studio. Use it, the 'Gemeni Flash Lasted' template - set the temperature to 0.3. Learn to communicate with this AI, it's extremely efficient for code and various tasks that will help you in Unity. Its daily token limit is high, and there are ways to use it, legal ways allowed by Google, for hours on end in a single day with gigantic texts, 100k tokens+ without problems).

 

(Google Translate messed up my formatting) -_-

 

*

jeronimocollares

However, setting aside some technical and labor-intensive aspects, I want to highlight a few things I’ve learned over the years. Anything done in game engines these days is labor-intensive in itself—even in Unreal (which is famous for tools that streamline workflows).

 

In my view—specifically regarding the solutions themselves—nothing beats Daz Studio. That’s quite a contradiction, isn't it? But why is that the case?

 

It evolved that way. Daz maintained a "free" policy for its character composition, animation, and rendering software; this attracted a large user base and fostered greater engagement, with people creating content specifically for Daz. Naturally, this created—and continues to create—pressure for the tool's development; it couldn't be any other way. To me, Daz is superior to MetaHuman. You don't animate natively in MetaHuman, nor can you really produce anything without resorting to Blender, Maya, Cinema 4D, or 3ds Max. Daz offers a more complete ecosystem, even though—for various reasons—it still has limitations here and there (such as the timeline, which is hard to tame—though I’m comparing it to Cascadeur here, and I admit I don't fully grasp the underlying engineering of these software programs).

 

The visuals in CC5 are impressive, but—in my opinion—that’s where it ends. Do they make exporting and using assets in game engines easier? Yes, but that’s not the whole story; what you export often still relies heavily on models created for Daz (such as clothing, for instance).

 

With dedication, patience, and study, it has become relatively easy to use Daz Studio models in Unity. In my view, the interactive license is worth the price—you get an ultra-realistic model licensed for a game, whereas obtaining something similar outside of Daz Studio could easily cost an exorbitant amount. There are morph sets, for instance, that give you the freedom to create various characters—you pay for the base license plus the morph license (on top of the product's price itself, which is usually low), and *voilà*: something that would cost thousands of dollars outside of Daz ends up costing a hundred or two at most (games are investments—that's just how it is!).

 

In short, that’s why I haven’t abandoned Daz; I’ve been part of this community for years, exploring ways to make things "fit my reality"—and that’s only possible thanks to the foundation Daz provides. Models? I have plenty. Morphs? I’ve created many myself (the models' topology makes it much easier to deform them without messing everything up). Textures? I have plenty; I use Photoshop sometimes, but I mostly use Krita (which now comes with excellent offline AI image tools like Z-Image).

 

:)

Artini

Thank you for your insights about Daz 3D characters in Unity, @jeronimocollares
It will help many users thinking about use them in Unity.

 

jeronimocollares

Artini said:

Thank you for your insights about Daz 3D characters in Unity, @jeronimocollares
It will help many users thinking about use them in Unity.

 

Feel free to ask me any questions about this. I am working (strictly privately, for my own game development) with Genesis 2 (base) models and Unity's public/free locomotion system known as MxM. Incidentally, I discovered models on the Daz Store with excellent pricing on their interactive licenses (though that’s a step for later—around October—in my specific case, since I’m currently using the model only for private development).

Let me start by explaining why I mentioned Genesis 2: compatibility and workflow speed. In my case, it’s due to the models' bone structure, which works very well with—or matches—Unity's native Mecanim system (whether handling transforms or rotations). The vast majority of Unity assets come pre-configured for Mecanim. Today, I’m testing or beginning to implement an intelligent character control system (which will complement the one I wrote in C#). I’ve attached a link for reference, given that we’re in the Daz/Unity sub-section. The goal is to move away from the "old Animator" and its pitfalls and tangled web of connections.

I was recalculating figures yesterday, and my projected Daz expenses won't exceed $200 (which is a miracle in game development). That said, I create my own clothing and shaders—though with Genesis 2 and *MagicaCloth 2*, Daz Store hair assets (even the heavy ones) work well in Unity with just a few minor tweaks. So, I now have three systems integrated and communicating with each other: my own (3D point-and-click—using root motion—with dynamic navmesh generation, since I deal with large terrains and prioritize performance); 'Istep' (which uses IK to keep feet planted on uneven ground, among other features like handling small, abrupt elevation changes where the dynamic navmesh operates); and now, the implementation of MxM.

https://motion-matching-for-unity.readthedocs.io/en/latest/

 

Artini

Great choice of Istep and MagicaCloth 2. These are my favorites as well.

To write scripts I often use Copilot AI, as I have not learned myself writing C# scripts from scratch so far.