DAZ Studio → Maya 2016 - How without issues?
Ryselle-Ryssa
Posts: 159
Hello,
I'm struggeling with a simple task: Getting a scene from DAZ-Studio to Maya for Rendering. I dont need bones oder animations, just figures with clothing and equipement - but I fail...
As far as I know, there are three formats that can be exportet by DAZ Studio 4.9 and also importet in Maya 2016:
When using OBJ for export, the textures seem to get an aditional reflection and transparency fails (Eyebrows are a mess). In theory I could fine-tune every texture, but this costs a lot of time. But the posing and the clothing work!
When using FBX, the figure loses its pose, clothing and equipement dont fit anymore - its just a mess. But the textures work!
When using DAE, it produces strange empty eyes and ruines the clothing. But the textures work!
Are there any solutions, eventually via plug-in or script, to solve these issues?
Thank you in advance
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Comments
Could you use OBJ for the shape and then copy the materials from one of the others?
Thanks for your response.
Your suggestion seemed logical, but I'm afraid it didnt help, since FBX creates other localtions on the model to apply the (less in number) textures.
For me, it could also be a solution to convert the model to a completely sceleton-less object, then FBX couldnt completely mess up the rigging. But even its possible to convert a prop to a figure, it doesnt work the other way around. I figured out, that the FBX is most likely ruined by DAZ Exporter, rather then maya importer, since the rigging and posing is completely messed up, when I reimport the FBX to DAZ.
I would also consider a Add-on for DAZ to export or Maya to import in order to increase the number of exchangeable files.
Hello again,
i'd like to reuptake this post, for I haven't found a solution to said problem. I want to export Scenes from DAZ 4.9 to Maya 2016, just for the purpose of Rendering (maya is "a bit" faster then iray).
I have to questions to this issue:
1) Becauce of student-status, I have access to 3d MAX also. Does anybody know, if said issue (loosing transparency in textrues) also occures when going to 3ds?
2) Is there a plugin which expands OBJ-Export or enables Export Formats which are usable in maya?
Thank you in advance!
The limit, as far as I know, is the OBJ format (or rather the MTL format) itself - it supports only a limited range of properties. Transparency maps have always ahd to be manually restored, pretty much regardless of start and end points, as far as I am aware. Maya does have a scripting language, as does DS - it might be worth looking at writing a script that will write out a material description in some form (XML or JSON have native support in DS) and apply it to the imported model in Maya.
The Alembic Exporter for DS may do what you want.
Kendall
Absolutely not Alembic is the worst possible solution for someonoe averse to alot of manual fiddling with textures in the receiving application as Alembic does support multiple UVs,
Thus you get a massive grey obj in your receiving application.
Yes it is great for exporting animation data, even fluid & cloth sims
I am told ,but the lack of textures makes it useless to us over here
as we render all of our Daz content in Cinema4d.
Thankfully a third party created a very complete and feature rich .obj importer for Maxon C4D that literally asks for a path to the directory where the textures related to the incoming obj can be found.
Modo has the same requesting dialog feature built in.
I am surprised that Maya does not.
This is quite correct.
Even with my powerful .obj importer the Daz/poser transmaps usually need to be manually placed in the apha channel in C4D. but it is typically only hair and eyelashes so not much manual grunt work in the larger context of NOT having to manually assign every texture in a massive stonemason set for example.
It all depends on what you use at both ends, OBJ works very good in LightWave for example, the only thing you need to do is mess a little with specularity sometimes, all transparency works out of the box, FBX is a little worse, sometimes some textures are lost, but it's difficult to pin point the offender because it may be DS export or the target import.
There are some options you can play around with in the export (and sometimes at the import) and see if that helps, also switching to different versions of FBX could help.
Do you have "Merge cloth into skeleton" option checked at export time ?
OBJ should be ok and exports fine with DS unless you have limitations in texture handling at the target end.
Thanks for your replies!
Merging the sceleton works, as I now found out, only if "convert clothing to static geometry" is unchecked. So I am at a point, where I can work with fbx, only thing to do is to reduce a .5 Reflection-Score that appears on every texture... But it is easier to correct, than the hair. Anyway... The fbx relocates some probs, which can be realigned. Is there a way to totally get rid of the sceleton? I just need mental ray because...
A question to obj: So, if I see this right: The missing alpha-map, or the missing transparency with hair and so on, is not a fault of maya or daz studio, but a problem with the format?
An OBJ exported from DS has all the correct transparency maps, if it does not work it is something wrong on the import side, it's in the file, you can check it yourself just have a peek at the .mtl file.
Note: If you keep the original path to textures it may be in a folder that has spaces in the name somewhere and some software packages may not like this, if that could be a problem ?
Of course it could be a problem on mayas side. As far as I researched (I'm actually stuck with work, so not much time for the hobby), there could be a way in a script for maya... But for getting into this, I have to wait for my next holiday.
Export DAZ into MAYA
Make sure the figure is in a T pose.
Export as .dae
Click on "show individual settings".
Check all 4 boxes in the geometry section.
Check "collect maps".
Then click accept.
In Maya's import dialog box make sure it matches the image.
You'll have a figure with a skeleton inside thats ready for a "Control rig" but you don't have to have one to
animate your figure.
Click on "xRay Joints" to see the skeleton inside
If you want to animate the figure in daz and bring into Maya, just on the animation boxes when exporting and
importing.
When your exporting click on the "Morphs" tab, select the ones you want (Genesis will look a little
different) then select "export all selected items. They change from bake to export.
Each one you select will then become a blend shape in Maya.
Tip: Only export the ones you want because they can make the size a lot bigger.
Windows > Animation editors > Blend Shape
In that window under Options, Change the orientation to Horizontal
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