Blender Bridge script please?
marble
Posts: 7,500
in The Commons
I wonder if any of the talented scripters out there might consider a DAZ to Blender Bridge, something like the Hexagon and GoZ bridges? I know Casual has a plugin to send a whole scene over to Blender for rendering in Cycles but I'm thinking just figures, clothing items, etc. for creating a quick custom morph.

Comments
Would buy.
Yes - so would I at Blender prices ;)
No seriously, a reasonable charge would be fine by me. Just not ZBrush prices though - I'm not in that league.
Blender is open source and is free. Unless you're talking about the script, I would pay for it as well. Zbrush is wayyy to expensive for a 3D hobbyist like me
Yes, I know it's free. I was joking - hence the wink ;)
Export from Daz as an obj.
Default seem to work except for scale, change to 1%, and make sure axis are x = x, y = y, z = z.
in Blender: just make sure as per image - especially if wanting to return as a morph.
if it is for a morph; turn off all HD stuff, and set to base resolution.
But yeh, a script would be good.
When exporting from blender; make sure only the item you want to return is selected, then options as image, which are mostly default.
In morph loader, change the scale to 10000%, presuming you exported as 1%.
Change property group from Morph/Morph Loader if required
Yeah, it is all these fiddly things that prompted me to plead for a bridge. I often forget one step and end up wasting a lot of time and get frustrated.
By the way, I never change the scale - I just export and import using the same settings.
Have you tried this solution - http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/136706/daz-importer-for-blender
The OBJ dialogue in DS allows you to save a new preset, so set it once for Blender and save under a new name (Blender Update or something) then you won't have to do more than pick it from the list on import/export.
It's not that we just want to export to Blender. We want an easy, convenient workflow function for hopping to and from Blender to Studio, and back again.
THAT is what I want to thrust money into someone's pocket for.
That would have been nice for the convenience! : )
well yeh, that works too; but if you do change it to 1%, then it is at the correct scale for blender.
I'd plunk down some cash for a bridge too.. while I don't use Blender all that often if I had a bridge I may use it more and more... whoe knows... Hexagon my system is a joke as it crashes constantly so it's sort of a lame duck in my arsenal.
Thanks for that reminder, RIchard, I'll certainly do that next time. However, the point is that there are other things like remembering to set to base resolution, etc. that make the whole process tedious. When I tried ZBrush with GoZ I'm sure I could export a figure with her clothes and select which item to work on within ZBrush. With manual export to Blender I have to make everything invisible except the figure, export her, then do the same for the clothing item, export that, then import them individually into Blender. It is just such a long winded process.
Thanks - I'll take a look at that later. I'm not sure it operates as I was hoping for, however, in that it doesn't seem like a one-click solution as with GoZ and the Hex bridge but it might be an interesting way to get a rigged character into Blender. I need to study it a little more to understand what it does,
In Blender you can export as .obj only selected meshes, as well. I am doing this all the time, when exporting from Blender.
Writing such plugin for Blender like GoZ for Daz Studio, require a lot of knowledge and time, and I will not expect it to appear anytime soon.
But if it will happen, I will be happy to buy it, if it will be not too expensive.
Further to this, I found this tutorial for the script on exporting from DAZ Studio and importing into Blender. I'm not sure how this would make things any less complicated - indeed, to require a tutorial means that it is as far away from a one-click bridge as can be imagined.
http://diffeomorphic.blogspot.co.nz/p/export-character-from-daz-to-blender.html
I've pretty much gotten this squared away into presets saved on both ends and, yet, I wouldn't be opposed to buying a bridge to Blender myself. I use the Hexagon bridge all of the time. It would be super nice to have that convenience to work with Blender, too.
Its only a few clicks to export or import - but a could a couple of script examples from Daz could be used to speed things up? found here http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/software/dazstudio/4/referenceguide/scripting/api_reference/samples/file_io/start -the silent obj export/import bits could be used already with a few edits
Moving forward -The scripts and addons mentioned + mcasual's are great, but I would also like something such as - Send obj (no textures) to blender from Daz Studio (daz script) and a Send obj to (currently running) Daz Studio>morph loader from Blender (blender addon + ?)
or something like that ...we can hope!
No materials but include clothes as separate objects - that would be ideal and it is how GoZ works (I think). Don't know about Hex, I can't get it to survive 10 minutes without crashing.
there is actually an example script for silent morph loader mentioned on the above link, but no example ...Ye Gods!
I've never had any issues, just don't like it; I find it old, basic and lacking. That folks can make great stuff with it, I know, and I admire them for it. :)
I'm determined to give more time to Blender but having a nice interchange between it and DS would be so much of an impetus to get me involved.
Yeah, a bridge script for Blender and Daz would be worth buying.