Questions about Maya, Blender, and Daz3D
tkdrobert
Posts: 3,532
I'm a total noob when it comes to creating 3D models. I'm thinking about taking a course on Maya and I'm wondering how Maya and Daz work together. If I create something in Maya, can I use it in Daz? If so, do the bones come with or do I have to create bones in Daz? Can I use my Daz models in Maya?
Post edited by tkdrobert on
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I'm not sure (hopefully somebody more experienced will add to thread), but
1) Yes you can export creation from Maya to Daz in formats like .obj/.mtl or .fbx
2) I think Daz use it's own rigging system (systems?) so you'll be doing rigging for Daz in Daz.
3) I think there is some middleware product in daz store that makes interchange between maya and daz more seamless and easy but i've no idea how helpful it is.
edit:
https://www.daz3d.com/daz-to-maya
I know there is some kind of bridge between Maya and Daz but I don't know what it does.
As pointed out, you will need to rerig everything going between the apps. Daz has very specific rigging for daz Studio only. Now you can export DAZ figures in ,FBX with rigging intact and pose them in Maya, but it's not the same kind of posing you do in DS, it is more technical and I know in 3DSMax, the limits don't come across. Anything rigged you create in Maya will not translate into DS, you are best off using the .OBJ format
Most of the features we use daily in DS are DS specific so the bridges you can purchase to help get DAZ figures into Maya are there to help with some of those issues
Another thing to consider, Maya is a full fledged 3D app with so many features than DS as well as access to many more renderers than DS, some free and some commercial. If you take a course and find it clicks for you, then you may be moving up and away from DS and doing everything in Maya
I tried to go this route with my copy of Max, but found that while lacking in features, DS made my workflow much shorter and easier than doing everything in Max, so i just use it for modeling now.
Good luck, you may find your hobby becoming much more expensive very quickly, LOL
Yes, prepare to pay an arm and a leg if you intend to use Maya.
Maya can do everything DS can do, and much much more on top. You can create anything you want in maya, and send any of it to DS, but as mentioned already, non-static objects/models require rigging, and you will need to rig in DS if you intend to use DS.
Being that learned in Maya, there really isnt any need to use DS for anything other than creating characters and maybe a couple of basic things that are easier in DS than they are in Maya.
Daz characters/figures are so good, many have hoped for an easy way to get daz characters with all their functionality into Maya to then use the advanced features in Maya to do what cannot be done inside DS. There are a couple of plugins/bridges available at the moment that do that to varying degrees, but so far none of them are a complete solution and have some limitations. There is another plugin that has been in development for a while, this one with Daz assistance, that looks to go a step further than the current solutions available, remains to be seen exactly how good it will be though.
Of course, you can always create a character in DS, then send it to Maya manually and re-rig it in maya. That is a LOT of work though, even with Maya's advanced rigging features. Many people do it though. Still faster than creating a character from scratch in Maya.
Back on the topic of costs, you can get student licenses for Maya fairly easily, but you cannot do commercial work with it. Full comercial licenses for Maya are expensive. If you want to be able to do 99% of what can be done in Maya without the cost, you should look into Blender. That is free, and has been improved dramatically recently.
As for plugins that make the daz-blender bridge easier, i believe there are a couple of solutions around, but as with Maya, as far as i am aware they are not complete solutions and still require some work on the user's part.
Maya Indie is available for a limited time for around $300, but it is limited to a handful of countries. More limitations apply https://area.autodesk.com/maya-indie/
i actually didnt realise they had finally got with the times and offered an indie license. Good on them, this opens up a world of possibilities for a lot of people
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https://www.daz3d.com/genesis-8-for-maya
This is what you want. DaztoMaya was nice for its time when there was nothing else. It was the first "bridge" available in the Daz Market. But G8 for Maya is much better. Though, after you get experienced in Maya, you will find Daz asset importing trivial without using a plugin, but this is a great start for beginners. If you need G3 export, the script's creator has G3 for Maya available on his website.
Like, em, making a scene like we all do in DS?
I mean, it's so much comfortable for us to construct a scene, do poses, add lights, etc in DS comparing to other kits
not sure how in maya, but posing char in Max is huge pain imho (both cat and ik chains) when you come from ds or poser
and if we talk maya, imho it's material editor (hyperdshade. but the rest of maya's uiux is very comfortable imho. except hypershade. and i m not against node-based material editors, i liked the one in unreal engine, that was comfy to use) is not very intuitive and comfortable in interface, compared to our "surface tab" in ds.. ofc its very powerful, but again that depends on what you use. Some will use substance painter/substance designer for making materials instead.
Do you also consider that working with vray or arnold in maya will get superior results to iray in ds?
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so, tl;dr, i dont get that opinion "once you learn full 3d creation kit, you wont need ds at all" like, how about ... nope? or at least, that depends on what you do and use for? like i agree animation is better in maya, or that maya handles better scenes with huge polycount etc. but people stick to ds workflow for their reasons.
They still have DaztoMaya on main page of daz3.dom :(
The Maya were some of the greatest builders in pre-columbian Central America, but as far as I know, they didn't use DAZ Studio... they made great looking pyramids and stuff, but I'm not sure if they even had computers... They might have used Bryce because that's really old, but I'm pretty sure DAZ Studio has only been around since 1892 or something like that... or maybe the early 2000s.
EDITED TO CORRECT- Oh, sorry, you meant Autodesk's "Maya" software, not the Maya empire... I looked it up though and I was sort of right... but it was the Inca that used Bryce...
I'm thinking I might just go with Blender. I found some free tutorials with good reviews (havn't played them yet. I'm at work Shhhh...). Free is always better. I just hope the tutorials I've found wash the bad taste out of my mouth from the 1st time I tried Blender. The difference is the last time, I tried to use it for 2D before I discovered DAZ. The tutorial I used was from a guy with a heavy German accent who spoke too fast. He knew his stuff, but I couldn't follow him very well.
FYI, i just found out that there is a fork of blender with more classic interface, which might be more comfortable for some
https://www.bforartists.de/
true, but this came out before the latest version with the new and improvd UI, so i would give the normal version a chance first
You will likely run into the same issues you would have with Maya since most of them involve the limitations of getting DS specific items to work outside of DS. cycles is a good renderer though and will give very similar results to Iray
I completed my 1st Blender tutorial after being sick for a week. So far so good. The 1st time I tried Blender, I had no expeience using 3D programs and very little with 2D programs like photoshop. I think the experience I have now made Blender a little less intimidating this time around. We'll see how the next Tutorial goes. The British guy does a pretty good job of explaining things but he talks fast. I had to pause several times to take notes. I hope I can stick this out. I've failed with Hexagon and Sketchup. However, unlike those programs, Blender does everything.
Is rigging in Blender anything like Daz or is it radically different?
I would say they are different, but if you are familiar with one the other will not feel totally alien. In Daz Studio, you generally start with an object (mesh) with face groups defined, then use the Figure Setup pane to import the mesh and generate bones that correspond to the face groups. You can adjust the bone positions if required. Initial weight mapping can then be done using the 'Fill by Bone Selection Groups' context menu option with the Node Weight Map Brush tool active. I think it would be possible to do the weight mapping entirely manually but it would be a lot of work.
In Blender, you define the bones (armature) for a mesh manually or using one of the available auto-rigging addons, after which you can do the initial weight painting automatically by parenting the mesh to the armature 'with automatic weights', or just paint the maps manually. The mesh is bound to the armature and an Armature modifier represents that binding.
In Daz Studio, it seems like the bones 'belong' to the mesh if you look at the Scene Navigator. In Blender, it is conceptually the mesh that 'belongs' to the armature.
If you don't want to deal with any of that, you can try Daz's Alembic Exporter, which works with just a few annoying glitches. SubD doesn't tranfer very well because different algorithms are used by both apps, but you can avoid that at the cost of a huge resultant Alembic file (that Blender is VERY efficient at handling). And of course, the rig is gone and so the figure is no longer poseable, but there is a tool in Blender that will help with minor edits, whose name I can't remember... I've never had to use it because if you get everything right in Daz, Alembic is vertex exact, so everything looks exactly the same. Lastly, you'll lose your textures (but not UV mappings), but Blender's node system is so good that you may *want* to reapply them.
Another option is a Blender plugin called "Better FBX Importer" and it will read in a figure exported from Daz in FBX format. It preserves the rig, but I think it loses the JCMs. May it can be cajoled to transfer them as well, I don't know...
Good to know you give a try Blender . 2.80 and up really easy to use than prior version . And eevee seems cool if you want to get fast and stylized render style . And there are awesome toon shaders and much more advanced line art technique you can use in Blender ;)
I`ll suggesting you to check Blender binge - Ducky3d and Curtis holt youtube channel to start having fun with Blender 2.80 and up
Thanks for the information. I've bookmarked their pages. Question about toon shaders. Do you make them or can you download them, or are they standard?
I believe in blender you have more freedom , you can create them from scratch or just download or maybe purchase production ready shader node . I`m not sure if we allowed posting link from other sites , but you can visit youtube and find a lot ( and easy) shader building tutorial for toon shaders.
Just be aware which blender version those tutorials made for because in Blender 2.8 , they`d ditched internal blender which in the past commonly used to make NPR or Toon look like images . So find 2.8 version tutorial first , and after you have good grip about shader building , watch the earlier version .
Follow Bnpr (blendernpr.org) youtube channel for more tips and trick if you`re into NPR
And about effort to make new figure and rigged in DAZ , I think your time will be more valuabe if you learn to creating morph via Blender sculpt tool and slowly picking up another tutorial about JCM MCM etc