How do you import rigged models into Daz Studio?
Succulent Fruit
Posts: 102
Title says it all. I have a massive PILE of beautiful, rigged models that would be awesome in Daz Studio. However, I don't know how to get them there, without Daz breaking them. I've heard that there is a way to do it using Poser 11, by importing the rigged model into poser and exporting it to Daz as a .CR2 file.
Is this how its done? I've seen content made on the store that features rigged character that don't use the pre-built rigs, so I assume there is a way to do it.
Thanks!
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some work that way not all, it is the only way that does work though for not DAZ content
the standalone models in the store are still rigged by their creators in DAZ studio
You can try it the poser way, but in my experience there is no way to get a rigged figure into DS since the rigging in DS is in a proprietary format to DS only and the FBX importer is broken.
the characters you see in DS that don't use a prebuilt rig were probably rigged inside DS since it has it's opwn rigging tools.
It is not entirely true that the fbx importer can't import rigs. Indeed if you export a daz character to fbx then import it back it works fine. Then we can tell the fbx importer is limited and only gets specific rigs. At this time, doing some tests with blender, I wasn't able to understand what's required for it to work though.
Below the G1F exported to fbx and imported back.
This is also interesting, though personally I'm not sure to understand it entirely. For example why the lock property is needed.
yes but the DAZ figures only work imported back
not after sending them to another program which is rather pointless
the only thing that I have heard this is useful for is animation from motionbuilder which sadly I cannot afford
and I think you hit the nail on the head, the limitations seem related to using only DAZ context as I suggested was the reason
I rather suspect the fbx importer expects a specific structure for the rig, that could be achieved renaming or adding specific bones. But this is just a guess that I'd be glad to prove if I may find a rig structure that works. Until now in my tests I wasn't able to import anything but original daz characters.
I just realized I hadn't suggested that was the reason in this particular thread on the topic
it was another recent similar one
I suspect this too. Otherwise, Daz would have to invest in a retargeter, which would lead to IK, ad nauseum, and eventually Daz is Motionbuilder :) The Genesis framework that does so many amazing things behind the scenes and makes users think that character modeling is easy probably depends on assumptions that are violated by more general models.
edited to save removing itI think the ability to import other formats is a major missing feature from DS.
Continuity of existing characters/assets is important for artists (there is a demand for inter-generation morph/clothing convertors), and having to start their collections over entirely could be a big reason for many artists to disregard DS. I've been able to transfer some pre-existing characters of mine to the G8 format, but not being able to import models that don't fit that format (either non-human characters or just rigged props) is a pain. Many of these things are models I could never expect to show up on the Daz store.
Ideally it would be a core part of DS, but if a product came along that used DazScript to interpret FBX files and bring them into DS (even if they then needed some fine tuning), I'd be at the front of the line.
The answer to that is often "I haven't bought things from Daz themselves because I would want to make edits beyond what can reasonably be reimported".
There are loads of fantastical creatures (many sufficiently obscure I suspect they'd be very low priority for the PAs that specialise in that kind of thing) that could be made by buying assets from Daz, combining their rigs in Blender, then being able to reimport them. But if rigged models cannot be reliably imported, that becomes a pain in the behind, so there are several things I would have purchased but have not.
it's not about commercial incentive, it's about that there is the option to import and export.FBX and it rarely works. If DAZ doesn't want users to import FBX models, then take the option out of DS.
i would think the option to bring more meshes into DS would be beneficial to them as it would get more people using DS and that in turn would probably have more people looking and also buying from the store.
I disagree that Daz has zero commercial incentive here. Being able to easily import or export FBX would entice more people to get into Daz in the first place. That doesn't sound like zero incentive to me. Importing FBX in no way competes with Daz content, it can ENHANCE it. If Daz ever wants to get beyond its own little bubble of highly niche users, this would be a benefit to them, not a detriment.
The only way Daz grows is if people install Daz Studio. They fully acknowledge it for being a Trojan horse that it is. The more people download Studio, the more eyeballs you get on the store page. Getting better FBX support gets more people on board. Simple as that.
No one specifically mentioned it, but Daz's FBX importer mucks up non-rigged models as well (by ignoring their relative positions and applied materials).
To create a fully working FBX importer would not be trivial. The format specification is not fully documented, though there is an SDK and the files themselves. (I guess Autodesk might provide information for a fee.)
Even if that could be done, supporting it would be a nightmare, given you have no control over the quality of the exporter or the model/rig being imported. You would have to investigate every reported import 'failure', only to end up concluding in some proportion of cases that the exporter was broken (did not implement the specification the way you have) or the rig is incapable of being represented in the Daz rigging system. I would bet that proportion would be quite high.
I think the FBX importer is only really designed to re-import files exported from Daz Studio, but that's not explicitly stated as far as I know, so one can always raise a support ticket if it fails to import an FBX file we want it to import.
I very seriously doubt your doubt. People who HAVE THE TIME to do all that perhaps will never touch Daz Studio. A major pitch for Daz Studio is about saving time. After all, every single thing Studio can do can be done somewhere else, so what is the point of Daz Studio in the first place? That is not the point of what I wrote. There are plenty of people have the skill to model, rig, animate, texture, ect but still choose to use Daz Studio and its models because they are just easy. Even you have used Daz Studios models when you could have built your own. Why did you do that? But here is another thought: somebody who has those skills might decide to SELL items through Daz. It isn't just about buyers, but sellers, Daz benefits from both, and they would be nothing without PAs releasing content. And Daz makes a hefty 40-50% cut on every single sale in its store, and 100% on items it bought outright. Somebody could decide to do it as a side gig or something, which is what a number of PAs actually do. Some are doing this as a full time job, while others have perfectly fine jobs but also sell products on Daz for extra money or just to be a part of the community.
Then you have intermediate users who maybe know how to do some of those things, but not all of them. And again...the time required to do all of that is a factor. These people are perfect for Daz Studio to recruit.
Time is money for many people. I can change the oil in my car, but I choose not to because I don't want to deal with it. I got a local place that can literally have me done in 10 minutes and I am back on the road. That IMO is well worth my time and saves me the hassle of disposal. Changing oil is big business, every town in America has a place that offers them, and some companies focus almost entirely on it, even though it is something so many people can do if they wanted.
Daz Studio is like that lube place every town has.
If FBX actually worked properly in Daz, people could more easily use Daz assets with their own assets. There is also a growing hobbyist segment of people who just like making fanart of their favorite media characters. I do not think it is fair to expect hobbyists to know everything about modeling. Most of these people are in the intermediate range. But there is more. Dude, we have PAs here who got their start as modders in gaming. These people made the jump from hobbyist to professional, and Daz Studio has directly benefited from their products as some of these people are among the most well known PAs in the store with dozens of popular products, all of which Daz makes a cut on. So to make a statement that Daz would not benefit from better FBX (and better export/import rigging in general) is not thinking the situation through completely.
What they are currently doing isn't a very useful metric. You get stuck in the circular logic of people aren't doing it, so we don't support it, so people don't do it, so we don't support it, so people don't do it...
As it is, there are actually a lot of reasons why an artist might want to shift to rendering in DS. Even if you can make every figure from scratch, that's not the same having the time or the inclination to do so.
Daz's base figures are ostensibly a great solution to that problem. Mixing morphs? Swappable materials? A (fairly) universal wardrobe that can (mostly) adapt itself to whatever shape? These are all great features. An artist could very reasonably want to benefit from those features.
However, most of those features are best supported in DS (although some can eventually be transferred to other applications), so if you want those features, it also entails choosing DS as your rendering program of choice... but if DS doesn't support other content formats, then an artist might well just walk away from the Genesis bases entirely.
If Daz create a situation where an artist has to choose between their products and someone else's then they may not always be the choice. If they create a situation where they are the obvious best choice - use all your other content AND get all the benefits of the Genesis generations, that puts them ahead.
This discussion seems to be going in circles, and to have drifted well away from the original topic, so the thread is being locked.