Character / Clothing creation tutorials for using Blender 2.8 with Daz Studio

TheMysteryIsThePoint · June 2020

Richard Haseltine said:

nicstt said:

Richard Haseltine said:

There is a Steam version, which has a perpetual license and doesn't require a fancy authentication sceme since it uses the Steam account. Still pricey though, depending on what you compare it with.

It's also limited in some ways, including that it can't

can't?

I think he was quite clear, Richard. It can't, and we just have to deal with that.

Mattymanx · June 2020

jukingeo said:

RainbowArtist said:

YouTube has a bunch of tutorials for Clothing creation using blender 2.8 and DAZ, as well as importing and exporting between them.

You can find them using YouTubes search gadget.

Enjoy.

This would probably be the way I am heading since I need to learn Blender anyway.

Thanks for the info!

Geo

Blender 2.8.3 is the Long Term Support version. So unless you need bleeding edge you can get bug fixes and what not and not worry about anything breaking

wolf359 · June 2020

nonesuch00 said:

wolf359 said:

TheMysteryIsThePoint said:

I also forgot about the woes of layered clothing. You will spend hours messing with collision distances and multiple simulations to accomplish something that MD is simply not phazed by at all. This is something that I gave up on in Blender but was simply a non issue in MD.

I agree, even iclones cloth physics are easier than Blender in some ways (if you paint your weightmaps correctly) and you get realtime feedback and can bake out of Iclone to Alembic

However nowhere in the OP's post did he mention dynamics simulations.

Yet every response, in this thread, assumed has has no interest in making well crafted Daz studio conformers or perhaps some of the rigid items I mentioned like Boots ,helmets ,armor ,clothing with true edge thickness, or even smart propped jewelry etc..

If the OP is truly interested in joining the ranks of us who model our own Daz genesis clothing. IMHO he would be better served to learn the general modeling skills of a package like blender in the long run rather than spend money on an expensive program that has a definable HARD LIMIT on the types of Daz genesis clothing & accesories he can create for himself or perhaps for others as a PA.

Can't you combine the both of them in the cloth sim stage in MD?

Combine both of what??

lilweep · June 2020

albin apparently makes all their clothes in blender, which is remarkable. They are some of the best. you can buy them at various places.

lilweep · June 2020

wolf359 said:

and what about footwear?? thick soled,treaded boots??

If these types of clothing are possible in MD, I would love to see some examples

evgeniya petrova has a project on artstation which is titled something like "... with bonus boot" which you can buy and analyse. i havent really looked into it.

i think most people just model over existing obj bases if they use MD at all for this.

nonesuch00 · June 2020

wolf359 said:

nonesuch00 said:

wolf359 said:

TheMysteryIsThePoint said:

I also forgot about the woes of layered clothing. You will spend hours messing with collision distances and multiple simulations to accomplish something that MD is simply not phazed by at all. This is something that I gave up on in Blender but was simply a non issue in MD.

I agree, even iclones cloth physics are easier than Blender in some ways (if you paint your weightmaps correctly) and you get realtime feedback and can bake out of Iclone to Alembic

However nowhere in the OP's post did he mention dynamics simulations.

Yet every response, in this thread, assumed has has no interest in making well crafted Daz studio conformers or perhaps some of the rigid items I mentioned like Boots ,helmets ,armor ,clothing with true edge thickness, or even smart propped jewelry etc..

If the OP is truly interested in joining the ranks of us who model our own Daz genesis clothing. IMHO he would be better served to learn the general modeling skills of a package like blender in the long run rather than spend money on an expensive program that has a definable HARD LIMIT on the types of Daz genesis clothing & accesories he can create for himself or perhaps for others as a PA.

Can't you combine the both of them in the cloth sim stage in MD?

Combine both of what??

The "hard surface" modeled items of Blender, eg badges, brooches, shoes, buttons, buckles and so on being brought into MD and then attached to the cloth sims and they cause the cloth sims to deform or stop deforming as the case may be, appropriately for the attached hard surface item.

I know that you mean that MD is not good at modeling hard surfaced items otherwise but they do need to be combined at some point and in a way that looks realistic unless your story is all hard exeskeltons and such.

jukingeo · June 2020

Hello All,

Wow! Quite the discussion taking place here and it seems like the ball is bouncing back and forth between Blender and MD. Ok, I wasn't clear in what I wanted to do and for the most part I do static pictures and not animations...yet. I might do that in the future.

In terms of creating clothing, I do admit that I like the form flowing dForce outfits...when they work. I do find myself struggling with dForce issues still and sometimes I just prefer to use clothing presets. So from what I gathered here so far, is that outside of dForce, I should be able to make most clothing in Blender? Yet, the dForce (or dynamic) clothing is better to do in MD. So do I have that correct?

There was mention of armor and hard surfaces. Well, one of my pet peeves about the auto-fit on clothing is that items that are supposed to not conform to the body and move with it, such as jewelry, and solid armor plating seems to become bendable with the figure poses. That was something that always got to me. Many pairs of earrings I have look terrible because of the auto-fit. But that was another issue I posted in another topic elsewhere.

From what I seen of the renders above of that armor, that looks pretty darn good. I mean initially, I probably will make more form fitting clothes such as bodysuits, swimsuits, underwear...that sort of thing before I move on to the more free flowing stuff. I do eventually want to do animation, but I just feel I am a LONG way off on it.

As for Blender, I have not used any versions prior to 2.8 and that is what is currently on my machine now. I just have not used it yet simply because I do not know where to begin!

So hopefully that clears things up in regards to my intentions.

BTW, that Blender scene for Napoleon is amazing! But I am no stranger to what Blender can do. This entire short movie was done in blender (BTW, I warn you, the movie below is very sad):

Now THAT is impressive.

Thanks,

Geo

AllenArt · June 2020

TheMysteryIsThePoint said:

Richard Haseltine said:

nicstt said:

Richard Haseltine said:

There is a Steam version, which has a perpetual license and doesn't require a fancy authentication sceme since it uses the Steam account. Still pricey though, depending on what you compare it with.

It's also limited in some ways, including that it can't

can't?

I think he was quite clear, Richard. It can't, and we just have to deal with that.

Can't what?

wolf359 · June 2020

nonesuch00 said:

wolf359 said:

nonesuch00 said:

wolf359 said:

TheMysteryIsThePoint said:

I also forgot about the woes of layered clothing. You will spend hours messing with collision distances and multiple simulations to accomplish something that MD is simply not phazed by at all. This is something that I gave up on in Blender but was simply a non issue in MD.

I agree, even iclones cloth physics are easier than Blender in some ways (if you paint your weightmaps correctly) and you get realtime feedback and can bake out of Iclone to Alembic

However nowhere in the OP's post did he mention dynamics simulations.

Yet every response, in this thread, assumed has has no interest in making well crafted Daz studio conformers or perhaps some of the rigid items I mentioned like Boots ,helmets ,armor ,clothing with true edge thickness, or even smart propped jewelry etc..

If the OP is truly interested in joining the ranks of us who model our own Daz genesis clothing. IMHO he would be better served to learn the general modeling skills of a package like blender in the long run rather than spend money on an expensive program that has a definable HARD LIMIT on the types of Daz genesis clothing & accesories he can create for himself or perhaps for others as a PA.

Can't you combine the both of them in the cloth sim stage in MD?

Combine both of what??

The "hard surface" modeled items of Blender, eg badges, brooches, shoes, buttons, buckles and so on being brought into MD and then attached to the cloth sims and they cause the cloth sims to deform or stop deforming as the case may be, appropriately for the attached hard surface item.

I know that you mean that MD is not good at modeling hard surfaced items otherwise but they do need to be combined at some point and in a way that looks realistic unless your story is all hard exeskeltons and such.

Well of course you can run cloth sims on characters wearing thick soled boots
etc, but you need to be able to model the thick/rigid stuff in proper 3Dmodelor
and you wont be able to do that if you only learn how to run cloth sims in Marvelous designer

TheMysteryIsThePoint · June 2020

AllenArt said:

TheMysteryIsThePoint said:

Richard Haseltine said:

nicstt said:

Richard Haseltine said:

There is a Steam version, which has a perpetual license and doesn't require a fancy authentication sceme since it uses the Steam account. Still pricey though, depending on what you compare it with.

It's also limited in some ways, including that it can't

can't?

I think he was quite clear, Richard. It can't, and we just have to deal with that.

Can't what?

That's the joke... @nicstt never completed their sentence.

TheMysteryIsThePoint · June 2020

jukingeo said:

Hello All,

Wow! Quite the discussion taking place here and it seems like the ball is bouncing back and forth between Blender and MD. Ok, I wasn't clear in what I wanted to do and for the most part I do static pictures and not animations...yet. I might do that in the future.

In terms of creating clothing, I do admit that I like the form flowing dForce outfits...when they work. I do find myself struggling with dForce issues still and sometimes I just prefer to use clothing presets.   So from what I gathered here so far, is that outside of dForce, I should be able to make most clothing in Blender? Yet, the dForce (or dynamic) clothing is better to do in MD. So do I have that correct?

There was mention of armor and hard surfaces. Well, one of my pet peeves about the auto-fit on clothing is that items that are supposed to not conform to the body and move with it, such as jewelry, and solid armor plating seems to become bendable with the figure poses. That was something that always got to me.   Many pairs of earrings I have look terrible because of the auto-fit. But that was another issue I posted in another topic elsewhere.

From what I seen of the renders above of that armor, that looks pretty darn good.   I mean initially, I probably will make more form fitting clothes such as bodysuits, swimsuits, underwear...that sort of thing before I move on to the more free flowing stuff. I do eventually want to do animation, but I just feel I am a LONG way off on it.

As for Blender, I have not used any versions prior to 2.8 and that is what is currently on my machine now.   I just have not used it yet simply because I do not know where to begin!

So hopefully that clears things up in regards to my intentions.

BTW, that Blender scene for Napoleon is amazing! But I am no stranger to what Blender can do. This entire short movie was done in blender (BTW, I warn you, the movie below is very sad):

Now THAT is impressive.

Thanks,

Geo

@Wolf359 is right about everything he's said. Blender is completely capable of making good looking rigged clothes. If you don't simulate anything, you don't need MD. You're going to waste HOURS playing with the Cloth Brush, not even doing anything, just playing with it :) I suppose you could even animate with it, if the clothing is rigged, afterall. But even if you do only stills, simulating is a quick and easy way to greater realism. In my opinion:

dForce is probably the least robust of the three engines we're talking about, and it is someone saddled by limited modelling tools in Daz Studio. But there's no arguing with the quality of the ready made content from PAs. Don't do anything ambitious, and dForce usually works and produces nice results.
The Blender Cloth Physics modifier is faster, it is more forgiving of bad topology and you can fix it with world-class modeling tools, you can start/stop/resume simulations as you like, and all sorts of "tricks" that Daz Studio users are amazed by are standard fare. But in some ways it is worse: the default values are waaaaay off, the engine is sometimes more finnicky than dForce, and you have to figure all that out instead of having a PA having done it for you, but how to get everything working the way you want is generally much easier because it is better documented and easier to find help. Another downside is that most dForce clothes from Daz Studio are not going to work out of othe box by exporting via OBJ because that format throws away all the metadata about the sim.
MD has by far the best engine; you can throw any garbage at that bugger and it's just going to work, unless you've done something very, very wrong where you should have known better. Runs on the GPU. Presets for every kind of material you've never even heard of. Some very talented artists producing garments, that tend to be less cliched than Daz Studio PAs, i.e. not EVERYTHING has to be the sexy version of itself. You can import entire animations via Alembic, simulate the whole timeline, and the Alembic export back to Blender is rock solid, if not with the greatest topology.

I guess only you can decide what is best in your case. Why not start with Blender because, again as @Wolf359 said and I couldn't agree more, learning Blender is probably the best investment in yourself that you can make, for many reasons beyond just clothes. If it falls short in any way for clothing, not in some abstract way of guys talking in a forum but rather it is stopping you from producing what you want to produce, then consider something like MD.

wolf359 · June 2020

jukingeo said:

Hello All,

Wow! Quite the discussion taking place here and it seems like the ball is bouncing back and forth between Blender and MD. Ok, I wasn't clear in what I wanted to do and for the most part I do static pictures and not animations...yet. I might do that in the future.

In terms of creating clothing, I do admit that I like the form flowing dForce outfits...when they work. I do find myself struggling with dForce issues still and sometimes I just prefer to use clothing presets.   So from what I gathered here so far, is that outside of dForce, I should be able to make most clothing in Blender? Yet, the dForce (or dynamic) clothing is better to do in MD. So do I have that correct?

There was mention of armor and hard surfaces. Well, one of my pet peeves about the auto-fit on clothing is that items that are supposed to not conform to the body and move with it, such as jewelry, and solid armor plating seems to become bendable with the figure poses. That was something that always got to me.   Many pairs of earrings I have look terrible because of the auto-fit. But that was another issue I posted in another topic elsewhere.

From what I seen of the renders above of that armor, that looks pretty darn good.   I mean initially, I probably will make more form fitting clothes such as bodysuits, swimsuits, underwear...that sort of thing before I move on to the more free flowing stuff. I do eventually want to do animation, but I just feel I am a LONG way off on it.

As for Blender, I have not used any versions prior to 2.8 and that is what is currently on my machine now.   I just have not used it yet simply because I do not know where to begin!

So hopefully that clears things up in regards to my intentions.

BTW, that Blender scene for Napoleon is amazing! But I am no stranger to what Blender can do. This entire short movie was done in blender

And of course once you really Start deep diving Blender you may find it a
better environment for scene setup and rendering as Daz has been very generous
with their free export options

( unlike a certain company who's name rymes with "steelfusion")

nonesuch00 · June 2020

wolf359 said:

nonesuch00 said:

wolf359 said:

nonesuch00 said:

wolf359 said:

TheMysteryIsThePoint said:

I also forgot about the woes of layered clothing. You will spend hours messing with collision distances and multiple simulations to accomplish something that MD is simply not phazed by at all. This is something that I gave up on in Blender but was simply a non issue in MD.

I agree, even iclones cloth physics are easier than Blender in some ways (if you paint your weightmaps correctly) and you get realtime feedback and can bake out of Iclone to Alembic

However nowhere in the OP's post did he mention dynamics simulations.

Yet every response, in this thread, assumed has has no interest in making well crafted Daz studio conformers or perhaps some of the rigid items I mentioned like Boots ,helmets ,armor ,clothing with true edge thickness, or even smart propped jewelry etc..

If the OP is truly interested in joining the ranks of us who model our own Daz genesis clothing. IMHO he would be better served to learn the general modeling skills of a package like blender in the long run rather than spend money on an expensive program that has a definable HARD LIMIT on the types of Daz genesis clothing & accesories he can create for himself or perhaps for others as a PA.

Can't you combine the both of them in the cloth sim stage in MD?

Combine both of what??

The "hard surface" modeled items of Blender, eg badges, brooches, shoes, buttons, buckles and so on being brought into MD and then attached to the cloth sims and they cause the cloth sims to deform or stop deforming as the case may be, appropriately for the attached hard surface item.

I know that you mean that MD is not good at modeling hard surfaced items otherwise but they do need to be combined at some point and in a way that looks realistic unless your story is all hard exeskeltons and such.

Well of course you can run cloth sims on characters wearing thick soled boots
etc, but you need to be able to model the thick/rigid stuff in proper 3Dmodelor
and you wont be able to do that if you only learn how to run cloth sims in Marvelous designer

I was speaking more of pinning a broach on a blouse and such things. Rigid buttons and buckles and such aren't exactly strong points on DAZ Studio products that I've purchased.

TheMysteryIsThePoint · June 2020

wolf359 said:

And of course once you really Start deep diving Blender you may find it a
better environment for scene setup and rendering as Daz has been very generous
with their free export options

( unlike a certain company who's name rymes with "steelfusion")

Hey @Wolf359, it'd be a little off-topic, but you should be more clear that that was *not* just you rotating an HDRI and changing the strength. For those people who are not familiar with that paricular plugin, they may have missed just how much awesomeness was going on :)

lilweep · June 2020

nonesuch00 said:

wolf359 said:

nonesuch00 said:

wolf359 said:

TheMysteryIsThePoint said:

I also forgot about the woes of layered clothing. You will spend hours messing with collision distances and multiple simulations to accomplish something that MD is simply not phazed by at all. This is something that I gave up on in Blender but was simply a non issue in MD.

I agree, even iclones cloth physics are easier than Blender in some ways (if you paint your weightmaps correctly) and you get realtime feedback and can bake out of Iclone to Alembic

However nowhere in the OP's post did he mention dynamics simulations.

Yet every response, in this thread, assumed has has no interest in making well crafted Daz studio conformers or perhaps some of the rigid items I mentioned like Boots ,helmets ,armor ,clothing with true edge thickness, or even smart propped jewelry etc..

If the OP is truly interested in joining the ranks of us who model our own Daz genesis clothing. IMHO he would be better served to learn the general modeling skills of a package like blender in the long run rather than spend money on an expensive program that has a definable HARD LIMIT on the types of Daz genesis clothing & accesories he can create for himself or perhaps for others as a PA.

Can't you combine the both of them in the cloth sim stage in MD?

Combine both of what??

The "hard surface" modeled items of Blender, eg badges, brooches, shoes, buttons, buckles and so on being brought into MD and then attached to the cloth sims and they cause the cloth sims to deform or stop deforming as the case may be, appropriately for the attached hard surface item.

I know that you mean that MD is not good at modeling hard surfaced items otherwise but they do need to be combined at some point and in a way that looks realistic unless your story is all hard exeskeltons and such.

You can import hard surfaces as either 'avatar' or 'trim'.

'Avatar' will interact with your simulated cloth i.e., collide with it, but it wont follow your cloth. So you have to strategise around that limitation.

'Trim's will follow your cloth but will not interact with it*.

*Trims can be assigned a specific weight in grams, so they will pinch,pull, and drag down your garment accordingly. But they will have no physical geometry, they will just be a point weight.

wolf359 · June 2020

TheMysteryIsThePoint said:

wolf359 said:

And of course once you really Start deep diving Blender you may find it a
better environment for scene setup and rendering as Daz has been very generous
with their free export options

( unlike a certain company who's name rymes with "steelfusion")

Hey @Wolf359, it'd be a little off-topic, but you should be more clear that that was *not* just you rotating an HDRI and changing the strength. For those people who are not familiar with that paricular plugin, they may have missed just how much awesomeness was going on :)

@TheMysteryIsThePoint
indeed it is a true volumetric atmosphere the likes of
which, I have not seen, since the glory Days of Eon's vue infinite.

Now if Blender ever implements a general purpose MOBU/Iclone 3Dx styled
Character motion retargeter
My life will be complete.

jukingeo · June 2020

wolf359 said:

And of course once you really Start deep diving Blender you may find it a
better environment for scene setup and rendering as Daz has been very generous
with their free export options

That is what I was thinking. Blender seems to touch upon many areas of 3D Art. Even my sons use it to animate 5 Nights At Freddy's figures. Also Blender came up when I was looking into Z-Brush for sculpting, so it seems like the program does quite a bit and it is a serious contender. And one of the best parts is that it is free!

nonesuch00 said:

I was speaking more of pinning a broach on a blouse and such things. Rigid buttons and buckles and such aren't exactly strong points on DAZ Studio products that I've purchased.

This is a pet peeve I have with many Daz Studio products...particularly earrings. Sometimes something that is supposed to be rigidly round and you know it to be round, ends up totally distorted. The same is true of rings and other pieces of clothing which might look fine in the static T or A pose, but just try and twist the body and the round ring becomes a parallogram! So creating a rigid item in Blender transfers over better to Daz Studio?

lilweep said:

You can import hard surfaces as either 'avatar' or 'trim'.

'Avatar' will interact with your simulated cloth i.e., collide with it, but it wont follow your cloth. So you have to strategise around that limitation.

'Trim's will follow your cloth but will not interact with it*.

*Trims can be assigned a specific weight in grams, so they will pinch,pull, and drag down your garment accordingly. But they will have no physical geometry, they will just be a point weight.

Ok, this I don't know anything about.

So in all, being that I am mostly dealing with static pictures, I would be best off to start with Blender? So say if I create a skirt, I could create manual morph sliders for parts of it so I could adjust it for say a seated position or walking? If so, I am good with that.

I have seen some products in Daz that just alter a garments position. So I am wondering if I would take a skirt that doesn't have many options, bring it over to Blender and then add some more morph dials so it could better fit a character? Is it also possible to fix the armpit and crotch stretching issues when trying to use Gen 2 and 3 clothing on Genesis 8?

Could I create a complete outfit from scratch?

If that is a Yes, then it does look like Blender would be the road I will be heading down.

Thanks,

Geo

nonesuch00 · June 2020

jukingeo said:

wolf359 said:

And of course once you really Start deep diving Blender you may find it a
better environment for scene setup and rendering as Daz has been very generous
with their free export options

That is what I was thinking. Blender seems to touch upon many areas of 3D Art. Even my sons use it to animate 5 Nights At Freddy's figures. Also Blender came up when I was looking into Z-Brush for sculpting, so it seems like the program does quite a bit and it is a serious contender. And one of the best parts is that it is free!

nonesuch00 said:

I was speaking more of pinning a broach on a blouse and such things. Rigid buttons and buckles and such aren't exactly strong points on DAZ Studio products that I've purchased.

This is a pet peeve I have with many Daz Studio products...particularly earrings. Sometimes something that is supposed to be rigidly round and you know it to be round, ends up totally distorted. The same is true of rings and other pieces of clothing which might look fine in the static T or A pose, but just try and twist the body and the round ring becomes a parallogram! So creating a rigid item in Blender transfers over better to Daz Studio?

lilweep said:

You can import hard surfaces as either 'avatar' or 'trim'.

'Avatar' will interact with your simulated cloth i.e., collide with it, but it wont follow your cloth. So you have to strategise around that limitation.

'Trim's will follow your cloth but will not interact with it*.

*Trims can be assigned a specific weight in grams, so they will pinch,pull, and drag down your garment accordingly. But they will have no physical geometry, they will just be a point weight.

Ok, this I don't know anything about.

So in all, being that I am mostly dealing with static pictures, I would be best off to start with Blender? So say if I create a skirt, I could create manual morph sliders for parts of it so I could adjust it for say a seated position or walking? If so, I am good with that.

I have seen some products in Daz that just alter a garments position. So I am wondering if I would take a skirt that doesn't have many options, bring it over to Blender and then add some more morph dials so it could better fit a character? Is it also possible to fix the armpit and crotch stretching issues when trying to use Gen 2 and 3 clothing on Genesis 8?

Could I create a complete outfit from scratch?

If that is a Yes, then it does look like Blender would be the road I will be heading down.

Thanks,

Geo

Yes, autofit has problems that DAZ 3D should add a parameter or two to their models capabilities such as to keep rigit objects rigid. I'd really like DAZ Studio to get to the point that it can animate as easy and dForce as easy as Blender but if they don't then at least the products I've bought/licensed are exportable to SW that can. As my licensed models from DAZ are must easily storyboarded in DAZ it makes sense to use DAZ so I wait. I'm not in a hurry either way.

HowieFarkes has done wonders for making DAZ Studio more usuable for nice storyboards.

TheMysteryIsThePoint · June 2020

wolf359 said:
@TheMysteryIsThePoint
indeed it is a true volumetric atmosphere the likes of
which, I have not seen, since the glory Days of Eon's vue infinite.

Now if Blender ever implements a general purpose MOBU/Iclone 3Dx styled
Character motion retargeter
My life will be complete.

You and me both, brother.

lilweep · June 2020

nonesuch00 said:

jukingeo said:

wolf359 said:

And of course once you really Start deep diving Blender you may find it a
better environment for scene setup and rendering as Daz has been very generous
with their free export options

That is what I was thinking. Blender seems to touch upon many areas of 3D Art. Even my sons use it to animate 5 Nights At Freddy's figures. Also Blender came up when I was looking into Z-Brush for sculpting, so it seems like the program does quite a bit and it is a serious contender. And one of the best parts is that it is free!

nonesuch00 said:

I was speaking more of pinning a broach on a blouse and such things. Rigid buttons and buckles and such aren't exactly strong points on DAZ Studio products that I've purchased.

This is a pet peeve I have with many Daz Studio products...particularly earrings. Sometimes something that is supposed to be rigidly round and you know it to be round, ends up totally distorted. The same is true of rings and other pieces of clothing which might look fine in the static T or A pose, but just try and twist the body and the round ring becomes a parallogram! So creating a rigid item in Blender transfers over better to Daz Studio?

lilweep said:

You can import hard surfaces as either 'avatar' or 'trim'.

'Avatar' will interact with your simulated cloth i.e., collide with it, but it wont follow your cloth. So you have to strategise around that limitation.

'Trim's will follow your cloth but will not interact with it*.

*Trims can be assigned a specific weight in grams, so they will pinch,pull, and drag down your garment accordingly. But they will have no physical geometry, they will just be a point weight.

Ok, this I don't know anything about.

So in all, being that I am mostly dealing with static pictures, I would be best off to start with Blender? So say if I create a skirt, I could create manual morph sliders for parts of it so I could adjust it for say a seated position or walking? If so, I am good with that.

I have seen some products in Daz that just alter a garments position. So I am wondering if I would take a skirt that doesn't have many options, bring it over to Blender and then add some more morph dials so it could better fit a character? Is it also possible to fix the armpit and crotch stretching issues when trying to use Gen 2 and 3 clothing on Genesis 8?

Could I create a complete outfit from scratch?

If that is a Yes, then it does look like Blender would be the road I will be heading down.

Thanks,

Geo

Yes, autofit has problems that DAZ 3D should add a parameter or two to their models capabilities such as to keep rigit objects rigid. I'd really like DAZ Studio to get to the point that it can animate as easy and dForce as easy as Blender but if they don't then at least the products I've bought/licensed are exportable to SW that can. As my licensed models from DAZ are must easily storyboarded in DAZ it makes sense to use DAZ so I wait. I'm not in a hurry either way.

HowieFarkes has done wonders for making DAZ Studio more usuable for nice storyboards.

You do realise there are rigid follow nodes in Daz. All hard body accessorys to clothing should be attached as rigid follow nodes. You can edit any existing Daz clothing you have which arent making use of the rigid follow node option, and you can make the buttons etc rigid follow nodes (as long as you can select the offending geometry in geometry editor.)

My understanding is that there is also the option to use the weight mapping brush in Daz to make different parts (at least bones) of the outfit follow the character rigging to different extents.

lilweep · June 2020

jukingeo said:

wolf359 said:

And of course once you really Start deep diving Blender you may find it a
better environment for scene setup and rendering as Daz has been very generous
with their free export options

That is what I was thinking. Blender seems to touch upon many areas of 3D Art. Even my sons use it to animate 5 Nights At Freddy's figures. Also Blender came up when I was looking into Z-Brush for sculpting, so it seems like the program does quite a bit and it is a serious contender. And one of the best parts is that it is free!

nonesuch00 said:

I was speaking more of pinning a broach on a blouse and such things. Rigid buttons and buckles and such aren't exactly strong points on DAZ Studio products that I've purchased.

This is a pet peeve I have with many Daz Studio products...particularly earrings. Sometimes something that is supposed to be rigidly round and you know it to be round, ends up totally distorted. The same is true of rings and other pieces of clothing which might look fine in the static T or A pose, but just try and twist the body and the round ring becomes a parallogram! So creating a rigid item in Blender transfers over better to Daz Studio?

lilweep said:

You can import hard surfaces as either 'avatar' or 'trim'.

'Avatar' will interact with your simulated cloth i.e., collide with it, but it wont follow your cloth. So you have to strategise around that limitation.

'Trim's will follow your cloth but will not interact with it*.

*Trims can be assigned a specific weight in grams, so they will pinch,pull, and drag down your garment accordingly. But they will have no physical geometry, they will just be a point weight.

Ok, this I don't know anything about.

So in all, being that I am mostly dealing with static pictures, I would be best off to start with Blender? So say if I create a skirt, I could create manual morph sliders for parts of it so I could adjust it for say a seated position or walking? If so, I am good with that.

I have seen some products in Daz that just alter a garments position. So I am wondering if I would take a skirt that doesn't have many options, bring it over to Blender and then add some more morph dials so it could better fit a character? Is it also possible to fix the armpit and crotch stretching issues when trying to use Gen 2 and 3 clothing on Genesis 8?

Could I create a complete outfit from scratch?

If that is a Yes, then it does look like Blender would be the road I will be heading down.

Thanks,

Geo

disclaimer: i have never made a daz product nor followed the full garment creation process for Daz studio.

All i was doing in my post was commenting on the capabilities of Marvelous Designer for interactng with hard body objects that you import. Cloth will not necessarily ever need to interact with rigid objects besides your figure, that is if you're just making simple cloth garments, but you might have accessories, overlayed armour, etc., which would need to interact with the cloth. I was just describing the potential of MD to do that.

I dont have much experience with Blender, but there are lots of sculpting tools there, so you would be able to fix any problematic clothing areas with them, i.e., create a joint controlled morph. For movement and fit morphs, you can do those in blender or theoretically in Daz itself (using mesh grabber).

jukingeo · June 2020

Thank you all for the information, I guess it looks like I will be heading down the path of Blender and I will see what that can do. If it isn't for me in terms of clothing, then I certainly could use Blender for other things. I been meaning to start to use it anyway, so it seems like the logical way to go.

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Character / Clothing creation tutorials for using Blender 2.8 with Daz Studio

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