Loading...
> >

"Freeing" the content? What's this now?

123468

Comments

  • McGyverMcGyver Posts: 7,008

    Someone needs to change this thread title... the cat is outta the bag now* and we now understand the reference to "freeing".

     

     

     

    *No actual cats were harmed or bagged at any time.

  • SevrinSevrin Posts: 6,301
    nonesuch00 said:
    SnowSultan said:

    Just curious, I installed the Blender bridge and nothing is showing up in my Scripts menu. Any suggestions for what might be going wrong?

    It's Release DAZ Studio only, not DAZ Studio Public Beta.

    And since that question is answered here is another bug for this DAZToBlender exporter:

         You cannot nest the G8F/G8M or G3M/G3F into a group because the DAZToBlender plugin will claim there is no G8F/G8M availble: eg; I habitually create nested groups Actors -> Guys; Actors -> Gals;  Actors -> Animals and you see what I'm doing; just creating groups to quickly hide & unhide things and such work flow organization tasks: well that breaks the plugin until I unparent the actor from the group.

    That's not a bug.  The bridge is for single  characters and what's parented to them.  That's it.

  • LeanaLeana Posts: 11,072
    richardandtracy said:

    Interesting. Quite impressive bits of software.

    Shame there is no manual install listed. I shall hope that this will change... Having an off-line machine means that manual install the is only sort I can use.

    AFAIK you can install with DIM on a machine which is not online: install DIM on that machine, download the zips from a different machine then copy them in the DIM downloads folder on the offline machine, they should now appear as "ready to install" in DIM there.

  • Philippi_ChildPhilippi_Child Posts: 648

    I don't do social media so I would't know either.

  • nonesuch00nonesuch00 Posts: 17,954
    Sevrin said:
    nonesuch00 said:
    SnowSultan said:

    Just curious, I installed the Blender bridge and nothing is showing up in my Scripts menu. Any suggestions for what might be going wrong?

    It's Release DAZ Studio only, not DAZ Studio Public Beta.

    And since that question is answered here is another bug for this DAZToBlender exporter:

         You cannot nest the G8F/G8M or G3M/G3F into a group because the DAZToBlender plugin will claim there is no G8F/G8M availble: eg; I habitually create nested groups Actors -> Guys; Actors -> Gals;  Actors -> Animals and you see what I'm doing; just creating groups to quickly hide & unhide things and such work flow organization tasks: well that breaks the plugin until I unparent the actor from the group.

    That's not a bug.  The bridge is for single  characters and what's parented to them.  That's it.

    Then, yes it is a bug because that's all I had selected and it shouldn't try to export what I've not selected. It's not like if you were to select a single number on your phone you'd expect the phone software to go ahead and select all the other keypads on your phone dialpad.

  • SnowSultanSnowSultan Posts: 3,510

    >>It's Release DAZ Studio only, not DAZ Studio Public Beta.<<

    Can someone confirm if this is true? I only use the betas in order to get updated bug fixes.

  • lana_lasslana_lass Posts: 518
    edited July 2020
    j cade said:

    So after some initial playing with the bridge as someone who has also been having fun with the diffeo plugin

    official bridge advantages

    • loading in and having an fk/ik setup is nice... really nice. As is the look of the face bone setup
    • there do appear to be some tools for loading morphs back into ds! I do a lot of morphs in blender if this can speed up that up +100 thank you daz my crops are watered

     

    Thanks so much for confirming this!! laugh I use Blender for morph creation too, so the Bridge being a single traffic lane would have been a mega bummer (which is how it looked from the product page).

     

    I've got to admit, it's never really occured to me to use Blender as a render engine for Daz stuff... however, I'm guessing from people's reactions on that front that it produces superior quality (speed?) than rendering within Daz? 

    Post edited by lana_lass on
  • benniewoodellbenniewoodell Posts: 1,914
    SnowSultan said:

    >>It's Release DAZ Studio only, not DAZ Studio Public Beta.<<

    Can someone confirm if this is true? I only use the betas in order to get updated bug fixes.

    @SnowSultan Mine says it's 4.12 pro and when I load it is says 4.12.1118. I just keep updating it whenever it shows up in DIM so I don't know if that's the beta or the released version of Daz. Hope that helps in some way for your question. 

    @lana_lass I animated a short film this year (my quarantine project) in Blender with Daz characters and environments and it was amazing. I rendered it in Eevee and many times full shots of 100 frames or more were finished rendering sat back down from getting a drink. My ten minute short film rendered in probably about an hour since I did some comping shots. Granted, with Eevee you're not going to get photorealism, but I was doing an anime styled film so I didn't want realism. With Cycles you'll get amazing photorealism and I can get frames to about 8 minutes or so to render fully with the internal denoiser which works great, or there's render farm options with Blender that's easy to integrate!

  • KitsumoKitsumo Posts: 1,212
    lana_lass said:
    j cade said:

    So after some initial playing with the bridge as someone who has also been having fun with the diffeo plugin

    official bridge advantages

    • loading in and having an fk/ik setup is nice... really nice. As is the look of the face bone setup
    • there do appear to be some tools for loading morphs back into ds! I do a lot of morphs in blender if this can speed up that up +100 thank you daz my crops are watered

     

    Thanks so much for confirming this!! laugh I use Blender for morph creation too, so the Bridge being a single traffic lane would have been a mega bummer (which is how it looked from the product page).

     

    I've got to admit, it's never really occured to me to use Blender as a render engine for Daz stuff... however, I'm guessing from people's reactions on that front that it produces superior quality (speed?) than rendering within Daz? 

    In my experience it isn't really faster or higher quality, but Blender gives you access to other things like smoke/fire, rigid and soft body physics, liquids, particle simulations, and render with motion blur.

    dragon image

  • Catherine3678abCatherine3678ab Posts: 8,032
    mindsong said:
    Catherine3678ab said:

    The Notes section on the page for Daz to 3ds Max Bridge requires some TLC. It is the information for the Maya bridge.

    1. Even if it requires a little readme as to where you want what installed, please make the Blender Bridge [at least] available for manual download. Thank you.

    ....................

    And guess what snoopy found today :-)  -- Available ONLY by Manual Download in our Product Libraries :-)

     

    Hey snoopy! :)

    good eye!

    How did you find those? Is there a clever search string you've used in the product manager?

    thanks in advance,

    --ms

    ETA: The store has a "browse all items" for these export-enabled items right now, but I'm still curious if there's a search trick for this - I could see using it for templates that the DIM doesn't acknowledge. tnx.

    No clever search string. Just happened to be browsing through my Product Library manually and came across these additional files to existing purchases. The D/S files which can be downloaded via DIM were also present. If people have those same products, they too should have them. There could be more available for other products, not combing the thousands of pages ;-)

     

  • Catherine3678abCatherine3678ab Posts: 8,032
    nonesuch00 said:
    Catherine3678ab said:

    The Notes section on the page for Daz to 3ds Max Bridge requires some TLC. It is the information for the Maya bridge.

    1. Even if it requires a little readme as to where you want what installed, please make the Blender Bridge [at least] available for manual download. Thank you.

    ....................

    And guess what snoopy found today :-)  -- Available ONLY by Manual Download in our Product Libraries :-)

     

    I have ordered all 4 of those new plugins and none of that 3D content showup up in my Product Library. When I click the link to the plugin I'm taken to the Product Library readme page which gives the option to click on the order number which takes me to a download page for all the products of that order, which does not include the 3D models you took screen shots of, or a link I could click on to take my to the original store page for the ordered product which also has not dowload links for the 3D products you shown.

    Maybe you are a PA and so are given extra test products regular customers don't get? 

    I wish, nope. Just happened across the additional files in some existing products in the Product Library. Manual search. Funsville.

  • JOdelJOdel Posts: 6,256
    edited July 2020

    Okay. What I want to know is; do these bridges make it possible to import a freebie in one of these formats into studio. There are a lot of 3DMax freebies out there that I'd rather like to be able to use.

    ETA: Never mind. I put them in my cart, so they're in my purchase history. But you can't access them unless you have DIM. Forget it.

     

    Post edited by JOdel on
  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 97,374
    SnowSultan said:

    >>It's Release DAZ Studio only, not DAZ Studio Public Beta.<<

    Can someone confirm if this is true? I only use the betas in order to get updated bug fixes.

    It is true. I wasn't sure if this was a limitiation of the bridges (in the saem way that there can be only one GoZ for DS installed at a time) but apparently it's a current limtiation of DIM. Rob has provided a manual workaround that will add the bridge to any different release channels you may have:

    t can be worked around by following these steps: 1) Close Daz Studio - all builds from all channels that you have running. 2) Install the "bridge" product(s) you are interested in using, via Install Manager. 3) In Install Manager, on the Installed page, right-click one of the installed "bridge" packages and choose "Show Installed Files..." from the context menu. 4) In the resulting dialog, near the top, locate the hyperlink for "/DAZ 3D/Studio4/RunOnce/Daz to <AppName>_Install.dsa" and click it - this will open an OS file browser to the location of the file(s). 5) Select all of the "Daz to <AppName>_Install.dsa" files and right-click > Copy. 6) Go up 2 directories in the OS file browser - to the directory named "DAZ 3D". 7) Navigate to the "RunOnce" directory within each of the "Stud
     io4 <ReleaseChannel>" directories for each of the release channels you want to use the "bridge" with and right-click > Paste. 8) Launch Daz Studio <ReleaseChannel> - this will cause the script(s) you just copied/pasted to execute (and then be deleted), the custom actions to be created and automatically added to the default menu/toolbar locations.

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 97,374
    JOdel said:

    Okay. What I want to know is; do these bridges make it possible to import a freebie in one of these formats into studio. There are a lot of 3DMax freebies out there that I'd rather like to be able to use.

    ETA: Never mind. I put them in my cart, so they're in my purchase history. But you can't access them unless you have DIM. Forget it.

    No, they are DS to application bridges only (at least for now). Even if they weren't, and even if they were file importers rather than tools from going to one active application to another, .max is tied to 3D Studio - as far as I am aware nothing (except perhaps other AutoDesk applciations) can read a .max file

  • Catherine3678abCatherine3678ab Posts: 8,032
    SnowSultan said:

    Thanks, but I've restarted Studio twice after installing the bridge and also uninstalled/reinstalled the bridge too. Do you happen to know exactly where the bridge files are installed, maybe I can just manually put them where they need to be. Thanks in advance.

    I installed DIM just to get this bridge [won't the company be happy yeah] ... also snagged that beta Hexagon for 64 bit too. Took advantage of its super speed for backing up files and uninstalled it. It's been a long night lol ...

    Okay ... don't know if this will help. Did find 3 Daz to Blender files here:  C:\Program Files\DAZ 3D\DAZStudio4\scripts\support\DAZ

    And in D/S they are located under Scripts up top. Knowing how fragile that location is, I immediately saved the layout. {sometimes that whole custom scripts button goes awol}

     

    Bridges.png
    799 x 613 - 62K
  • Catherine3678abCatherine3678ab Posts: 8,032

    With regards to the store pages ... somebody might want to check them all. Seems that while yes they are mentioning of the Blender, Max, etc. files ... they are OMITTING the D/S file types. While most store items work in D/S some do not. Some are for Carrara or Bryce.

  • nonesuch00nonesuch00 Posts: 17,954
    Catherine3678ab said:
    nonesuch00 said:
    Catherine3678ab said:

    The Notes section on the page for Daz to 3ds Max Bridge requires some TLC. It is the information for the Maya bridge.

    1. Even if it requires a little readme as to where you want what installed, please make the Blender Bridge [at least] available for manual download. Thank you.

    ....................

    And guess what snoopy found today :-)  -- Available ONLY by Manual Download in our Product Libraries :-)

     

    I have ordered all 4 of those new plugins and none of that 3D content showup up in my Product Library. When I click the link to the plugin I'm taken to the Product Library readme page which gives the option to click on the order number which takes me to a download page for all the products of that order, which does not include the 3D models you took screen shots of, or a link I could click on to take my to the original store page for the ordered product which also has not dowload links for the 3D products you shown.

    Maybe you are a PA and so are given extra test products regular customers don't get? 

    I wish, nope. Just happened across the additional files in some existing products in the Product Library. Manual search. Funsville.

    Well I don't have 1000s of pages but didn't have the files you have and I did manual check (skim) each page. Glad for you though I was only mildly curious I'm not going to follow it up with a ticket.

  • SnowSultanSnowSultan Posts: 3,510
    edited July 2020

    Thanks Richard, I will *slowly* test that workaround shortly.  :)    Thanks also to Catherine, that's good to know.

     

    edit: Never mind, the script appeared as expected now. Thank you and to Rob for the detailed instructions.

    Post edited by SnowSultan on
  • jmtbankjmtbank Posts: 165
    lana_lass said:
    j cade said:

    I've got to admit, it's never really occured to me to use Blender as a render engine for Daz stuff... however, I'm guessing from people's reactions on that front that it produces superior quality (speed?) than rendering within Daz? 

    I can see why the animators are happy.  For me though its the potential to ditch Nvidia thats piqued my interest.  Not looking forward to learning blender though, but am sort of expecting to come out of it kicking myself for not doing so sooner.

  • Catherine3678abCatherine3678ab Posts: 8,032
    edited July 2020

    Sigh.

    D/S 4.12 ... bridge to Blender does not appear to work. It spends the time doing something to ready the G8F file alright, but then dialog vanishes and Blender does not open with the figure. Even downloaded and installed the recent Blender to the default location and no-go. So uninstalled that. Have previous edition in unique placement so was not disturbed by installing the updated edition.

    Am I missing a step? [solVed :-)]

    Did notice in Blender an option to add the bridge for 3D Coat, and it appears to have links for both ways. Saw nothing available for D/S though.

    Post edited by Catherine3678ab on
  • Catherine3678abCatherine3678ab Posts: 8,032
    nonesuch00 said:
    Catherine3678ab said:
    nonesuch00 said:
    Catherine3678ab said:

    The Notes section on the page for Daz to 3ds Max Bridge requires some TLC. It is the information for the Maya bridge.

    1. Even if it requires a little readme as to where you want what installed, please make the Blender Bridge [at least] available for manual download. Thank you.

    ....................

    And guess what snoopy found today :-)  -- Available ONLY by Manual Download in our Product Libraries :-)

     

    I have ordered all 4 of those new plugins and none of that 3D content showup up in my Product Library. When I click the link to the plugin I'm taken to the Product Library readme page which gives the option to click on the order number which takes me to a download page for all the products of that order, which does not include the 3D models you took screen shots of, or a link I could click on to take my to the original store page for the ordered product which also has not dowload links for the 3D products you shown.

    Maybe you are a PA and so are given extra test products regular customers don't get? 

    I wish, nope. Just happened across the additional files in some existing products in the Product Library. Manual search. Funsville.

    Well I don't have 1000s of pages but didn't have the files you have and I did manual check (skim) each page. Glad for you though I was only mildly curious I'm not going to follow it up with a ticket.

    Since the options appear to be showing on the Product Pages in the Store now too, unchecking to hide what one owns, one could possibly browse the store pages for possible files. I would think that they'll probably be adding the options to as many products as they can but it will take some time.

    I did not download any of the other files yet ... haven't got the bridge working either apparently.

  • captainklutz_a2ec859073captainklutz_a2ec859073 Posts: 196

    I'm more interested in importing other 3d programs output into Daz, but I can appreciate that it won't be a priority for them. :/

  • mike_from_nzmike_from_nz Posts: 113

    Wow! Really impressed, have just had a 15min play importing a Floyd 8 model and doing a very simple 40 frame animation. My animation skills are absolutely rubbish so that will be the next learning curve.

    Export/Import worked nice and fast without clothing. With clothing the export slowed down dramatically. 

    Having any subdivision on in the Blender viewport is pretty much unusable on my box (reasonably good performer). But with off posing works absolutely fine. The rigging is really good!

    Noticed a weird camera clipping in Blender, but this might be to do with the large scale it imports in at.

    Have always wanted to use Daz figures more in my Blender renders (got a bit sick of how long it took me to reorganise textures), this now opens up so much. I wonder if an option to export without rig eg. for still Blender work might speed things up a bit for some?

  • TheMysteryIsThePointTheMysteryIsThePoint Posts: 2,892
    mike_a5f82f8385 said:
    Noticed a weird camera clipping in Blender, but this might be to do with the large scale it imports in at.?

    The character is scaled correctly. You can verify this by hitting n, and viewing the Item tab for the selected item and looking at the dimensions. Scaling it will mess up lighting and physical simulations.

    You can use the . key on the numpad to frame the selceted object, the / key to frame and hide everything else, and the home key to frame the camera in camra view.

    You can fix the clipping by hitting n, the view tab, and change the clipping plane distance to anything other than zero, say 0.0001.

  • benniewoodellbenniewoodell Posts: 1,914
    mike_a5f82f8385 said:

    Wow! Really impressed, have just had a 15min play importing a Floyd 8 model and doing a very simple 40 frame animation. My animation skills are absolutely rubbish so that will be the next learning curve.

    Export/Import worked nice and fast without clothing. With clothing the export slowed down dramatically. 

    Having any subdivision on in the Blender viewport is pretty much unusable on my box (reasonably good performer). But with off posing works absolutely fine. The rigging is really good!

    Noticed a weird camera clipping in Blender, but this might be to do with the large scale it imports in at.

    Have always wanted to use Daz figures more in my Blender renders (got a bit sick of how long it took me to reorganise textures), this now opens up so much. I wonder if an option to export without rig eg. for still Blender work might speed things up a bit for some?

    Under the view tab on the right hand side, it should be above the daz to blender tab, look for end, I believe and change that to like a million as well as go into the camera settings itself and change that end to a million and the clipping should be gone if I'm thinking what you're talking about is what I'm thinking. 

  • Catherine3678abCatherine3678ab Posts: 8,032
    edited July 2020

    Well I'm giving up. Tried reinstalling after again installing most recent Blender. No dice. The bridge does not show up to add in Blender. Any edition of Blender. I did add the path for the most recent Blender to DIM. Didn't help any.

    Wild guess here the bridge 'might' work only in the most recent edition of D/S BUT if can't get it to install something to Blender too, not happening.

    I looked carefully at the images on the product page. I will maintain that providing a manual download so we can put the pieces in the right places and/or get Blender to then find and install them, might be a good idea.

    Have tucked the bridge under the waters.

    eta: problem solved. And download folder found :-)

    Post edited by Catherine3678ab on
  • mike_from_nzmike_from_nz Posts: 113
    TheMysteryIsThePoint said:
    mike_a5f82f8385 said:
    Noticed a weird camera clipping in Blender, but this might be to do with the large scale it imports in at.?

    The character is scaled correctly. You can verify this by hitting n, and viewing the Item tab for the selected item and looking at the dimensions. Scaling it will mess up lighting and physical simulations.

    You can use the . key on the numpad to frame the selceted object, the / key to frame and hide everything else, and the home key to frame the camera in camra view.

    You can fix the clipping by hitting n, the view tab, and change the clipping plane distance to anything other than zero, say 0.0001.

    Sorry, yes you are correct the scaling is right. Adjusting the clip start fixed the clipping too.

  • TheMysteryIsThePointTheMysteryIsThePoint Posts: 2,892
    mike_a5f82f8385 said:
    Have always wanted to use Daz figures more in my Blender renders (got a bit sick of how long it took me to reorganise textures), this now opens up so much. I wonder if an option to export without rig eg. for still Blender work might speed things up a bit for some?

    Diffeo does textures much better than Daz To Blender.

    mike_a5f82f8385 said:
    TheMysteryIsThePoint said:
    mike_a5f82f8385 said:
    Noticed a weird camera clipping in Blender, but this might be to do with the large scale it imports in at.?

    The character is scaled correctly. You can verify this by hitting n, and viewing the Item tab for the selected item and looking at the dimensions. Scaling it will mess up lighting and physical simulations.

    You can use the . key on the numpad to frame the selceted object, the / key to frame and hide everything else, and the home key to frame the camera in camra view.

    You can fix the clipping by hitting n, the view tab, and change the clipping plane distance to anything other than zero, say 0.0001.

    Sorry, yes you are correct the scaling is right. Adjusting the clip start fixed the clipping too.

    Happy blending!

  • AllenArtAllenArt Posts: 7,145
    edited July 2020
    Catherine3678ab said:

    Well I'm giving up. Tried reinstalling after again installing most recent Blender. No dice. The bridge does not show up to add in Blender. Any edition of Blender. I did add the path for the most recent Blender to DIM. Didn't help any.

    Wild guess here the bridge 'might' work only in the most recent edition of D/S BUT if can't get it to install something to Blender too, not happening.

    I looked carefully at the images on the product page. I will maintain that providing a manual download so we can put the pieces in the right places and/or get Blender to then find and install them, might be a good idea.

    Have tucked the bridge under the waters.

    There is an extra file that you must install into Blender thru Edit/Preferences. Choose to install from file and migrate to the Daz to Blender Blender addon zip file. I found the Blender addon here on my machine (I have Windows 8):

    C:\Users\My Name\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\DAZ 3D Add-ons  It's called DTB_v280-283.zip

    I copied the zip to my desktop and installed from there - mainly because Blender cannot see the AppData folder, even if it's not hidden.

    Laurie

    Post edited by AllenArt on
  • Catherine3678abCatherine3678ab Posts: 8,032
    AllenArt said:
    Catherine3678ab said:

    Well I'm giving up. Tried reinstalling after again installing most recent Blender. No dice. The bridge does not show up to add in Blender. Any edition of Blender. I did add the path for the most recent Blender to DIM. Didn't help any.

    Wild guess here the bridge 'might' work only in the most recent edition of D/S BUT if can't get it to install something to Blender too, not happening.

    I looked carefully at the images on the product page. I will maintain that providing a manual download so we can put the pieces in the right places and/or get Blender to then find and install them, might be a good idea.

    Have tucked the bridge under the waters.

    There is an extra file that you must install into Blender thru Edit/Preferences. Choose to install from file and migrate to the Daz to Blender Blender addon zip file. I found the Blender addon here on my machine (I have Windows 8):

    C:\Users\My Name\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\DAZ 3D Add-ons  It's called DTB_v280-283.zip

    I copied the zip to my desktop and installed from there - mainly because Blender cannot see the AppData folder, even if it's not hidden.

    Laurie

    Okay thank you I'll try that.

Sign In or Register to comment.