Sell me on Blender animation over Studio's
SnowSultan
Posts: 3,773
I'm getting back into trying to use Blender now that the DAZ bridge has improved dramatically, but I haven't yet experimented very much with Blender's animation features. Could someone more experienced tell me some of the advantages to animating a DAZ figure in Blender would be over animating it in Studio?
Studio features: Parameter panel monitoring allows for quick edits to specific dials, aniblock support allows for moving and retiming of portions of animations, Powerpose offers excellent UI for posing all body parts including fingers and multiple bone manipulation, IK and Activepose options.
Blender features: OK, I'm listening...
Thanks in advance.
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I watched this just out of curiosity a week or so ago; it gives a good overview, some tips and a quick look at a process
I think a more relevant question is :
What are the quality Levels of animated productionsthat have been done within Daz studio
compared to Blender?
And before you say "those Blender films were made with large teams, Ask yourself Why thoseTeams are using Blender instead of Daz studio..both are free yes??
The "posing for portaits" features of Daz studio are great... for that purpose
But what happens when you need a characters Feet to stay firmly to the floor for root locomotion
or squatting as in the first 30 seconds of "Peaches" by Benniewoodelle.
Daz studio has no native abilty to cull keyframes down to a managable level
after baking an aniblock to keyframes or importing some mocap data-BVH-Blender can.
The Daz studio dopesheet and graph editor has No
tangent handles for the individual keys- Blender does
The Daz studio graph editor has No Filtering for keys such as cycling/pin pong etc for repetive actions-Blender has several filters
Animate2 does not even fully support Genesis 3/8 for partial body part filtering
Blenders motion clip system automaticly fully supports whatever character rig you are using including imported daz,Iclone,Maya figures
The Daz Studio timeline cannot be peeled off from the dope sheet and placed over onto a second monitor-Blenders UI customization across multiple monitors is truly unlimited
A Daz figure being used in Blender can be reviewed fully rendered in near realtime
in the view port with SSS/Ambient occlusion, reflections etc.
this makes scene building/look dev a joy
How is Irays viewport performance/speed and how Does "Filament compare to EEVEE in terms of realism??
Iray has no motion blur, depth of field or volumetric lighting effects(Haze ,Fog) thus your Daz studio animations will never have a truly cinematic quality to them.
And before anyone mentions 3Delight ask what level of support does 3DL materials have with NEW Daz studio content these days.
All animation in Blender is handled with aniblocks (called "Actions") by default. You use the NLA editor to assemble them, but you'll have a time figuring it out. Blender is professional-grade animation software; the worst thing about it is there's so much stuff to learn. There's motion paths, which let you chart the flow of objects through your scene; a grease pencil, which lets you block out your shots; support for volumetric lights, fire, smoke, liquid, physics simulations beyond just a dForce-like cloth sim.
The IK is also better, IMO. In Daz, when you move a pinned limb beyond its threshold, it'll permanently stay in its new position. But in Blender, the IK remembers where the control point is and will automatically move back when you reposition the limb closer.
Blender has a subsystem called "Drivers" that work just like Daz parameters. With a little bit of Python scripting, you can rig up a variable to, say, control a clenched fist. The biggest advantage Daz Studio has is that they made the Genesis platform and have a standardized asset library, so they can optimize Daz to work with it. Blender can do pretty much everything, but it needs some extra set-up since there's no standardized human rig. Daz excels when you're posing a character--one that's tightly integrated with the software--at 0,0,0. But I find scene navigation in large scenes to be lacking: the fly mode is capped at 100 units, so it's impossible to move anywhere quickly; sometimes when you frame a character the camera will inexplicably jump back fifty feet; clicking on widgets is fidgety and having to go back and forth to the Tool Settings pane to enable snapping and change the rotation/translation axis is cumbersome. I don't have any of these issues with Blender. Once you learn the hotkeys, scene navigation is a breeze.
Thanks for the responses so far. I'm not arguing that Blender has better features, I just would like to know what they are so I can compare them to the ones I do know in Studio. :)
wolf: Heh, I was hoping you'd respond because you're one of the only serious animators around here. You actually can put the DAZ Studio timeline on another monitor (you just have to leave it as a floating window), unless you mean to separate it from the curve/graph section though. Iray does have depth of field, but it doesn't work in animation? I never tried.
Powerpose is a big selling point for me with DAZ Studio, which is why I was asking a while back about something similar for Blender (which doesn't appear to exist). Can you use the FACS face posing rig for Genesis 8.1 in Blender, or do you have to select individual bones there too?
Blender doesn't have PowerPose per se, but if you use the front orthographic view, grab a bone, and double-tap the "R" key to enable trackball rotation, it works pretty much exactly like PowerPose anyway. Daz relies a lot on fidgety widgets, but in Blender you can typically just tap a hotkey and move the mouse to control the strength of the effect. You can also hold "Shift" for extremely fine control, something Daz is sorely lacking.
If you're talking specifically about PowerPose for the face, it mimics the detailed PowerPose template--the colorful one that lets you control individual regions of the face. It doesn't seem to have the more advanced one, the simple face template that chains them together with JCMs/drivers. I used the "Export With Minimal Morphs", and while it did export a bunch of them, it seems lacking in both corrective morphs and limits for the facial bones. Like I said, Daz Studio shines when it comes to integration with its proprietary models. PowerPose is a very useful tool for facial expressions that Blender just doesn't have, because there's no standardized human mesh. I have seen people whip up their own face control systems in Blender using drivers, but I'm not sure how much work that would be.
I haven't tried using an 8.1 character, so I don't know how closely the bones match the FACS facial rig.
All of my tests were done after converting the Daz import rig to Rigify. Never use the default skeleton; always convert to Rigify. All bones in Blender are supposed to follow a certain naming convention (i.e. "Shoulder.L" and "Shoulder.R") so they can be automatically symmetrized. But the default skeleton doesn't do that, so you can't symmertize or mirror it. I basically abandoned the Blender Bridge until I discovered the "Convert to Rigify" button will give the bones the proper names. Rigify is overwhelming at first, but once you get a taste of the power you'll wonder how you ever lived without it. You can plant the foot IK target on the ground and lift just the heel, and the character will automatically keep its toes pinned to the ground. Creating a walk pose takes literally seconds.
@ snowsultan
I was listing the general overall differences
between the professional animation production tools of Blender and Daz studio.
I have left the Daz/genesis eco system entirely for Blender & Reallusion/CC3.
I dont manually "pose" faces for stills.
I only animate them using the many options
in Iclone before export to Blender as FBX.
TBH I have no knowledge
of that FACS system for G8.1 except that the system seems intended for facial motion capture solutions Like Dynamixyz or Iphone depth cameras AFAIK.. not still face expression making
Your Character animation experience in Blender (with imported Daz genesis figures) will depend on how they were imported
(Diffeo or the offical D2B ?)
And how much you learn the native Blender tools as opposed to looking for
an emulation of the Daz posing tools in Blender .
Professional Character animation systems ,with proper IK solvers, are based on viewport controllers to directly manipulate the rigs limbs as remote "posing interfaces" do not work well with an IK control rig& foot/floor contact solver.
Try using the Daz studio Foot pinning/IK chain, system with powerpose or puppeteer and you will see the problem.
The superiority of Blenders Character animation system is only truly realized with the native Blender IK control rig tools.
Diffeo can import animated poses from Daz studio but Still portraits seems the focus of the plugin based on the threads in the Blender forum here
To be honest, it sounds to me like you would be more comfortable( thus better served) just staying in Daz studio and using Iray/3DL
Here's the thing, with both Diffeomorphic and the D2B Bridge, rendering in Cycles matches iray really closely, not with Eevee though, that doesn't match. So here's what I recommend, look at the shot you're doing and what will benefit you the most because when you cut the film together, no one outside of this forum will really know the difference. I learned that years ago in filmmaking. Everyone wants to shoot with the top of the line camera when you can shoot in 2K or 4K to save on drive space, or you can get a super close look in a prosumer camera with proper lighting that only film folks will know the difference, if at all. My producer for one thing I shot swore up and down we needed to shoot in 8K, I got my friend's 8K camera and shot the exact same footage in 8K, 4K, and 2K with the same camera, did a blind test for the producer and he said the best looking one was the 2K shot. People who don't know what they're looking for, won't know. As long as your sound is good, it doesn't matter.
My workflow right now is when I sit down to do a shot, I ask myself what I'm trying to achieve and what will help me achieve that the best. I personally think Power Pose is the best thing for animation, so if I'm able to utilize animating in Daz, I will. But like Wolf pointed out in a film I did, the squatting made the feet move around which you can't stop in Daz, but Blender you can keep limbs in place where they need to be so that is the biggest positive for animating in Blender. Now I did that film for the Daz Movember contest, so I only had three weeks to write, animate, and render it so I didn't have time to putz around with Cycles because I can render a frame in Iray in under a minute and I learned years ago when a project is done and released, don't go back but learn what you could do better and work on that next time, so I left it as is after release. If I were doing that shot for a project now, I would send it to Blender and animate it there and render it, but other stuff I would have kept in Daz for that film because I love the Power Pose tool and find it far more intuitive.
With both the bridge and diffeo, you can export animation from Daz to Blender. So something you could always do if you need to see the feet on the floor is animate the arms and head in Daz, port it over to Blender, delete all the leg keyframes you'd get and animate just the feet and hip in Blender. It works beautifully. Or wait until the D2B Bridge has the capability to export animation from Blender back to Daz like the Maya to Daz Bridge. That is awesome but once I found out it was something in the pipeline that they are working on, I didn't shell out the money for a Maya Indie license.
For the project I'm doing now I use both programs, and both bridges. I like things from all of them, there's nothing that says you have to only choose one. And if you're doing an FX shot that doesn't require seeing the character or detailed background, use Eevee for that shot! I've been doing that too.
It just comes down to what do you feel will make your job easier for the particular thing you're doing and use that. We are in such an exciting time to be a part of the 3D world because we really have the power to bring to life whatever our minds can dream up! We might have to think of how to make it happen, but there is absolutely nothing that is impossible anymore for the indie artist. I can't wait to see what you create :)
@Snowsultan
Benniewoodell makes a very important point.
It is fine to Mix two different eco-systems to get the best of both
as long as you are willing to learn & accept what can be taken from one program to the other
and what has to be left behind.(powerpose etc)
I animate nearly everything on a character in Iclone(Face and body)
and export as FBX from from CC3
I do make any necessary adjustments to my Characters motion after import to Blender
and pin the feet when needed
I can completely replace an animation already in blender by exporting a different
FBX from iclone/CC3 and simply switching to the new motion in the Blender action editor
and mix multiple motion with Blender nonlinear motion clip system
We now have a new free add-on for Blender, that sets up materials for CC3 figures just like diffeo does for Daz studio/genesis
.
It even converts Iclone cloth physics to Blender cloth physics and duplicates iclone
built in studio lighting in blender by copying and using the HDRs from Iclone.
So no.. you dont have to completely abandon one eco system for another
However I strongly advise against using more than two.
If you are not too averse to multi-application workflows pick one of the Daz content
transfer methods like Diffeo and get started.
Thanks again for the detailed responses.
Good video Ncstt, thanks for that.
Margrave: I'll have to look into Blender's Actions more, I think I saw them used in a video once and they did seem to function just like aniblocks. That would be nice. :) Also very good idea about the rotation/Powerpose emulation method, that may work better than Powerpose in the end because you can use different orthographic views here where you can't with Powerpose.
Bennie and Wolf: Yes, unfortunately no program can really do everything these days, and while I don't like going between programs except for postwork, it's just a necessity now. I don't plan on making any really complicated animations, I was really just curious to know what features Blender had that Studio didn't, and it seems like keeping a character's feet on the floor is one of the more appreciated ones. ;) Blender actually has much more simple features that are making me consider using it for art (like being able to turn off shadows per light, the camera clipping options, and native tools for fixing things like pokethrough or sculpting directly on a figure), but I'll need to stick to Studio anyway for a while as I learn more about it. Anyway, thanks again for all the information!
Just to give a brief rundown of actions:
The timeline you see when you start Blender shows the current action. Go to the Dope Sheet and switch the context to Action Editor and you can choose whatever the current action is. Just make sure to hit the shield icon to save the actions you want to keep, because otherwise Blender will delete unflagged data when it closes. When you create an action you like, open the NLA Editor and hit "Push Down" to save the track as a strip. Add as many strips as you want and manipulate them like video clips. Higher clips will overwrite lower clips; if you want to combine two strips that manipulate the same property, hit "N" to open the side panel and change Blending to whatever type looks best.
Protip:
Blender has an option called "Link" in the File Menu. It's like a combination of Daz's scene subsets and Photoshop's smart objects. You bring data from another *.blend file into your scene, but it references the original data. If you make changes to the first file, they're reflected in the linked scene. The mesh data can't be changed, so it's a good tool for protecting your models when animating. Generally, you want to make a model in one *.blend file and rig it up, then link it into another to do your actual animation. You can also protect bones so they can't be moved along certain axes, or at all. If you recreate PowerPose by linking all your face bones up to a master face rig with drivers, you can lock the face bones and only expose the master rig.
You say that, but I actually find the smoothing modifier is one thing Daz does better than Blender. Blender has close equivalent called the Shrinkwrap modifier, but since it doesn't natively "know" Daz's models and their projection maps, etc. it will probably take more work to get good results out of it.
A few corrections about the action editor.
Blender does not Delete unused actions if you forget hit the shield Icon.
They remain as saved data in the .blend file in which they were created
here is a screen cap of some old actions from last
from last year that I never hit the shield icon in the action editor
I just appended them into a new file just now.
Speaking of Appending
I strongly reccomend Appending Data from other files
instead of linking to them as it becomes independently editable
in your current project without affecting or being affected by
the original source files.
Appending/linking is the true miracle of Blenders Data system.
You can store complex shaders node setups, lighting setups.
all types of animation from characters to cameras to baked fluid sims
in saved .blend files in ANY location or external drive
and harvest them for your current scene/project fully intact
NO HARD CODED paths to a fixed data folder!
this is why Blender is so well suite for team projects/films
BTW this appending new motion from FBX works with Daz figures dating back to millenuim3,
In the previous video I posted from my "HALO Reclaimer", series
The guy who rounds the corner and gets blown away is Daz Mike 3
imported from Daz studio 4.12.086 as straight FBX
NO third party plugins like Diffeo or D2B.
That should not be happening:
https://docs.blender.org/manual/en/latest/files/data_blocks.html#life-time
Actions are datablocks, so they should not be saved if they're not linked to anything.
You can also pack textures maps into a *.blend file too, which means you don't have to deal with Daz's byzantine runtime folder system.
And once the Asset Manager is integrated into 2.93, it's going to get even more robust.
I completely disagree. This is not really that special, and out of the main apps, Blender has the worst reference system of all. It's the main reason I don't use Blender for production work and why I chose Maya instead. Even C4D has a better system with Xref tags.
Let's say I have a 200mb model imported from Daz. In Maya, I create a new scene, add the model as a reference and save the file. The new file is less than 60kb. I can pose, animate, change textures, create new blendshapes, whatever I want and the file will remain small.
I cannot do that in Blender. I have to append, as you said, the model if want all those features. But I'd be making a copy of the 200mb model, and now my new file is 200mb also! Linking is useless, unless I do a Library override, but that only allows me to pose the rig. If I wanted to change textures, or scuplt clothing, etc. I'd have to make everything local, which defeats the purpose of making the new files small.
The Library override is the solution to make the reference system work as intended, kinda like Maya, but there hasn't been any significant development in a while. I'd really love for Blender devs to stop focusing on creating new sculpting and modeling shiny stuff and instead make the library override system work as intended. Rant off, sorry :P But my point is that I don't think the Appending/Linking system is that special and in fact, is worse than the systems other apps use, including Daz'.
@peterpeter
I was a C4D user for over ten years and made a feature length animated film
with it.
I was part of the Mass exodus ,in the C4D community, over to Blender after 2.8 was released and Maxon subscription(or $3800 USD perpetual with a very limited upgrade path)
The Xrefs system was legndary, in the major online C4D forums, for being useless and I beleive they have some new "Team collab/render"feature to replace it.
But this is not a thread to compare C4D to Blender particualry since C4D
Effectively requires VFX artists to buy a third party Xparticles subscription
from Insyduim to be even close to parity with Blenders/Maya's native unified
Dynamics/VFX capabilities.
I agree that Maya has the best collaboration system for large team projects
but that is why Autodesk prevails in the industry ,yes??
I am sure you were just being facetious comparing Blenders content managment
to the Daz Data system.
For a team project we would literally need to every member maintain an identical
Runtime& Data folder locally on his/her machine as one missing morph file
from that brodignagian, hard path dependent Data folder would disable some apsect
of your Genesis figures.
And frankly a 200 megabyte Blender scene file is a joy compared to the 6-19 gigabyte
Files reported By C4D users bringing over a single naked G8 female(and her morph Data),into C4D
Via the Daz bridge.
And with Blender I can safely invest in third party plugins Like hard ops/box cutter,Decal machine, etc with litte fear of a loss of that added functionalty
By an incompatible core application update, because I can safely& easily acquire and run previous versions of blender on the same workstation.
With Daz studio....not so much
I don't know enough about C4D, but I completely agree with Peter otherwise. For someone coming from Studio, Blender's content management 'system', if one can call it that, isn't just bad, it's non-existent. I'm not sure if I'll ever really want to invest the necessary time to learn Blender until a more tangible system is introduced.
Blender's content management system is the *.blend file itself. As you create assets, you keep them in their own separate files. "rock1.blend", "rock2.blend", "tree1.blend", etc. Then you either link or instance it into your master scene. You can link many types of data-blocks besides meshes, so you can have a "materials.blend" holding all your textures for other *.blend files in one place rather than spread them around your file directory.
That said, there will be a proper asset manager in 2.93 (assuming they don't push it back again). You can download the alpha right now and give it a whirl if you want.
I wasn't being facetious :) What you say about Daz is true, every user has to download EVERY file and pray that there are no missing morphs,textures, etc. and I solved it by storing all the data in a dropbox account and then the other members would have to download and sync their local folder with the online master folder. And you face the same problems if you want to start transfering massive content from Daz to Blender or Maya or whatever soft you want to use. You need to keep a masterfile to grab the content you need from. Granted, Blender gives you the flexibilty you won't have in Daz, but it's a lot more work to set up. Blender doesn't have an asset manager (yet). And the one in alpha is, well, very basic. The Daz Library system is great for that purpose, I don't need to go looking for different blend files to grab what I want. For a Daz user with no prior experience in a big software, this is a big turn off.
My goal (you might have different goals and that's why we have different opinions) is to be able to save hundreds of files using the same characters without those files being huge in filesize so I can transfer those files to the render farm. I mainly work with stills (and some animation work) and I cannot do that in blender because of what I said in my previous post. 200mb average per model! using the diffeo plugin and importing all the necesary jcm morphs, clothing, etc. Now add that an environment, and 2 or more characters. You could easily reach 1gb per scene.
I haven't really tested the Xref tag that much, because the C4D bridge sucks big time, that's why users report huge filesize and freezes when transfering content (I have also experienced them myself. The huge files people report is the bridge's fault, not C4D's), but the xref system allows me to do basic stuff (changing materials, sculpting, etc.) without having to append anything and keeps my render files relatively small. You have more experience in C4D than me and I'll trust the xref is not that good for more complex tasks.
Will Blender's Library override feature be better in the future? Of course it will and imo it will match the reference system Maya offers right now. But I can work in Maya now as opposed to waiting a few years for Blender to catch up.
SnowSultan If you don't need to do any complex animations, then I'd suggest staying in Daz. If you move to Blender, or any other software (C4D, Maya,etc.) you'd have to do everything yourself: creating your own assets folder, retexturing the characters yourself, saving your custom poses, everything that you take for granted in Daz, you'll have to do it from scratch yourself in the other software. Having said that, it's always nice to take some time to watch or learn what other softwares do, in case you decide to leave Daz and move to a more serious software.
many of the features touted here are also available in Carrara
just saying
Obviously not the render engine but the paths, particles, NLA clips etc all are
if only DAZ had the foresight to keep developing Carrara
but sadly like Blender it is not a click load click pose DAZ Content selling tool
But
They do own it FFS!!!!
@SnowSultan May be I don't get what you mean for animation .. Most people mean original character animation, what's featured in movies and taught in animation schools. If this is what you mean then daz studio is inexistent. It doesn't even get a proper rig to animate with. You're stuck with fk, ik for posing (powerpose) and buggy ik chains. That's technology from the '90. Try rigify in blender and see what I mean.
If you mean mocap playback then daz studio is ok, as blender is. But please don't call that animation, it's mocap playback. In this context you may be interested in the latest news at diffeo where Thomas introduced support for facecap.
http://diffeomorphic.blogspot.com/2021/02/facecap-test.html
@peterpeter
You are correct.
I am not in the Daz/Genesis content Eco system
Not anymore.I am a content creator/filmaker/VFX artist
I Create All of my clothing props and sets in Blender.
I use the Reallusion CC3 figures(wearing my custom clothing) that I import into blender
already animated from Iclone.
We have a free Blender addon Called "CC3 Pipeline" that does for CC3 figures
what Diffeo does for Daz figures in auto texture setup uopn import into Blender
The figures are just one aspect of the entire civilizations I create for my animated films.
I DO NOT do still portraits/pinups or 5 second, wide shot framed, videos of dancing girls in an empty universe, from a canned aniblocks.
Daz content with all the genesis HD morph Data and retarded 4K textures, is just not suitable
for my animated filmaking.
RE: C4D ,Some Blame the DAZ bridge
some have Blamed C4D for making duplicate iterations of the figure for each morph.
But the reality is that Genesis itself is to blame as it needs to be connected to a massive Data set to give it full functionality.
And IMHO that Data functions best when accessd live streamed within Daz studio.
sending it all to another application is not worth effort
for My pipeline for animated filmaking.
maybe for some people but not for me.
And we both agree that people, steep in the Daz content Eco system( like the OP), have no need to migrate to blender or anywhere else.
I found this discussion informative. Moving animations and being able to pose transfered characters is next on my list of things to learn in Blender. So far, I can barely get a human figure transfered problem, let alone being able to change the pose or import an animation. I typically use Diffeo exclusively as I run Blender in Linux.
Wendy, I wish DAZ would have supported Carrara too, but that ship has sailed. :(
I probably will stay in Studio for the foreseeable future because I would like to actually make some art for a change rather than endlessly watching tutorials, but I'll experiment a little with Blender and learn some things. I'm a bit interested in experimenting with Blender's NPR and toon rendering methods in order to possibly use them as bases to draw and shade over manually.
Padone: No, I mean actually animating using manual keyframing in Studio. I've done it a little, and while it's not state-of-the-art, it isn't bad. Now that I know how to bake to aniblocks and retime or reposition partial animations or segments, I feel like I could make simple, satisfactory motions without having to mess with re-rigging or converting DAZ figures somewhere else.
It seems to me that exporting to Blender for animation has one big drawback - and I think this has been discussed elsewhere (I know I have asked about it in other threads): clothing.
The problem as I see it is that there is no way to animate a clothed figure unless it is conforming clothing with no possibility of draping. Otherwise you have to turn it into Blender cloth and use the cloth sim which is another learning curve in itself and, from what I understand, no better than dForce, especially for imported clothing. So animating naked figures or super-heroes with skin-tight suits is about all you can expect to work with.
Again, I'd like to be mistaken but I believe that @Padone has a request logged for Thomas to look at this issue for Diffeomorphic.
Given all the skimpwear in the store, I doubt that's much of a problem.
Though I haven't tried animating Daz characters with anything but conforming clothing, I've seen other ways to do it. Many ripped video game models use bones to control hair and clothing. There's also the Data Transfer modifier, which supposedly acts like Daz's projection maps, allowing one mesh to follow another--though it's quite a fearsome beast and I've yet to crack it.
FWIW, I find Blender's cloth sim to be more robust than dForce. dForce is more user-friendly since most of the heavy lifting is done by PAs, but Blender has more options to tweak, more kinds of force fields than a wind node, and full integration with the rest of the sims. If you want, you could have falling rain particles and a cloth sim dress both be affected by the same wind force field, and use Dynamic Paint to make the rain droplets dampen the dress by acting as a wet map. It'd take a hell of a lot of tweaking, simulation time, and material set-up, but you could do it.
@marble
the problem you describe is not a Blender shortcoming
but a limtation on people dependant on native daz content
trying to recreate the Daz studio experience in another program
Blenders cloth solver is far and away superior to Dforce
if you use meshes properly made &prepared for cloth sims in blender
That said it is possible to build an importer that converts cloth physics from another prgram
into Blender cloth physics.
Our free CC3 pipeline addon does so for our cloth sims we import from CC3.
That dynamic paint idea sounds amazing! I need to learn dynamic paint, that's one thing I've never really delved into.
I have even weightmapped clothing to FBX in Blender so it is possible.
it is how I put DAZ clothes on CC2 people for iClone 6 then export the result to CC2 with a key
Well of course! Isn't that the ultimate goal of the two bridge products? I would love to send my complete DAZ Studio scene over to Blender and animate it or render it without having to mostly recreate it as a Blender compatible scene. We have to be impressed by how far Thomas has been able to realise that goal but I would seriously doubt that it will ever be possible without some major collaboration between DAZ and Blender developers.
That said, there are clearly advantages to working in Blender if one is skilled enough or willing to put in the time to get used to the Blender way of doing things. Is that effort worth it for those of us who just want to make pleasing pictures or half-minute animations? I wonder.
@marble I absolutely agree that some support for dforce outfits would be nice to have, and in my tests it seems possible. I'm not sure what's holding Thomas but I asked again.
https://bitbucket.org/Diffeomorphic/import_daz/issues/410/better-dforce
Below an example of dforce simulation in blender. Please note that this is not a complete rebuild of the simulation for blender. It just imports the main dforce structure and run the blender simulation with it. Works quite fine.
It's kind of finnicky to get anything to actually start painting, and the maps eat your hard drive up. But once you get it running, you just create a mix node that blends a texture and a darker, shinier version of it, plug dynamic paint's wetmaps into the mix node's factor, and voila. Real-time dampness.
While total compatibility between bridges would of course be ideal, there's other benefits to learning Blender than just better animation. I've been using Blender much longer (on and off) than I've used Daz Studio, so I'm obviously biased. But you can model props, extend scenes behind doorways, create geografts, and texture paint figures to create layered images, then import all of those back into Daz Studio.
Just recently, I made a statue from a Genesis 8 figure and the Sculptural Ultra Fun Kit, but it was taking the normal amount of time for G8 to load (i.e. way too long). I exported it into Blender, gave it a few passes with the Decimate modifier to cut the geometry in half, and reimported it as a prop.
Works perfectly.