DAZ3D option to export Iray materials to PBR industry standard
kenmo
Posts: 1,183
I would like to suggest an option to export DAZ Props with Iray materials converted to PBR industry standard.
Many of us do not have the mega bucks to purchase a newer Nvidia RTX video card and would like to export our scenes to Vue and other render engines.
Vue does not like Iray materials. Exporting to PBR would open up a world of opportunity to exchange our scenes and props with other 3D apps we are using.
If DAZ upgrades continue to demand we upgrade to very expensive Nvidia gpus in this time of economic stress for most everyone in North America and elsewhere, this fantastic hobby will be too expensive for hobbyists and perhaps rightfully go the way of Studbaker cars and beta machines.
Cheers
Kenmo
PS: And please do not tell me it can not be done. Anything can be done if given the proper attendion and resources.
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Comments
What do you mean by PBR? As a term it just means physically based rendering, and Iray is a PBR engine, so it isn't clear. Nor is it universally true that everything is possible through an automated process, which is what you are asking for, without user input of some kind.
I thought the PBR was the river boat used in the Vietnam war by the Americans....
PBR materials - Physical Based Rendering Materials.
What is PBR
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physically_based_renderinghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physically_based_rendering
Free PBR materials
https://freepbr.com/
https://ambientcg.com/
https://www.poliigon.com/textures
Quoting poligon link above "PBR textures for Blender, 3ds max, Cinema 4D, Sketchup, Unreal Engine, Unity and Maya. Complete PBR texture sets that are perfect for creating archviz, vfx, games, animation and product visualization."
PBR explained
True, but it does not follow the industry PBR standard. IRAY materials can only be used in Iray and not shared with Vue, Unity, Unreal, etc. PBR standard materials I use and create in 3D Coat can be freely shared between Blender, Vue and DAZ. But any materials created for DAZ Iray can not be exported to an industry standard PBR format which can be shared with 3DCoat, Vue, etc.
There are two industry standards for PBR Metalness/Roughness and Specular/Glossiness. It appears Metalness/Roughness is the most used.
Key components of PBR materials. Daz is using a propietary version of PBR which can only be used by Iray.
https://lightbeans.com/en/blog/tutorials/pbr-physically-based-rendering-explained-a-quick-guide
A great free utility I often use to assist in the creation of industry standard PBR materials.
https://www.boundingboxsoftware.com/materialize/
But again, Iray is a PBR engine. One potential issue is in the normal maps - there are two standards so it is possible that your other applications are, at least by default, usiing the other standard and so lookiing wrong.
I know that. However when I export an DAZ Iray prop as an obj (ie: prop.obj) with supporting .mat file (prop.mat) and material/texture files (diffuse.jpg, bump.jp, normal.jpg, displacement.jpg, etc). If I import the prop.obj into Vue, 3DCoat, Modo, Blender, etc. Many of the material/textures files are not recognized or missing.
If I export a prop from Vue, 3DCoat, Blender with supporting texture/material files. It will load flawlessly into DAZ, Blender, Vue, 3D coat and the model will be properly textured.
I think the issue is DAZ does not properly export Iray shaders or can not.
The OBJ MTL file is very limited, are you using that format with the other applications too? It sounds as if your request is for a format that better supports material settings, though I wouldn't try OBJ as a starting point now.