Somewhat 'tongue in cheek' I would say:-

A large wallet for all those super deals that you can't pass up

A huge hard disk to store all your purchases of said deals

24/7 Access to the DAZ website so you don't miss a sale

On a more serious note I think it depends on what you intend to use Studio for, and how you intend to use it.  Some people like to buy and use ready made content, some like to modify things to their own taste, some are into animation, some like to make and import their own models.

If you just sculpt and import a pure morph on the graft with no change of relevant joints' positions, the bones won't follow the morph dial. If you change, for instance, scales of toes or metatarsals, and ERC Freeze on the morph, the bones will follow.

outrider42 said:

Heh, I use Hexagon for morphs if at all possible. I have used Blender for some morphs, it depends on what I need to do. But Hexagon can be easier than Blender for some tasks, especially with the real bridge between them (one that goes BOTH ways.) That is a what I consider to be a bridge. IMO a bridge is only a bridge if it goes both ways. If you take a bridge to the outer banks but cannot get back, that's not much of a bridge is it?

That bridge was a major wishlist for Blender but now I hardly notice the export/import routine. As I said, I quite liked Hex but it crashes far too frequently for me and I am not disciplined enough to keep saving every 10 seconds. Also, the sculpting tools in Blender are progressing significantly and are maybe not that far behind ZBrush for the average DAZ Studio user.

kyoto kid said:

...again I only use Blender for modelling, something Daz Studio is incapable of (well unless you want to deal with the tediousness of using the Geometry Editor). I'm willing to overlook Blender's oddities (there is a pointer driven UI option) for far better stability than Hexagon offers. 

Agree with all of that although I only use Blender for making morphs (a kind of modelling, I guess). I tried to do stuff in DAZ Studio using the Geometry Editor and even bought Mesh Grabber but returned it because it was more cumbersome than exporting to Blender.

As for the UI - I get by without needing too many hotkeys but I know that I would work better if I learned a few more. The points made above about tutorials assuming that we all have the same add-ons or know all the shortcuts are the main reason I was put off and still am to a large extent. I've go used to the export/import procedure now but Blender devs are liable to change things without notice and throw the workflow into chaos. This happened recently with the new Wavefront OBJ import/export which had me scratching my head for a long while. I can't remember what I did to make sure it works with DAZ Studio OBJs so I just make sure I save all my preferences to each new release of Blender.

lilweep

In terms of Daz Studio, hair is the biggest problem when it comes to rendering.  What we have available for hair is far from industry strandard.  Of course, one could always do hair in another software then import as static mesh.  On that basis,everything is mostly an artistic limitation.

"What we have available for hair is far from industry strandard. "
@lilweep   I see what you did there.  Nicely played, and perhaps too understated, but well-played. I salute you!

Sounds like you got this from Sketchfab since they use these formats quite a bit. You will need to use another app to convert the file to OBJ before you can import into DS and as pointed out, you will lose any rigging. I use Ultimate Unwrap 3D for conversions

If you open up the content library tab,  you can easily find it in the G3F poses folder.  There is a large group of user that never use smart content,  because the content library is the original way of finding content.

There is always more than one way to access content,  if there's an issue with metadata.

It's not the textures that have been mirrored, but rather the UV coordinates of the mesh.

In DS got Edit > Preferences, then select the Interface tab, just past half way you will find a setting called "BackFace Lighting", turn it off.

Now load your model into DS, if it loads in black in the viewport then you know the mesh has been mirrored.

Mirroring the mesh basically turns it inside out, and is usually caused by the "swap axis" setting on the import preset you used.

In the Parameters tab set the main X scale slider to -100%, now export the mesh as a new OBJ using the DAZ Studio preset, clear the scene and import the new OBJ using the DS preset.

I loaded an .obj file into Daz some days ago.
At that time, after loading the .obj I started creating .jpg images to flesh out the .obj

In total I created 5 .jpg images however at the time I loaded the original .obj, I had only 3 of them available and when imported into Daz (via "base color" button) the all imported properly.
After doing that I saved the model in Daz and closed the system.

Several days later I opend Daz again, imported a new .obj model and discovered all my .jpg images were importing mirrored.
After 45 minutes of doinking around with Hexagon (origion file) with no sucess, I went back to Photoshop and reversed the images.
When I imported the newly reversed images again, despite the thumbnail in "base color" showing them backwards, they imported properly.

Then when I closed that project and opened the "saved" original project, all my existing .jpg images were showing proper but when I went to add the last two newly created .jpg images, despite the thumbnail in "base color" showing correctly, the images loaded into Daz mirrored as before.

After an hour of back checking the .obj file I've eliminated Hexagon and the .obj as the problem.
I've tried importing .jpg images both from fresh sources outside of Daz and from images already assigned to properly functioning .obj in the Daz model and all import mirrored.

I suspect I have switched some import setting in Daz to mirror the .jpg as it comes in but I can't find any control that will do that.

crosswind said:

Nah... because the metadata of this product is wrong....  If you wanna use it from Smart Content, go to the folder -: your Daz Library\Runtime\Support, search 32921. Open the file "DAZ_3D_32921_i13_IMPLICATIONS_for_the_Genesis_3_Male(s)_and_Genesis_3_Female(s).dsx" with an Editor. Replace "Content/" with "", then re-import metadata.

Recommend using this free script to import a single metadata file -: https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/618456/add-to-smart-content

Thanks. I figured it was something like that. What a headache.

I only bought it because it was on sale, so more trouble than it is worth. I give up easily. So I will return it.

lilweep said:

benniewoodell said:

Once in awhile, and it's really a crap shoot, the textures will show up in Daz from Blender, but the OBJ file has to be in the same folder as the textures. So anytime I bring objects from Blender to Daz, I always put the OBJ in the folder where the textures are and I'd say one out of five times everything shows up in Daz. Don't know why or how, but occasionally I get lucky. Seems like it happens more if it's a smaller object without many material zones, Kitbash 3D kits never come in with textures as I think there's too many, it's usually objects that I create. 

you can load an .mtl file with you obj but an obj's .mtl file isnt going to be able to put the texture maps into the correct slots on daz studio shaders, bar some. 

Yeah, I honestly don't know what the mtl file is, I just import the OBJ and sometimes I get lucky and everything shows up exactly how it's supposed to. Kind of keeps me on the edge of my seat with anticipation as I hit import lol. 

Nah... because the metadata of this product is wrong....  If you wanna use it from Smart Content, go to the folder -: your Daz Library\Runtime\Support, search 32921. Open the file "DAZ_3D_32921_i13_IMPLICATIONS_for_the_Genesis_3_Male(s)_and_Genesis_3_Female(s).dsx" with an Editor. Replace "Content/" with "", then re-import metadata.

Recommend using this free script to import a single metadata file -: https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/618456/add-to-smart-content

I don't recognise the first three formats, though I would suspect that the GL is OpenGL-related and they may be for games. However .blend is Blender, so you could open in that and export as OBJ or FBX for import into Daz Studio - but don't expect to get anything very useful out of any rigging it may have.

I downloaded a free 3d rendering in the following available formats:

.usdz, .glb, .gltf, and .blend

I cannot figure out how to open or import any of these files.  Is this possible in DAZ Studio?

Thank you,

v/r

Tony

lilweep said:

Cybersox said:

To begin with, the simple fact is that there's no way that any DAZ figure has anywhere near the resolution or accuracy in details to completely mimic all of the aspects of a real human figure with anything even close to true physical accuracy, as even if such a figure was possible, to be able to render it so would require vastly more computing power and rendering time than any home computer system... or most professional systems... are currently capable of.  And that's not even considering all of the calculations needed for perfect hair, perfect clothing, perfect environment, etc.  As an example, a feature film image running at 2K requires hundreds, if not thousands, of computers to produce a single frame.  For FROZEN, which doesn't even have photorealistic characters, Disney used a bank of 4000 render computers to produce the "let it go" sequece, and even with those resources it took 30 hours per frame to render. If a major studio throwing hundreds of millions of dollars at a project can't even believeably remove Henry Selik's moustache in JUSTICE LEAGUE, or produce a perfect recreation of Peter Cushing in 'STAR WARS - ROGUE ONE, is it really reasonable to expect be able to do it on a system with a graphics card meant for playing games?  

"Henry Selik" lol oh dear.

Yep.  It was early in the morning and my brain misfired on Cavil.  Still doesn't change the fact almost everyone noticed that Superman's lips looked wrong, and even though I'm sure that the high end of the rumored cost being over $24 million is a gross overstatement, it very definitely cost millions of dollars.          

lilweep said:

there are many likeness artists who make models basically indistinguishable from real life, just by themselves, using only entry level pc components 

Ian spriggs is probably the most notable one:

• https://www.artstation.com/ianspriggs

But there are hundreds of such artists now:

• https://www.artstation.com/droarty
• https://www.artstation.com/mataerni
• https://www.artstation.com/dudlswns3

I suppose it depends upon your definitition of indistinguishable, but the only ones in your attached that would fool me in a photo lineup are Spriggs', and each of his creations takes months as he individually models almost everything, down to the characters individual eyelashes, and then renders in Maya on a Lenovo workstation with four high-end graphic cards using V-Ray 6.  Not exactly a hobbyist level system or process.  And yet, despite that, they can still drop into the uncanny valley when they're shown in motion or in extreme close-up... look at his GINA for example, which looks great until you look at her armpit, or the front page of his website where the depth of his skins textures don't always hold up at high magnification.  But in any case, given that the subject is DAZ Studio & figures, which have to serve as all-purpose tools that have to do a lot of lifting and carrying for a hobbyist user rather than something done to be shown from one specific angle, it's really a total apples to oranges comparison.    

lilweep said:

There's nothing from a technical standpoint stopping us from making passable realistic models if we had the time/skill.  Obviously we cannot make a human realistic at the atomic or molecular level, but at any macro scale it's obviously possible.

There are people doing realistic animation also. I see them in my feed all the time on twitter, albeit clips are only seconds long.

In terms of Daz Studio, hair is the biggest problem when it comes to rendering.  What we have available for hair is far from industry strandard.  Of course, one could always do hair in another software then import as static mesh.  On that basis,everything is mostly an artistic limitation.

The hair is, indeed nowhere near up to par, but given the number of follicles on the head alone (from a base of 90,000 on a redhead up to a upper limit of 150,000 on a blonde) we're once again looking at the limits of consummer technology.  That said, I honestly feel that there are worse problems with the DAZ figures/Studio, most notably the lack of self-collisions and an expression system that is overly dependent on bones that don't actually exist in real faces.  

This might be a little more complicated than you hoped but there is a quick and easy fix. Save your props as a scene subset rather than a prop/figure asset. File -> Save As -> Scene Subset. Make sure you only select your props and not any environment or tone mapping nodes, figures, etc.

To group them all together as one prop you'll have to assign them to a group and then export the group as an .obj, import it back in, assign the materials, and *then* save it as a prop asset. If you want to retain rotation and movement of the original pieces (I suspect you would) you will have to rig it from scratch because this process wil create a static prop.

I like elegant solutions but quite honestly I'd go for the cheap and easy way on this one!

Cybersox said:

To begin with, the simple fact is that there's no way that any DAZ figure has anywhere near the resolution or accuracy in details to completely mimic all of the aspects of a real human figure with anything even close to true physical accuracy, as even if such a figure was possible, to be able to render it so would require vastly more computing power and rendering time than any home computer system... or most professional systems... are currently capable of.  And that's not even considering all of the calculations needed for perfect hair, perfect clothing, perfect environment, etc.  As an example, a feature film image running at 2K requires hundreds, if not thousands, of computers to produce a single frame.  For FROZEN, which doesn't even have photorealistic characters, Disney used a bank of 4000 render computers to produce the "let it go" sequece, and even with those resources it took 30 hours per frame to render. If a major studio throwing hundreds of millions of dollars at a project can't even believeably remove Henry Selik's moustache in JUSTICE LEAGUE, or produce a perfect recreation of Peter Cushing in 'STAR WARS - ROGUE ONE, is it really reasonable to expect be able to do it on a system with a graphics card meant for playing games?  

"Henry Selik" lol oh dear.

there are many likeness artists who make models basically indistinguishable from real life, just by themselves, using only entry level pc components 

Ian spriggs is probably the most notable one:

• https://www.artstation.com/ianspriggs

But there are hundreds of such artists now:

• https://www.artstation.com/droarty
• https://www.artstation.com/mataerni
• https://www.artstation.com/dudlswns3

There's nothing from a technical standpoint stopping us from making passable realistic models if we had the time/skill.  Obviously we cannot make a human realistic at the atomic or molecular level, but at any macro scale it's obviously possible.

There are people doing realistic animation also. I see them in my feed all the time on twitter, albeit clips are only seconds long.

In terms of Daz Studio, hair is the biggest problem when it comes to rendering.  What we have available for hair is far from industry strandard.  Of course, one could always do hair in another software then import as static mesh.  On that basis,everything is mostly an artistic limitation.

arstropica said:

Richard Haseltine said:

I'm sure Blender must have some kind of projection/shrink wrap type function. Hexxagon will snap to a background object, I think, though not sure if it works with a push/shrink type of tool.

Based on my research, Blender's shrinkwrap uses a combination of vertex positioning and groups to deform meshes.  As a tool, it is more of a broadsword than a scalpel for doing any type of detailed retopology work. I've checked out HeadShop, Facegen and Daz's Face Transfer plugin and none of them really deliver good results. My initial goal was to take a 2D information from a photograph of a face and project it onto a Daz figure as accurately as possible. I had to come up with my own modeling workflow which uses 3 different types of software to import photogrammetric objects into Daz.

1. Face Alignment (free / open source)

 

URL: https://github.com/1adrianb/face-alignment

Requirements: Linux (apparently mac and windows too), Miniconda (https://docs.conda.io/en/latest/miniconda.html), Python 3.7

Installation: Clone my repository fork (https://github.com/arstropica/face-alignment/tree/demo) and follow the Github instructions.

This python script is part of a 2-step process that generates an accurate 3D facial model from almost any photograph of a human in which the facial features are visible.  The purpose of the script is to identify and localize facial landmarks on a 2D photo that can be used to build a 3D model later on.  In it's original form, the script will generate 69 facial landmarks using DLib, a Computer Vision library.  But we really only need 5 of these landmarks (2 eyes, 1 nose, and 2 lips corners).

I had to write my own implementation of the script to extract the 5 landmarks for the next step. (https://github.com/arstropica/face-alignment/blob/demo/scripts/batch.py).

Run python scripts/batch.py <image directory> to generate the landmark text files.

 

2. Microsoft Deep 3D Face Reconstruction (free / open source)

 

URL: https://github.com/microsoft/Deep3DFaceReconstruction

Requirements: Linux, Github Large File Storage (https://git-lfs.github.com/), Miniconda (https://docs.conda.io/en/latest/miniconda.html), Python 3.7, g++ & gcc Linux libraries

Installation: You can either clone the original repository, setup an anaconda environment and then download the dependencies separately or use my branch (https://github.com/arstropica/Deep3DFaceReconstruction/tree/demo) which contains the anaconda environment file as well as the dependencies and follow the Github instructions. If you do use my branch, you'll also need to install and initialize Github's LFS extension (https://git-lfs.github.com/) in the cloned repository in order to be able to download the 100M+ model files.

The Deep 3D package uses AI to reconstruct a 3D facial model from an image.  The python script accepts the 5 landmarks from the previous step (similar to Facegen) and uses a trained AI model to render a textured 3D mesh of the facial characteristics of the subject in a photograph. 

Copy your text and image files from the image directory in the face-alignment repo, to an "input" directory in Deep3D and run the demo.py script to generate the mesh(es).

3. Softwrap for Blender (paid plugin)

 

URL: https://blendermarket.com/products/softwrap

Requirements: Blender v2.8+, Meshlab

Installation: install from the settings/add-ons panel like any Blender plugin.

This is finally where the magic happens!

Softwrap is a Blender plugin that uses a cloth-like physics engine (not unlike dForce) to deform one mesh using another.  It does it without changing the vertex order of the source mesh so it's perfect for Daz. There are a ton of settings from symmetrical deformations to mesh filtering, smoothing, elasticity, etc.  A better way to look at the plugin is that it treats your source mesh as a cloth that wraps around a hard 3D object. Using the plugin to get a Genesis model to conform to a 3D mesh requires a few preliminary steps.

First take your 3D face mesh from Deep 3D and use an application like MeshLab to convert it to a DAE model. You need to do this if you want to import the face model into Daz Studio as it doesn't handle OBJ vertex colors well.

Then, in Blender, unwrap the model's UV map and bake the DAE model's vertex colors to a bitmap texture. (Here is a good tutorial if you don't know how: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cphcAZ5ai8). It is a good idea to normalize the positioning of the model by rotating and aligning it with the origin and resetting its pivot.

Export the baked texture and the unwrapped model back to an OBJ and MAT format.  Now you can import it into Daz.

At this point, I usually make shape or pose to adjustments to my Genesis character's head in Daz.  I import my textured facial model into a scene with a vanilla Genesis character and position and/or scale it so that it covers the character's face. I then use the shape and pose morphs to make gross changes to Genesis facial characteristics so that the forehead, eyes, nose, mouth, chin and jaw are roughly the same shape, size and dimensions as my facial mask.  This doesn't have to be perfect, but it will help with Softwrap's retopology process.

Export your Genesis character from Daz as an OBJ at base resolution (I use 1% scale to work in Blender).  Also export your positioned 3D facial model the same way.

Import both OBJ models into Blender (ensuring the Poly Groups option is checked).

You may want to create a custom vertex group for the part of your Genesis model that will should not be affected by Softwrap.  I usually create a group excluding the character's face, lips and eyelids.

In the Softwrap rollout, select the Genesis character as the source mesh and the Deep 3D mask as the target mesh.  Select your vertex group as the Snapping & Frozen Group to protect the bits of your Genesis character that shouldn't be affected by the plugin. Hit the Start button and slowly increase the Snapping strength control to see the changes.

Use the pins, and other settings to fine tune the fit and then hit apply once you are satisfied.  You can also leave the deformation as a shapekey and continue modifying your mesh.

Then you just export the mesh back to Daz (this time at 100%) and import it as a morph on a clean Genesis character and you have a good beginning for a custom character without ever having to do manual modelling.

Hope someone finds this helpful!

Has anyone gotten this to work, or improved on this workflow?

I can use softwrap in Blender, but have not had much luck with face alignment or Deep 3D Face Reconstruction in Windows

It seems like there is a new Pytorch-based version of Deep 3D Face Reconstruction that doesn't require the 5 facial landmarks: https://github.com/sicxu/Deep3DFaceRecon_pytorch#inference-with-a-pre-trained-model

Hi,

I'm trying to get the best characters I can imported into Unity - this is what I've learnt - 

https://youtu.be/5cCjOiaVMSg

I'd love to know if I can import CC skin material and Eyes into a Daz character, then I could have the best of both worlds.

Daz pro's 

1. Daz has body morphs 2. Material export ok'ish. 3. Gen 8 good skeleton

Daz neg 

1. Daz 9 and 8.1 bad skels. Materials not as good as Character Creator 2. Eye need more work

Character Creator 4 pro's 

1. Great skels, 2. Great materials, Skin looks nicer in light 3. Soft cloth dynamics 4. Great eyes 

Neg

1. NO BODY MORPHS! 

Can't combine them together (yet) If know how let me know in the comments! :(.

I just brought "Genesis 3 Male Body Morphs"

SAME ERROR STILL

2023-08-13 16:59:47.956 [INFO] :: Prepare asset load (merge): /Genesis 3 Male/Characters/Elf and Dwarf/Acrondroplasia.dsf
2023-08-13 16:59:47.956 [INFO] :: Locking viewport redraw...
2023-08-13 16:59:47.956 [INFO] :: Viewport redraw locked.
2023-08-13 16:59:48.003 [INFO] :: Native format content directories: 2
2023-08-13 16:59:48.003 [INFO] :: Poser format content directories: 1
2023-08-13 16:59:48.004 [INFO] :: Other import format content directories: 0
2023-08-13 16:59:48.004 [INFO] :: Begin asset load (merge): /Genesis 3 Male/Characters/Elf and Dwarf/Acrondroplasia.dsf
2023-08-13 16:59:48.004 [INFO] :: Determining missing assets...
2023-08-13 16:59:48.004 [INFO] :: Setting textures...
2023-08-13 16:59:48.004 [INFO] :: Preparing modifiers...
2023-08-13 16:59:48.004 [WARNING] :: ..\..\..\..\..\src\sdksource\fileinput\dzassetdaz.cpp(5962): Parent for modifier not found: Acrondroplasia.
2023-08-13 16:59:48.005 [WARNING] :: ..\..\..\..\..\src\sdksource\fileinput\dzassetdaz.cpp(1712): Modifier not prepared: Acrondroplasia!
2023-08-13 16:59:48.006 [INFO] :: Creating modifiers...
2023-08-13 16:59:48.006 [WARNING] :: ..\..\..\..\..\src\sdksource\fileinput\dzassetdaz.cpp(1729): Modifier not created: Acrondroplasia!
2023-08-13 16:59:48.006 [INFO] :: Finished asset load (merge): 0m 0.2s - /Genesis 3 Male/Characters/Elf and Dwarf/Acrondroplasia.dsf
2023-08-13 16:59:48.064 [INFO] :: Unlocking viewport redraw...
2023-08-13 16:59:48.065 [INFO] :: Viewport redraw unlocked.