UnifiedBrain said:

 

I have an open question about outputting animation.

When I started Carrara, I had no realistic workflow.  I was just trrying stuff and hoping that it would work, without really knowing the limits and correct usage of the controls.  I'm now in a similar position with animation.

I tried to get Mimic to work for lip synch, but some of the characters (V4 for example) refused to function.  So, I decided to animate the visemes by hand in Carrara.  PhilW shows how to do it in his course.  It is not really that hard. 

 

it honestly doesn't help you choose the hardest way to do stuff 

 I was using V4 in Mimic Lite for pz2 import into Carrara 5 12 years qgo and Windows Video editor to stitch it up (15fps back then on a Dell craptop)

I did have Poser7 though to save a cr2 with base expressions  and morphs++ etc but the pz2 should still work even if she doesn't talk in Mimic lite without the morphs applied

I used Riversoft's G3 To G8 Hair Converter to convert a bunch of G3 hairs into G8 Hairs. These converted hairs are stored in a separate directory from their G3 originals - I use this directory to store to store all of my converted assets and products, such as hairs, clothes, characters, etc.

Now, to minimize clutter in Smart Content, I've added these Converted Hairs into the same Product as the G3 originals. I did this by simply copy-and-pasting the reference from the "converted assets" directory into the product folder containing the original hairs (all within Daz itself). The converted hairs include "G8 Conversion" in their name to differentiate them from the originals.

I've also edited the Metadata of the Product so the Converted hairs have the correct asset typing and compatibility with Genesis 8 - they include the green "Hair" label in the thumbnail (I know that's not really important, but I'm a stickler for details), and - when I enable "filter by context" in Smart Content - the converted hairs show up as they're supposed to when I have a Genesis 8 figure selected. That's all working fine, no problems at all.

Now, the last thing I want to do is add compatibility to things such as materials, shaping, posing, etc. So when I have my Converted G8 Hair selected in the scene, any relevant materials or shaping options will appear in Smart Content, the same as if I had the Original G3 hair selected. I've tested it already, and using any materials or shaping options intended for the Original G3 Hairs on the Converted G8 Hairs works perfectly fine.

Now, from what I understand, the way you should be able to do this is to edit the Metadata of the product, and select the Converted G8 Hair file in the "Assets" list. Then, with the hair selected, go to the "Compatibility Bases" tab, right-click on the hair and select "Add Compatibility Base to Selected File(s)". In the pop-up window, locate the product file, right-click and select "Create New Sub-Compatibility Base", and enter a unique name for the new "Base".
Once that's done, you should go the "Compatibilities" tab, and select all the material files, shaping files, posing files, etc., in the files list at the top that would be applicable to the hair. With them all selected, right-click on the files (in the "Compatibilities" tab at the bottom), select "Add Compatibilities to Selected Files", and select the new unique base that you created for the Converted Hair.

From what I understand, that should make all those materials and shaping options show up in Smart Content when “Filter By Context” is enabled and I have the Converted Hair selected. But for me, they don’t.

Is there something I’m missing? Did I forget a step, or is there something more I need to do to get it working?

I use Blender"s video editor myself

just import image/series, select first one and press "a' to select them all

Hitfilm and Virtualdub always been a bit finicky for me with Carrara image series

(DAZ Studio ones seem OK but they both drop frames with Carrara)

I never had issues matching the wav file up with them

Great cereal box, Diomede.  You and Stezza need to go into business. :)

The lounge singer was pretty cool and unusual as well.  Definitely good enough for an entry.

I have an open question about outputting animation.

When I started Carrara, I had no realistic workflow.  I was just trrying stuff and hoping that it would work, without really knowing the limits and correct usage of the controls.  I'm now in a similar position with animation.

I tried to get Mimic to work for lip synch, but some of the characters (V4 for example) refused to function.  So, I decided to animate the visemes by hand in Carrara.  PhilW shows how to do it in his course.  It is not really that hard. 

I'm synching the visemes to a music track with singing.  When I run it in Carrara, it looks pretty good.  But outputting into a useful file format has been a challenge.

It seems that most people here output using sequenced PNGs.  I can do that easily, and can also import the sequenced files into a video editor (Powerdirector).  But when I play the sequenced files and the audio music track together, the PNGs are too slow - even when I reduce the duration of each frame to it's shortest possible amount - .01 seconds.  In other words, I can't get the audio and video to play in-synch, because the video files are too slow.

So my question is, how do I make the sequence group speed up?  I'm also wondering if this is a common issue, I have noticed over the years how sluggish and slow-moving that many Carrara videos have appeared.

Is the issue that Powerdirector simply can't make each image duration short enough?  If so, I would be surprised, as the editor is actually pretty full-featured.

I tried outputting the PNGs from Carrara at 12 FPS, and running them in Powerdirector at 24 FPS, figuring that half as many images would play twice as fast.  Alas, Carrara didn't like the idea, and refused to allow me to make sequences at that rate.  Operator error?  Unfortunately, I don't know what I don't know.  I did have some success outputting at 15 FPS.  The video did seem to move faster.  Maybe I need to keep experimenting.  But cutting the frame rate seems like an awkward solution at best.  Plus, the quality will be reduced, right?

The bottom line is to find something that actually works - maybe not the best workflow, but something that gets the job done.  As an aside, I have started experimenting with the Carrara AVI output.  It actually works pretty well - when it works! :)

Added note - GMIC appears to function well in animation - a relief because I use it so much.

ShelLuser said:

MelonLord said:

So I've installed few assets manually and I was hoping if it was possible to see them in smart content tab. Some assets do show up there but for the majority, they dont

That is most definitely possible, and relatively easy to set up. You basically need 2 things: you need to categorize your asset and you need to supply it with metadata. The metadata will determine what kind of asset Daz Studio is dealing with whereas the category basically determines the assets place within smart contents.

• Use the content library pane to look up your 3rd party assets.
• Right click on an asset, then select "categorize" from the context menu; make sure to give it a proper place by enabling a checkmark in one (or more) categories.
  • Note that you're fully free to create your own categories, though I suggest leaving the "root" or "base categories" as they are.
• When done right click on the folder which contains the asset, then use "Edit metadata".
  • Find your entry, select it in the section above and then set the proper 'Type' in the bottom section (use the pull-down arrow menu).
  • Bear in mind that you need to be careful with some type entries because this list includes legacy types as well. For example: Actor vs. Actor\Character (both work though). Or: Preset\Wearables vs. Follower\Wardrobe (the latter isn't often used anymore).
  • Suggestion: check out your official Daz Studio library and check the metadata of some of your current items.
• After that you're pretty much done.

And it doesn't even have to stop here....  you can even set up relationships between specific assets. Think about a prop and its textures (or as Daz Studio calls it: its "material settings"). You can see part of this in the "Edit metadata" window I referred to above: the lower section has a "Compatibilities" tab which is used for this (well: used to define if an asset is related to an already existing item in the database). So if you have a piece of clothing for, say, Genesis 8 then you could use the "Compatibilities" tab and then add a compatibility with, say, "Genesis 8\Female" and/or "Genesis 8\Male".

But that's probably taking a bit too far for this simple explenation. Bottom line: this is perfectly doable, takes a bit of time to set up but it's more than worth the effort IMVHO.

Hope this can help!

 

(edit): Although usable I'm personally not a fan of creating your own product(s) because it has a tendency to clog up the database. All locally added assets are already automatically filed under "LOCAL USER" which can help you in the longer run to keep a clear distuintion between 3rd party items which you added manually and those bought in the store. Of course there are other ways to do this: like making sure you store all your 'local 3rd party items' in a separate dedicated folder.

TY... Took me a few to figure out where the categorize was, but got there in the end.  I can't get Content Wizard working always gives me an error trying to write to a dsa file.

@benniewoodell I looked at your animation. It seems you falled into some sort of gimbal lock so the animation doesn't bake fine. I see you import the daz limits and don't use quaternions that's not good for animation. That is, when you animate with FK then you can keep the daz limits and use euler that's how animation works (or rather doesn't work) in daz studio. But when you animate with IK you need quaternions for the IK chains to be stable and avoid IK flipping, also IK may exceed the daz limits.

I had to bake your animation then polish it deleting the flipping keyframes that were gimbal locked. File attached. For the future I advise you to import without limits and with quaternions.

You may also find the following report useful.

https://bitbucket.org/Diffeomorphic/import_daz/issues/1521/

mmetehanbaydar_77b0078348 said:

Richard Haseltine said:

No, that is not - as far as I know - possible. However, morphs are entirely separate so you can stack effects that way.

I want to create detailed facial expressions of the model I created in ZBrush and add them to daz studio. 

Unless you're a PA in the Daz store, you can only import morphs at base resolution.

Thanks for the information. It could come in handy "the next time" (knock on wood). I couldn't deal with researching the commands, my eyes just wouldn't focus, and I didn't have the patience.

Almost done copying the newly imported User Data's Custom Categories to an editable version. I think the database needed a good cleaning, anyway. Now if there was just a way to re-import User Data that did not make it Read-Only.

You can identify your own or third-party products with a unique prefix, like your initials or something. LOCAL USER is a catch-all and cannot be tamed. You will be surprised at how much ends up there that creates real clutter. You can also add different Stores with a script (Add Store Id [Documentation Center]). There are a few other useful scripts for dealing with metadata in Metadata [Documentation Center]

MelonLord said:

So I've installed few assets manually and I was hoping if it was possible to see them in smart content tab. Some assets do show up there but for the majority, they dont

That is most definitely possible, and relatively easy to set up. You basically need 2 things: you need to categorize your asset and you need to supply it with metadata. The metadata will determine what kind of asset Daz Studio is dealing with whereas the category basically determines the assets place within smart contents.

• Use the content library pane to look up your 3rd party assets.
• Right click on an asset, then select "categorize" from the context menu; make sure to give it a proper place by enabling a checkmark in one (or more) categories.
  • Note that you're fully free to create your own categories, though I suggest leaving the "root" or "base categories" as they are.
• When done right click on the folder which contains the asset, then use "Edit metadata".
  • Find your entry, select it in the section above and then set the proper 'Type' in the bottom section (use the pull-down arrow menu).
  • Bear in mind that you need to be careful with some type entries because this list includes legacy types as well. For example: Actor vs. Actor\Character (both work though). Or: Preset\Wearables vs. Follower\Wardrobe (the latter isn't often used anymore).
  • Suggestion: check out your official Daz Studio library and check the metadata of some of your current items.
• After that you're pretty much done.

And it doesn't even have to stop here....  you can even set up relationships between specific assets. Think about a prop and its textures (or as Daz Studio calls it: its "material settings"). You can see part of this in the "Edit metadata" window I referred to above: the lower section has a "Compatibilities" tab which is used for this (well: used to define if an asset is related to an already existing item in the database). So if you have a piece of clothing for, say, Genesis 8 then you could use the "Compatibilities" tab and then add a compatibility with, say, "Genesis 8\Female" and/or "Genesis 8\Male".

But that's probably taking a bit too far for this simple explenation. Bottom line: this is perfectly doable, takes a bit of time to set up but it's more than worth the effort IMVHO.

Hope this can help!

(edit): Although usable I'm personally not a fan of creating your own product(s) because it has a tendency to clog up the database. All locally added assets are already automatically filed under "LOCAL USER" which can help you in the longer run to keep a clear distuintion between 3rd party items which you added manually and those bought in the store. Of course there are other ways to do this: like making sure you store all your 'local 3rd party items' in a separate dedicated folder.

SofaCitizen said:

If the manually installed item has an existing DSX file then you can import just that one file using a script in the freebies forum - this saves you doing the whole meta-data import routine. Here is the link to that script if relevant. If you are installing new items from third party stores then I would recommend using Content Wizard as it does most of the setup for Smart Content.  For adding metadata for already installed manual products then the only option is to do it manually I believe since once you have merged the files into the library there isn't really any way for Daz to know what files belong to what products (as this is the job of the DSX files).

You can define a new Product by adding assets with the "Create a Product from..." right-mouse menu from any Folder or Asset(s) in a folder. Choose a name carefully, but if it already exists, you will be prompted to add to an existing Product. If new, it will create a new Product with the selected Folder and any sub-folders, or group of Assets. If the assets are in different parallel folders, you can still use the same procedure to add to the same Product when prompted.

If the manually installed item has an existing DSX file then you can import just that one file using a script in the freebies forum - this saves you doing the whole meta-data import routine. Here is the link to that script if relevant. If you are installing new items from third party stores then I would recommend using Content Wizard as it does most of the setup for Smart Content.  For adding metadata for already installed manual products then the only option is to do it manually I believe since once you have merged the files into the library there isn't really any way for Daz to know what files belong to what products (as this is the job of the DSX files).

I don't get any issue with body morphs here. Of course you have to select mhx compatible as usual otherwise it will conflict with IK. But this was the same in previous versions.

steps:

1. easy import with default options and mhx compatible body morphs
2. add custom shapes and simple ik with full options
3. pose the figure with ik controls and body morphs, avoid the extra ik controls for arms and legs until Thomas will look at it

Will look at save pose preset and let you know.

@Padone thank you, I just tried your steps and it works just fine. And then I try it again how I was doing it, it went all wonky and figured out the issue is I was checking the body box in the easy import tab and the legs just collapsed into noodles when I brought the COG down on the Z axis. No worries, I'll just not check the body box. 

But I tried to animate something really quick and bring it back into Daz and it's still sliding left and right. Here are my steps that were working perfect before. 

1. Animate. 

2. Go to object/animation. Click visual keying and uncheck only selected bones. Click pose for bake data.

3. Save pose preset

If need be, I'll just try to not show the legs and feet in renders but if there's a fix or something I'm not doing that changed from 1.6, please let me know. As always, thank you so much for all of your help, it's very much appreciated. 

Some freebies and items from other stores will already have metadata.

Anything can be added to Smart Content - it needs compatibility, type, and category. The simplest option is to have what you want to be compatible with (e.g. a figure, or an item of clothing or hair for materials or styles) selected in the scene and then drag the files from the Content Library to the desired category in Smart Content, after which you will be prompted to set the type.

Only for products from Daz3d.com...
RMB click on Smart Content tab - Content DB Maintenance - Re-Import Metadata...(Tick it) - Accept... then scroll down the list and locate the product (by SKU#). Tick and Accept...

daz studio 4.21.0.5, blender 3.5.1, diffeomorphic 1.7.1.1571

@bennie I don't get anything like that. You can try my steps below to test, or provide your exact steps, please make it as simple as possible to reproduce the issue. Be sure to update to the latest commit for bug fixes.

steps (works fine):

1. standard import Victoria 8.1 and merge rigs, or easy import with the default values
2. add custom shapes, add simple ik with full options
3. pose the figure using ik controls

edit. I see Thomas added extra ik controls for arms and legs, not sure what they are for and I see they conflict each other. That's not a issue if we don't use them but I'm going to ask. Now reported.

https://bitbucket.org/Diffeomorphic/import_daz/issues/1555/

Hello! I'm just wondering if anyone else is finding that when they import a character and use simple IK with this new update, that when you try to take the COG and make them bend down that the legs get all noodly and lose all of their shape. I'm importing them the same way as I did before on the previous version with easy import and checked all the boxes. It doesn't do it with MHX or rigify, just simple IK. 

And then, with the previous version, saving simple IK to a pose preset after baking the animation worked beautifully. Now I opened up a scene that I was working on a month ago, exported the animation out, merged it in Daz and now the feet are sliding left and right big time and I did the same steps as I did before when it was worked. So I'm just wondering if there's something up with simple IK? I downloaded the most recent version from this dropbox link as well and tried it with blender 3.5, 3.4 and 3.3. Any help or thoughts would be amazing. I should know better than to update in the middle of a project.

Oh and I tried it with both Michael 9 and Toon Heroes Masculine and both had the same result, no clothes or hair, just the figure. 

Otherwise it's working great. Thank you! 

I'm looking to import it into another program where I can add stone textures like a statue. It would be great if he hair shape was there so it didn't look like a shaped ape.

Maybe I export from Daz to Bender and then export again?

Technically you can, generate Line Tessellation first in Viewport before export... but what's the purpose of doing so ?  If you wanna make some morphs for the fur and import them back to Ds, you'll never make it as they're all strand-based hair...