Thanks for your replies. Sorry, they are texture maps in stereo format using 3DF Zephyr. It was 155 images combined into 3 material surfaces. FBX model. I thought maybe I could check or uncheck something in the import dialogue?

Silver Dolphin said:

Blender and Unreal Engine both use AMD Pro Render, Daz has a bridge to Blender. Good luck.

I think i got it. You say I do my job (animations, character poses and materials) in daz3d. then, export the job into fbx and import it in blender and render it. right?
The camera in daz3d can be rendered in blender?
But in other hand, i think blender not supporting my rx580 8gb for rendering. is there a plugin like pro render for install it on blender to render with my rx 580?
sorry for my bad english//...

The vmd motion you mentioned works perfectly well on my blender.  

If you are using vmd retargeting addon, you must already know, there is a very detailed video tutorial for that blender addon. Follow that video, there is no way you can not make it work. 

Like other users already told you, also video tutorial told you too, check "merge Rigs" when importing your character. 

And there is no any glitches on the vmd motion you mentioned above. Both G8 and G8.1 works perfectly. 

Also, the tutorial about how to export animation back to Daz, there is a Daz script in its description, which will make your character ready to import animation in Daz Studio.  

Document is already explained why you need to unlock hidden properties, if you ignore that, your motion won't work on the character. 

From your posts here, I think you are keeping making excuses to not follow video tutorial. Once you don't follow video tutorial, something will be wrong, and you don't know how to fix that. 

Here is what you should do:

* You can learn everything from beginning about bones and blender, then you can ignore video tutorial and mess up everything you want.

* Or, follow video tutorial, do not skip any step, like every other users of vmd retargeting.  

There are some female users of vmd retargeting, they barely learned anything about blender or Daz. They just follow every step of video tutorial and make it works perfectly. 

Yes you can, just use import pose as usual, it works for simple-rig mhx rigify.

I believe that Daz Connect runs some updates at the application launch. I think it's only supposed to be metadata but I have heard that it also "fixes" some files that it sees as differing from what they "should" be. Although it's unlikely that the Rory product has been recently "unfixed" at source and the last reported update was 2020-12-21.

It sounds like perhaps you may have installed a character that has Rory as a prerequisite/dependant and is has a non-zero default or you might have another product that has the same IDs that rory uses - check your Daz Log for duplicate formula errors.

If I use mhx rig I cant import poses? What Im missing.

Thanks, I finally found it.  That was an adventure.

Next question.  In Daz3d for eye movement it goes negative for left/positive for right, then negative for down/positive for up.  But Unity only allows positive values when exporting for VRMs. Can you use the Daz pose controls at all, or do you have to make new controls in unity for them?

EDIT - I just went ahead and created the new controls in Daz3d.  Kind of a pain, but at least it's easier to figure out in Daz than in Unity.

Now just trying to get my materials optimized to import.  Current workflow is to import with the iRay settings, which I don't use any of, then convert in Unity.   Now working on importing with Daz default shaders to make everyting small and fast.

Jessie said:

Also forgot to mention blenders import settings I use. those are:  smooth groups/ lines. split by object, forward is -z and up is y

That's your problem, you need to select "Keep Vert Order" 

Also forgot to mention blenders import settings I use. those are:  smooth groups/ lines. split by object, forward is -z and up is y

Did you actually reset the database? If not, the metadata is still in there, looking for the original files. Did you try putting back an old name to see if it comes back in Smart Content? The references should be in the LOCAL USER product, which is where all saved files go, since thery are not part of an actual product. If the metadata is still available, there will be orphaned references to the original file names. If you restore the original names, you should get back your metadata.

In order for things to show in Smart Content they need to be categorised, have compatibility, and have a file type. You can set these by drag-and-drop from the Content Library pane to the Smart Content pane, with the to-be-compatible-with item loaded and selected in the scene. You don't need to reimport metadata after making chnages in DS, there you are working directly on the database ((re)importing metadata just adds the metadata to the database).

barbult said:

I don't understand what you mean by "nothing in that folder shows in CMS". Do you mean nothing shows in the Smart Content pane? Did you export User Data with Content DB Maintenance before resetting the DB? If not, your personal data won't have any metadata files to reimport.

That's what I mean, and no, I didn't so that's probably the root cause.

So, how do I go about fixing this?  Take the Scenes, I've just saved a new one into the same folder, that shows in Smart Content, but the others in the same folder don't.  I've selected the scenes in Content Library and right clicked, used "Categorize" to mark them under "Default > Saved Files > Scenes", which is the same as the new file, and reimported, but to no effect.

I know I'm going to need to go back through the files and give them meta data, but as "Categorize" doesn't seem to have the desired effect, is there another route?

The Daz Dolphin is perfectly usable in DS:

So we DO have a simple dolphin. The fact that you can put a gorilla in a spacesuit is irrelevant, because the gorillas have mostly been morphs of Genesis figures, and can thus wear whatever humans can. There's also no correlation between one product existing and an entirely unrelated product existing. Most Poser assets are usable in DS, and the difference between a "Poser asset" and something created specifically for DS is not that great. The dolphin even has metadata, so it shows up in Smart Content with all your other products (if you use Smart Content).

What I really need to do is learn how to delete frames from NLA, all these glitches keep occurring when I ask blender to bake an NLA to an action but I ask it to only do so for 10% of the NLA.

But I only know how to delete keyframes, which is what you get after baking the NLA into an action. But I can't bake 7000 frames it's too long (my computer hangs indefinitely), I need a way to delete an NLA's frames above X. But no one likes NLA's so it's hard to ask anyone anything about NLA I guess(blenderdiscord).
Edit: Problem number a million, my animations are a little lifeless because they don't have facial animation. Not sure if this is an import problem, or if the vmd files I'm using just don't have facial expression data in them?

I don't understand what you mean by "nothing in that folder shows in CMS". Do you mean nothing shows in the Smart Content pane? Did you export User Data with Content DB Maintenance before resetting the DB? If not, your personal data won't have any metadata files to reimport.

Did you undo the renaming? if not the metadata, which has the old names, will still not point to the renamed/relocated files. the only way to keep the link is to rename inside Daz Studio, and save your User data to preserve the changes.

This is a bit of an odd one, not sure if I'm missing something.  I have two directories on my PC for Daz content:

- My Library - Usual Daz content directory, has all my purchased stuff

- Personal Library - Stuff I've created, scenes, characters, presets

The reason for two is that the personal one is in a folder synched to OneDrive, if I have a hardware fail I can reinstall the products, but the stuff I've created is safe on OneDrive.  

I've been using this happily for years, it all appears normally in the CMS, the problem started when I managed to break a load of the CMS by renaming files as part of housekeeping.  "No problem, just re-scan known directories, reset the CMS and re-import the lot"".  Scanned directories, re-imported metadata, but nothing in the personal library showed up.

I know the files are still there, and the directory is perfectly normal in Content Library, but I don't seem to be able to get CMS to read the contents.

Any thoughts?

Cheers

Fran

I have another maybe solvable issue. ATM I'm just planning to live with exporting naked, and reimporting naked. But the only "successful" import back into daz that I've done results in an animation where when the girl tries to wave her arms in the air... she brakes both her shoulders dislocating her arms to spin them at an impossible angle.
I figured okay well that makes sense the video had me unlock rotation of all bones. So, I redid the import without unlocking the bones, and it didn't help the issue at all, if anything it only made it worse. Anyone got any clue as to what I screwed up? 
This is the moment the shoulders start to become broken/deformed: 
This is the VMD I used: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_4TKRgEr9U
I guess maybe I should find a VMD with less arm motion to test, but well, I just wanted to grab one randomly as a test of the process.
As to why I want to import back into daz, well, I can't get the hair or clothing to work in blender, I don't know how to set up lighting in blender, but I do already know how to do all those things in daz, so by reimporting the pose/animation back into daz, I don't actually have to "learn blender".
I just have to follow the 8minute video tutorial instead, unfortunately, yeah, broken shoulders. As you can see below.


I don't know if anyone has encountered anything like this using the steps in the video tutorial, and happens to know which step I did wrong? It's a long shot but doesn't hurt me to ask. It's strange though that the animation manages to follow the dance so perfectly EXCEPT for the issue of the shoulders. I'd imagine if the process was done totally incorrectly the limbs would all flail about randomly, not result in an almost perfect copy of the dance except for one set of joints getting it wrong.

287ego - if you export and then import an OBJ file, you usually do not have to smooth it. If you export then import as 3DS file, you might need to smooth it. The problem you describe I have never experienced (exported from Hexagon, Wings3D, Daz Studio, MeshLab, ...) so I cannot help here.

As NGartplay mentioned, you can re-download Bryce and the additional assets from your account. Have a look at the PDF you find on my website here: Bryce & 3D CG Documents > Mine > Diverse > Bryce Content FAQ that tells you where stuff belongs. I recommend that you copy all libraries to a save place, because if you add new assets (purchased, free or self made) they will be lost when you install Bryce anew. If you have a backup of those libraries, you can copy them back.

Note that Bryce can be installed anywhere on your computer, even on a network drive or an USB stick. Never use DIM or Daz Central for anything Bryce.

If you have questions about Bryce, ask, we are all here to help you.

FSMCDesigns said:

While I can appreciate the comments here and I am in similar situations with limited purchases as of late, to answer the OPs question, it's never enough. DAZ is a business afterall and it's main goal is to make money off of 3D content (unless they have a side gig and are just doing this for the fun of it or a hobby which I highly doubt) I wonder how many here would be upset if DAZ just vanished like my fav coffee shop that went out of business due to poor sales. Imagine being left with DS version 4.21 with no chance of ever getting an upgrade or it not working due to newer windows or drivers and no support or being stuck with undeveloped G9 and no new content for any figure, or no forum or gallery for those that use it. So spend what you can, or better yet, try to others involved in this 3D spending madness, LOL

The software should still function for a long time. Most content is created by 3rd parties, so many of those people could easily sell from somewhere else. Genesis is pretty modular, so with the exception of HD morphs new content can still be created. You could even design your own stand alone custom figure, like numerous PAs have already done. So a group could get together and build their own successor to Genesis...maybe one that includes HD mesh import from the start, LOL.

Daz would probably still be valuable enough so that somebody will want to buy it. Just look at Poser. While it may be staggering around like a zombie, the fact remains that Poser is not dead yet. There are some diehard people who refuse to let Poser die, and continue to support it even if it means getting fewer sales than they can selling products for Daz. I can very easily see the same thing happening with Daz Studio if it suddenly went bankrupt. A group of people or website will fight to keep it alive, no matter how zombified it starts to become.

Even if they somehow killed Daz Studio so that software stopped functioning, the assets can be loaded in other applications. Somebody would almost certainly try to create a Daz like software to take its place. And somebody might find a way to hack the old software into working.

Anything could happen, but never underestimate what dedicated people can do when they put their mind to it. There are a lot places that use Daz assets in one way or another, I feel confident somebody would find a way to keep going.