I am on the verge of releasing a webcomc using Daz3d and Sketchup to replace my inability to create believable stick figures. Here are the first 5 pages.

No idea about Sketchup, Blender 'scares' me, and not too familiar or comfortbale with Poser or Carrara (despite having them both!)  I stil ahve the .mtl file so if you could do a dir *.jpg > jpglist.txt and let me have copy of that text file I can try my script-fu and see what image files are missing or superfluous to need.

no map Kd was not there and every obj paragraph has the same parameters for the materials 

its a pain as the obj produced from the unreadable gibbberish FBX file exporting from Carrara and I also tried Blender has a pile of models at the start that neither exist or their coresponding textures.

loading it in any software those models just do not exist in the scene and it looks for those maps first

except DAZ studio which pretty much ignores any mtl file on most things including its own exports and loads it untextured, that also messes up the FBX badly so just not going there.

The issue is the textures are in separate folders with individual 3ds models of each building and nothing will batch load those 3ds files.

Poser can one by one but many of their positions are out, hence the FBX model in one go,  Carrara loads every one 0, 0, 0 both load them textured but 4K of them!!!

I get the 4K individual models in Carrara and iClone 3Dxchange with FBX untextured but named the same as the existing maps from that FBX file the problem is creating a mtl file to populate those meshes with those maps converting it to a useable obj.

I ultimately want it textured in DAZ studio and run texture atlas, then Carrara, Poser not actually iClone as it will never cope with all those maps unless resized very tiny.

Its really proving unworkable I think as the obj produced has issues to start with, it was obviously created from Sketchup models so mapping rather crap to begin with, the city itself looks quite awesome but individual buildings very fuzzy lowrez textures anyway, might be better flat mapping the lot in Ultimate Unwrap3D and dropping a Google earth image on it like I did my OSM creation of Adelaide.

Realizing this is an older thread, here is what purports to be the USS Lexington, obtained from the SketchUp 3D Warehouse, author 'leon'.  Exported from SketchUp Make 2017 (Free) and then imported into Daz Studio 4.9 by my forthcoming SketchUp-to-Daz direct-transfer solution.  A very basic model to be sure, but it I think it demonstrates the possibilities.

Regards,
Mike

DzFire's greeble sets could probaly get that airborn no problem . https://www.daz3d.com/nurnies-greebles-parts-and-pieces   ; https://www.daz3d.com/nurnies-greebles-parts-and-pieces-vol-2

Realizing this is an older thread, here is what purports to be the USS Lexington, obtained from the SketchUp 3D Warehouse, author 'leon'.  Exported from SketchUp Make 2017 (Free) and then imported into Daz Studio 4.9 by my forthcoming SketchUp-to-Daz direct-transfer solution.  A very basic model to be sure, but it I think it demonstrates the possibilities.

Regards,
Mike

Put that on the marketplace ASAP :D 

Realizing this is an older thread, here is what purports to be the USS Lexington, obtained from the SketchUp 3D Warehouse, author 'leon'.  Exported from SketchUp Make 2017 (Free) and then imported into Daz Studio 4.9 by my forthcoming SketchUp-to-Daz direct-transfer solution.  A very basic model to be sure, but it I think it demonstrates the possibilities.

Regards,
Mike

It doesn't look like I'm getting much noise on the desktop. I'll upload a few other rendered shots. 
Test 3 is after I adjusted the brightness/contrast/saturation in Paint.net (Free and very functional). Test 4 is the 'pencil drawn' effect in same. The last is a 'finished' peice for the comic/online graphic novel I'm using daz to help create.
In the last one I'm only rendering the model and using sketchup for the background. I may go back and re render the backgrounds, but I haven't decided. While the middle example looks great, the work flow it way too slow.

System.getenv("APPDATA") does indeed give me what I'm after.  Thank you once again!

My software does have its own folder within AppData\Roaming, and (other than the user-specified SketchUp model folders) that is the only place it writes information to.  This folder is used to communicate various information between the SketchUp part and the Daz part to provide increased convenience of operation (for example, the Daz part can automatically determine where the SketchUp part created the most recent export, so the user doesn't have to manually browse to that location).  That's why I needed to be able to locate it in my Daz script.  Once I find AppData\Roaming, I append my own folder name to that and work from there.

Regards,
Mike

In the Daz portion of my SketchUp importer i have a need to reliably locate the current user's AppData folder.  So far the only script functionality I have been able to find is 'App.getAppDataPath()', which returns a path that is (apparently) actually 2 levels down after AppData/Roaming itself.  By way of illustration, on my system this is 'C:/Users/mjenkins/AppData/Roaming/DAZ 3D/Studio4'.

So what I am doing (right now) is taking this path and going up 2 levels, which does take me to 'C:/Users/mjenkins/AppData/Roaming', which is where I need to be.  However I am not convinced that this is a reliable method for getting this path, as it's my impression that Daz's AppDataPath may not always point here.

So, my question: Is there any way in Daz Script to simply ask the operating system for the location of standard folders, such as AppData?

Thanks in advance.

Regards,
Mike

In the export portion of my SketchUp-Daz transfer tool (the Ruby script that runs inside SketchUp), I am writing out numeric values for the normals for each face.  Here's a typical triangle definition in my intermediate XML file.

      <triangle>
        <materialId>0</materialId>
        <vertex>
          <position>0.0000,304.8000,0.0000</position>
          <normal>0.0000,1.0000,0.0000</normal>
          <texcoord>0.0000,0.0000</texcoord>
        </vertex>
        <vertex>
          <position>304.8000,304.8000,304.8000</position>
          <normal>0.0000,1.0000,0.0000</normal>
          <texcoord>0.0000,0.0000</texcoord>
        </vertex>
        <vertex>
          <position>304.8000,304.8000,0.0000</position>
          <normal>0.0000,1.0000,0.0000</normal>
          <texcoord>0.0000,0.0000</texcoord>
        </vertex>
      </triangle>

In the Daz portion of the transfer tool, I am not currently doing anything with these values, because quite frankly I have not been able to determine what script functionality would be used to do so.  However, since the models I import appear visually correct, I am wondering if I actually need to apply these values, or if the normals are being calculated for me by Daz?

Obviously I'd like to be sure my trasnfer tool is creating geometry correctly in Daz (appearances aside), so:

(a) Do I actually need to be applying the numeric normals values?

(b) If yes, I would appreciate a pointer as to what function to use to do so.

Apologies in advance, as I'm sure this is obvious to experienced users, but I am having a very hard time finding this information in the curent documentation.

Regards,
Mike

After some testing it seems I cannot assign DzAuthor values in a script, after all.  All the values are read-only (at least they are documented that way) and appear to come from Daz Studio itself when a node is created.  I can indeed create a DzAuthor object, but assigning it to the authorshipInfo property of the Node I am creating does not seem to have any effect.  Interestingly, even though this assignment should technically fail, since the Node's authorshipInfo property is also marked as read-only, no errors or warnings are reported and the script appears to simply ignore the command.

My goal here was to have the imported object be attributed to the person who created it in SketchUp, not the person who simply imported it into Daz Studio -- if that makes sense.  Based on what I have found so far it does not seem this will be possible.  If I am incorrect in this conclusion I would be very happy to be told so and be pointed in the right direction as to how I can accomplish this goal.

Regards,
Mike

I am close to wrapping up my SketchUp Importer project and would like to add some finishing touches - particularly, labeling an imported item with the name of the author and so on.

In Trainz we were able to assign attributes such as Author Name; Contact E-Mail; Contact Website; License Text; and a textual Description.  This information then showed up later in the Trainz Content Manager application.  I am wondering if there are similar attributes in a Daz 'model' and, if so, how I would go about setting them via a script.  My searches so far have not turned up anything useful.

Thanks in advance for any assistance.

Regards,
Mike

For beeing primarily an advertising platform Windows 10 is an OK operating system also.

The only big problem people has with W10 is the ever changing OpenGL drivers, but if you want to use it as a render fram only it should work just fine I think (and if you don't have very old graphics hardware it should not be that difficult to solve any OpenGL problems either).

 

For those unfortunate who have an Intel HD 4000 video card and have been recently updated to Windows 10 creator, there is a well known openGL version issue (see https://communities.intel.com/thread/113216?start=15&tstart=0)

It's still unsolved. It affects Carrara, but not only (far from it). There is a lot of talk for instance in the Sketchup forum.

I'm in the process of developing a SketchUp importer for Daz Studio, and when I came across this thread I wondered if there might be some modern fighter jets on the 3D Warehouse.  Turns out there are quite a few.  Since I am in the internal testing phase right now and am looking for 'acid tests' I thought this might be a good opportunity.

A quick search turned up a model of an F-15 by author named  'Tony'.  Here it is in SketchUp:

Here it is after being exported from SketchUp and imported into Daz by my SketchUp Importer software.  The geometry that shows up white indicates reversed faces in SketchUp, which is something that is the bane of anyone trying to write this kind of converter software.  In those cases it's currently my expectation that (a) it can be cleaned up in SketchUp and transferred again, or (b) a suitable material re-application can be made in Daz.  Even if the latter turns out to be the preferred route, I think it still shows a huge savings in modeling time, and since most of the textures are in fact correct, the touch-ups should not be that much extra work (compared to a total repaint, which might be required with other trasnfer scenarios).

Here's another model, supposedly a Turkish fighter.

Comments are welcome.

Regards,
Mike

It's not a UP Big-Boy, but it is a steam locomotive.  This is a UK 'Mallard' type.  Classic SketchUp... 298,000 polygons (does that qualify as an acid test?)

Regards,
Mike

This is the UI for the Daz portion of the SketchUp importer.

A tip of the hat goes out to 'mCasual' whose great variety of scripts are an absolute gold mine in terms of learning how to do things in Daz Sudio.

In the 'Import Model from Folder' section you can manually browse to the location to which you exported your model in SketchUp.  This is generally predeterrmined by the Ruby part of my tool based on the location of your SketchUp model (the SKP file); one of the requirements of my tool is that each model you want to export must be in a folder by itself.  You can also use 'Find Most Recent Export' to auto-detect the location of the data from the most recent run of the Ruby portion of the tool.

The other options should be self-explanatory.  I expect that this dialog will have more things added to it when testing begins with users who are experienced in Daz.

Comments welcome.

The importer is essentially operational at this point.  I am now in the internal acid-testing / clean-up phase, and will be getting started on the documentation soon; typically I provide a PDF User's Guide as part of the download.  When these chores are done I will be looking for 3 or 4 beta testers.

Regards,
Mike

Hello All,

Sorry if this is already answered elsewhere but my searches did not produce any hits.  I am trying to use the Progress dialog in my Daz script (4.9) and am running into some issues.

1) The documentation says "The new class DzProgress should be used for all progress functionality."  When I try to use that in a script I get an error nessage stating that DzProgress is unknown.  Can anyone help me understand why this might be?  Or is DzProgress simply not implemented yet, despite what the documentation says?

2) The documentation also states that functions like startProgress() and so on were removed, yet these do work; I can display the dialog and update the progress bar without much trouble.  What I cannot find is a way to update the info text in the progress dialog as my script runs.  Is there a way to update the text?

This is for my SketchUp importer script, which is coming along nicely and working well for the most part; but development is also being held up on a regular basis by issues like this.  Any help would be much appreciated.

Regards,
MIke

Toon Duckie https://www.daz3d.com/classic-toon-duckie-for-genesis-3-male

in front of Salty Dawg Saloon (from Sketchup warehouse imported to Daz Studio).

I think the assets from Sketchup warehouse are quite good for NPR, because they are mostly low poly.

Postwork with Topaz Clean.

thanks for the headsup on  the sketchup models - nice render too - very clean :)

Toon Duckie https://www.daz3d.com/classic-toon-duckie-for-genesis-3-male in front of Salty Dawg Saloon (from Sketchup warehouse imported to Daz Studio).

I think the assets from Sketchup warehouse are quite good for NPR, because they are mostly low poly. Postwork with Topaz Clean.

I am SO LOOKING FORWARD to having the time to play around with this figure. I almost passed on buying it because I probably won't be able to use it for months, but I've been a HUGE fan of Howard the Duck since his original comic was being published back in the 1970s (and I'm totally ticked off that they just cancelled his latest series a few months ago). I like the low-poly building (I really need to go by there and see what's available). I do like the simplicity of the building and the duck's pose conveys a lot of personality (although I kinda think you're losing a little of his cool duck bill by having it aimed straight at us rather than seeing it at an oblique angle -- but maybe that's just me). The colors, shadows and overall feel of the illustraion is very nice... but it still looks very much like a 3D render that's been run through a few filters. I know we're not all striving for the same thing when we discuss our "NPR" styles, but this still has a mostly Photo-Realistic look to it. Even that cool, funky texture on the mountains (which is so cool) doesn't mitigate that much. Maybe popping the colors more with a brighter color palette would help? I really don't know. It's still a very cool image, but for me the detail is just too high to see it as an NPR. Of course, it could just be my own aesthetic bias coming into play. But still... fun image that can't help convey humor, from the duck to the saloon name to that sign. Lots going on in a little space. Thanks for posting.

Toon Duckie https://www.daz3d.com/classic-toon-duckie-for-genesis-3-male

in front of Salty Dawg Saloon (from Sketchup warehouse imported to Daz Studio).

I think the assets from Sketchup warehouse are quite good for NPR, because they are mostly low poly.

Postwork with Topaz Clean.