Crios said:

WendyLuvsCatz said:

huge heavy set

been trying all day to import it into Carrara

at 100% now hours later but hanging 

DAZ studio imports it untextured which while better not much so given the number of textures 

First free kitbash kit that i've purchased, are almost simply to retexture, but this https://kitbash3d.com/products/mini-kit-neo-city?_pos=1&_psq=neo+city&_ss=e&_v=1.0 is impossible to add surface in DAZ, almost for me.

I don't know how come out this Minerva this time. I hope are comung back to old surfaces models.

well Neocity imports into Carrara just fine and that is how I broke it up and exported obj's for DAZ studio if I recall but I also could have used Blender 

WendyLuvsCatz said:

huge heavy set

been trying all day to import it into Carrara

at 100% now hours later but hanging 

DAZ studio imports it untextured which while better not much so given the number of textures 

First free kitbash kit that i've purchased, are almost simply to retexture, but this https://kitbash3d.com/products/mini-kit-neo-city?_pos=1&_psq=neo+city&_ss=e&_v=1.0 is impossible to add surface in DAZ, almost for me.

I don't know how come out this Minerva this time. I hope are comung back to old surfaces models.

huge heavy set

been trying all day to import it into Carrara

at 100% now hours later but hanging 

DAZ studio imports it untextured which while better not much so given the number of textures 

Pendraia said:

I do it all the time. Generally I'll resend it from zbrush if I think I've mucked up. It's very easy to do.  I'm not sure how easy it is to do from Blender as I can't wrap my head around the program.

Unfortunately I don't have the funds for ZBrush so Blender it is. There's so much I don't know about Blender but I've got used to using the sculpt tools to make morphs and I've learned how to make multiple morphs in the same Blender scene where they can each be an individually exportable shape key. A Blender equivalent of the ZBrush GoZ export/import tool would make the workflow quicker and easier though.

marble said:

ZombieLove said:

@marble

Gotcha, it makes a difference for me, sorry it doesn't for you. Another thing that thing that helps me is having the models at base resolution with 0 subdivides, that usually speeds up the animated dforce. But as you say, you don't use the timeline so that won't make much of a difference for you. Also, I don't apply textures to my genesis figures until I am done with all the dforce shenanigans. This helps the speed too. The best results I have seen (outside of just not including genesis in my dforce renders or static simulation) is with genesis 8 female at base resolution and no subdivide, very little morphs active, default texture, no other smoothed clothing applied, no hair and very minimalistic scenes (floor and some other furniture). That still takes 10-15 min to get 30 frames. 

I have been contemplating just exporting to blender and handling it that way but I hate that workflow.

It sucks that we have to be reduced to this just to get dforce to give us results in a reasonable time. 

Just for full context, static simulations, with no genesis figures present is measured in seconds for me.

 

I have Blender and Marvelous Designer 8 (before they added GPU simulation) but I can't bring myself to work in two applications at once. I know that exporting to MD (even if it is CPU only) and simulating there would be faster than waiting for dForce but I have to export as an OBJ and import back as an OBJ which loses any rigging or morphs and doesn't allow for little corrections. So I'm living in hope that DAZ will find a superstar developer or that some Open Source alternative to DAZ Studio will suddenly appear.

Having said that, 10-15 minutes for a simulation seems excessive even to me. Mine tend to average around 5 minutes (in scene) and about 2.5 minutes as a stand-alone figure in a scene subset. That's for a single garment on a single figure. I tend to simulate each item of clothing individually.

Absolutely agree, 10-15 min is excessive :) I get similar performance as you if I don't use the timeline with my Genesis figure present. Hopefully, they figure this out and improve the performance. I doubt that is their focus right now, or for the near future :( 

ZombieLove said:

@marble

Gotcha, it makes a difference for me, sorry it doesn't for you. Another thing that thing that helps me is having the models at base resolution with 0 subdivides, that usually speeds up the animated dforce. But as you say, you don't use the timeline so that won't make much of a difference for you. Also, I don't apply textures to my genesis figures until I am done with all the dforce shenanigans. This helps the speed too. The best results I have seen (outside of just not including genesis in my dforce renders or static simulation) is with genesis 8 female at base resolution and no subdivide, very little morphs active, default texture, no other smoothed clothing applied, no hair and very minimalistic scenes (floor and some other furniture). That still takes 10-15 min to get 30 frames. 

I have been contemplating just exporting to blender and handling it that way but I hate that workflow.

It sucks that we have to be reduced to this just to get dforce to give us results in a reasonable time. 

Just for full context, static simulations, with no genesis figures present is measured in seconds for me.

I have Blender and Marvelous Designer 8 (before they added GPU simulation) but I can't bring myself to work in two applications at once. I know that exporting to MD (even if it is CPU only) and simulating there would be faster than waiting for dForce but I have to export as an OBJ and import back as an OBJ which loses any rigging or morphs and doesn't allow for little corrections. So I'm living in hope that DAZ will find a superstar developer or that some Open Source alternative to DAZ Studio will suddenly appear.

Having said that, 10-15 minutes for a simulation seems excessive even to me. Mine tend to average around 5 minutes (in scene) and about 2.5 minutes as a stand-alone figure in a scene subset. That's for a single garment on a single figure. I tend to simulate each item of clothing individually.

Is it possible to export as an object from Vue? From memory different levels of Vue allowed different things. But if you can export an object and then import into Daz it should work. You might have to work on the textures though...

Rod Wise Driggo said:

I am a huge fan of Content Wizard. I might have found out the perfect workflow finally and thought why not share it.

The following is meant for users who want to be flexible in installing/uninstalling stuff and the metadata created with CW.
My setup is like this: I have a 4 TB external HDD to store all my downloads and a 2 TB SDD for my working library. I use only DIM. Therefore my 4 TB holds all the packages downloaded with DIM (I never delete them) plus folder structures from the downloads from other stores. I install only to my 2 TB SSD.

Important: I have a dedicated library for CW-initial installs. This library is always empty and has only a subfolder "runtime" with a nested folder "support" as Content Wizard is needing those to create the metadata-files.

1. Preparation of ZIPs
Initally I manually combine the downloaded ZIPs. So if there are 1+ I locally extract and combine everything in one ZIP. If I do not like the naming inside of the people (or environment etc.) folder I adjust. Sometimes I even use a Renamer-tool to change the name of particular files i.e. to include G3F/G8F if the product is for multiple generations. I also remove any readmes etc. from the ZIPs.

2. First install with Content Wizard to CW-library
I analyse the ZIP, install and let CW create the smart content. Once this is done I create the installer manually adjusting the name to my liking.

3. Deleting of installed product
Now I find the new product in smart content, let it be shown in the file library and delete it within DAZ studio. In the CW library I delete all installed files including the metadata-files CW created under runtime/support. So the product is completely gone. Doing this with a CW-only library is rather easy as you just have to delete everything appart from the folders runtime and runtime/support which need to stay for future installs.
4. Altering the supplement.dsx (Optional)
You may ignore this step but then your new product will show up in DIM similar to all other products. Instead I extract the supplement.dsx from the created installer and change the Product Name. I alter i.e. "Product for G8F" to "Vendorname - Product for G8F (RC)" where RC is for example Renderosity. In doing so I can easily search in DIM for just lilflame-Stuff or Products from Rendo etc.

5. Moving the installer created with DIM to the packages-folder from DIM
The installer with the altered supplement.dsx then goes to the packages-folder and I delete the original files downloaded from the 3rd party store.

6. Re-Installing via DIM
Open DIM again or refresh to have the installer you just moved appear in DIM under downloaded. Just change sort order to rencently downloaded to have it appear on top. Now install/uninstall whenever you like.

Of course this workflow is a little time-consuming but quite rewarding. If you only move the installer and install "over" the files already created with CW, DIM would not remove anything on uninstalling as DIM can only delete files it created.
Disclaimer: I'm happy with this workflow but maybe there are faster ways in doing things. So feel free to add your thoughts.

Thank you for sharing your workflow!  I hope it helps people.

I use Blender to create clothing morphs. I noticed something today that I have not noticed before and that is the morphs for the clothing appear in the parameters for the G8F actor as well as for the clothing item (see attached screen shot).

I have a Blender Export preset that I have used for a long time because I can't remember the export settings in either direction. I use Morph Loader Pro to import. If I delete the clothing from the scene the morphs under G8F also stop appearing in the parameters. Am I right in thinking that those morphs should only appear under the clothing and not under G8F as well?

Pendraia said:

UV's done. Anyone know what settings to export a cr2 at?

@Pendraia Looks like you made a bodysuit for Gruggle Monk! If you want to export your outfit as a .cr2 file, try and follow the steps by Richard Haseltine and Andolaurina at this thread...

Please...Steps to saving model .CR2
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/1605/please-steps-to-saving-model-cr2

On another forum, someone suggested doing a FBX export from DS, then import into Poser, and export as a CR2.

Also @Catherine3678ab states, "btw - Gruggle is a legacy figure, it is to be found in the Poser runtime ;-)  When you make mat files in D/S, those must be kept in another folder under My Library but NOT in the runtime folders."
Source: https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/544646/40-diffuse-base-textures-for-the-gruggle-monk-tshirt

And here's an old and short YT video showing the process..

export cr2 form DS to Poser
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgiDZI2OcVA

You technically could add to an existing Product, but not recommended. Your new textures can be a separate Product, like any other texture add-on. The key is to set the Compatibility to the original Product. The physical location is not really important, you can make links to your files in any folder you want, like in a sub-folder of the base Product.

You can keep your created files in any folder you like, which is better for backing them up. You can have more than one library, which is a good way to isolate your own creations from purchased products. The metadata is what will tie everything together for Smart Content.

First, create a new Product as a placeholder for your texture set. This will create a logical container that will hold only those items that you want to include, as opposed to LOCAL USER, which holds anything that does not belong to any Product (there could be hundreds). Typically, you will have all your files and resources in a folder or folder tree. In the Content Library pane, right-click on the top-most folder with your texture set and select "Create a Product From..." and give it a name (must be unique, or you will actually add to an existing Product, after being prompted). This new Product will contain any user-facing files in the folder tree that you specified.

For texture sets, there are no items with any geometry, so your task is quite simple at this point. You can add metadata to the assets from the Content Library folder with the Content DB Editor. Do it for every folder with visible assets. Select an asset from the top half, (you can do more than one at a time, or copy from one to many others later). Start by setting the Content Type (i.e., Preset/Materials/) and a Default Category or two (Categories tab, bottom half of the window, right-click items, "Add Default Categories to Selected File(s)"). These are the categories in Smart Content where they will appear.

Now for Compatibility. In the bottom half, select the Compatibility tab. Right-click on the selected item(s) in the bottom pane (again one or more, you can copy to the others later) and select "Add Compatibilites to Selected File(s)". Once the list of Products comes up, search or scroll to the base Product. Expand the entry to show all sub-items, if any. Select the one or more items to which the texture set is to be made compatible and accept. You should now have everything you need for it to show in Smart Content when the base item is selected in the scene.

If you want to create a reference close to the original base product, you can make links to your creations. Make a sub-folder in the Content Library under the base product, like most texture set add-ons. Navigate to your texture set folder, and select the assets you wish to link. Right-click and Copy. Go back to the new folder under the base product and Paste. This will make a .djl file which links to the original.

There are ways to do some of this with drag and drop (like Compatibility), but I have never tried it.

All done. (I hope!)

wolf359 said:

Complete Daz sets & props import just fine via Diffeomorphic

Very nice.

I don't believe so - I have briefly looked for this myself in the past.

You COULD add it manually to the dsx file in /Runtime/Support and then re-import the metadata for that product. However, that would be a bad idea since you'd have to know what you were doing and if it was a product from the Daz store then your changes would get overwritten if the product was ever updated or re-installed.

It would be nice if there was an in-built way for the Smart Content to automatically link/merge related products - e.g. If you have a Clothing Product and a Textures Product.

Obviously if you have the item in question selected and use the "Filter by Content" then it should show you just the relevant clothing textures if the meta-data is set correctly. However, that does require you remembering that you have more textures outside the main product so not quite ideal.

I am a huge fan of Content Wizard. I might have found out the perfect workflow finally and thought why not share it.

The following is meant for users who want to be flexible in installing/uninstalling stuff and the metadata created with CW.
My setup is like this: I have a 4 TB external HDD to store all my downloads and a 2 TB SDD for my working library. I use only DIM. Therefore my 4 TB holds all the packages downloaded with DIM (I never delete them) plus folder structures from the downloads from other stores. I install only to my 2 TB SSD.

Important: I have a dedicated library for CW-initial installs. This library is always empty and has only a subfolder "runtime" with a nested folder "support" as Content Wizard is needing those to create the metadata-files.

1. Preparation of ZIPs
Initally I manually combine the downloaded ZIPs. So if there are 1+ I locally extract and combine everything in one ZIP. If I do not like the naming inside of the people (or environment etc.) folder I adjust. Sometimes I even use a Renamer-tool to change the name of particular files i.e. to include G3F/G8F if the product is for multiple generations. I also remove any readmes etc. from the ZIPs.

2. First install with Content Wizard to CW-library
I analyse the ZIP, install and let CW create the smart content. Once this is done I create the installer manually adjusting the name to my liking.

3. Deleting of installed product
Now I find the new product in smart content, let it be shown in the file library and delete it within DAZ studio. In the CW library I delete all installed files including the metadata-files CW created under runtime/support. So the product is completely gone. Doing this with a CW-only library is rather easy as you just have to delete everything appart from the folders runtime and runtime/support which need to stay for future installs.
4. Altering the supplement.dsx (Optional)
You may ignore this step but then your new product will show up in DIM similar to all other products. Instead I extract the supplement.dsx from the created installer and change the Product Name. I alter i.e. "Product for G8F" to "Vendorname - Product for G8F (RC)" where RC is for example Renderosity. In doing so I can easily search in DIM for just lilflame-Stuff or Products from Rendo etc.

5. Moving the installer created with DIM to the packages-folder from DIM
The installer with the altered supplement.dsx then goes to the packages-folder and I delete the original files downloaded from the 3rd party store.

6. Re-Installing via DIM
Open DIM again or refresh to have the installer you just moved appear in DIM under downloaded. Just change sort order to rencently downloaded to have it appear on top. Now install/uninstall whenever you like.

Of course this workflow is a little time-consuming but quite rewarding. If you only move the installer and install "over" the files already created with CW, DIM would not remove anything on uninstalling as DIM can only delete files it created.
Disclaimer: I'm happy with this workflow but maybe there are faster ways in doing things. So feel free to add your thoughts.

I don't know how to specifically export a MMD motion but there are lots of tutorials you can Google for Blender

also many on retargeting to other figures

I was only dealing with the DAZ import

and no FBX in DAZ is rubbish BVH on an existing rig your only option as crappy as it is

I personally use iClone6 and 3DX6 to retarget FBX but the others are free options 

Genesis 1 is  in the DAZ starter essentials 

Thanks for the info. Can you give me more info on how to do this i'm not very smart?

So i go to blender with my VMD files and then what? Do i need to have to plugin in Blender installed?

And do i need a PMX model? PS I don't want to use a PMX model for my final project, i want to use a daz character.

Ok So anyways even if i need a PMX model, i have downloaded a few so it's no problem. Then what do i do to retarget?

What do i do to export the animation correctly for Daz?

And then you said something about Genesis 1, so what do i do in Unity with Genesis 1? OR do you mean i have to import the resulting blender data to DAZ Studio? So that mean i have to save out as BVH? Cause i think that's the only animation type Daz reads.

Sorry i'm asking

If you don't want to explain do you have a video tutorial or pdf tutorial on these steps? It's too hard for me.

And PS also i don't have Genesis 1 in my Daz where do i get it from?

So recently I got a cms error. Couldnt find it etc. I deleted cms and reinstalled it and now it works . Ive set up my drives to find the content like normal and it sees everything I own but it does not read it as installed. I cant reinstall everything again I have it all on my drive already and its alot. Any help would be massively appreciated. I tried restarting cms, refreshing , content DB maintenance reset, reimport metadata.

Its not reading my drive with content

Any help would be appreciated:)

Thanks

After figuring out how to import Genesis 8 characters into Unreal Engine from DAZ Studio, I made a working lightsaber for the characters to play with.

If you are going to use only Default Categories, you can just export the metadata files for each product that is affected. If the changes are already done to the Default Categories, they will be present in the metadata for any product that uses them, and will be exported into the new metadata file. Faster than editing them manually. Note that the categories will be read-only once re-imported or re-installed; you can add to or delete, but can't move nor rename.

Thanks.  I'll look further into it but I have no real desire to potentially modify hundreds of metadata files.   :(