RuudL said:

The fbx.dll file should be in the Contents/MacOS/Extensions folder of the Carrara 8.5 application folder.  It came with the installation app.

the File is 0k in my Install. 
i open it with TextEdit is empty.
i cant Import  FBX
the message is then: Fbx.dll failled to load.

I read here: https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/266701/mac-fbx-import-issue

i read in older Thread  the File is in the Install broken.

dijitul said:

Some key notes here: Exporting clothing from MD to DAZ, ensure two things.  First, export as thin mesh, not thick.  Also, export as quads as these smooth and collide better in DAZ.  The transfer utility is helpful for initial setup, but you'll need to edit weight maps to get things moving just right.  Last, design the clothing on the default pose.  Export the figure from DAZ as an OBJ and import as an OBJ avatar.  There's a good tutorial in one of the recent threads, so scroll or search through this forum.

Curious about your recommendation to export as THIN mesh and not THICK. I've been exporting THICK meshes with no issues for a couple years. Am I missing something? 

Hi gang!

Some time ago I bought myself a license for Substance Painter + Designer 2022 from Steam to help me enhance my 3D setup. Before that I was using ZBrush as my main backup but although ZBrush can do a good job with texturing it also has its limits. Obviously, it's a 3D editor, not a doctor errr: painting tool perse.

Designer has already helped me to edit & enhance several of my props, but editing Genesis in Painter was still quite a challenge at first; also because of my inexperience.. and some confusion as well...  Important keywords: layers & channels!

Identifying your assets

So... in this tutorial I'll be using the awesome Sukai 8 figure, but of course any Genesis figure will do. Just keep some of the possible differences with materials in mind.

Load in your figure, enable the surfaces selection tool and click on the belly ("torso"). Open the surfaces pane and check the "Base Color" section. In specific: hover your mouse over the menu (arrow icon) to see what texture map is being used. Click the icon, select "Browse..." and then copy the current folder name. Also make sure to keep track of what texture was being used, in my example this is "Sukai8TorsoD_1002.jpg". Close the browser when you're done.

Now also take a closer look at some of the other settings. Notice "PBR Metallicity/Roughness"?  That's an important detail for later.

So... while you still have Sukai selected go to File => Export, and be sure to use the Wavefront OBJ format. Use the "Daz Studio" preset, but you can disable the "Write material library" checkbox. Now might also be a good time to save this preset.

Loading the Genesis figure into Substance Painter

So, start a new project (Control-N) and then... remember that PBR stuff? ;)

• Select the template: "ASM - PBR Metallic roughness".  (note: for Genesis 2 & 3 you probably want "Non-PBR Specular Glossiness").
• Then select your OBJ file (click "Select...").
• Document resolution: 1024, Normal map format: OpenGL.
• Enable 'Use UV Tile workflow' and be sure to select "Preserve UV tile layout....".
• Enable "Auto unwrap" and then select "Options":
  • Seams, UV Islands, Packing: Generate only missing data (default).
  • Margin size: small, UV Island orientation: unconstrained (default).
  • Max nr. of UV tiles: 4.
  • Don't enable any optimization options.
• Expand physical size: "Use mesh internal unit scale" should do... or select 1cm per unit, your call.
• Change color managerment to: Legacy.

Now load your figure by clicking OK. Now you should see a white-ish Genesis figure. Your texture set list should mention known Genesis surfaces such as "Arms",  "Legs", "Mouth", "Ears"....  but Genesis, what big ears you got?! 

Adding the textures to your Genesis figure

I'll only be demonstrating the torso because otherwise this mini-guide would turn into an essay. Just repeat the process for the other surfaces. Though I will mention some important details for general usage as well.

Press control+alt and then right click on the figures belly ("torso"). If you have both the 3D and 2D view you should see the UV map appear. If not: click on the 2D window, and press 'f'.

When everything looks fine its time to add our textures:

• Either go to File => Import resources, or use the + icon on the Assets browser window.
• Click "Add resources" in the pop-up window.
• Point your OS browser to the textures folder we copied earlier on.
• Let's be lazy: press control-a to select everything, then click open.
• Important: click on one of the entries, press control-a to select everything, then change "undefined" to "texture" for that one entry; this should change all other entries to "texture" as well.
• Import resources to: "Project".  You can also try "current session" if you're not sure about starting a whole project, but do not add this mess to your library!
• Click "Import", your assets window should now show you all the textures we loaded.

Now for some "Painter magic"....

With the torso still selected check the "Channels" overview; 2nd tab icon in the Texture Set Settings pane. To make it easier on ourselves remove the height, roughness and metallic channels (click the 'x' behind 'm)..  Now, there's a reason why I came to admire Sukai 8 so much... if you're also using Sukai 8 (or if you know that this will apply as well): add the "Translucency" and "Specular levels" channels. Optional but... yah, why not ;)  You do this by clicking the "+" icon after "channels".

Now open the "Layers" pane.

You should now see a "Layer 1". Remove it by clicking the trash icon. Then add a "Fill layer". Then go to the properties pane (shown below by default) and jump to the material section (2nd tab icon). This is where the fun begins...  You should see "Material mode" and below it ("Or") you should now see "Base color", "Normal", and optionally those other channels.

• Check your assets pane, be sure to have the textures visible. If not: click the small arrow icon on the left side and select "Project".. Then make sure you have "Textures" select (one of the icons on the right side).
• Then...  drag the texture for the torso ("SukaiTorsoD") using your left mouse button and drop it onto the "Base color" section in the properties pane.
  • You should now see the texture appear on the figure.
• Find the "Sukai8Torso02NM" ("Normal map") and drop it on...  yah: the "Normal" section.
• Find the "Sukai8TorsoSSS" and drop that onto "Translucency" (if you enabled that of course).

Now you can mess around with the figures torso if you'd like.  Repeat the above steps for the other surfaces like the arms, legs, face, ears.. don't forget the nails ;)

Some general Genesis tips....

Find the "Eyelashes" in the texture asset list and hide them, you won't need 'm. If the eyes don't show up properly then hide the "Cornea" as well.

When in doubt: go back to Daz Studio, check the surfaces pane to see what surface has been assigned with a texture map and which not, just make sure it matches whatever you set up in Painter.

This would be a good time to save your project, especially if you've already added all the other textures.

Tip: if you're happy with the current figure and don't expect to use any of the other textures then you may want to use: "File => Remove unused resources", in order to save some storage space. You can also right click on a texture in the assets pane and then click "Delete". Don't worry: it only deletes it from your project, not the actual texture in your Daz library.

But I still can't draw?!!!

It's all in the layers...  want to draw "over" the texture(s)? Couldn't be easier: Make sure you have the right surface selected (remember: control+alt and then right click somewhere). Then just add a default layer on top of your fill layer. Your drawing tools will become right available, happy drawing!

But... who wants drawings when you have cool dynamic generators?!!! ;)

• Select the torso (control+alt and then right click on the belly).
• Add a 2nd fill layer.
• Go to the channel list in the properties window, but this time click the color selector under "Base color", select...  I dunno.. something brownish? Make sure it's a dark color.
• Close the color selector window and see Sukai looking horrible, let's fix this!
  • With the "brown fill layer" selected click on the "Add mask" icon (see the toolbar of the layers pane, hover your mouse to see their names), add a "Black mask"; the texture becomes visible again.
  • Now click the "Add effect" icon, add a generator.
  • In the properties window you'll notice "Generator" and "No generator selected", what are you waiting for? ;)
  • Try adding a "Dirt" generator and watch the magic unfold!

Now, you may notice that the default amount of generators in Painter is kinda limited.. yah, that's why you'd want Substance Designer as well: then you can design your own generators!

Adding your work back into Daz Studio

Once you're done... in my example we threw dirt on Sukai's belly... then it's time to move our stuff back to Daz Studio. Easy!

• Press control+shift+e.
• I'd use "uncheck all" (see 'menu' icon in the top section) and then only enable what you need. In this example: "Torso".
• Then click on Torso; now you'll see which channel(s) get exported. Under normal circumstances you'll only need BaseColor (probably the first listed channel).
• Click "Export".
• Then click "Open output directory" in the top right corner.
• Copy this folder name just like we did before with the "Sukai textures".

In my example it would have saved "Sukai8_Torso_BaseColor.1002.png" which contains our texture layer + the dirt layer on top.

So now hop back into Daz Studio; with Sukai still selected go back to the Surfaces pane and make sure the torso is selected, click the "Base color" icon again and once again click "Browse". This time we want to go to our Substance export directory. Click the torso basecolor texture, load it, and watch the magic unfold!

You'll probably want to repeat this for some of the other surfaces as well, and then maybe save this full material preset.

This time we added dirt.. but we could have basically added anything we wanted!  

In conclusion

Sure, it takes a bit of effort to load a Genesis figure and its textures into Substance painter, and then also set it all up for editing. But once you did then the sky becomes the limit...  especially if you also have 'Designer' at your disposal! Not to mention that the "evil Adobe" also provides plenty of (free) community assets for us to use!

SO yah... it took me all night to figure this out and once I got my fingers behind it...  I had to share. My mistake was that I didn't associate the "Material" setting in the Painter viewports with actual texture maps. For that I was focussed on "Mesh maps" or maybe single channels? I also assumed that the Fill channel was "obviously" the same as the fill option in Photoshop.

I actually used Designer to get a better understanding about the different channels, with great help from the "Base material" node.

Seriously... In Painter all you really need to do is assign the right channels (also make sure to use the proper shader). Then add a fill layer and apply the right texture(s) to the right channels. The best part is that you can easily use the Surfaces pane in Daz Studio to get a good idea. Right now I'm experimenting with Genesis 2 ("Ginger") and well...  the texture map is located under "Diffuse color". So...  I probably need the "Diffuse" channel for this too ;)   (non-PBR shader!).

Once you understand that connection... once you get the link between the Daz Studio surface section and the appropriate Substance channel then... you're pretty much home free.

Thanks for reading, I hope this was useful for some of you!

You can import transmapped hair via obj and morphs with morph loader, then rig with the joint editor and surface with the geometry editor. For detailed steps you can ask in the daz studio forum since this is not specific to blender.

So, I'm not 100% sure I understand the problem...  When I go over the G9 morphs I definitely see morphs for nipples and such. But I don't use G9, so that's probably inexperience on my end.

Let's get into Genesis + ZBrush, yah, I heavily rely on ZBrush to edit my stuff but it's tricky, as you seem to have noticed...   For the record: I'm now addressing editing Genesis 1 - 8, not necessarily 9, but hopefully this can help you anyway.

So the one thing to keep in mind is that Daz Studio, Genesis in particular, uses several textures for its figures, just check the surfaces pane when you have a Genesis (8?) figure loaded: at least the head, arms, legs and torso all use different textures. Of course some also share textures (ears, lips with head, fingernails with the arms, etc.). The problem here is that ZBrush can't use multiple textures on a mesh, only if the mesh is using sub-tools. So if you have Genesis 8 loaded then you can't tell ZBrush to apply a texture for the arms, and a different texture for the legs.

But we can somewhat work around this...

• Load a Genesis 8 figure, I'll be using Sukai 8 as my example but of course any will do.
• Open the surfaces pane and select, say, the torso.
• Check the "Base Color" 'menu' (the arrow icon); in specific: click browse and make sure to copy the folder where the texture(s) are located.
• Also check what texture the torso is actually using (in my example: "Sukai8TorsoD_1002.jpg").
• GoZ the figure over to ZBrush, make sure not to use the current resolution, but do export with deformations.
• Within ZBrush draw the figure ("tool"), and enable Edit mode.
• Check the subtool section and you'll notice that you got the base figure and the eyebrows.
• Now, expand "Polygroups" in the Tool palette, use: "Auto groups with UV", it's also recommended to use "Merge similar groups" afterwards.
• Press Shift-F and notice how the colors roughly match the surfaces in Daz Studio?
• Press control-shift and while keeping this pressed click on the torso, notice how everything else disappears?
  • This may be a good time to hide the eyebrows subtool, that can get annoying right now.
• Now expand the Texture section within the Tool palette, click the map and then use "Import" in the lightbox (browser).
• Point to the right folder, select the torso texture and either click load or double click.
• You'll notice your mesh to get darker, but it's still hard to see.
• Press Shift-F to disable the polyframe, then click the main material selection and switch from Red Wax to PolySkin.
• Now you should see a rough representation of your Genesis figure, ready for editing.

Just make sure to re-enable the eyebrows subtool if you have hidden it before, and also press control-shift and then click somewhere outside the mesh to unhide the rest of the polygroups (you may want to disable the display of the texure afterwards because that's going to look horrid).

After that you can GoZ your changes back into Daz Studio.

Hope this can help, this is roughly how I'm using ZBrush to edit my Genesis figures.

frank0314 said:

It's not like the PA's get together and say hey I'm naming this mat this so don't name your this. This is why you see mats named ART_TR_Gate. Art= the PA, TR= the initials of the pack, and Gate= is the part that that mat is for. It's inevitable that some mats are going to get named the same in some situations. The PA themselves could accidently name something the same across 2 of their 200 products  causing the conflick. All that can be done is to report it so it can be renamed and all the files adjusted.

The software should handle that much more gracefully. It's not like the files are in the same location, so maybe add the location as metadata to uniquely identify each item.

Much smaller morphs tend to not really adapt really well. But usually it's more in the breast/chest area. Weird to get it so low. Maybe should you try to smooth the weighting of vertices in the area (Node Weight Brush Tool), see if it helps the wireframe to maintain its shape.

For a while I thought that keeping G8 default at frame 0, then morphing it at frame 15 (for example), then posing it at frame 30, I'd be able to cumulate the auto fitting of the cloth + the simulation. To avoid those bad deformations. But sadly...

it doesn't work. Once dForce is on, the fitting of cloth is just not taken into account at all anymore, so it keeps its shape from frame 0 and is calculating from that :/

Best solution is to create your own custom morphs for the cloth.

- Export G8 morphed into that small character. Subdivide or not, doesn't matter. Subdivided is better in that case.

- Export your cloth. Import in Blender. Create a shape key (just in case) for the base shape. Then another shape key and modifiy the cloth geometry so that it fits your small character. Once done, export that modified cloth as obj. Import it in Daz using Morph Loader Pro. Now you have a morph slider that fits nicely the cloth to your small character morph. And you can simulate.

Custom morphs are an integrant part of most Daz workflows. Whether it be with ZBrush, Blender or any other modeling app, it's often a necessary step to achieve a clean result.

Richard Haseltine said:

Are you using GoZ? That drops all grouping, using OBJ export/import would keep them.

That's with an import/export because of the textures, I only noticed that you only have 1 surface across GoZ.

One of the things I like about Marvelous Designer is the flexability - For this render I wanted to show off the chest tattoo but didn't want the model totally shirtless.  MD is perfect when you need your characters in all sorts of undress as well as dressed. 

Also I learned you can import Photoshop brushes into Substance Painter.  This one uses Ron's Rips and tears for the Zombies. Dang - all those Ron's brushes just got a new lease on life!

Gallery Link

There's a hairstyle that I really want to use on my Daz model, but I can't find it anywhere other than in Blender.  Is there a way to import the hair from Blender to Daz and be able to shape it in Daz?  I'm new to all of this and want to learn as much as possible, but it's so confusing!

Marvelous Design TIps:

Pretty much anything can be an avatar in Marvelous Design.  In this image I created the DAZ figure and then the Edwardian suit.  Then I exported both and used that as the avatar and draped the cape on that - Marvelous Designer still has trouble layering fabrics and it can be challenging.  When I can, I create the layers separately and then import athem as avatars.

Are you using GoZ? That drops all grouping, using OBJ export/import would keep them.

surody said:

rugeyohe said:

@Padone Do you have any advice for bending knees and elbows? When you do that they look weird. I don't know if it is about weight painting. Should I use shape keys to fix them?

If you're talking about G9 make sure to put the "Base Joint Correctives" morph to 1. Apparently G9 has a controller now to adjust the strength of JCMs and on import it's set to 0 and your JCMs have 0 impact.

Thx much for pointing this out -- was trying to figure out what was missing ;) 

PerttiA said:

Judging by what you wrote, it sounds like you are installing your content with DIM, but also logging in to DS... You should not be doing both.
DIM installs the metadata to \Runtime\Support\, but that is not where the metadata updates during starting DS are saved. See the attachment for how to set your DS startup options to stop logging in to DS.

Thank you for the answer! Makes total sense! In that case I'll just keep using DIM (which is what I've always used, I didn't know I shouldnt login), stop automatic login, and i'll delete that new folder it created with the metadata :) Thank you again!

catmaster said:

dave_0aa47f5a80 said:

You mention that the preferred method for exporting the fbx from Blender is via bult-in fbx exporter. I'd really appreciate it if you could let me know the optimal fbx export settings, as I'm not very familair with Blender.

Attached the export and import settings for SKM and for animations, the settings work for UE5.1 and Blender3.3, may not work for earlier versions because they updated their FBX importers and exporters. 

It seems the baked morph curves are stored with the meshes not with the skeleton in FBX, to export animations with morph curves, the FBX needs to export both armature and meshes, updated the attached images with corrected export and import settings to export animations with morph curves. 

1044083166 said:

How do you fix JCM shapekeys and could you please tell the general idea? Thank you!

https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/596666/modify-daz-character-rig-for-unreal-skeleton#latest
This thread discusses two different approaches, converting G8 to UE4 skeleton vs Rigging G8 and preserving original deform bones.
If using Epic skeletons the characters need custom JCMs which would be provided by DTL plugin.
If using the original Daz JCMs the G8 skeleton needs to be preserved.

Using Diffeomorphic to convert morph drivers to shape keys during retargeting process, Diffeomorphic can bake JCM morph curves into retargeted animations. For this to work it needs to retarget animations to G8 skeleton using AutoRig Pro, G8 deform bones are needed for Diffeomorphic to generate JCM curves.

The original Daz JCMs are designed for DQS and they're not enough to fully solve the skinning problem for game engines, in order to make the original Daz JCMs work without DQS, they can be re-sculptured using the Blender plugin Pose Shape Keys: https://studio.blender.org/training/blender-studio-rigging-tools/pose-shape-keys/

The JCM morphs shown in the attached images are the original Daz JCMs, they're not enough to solve the skinning problem like the flat knees or the distorted shoulders during extreme motions, after the JCMs are re-sculptured the skin deform would be much better.

i'm not fan of baking jcm into animations, because it's means which they only work "on that animation" and the same process must be applied do all animations, which is much better a realtime by using the jcm as morphs as they are supposed to be which means which they can be used into any animation at any time since they are made at run time this is why most peoples don't use stuffs like updrape(cloth pluging) to simulate cloth physics because they are "not real time" and pre made in some cases can look not "realistic than realtime physic based stuffs.

for me i would keep then as morphs rater than "baked into animations", because again in some cases they could not look 'natural" or realistic as in "realtime based" can be. 

Judging by what you wrote, it sounds like you are installing your content with DIM, but also logging in to DS... You should not be doing both.
DIM installs the metadata to \Runtime\Support\, but that is not where the metadata updates during starting DS are saved. See the attachment for how to set your DS startup options to stop logging in to DS.

Wrote this on another thread;

The structure of (traditional) DAZ Content Library is actually quite logical, but when trying to find a simple "push button" solutions for new users, DAZ has created a situation where different default functions do not play well together.

-At first the (new) user is offered DAZ Central for downloading and installing DAZ Studio and all the content that comes with it, no other alternatives are offered or even mentioned.
-When the user has downloaded and installed everything with the default settings/options and starts DS the first time, one is presented with a dialog that asks the user to log in, with the default option to keep logging in automatically in the future, giving the user the impression that logging in is necessary.
-Once the user is in DS and starts browsing the available content in 'Smart' Content, one is told that the content is not installed (with DAZ Connect), giving the user the impression that the content needs to be installed again, when in fact it is not necessary.
-If the user does as is suggested, the content gets downloaded and installed the second time to another location, taking twice the storage space. The installation location is non-traditional, which does not work with scripts and older content, and whatever gets installed by DAZ Connect, overrides the installations made by the other installation methods (DIM/DAZ Central/Manual installation), even when the DAZ Connect installations fail to work due to for example decryption failures.

The general concensus is that the DIM is the best tool for installing DAZ content.
DAZ Central is just a simplified version of DIM

DAZ Connect inside DAZ Studio was created at a time DAZ experimented with encrypted content, which did require logging in to DS/DAZ servers to verify the users licence for that content. The experimentation with encrypted content was ended some 5-6 years ago, but the user is still asked to log in without being told why or being warned about the possible consequences and side effects - The decryption errors are due to the content still being encrypted at DAZ servers that are used by DAZ connect to download them.

Personally I use manual installation as it gives me total control over the installations without having to track down settings in an installation program to get it to do what I want. The only thing the installation programs have is the ability to uninstall content with a push of a button, otherwise everything works just as if the content was installed by any other method.

Every time I load Daz lately, it imports all almost 5k products' metadata, again and again. First it was trying to import to a drive unit I no longer have (changed recently) and was getting an error in the log. Now, I changed my current drive to the old unit letter, and it created a folder there to which all thumbnails and .json files are going. 

My question is How do I change where this metadata goes? I don't want it to be in this folder. I tried looking over preferences and even on DIM and I don't see that folder being called anywhere.

How about this OBJ file?
50cm square, 5cm backing thickness, 6.25cm wedge width, 7.5cm wedge height.

Just a simple obj file to import & apply a texture to. Texture mapping = cuboid style.

Regards,

Richard

rugeyohe said:

@Padone Do you have any advice for bending knees and elbows? When you do that they look weird. I don't know if it is about weight painting. Should I use shape keys to fix them?

If you're talking about G9 make sure to put the "Base Joint Correctives" morph to 1. Apparently G9 has a controller now to adjust the strength of JCMs and on import it's set to 0 and your JCMs have 0 impact.

dave_0aa47f5a80 said:

You mention that the preferred method for exporting the fbx from Blender is via bult-in fbx exporter. I'd really appreciate it if you could let me know the optimal fbx export settings, as I'm not very familair with Blender.

Attached the export and import settings for SKM and for animations, the settings work for UE5.1 and Blender3.3, may not work for earlier versions because they updated their FBX importers and exporters. 

It seems the baked morph curves are stored with the meshes not with the skeleton in FBX, to export animations with morph curves, the FBX needs to export both armature and meshes, updated the attached images with corrected export and import settings to export animations with morph curves. 

1044083166 said:

How do you fix JCM shapekeys and could you please tell the general idea? Thank you!

https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/596666/modify-daz-character-rig-for-unreal-skeleton#latest
This thread discusses two different approaches, converting G8 to UE4 skeleton vs Rigging G8 and preserving original deform bones.
If using Epic skeletons the characters need custom JCMs which would be provided by DTL plugin.
If using the original Daz JCMs the G8 skeleton needs to be preserved.

Using Diffeomorphic to convert morph drivers to shape keys during retargeting process, Diffeomorphic can bake JCM morph curves into retargeted animations. For this to work it needs to retarget animations to G8 skeleton using AutoRig Pro, G8 deform bones are needed for Diffeomorphic to generate JCM curves.

The original Daz JCMs are designed for DQS and they're not enough to fully solve the skinning problem for game engines, in order to make the original Daz JCMs work without DQS, they can be re-sculptured using the Blender plugin Pose Shape Keys: https://studio.blender.org/training/blender-studio-rigging-tools/pose-shape-keys/

The JCM morphs shown in the attached images are the original Daz JCMs, they're not enough to solve the skinning problem like the flat knees or the distorted shoulders during extreme motions, after the JCMs are re-sculptured the skin deform would be much better.