Why use the DazToBlender bridge when you can use Diffeomorphic to perfectly import whole scenes into Blender with correct morphs and poses.

Masterstroke said:

In case of conflicts, export the morph from G8 as an *.obj and import it via morph loader into G 8.1.

Thanks, but the morphs seem to work as is on G 8.1.  But I appreciate the suggestion, for future reference.

felis said:

The simple version to make a slit (in blender) is in edit mode to mark the veritces where you want the slit and then 'rip verteces'. That will not create a visible slit, but when dforced it will be there.

To make the slit visible without dforce you can select one of the bottom verteces in the slit, enable proportional editing, connected only, adjust proportional editing size to slit size and drag away.

You will have to import the object as a new object and do transfer utility, but you can reuse textures as UV map should be unchanged.

Sounds fairly simple enough. I'll have to give that a try. Thank you.

The simple version to make a slit (in blender) is in edit mode to mark the veritces where you want the slit and then 'rip verteces'. That will not create a visible slit, but when dforced it will be there.

To make the slit visible without dforce you can select one of the bottom verteces in the slit, enable proportional editing, connected only, adjust proportional editing size to slit size and drag away.

You will have to import the object as a new object and do transfer utility, but you can reuse textures as UV map should be unchanged.

j11011 said:

also note 2 patches to G9 and V9 already since the launch, anyone seen a changelog for those?

I opened a ticket couple days ago and posted a thread in technical section explaining a bug trying to apply materials to G9 eyes when there is more than 1 G9 figure in the scene, no response to the ticket, no response in the thread...

 

One patch for G9 is actually noted in the readme:

http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/read_me/index/86958/start

Resolved Issues

• 2022-10-25 Updated:

  • Reduced shorts and shirt textures from 4k to 2k

  • Updated metadata

  • Fixed morphs on the shirt

  • Fixed a problem with Proportion Smaller Body Only

 

http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/read_me/index/87472/start

Resolved Issues

• 2022-10-27 updated texture maps

In case of conflicts, export the morph from G8 as an *.obj and import it via morph loader into G 8.1.

Have a look at the installation files for products made by DAZ PA's, there you can see a pattern for where to put everything.

In general, the geometry to \Data\YourName\Product\, Textures to \Runtime\Textures\YourName\Product\ and the user facing files that are used to load the product into the scene into \People\Generation\Clothing\Product\
Metadata is saved into \Runtime\Support\

Padone said:

Singular3D said:

It would be great, if we could import Daz characters and other assets directly to Blender one day.

Diffeomorphic can alredy load directly from the daz library, no need to open daz studio. But, it is probably easier to use daz studio to genereate the figure then export to blender.

https://diffeomorphic.blogspot.com/2021/03/importing-morphed-character-without-dbz.html

Thanks for the info. Wasn't aware about that. Thomas really does an awesome job and you are an amazing supporter! Wish I had more time to support you.

I have searched for other threads about the latest DAZ to Blender add-on but this is the only one that comes up.
I don't know if this is the right place to ask other questions about my own issues with the bridge, so, I'll ask them here and if it's not OK, let me know, I'll post them in another thread.

1- The characters I import from DAZ appear in the default A pose, though with correct facial expression.

2- Trying to apply a pose saved in DAZ only results in turning the character around. No actual pose change.

3- Clothes don't fit properly. The skirt is poking through the apron (or rather the other way around). Same for the breasts through the blouse.

Am I doing something wrong?
Are there some quick fixes for those issues?

Also (and that's just me, not an actual concern with the bridge) I don't know how to hide the posing rig.

I tried to go the other way around: Exporting the beer mug I have modeled in Blender to DAZ. But it looks all wrong. The mugs I burchased in the DAZ marketplace are empty (and with only a thin glass surface instead of a thick one like an actual mug) and I can't model directly in DAZ, I don't like Hexagon. 

I spent quite some time to position the 10 mugs in her hands (inspired by an Oktoberfest picture on the net), I would really like not having to do it over again in Blender.

Thanks for your help :)
Denis N

 

 

 

Singular3D said:

It would be great, if we could import Daz characters and other assets directly to Blender one day.

Diffeomorphic can alredy load directly from the daz library, no need to open daz studio. But, it is probably easier to use daz studio to genereate the figure then export to blender.

https://diffeomorphic.blogspot.com/2021/03/importing-morphed-character-without-dbz.html

generalgameplaying said:

Richard Haseltine said:

Are you in the Add Ons tab of the Preferences dialogue? Where are those instructions?

I'm afraid i don't fully remember, other than no options showing up within Blender, where the instructions mentioned that they should. I think i followed more or less official instructions, but probably am running the wrong version of Blender, for it to work out of the box?

I have a lot of issues with the DAZ to Blebder Bridge my self, but installing the add on is not one of them.
I'm using Blender 3.3, but it was the same with Blender 3.2.x

I don't know what documentation you are refering to and how detailed the instructions are in it, but if it helps, here is the Blender side of instalation:

1- Go to the Edit menu in the top left corner.
2- Select 'Preferences', then go to Add-ons (on the left pane)
3- The search option is on the upper right of that dialog box. Enter DAZ there...
4- Only the add ons with the word DAZ will be displayed now. Click the check box at the left of  'Import/Export: Daz to Blender'
5- Close that window, press 'N' if the Sidebar isn't already displayed on the right of the workspace, the 'Daz to Blender' bridge should now be available there.
 

 

If you are using DIM/Daz Central and have move yoru content and the manifest folders then you will be fine, as long as the reisntall uses the same drive letters for the contnet - jusdt reimport the metadata. That will also restoer any user data you haev exported. If you want to keep the whole database, without having to export userdata, then move the database. Your layouts would be lost unless you backed up the Appdata folder for Studio, and you would probably have to reinstall plugins and reenter your serial numbers even if you moved the aplication (at least some of the third-party ones with more complex activation procedures)

Padone said:

note. Just to add that diffeomorphic is aimed at converting the iray shaders to cycles, thus the materials are not native to cycles. That is, in some cases especially for skins a native cycles material would be done in a different way but then it couldn't be converted from iray. If you replace the diffeomorphic materials with native cycles materials, as discussed in the blender tutorials you find online, in some cases you can get more realistic results than using a material converted from iray.

Just for clarification: This is definitely no complaint against diffeomorphic. This is an awesome piece of software and the conversion of the maps delivers decent quality. Nevertheless there is a further potential for  surpassing iray render quality, when manually adjusted. Diffeo is a great first step to get the characters over from Daz. 

It would be great, if we could import Daz characters and other assets directly to Blender one day. E.g. by an enhanced version of Diffeo.
Another option would be a Blender store extension by Daz. Some of the basic assets downloadable with Daz Studio already provide a Blender version (e.g. Level 19)

hello said:

Singular3D said:

Great render!

What is your light and render setting?

Which character is this? 

Light is basic 3 point setup with area lights and the key light on the far side. I don't remember the render settings but it was cycles and I probably had all the light paths around 8 or 12...

The character is Yeanny by Raiya. The few I have from Raiya are all really good with lots of detailed texture maps.

I'm still experimenting with different characters and skin shaders. I do find the diffeomorphic import BSDF with volume to be my favorite but dissapointed that map edges are visible. I tried BSDF without volume and connecting the SSS map to Subsurface Color and adjusting the gamma but it lacks the depth that the shader with volume has....

I went over a lot of tutorials regarding skin shaders for Blender and the approaches are very different, although some of them really look good. I still try to grab the different node layout and why they have done it this way. Another challenge is to set up a standard studio lighting in order to tweak the skin shader and get a good looking character in various light situations. Tweaking the maps in Photoshop and even combining them is an option as well. So, every information I get is highly welcome. I will share my results as well, when I get a good looking setup. So far I looked at these things
- Guide to create realistic skin shader in Blender (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEHXcS0Bv2E)
- Realistic human skin material in Blender. Correct SSS usage (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zj7BdhUiyak)
- Easy, but realistic skin shader (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7z3PhdCTY8&t=2s)
- Blender tutorial - How to make a skin shader (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3TnEMoNIr4)
- Realistic skin in Blender tutorial (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAWXzukeXMk)

I llooked into the Dermis Shader, Human: Realistic Portrait Creation With Blender (https://blendermarket.com/products/human-realistic-portrait-creation-with-blender) and the work of Chris Jones (https://sites.google.com/view/universalhuman). The variations are amazing, but confusing as well. So. I'm searching for a good looking, but simpler approach.

-   

Singular3D said:

Great render!

What is your light and render setting?

Which character is this? 

Light is basic 3 point setup with area lights and the key light on the far side. I don't remember the render settings but it was cycles and I probably had all the light paths around 8 or 12...

The character is Yeanny by Raiya. The few I have from Raiya are all really good with lots of detailed texture maps.

I'm still experimenting with different characters and skin shaders. I do find the diffeomorphic import BSDF with volume to be my favorite but dissapointed that map edges are visible. I tried BSDF without volume and connecting the SSS map to Subsurface Color and adjusting the gamma but it lacks the depth that the shader with volume has....

Empty? Those are the products you should install. That's 300-400 MB of all sorts of good stuff. Try re-installing them last, something might be interfering with the Compatibility Bases (it's a metadata thing).

Look in the Content Library folders to see if the assets are indeed installed.

Genesis Starter Essentials [Documentation Center]

Genesis 2 Starter Essentials [Documentation Center]

Angells said:

davidtriune said:

@Angells always load characters in dev mode and export as base mesh. if you do those, it should work.

did that for both still giving me geometries did not match.

make sure the geometry is isolated by exporting with "selected roots" or hiding other geometry. open the export with a 3d program and check if there are extra geometry. 

also, g9 has to be imported to g9, g8 has to be imported to g8. you can't cross import if that's what your'e doing.

I've been rendering out Small AVI's ( 480z270  16:9  ie: 1/4 1920x1080)  1000 frames each

Issue #1:

It appears that  if the file hits the ~4.28G limit, most other programs won't import or open it, and reports it as an invalid format.  Hence above why I've been rendering in 1K frame segments.  Likes those just fine @ ~380Mb each.  Is this an undocumented or specified limit of AVI's in general, or just the codec that DS uses to encode the uncompressed AVI? If that is the case, perhaps at some point the DEV's could look at other movie formats/codecs?

 

Issue #2.  

FPS in the scene is set to 60 FPS.  Math dictates that with 60 frames every 1000ms each frame duration is 16.67ms long.

After exporting to AVI, when I import and read the file info in other software, or even just rClick the file, properties-details tab in windows,  It reports the Frame rate as 62.5.

This, when using Mimic Live for mouth animation and Dubing, makes a near impossible task of matching up an already delayed animation that is now running at 2.5 frames per second faster, than the audio it was recorded with, and that I have to sync it up with. Additionaly the video editing software running at 59.97 fps, drops frames to match up the clip frame rate with the projects frame rate. 60fps to 59.97fps isn't so bad.  With clever cutaways, scene changes (clip changes) or even a still frame inserted to replace another can hide this. Basically it drops 1 frame every 100 frames. Droping frames to compensate for  2.53 frames per second means a min of 2 frames out of every 60 are gone, or 3 if it rounds up. This is harder to compensate for and means that every second of audio, there is 2 frames short somewhere and hence the audio and video are hard to sync up.

How can I force the AVI to be written at the same frame rate the scene is setup with?

EDIT

Issue #3, I've noticed that the resulting avi, also has some spots (usually at the end) where it's just stuck on the same frame for a bit.

ie:  my AVI clip 3  frames 2001 - 3000,  got stuck on frame 2147 it just repeated until frame 2211 when it returned to playing/recording properly.  A quick render of Still images for frames 2148 - 2210 and placed them as an overlay on top of the clip, problem resolved.  But it means I have to scan each AVI for these issues, and render out individual frames.

ideas why this is occuring?

 

 

Barefoot Upto My Soul said:

wsterdan said:

I had an interesting accident last week with 3DL. I was just starting to set up some toon characters for OpenGL and 3DL -- my thoughts were to generate an animation usign OpenGL to test it (at about a second a frame for 1080p, it seems to be a great way to test a whole animation before rendering the final in 3DL). I was dropping a lot of the specularity to flatten things out a bit when DAZ Studio crashed (very, very rarely happens fo me, I think my 2012 iMac crashed a total of 11 times in 10 years, and seven of those crashes were due to the bug that crashes D|S if you hit command-R to do your renders). 

When I opened my file back up, it was broken; 3DL renders were beautifully rendered in very flat colours; if I could get a simple black line around the geometry, I would buy a plug-in or package for this effect. Rendering it in OpenGL gave a very weird, oddly-highlighted effect. 

For lighting, I was only using Omnifreaker UberEnvironment2; when the scene crashed, it broke the light. Deleting the light and adding it back in fixed everything, but now I want to find a way to break it again.

If anyone has any suggestions on how to get this flattened effect again (preferably with an outline) I'd love to hear it.

 

After rendering or screen shotting in DS, I would import the image into (I prefer After Effects) Photoshop or similar, or Final Cut Pro or Premiere or whatever editor you use. Add two layers to the image or movie you want to edit. The top layer is in menu, effects, find edges or something like that and lower the opacity. The layer below that, also in effects, menu, effects, choose how you want to paint it, desaturate it. Let me know if I am on the right track or if you have any questions.

Thanks for the suggestion, much appreciated. I've done similar combinations, including running batched frames through Topaz Simply and Clean and I may do more of this in the future. For the flattened colour snapshot I showed, I have no idea how to get that again, but if I do, I won't "fix" the scene's lighting and follow through with your idea.

wsterdan said:

I had an interesting accident last week with 3DL. I was just starting to set up some toon characters for OpenGL and 3DL -- my thoughts were to generate an animation usign OpenGL to test it (at about a second a frame for 1080p, it seems to be a great way to test a whole animation before rendering the final in 3DL). I was dropping a lot of the specularity to flatten things out a bit when DAZ Studio crashed (very, very rarely happens fo me, I think my 2012 iMac crashed a total of 11 times in 10 years, and seven of those crashes were due to the bug that crashes D|S if you hit command-R to do your renders). 

When I opened my file back up, it was broken; 3DL renders were beautifully rendered in very flat colours; if I could get a simple black line around the geometry, I would buy a plug-in or package for this effect. Rendering it in OpenGL gave a very weird, oddly-highlighted effect. 

For lighting, I was only using Omnifreaker UberEnvironment2; when the scene crashed, it broke the light. Deleting the light and adding it back in fixed everything, but now I want to find a way to break it again.

If anyone has any suggestions on how to get this flattened effect again (preferably with an outline) I'd love to hear it.

 

After rendering or screen shotting in DS, I would import the image into (I prefer After Effects) Photoshop or similar, or Final Cut Pro or Premiere or whatever editor you use. Add two layers to the image or movie you want to edit. The top layer is in menu, effects, find edges or something like that and lower the opacity. The layer below that, also in effects, menu, effects, choose how you want to paint it, desaturate it. Let me know if I am on the right track or if you have any questions.