I'm a little afraid of syncing my old with the new. It was having some weird glitches on the old one and I'm afraid of bringing those over. Years ago, I re-imported metadata and it brought in things I had never even installed, so I'm slightly leery of trying that. Or will it only bring in just the things that are actually installed?

If you have the products installed then you can use Content Database Maintenance to add the metadata. I usually check "Process Metadata Queue" & "Re-import Metadata" to sync up my Smart Content on my second machine after installing new items on the first which is a similar thing to what you need to do.

If you didn't export your "User Data" on your old machine then you won't get back any manual modifications you may have done.

I just got things set up in a new computer and the only thing left to fix is my metadata in Smart Content. The only things that show up are newly installed content. Do I re-import metadata, or is there some other way to get it back? What's the easiest and safest way to get my content to show back up in Smart Content?

Vizer said:

Hi Daniel, thank you for all your hard work on this. Unfortunately I've been having little luck, even for what I assume are very basic, vanilla exports. I really would like to export a character and preserve a morph, any morph. 

Basic Genesis 8.1 Male, in default pose, exported with a handful of facial expression morphs (see screenshot). 

And even though I'm exporting morphs, C4D never shows me the "Morph Controller Group" which I assume is supposed to appear after importing. Am I missing something? 

DazToC4D 2022.1 / Cinema4D r26 / Daz Studio 4.20.17 / Mac Studio M1 Max with OS 12.5 Monterey

That's just a long-running problem with the C4D Bridge.  Most of the time Morphs aren't actually included with the Import, regardless of options picked or model used.  Past versions had that problem, this version has that problem.

Unrelated;  I just had a weird thing happen with this dragon model.  While easily solveable within Cinema it's still a tad annoying.  I load the figure in D|S, make sure its at a reset/unedited pose, but then when I import it into Cinema 4D the mesh takes a completely different pose than what was seen + what the joints are doing. Attached is what 's happening  -  Reset Figure Pose, nothing changes.  Once I click OKAY the wing mesh changes position.

Here's a video of the process. There's a few minutes near the end where it's just waiting to import the file and that's why not much is happening there.

Had some time on my hands...

Base folder

Base Folder for a content library can reside just about anywhere, but not recomended to place it on the same drive with the OS (Space will eventually run out and it is the most likely drive to corrupt files due to the constant activities of the OS, also worst drive for any rescue operations).

The name of the base folder can be just about anything, default folder names have been 'Content', 'My Library', 'My Daz 3D Library' or whatever if you have given the folder a name by yourself. DS doesn't care what the name of the folder is, as long as the folder is set as a content folder in 'Content Directory Manager'

Within the installation (Zip) files, this folder is named 'Content', which was used as the name of the base folder in ancient times.

It is also better to keep the path to the base folder as short as possible, preferably put it straight into root of the drive where you want to put it, for example 'D:\My DAZ3D Library'

Inside the base folder, there are a number of sub-folders, the most important ones for DS are 'Data' and 'Runtime'

‘Data’ folder

'Data' folder contains the geometry of the characters, environments, props, whatever (=assets) together with the information on how the morphs are changing the assets they are meant for (=morph deltas)

In general, one should not move any files under the 'Data' folder, nor make any corrections to misspelled names of files/folders or delete anything inside the 'Data' folder or the sub-folders in there.

If changes are made inside the 'Data' folder or it's sub-folders, it can cause the assets to load as gray cubes because they can't find the needed geometry information anymore.

‘Runtime’ folder

'Runtime' is a remnant of ancient times, it is the base folder for Poser content, but still holds two important sub-folders for DS as well, these folders are 'Support' and 'Textures'

'Support' folder contains the metadata and thumbnails for assets that are installed by DAZ Install Manager (DIM), DAZ Central or Manual Installation. One should not make changes inside this folder.

'Textures' folder contains all the textures and maps for the assets that are installed by DAZ Install Manager (DIM), DAZ Central or Manual Installation. Any manual changes inside this folder or it's sub-folders can cause assets not finding their textures anymore.
The ‘Textures’ folder is sometimes misspelled, I have seen it spelled Texture, Texutre, Texturen. One should not correct these misspellings, as the same errors are most likely written inside the files that load the assets into DS with their textures.

“Scripts” folder

The ‘Scripts’ folder contains the scripts one has installed by DAZ Install Manager (DIM), DAZ Central or Manual Installation. One should not make manual changes inside this folder as that can render the scripts non functional. 

The rest of the folders contain what is called ‘User facing files’, which are used to load assets into a DS scene, these files can be seen in the ‘Content Library’ inside DS, under ‘DAZ Studio Formats’ with the same folder structure that can be seen with the Windows Explorer on the drive they are installed in.

With two exeptions, the names of the 'User Facing files' and folders and their locations can be changed as long as the files and folders are not moved outside the base folder of the Content Library or into the ‘Data’ or ‘Runtime’ folders as those folders have a special meaning and are hidden within the ‘Content Library’ inside DS.

The two exeptions for renaming/moving the user facing files/folders are when those files are called by scripts (for example the UtraScenery files) or one wants to preserve the possibility to uninstall assets with the DIM or DAZ Central.

Attached also instructions for manual installation, which will help in understanding how DS knows about where to find the assets and how one can help DS to find them

mostlyhuman said:

I do a lot of customizations in Maya and want to bring these into Unreal through the bridge plugin to take advantage of the automatic "Fix Bone Rotations on Import" and "Zero Root Rotation on Import" features of the bridge plugin.  Is this possible or can the import only be initiated from Daz Studio?  Im hoping I can just drop my FBX file in the intermediate folder and have the bridge plugin import it into Unreal somehow. Thanks for any help!

Actually, this is 100% possible.  The easiest method is to follow these steps:

1. Make sure Unreal Engine is NOT running. 
2. Then set up your Daz Studio character, and click File -> Send To Unreal.  Make any desired changes and Click Accept.
3. Once export is finished, click File -> Send To Unreal, enable Advanced Settings, and click "Open Intermediate Folder".  This is where the FBX is exported.
4. You can modify the FBX file from here, but PLEASE NOTE: the DazToUnreal bridge does several post-processing operations on the FBX file including inserting missing bone weights for subdivided vertices, rotating bones and adding IK controls.  Any modifications you make does risk de-stabilizing the assumed FBX file structure and causing data corruption during the DazToUnreal post-process step of the Import into Unreal.
5. Once you've made your very careful modifications to the FBX file, just over-write the FBX in the Intermediate folder.
6. Then open your Unreal Project, find the Content Browser and click the "Import" button located in the toolbar.  Instead of selecting the FBX file, SELECT THE DTU file.
7. DazToUnreal bridge should initiate the import process and recreate materials and do fbx post-processing just like if you had left Unreal Engine running in the background.

For further information, you can refer to this article on how to Manually Import DazToUnreal files from David Vodhanel: https://davidvodhanel.com/daz-to-unreal-starting-an-import-manually/

worldpeace2040 said:

Hello,

I followed this tutorial to add custom IK bones to my character.

The IK bones work fine in Daz3D, however, when exporting from Daz3D to UE5, the .fbx files didn't include the bones I've added.

I suspect it has something to do with my IK bone setup since the other (custom) child bones I've added exports without any problem.

Any suggestions or thoughts will be appreciated, thank you!

Sorry, the Daz Studio IK system is completely separate from the Unreal IK system and are not natively compatible with each other.  During the import process, DazToUnreal bridge is hardcoded to add a small number of IK bones to the Genesis8 rig, but these are NOT coming from Daz Studio; they are custom made inside Unreal and only exist in Unreal. 

As far as I know, none of the IK bones in Daz Studio can currently be exported to any external program.

ezrhk said:

It used to work on an older version of the dzunrealbridge.dll. Not sure what happened or what the reason was to remove that functionality from animation files. I can't use any of the newer updated plugin versions because it's a really labouress task to manually add all morph curves in the UE5 animation file. If I go back to the older version I backed up, all the morph curves are always included and available at exactly the pose I set originally in DAZ by simply enabling the morph tickbox on export.

I've made a step by step video from start to finish, showing how to import animated morphs into Unreal Engine 5.  Please review the video, try to follow it exactly and let me know what errors or differences you get at each step.  If you have a different process that you are using, please make a video and post it so I can try to reproduce your problems and maybe fix whatever is not working with the bridge for you.  Thank you.

Mellone said:

Have you any tips for character creation

It would take 5 pages to answer that in depth. But basically, you can :

Do that in ZBrush with Layers, in Blender with Shape Keys, or in any other 3D modeling app that manages morphs. Basically you import the deafult Genesis 8 (no SubD) in one of those apps. You define a first morph for that Genesis 8 base. Then you make your morphs/modifications on different layers (ZBrush) or Shape Keys (Blender). Being sure that you don't modify in ANY way the polycount and vertices position of the base Genesis mesh.

When done, you import back your custom Genesis in DAZ with morph Loader Pro. Dissociate head and body with D-Former. Create FHM and FBM sliders (head and body) and a third slider (CTRL) that controls them both. Tons of tutorials on the subject.

Mellone said:

Can I use the basic morphes in Daz for G8 and these products as Merchant Resources?

Yes indeed you can. That's the easy way (but way less precise control that you'd get doing it by hand in a 3D modeling/sculpting app).

Use your installed  bundles, Merchant Resource or not. With DAZ sliders, put 30% of this head, 25% of that other head, 60% of that body, etc. Also use body and head morphs bundles to modify nose, chin, ribs, muscles, breast, feet, etc. This way you create a morph made out of multiple other characters and/or morphs bundles. When you're happy with the result, all vertices being in a position that doesn't exist anywhere else : this morph becomes your own creation.

Mellone said:

Do you know any videos, tutorials or have tips [...]

Best one (in my humble opinion) being :

Many written tutorials around. Hard part being to find the rare good ones :

https://www.laylo3d.com/creating-characters-and-morphs-for-daz-3d-figures-using-zbrush-goz/

DAZ being an app used by tons of amateurs, there are sadly tons of inaccurate statements in forums, videos, etc. This makes it hard and time consuming to skim through junk info and extract only what's correct and necessary.

Personal advice : open a Word document. Take notes, make tests. And patiently write down your own workflow. It takes time to get used to the "right" and clean way of doing things in DAZ, especially on the content creation side. But it's strongly advised as, by doing so, you understand DAZ under the hood and suddenly see things so much more clearly.

it would be a static mesh

https://support.lumion.com/hc/en-us/articles/360003455154-How-do-you-import-animated-objects-in-Lumion-

I don't have Lumion but just static in Twinmotion too

Haven't worked with lumion in a while, but at the $1500-3k(usd) price tag, you might want to invest in better(or more) hardware first, or learn more about iray.

What you'll get into with, almost, any external renderer is the additional work time. Export, import, correct misapplied textures, find textures that weren't applied, make new shader networks, change material settings to correct types(lights or skin for instance), and hope no geometry or rigging(if it imports at all) went weird on you.

What you might gain in render speed(which more often than not is negligable), you loose going through that process.

For one off renders, it's rarely worth it, but for animations or a large series it can make up for it, if the time saved in rendering is significant.

hello
Create a character, animate it, use the MDD file to make clothes in Marvelous Designer, and then import the clothes OBJ file into Daz Studio.
(Not the entire animation, only the OBJ file of the last frame was imported into Daz Studio)
When I first load the OBJ file, it is very clean like the image of 'A' above.
However, when I save this scene as a whole scene file and then reopen it, something is strangely wrong as shown in figure 'B'.
The size and location of the characters and clothes seem to have changed little by little, and I can't figure it out exactly, so I'm leaving a question here.
I've been trying this for a few days, but the result is the same.
Help!!

한국분이 계실지몰라 한글도 남겨봅니다 
캐릭터를 만들고 애니메이션을 주고 MDD파일을 이용해서 마블러스디자이너에서 옷을 만든 다음 옷 OBJ파일을 다즈스튜디오로 불러옵니다
(전체 애니메이션이 아니고 마지막프레임의 OBJ파일만 다즈스튜디오로 불러온것입니다)
내가 처음 OBJ파일을 불러왔을때는 위의 'A'의 이미지처럼 아주 깨끗합니다
하지만 이 씬을 씬파일 전체로 저장한다음 다시 열면 그림 'B'처럼 뭔가 이상하게 어긋나있습니다
캐릭터와 옷의 사이즈와 위치값이 조금씩 변한것 같기도 하고 정확하게 알수가 없어서 이곳에 질문을 남깁니다
몇일동안 계속 이것저것 해보았지만 결과는 똑같네요
도와주세요!!

Using the "load vector disp maps" function in the daz importer UI seems to create a seperate texture coordinate node. This appears to cause issues and I get seams when I don't reconnect it to the UV map node created during import. The character where I tested it has 2 UV sets and adding the vector displacement maps seemed to be mismatched with the wrong one. Would it be possible to make vector displacement nodes use existing UV map nodes?

https://www.daz3d.com/rssy-clothing-converter-from-genesis-to-genesis-8-female

Or you export all clothes as obj. Reshape them in Blender to fit Genesis 8 (or 3DSMax, C4D, Maya, etc). Import them back in DAZ. Autofit, fix weight issues, etc. Everything's possible. Just takes some time (especially the proper weighting of vertices, the rest is relatively simple).

Hey Everyone,

The Daz Help Desk finally responded to my issue. I was told that Daz Studio no longer supports the importing/exporting to or from 3rd party programs.
Is this true? Early today, I was able to import objects to Zbrush, but my problem was I couldn't import it back to DAZ. Now, I can't even do that.
Am I the only one experiencing this?

tayloranderson2047 said:

DustRider said:

Hexagon 2.5 might be another option (it's free in the DAZ3D store). There is a bridge from DS to Hexagon (and back) that makes working with it to create quick morphs fairly easy. With that said, I find Mesh Grabber really easy to work with and ideal for quick little treaks to the geometry.  Much better than dFormers IMHO.

I haven't used Hexagon before... but isn't Hexagon still requiring an export and import process like Blender or Zbrush?

Good day, Hexagon does require export / import ... but it works very smoothly with Daz Studio and will automatically make a slider for the morph you create there, which is a nice feature. However, it will only export / import at base resolution ... no HD morphs.

As I understand it, some additional tools (like HD morph capabilities) do exist ... but they are only available for the PA's.

DustRider said:

Hexagon 2.5 might be another option (it's free in the DAZ3D store). There is a bridge from DS to Hexagon (and back) that makes working with it to create quick morphs fairly easy. With that said, I find Mesh Grabber really easy to work with and ideal for quick little treaks to the geometry.  Much better than dFormers IMHO.

I haven't used Hexagon before... but isn't Hexagon still requiring an export and import process like Blender or Zbrush?

LeatherGryphon said:

Rezca said:

Complaint, but about myself. xD

So the past few days I've been scratching my head over importing figures from D|S to see them come in with no materials.  Only just now,  did I think to check in Cinema 4D's Preferences and take a gander at the Import/Export preferences.  Under FBX Import what do I see?  <Materials:  None>    Switching that to anything else and wham, just as things should be! 

It's embarassing it took me this long to think of checking that

it's like shopping in a large grocery store, too many options.

I've been there aaahah,  and walking past the product you were looking for several times to boot! :P

Rezca said:

Complaint, but about myself. xD

So the past few days I've been scratching my head over importing figures from D|S to see them come in with no materials.  Only just now,  did I think to check in Cinema 4D's Preferences and take a gander at the Import/Export preferences.  Under FBX Import what do I see?  <Materials:  None>    Switching that to anything else and wham, just as things should be! 

It's embarassing it took me this long to think of checking that

it's like shopping in a large grocery store, too many options.