hansolocambo said:

FSMCDesigns said:

in my experience, the only import option that works is .OBJ unfortunately

Fbx import perfectly fine in DAZ. Not sure you're having trouble with that.

@Ptrope  I'd advise you to open that in an all-in-one 3D app such as Blender, to see how it goes. If it opens fine then you'll have to work on the model (maybe exporting it from Blender as fbx or obj will be enough). But it could be worse thant that. Turbosquid models "look" ok but often have terrible topology.

If you don't know much about 3D, upload the model with sendgb (just the fbx, textures aren't necessary) and PM me the sendgb download link, I'll have a look. If there's an easy fix I'll write here the necessary steps to export it properly from Blender. Or I'll send you back a .duf if the object is not too messy (dozens of textures) and conversion to DAZ doesn't take me hours.

Sharing an FBX would not be permissible, unless the creator specifically allows redistribution.

SnowSultan said:

Adding too Richards comment. The PA's aren't allowed to do their own metadata. It is strictly done in-house by the testers as part of the testing processing for consistency reasons. There would be way too many variations in metadata if PA's did their own.

Then who builds the installers with these ridiculous structures like I've mentioned? The PAs aren't the ones seeing to it that their products get installed in folders named after themselves?

Folder names are not metadata, and we are going to have to go on agreeing to differ on the merits of having the artist's name on a folder.

Padone said:

@surody As for 8.1 expressions if they're FACS presets then you first need to import the FACS morphs, then import the expressions as poses. If they also use custom morphs then you'll need to import the custom morphs as well. You can see the used morphs in daz studio with "currently used" in the parameters tab. Let me know if this works.

I tried to import the FACs preset expressions as poses with the "pose files" but nothing happens. The morph files with the data controlling the FACs works but I get the issue I mentioned with them. I mean, it technically works but there's no reset so I assume it's a bug?

teknostorm said:

I need to import and convert to Daz format some fbx and obj models (or blender which i can convert to obj) like these -

https://free3d.com/3d-model/base-judy-hopps-75394.html

https://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/bunny-rabbit-cartoon-obj/985721

https://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/3d-fur-judy-model/1038255

https://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/575900

 

Is this possible? What is the workflow?

(My further aim is to import them in Character Creator 3, dress them and then animate them in iClone. I can convert them in 3DXchange but then I am unable to change the clothes.)

I don't know about Iclone tho...

@vindictivepapi Or the geoshell may also use a displacement map in daz studio. In this case you don't need to export HD since the displacement subdivision is exported fine, but it will only work in cycles since eevee can't render displacement. The advantage is that displacement subd is much faster than HD subd.

@surody As for 8.1 expressions if they're FACS presets then you first need to import the FACS morphs, then import the expressions as poses. If they also use custom morphs then you'll need to import the custom morphs as well. You can see the used morphs in daz studio with "currently used" in the parameters tab. Let me know if this works.

p.s. Then if the expression pack also provides HD morphs you will need the HD addon by Xin to convert HD to maps and a lot of manual work to link the maps in the shader editor. Long story short, while it is possible to convert to blender almost any product in the daz store, it is not always convenient and for some features you better use "the blender way" rather than "the daz way". In this case you can import the default G81 FACS and facial rig so you don't really need anything else to do facial expressions or import FACS mocaps in blender.

Adding too Richards comment. The PA's aren't allowed to do their own metadata. It is strictly done in-house by the testers as part of the testing processing for consistency reasons. There would be way too many variations in metadata if PA's did their own.

Then who builds the installers with these ridiculous structures like I've mentioned? The PAs aren't the ones seeing to it that their products get installed in folders named after themselves?

3drendero said:

Yeah it gets weird in Carrara, if you start out with V4 and do some minor geometry modification, is it still V4 and does it still need a 3D print license? Then you can import V8 in Carrara with major modifications, is it still really V8 with a license need?

Yes, the license terms apply however much you may modify the model.

Cybersox said:

Richard Haseltine said:

Bear in mind that, as far as I ama ware, metadata is created in-house as part of the QA and package process, it isn't one person creating it and another person proofing it - that makes it much easier to miss errors /looks shame-faced at own posts/.

It really doesn't matter who is making the mistakes.  What matters is that there are plenty of people who can make a checking program to catch all this kind of basic stuff at the file level before it goes onto the store.  In fact, more than a few people like that sell products here.  If DAZ isn't using something like that to check the metadata that they, themselves, create, then exactly what in the heck does "DAZ quality assurance" actually mean?     

Adding too Richards comment. The PA's aren't allowed to do their own metadata. It is strictly done in-house by the testers as part of the testing processing for consistency reasons. There would be way too many variations in metadata if PA's did their own.

FSMCDesigns said:

in my experience, the only import option that works is .OBJ unfortunately

Fbx import perfectly fine in DAZ. Not sure why you're having trouble with that.

@Ptrope  I'd advise you to open that in an all-in-one 3D app such as Blender, to see how it goes. If it opens fine then you'll have to work on the model (maybe exporting it from Blender as fbx or obj will be enough). But it could be worse thant that. Turbosquid models "look" ok but often have terrible topology.

If you don't know much about 3D, upload the model with sendgb (just the fbx, textures aren't necessary) and PM me the sendgb download link, I'll have a look. If there's an easy fix I'll write here the necessary steps to export it properly from Blender. Or I'll send you back a .duf if the object is not too messy (dozens of textures) and conversion to DAZ doesn't take me hours.

FSMCDesigns said:

in my experience, the only import option that works is .OBJ unfortunately

The latest comments on the Change Log are saying that they have been doing something with the FBX importer and exporter

http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/software/dazstudio/4/change_log

in my experience, the only import option that works is .OBJ unfortunately

This should be the job of an automated testing system for quality control — preferably using machine learning based on artificial neural networks — that has been trained on files and folder structures that follow best practices for every product type. It should learn from every file it processes and be able to correct issues before a product is released, or even after it is released (to make corrections to older products, and provide compatibility updates for the latest version of Daz Studio).
When new kinds of issues are identified by customers that it didn't catch, additional training could be added to its model to help it identify and correct these new types of issues for all products from that point forward.
With such a large volume of old and new products in the entire Daz 3D catalog, there is a massive amount of data — Big Data — full of complex data sets and data sources that an A.I. system could be able to sift through and recognize patterns, perfect for deep learning and natural language processing to be used, and train the system to identify common file format patterns, proper file paths, proper file naming conventions, understand various data models and syntax, and even be able to make predictive changes and make generative output. It could make automatic corrections to typographical errors, make corrections to miscategorization of items, automatically generate all required metadata on the fly, produce more accurate product descriptions and file lists of what's included and features.
An artificial intelligence that could sense, reason, act, and adapt using machine learning algorithms whose performance improves as it is exposed to more data over time, and use deep learning with a multilayered neural network to learn from vast amounts of data — a system like this would be so much faster and far more thorough than any human or group of humans; it would be instrumental in providing quality products and maintaining a library of content as massive as the Daz 3D catalog.

Here's the tutorial for how to use Diffeomorphic and HD Morphs plugin to merge geograft, generate HD mesh, and transfer geograft shape keys to HD mesh:

Tutorial: https://streamable.com/pdj3b3

( Blender version: 2.93LTS  /  Diffeomorphic version: 1.6.1 stable  /  HD Morphs plugin: Blender 2.93 branch downloaded here: https://gitlab.com/x190/daz-hd-morphs/-/branches )

Instructions:

    -> Install Diffeomorphic and run the scripts in Daz to save the Daz file path.

    -> In Blender load the Daz file path in Diffeomorphic Global Settings. Import base Daz mesh with Diffeomorphic importer Import DAZ, select the geograft, Import Custom Morphs, then Save Favorite Morphs, and then discard the current blender file and start a new file, this step is just to save Favorite Morphs.
    
    -> Import base Daz mesh with Diffeomorphic importer Easy Import DAZ.(both body and geograft should be subdivision 0 in Daz, must not have multires modifier when exported) Using Easy Import DAZ to merge rigs, import morphs with Favorite Morphs checked, but don't merge geograft yet. (Because vertex order must be intact for use with HD Morphs plugin)
    
    -> Create a copy of the base body mesh and base geograft meshes just before merge.
    
    -> Merge one set of body-geografts meshes with import_daz, as usual. Assume the merged mesh is called “merged”.
    
    -> Open HD Morphs plugin side panel, and generate geograft file with the Geograft operator: select the body mesh, then the geograft meshes and finally the “merged” mesh, which should be the active one. Click the button. A .json file will be generated in the working directory.
    
    -> If you ever want to use the “merged” mesh as a “base mesh” with this addon (for example, to create a rigged HD merged mesh from it), you need to also specify the generated file above in this addon’s main settings for the morphs to work properly.
    
    -> Select Base Mesh in the Main settings panel, and a Working directory.
    
    -> Go to HD mesh → HD mesh generation. Select the number of subdivisions, and select either Rigged HD or Unrigged HD, then press Generate HD mesh to create an HD mesh that can have HD shape keys imported to it.
    
    -> To import the shape keys on the newly created mesh, go to the HD shape key panel, press the + button to add morph files,
(The number in the first column in the Morph Files list is the “group”. All files in each group are imported as if they were a single morph mixture according to their weights (number in the second column). So, if you want to import 5 morphs separately, you would add the 5 files, then make sure that the group is different for each file, then make sure that the weight is 1.0 for each one. The “Component” option (third column) defines whether the base mesh deformation of the morph is imported, or if only the HD deformation of the morph should be imported (subdivisions 1+). This is useful if the base mesh already had base morphs “baked” on it upon import with import_daz, in which case you don’t want to import the base deformations of the corresponding morphs again.)
    
    -> Finally, in “HD mesh” select the mesh created in HD mesh generation, then press “Generate shape keys on HD mesh”.

(The instructions were collected and edited from Xin's posts on Bitbucket and merged into the whole process https://bitbucket.org/Diffeomorphic/import_daz/issues/357/blender-addon-to-generate-rigged-hd-meshes)

When generating HD mesh the auto transferred shape keys from base mesh genitals do not work on the generated HD mesh, but all body shape keys excluding some drivers work well on the HD mesh. The bug with HD Morphs plugin leads to array index out of boundary and not copy the geograft morphs (or it's not a bug but because that its morph transfer function only works with Daz vertex order and not have additional geograft support).

To use shape keys made for genitals currently have to use Diffeomorphic generated base mesh. I tried to manually add the genital shapekeys using the method as shown in the attached image below (change the base mesh morph applying one genital morph, then copy that morph into a new shape key for the HD mesh), but the new genital shapekeys still do not morph the HD mesh. (to solve this use the MeshDataTransfer Plugin: https://mmemoli.gumroad.com/l/tOKEh)

Switched to Diffeomorphic 1.6.2.1090 and Blender 3.21, as the new Diffeomorphic update solves Blender no responding issue when importing hundreds of morphs, new version correctly imports Genesis8.1 materials, and the Blender Send to Unreal plugin works with Blender 3.21.

Tested the new Diffeomorphic version currently does not work with HD Morphs plugin, but the Diffeomorphic generated base mesh merged with geografts and HD materials looks good enough in Unreal.

Richard Haseltine said:

Bear in mind that, as far as I ama ware, metadata is created in-house as part of the QA and package process, it isn't one person creating it and another person proofing it - that makes it much easier to miss errors /looks shame-faced at own posts/.

It really doesn't matter who is making the mistakes.  What matters is that there are plenty of people who can make a checking program to catch all this kind of basic stuff at the file level before it goes onto the store.  In fact, more than a few people like that sell products here.  If DAZ isn't using something like that to check the metadata that they, themselves, create, then exactly what in the heck does "DAZ quality assurance" actually mean?     

Sadly there are "flavors" as you put it, the problem is the different software code the FBX files differently, as well as adding their own "twists" to the format.

With the result that the FBX import plugin can't cope with them, and explosion is normal, but partial loads also happen as well as nothing loading.

Doc Acme said:

Richard Haseltine said:

Bear in mind that, as far as I ama ware, metadata is created in-house as part of the QA and package process, it isn't one person creating it and another person proofing it - that makes it much easier to miss errors /looks shame-faced at own posts/.

 

Does that roughly traslate to "too many cooks spoil the broth"?

;)

More like many hands make light work

Are there 'flavors' of FBX that Studio won't import properly, or is this something I need to take back to the vendor to resolve? I purchaed a model from Turbosquid in FBX format, which generates error messages on import and 'explodes' in the preview window.