I really don't think the problem is with how it's rigged, the problem is that the mesh is welded there post import.

Ok I can see in the FBX version your mesh is fine, although the polygon groups for rigging do not seem to be included (this is in my modeler but I don't see them in D|S either):

the OBJ version is also fine pre-DAZ|Studio:

but I see the same problem you had when I import your OBJ into D|S and rig the door, it has somehow welded a couple of points there:

I don't see any way to prevent this behavior in D|S and I really don't think the problem is with your model. See if you can get Blender to export FBX with your rigging part polygon selections intact.

I agree that blender is a little "clunky" in simulation, and it's not so fast either using only the cpu with a limited multithreading (threads are per object). You can get nice results but usually needs a bit of experimentation. Then diffeomorphic helps with this too, it can import dforce outfits and provides some basic soft body effects.

https://diffeomorphic.blogspot.com/2021/04/dforce-simulations.html

https://diffeomorphic.blogspot.com/2022/01/softbody-simulations.html

Squishy said:

It shouldn't be necessary to break your model up into separate exported files to just get the mesh to behave the way you want. IMO what is probably happening is that those points are getting merged on export/import, whether by Blender or D|S. What format are you using? Can I see a copy of one of the problematic models in the exported format (not the blender file or the post-repair one)

Thanks for your help, Squishy.

"It shouldn't be necessary to break your model up into separate exported files to just get the mesh to behave the way you want."

I totally agree. I think Blender has a major flaw here.

"IMO what is probably happening is that those points are getting merged on export/import, whether by Blender or D|S."

Yes. And I suspect it is Blender that is doing it.

"What format are you using?"

I am using .obj format for transfer from Blender to Daz, what Blender calls the "Wavefront obj".

"Can I see a copy of one of the problematic models in the exported format (not the blender file or the post-repair one)"

Totally. I can E-mail you the obj file used for transfer, and/or the Daz .duf file of the car as it is in the picture I attached - minus the driver.

It shouldn't be necessary to break your model up into separate exported files to just get the mesh to behave the way you want. IMO what is probably happening is that those points are getting merged on export/import, whether by Blender or D|S. What format are you using? Can I see a copy of one of the problematic models in the exported format (not the blender file or the post-repair one)

Should I animate the with blender?

You can, many do.  Blender is pretty good at everything, not the best and any single thing.  The other option is Maya, which is the industry standard but costs quite a bit unless you have a free student license (or know a student that will sign you up).

- Do I have to re-rig everything? (detention work)

Nope.  The Daz to Blender Bridge and Diffeomorphic both bring the model into blender with a full rig.  Diffeomorphic allows you to choose between 3 different rigs.

- Are the materials/textures working correctly or at least ok?

Materials and textures are ok but they were made and optimized for DAZ.  I think all textures require some work to look good in whatever render engine you are going to use.  I don't think there is any way to transfer textures from one renderer to another and have perfect results.  Padone has done a lot of work helping to get DAZ materials into blender and provides us a very good starting point.

- What about the facial expression moprhs of Daz, can I import them too? (no, I don't want to re-model everything)

Yes.  All of the defualt expressions import, at least with Diffeomorphic and probably with the DAZ to Blender bridge.

- Do I have to rebuild things like JC-Morphs? (forget it, I just can't do those things)

One of the best reasons to import characters from DAZ (aside from the huge selection and awesome HD maps) would be the driven joint control morphs and flexions.  I looked at iClone and was shocked that they did not have jcm's or shapekeys.  Maybe that has changed or I missed something, but I stopped researching it after I read that.  You can also import additional morphs as shape keys such as extra shaping morphs.

I would like to make use of all this sassy 21first (late 20th) century stuff, like softbody, collision, dynamics, liquid simluations and a viewport with more than 1.0 fps (wireframe would be ok).

Ok, pump the brakes, slow down a bit.  :)  Blender is pretty good for animating and sculpting, but I've seen many people complain about all of the above.  Blender just isn't great at simulations.  You can get them to work and people have, but they are finicky and cantankerous.  I've only experimented with them a bit so I'm no expert.  I think the pros turn to Houdini for simulations, and Marvelous Designer for cloth sim.  I have used MD, and it is awesome at simulating cloth. 

Or would it be better to take a look at unreal or unity?

Unreal rendering looks seriously impressive for real time rendering.  You should be able to animate and export to Unreal (from Blender) to take advantage of the rendering but I have never done it.  I just switched to Maya partially for this reason.  The link between Maya and Unreal looks really smooth.  When rendering in Blender for animation, you'll want to use Eevee.  Cycles will give better results but we'll all be dead by the time it renders an entire animation. 

Hope this helps. 

Hola guys and gals. Been a while since my last post, but still using Carrara every day. Quick question regarding weight mapping:

I modeled a new set of eyes for my genesis character. I rigged the model in DS using General Weight Mapping. The item functions as expected in DS. However when I import the .duf file into Carrara, the bones are in place, but none of the rotations are functional. I suspect that somehow the weight mapping isnt transferring. This is surprising to me, because any other models I import into Carrara from DS work just fine, including all the Millenium figures and even Genesis1. Obviously this "can" work, perhaps I chose the wrong weight mapping mode, or maybe I missed something with the export settings?

Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks everyone. Happy Mother's Day!

I'm sorry, I should have said posing tool rather than shaping, see attached image. (please be sensitive that I am new to DS, not an experienced user. I am coming straight out of 20+ years of Poser and still use the poser speak)  So, when I use the word expression, which might mean something else in DS, I mean her face with any head sliders applied such as 'Mouth Open" or Eyebrows Up or some such.

The problem is that when I save a pose, all the options of the face sliders are saved. If they are at zero, it saves as zero. If one or more is set at anything else, it is also saved at the new setting.

Here is an example scenario:

I create a left arm waving pose, and I create a right arm waving pose.

I import g8f into my scene.

I set up an open mouth smile on her face using the posing tool that shows all the sliders.

Now I go and apply the left arm waving pose I created.  Suddenly, her open mouth smile is gone and replaced by the expression (or set of sliders) that was on her face (or lack of) when I created the arm waving pose.

 This is not the desired affect I want. I want her face to remain the same, but just her arm waving.  It is at this point that I have tried every option in the save-as/pose preset command to just include transforms such as rotation, scale, translation, but no matter what, the mouth open or any other slider on the face still is included.  If my g8f's face is all set to zero on the posing (no open mouth, etc) and I add the arm waving pose, the expression (if there was one when I created the pose in the first place) will now be applied to my zeroed face. 

In short, i want to create a pose preset with absolutely no face sliders included.  I can't seem to figure it out.

DoctorJellybean said:

robertswww said:

@

watchdog79 If the product says the product will work it Daz Studio, it may just need some tweaks to the Zip file structure, ot it could just mean that you can import the .obj prop(s). If you want to share a screenshot of what the contents of the unzipped (i.e. extracted) zip folder looks like, that might help. Basically, you want CONTENT at the top-level of the folder, and below that your Data, People, Props, Runtime, Vehicles, etc. You could try to format a copy of the extracted zip file that way, and then re-zip it and import it into CW.

Also, your screenshot show that the 3rd zip file you added to Content Wizard was the Templates folder. Templates are not for smart content, so never add them.  Remove all 3 of your current zip files using the (-) button. Click Save and exit CW (or at the least write down or grab a screenshot of the exact Product Name, Product ID, etc. that you used). Restart CW and import in the newly re-formatted zip file.

You should also replace the default product thumbnail image, with a thumbnail from the actual product, click "Change Product Icon" and browse to a thumbnail on your hard drive for a suitable image.

The problem here is that there are no DAZ Studio format files in that product. It contains a single .cr2 file and some Poser light and camera files.

Create a folder e.g. Prod Creation somewhere on your hard drive and create directories inside that folder with the following structure:

Vehicles/Skycruiser Albatross

and map the root folder e.g. Prod Creation in Studio. Load the item in Studio. With the item selected, click Save As - Support Asset - Figure/Prop Assets. Select the Skycruiser Albatross folder you have just created, give it a name and enter the details. You can uncheck the Metadata options since Content Wizard will create the metadata. Click Accept.

Now add the created Data and Vehicles folders to the original zip (which should be properly structered as robertswww said. Now CW should work with the updated zip.

Wow, it is nice to have help!  Thank you robertswww and DoctorJellybean for your help.

robertswww said:

@

watchdog79 If the product says the product will work it Daz Studio, it may just need some tweaks to the Zip file structure, ot it could just mean that you can import the .obj prop(s). If you want to share a screenshot of what the contents of the unzipped (i.e. extracted) zip folder looks like, that might help. Basically, you want CONTENT at the top-level of the folder, and below that your Data, People, Props, Runtime, Vehicles, etc. You could try to format a copy of the extracted zip file that way, and then re-zip it and import it into CW.

Also, your screenshot show that the 3rd zip file you added to Content Wizard was the Templates folder. Templates are not for smart content, so never add them.  Remove all 3 of your current zip files using the (-) button. Click Save and exit CW (or at the least write down or grab a screenshot of the exact Product Name, Product ID, etc. that you used). Restart CW and import in the newly re-formatted zip file.

You should also replace the default product thumbnail image, with a thumbnail from the actual product, click "Change Product Icon" and browse to a thumbnail on your hard drive for a suitable image.

The problem here is that there are no DAZ Studio format files in that product. It contains a single .cr2 file and some Poser light and camera files.

Create a folder e.g. Prod Creation somewhere on your hard drive and create directories inside that folder with the following structure:

Vehicles/Skycruiser Albatross

and map the root folder e.g. Prod Creation in Studio. Load the item in Studio. With the item selected, click Save As - Support Asset - Figure/Prop Assets. Select the Skycruiser Albatross folder you have just created, give it a name and enter the details. You can uncheck the Metadata options since Content Wizard will create the metadata. Click Accept.

Now add the created Data and Vehicles folders to the original zip (which should be properly structered as robertswww said. Now CW should work with the updated zip.

watchdog79 said:

DoctorJellybean said:

watchdog79 said:

I need help, please.

After the intitial success with installing 'rotica outfit and character, I thought I could finally get myself some Renderosity stuff, mostly from Cybertenko. It turns out I cannot do that, as I am getting the same error message for all the products I have tried so far.

I go for a new product, unzip the files, analyze them, and get this:

What am I doing wrong? What are these missing files anyway?

That product contains Poser format files, and not Studio.

Well, its description says it is meant for Daz Studio 4. How does one use it then?

@watchdog79 If the product says the product will work it Daz Studio, it may just need some tweaks to the Zip file structure, ot it could just mean that you can import the .obj prop(s). If you want to share a screenshot of what the contents of the unzipped (i.e. extracted) zip folder looks like, that might help. Basically, you want CONTENT at the top-level of the folder, and below that your Data, People, Props, Runtime, Vehicles, etc. You could try to format a copy of the extracted zip file that way, and then re-zip it and import it into CW.

Also, your screenshot show that the 3rd zip file you added to Content Wizard was the Templates folder. Templates are not for smart content, so never add them.  Remove all 3 of your current zip files using the (-) button. Click Save and exit CW (or at the least write down or grab a screenshot of the exact Product Name, Product ID, etc. that you used). Restart CW and import in the newly re-formatted zip file.

You should also replace the default product thumbnail image, with a thumbnail from the actual product, click "Change Product Icon" and browse to a thumbnail on your hard drive for a suitable image.

Doc Acme said:

Gordig said:

Doc Acme said:

I really really want him, but unfortunately I can't use dForce hair as I export.

What do you export to? I know C4D can import dForce hair as splines, and I imagine other programs can as well.

And yes, this is super cute, and makes it apparent that I didn't know the difference between a weasel and a badger.

Out of Daz using FBX & into Lightwave.  I can then transfer weight maps to the fur, making the posable with fur, but no morphs. At least yet.

dForce hair exports as polys. They're almost splines in that they are all separate, & are single points with beginning & end points. But they get closed somewhere in the process.

 

I'll have to check into that with CD4.

The trick is to turn line tesselation to 0 so that it's not exporting any geometry, and export as OBJ. You could give that a try with Lightwave, but I don't know if that has any sort of hair system.

Dieter said:

@RiverSoftArt

I had to reload my data because the metadata update messed everything up and data that was previously sorted correctly via DIM was shown as either saved or lost and found.
Sorry, here's the log

The log is cut off.  You need to do one more something so I can see what file failed.

@RiverSoftArt

I had to reload my data because the metadata update messed everything up and data that was previously sorted correctly via DIM was shown as either saved or lost and found.
Sorry, here's the log

Dieter said:

@RiverSoftArt

After running TL, I found that not all products are showing. Not even after I renewed the metadata online.
As an example: WENG for G8.1F and MSO Eunji HD!
Purchased and updated products are also displayed as UNKNOWN! Example aging face.
What am I possibly doing wrong?

See screenshots

Which version are you using? 

If you have logged in and updated metadata, there is not much more you (or the script) can do.  The script is asking the DS database for products associated with the morph.  If the database doesn't return anything, there is nothing the script can do.

@RiverSoftArt

After running TL, I found that not all products are showing. Not even after I renewed the metadata online.
As an example: WENG for G8.1F and MSO Eunji HD!
Purchased and updated products are also displayed as UNKNOWN! Example aging face.
What am I possibly doing wrong?

See screenshots

Gordig said:

Doc Acme said:

I really really want him, but unfortunately I can't use dForce hair as I export.

What do you export to? I know C4D can import dForce hair as splines, and I imagine other programs can as well.

And yes, this is super cute, and makes it apparent that I didn't know the difference between a weasel and a badger.

Out of Daz using FBX & into Lightwave.  I can then transfer weight maps to the fur, making the posable with fur, but no morphs. At least yet.

dForce hair exports as polys. They're almost splines in that they are all separate, & are single points with beginning & end points. But they get closed somewhere in the process.

I'll have to check into that with CD4.

Hi there,

I'm using Daz Studio for about 6 month. I have a little 3d-background using 3dsmax/Poser about 20 years ago (holy sh*t 20 years? really? wait Star Wars 1 just came in to the cinemas (the new 1 not the old 1)).

So I'm quite impressed with the quality and the huge amount of stuff which is available for Daz Studio. The software is quite easy to use and if you can deal with some quirks you can get great results in a very short time. Very nice....until you try to animate stuff. Nevermind.

So I asked myself:

Should I animate the with blender? I know I would have to start from scratch and there is a steep learning curve because of a lot of key commands. But things like vertices, faces, modifiers, shaders aren't soo new for me

So when (if?) I learned this blender stuff (which will take some weeks/months/lifetime) how complicated is it to import Daz Characters / Props?

- Do I have to re-rig everything? (detention work)
- Are the materials/textures working correctly or at least ok?
- What about the facial expression moprhs of Daz, can I import them too? (no, I don't want to re-model everything)
- Do I have to rebuild things like JC-Morphs? (forget it, I just can't do those things)

I know, there are a lot of youtube tutorials about the daz to blender bridge or diffeomorphic plugin. But I would like to get an "real-world" opinion.

I would like to make use of all this sassy 21first (late 20th) century stuff, like softbody, collision, dynamics, liquid simluations and a viewport with more than 1.0 fps (wireframe would be ok).

Or would it be better to take a look at unreal or unity?

Is it worth it to enter the rabbit hole? (the answer, I know: it depends ;) )

Best regards

Sorry in advance for my grammar, english isn't, obviously, my first language.

RiverSoftArt said:

SnowSultan said:

Alright I think I found the problem with the issue I mentioned above. One of the surfaces had an underscore in it, which blocked the script's ability to automatically apply the textures. That explains why your export script renames the surfaces. I don't particularly want to do that because then it screws up MATs created in DAZ Studio, but at least I know why it happens.

I am not sure the issue.  The Substance Painter Assistant script renames surfaces for Substance Painter to comply with its needs.  The Import Maps does not rename surfaces.  Your file naming scheme uses {ObjectName}_{SurfaceName}_{ChannelName}.  If you are saying that blocks its ability because your Surface Name is wrong, you don't have to use the {SurfaceName} substitution.  You can explicitly name the bad surface (or just use the Anything button instead of SurfaceName, i.e., {ObjectName}_.*_{ChannelName}).

I'll do a bit more testing with the exported geometry, but for the three items I tested the export script on, it triangulated the mesh and caused problems in Substance Painter once the mesh maps were baked.

I have asked esha to comment on this.

Additional info from esha:

The procedure is this:

• Load an item.
• Run the Assistant to export the meshes for use in SP. Substance Painter needs triangulated meshes, so that's why they are exported this way.
• Create a new scene.
• Load the item again - none of the changes that the Assistant has done are permanent. Nothing will be messed up. The item will load as it was before.
• Use the Import Maps to apply your maps.

Yes, you will have to change the export settings in SP to match the acronyms used by the importer, or you can tweak the script to use your preferred acronyms. Since everybody uses different naming conventions it was impossible to find a setup that will work for all.

SnowSultan said:

Alright I think I found the problem with the issue I mentioned above. One of the surfaces had an underscore in it, which blocked the script's ability to automatically apply the textures. That explains why your export script renames the surfaces. I don't particularly want to do that because then it screws up MATs created in DAZ Studio, but at least I know why it happens.

I am not sure the issue.  The Substance Painter Assistant script renames surfaces for Substance Painter to comply with its needs.  The Import Maps does not rename surfaces.  Your file naming scheme uses {ObjectName}_{SurfaceName}_{ChannelName}.  If you are saying that blocks its ability because your Surface Name is wrong, you don't have to use the {SurfaceName} substitution.  You can explicitly name the bad surface (or just use the Anything button instead of SurfaceName, i.e., {ObjectName}_.*_{ChannelName}).

I'll do a bit more testing with the exported geometry, but for the three items I tested the export script on, it triangulated the mesh and caused problems in Substance Painter once the mesh maps were baked.

I have asked esha to comment on this.