@Padone

For clarification ,I am very impressed with the Character motion dev capabilities of the Cascaduer software .

And I am sure it has alot of utility as  a general purpose motion dev & retargeter

However when a Character motion application makes a point of claiming to now offer ”Support” of the latest Daz genesis rigs, I tend to hold them to the same Standard as other programs that make that claim in 2022.

For me, that means I import a FBX of a G8 Figure and its skeletal rig is auto recognized, twist bones and all,.. ready for retargeting

This is exactly what happens with RL 3DX

This is exactly what happens with the free Rokoko Add-on for Blender , as I demonstrate clearly in my tutorials.

And both of these options at least export the Data to a format, official supported by Daz studio (BVH, Duf)

Now yes ,technically cascaduer can import a G8 skeleton and apply motion to it
( after much manual grunt work), which could count as ’Support” of the G8 figures.

However IMHO , there does not seem to be any Daz Genesis specific features that would make this
a particularly attractive option for external motion dev for Daz studio.

Conversion things normally target clothing on the body, not the head. Anyhow, for a faceless mannequin as shown in your image, morphing won't cut it precisely. Quite frankly you need a new mesh either for the head/face or as a geograft perhaps.

At any rate, maybe wander over to 3DCoat - there's a mannequin free with the program. Go to the Paint Tab and export out Textures to get the .obj. Import in at Daz Studio settings, and match it to the head's location:

If you want the morph for G8M you can have it.

Put some shades on it ;-)

If you want this mannequin for commercial use, need to buy the license. I do not have a commercial license for this program.

LINK to download free trial [n.b. location is in the Ukraine]

NorthOf45 said:

DAZ Connect is accessed from the Smart Content Pane, but the Smart Content is constructed from metadata, no matter where it comes from, Connect, DIM, or DAZ Central. Manual installs don't trigger the metadata import, so it won't show up there.

In DIM, uninstall those SubDragon files. If you copied them in manually, they might still be left behind, so go in and delete any remaining traces from the file system. I tried installing the SubDragon after uninstalling both the full and LE versions. Installing the full SubDragon did not generate any errors, but it would not load (could not find the control directory, Power Loader empty). I installed the Poser LE version and the Power Loader came up with everything available.

Uninstalled all of it, did some sweeps to make double sure... But the SubDragon and SubDragon LE won't install.   The files download, and then it'll start installing but then stop at 97% and say "Install failed!" and aborts the process :/ 

NorthOf45 said:

DAZ Connect is accessed from the Smart Content Pane, but the Smart Content is constructed from metadata, no matter where it comes from, Connect, DIM, or DAZ Central. Manual installs don't trigger the metadata import, so it won't show up there.

In DIM, uninstall those SubDragon files. If you copied them in manually, they might still be left behind, so go in and delete any remaining traces from the file system. I tried installing the SubDragon after uninstalling both the full and LE versions. Installing the full SubDragon did not generate any errors, but it would not load (could not find the control directory, Power Loader empty). I installed the Poser LE version and the Power Loader came up with everything available.

I'll give that a try when I get back to my computer with my 3D stuff on it, thanks!

DAZ Connect is accessed from the Smart Content Pane, but the Smart Content is constructed from metadata, no matter where it comes from, Connect, DIM, or DAZ Central. Manual installs don't trigger the metadata import, so it won't show up there.

In DIM, uninstall those SubDragon files. If you copied them in manually, they might still be left behind, so go in and delete any remaining traces from the file system. I tried installing the SubDragon after uninstalling both the full and LE versions. Installing the full SubDragon did not generate any errors, but it would not load (could not find the control directory, Power Loader empty). I installed the Poser LE version and the Power Loader came up with everything available.

DryreL said:

I have same problem. Morphs are visible on Maya but Unreal Engine does not show any of them. Any idea?

Daz3D 4.20

Unreal Engine 4.26.2

I'm not a Maya user, but I do use Blender, and there are some things you can't do in Blender in order for morphs to work properly. Namely, you cannot apply any modifiers during export, otherwise the morphs will not work. Maybe it's a similar case for Maya. Make sure ALL modifiers on your mesh(es) are either applied or removed before export. And of course double check you have "import morph targets" checked in the import dialogue.

As a side note, before I learned how to use morphs properly, I used to get weird flickering when adjusting morphs in Unreal, as if the morph was switching rapidly from 0-1 every frame. This was either due to improper scaling, or incorrect vertex normals. In any case, I learned the proper way to scale models in Blender for use in Unreal and set the vertex normals to "Compute" in the import options and the problem hasn't occured since.

Anarkia333 said:

AnEye4Art said:

I was finally able to export heightmap, colormap and normal map from worldcreator, create a USXT terrain in daz and apply them all.

Can you explain Material in DAZ for Import World creator?

If I understand Shader for UltraScenery is special... 

It's rather simple to do: I just clear the shaders from the USXT terrain and apply the WC exported texture to it. Then simply use USXT to apply the others like normal, splat and height. Before, I had to use L.I.E to flip the texture vertically to apply correctly.

Bejaymac said:

The DS WaveFront Importer has always been touchy when dealing with OBJ/MTL from other programs.

It's never been "Plug & Play", as a result you need to have a pretty good idea what sort of mess the exporting program has made of the OBJ/MTL, before you'll ever get it into DS.
You also need to know all of the issues DS has as well.

Lets look at the issues DS has
A very,very old issue is that DS hates spaces in names, so spaces in file names, surface name and pathways, can all cause major issues during import, DS sees spaces as the end of the line, so surfaces called Material 01, Material 02, Material 03 are all seen as Material by DS.

This is formally correct, as far as I am aware - it's just that other applciations don't always respect it.

Using File > Import to load an OBJ means that the texture pathways in the MTL need to be the full pathway including drive letter, otherwise DS will never find them.

Not entirely true, as I recall

Creating an "Other Formats" content directory is usually the best way to import, as you can do it from inside the Content Library tab, but this also has "pathway" issues. Where ever the MTL is located is where DS starts looking for the textures, so an MTL that doesn't have pathways in it means you want the textures in the same folder as the MTL.

Now for the issues from other programs.

Main one is that DS uses the computer world 2D system to calculate where the mesh goes on screen, yes I said 2D, the dimensions of the pixels on your monitor, side to side is X axis, top to bottom is Y axis, there is no Z axis on a pixel. Many of the modeling programs are designed to make stuff for the real world, so they change things so that top to bottom on your monitor is now Z axis in the program.

There are two 3D axis systems - left-handed and right handed (Z up and Z forward). A lot of applications, like DS, use Z forward (Zbrush, 3D Coat, Lightwave, hexagon, Modo) but others (Blender, 3D Studio Max) use Z up.

This causes issues during import, the import presets can load it face down, face up, back to front, upside down or mirrored, those last three also usually means the mesh is inside out and you got a mesh full of flipped normals.
A simple example of this is a car model, steering wheel is on the left in all of the promo images, but in DS it's on the right and the license plate is backwards, in this case the mesh and UVs have been mirrored.

Lets take this Oshkosh M-ATV that Michael is having issues with, a space in both file names, and if you open the OBJ in a text editor you will find the mtllib line also has a space in the name of the MTL, replace those spaces with underscores "_" to fix that issue. Next is the pathways in the MTL, or rather lack of pathways, this means File > Import is never going to find them. Most of the Import presets load it in with the headlights pointing straight down, Max, C4D and Blender all load it with the headlights pointing out the back of the scene. But they also load in jet black for me as I have backface lighting turned off, which means the mesh is inside out/mirrored, which in this case just required setting Z scale (parameters tab) to -100%.

Wouldn't use it like that though, best to Export it with the DS preset to lock the changes.

Oh and BTW, it only has a couple of textures, light clusters and the instrument panel, the rest is flat diffuse colors, it is UV mapped so shaders should help.

AnEye4Art said:

I was finally able to export heightmap, colormap and normal map from worldcreator, create a USXT terrain in daz and apply them all.

Can you explain Material in DAZ for Import World creator?

If I understand Shader for UltraScenery is special... 

The DS WaveFront Importer has always been touchy when dealing with OBJ/MTL from other programs.

It's never been "Plug & Play", as a result you need to have a pretty good idea what sort of mess the exporting program has made of the OBJ/MTL, before you'll ever get it into DS.
You also need to know all of the issues DS has as well.

Lets look at the issues DS has
A very,very old issue is that DS hates spaces in names, so spaces in file names, surface name and pathways, can all cause major issues during import, DS sees spaces as the end of the line, so surfaces called Material 01, Material 02, Material 03 are all seen as Material by DS.

Using File > Import to load an OBJ means that the texture pathways in the MTL need to be the full pathway including drive letter, otherwise DS will never find them.

Creating an "Other Formats" content directory is usually the best way to import, as you can do it from inside the Content Library tab, but this also has "pathway" issues. Where ever the MTL is located is where DS starts looking for the textures, so an MTL that doesn't have pathways in it means you want the textures in the same folder as the MTL.

Now for the issues from other programs.

Main one is that DS uses the computer world 2D system to calculate where the mesh goes on screen, yes I said 2D, the dimensions of the pixels on your monitor, side to side is X axis, top to bottom is Y axis, there is no Z axis on a pixel. Many of the modeling programs are designed to make stuff for the real world, so they change things so that top to bottom on your monitor is now Z axis in the program.

This causes issues during import, the import presets can load it face down, face up, back to front, upside down or mirrored, those last three also usually means the mesh is inside out and you got a mesh full of flipped normals.
A simple example of this is a car model, steering wheel is on the left in all of the promo images, but in DS it's on the right and the license plate is backwards, in this case the mesh and UVs have been mirrored.

Lets take this Oshkosh M-ATV that Michael is having issues with, a space in both file names, and if you open the OBJ in a text editor you will find the mtllib line also has a space in the name of the MTL, replace those spaces with underscores "_" to fix that issue. Next is the pathways in the MTL, or rather lack of pathways, this means File > Import is never going to find them. Most of the Import presets load it in with the headlights pointing straight down, Max, C4D and Blender all load it with the headlights pointing out the back of the scene. But they also load in jet black for me as I have backface lighting turned off, which means the mesh is inside out/mirrored, which in this case just required setting Z scale (parameters tab) to -100%.

Wouldn't use it like that though, best to Export it with the DS preset to lock the changes.

Oh and BTW, it only has a couple of textures, light clusters and the instrument panel, the rest is flat diffuse colors, it is UV mapped so shaders should help.

Spacious said:

When I download random stuff from random 3D sites I usually try to download as many different file types (obj, fbx, dae, etc...) as I can.  The reason for this is because I've found that usually one of them will have all the maps I need, one of them will import geometry into Daz correctly,  one of them might even have rigging that works in Daz, one of them will be a waste of time and space, etc...  It seems there's no way to know which one will work best for what, other than OBJ will import well with limited maps and have no rigging.  Often I import them into Blender first and then export from there as Obj.  Sometimes you just need to edit the MTL file that's attached to an OBJ to reflect where the textures are actually located, and if there's a lot of surface zones then this is totally worth it.  Also depending on what it's a model of, and where it came from, it may not even have UV mapping.  Sometimes you can just texture stuff with the shaders built into Daz or whatever other shaders you have installed.

My experience also. the other day, I downloaded an Oshkosh M-ATV from this car site http://www.dmi-3d.net/ It looked detailed and had 3 format options, OBJ, 3DS, ad LWO. So I tried the OBJ option first and found no textures for the body and the readme said they were in the LWO zip, so tried the other options and still no textures for the body. So I loaded it up in ultimate unwrap 3D and found only the OBJ and 3DS formats had UV mapping. It's an amazingly detailed model at almost 300K of polys, but without maps, it's useless for me.

364888487 said:

This bridge already feels like it doesn't exist anymore. After importing the model from DAZ TO C4D, the bone name is wrong. R23 can't recognize the capture, the face doesn't move, and there are too many problems, especially the hair. Looking forward to the update

Starting to feel there won't be any updates. A new team came in, made some changes, and then disappeared again. :(

It's pretty infuriating, since the promo pages and the compatible software listing, the fact they suggest the Bridges when you checkout of the store... All claim they work wonderfully and then you go to use them and it's a whole different story. 

At this point I'm pretty used to having to fix a staggering amount of weighting issues on anything I import and realizing that no clothing period is going to work as advertised - most of which have imported without weighting at all!

I know they're free and open source,  but it doesn't seem like anyone who can work on these is actually willing to work on them :/

When I download random stuff from random 3D sites I usually try to download as many different file types (obj, fbx, dae, etc...) as I can.  The reason for this is because I've found that usually one of them will have all the maps I need, one of them will import geometry into Daz correctly,  one of them might even have rigging that works in Daz, one of them will be a waste of time and space, etc...  It seems there's no way to know which one will work best for what, other than OBJ will import well with limited maps and have no rigging.  Often I import them into Blender first and then export from there as Obj.  Sometimes you just need to edit the MTL file that's attached to an OBJ to reflect where the textures are actually located, and if there's a lot of surface zones then this is totally worth it.  Also depending on what it's a model of, and where it came from, it may not even have UV mapping.  Sometimes you can just texture stuff with the shaders built into Daz or whatever other shaders you have installed.

Mada said:

AndrewJJP said:

felis said:

I almost always model items towards the base character, so I very seldomly use "reverse deformation".

Maybe it should remember what it was last set to like the import dialog does.

You can set up a preset that always load by default, I made one for reverse deformation. To set it up you open the Morph Loader Pro import menu, select a morph you want to use, and set all the settings you'd like to use as a default ie reverse deformation to yes etc. Once its all selected right click on the morph name you imported (at the top of the options) and then choose "Save as preset" and give it a name. 
Select it under the preset dropdown and accept, DS will always use the last preset you loaded so now it will always be the default option.

Brilliant, thanks!

DryreL said:

I have same problem. Morphs are visible on Maya but Unreal Engine does not show any of them. Any idea?

Daz3D 4.20

Unreal Engine 4.26.2

what version you are using and you are sure unreal plugging settings are proper marked to import morph targets? you must check the pluging configurations or unreal itself importing menu if morph targets is being proper marked, if you by any means disable it importing others stuffs not daz related it will also affect daz too, you must make sure import morph target is proper marked. 

Some work will need to be done with an imported OBJ, even in other programs. You're definitely at the mercy of whoever made the OBJ in terms of the UV mapping, surfaces and texture types included. You can often get diffuse texture maps to import, but any bump, normal, specular etc. will have to be added manually. The OBJ you imported that had multiple surfaces but only one texture file was probably UV mapped in such a way that different UV islands just drew from different parts of the texture, rather than giving each surface its own texture, which is more common than you might think. I'd advise getting Map Master Pro if you intend to do a lot of this, as it really speeds up the process of loading all your maps.

I'm very confused about how to import .obj files.  Many people talk about all of the great assets you can get on these third-party websites by importing .obj's.  I am running up against brick walls here.

I've spent some time on the internet looking for instructions on how to do this.  Some responses say you just import the .obj file and voila, it's ready to go.  I have yet to see an .obj file imported with the textures attached.  Everything imports gray.

I saw one response that said you have to open up the textures folder that will come with the .obj and assign each texture to its corresponding surface in Daz.  After I read that, the next few .obj's I imported only had a single surface, despite having multiple texture files.

Then I imported one that had multiple surfaces, but the texture folder only had one file.

Then there have been a couple of .obj's I've imported that simply imported a white shape with no surfaces.

I've read that somehow an .mtl file, if the download has one, will tell the textures where to go when it gets imported.  I've downloaded some .mtl files and there's no magic happening.

I don't have a million dollars to give you, but if anybody can explain this to me like I'm five-years-old, you'll have my thanks.

AndrewJJP said:

felis said:

I almost always model items towards the base character, so I very seldomly use "reverse deformation".

Maybe it should remember what it was last set to like the import dialog does.

You can set up a preset that always load by default, I made one for reverse deformation. To set it up you open the Morph Loader Pro import menu, select a morph you want to use, and set all the settings you'd like to use as a default ie reverse deformation to yes etc. Once its all selected right click on the morph name you imported (at the top of the options) and then choose "Save as preset" and give it a name. 
Select it under the preset dropdown and accept, DS will always use the last preset you loaded so now it will always be the default option.

V3Digitimes said:

Understood, if you need super precise tan lines, you need to be able to paint your mesh (this can be done in blender which is free).

The tuto to make an exact tan line is simple : 

1. export Genesis 8.1 figure as obj, export the swimming suit as obj (with surfaces + UVs, no need to export maps).

2. import both objs in your painting software (you can use the free blender if you have no painting software). If you have a painting software which imports only one model, export figure+swimming suit as a single obj)

3. set all figure surfaces black, then paint in white everything under the swimming suit (many blender tutos for painting are avaible on the web). Export images and load them in all the mappable "tan lines" properties.

PS : I cannot make a video tuto because not allowed to show nude clays, which would be necessary for the explanation.

And that's all.

We do allow clay-renders to be nude for the forums.

It might also work to bake occlusion onto the figure with the swimsuit in place - that is, after all, what tan-lines are.

Diomede said:

ProPose said:

I could'nt  even get the model into Carrara from the prop folder in duf format,  I get a nil pointer error.  the obj from the runtime folder comes in properly,  I used these import options

Thanks, @ProPose.  I missed your solution at first.  I had forgotten that Poser-format content includes the OBJs in a geometry folder.  I wonder why the result is getting inverted in the X axis if the OBJ is not.  Hmmm.  

Saves some steps. 

Bringing the item in as the Poser obj loses the colour info, you then need to reapply the colours in Carrara.

As to why it's inverting the model in the DUF file is a mystery !!!