dragotx said:

crosswind said:

dragotx said:

crosswind said:

dragotx said:

How do we set up characters for G9 when they are transferred in with this utility?  I haven't been able to get them rigged at all yet

Transfer a G9 character from Blender to DS ? G9 is already in DS ~~ what do you want to be exactly ? 

I'm looking to convert characters that are made in blender over to G9 in Studio, not ones that started in Studio.

If you mean you're making a character morph for G9, i.e you sculpted / shaped a figure base on a G9 mesh in Blender, then you don't need this BTD add-on at all. You just export it to OBJ, import OBJ as a morph to G9 in DS by using Morph Loader Pro.

If you mean you're making a standalone character in Blender but want to make it as a G9, that'll be another story ~~ You have to wrap this figure with G9's mesh and import it as a morph to G9 in DS.... 

Hmm, ok, that gives me an idea on what to look for in tutorials, thanks!

To get accurate advice on what steps you need to take, you would first need to define what you mean by "characters that are made in blender over to G9 in Studio".

You cannot load any custom mesh onto G9 via Morph Loader Pro in Daz Studio.  It needs to have the same topology. You cannot load any texture onto G9 mesh; the texture map needs an appropriate UV layout.

Transferring topology (wrapping the base mesh to a custom figure) and texture transfer between different topologies and UVs are both standard processes in 3D and you can google "wrapping" and "texture transfer". You can do both in Faceform Wrap.  Whether these processes apply in your case is of course is an open question.

Hi crosswind,  do you know if there a good tutorial or video that explains how and where metadata is installed using IM?  I think if I knew that, I could solve a lot of my issues cleaning things up myself.  I assume the .dsx manifest files in the IM download folder contain most of that info, but that's a lot of text to read through.  Thanks for all your help.

OK, do you know some software like Blender ? You can send the shirt to Blender, reshape the wrinkles by using Draw / Grab / Smooth / Flat brushes, etc. so as to make them look more organic and / or natural.  Then import the shirt back as a fixing morph to DS.

dragotx said:

crosswind said:

dragotx said:

crosswind said:

dragotx said:

How do we set up characters for G9 when they are transferred in with this utility?  I haven't been able to get them rigged at all yet

Transfer a G9 character from Blender to DS ? G9 is already in DS ~~ what do you want to be exactly ? 

I'm looking to convert characters that are made in blender over to G9 in Studio, not ones that started in Studio.

If you mean you're making a character morph for G9, i.e you sculpted / shaped a figure base on a G9 mesh in Blender, then you don't need this BTD add-on at all. You just export it to OBJ, import OBJ as a morph to G9 in DS by using Morph Loader Pro.

If you mean you're making a standalone character in Blender but want to make it as a G9, that'll be another story ~~ You have to wrap this figure with G9's mesh and import it as a morph to G9 in DS.... 

Hmm, ok, that gives me an idea on what to look for in tutorials, thanks!

You're welcome ! 

crosswind said:

dragotx said:

crosswind said:

dragotx said:

How do we set up characters for G9 when they are transferred in with this utility?  I haven't been able to get them rigged at all yet

Transfer a G9 character from Blender to DS ? G9 is already in DS ~~ what do you want to be exactly ? 

I'm looking to convert characters that are made in blender over to G9 in Studio, not ones that started in Studio.

If you mean you're making a character morph for G9, i.e you sculpted / shaped a figure base on a G9 mesh in Blender, then you don't need this BTD add-on at all. You just export it to OBJ, import OBJ as a morph to G9 in DS by using Morph Loader Pro.

If you mean you're making a standalone character in Blender but want to make it as a G9, that'll be another story ~~ You have to wrap this figure with G9's mesh and import it as a morph to G9 in DS.... 

Hmm, ok, that gives me an idea on what to look for in tutorials, thanks!

dragotx said:

crosswind said:

dragotx said:

How do we set up characters for G9 when they are transferred in with this utility?  I haven't been able to get them rigged at all yet

Transfer a G9 character from Blender to DS ? G9 is already in DS ~~ what do you want to be exactly ? 

I'm looking to convert characters that are made in blender over to G9 in Studio, not ones that started in Studio.

If you mean you're making a character morph for G9, i.e you sculpted / shaped a figure base on a G9 mesh in Blender, then you don't need this BTD add-on at all. You just export it to OBJ, import OBJ as a morph to G9 in DS by using Morph Loader Pro.

If you mean you're making a standalone character in Blender but want to make it as a G9, that'll be another story ~~ You have to wrap this figure with G9's mesh and import it as a morph to G9 in DS.... 

barcgwcc said:

crosswind said:

Lost and Found has nothing to do with splitting your Daz Library, they come from incomplete metadata, i.e. not category is given to a file. And with Content Wizard, you can freely install 3rd-party products to whichever library with no issue.

As for fixing Lost and Found, usually there're two ways: Categorize the files within Lost and Found, or fill support tickes asking Daz to fix the product metadata. Another brutal way is to directly delete Lost and Found category the moment you see it... only problem is that you have no way to filter out the product or files by using Categories.

 

 

I just noticed that most of the stuff in L&F is from manually installed content that I couldn't use IM for.  This led me to surmise (perhaps incorrectly), that not being able to use IM increases the chances that whatever tags/metadata is associated with an asset might be lost in manual installs.   I don't have that much stuff installed (about 150 assets) and about 50 are in L&F.  If I can right click on each item and categorize it, that's probably the easiest way at this point.  But if it's a "bug" in DS for content not installed via IM, than I'd like to know so I can fix it when I install things instead of finding out days later. 

If "manually installed" means that you direclty extract the content folders from 3rd-party product packages to your Daz Library, no... there wouldn't be any reference medadata created in cms database therefore you woudn't see any Lost and Found for them. Well, Lost and Found is a feature rather than a bug...

I thought maybe the Content Wizard tool could solve this problem, but I asked someone who has it and they said it doesn't fix it.  (Not the L&F issue specifically, but the splitting the data and runtime folders into separate drives and DS knowing where everything is).  With G9 4K mats now routinely ballooning assets to over 500Mb, more flexibility in install/space management is needed imo.  IM needs an upgrade.

With Content Wiard, it can assure accurate medatada and accessability for you to filter / use 3rd-party contents via Smart Content.  It can install 3rd-party products to the target Daz Library that you specify but it's not able to split the data folder and runtime folder from a product and install them into different Daz Library separately, no tools can do that by now. You have to do it manually if you do need to go for this way.

Besides, though increasing disk space is always an ultimate and solid solution but folks still have to cleanse the products in their Libraries they never or rarely use. 

crosswind said:

Lost and Found has nothing to do with splitting your Daz Library, they come from incomplete metadata, i.e. not category is given to a file. And with Content Wizard, you can freely install 3rd-party products to whichever library with no issue.

As for fixing Lost and Found, usually there're two ways: Categorize the files within Lost and Found, or fill support tickes asking Daz to fix the product metadata. Another brutal way is to directly delete Lost and Found category the moment you see it... only problem is that you have no way to filter out the product or files by using Categories.

I just noticed that most of the stuff in L&F is from manually installed content that I couldn't use IM for.  This led me to surmise (perhaps incorrectly), that not being able to use IM increases the chances that whatever tags/metadata is associated with an asset might be lost in manual installs.   I don't have that much stuff installed (about 150 assets) and about 50 are in L&F.  If I can right click on each item and categorize it, that's probably the easiest way at this point.  But if it's a "bug" in DS for content not installed via IM, than I'd like to know so I can fix it when I install things instead of finding out days later. 

I thought maybe the Content Wizard tool could solve this problem, but I asked someone who has it and they said it doesn't fix it.  (Not the L&F issue specifically, but the splitting the data and runtime folders into separate drives and DS knowing where everything is).  With G9 4K mats now routinely ballooning assets to over 500Mb, more flexibility in install/space management is needed imo.  IM needs an upgrade.

reitaku said:

UncannyValet said:

It will probably be a consequence of vertex order not being preserved, as i did mention above.

If vertex order gets mixed up on a standard mesh, the results will be a mess of polygons, and it's easy to diagnose as a vert order issue.  But for polyline hair, you noted that the final shape isnt a mess and still looks ok.  The reason it still looks ok at 100% is probably only because the mesh is made of continuous strands, so will still be sequentially numbered correctly relative to the 1st index vert, but they will neverless be mixed up.  I did explain the correct process in post above.

 

Thank you, I finally did it!

I checked the steps and tried the following in order.

1. Create hair in Blender.
2. Use the “Blender to Daz Studio Plugin” to import the hair into DAZ.
3. Sculpt the hair and import it into DAZ using the “Blender to Daz Studio Plugin.” After importing, export this hair as an OBJ file.
4. Import the exported OBJ file into Morph Loader Pro and create the morphs.

 

That's the right way ~ DO NOT convert but just export to polylines with BTD and create morphs.

UncannyValet said:

It will probably be a consequence of vertex order not being preserved, as i did mention above.

If vertex order gets mixed up on a standard mesh, the results will be a mess of polygons, and it's easy to diagnose as a vert order issue.  But for polyline hair, you noted that the final shape isnt a mess and still looks ok.  The reason it still looks ok at 100% is probably only because the mesh is made of continuous strands, so will still be sequentially numbered correctly relative to the 1st index vert, but they will neverless be mixed up.  I did explain the correct process in post above.

Thank you, I finally did it!

I checked the steps and tried the following in order.

1. Create hair in Blender.
2. Use the “Blender to Daz Studio Plugin” to import the hair into DAZ.
3. Sculpt the hair and import it into DAZ using the “Blender to Daz Studio Plugin.” After importing, export this hair as an OBJ file.
4. Import the exported OBJ file into Morph Loader Pro and create the morphs.

COMIXIANT said:

That utility looks very useful for setting things up between the two progams, so I'll take a closer look when I come to needing to import/export etc.

I think you should only look at using that product if you need it. Generally speaking, setting up a project in SP and bringing maps in Daz Studio is pretty straightforward to do manually and not a major time sink. I would see that product as a quality of life improvement for people who are setting up SP projects often or setting up surfaces in Daz Studio often (with SP or other software).  Certainly I have never felt a need to use such.

The first quesiton is regards compatibility with Daz Studio, which of course I know it is capable of doing perfectly, but I'm just wondering if there's some sort of Daz Studio configuration preset to import into the project and export settings to set it all up perfectly for working with Daz Studio.  Basically, something that sets-up Substance Painter specifically for using material workflow and channel formats expected by Daz Studio.  At the moment I'm still just playing around with getting used to the program itself, but eventually I'm going to have to look into this stuff and thought, well, no point me trying to figure it all out if it's already being done a million times so there's no doubt a known set-up and procedure for it.

You might be over-thinking this. Some version of a basic PBR export preset should be fine for most cases in Daz Studio.  I dont think there's a rule that says you have to use a metalness workflow. You can make any map for any workflow you want, iterating it until it renders appropriately.

By default, a new project in Substance Painter usually adds a few texture channels you dont really need for most projects, like Emissive, Opacity. You can turn them off entirely under Texture Set Settings, or instead turn them off on a layer-by-layer basis, and of course you can also choose to include/exclude them at the export stage in your export preset.

Anyway, Daz Studio uses OpenGL Normal Maps, not DirectX Normal Maps, so ensure you change that in Project Settings. If you are importing Normal Maps into Substance Painter, and using them for example on a Fill Layer, you may want to enable the color space option and change the normal map from DirectX to OpenGL under there also. (This second step might not be needed though.)

Did you import the decal via Easy Import, or did you create it with Make Decal?
I was able to import the decal with Easy Import using v4.5... sort of, but it didn't look nearly as good as your render.
Couldn't really figure out how to position the empty so that the decal projected well onto the figure.
​Probably because of the uvw mode you mentioned. I'll play around with it some more.

was going to stay right out of this one

but you know how moths love flames 

the improved FBX importer went a long way towards improving functionality for me

I can use other software and import the FBX results and save the pose in most cases

works better than BVH import

I've done quite a few iClone animation imports this way, not tried many other things so far

Transfer your G8 shape to G9 (manually*). Add any native G9 content to the G9. Hide the G9 but not the G9 content you added. Render your G8 with the G9 content.

I do it all the time in both directions. I personally prefer G9, but I use that technique all in the time all manner of directions.

Only a chore when first setting up. I spent time setting up scene subsets for conversions between various bases. Now I can use those with a quick export and morph import whenever I change a shape or pose. Takes me 30 seconds. This post took me a few minutes to write.

Thanks for the advice!

According to this article(https://www.deviantart.com/uncannyvalet/journal/Blender-Hair-in-Daz-Studio-Making-Polyline-Hair-1088126863),

I should be able to create morphs by importing them using the “Morph Loader Pro”, so I gave it a try and was able to create morphs.

(Procedure)
After importing hair into DAZ using the plugin, export it in OBJ format and import it into “Morph Loader Pro” to create morphs.

However, the issue is that editing the hair (curves?) exported in OBJ format is difficult, and I'm stuck.

wolf359 said:

what is your actual experience with other non Daz software that forms your comparative opinion?

I used Blender, Carrara, Anime Studio (Now MoHo, still using it to create 2D special effects), Poser, Iclone and Pencil.
I also tried Unreal, SFM and some other ones that I can't recall now (I'm old and they are about same age as me... ) both 2D and 3D softwares.

Until I reached DAZ Studio... It was simple, immediate, quick and almost complete of all I needed. Ready to use chars, easily morphable figures, flexible materials, good rigging (up to G1/G2, then it's pure nightmare), lipsynch. I bought a few plugins and looked for some scripts to fill the holes and I was ready to create my animations. Learning curve way easier than that train wreck of interface of Blender (still atrocious even with the last improvements) and a colossal versatility thanks to its scripting and plugin system. Lately it even got fluids, particles, animated textures, physical engines for soft and hard bodies, cloth simulations, text-to-mesh conversion, hair physics, strand based hair, wrapping systems, mesh sculpting and much more.

As I can see, DAZ Studio just need a few little fixes to be perfect. As you say I have to "jump here and there" for the lipsynch... But it's still way less complicated than using a third party piece of software where I have to import a char (or a special dummy) and after creating the lipsynch, export into a "dirty" format that I then need to clean up in DAZ Studio. I tried a few of those lipsynch softwares, I can tell the difference.

If we finally can get that Lipsynch integrated in the 64bit version (there are some plugins in the store for that, but I still think the integrated is the best one available), some fixes in the timeline (so we can finally copy-paste keyframes corectly and scrub it with a single click), some improvement in the Graph pane (it definitely needs a more zoom out or move those gigantic buttons on some other part of the pane), some more tweeners (that, as I said, thanks to the existing TBC system can be done with simple integrated presets), a good IK-FK system and a more robust pinning method, DAZ Studio is ready to run against anyone.

At the moment I can fix those lacks with a few plugins and some scripts, the most absolutely free. We just need to make the Devs listen to our requests.

Just some fixes and everyone will forget about Blender. 

reitaku said:

Hello! I was able to import hair into Daz using polylines, but how do I add morphs? It doesn't seem to be possible to edit in GoZ. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

ZBrush is not able to import polylines no matter with GoZ or OBJ. 

You can further sculpt the hair curves your created in Blender, export curves to DS as polylines again with this BTD add-on.  Then create the morph by using the sculpted polyline object in DS, i.e. export it to OBJ, import OBJ as a morph with Morph Loader Pro. More steps but it should be a quicker way.

reitaku said:

Hello! I was able to import hair into Daz using polylines, but how do I add morphs? It doesn't seem to be possible to edit in GoZ. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Select the Geometry Editor Tool when you export to OBJ and again when you import your modified OBJ file with Miorph Loader Pro. 

reitaku said:

Hello! I was able to import hair into Daz using polylines, but how do I add morphs? It doesn't seem to be possible to edit in GoZ. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

sadly the polylines seem to be static mesh onlly and cannot be conformed either  (speaking as a person who imports Carrara hairs and converts to curves in DAZ)

related I imagine to the PA only Dforce ability, I discovered a month or so ago you can actually apply Dforce properties to them but they just are not seen when simulate clicked so definitly a block related to either the PBR shader or curve conversion

the geometry as ribbons can be dforced but is massive

(please note, I don't have the plugin yet, I just do hairs from Carrara AND Blender manually as obj importts I convert to polylines)

Hello! I was able to import hair into Daz using polylines, but how do I add morphs? It doesn't seem to be possible to edit in GoZ. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!