Daz to Maya question
Ivy
Posts: 7,165
I am very interested in this plugin https://www.daz3d.com/daz-to-maya
But before I consider buying it , which is awesome BTW to see come out in the store.. I would like some additional information on version support of the Maya software. it does not say in the product description.
So does this plugin work for all autodesk Maya software? I seen its says its a script so does it just work for the newest Maya version which is a cloud subscription only or will it work for the the older suite version of Maya like 2012 & 2014 as well?
Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
7533 S Center View Ct #4664
West Jordan, UT 84084
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2025 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
never mind I see where it says it now,, BTW hte addition info link throws off 404 error s https://www.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/read_me/index/47879/start
Maya is $1500.00 per year.
Enjoy!
JD
Wish I could get it but my current computer is not Maya compatable, which is a bummer. Not sure when I will get a Maya compatable computer. It will be soon, which could mean any time in November to Daz Soon
I know which makes me mad that my good computer died and all I have is the netbook.
no kidding thats why I asked if this would work for the old versions. you can get Maya LT much cheaper. its kind of like Photoshop elements though its a stripped down version. I own a copy Autodesk suite 2012 with some of 2014 plugins its old but it still works great and no darn cloud monthly cost .. but I seen where the description this product requires the 2016 Maya cloud version. oh well I'll pass on this I guess
"This product requires Maya 2016 or higher, and currently does not support Maya LT" from the product description
Also from the description it sounds like it only works in one direction from Daz to Maya. I would love to be able to export my DAZ characters into Maya, use Maya's full body IK to pose and then import back into DAZ for rendering.
As noted above the readme link results in a 404 error.
i'm also interested by this product. But there is really thin info about it in the description. Not video demo, no picture example of renders (mray), no accurate description of transfers limitations (material, files, etc...). Please, enlighten us about your product which semms for me awsome.
also, What's about the transfer to iray for maya? (which is free, contrary to iray+)
I can confirm it works in Maya 2017
have not had a chance to play with it much yet, i only recently started learning Maya so i cant comment to much on how well it brings a character over yet. The textures seem to work, as do clothes and hair. The rig also seems to work, albeit without the same joint limits as daz.
cant see the face rig at all though, i tested a G3 character, which should have a face rig. I am guessing the plugin cannot do that part for you
FYI.. It's fairly easy to qualify for a 3-year free student license for Maya 2016. I got one last year simply by emailing them and telling them I was learning animation on my own with online tutorials, and they had no problem granting it. I actually stopped messing with it though, as I do all my animation in DS now, but my license is still good until Feb 2019.
I bought this product before it was offered for sale by Daz. I have been using it for about 2 months. I'll be happy to answer any questions.
Everything transfer over fine. Here are some sample renders of some characters I am developing for a project. 3 of these were rendered in Maya and 3 were rendered in Daz. Can you tell which is which?
Mod Edit:- Image removed for nudity
Do all the weight maps and morphs come through to Maya?
The skin weights are the same maps that were on the Daz rig. Very good, I might add. I spend the better part of a month learning to rig, using various autoriggers and I haven't been able to get better maps than the Daz ones. The morphs were a WIP when I bought the plugin. Now, I can import head morphs to use as blendshapes. I don't know what the final product does but by looking at the script, it is possible to import any morphs you have installed in your runtime. Be warned, there is no way to select which morphs will transfer. They will all come and if you have a great many, you may run out of ram and be unable to go from Daz to Maya. I need to talk to the developer and find out if this issue is resolved.
Somebody mentioned the face rigs on G3 and G8 characters. The bones (joints) transfer over just fine and they work, but there are no controls. You will have to make your own face rig controls.
well, my guess: 2, 3, 6 were maya?
could you tell us?
The pics with the best lighting are Daz renders (That EZ button comes in handy). I was too lazy to try and duplicate Daz Studio's lighting setup manually in Maya. I'm not into stills, I'm just doing lookdev. The point is the textures carry over mostly flawlessly if you use the Arnold renderer. I haven't tried the Vray conversion. Sometimes I need to make some adjustments, but not often. 2,3, and 5 are Daz Studio renders.
Most important for me : does the script add the DAZ JCMs and properly binds those to rotations in Maya?
If it does not do this, I wouldnt have use for this script. Its super easy to do fbx exports and bind the daz figure into HumanIK. I have done this dozens of times... the real time consuming stuff is adding those correctives once you have the figure setup with HumanIK.
I agree with you almost 100%. I haven't heard of anyone who enjoys making their own corrective morphs. Unfortunately, the JCM's stay in Daz. But the product does exactly what it says and it is super easy. Click once to import the figure fully IK rigged. Click again to convert the textures to Arnold or Vray. After that, you're on your own.
Stills or Animations??
Certainly it would not be worth the time and expense to use Maya
& this plugin just to create Still poses for single image renders.
Yeah, maybe I'm misunderstanding their intention. If you just want to render still images of human figures that you didn't create yourself, Daz Studio is the best place to work. DS is specialized for this purpose. I can't think of any reason why one would go to Maya for still images. That would be a waste of money in my opinion. This plugin is designed for people who want to animate Daz characters outside DS.
Yeah, drzap is right still are better in Daz with Iray and a Nvida cuda card or cpu if you don't mind waiting. Maya has good animation tools, if you want to animate daz figures get a education licence from maya and animate inside maya. 3 years is very generous for a student licence.
I'm not seeing any normals or bump maps come across just the base color is this correct? you have to set up that yourself ?
I have to agree. I spent a ton of time trying to get assets to export into 3DSMax properly and once got the scene I wanted imported, it was a pain to set up materials and lighting in Vray and Arnold. Too the point that i gave up on that and stuck with doing everything in DS which decreased my workflow by more than 2/3's
The models I have brought over didn't have any bump maps in any significant way (Darius 6 transfered with a bump map for his mouth) so I can't verify how they are transfered yet. Personally, I don't use bump maps in my workflow. If needed, I will make a displacement map and only then for closeups shots because they can get quite expensive. I am still learning how to get normal maps to work properly in Arnold although I can do it in the hardware renderer (aka realtime game engine). Specular maps, when supplied appear in the right place and one model had an SSS map but I forgot to check the node network to see how it's map
Ok, I just checked Darius' hypershade network. His bumpmap is plugged in so it seems the converter handles bumpmaps properly. I just haven't used any models that can display it for you.
Two questions (if anyone knows)
Does it work 1i 2018?
Are all maps (diffuse, Bump,Spectral, able to be imported)
Since Maya has relationship to Keyshot...important for rendering
Are you using Iray or 3DL for trying to use your normal maps? Normal maps are the best thing to use over bump and displacement. You can get a lot more detail and it looks more natural.
I am not a DAZ user. I use DS just to get access to the assets and since I haven't seen any normal maps transferred with a Daz figure, I don't have much experience with them accept for one model I bought from Turbosquid. I am a neophyt in 3D texturing, but it was my understanding that normal maps are used to fake detail in a low poly model to make it suitable for game engines? I don't plan to use a game engine so keeping a model light is not a top priority. I'm still learning so I will probably learn more about how to use them in Arnold, I do find that I have more control of depth using bumpmaps, but for now I prefer to create the details using displacements.
Does it work 1i 2018?
It should. I have tested it in 2017. I haven't changed over to 2018
Are all maps (diffuse, Bump,Spectral, able to be imported)
Yes
Will someone just do a render from maya 2018 to show us that the bump maps do come in I still only get the color map nothing else ?