Made Object: Now What? Daz or Blender?

derekleemiller10

I'm trying to make a simple prop for practice to use in a scene rendered in Daz Studio. I finished modeling it in Blender. Now, I understand I need to worry about UV mapping, textures, surfaces, and materials. But I don't know if I should do this in Daz or Blender. In the end, I want it in Daz. Searching the forums, a lot of people are saying they have issues bringing textures and materials created in Blender to Daz. Should I just import the (now grey) object to Daz and do everything there?

But there are far more tutorials for coloring (not sure of the right term here) an object in Blender vs Daz. What do experienced artists do? Is there one workflow that's easier than the other?

Any advice or explanation of my options is appreciated--or a simple link if I overlooked a good tutorial. Thank you!

Richard Haseltine

UV mapping is done in the modeller. Texturing is usually done with an image editor or 3D painter, and it's usually necessary to apply the maps through the Surfaces pane (soemtimes the OBJ/MTL settings don't come in, and even if they do they are very limited in what they support).

andya_b341b7c5f5

As Richard says, you need to do your UV mapping in Blender because you can't do it in DS.  There are other applications you can use, but since your object is already in Blender, it is just making extra work to transfer it to something else for that step.  Note that if you aren't going to use image textures at all (diffuse, bump, normal map etc.) you could get away with no UV mapping at all, say if it is all made of metals and glass with no imperfections.

I suggest you create basic materials in Blender and assign them to areas of the object as required.  These will get converted to Surfaces when you import the OBJ file into DS.  Don't do anything more than a basic material, because you will struggle to transfer the details to DS.  You will have to apply Iray or 3DL materials to the Surfaces in DS.

Also, creating vertex groups in Blender will help as they will become Face Groups in DS when you import the object.  These are useful if and when it comes to rigging in DS.

You could create your Surfaces and Face Groups entirely in DS, but I find the tools, especially for selection, in Blender are superior.

derekleemiller10

Thank you both! This is exactly the information I was looking for.