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true iray skins for blender are on the way ..

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  • the5amkebabthe5amkebab Posts: 103
    marble said:

    Quick question about the Blender display that has me stumped before I start. I find that when I import a figure to Blender using the DAZ Importer, it is displayed with a stick or wire view of the armature. No matter what I try (using the H key, for example) I can't hide that armature. The face is completely covered in bone lines. I just want a view of the figure without the rig showing but google has not helped find an answer.

    Also: trying to pose by moving the bones and it is incredibly slow compared to DAZ Studio. 

    If your viewport has the same layout as mine, you click this button to hide all overlays, rigs, motion lines etc, or you click the drop down to refine what you want hidden or not.

    hide overlays.jpg
    1777 x 1136 - 250K
  • marblemarble Posts: 7,500
    the5amkebab said:
    marble said:

    Quick question about the Blender display that has me stumped before I start. I find that when I import a figure to Blender using the DAZ Importer, it is displayed with a stick or wire view of the armature. No matter what I try (using the H key, for example) I can't hide that armature. The face is completely covered in bone lines. I just want a view of the figure without the rig showing but google has not helped find an answer.

    Also: trying to pose by moving the bones and it is incredibly slow compared to DAZ Studio. 

    If your viewport has the same layout as mine, you click this button to hide all overlays, rigs, motion lines etc, or you click the drop down to refine what you want hidden or not.

    That did the trick, thank you.

  • PadonePadone Posts: 3,686
    edited June 2020

    @marble Especially for complex characters and scenes you may need the simplify options to get good viewport performances.

    simplify.jpg
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    Post edited by Padone on
  • nicsttnicstt Posts: 11,715
    Padone said:

    @the5amkebab The basic data needs to correspond with the blender plugin. Be sure to update them both. I'm glad you resolved. The latest build is slightly better for cycles. Also more improvements for eevee are on the way but I need some more time for tests before submitting to Thomas.

    https://bitbucket.org/Diffeomorphic/import-daz/issues/117/better-volumetric-skin

    @nicstt If you provide some data may be I can help.

    I've spent the morning trying to reproduce it and haven't done so far.

  • marblemarble Posts: 7,500
    edited June 2020
    Padone said:

    @marble Especially for complex characters and scenes you may need the simplify options to get good viewport performances.

    Thanks - I'll try that but it was only one G8 character in a dress, no props or other scenery. I was surprised to find that whether I was in solid view or rendered (eevee) seemed to make little difference to the posing lag. I tried using rotation in the viewport and also using the x-y-z rotation sliders - both so very slow. Despite the number of Blender tutorials out there, I've drawn a blank when searching for particular issues. Perhaps I'm using the wrong search terms but, for example, there's very little by way of posing tutorials. I suspect that's because Blender is primarily a modeling application whereas DAZ Studio is predominantly a scene-setup and posing app.

    I also don't like that I have to have the bones in view to be able to select and pose them - I really prefer the way I'm used to in DAZ Studio where the bones are hidden and I can see clearly what I'm doing. Maybe I should try Rigify or MHX.

     

    [EDIT] - Ok I did try your Simplify suggestion but it made no difference --- Correction --- I missed out checking the Simplify check-box so yes, indeed, your settings speed up the bone pose movement significantly.

    Post edited by marble on
  • j cadej cade Posts: 2,310
    edited June 2020
    marble said:
    Padone said:

    @marble Especially for complex characters and scenes you may need the simplify options to get good viewport performances.

    Thanks - I'll try that but it was only one G8 character in a dress, no props or other scenery. I was surprised to find that whether I was in solid view or rendered (eevee) seemed to make little difference to the posing lag. I tried using rotation in the viewport and also using the x-y-z rotation sliders - both so very slow. Despite the number of Blender tutorials out there, I've drawn a blank when searching for particular issues. Perhaps I'm using the wrong search terms but, for example, there's very little by way of posing tutorials. I suspect that's because Blender is primarily a modeling application whereas DAZ Studio is predominantly a scene-setup and posing app.

    I also don't like that I have to have the bones in view to be able to select and pose them - I really prefer the way I'm used to in DAZ Studio where the bones are hidden and I can see clearly what I'm doing. Maybe I should try Rigify or MHX.

    Subdivision is a major key make sure all subdivision is off, also blender has 2 forms of "visibility" as it were. Theres the little eye which just turns of visibility but not the data, so the bones are calculating the data moving all the non visible objects! So if theres, say a high poly hair, blender is still doing all the calculations for it

    you need to fully disable the extraneous objects rather than just hide them, to do this in the top of the scene tab theres a little pin? icon. click that then click the little computer icon next to the eye, this will enable you to fully disable objects in your scene.

     

    also the rigify and mhx can do cool things but they are definitely more complex than posing in DS, you probably need to sit down with a tutorial for them (i know I do)

    Post edited by j cade on
  • marblemarble Posts: 7,500
    edited June 2020
    j cade said:
    marble said:
    Padone said:

    @marble Especially for complex characters and scenes you may need the simplify options to get good viewport performances.

    Thanks - I'll try that but it was only one G8 character in a dress, no props or other scenery. I was surprised to find that whether I was in solid view or rendered (eevee) seemed to make little difference to the posing lag. I tried using rotation in the viewport and also using the x-y-z rotation sliders - both so very slow. Despite the number of Blender tutorials out there, I've drawn a blank when searching for particular issues. Perhaps I'm using the wrong search terms but, for example, there's very little by way of posing tutorials. I suspect that's because Blender is primarily a modeling application whereas DAZ Studio is predominantly a scene-setup and posing app.

    I also don't like that I have to have the bones in view to be able to select and pose them - I really prefer the way I'm used to in DAZ Studio where the bones are hidden and I can see clearly what I'm doing. Maybe I should try Rigify or MHX.

    Subdivision is a major key make sure all subdivision is off, also blender has 2 forms of "visibility" as it were. Theres the little eye which just turns of visibility but not the data, so the bones are calculating the data moving all the non visible objects! So if theres, say a high poly hair, blender is still doing all the calculations for it

    you need to fully disable the extraneous objects rather than just hide them, to do this in the top of the scene tab theres a little pin? icon. click that then click the little computer icon next to the eye, this will enable you to fully disable objects in your scene.

     

    also the rigify and mhx can do cool things but they are definitely more complex than posing in DS, you probably need to sit down with a tutorial for them (i know I do)

    Yep, I know I've a lot to learn yet. I've just spent 4 days mostly watching tutorials and I am still all at sea with knowing where to find things or how to do the things that are second nature in DAZ Studio. The point I was making about visibility is that I don't like having the bones visible at all but I can see that it is required in Blender to be able to select the bone to pose it. Again, I need to get used to a different way of working.

    Post edited by marble on
  • nicsttnicstt Posts: 11,715

    I've found importing a pose to be more straightforward than using rigify; it's pretty much essential if you're animating, but using pre-existing poses is simple and adjusting them and re-saving equally simple. I tweak in Blender, or make small adjustments as required, but you'll figure out your own workflow.

    IMO.

    Start with a posed character setup in Studio.

    Basically, break down what you need to learn into steps.

    If it's set up ready to render, then all you have to do is import the character (and scene?); again, I'd suggest just using a basic background - a curved plane.

    Once imported, figure out the rendering. If it's already posed, nothing to bother with there.

  • marblemarble Posts: 7,500
    nicstt said:

    I've found importing a pose to be more straightforward than using rigify; it's pretty much essential if you're animating, but using pre-existing poses is simple and adjusting them and re-saving equally simple. I tweak in Blender, or make small adjustments as required, but you'll figure out your own workflow.

    IMO.

    Start with a posed character setup in Studio.

    Basically, break down what you need to learn into steps.

    If it's set up ready to render, then all you have to do is import the character (and scene?); again, I'd suggest just using a basic background - a curved plane.

    Once imported, figure out the rendering. If it's already posed, nothing to bother with there.

    At the moment I'm inclined to agree with you that posing in DAZ Studio and then importing the pose is the method I would be most comfortable. I think it was you who said that they are all tools in the toolbox so select the one that fits the purpose best. It just looks daunting at the moment because I envision having to drape clothing and have it collide with chairs, etc., all in the same scene. So I have Marvelous Designer in the toolbox too and I'll figure out how to build a workflow around all three.

  • nicsttnicstt Posts: 11,715

    I just bought a perpetual licence for MD as I just loved it during the trial period.

    I drape studio items in all three programs (yes it was me who said they're just tools).

    You can load props in MD as avatars and have a simple scale change (say on a chair) to catch the skirt/top/etc.

    The posted image (with the clothes a WIP - collar and cuffs to do). I had two obj an A-Pose and the Pose I wanted; loading them as morph targets is really simple.

    I did export the A pose and other pose(s) from Studio, but now do from Blender; sometimes clothes wouldn't align up when exporting from Studio. Genesis 3 female Ry-Jeane (default female) textures on G8 with Aiko 3 Head and partial body; the skin materials are my own. The hair is Kool Blythe hair converted in blender to strands; I'm using a beta of Diffemorphic as the Hair conversion has been fixed. It can take some time to convert.

    Aiko 3 G3F default textures.png
    1526 x 2160 - 5M
  • marblemarble Posts: 7,500
    edited July 2020
    nicstt said:

    I just bought a perpetual licence for MD as I just loved it during the trial period.

    I drape studio items in all three programs (yes it was me who said they're just tools).

    You can load props in MD as avatars and have a simple scale change (say on a chair) to catch the skirt/top/etc.

    The posted image (with the clothes a WIP - collar and cuffs to do). I had two obj an A-Pose and the Pose I wanted; loading them as morph targets is really simple.

    I did export the A pose and other pose(s) from Studio, but now do from Blender; sometimes clothes wouldn't align up when exporting from Studio. Genesis 3 female Ry-Jeane (default female) textures on G8 with Aiko 3 Head and partial body; the skin materials are my own. The hair is Kool Blythe hair converted in blender to strands; I'm using a beta of Diffemorphic as the Hair conversion has been fixed. It can take some time to convert.

    You are clearly several steps ahead of me in general and I'm many steps behind you when it comes to Blender. The past few days going through tutorials has given me a better idea of what I would like to do in DAZ Studio and what I can use Blender for and, right now (though this will probably change as I get more experienced with Blender), I'm thinking I should concentrate on rendering in Blender, scene building and posing in DAZ Studio and cloth simulation in MD. I've tried different methods of export/import and it looks like the DAZ Importer (Diffeomorphic) is the tool of choice for scene transfer to Blender. Then OBJ (static figures/objects) and MDD (animations) going from DAZ Studio to Marvelous Designer. I am under the impression that Alembic is the way to get avatars from Blender to Marvelous Designer but I'm not sure whether that's only for animations.

     

    Post edited by marble on
  • j cadej cade Posts: 2,310
    edited July 2020

    A fun test! Posable, HD, Genesis 8, with dynamic clothes and hair (the braid needs some work but the scalp line is pretty close to perfect imo)

     

    I set up the materials in Eevee (although I didn't stray too far from the defaults, honestly), applied a pose, set up the hair and clothes for dynamics (clothes were much easier as this is only the second time I/ve ever experimented with dynamic hair), ran the sims and rendered. the final eevee render took all of 12 seconds,

     

    I figured I should test how she looked in cycles too, so I switched the engine changed 1 material  (the hair) and nothing else

    hit render and 16 minutes later

    now if this were a proper final render I'd tweak the cycles settings more, but the fact that I can do most of my setup in eevee with quick feedback and the default material conversions being a very good base + diffeo making it easier to copy skin material  settings without effecting the maps, means my setup time for a cycles render is starting to approach that of iray for me

     

     

    diffeo test_eevee.jpg
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    diffeo test.jpg
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    Post edited by j cade on
  • marblemarble Posts: 7,500
    edited July 2020
    j cade said:

    A fun test! Posable, HD, Genesis 8, with dynamic clothes and hair (the braid needs some work but the scalp line is pretty close to perfect imo)

     

    I set up the materials in Eevee (although I didn't stray too far from the defaults, honestly), applied a pose, set up the hair and clothes for dynamics (clothes were much easier as this is only the second time I/ve ever experimented with dynamic hair), ran the sims and rendered. the final eevee render took all of 12 seconds,

     

     

    I figured I should test how she looked in cycles too, so I switched the engine changed 1 material  (the hair) and nothing else

    hit render and 16 minutes later

     

    now if this were a proper final render I'd tweak the cycles settings more, but the fact that I can do most of my setup in eevee with quick feedback and the default material conversions being a very good base + diffeo making it easier to copy skin material  settings without effecting the maps, means my setup time for a cycles render is starting to approach that of iray for me

     

     

    Now that's impressive. Much better than I have yet managed in either Eevee or Cycles but I need to get my lighting right, I think. I'm finding the skin is rendering much lighter in Blender than in IRay so my next task is to figure out if I can change all of the skin maps in one go or whether I need to tweak each surface (legs, arms, face, etc.) in turn. I'm still in the very early stages of experimenting though and have mainly spent my time watching tutorials rather than doing much myself.

    By the way, by HD do you mean DAZ Studio HD or something else? If DAZ, how in Blender?

    Post edited by marble on
  • j cadej cade Posts: 2,310
    marble said:
    j cade said:

    A fun test! Posable, HD, Genesis 8, with dynamic clothes and hair (the braid needs some work but the scalp line is pretty close to perfect imo)

     

    I set up the materials in Eevee (although I didn't stray too far from the defaults, honestly), applied a pose, set up the hair and clothes for dynamics (clothes were much easier as this is only the second time I/ve ever experimented with dynamic hair), ran the sims and rendered. the final eevee render took all of 12 seconds,

     

     

    I figured I should test how she looked in cycles too, so I switched the engine changed 1 material  (the hair) and nothing else

    hit render and 16 minutes later

     

    now if this were a proper final render I'd tweak the cycles settings more, but the fact that I can do most of my setup in eevee with quick feedback and the default material conversions being a very good base + diffeo making it easier to copy skin material  settings without effecting the maps, means my setup time for a cycles render is starting to approach that of iray for me

     

     

    Now that's impressive. Much better than I have yet managed in either Eevee or Cycles but I need to get my lighting right, I think. I'm finding the skin is rendering much lighter in Blender than in IRay so my next task is to figure out if I can change all of the skin maps in one go or whether I need to tweak each surface (legs, arms, face, etc.) in turn. I'm still in the very early stages of experimenting though and have mainly spent my time watching tutorials rather than doing much myself.

    By the way, by HD do you mean DAZ Studio HD or something else? If DAZ, how in Blender?

    Daz studio hd!

    Its limited to the base shape,  so no HD expressions but its actually pretty simple: you just use multiresolution and shrinkwrapping

     

    export out using the export to blender with HD script This will export out static hd meshes a long with the usual base meshes (this will take a while as you're exporting out very heavy meshes)

     

    frplace the subd modifier on your rigged base res mesh with a mutires modifier + shrinkwrap modifier

    in the subd modifier subdivide until whatever resolution you want probably 2-3 and have it set to that in the viewport

    set the target for the shrinkwrap as the high resolution mesh + create a vertex group that excludes the eyes, sockets and mouth (potentially fingernails depending on the morph) as they're likely to get shrinkwrap to the wrong mesh

    apply the shrinkwrap modifier. it will get baked into the multires modifier which now stores that data

    Now the HD mesh is stored in the multiresolution modifier

    This is a tiny bit of detail loss, but over all it does pretty well - I'm pretty sure I have another method that would be even closer - transfer everything perfectly including teeth but it would also be more involved and require messing with vertex order, and Im not sure hd teeth are really woth the hassle (im still going to try though)

  • j cadej cade Posts: 2,310

    Behold!

  • marblemarble Posts: 7,500
    j cade said:
    marble said:
    j cade said:

    A fun test! Posable, HD, Genesis 8, with dynamic clothes and hair (the braid needs some work but the scalp line is pretty close to perfect imo)

     

    I set up the materials in Eevee (although I didn't stray too far from the defaults, honestly), applied a pose, set up the hair and clothes for dynamics (clothes were much easier as this is only the second time I/ve ever experimented with dynamic hair), ran the sims and rendered. the final eevee render took all of 12 seconds,

     

     

    I figured I should test how she looked in cycles too, so I switched the engine changed 1 material  (the hair) and nothing else

    hit render and 16 minutes later

     

    now if this were a proper final render I'd tweak the cycles settings more, but the fact that I can do most of my setup in eevee with quick feedback and the default material conversions being a very good base + diffeo making it easier to copy skin material  settings without effecting the maps, means my setup time for a cycles render is starting to approach that of iray for me

     

     

    Now that's impressive. Much better than I have yet managed in either Eevee or Cycles but I need to get my lighting right, I think. I'm finding the skin is rendering much lighter in Blender than in IRay so my next task is to figure out if I can change all of the skin maps in one go or whether I need to tweak each surface (legs, arms, face, etc.) in turn. I'm still in the very early stages of experimenting though and have mainly spent my time watching tutorials rather than doing much myself.

    By the way, by HD do you mean DAZ Studio HD or something else? If DAZ, how in Blender?

    Daz studio hd!

    Its limited to the base shape,  so no HD expressions but its actually pretty simple: you just use multiresolution and shrinkwrapping

     

    export out using the export to blender with HD script This will export out static hd meshes a long with the usual base meshes (this will take a while as you're exporting out very heavy meshes)

     

    frplace the subd modifier on your rigged base res mesh with a mutires modifier + shrinkwrap modifier

    in the subd modifier subdivide until whatever resolution you want probably 2-3 and have it set to that in the viewport

    set the target for the shrinkwrap as the high resolution mesh + create a vertex group that excludes the eyes, sockets and mouth (potentially fingernails depending on the morph) as they're likely to get shrinkwrap to the wrong mesh

    apply the shrinkwrap modifier. it will get baked into the multires modifier which now stores that data

    Now the HD mesh is stored in the multiresolution modifier

    This is a tiny bit of detail loss, but over all it does pretty well - I'm pretty sure I have another method that would be even closer - transfer everything perfectly including teeth but it would also be more involved and require messing with vertex order, and Im not sure hd teeth are really woth the hassle (im still going to try though)

    Thanks. All a little beyond where I am at the moment but at least I knew there is something called a Shrinkwrap modifier. How to use it is a different matter though as I've just been trying to apply it to a dress to fix some poke through and got myself into an horrendous mess requiring abandoning the scene and starting over. 

  • PadonePadone Posts: 3,686
    edited July 2020
    j cade said:
    .. set the target for the shrinkwrap as the high resolution mesh + create a vertex group that excludes the eyes, sockets and mouth .. I have another method that would be even closer - transfer everything perfectly including teeth but it would also be more involved and require messing with vertex order ..

    Your characters and material settings are very good as always. Using a vertex group to exclude separate meshes is a good advice thank you. I guess shrinkwrap is intended for a single connected mesh. Then using "project" instead of "nearest point" often delivers better results.

    As for fitting the vertex order please let us know if you find anything good. That is the main reason why the plugin can't import HD to multires directly.

    Post edited by Padone on
  • j cadej cade Posts: 2,310

    I did figure it out!

    Its not even that fiddly, The only difficulty is that it requires a feature of 2.9, in which diffeo isnt working yet afaik, so I had to copy data between different instances of blender (this is not hard though literally just ctrl-c ctrl-v)

    Better HD method

    You'll need this script https://gumroad.com/l/copy_verts_ids (its free) and make sure the copy attributes is enabled in your preferences as well,

    copy your HD mesh into 2.9. add a multiresolution modifier click the magic "rebuild subdivisions" tool. Your Hd mesh can now go down to the base resolution and the hd details are packed into the multiresolution modifier. copy this mesh back into 2.8x

    now your hd mesh is the correct resolution but the vertex order is not correct so things like morphs and weights wont work. but we can fix this:

     make sure your base mesh and hd mesh have all their modifiers turned off - select your hd mesh then ctrl select the base mesh so that both are selected but the base mesh is active

    go to tools in the n-panel and click that copy vertex ids script. more magic you've fixed the vetex order and now morphs etc will work.

    with both meshes still selected ctrl-c and copy vertex groups and selected modifiers (make sure to do selected not all or youll wipe out the multiresoutin modifier with our hd data)

    now select your hd mesh and the rig hit ctrl-p to parent it. It should now be able to function exacty like the base rig- you can load morphs expressions poses etc

    This is definitely the superior method. Perfect transfer of detail - all you have to do is type ctrl-c a few times and hit buttons - zero manual elements

  • TheKDTheKD Posts: 2,691

    Wow, will be trying that this weekend, or maybe tonight if I can find a few minutes. Sounds like a game changer you discovered.

  • marblemarble Posts: 7,500
    j cade said:

    I did figure it out!

    Its not even that fiddly, The only difficulty is that it requires a feature of 2.9, in which diffeo isnt working yet afaik, so I had to copy data between different instances of blender (this is not hard though literally just ctrl-c ctrl-v)

    Better HD method

    You'll need this script https://gumroad.com/l/copy_verts_ids (its free) and make sure the copy attributes is enabled in your preferences as well,

    copy your HD mesh into 2.9. add a multiresolution modifier click the magic "rebuild subdivisions" tool. Your Hd mesh can now go down to the base resolution and the hd details are packed into the multiresolution modifier. copy this mesh back into 2.8x

    now your hd mesh is the correct resolution but the vertex order is not correct so things like morphs and weights wont work. but we can fix this:

     make sure your base mesh and hd mesh have all their modifiers turned off - select your hd mesh then ctrl select the base mesh so that both are selected but the base mesh is active

    go to tools in the n-panel and click that copy vertex ids script. more magic you've fixed the vetex order and now morphs etc will work.

    with both meshes still selected ctrl-c and copy vertex groups and selected modifiers (make sure to do selected not all or youll wipe out the multiresoutin modifier with our hd data)

    now select your hd mesh and the rig hit ctrl-p to parent it. It should now be able to function exacty like the base rig- you can load morphs expressions poses etc

    This is definitely the superior method. Perfect transfer of detail - all you have to do is type ctrl-c a few times and hit buttons - zero manual elements

    Ah, I wish I had known that the DAZ Importer doesn't work with 2.9 because that's what I'm using (I thought I may as well start with the latest). So I have the DAZ Importer installed and it seems to work but I probably wouldn't know if I was hitting snags or just not doing something right.

  • j cadej cade Posts: 2,310

     

     

    marble said:
    j cade said:

    I did figure it out!

    Its not even that fiddly, The only difficulty is that it requires a feature of 2.9, in which diffeo isnt working yet afaik, so I had to copy data between different instances of blender (this is not hard though literally just ctrl-c ctrl-v)

    Better HD method

    You'll need this script https://gumroad.com/l/copy_verts_ids (its free) and make sure the copy attributes is enabled in your preferences as well,

    copy your HD mesh into 2.9. add a multiresolution modifier click the magic "rebuild subdivisions" tool. Your Hd mesh can now go down to the base resolution and the hd details are packed into the multiresolution modifier. copy this mesh back into 2.8x

    now your hd mesh is the correct resolution but the vertex order is not correct so things like morphs and weights wont work. but we can fix this:

     make sure your base mesh and hd mesh have all their modifiers turned off - select your hd mesh then ctrl select the base mesh so that both are selected but the base mesh is active

    go to tools in the n-panel and click that copy vertex ids script. more magic you've fixed the vetex order and now morphs etc will work.

    with both meshes still selected ctrl-c and copy vertex groups and selected modifiers (make sure to do selected not all or youll wipe out the multiresoutin modifier with our hd data)

    now select your hd mesh and the rig hit ctrl-p to parent it. It should now be able to function exacty like the base rig- you can load morphs expressions poses etc

    This is definitely the superior method. Perfect transfer of detail - all you have to do is type ctrl-c a few times and hit buttons - zero manual elements

    Ah, I wish I had known that the DAZ Importer doesn't work with 2.9 because that's what I'm using (I thought I may as well start with the latest). So I have the DAZ Importer installed and it seems to work but I probably wouldn't know if I was hitting snags or just not doing something right.

    It hasn't been working for me... but as in not able to load anything, so if you can load in a character its definitely something I'm doing wrong (I frobably just forgot to instal the most updated version of the plugin)

  • marblemarble Posts: 7,500
    edited July 2020
    j cade said:

     

     

    marble said:
    j cade said:

    I did figure it out!

    Its not even that fiddly, The only difficulty is that it requires a feature of 2.9, in which diffeo isnt working yet afaik, so I had to copy data between different instances of blender (this is not hard though literally just ctrl-c ctrl-v)

    Better HD method

    You'll need this script https://gumroad.com/l/copy_verts_ids (its free) and make sure the copy attributes is enabled in your preferences as well,

    copy your HD mesh into 2.9. add a multiresolution modifier click the magic "rebuild subdivisions" tool. Your Hd mesh can now go down to the base resolution and the hd details are packed into the multiresolution modifier. copy this mesh back into 2.8x

    now your hd mesh is the correct resolution but the vertex order is not correct so things like morphs and weights wont work. but we can fix this:

     make sure your base mesh and hd mesh have all their modifiers turned off - select your hd mesh then ctrl select the base mesh so that both are selected but the base mesh is active

    go to tools in the n-panel and click that copy vertex ids script. more magic you've fixed the vetex order and now morphs etc will work.

    with both meshes still selected ctrl-c and copy vertex groups and selected modifiers (make sure to do selected not all or youll wipe out the multiresoutin modifier with our hd data)

    now select your hd mesh and the rig hit ctrl-p to parent it. It should now be able to function exacty like the base rig- you can load morphs expressions poses etc

    This is definitely the superior method. Perfect transfer of detail - all you have to do is type ctrl-c a few times and hit buttons - zero manual elements

    Ah, I wish I had known that the DAZ Importer doesn't work with 2.9 because that's what I'm using (I thought I may as well start with the latest). So I have the DAZ Importer installed and it seems to work but I probably wouldn't know if I was hitting snags or just not doing something right.

    It hasn't been working for me... but as in not able to load anything, so if you can load in a character its definitely something I'm doing wrong (I frobably just forgot to instal the most updated version of the plugin)

    I'm pretty sure I downloaded the Github version 1.5 (again, going with the latest) ... Yes, I can load a character/scene exported from DAZ Studio.

    Diffeo_Version.jpg
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    Post edited by marble on
  • the5amkebabthe5amkebab Posts: 103
    edited July 2020

    I'm using development build "Diffeomorphic-import-daz-9720efcf7e19" with 2.9 and E-Cycles and it works great. However, I tried the latest development build and that didn't work, so try the 2nd most recent dev build I just mentioned :)

    Post edited by the5amkebab on
  • PadonePadone Posts: 3,686

    @jcade That plugin to transfer the vertex order looks very promising I'm going to do some tests this weekend. The idea is to subdivide the base mesh then transfer the vertex order to the hd mesh, this way it should be possible to bring the hd mesh into the multires modifier.

    I'm not sure I follow your method with "rebuild subdivision" I'll try to get it too. Thank you so much for your work on this. I'll point Thomas to your post for him to evaluate possible improvements.

  • j cadej cade Posts: 2,310
    edited July 2020
    Padone said:

    @jcade That plugin to transfer the vertex order looks very promising I'm going to do some tests this weekend. The idea is to subdivide the base mesh then transfer the vertex order to the hd mesh, this way it should be possible to bring the hd mesh into the multires modifier.

    I'm not sure I follow your method with "rebuild subdivision" I'll try to get it too. Thank you so much for your work on this. I'll point Thomas to your post for him to evaluate possible improvements.

    Rebuild subdivisions is a new feature in 2.9 that takes a high res mesh and correctly undubdivides it to a lowe version

     

    Also side not in re-testing in 2.9 I ralized I left out 1 step. it was something I did while experimenting trying to load expressions onto the hd mesh version, and I thought it did nothing because after you still couldn't load them until you parented the mesh to the rig, but as it turns out that this step is necesary to make the expressions visible in the n-panel

    you have to go to the data api in the mesh outliner and make sure the mesh type is set to "Genesis8-male" or Genesis8-female as the case may be, fiddly, but still a copy paste job at least

     

    so the revised steps

    Make sure the transfer vertices script and copy atribut script are installed/turned on

    Load your scene into  2.9 (yay it works, I shouldremember to double check my addon versions more)

    select your HD mesh add a multiresolution modifier

    click rebuild subdivisions

    make sure your HD mesh is selected then ctrl select your base res mesh so that both are selected but the base res version is active

    go to tools on the n-panel and hit transfer Ids by location

    with both meshes still selected type ctrl c  and copy vertex groups

    type ctrl c again and this time copy selected modifiers and copy the armature modifier

    select your HD mesh and the armature

    type ctrl p to parent

    go up to your scene browser and the secnd button from the left on the top to chage from scene view to data api

    go to objects > expand your base res version and scroll down to mesh type (or type mesh into the search bar and it will pop right up) copy that text

    now navigate to the same location in your hd version and paste that text in

    now when you load things like expressions they actually will show up in the n-panel

    and in video form

    honestly gettting the video set up was way harder

     

    Post edited by j cade on
  • PadonePadone Posts: 3,686
    edited July 2020

    @jcade Thank you so much for the nice video it's very clear now what you do. Basically you rebuild the base mesh then copy atributes from the original. I'm actually surprised that copy ids by location does work, since blender uses catmull-clark while daz uses catmark. Also multiple different hd meshes can be derived from the same base mesh so I'm not sure how far this goes. If this method works fine in all cases then it could be automated since I don't see anything that the plugin couldn't do itself. That is, it seems to me theres' no necessary user input.

    I'm pointing Thomas to your video for him to evaluate. Thank you again for this clever work and for sharing with us.

     

    p.s. A "simpler" method is to copy ids by topology on the hd mesh. This is granted to always work because it uses the original hd and the original base mesh. But this requires manual user selection for every disconnected mesh so it can't be automated.

    Post edited by Padone on
  • TheKDTheKD Posts: 2,691

    For clarity sake, the current method of export is to save the DS file with the high resolution set to what you want it, then turning it to base resolution and using the export script?

  • PadonePadone Posts: 3,686
    edited July 2020

    @TheKD The diffeomorphic plugin exports the viewport HD level. You set the viewport subdivision then export to HD. The plugin will export both a rigged base mesh and a HD mesh with materials. Then you can use the HD mesh in blender to do anything you want. You can just render it, or bake a displacement map, or add a multires modifier.

    Post edited by Padone on
  • TheKDTheKD Posts: 2,691

    Ah, glad I asked then lol. Still haven't really had time to really play yet, keep getting jobs, and still working on my megabundle on most of my spare time. This thing is taking a lot longer than I thought it would, but then, the way I am building it to be low memory footprint makes it kinda tedious lol.

  • SadRobotSadRobot Posts: 116

    I’ve tried to get this working on Mac, but it seems to just not want to import things, even after meticulously setting up the paths. Does anyone have this working on Mac?

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