Exporting Models and props in Maya 2015 (I need help)
eiliestl
Posts: 100
I am trying to export my model to maya .I am very new at using Maya and I know next to nothing about it. I do know that most people export their models in FBX format .Now I tried to export my model in that format .But when I loaded her up in Maya ,and she's a mess. Her earrings were over her head .Her heels were not on her feet .I tried to scale her down because she was way too big. And the bones were sticking out! How can this be fixed . Someone please help me.
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You do realize DAZ models are not rigged to 3rd party apps, right? While there may be some workarounds I have never had good luck with FBX or collada export to 3DSMax, way to much work, DAZ models are made to work primarily in Daz studio and poser to a degree.. I would suggest exporting as an .obj and then rendering, it's what I do when I occasionally export to 3DSMax..
What are you trying to do, render, animate? Maya is a $4000 commercial CGI app compared to DS which is hobby level, would be best to spend some time getting to know maya first..
I just wanna use the shaders and render.
No can do. The shaders are a set of instructions to tell DAZ Studio's built-in render engine, called 3Delight, how to render the materials. Each render engine is different and shaders made for one will either not work or produce different results with another. For example shaders for DAZ Studio will not work in Poser because Poser uses the Firefly render engine - it needs shaders designed specifically for it. I'm not familiar with Maya, so I don't know what it uses to render, but I'm pretty confident in saying that the DAZ shaders won't be of any use. If you use what is called an unbiased renderer, like Luxrender, it won't use shaders at all.
If you just want a static figure, you can use the obj export function in DS to export the static model from DS to Maya. Don't bother with Collada (dae) as the Collada DS uses is not the same Collada Maya uses so rigging ends up screwed.
There is an old 3rd party plugin for DS called pCharacter that was supposed to allow you to move characters into higher end apps
http://www.daz3d.com/3rd-party/pcharacter2fbx
The problem is that it's old, Windows only, and requires poses and textures to be in pz2 format. It is a stand alone app.
If you are really in need of getting DS assests like Genesis or G2F/M into Maya, you will likely need a more complex workflow.
On the rare occasion we have needed to use Genesis in Maya our workflow consists of DS4.x to Poser Pro 2014 to Maya va the Poserfusion plugin which is a part of Poser Pro version. Shaders and textures still need final adjustment in Maya if we are using the Maya renderer. More so if we are using Lux, Mental Ray, or Octane.
There is no easy solution as the apps are very different and handle many things very differently.
Also, when exporting to another app, make sure you set the size of the model to that app. Poser/DS figures are very small.
hey eiliestl,
I export Daz figures into Maya on a regular basis with a skeleton and after I add a Control rig and tweak the shaders, I have a fully rigged character ready to animate. In the past it was not possible, but with the latest Daz Studio and Maya 2014, you export V4, M4, Genesis, and Genesis 2 characters with there bones intact. for the best results use Genesis or Genesis 2.
Make sure the figure is in a T pose. Export as .dae - Click on "show individual settings". Check all 4 boxes in the geometry section. Check "collect maps". Then click accept.
In Maya's import dialog box make sure it matches the image.
You'll have a figure with a skeleton inside thats ready for a "Control rig" but you don't have to have one to animate your figure.
Click on "xRay Joints" to see the skeleton inside
If you want to animate the figure in daz and bring into Maya, just on the animation boxes when exporting and importing.
Thank you for this! I was using fbx and Mental Ray would not read the textures correctly nor would it accept the eyelash transmap. When I brought Genesis in using collada, all textures were read beautifully.
Thats strange about Mental Ray not reading the textures, usually eyelash transmap is connected to both the color and transparency (which is wrong) I break the connection on the color channel and make it black. Depending on what versions of the fbx plug-in, Maya, and Daz your using you get different results. Right now I'm using Maya 2015 ext 1 SP5 with Collada and Daz 4.6 and everything works except the Jaw will not move with the face morphs (Blend Shapes). I have to make some eye ball texture adjustments though.
I'm using 2014 and love it! As far as fbx (2014 version) goes, the textures were also misbehaving in the 2.0 viewport. With collada, it works perfectly....except if I click on occlusion, it shows the eyelash square.
Do the blendshapes come over through collada? Since I could not see them, I figured I would have to re do them.
FYI for someone above regarding 3delight...you can go to their site and they offer a free 3delight plugin for Maya. I have it and it works great!!
When your exporting click on the "Morphs" tab, select the ones you want (Genesis will look a little different) then select "export all selected items. They change from bake to export.
Each one you select will then become a blend shape in Maya.
Tip: Only export the ones you want because they can make the size a lot bigger.
I just followed your instructions but I can't find them in Maya. Are they actually available in Maya and if so, how do I get to them?
Windows > Animation editors > Blend Shape
In that window under Options, Change the orientation to Horizontal
FBX exports and imports were always a mess for me as well.
If you want to do a still render in Maya with a DS figure, what I´d do is pose the figure inside DS, export it as .obj and import it into Maya.
You will manually have to assign the textures and adjust/create shaders, such as SSS skin shader which can be very hard to get right.
This can be difficult if you yet dont understand how Hypershade and shaders work in Maya.
When it comes to animation and maybe even posing, an FBX imported rig is absolutely useless as it has not FK/IK switch solutions, no stretch, no custom attributes and no rig controls, plus it is all over the place and has almost no facial rigging.
Also the geometry might be a mess upon import and by mess I mean a lot of useless polygroups you don´t even know why and how they got there so a cleanup will be needed.
I usually clean up anything I want to import into Maya in Blender first.
Sorry to be bringing such bad news but unfortunately there is no seamless transfer between DS and Maya.
But again, it depends on what you wanna do with the figure. Simple rendering is very doable if you are willing to learn how to use hypershade, how to assign materials and textures to surfaces and how certain types of shaders work (such as the SSS shader used to create skin).
Animation, not unless you can create a good functional character rig from scratch which I am doing right now - http://www.daz3d.com/forums/index.php?&ACT=50&fid=2&aid=177039_YeOzSToru7bHUih7CcIO&board_id=1
Dave, if you would read all of this post, you would realize your wrong. If its exported the way Ive explained, you will have excellent results. Ask Jeabea, she's doing it.
and I do it at least twice a month and those results are seen by millions of TV views every week.
PS Dave, use "HumanIK" in Maya to make a control rigg its faster. It will build the rig for you. Use the default template and modify that, then save it and you can use it over and over again.
Import into Maya, the FBX import dialog will show up. Select "add" click ok.
You should have rigged figure click on x-ray joints so you can see them
through the figure, in the animation menu under skeleton, select "Human IK..
go to the blue icon select Define - skeleton, select a joint,
Make sure the arms are straight
and everything is green
click the blue icon again and Create - control rig
Hey there Soul! Yep I didn´t read all the posts I just replied with my experience : )
Thanks for tips I might look into it!
I don´t know much about the human IK setup though.
How good is it when it comes to IK/FK, stretch, twist and so on?
And still, the character needs facial rigging since the Human IK setup only creates joints for the body doesnt it?
I've seen auto facial rig scripts for Maya, but never looked into them, you may want to do a few searches at creativecrash. FBX transfer does bring the face morphs from D|S, that's covered in an earlier post here, I think that method would be much better. Auto-assigning all the morphs to a face controller would be even better, but I'm not aware of any general-purpose tools for doing that.
As far as the IK/FK and all that "HumanIK" is perfect for that. The best part about it is that once you have your template saved, you can apply it to any new Daz export you want.
Use blend shapes for the face.
Hey there Kitty and Soul!
Yep it does except that the face is not really rigged and only uses morphs-blend shapes to achieve the expressions. I was thinking about actual bones being assign to the face to drive the jaw, the cheeks, the lips and so on.
I know there is a tutorial on digital tutors about how to rig the face but it´s not free.
I´ll do some more research and maybe I can find something : )
As for the IK solver, it looks pretty damn good and powerful but I´d still like to customize the rig to suit my needs. I wonder to what extent the premade rig is customizable.
I cant wait to play with it : )
There are bones for the eyes, tongue, and jaw, there just isn't any controls for them for which you would use traditional methods to add those.
As for as the facial expressions go, I have never heard of that being used to often simply because you won't get the level of detailed control and flexibility that you would by using other methods. and one of the most common methods IS using Blendshapes. Thats what I would use.
Think about it this way, if you export all face morphs from Daz you will have everything you need. It would take you 2 days to put all those morphs back on the model.
One more thing, now that you have the control rig on it. You should make a "Character set" out of it. Its very simple to do and it makes animating so much easier.
In the outliner, select the "Charactoer1_Ctrl_Referance" and in the animation menu set, under Character > Create Character set.
Now when you set a key it sets a key for all the controllers at the same time. And it will allow you to use the "Trax editor". You'll have to read the manual for an explanation of how awesome that is.
My main beef with fbx is that I the textures don't work right. Mental Ray was having fits. I didn't try collada because I have had problems with it in the past. I brought Genesis in via collada and it was perfect! Even as a Maya-noob, I knew that the figures was in need of a lot of help. Basically, all it is, is a mesh with a skeleton. I have been watching tut's so I plan to add IK handles, will probably need to paint in some weights and then create some animation controls (have a script with shapes just for controls).
Soul, I followed the path you gave me for finding the blend shapes, but the box was empty. It would have been nice to have some facial control built in, however, i will probably rig the face myself. I have been looking into those auto face riggers. I want to go with joint based versus blend shapes. Will probably buy n-facial rig this weekend...its only $29.
I think you should take the time getting the blend shapes to import into Maya because think about it this way, if you don't, you will have to make them for EVERY new model you import.
Rigging a face is one hell of a time consuming proses and is not going to be as easy as it sounds.
There are a few reasons why your having problems. It depends on versions of all 3 softwares. Daz Studio version, Maya, and Maya's FBX plugin (Colleda .dae gets imported through the FBX plug-in)
You could also be choosing the wrong morphs upon export. I'll try to make a screen grab tomorrow.
To bad you worn't using Genesis 2, the morphs are easier to choose which ones.
tell me the version numbers and does your import window look like this?
Hey there guys!
Look at this - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HUHeBCLMU0
100% joint based facial rig and looks AMAZING!
Anyways,
now the humanIK has managed to create a good IK control rig but here are a few things I´ve noticed:
- the FK posibilities of the legs are now gone, while the arm can still be rotated from the shoulder, the elbow and the IK wrist, when I tried to rotate the shin joint for example, the foot geometry just didn´t follow along.
So Im kinda confused, where is the switch FK/IK button here? : D And Why do the arms seem to be in FK as well as IK mode but the legs arent?
Normally on my rig I´d have 3 joint chains:
- result joint chain (the one that is being skinned to the geometry)
- FK and IK chain, one of them would be driving the result chain depending on which one I currently work with
But here there are only the result joints and then the automatically created IK skeleton that consists of something else. (If you know the technical stuff like what exactly did it create instead of another IK joint chain, please do tell! : )
Another thing is, the stretch ability is now gone which can be good for realistic character but not very much for cartoony characters where stretch is really needed.
Sometimes even for realistic characters, a little bit of stretch helps : )
Do you have any experience with adding stretch to this rig? How will the generated IK rig react? Is it going to break it?
And of course there are no twist joints for the arms, torso or legs but I expected that.
I don´t know I´m thinking that maybe I am going to re-rig the basic skeleton of G2F that is there upon import since the result chain is very nicely skinned to the geometry already and very well weight mapped (which is good since I´m still not that good at weight mapping : D )
and I´m gonna add my two joint chains, my twist controls and so on.....
But I´m not giving up on the Human IK thing yet : )
It does seem great just there still seems to be a lot of work done to make it suit my needs and I´m not quite sure if I should bother with some re-rigging here since I don´t know whether all the changes I wanna make to the rig will work.
Now, you´ve mentioned that the rig can be saved and applied to any other Daz character. (As long as it has the same basic skeleton and similar proportions I guess?).
Can a custom rig (where the IK/FK is constructed manually as I have mentioned) be still saved with the Human IK and then applied to other characters?
Or does it only work for rigs that have the Human IKs control rig?
I was originally using Gen 1 but when I saw your first screenshot and that you were using Gen 2, I grabbed it last night. I followed your instructions, including clicking on "export selected items". My import screen looks the same and I had already adjusted the parameters to match yours. The only difference is that I am using Maya 2014 which I can't see that it would make a difference. I went to Window/Animation editor/Blend Shapes and the little box popped up, empty. I really don't want to have to re-rig the face. I want to use Gen 2's built in blend shapes. I have seen how much work is involved in rigging a face and it looks like a pain in the rear! I appreciate your help, Soul!!! If you got them then I must be doing something wrong!!!
Hey there jaebea!
I managed to export them, make sure it says "Export" not "Bake" under the morphs that you want to export.
However the results when animating with them are not what I´d like since I have no idea how to smooth them.
See for yourself - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAOaO6or_Kk&index=1&list=UU_ANmDykeGcsiXIXIUtARWw
So, how do I smooth the Blendshapes for nice and smooth facial animation?
You can see that the expressiosn are pretty rough compared to the body which unlike the morphs/blend shapes, has animation curves that can be smoothed in the Graph Editor.
Hey jaebea, do what Dave said,
and are using Daz 4.6 or the newest one? I haven't updated Daz yet because last time I did is when the FBX plug-in stopped working for me and I had to switch to Colleda. Which pissed me off because when using colleda, the Jaw won't move with the blend shapes which is a pain.
Dave, in the blend shape window click on "select" and the will appear in the Graph editor. And you really have to read all about that stuff in the manual. All those things you want to do are explained in there.
Dave,
- the FK possibilities of the legs are now gone, while the arm can still be rotated from the shoulder, the elbow and the IK wrist, when I tried to rotate the shin joint for example, the foot geometry just didn´t follow along.
Thats because a human can't rotate their shin bone by itself, rotate the ankle or move the knee controller.
So Im kinda confused, where is the switch FK/IK button here? : D And Why do the arms seem to be in FK as well as IK mode but the legs aren't?
Right click on the one of the affecters (controllers)
Cartoony Stretches
You would probably have to add some kind of Constraint to one of the joints.
And of course there are no twist joints for the arms, torso or legs but I expected that.
See pic
and another helpful tip included
Save template BEFORE Rig is created.
Hey there Soul!
I know that lifting the foot sounds like a better idea but I still like to have control over the individual joints while in FK mode so it just puzzled me why the arms seemed to be in sync while the legs weren´t.
I´m not sure what you mean by right click on one of the controllers?
What exactly goes into the arm/leg roll slots?
Is this for twist joints?
By the way I just tried customizing the default DS rig that is already skinned when imported and it didn´t go very well. I tried adding an IK spline to the spine but it didn´t act as it should which makes me wonder how customizable it really is.
It´s a shame though because it´s very well weight painted.
Oh one more thing, the model seems to be always exported on base resolution. Is there a way to export the higher resolution version of G2F models?
Toyen: Oh great...that is what I was going to be doing today, adding IK handles to my rig! Not going to put it through the humanIK today. I want to learn to do some things manually. I will see what it reacts with a rig that has not been through the humanIK generator. Maybe on another version, I will try the humanIK to see which I like best.
Soul: Spent last night starting over on the Gen2 rig and managed to do it right this time. Found all of the blendhsapes and alot more than what I wanted. Went back to DS, baked some and exported some and it worked well. Those blendshapes really need some help but it is nice that there are sliders.
Going to fine tune my rig today and create animation controls. Animation Methods created a very detailed tut on rigging. Will see what I come up with!
Hey there jaebea!
Let me know what you come up with!
As I have mentioned, I tried adding an Ik spline to the basic imported rig form DS and it did not work as it should.
Maybe because the rig is already skinned to the geometry.
Maybe I missed something.
Which tutorial from Animation Methods is that? Is it a free one from youtube? Or do you have to purchase it?
The tut I am referring to is one he offers for $20 and its totally worth it. http://www.animationmethods.com/index.html He (David) is a good teacher (although a little silly in some of his earlier stuff), really breaking down things simply for us noobs! He does reference his Youtube series where he rigs a shark so I am going to watch that one today too. I want to try a bunch of different things before I decide what I want to use in my animations. It also helps me become familiar with this part of 3d. I have never worked in rigging before.
I started in Poser 4 in 2000 then landed in Poser 7 where I stayed for a long time. Moved to DS in 2008 and fell in love all over again. I do have Poser Pro 2014 but use it more as a plugin for DS. I haven't upgraded to the newest release of DS yet. I usually wait for awhile, reading the forums to make sure it is stable.
I asked David on his FB page about cleaning up and adding to a model with a basic skeleton. He told me in order to add to the skeleton, the mesh has to be separated from the skeleton. It needs to be un-skinned. Since I am not sure about losing current skin weights, I asked him about that and he said before you un-skin the model, you can save the weight map. I will do that because even some weights are better than none. David talks about painting weights in his paid tut. I am still going to try doing a joint based face rig. There are a couple of free auto facial riggers out there and n-facial professional which is only $29. I have read alot about joint based vs blendshapes. Although blendshapes are pretty cool, they are a resource hog. I have a pretty powerful system with 16g of ram and that G2 with imported blendshapes was pretty laggy. I will see. I don't want to make any decisions until I have worked with them all. I will also report here with my findings. Lots of folks are trying to use Daz models in Maya and need help. I have been seaching for months for some help and thankful I landed here! Thank you so much Soul for your advice!! I may have more questions!