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@marble
At the top of the Sagan dialog, you choose the base directory where all the output will go. The screenshot that Padone supplied is of the scripts directory.
@TheMysteryIsThePoint
Not to push in any way. If you get some time please consider the c++ version of the diffeo hd exporter. Since Thomas is going to release the offcial 1.5 it would be nice to have this included. We tried to optimize the script version for some more speed and we got some results, but nothing could beat a c++ version.
https://bitbucket.org/Diffeomorphic/import_daz/issues/191/possible-speedup-for-the-hd-exporter
Latest version attached.
Understood. Will look at this tomorrow morning.
OK - that makes sense. I have set up that folder. These are python scripts right? Do I run them from Windows 10 or from within Blender? So sorry to be so dumb but I know so little (i.e. nothing) about how the code works.
No problem, @marble
The scripts are run inside Blender by opening a text editor window. Every window in Blender has a "type" that determines what the window does. The big window with your models is being used as a 3d viewport. On the right side, you probably have an outliner above a properties window. At the bottom, you've probably got a timeline.
I suggest temporarily changing the timeline to a text editor by clicking on the little clock on the upper left corner of the timeline window. Then you can navigate to where the scripts directory is, and load the first script, the fix_uv_maps.py script. Hit the triangle to run it. If you're in cycles, you'll see the viewport refresh, and none of the materials should be black.
If that succeeds, you can opt to hit the x to unlink the script, and then open the next one, rename_material_slots.py. Again, this is not strictly necessary; it just makes the material slots more readable.
You can then change the window back to a timeline.
@marble Just to support the description by TheMystery. May be it's useful to others too.
Thanks for the replies and explanation. I get how to run the scripts now and will try them tomorrow (it's late here and I am in bed right now). I can't pretend to understand what the scripts do but so long as they do what's necessary that's fine.
Another question about Sagan. Would it be easy to integrate Marvelous Designer into the workflow? For example:
1. Animate a figure in DAZ Studio and export the animated figure to MD (and to Blender).
2. Run the cloth animation on the animated figure in MD.
3. Export the MD cloth animation to Blender for rendering in Eevee.
I'm assuming that Sagan would be used to export the original DAZ animation to Blender and then, somehow, import the MD cloth animation on top of the figure in Blender but I'm a little hazy on the steps.
@marble
Exactly. That's what the scaling tab is for. You tell Sagan that you want an alembic file for Blender, and also one for MD. They are not mutually exclusive; you can ask for more than one.
After the two exports, Sagan is completely out of the picture. You export the simulated garment out of MD as Alembic, and import it on top of the figure you already imported in Blender. If you didn't translate or scale anything, it'll overlay perfectly.
The only gotcha is that MD doesn't seem to be very smart about how it imports Alembic, and appears to try to load the entire file. You might want to work with just the subD cage in MD.
Thanks, that's good to know (and good to know that I guessed about right for once). :)
Not sure I know how to export a SubD Cage but would Marvelous Designer sees to prefer MDD files - would that be a viable alternative?
I meant to export the subD cage from Sagan to MD, instead of choosing "current". And @Wolf359 has enlightened me a little bit about how MDD support is not very good in Blender. I would stick to exporting the simulated garment to Blender via Alembic. That's what I've always used and it works without issue; you just export it from MD and import it in Blender.
Yes, I was thinking MDD from DAZ Studio to Marvelous Designer but I guess I would not have the same export because it would be Alembic (Sagan) from DAZ Studio to Blender. I'm not sure if that would destroy any compatibility when they all come together.
i would just use alembic rather than complicating things.
If you use MDD as export format of your avatar from Daz->Marvelous Designer, you should probably still be able export the garment animation from Marvelous Designer as alembic. (I've not tested how MDD works in Marvelous Designer so cannot confirm)
The final stage of having two alembics line up in Blender is something ive never done but i imagine they need to be exported so they match up in terms of number of frames etc.
And they will match up in the number of frames because Sagan exports the same number of frames for both. When you record the simulation in MD, it works off of the Alembic animation you imported. I've done this many, many times and it works perfectly. I designed Sagan for exactly this workflow.
@marble Perhaps stop fretting over whether it will work or not, and just do it?
Yeah i was theorising what could happen if using MDD instead of alembic in Marvelous Designer.
Yes, most people learn by doing firsthand rather than building up an abstracted theoretical protocol of what to do.
I will try it but I have been away from my main PC for a while and I have a project to finish when I have full access. I'm hoping to put some time aside to concentrate on Blender, etc. as soon as possible. I've fallen into a routine of project time and experiment time but eventually the projects should be moving to a new workflow anyway, hopefully with a lot more emphasis on Blender.
Maybe I first like to have some conceptual understanding so I ask questions before I dive in. Some of us have a different approach. You don't have to answer the questions if they annoy you.
Yeah don't worry, I am the same way lol. I would like to have a bit of a map to follow if at all possible.
OK, seems the restart and updating the two plugins fixed whatever the export problem I was getting before. Coincidentally or not, I didn't get the postsqueel or whatever error upon opening daz studio. Am able to export with sagan again, yay. I am getting that polygon facetting thing again though. Figured this might be a better thread to put troubleshooting stuff than the render showoff thread. So my process here:
1 Save scene
2 Export with diffeo. Tried non-hd export this time, not sure which is best to use, or if it even matters
3 Export with sagan
4 import with diffeo
5 delete diffeo mesh group
6 file > import alembic
7 normals were messed up again, went into scripting mode, opened the fix_uv script and ran it
Tried with bsdf and principaled shader setup, to see if there was any difference. Also tried smooth shading, didn't seem to do nothing but lag the hell out of blender lol.
Here is iray render vs the two blender renders.
It's kinda weird though, the facetting is only seeming to be on her skin, don't notice any on her armor or weapons. Maybe it's something about SSS?
I think the facetting is because you imported a single frame. Try this:
Oh, you kick ass, that did it! Yeah, exported just the one frame, you were right on that account. Saving that voodoo python script on my desktop for future use :D
Yeah, Blender changed the way normals work with Alembic. I've got to finish the HD exporter for Thomas/Padone, but I'm thinking that when it's only a single frame, it should just export OBJ, with the same materials and aboid the problem altogether.
By the way, that blackness is with the Principled BSDF, right? I've actually never used it, so maybe I need to look at that.
As for the forehead, is that the skullcap? Can you just delete it? That doesn't even look like a Daz material zone boundary.
Edit: I'm a little slow sometimes, but I eventually catch up. I can just integrate that script into the uv fixer script. Perhaps there needs to be two versions, one for auto meterials and one for the Principled BSDF.
That's what she looks like on initial import alembic haha.
I use the shader set that cycles defaults to, as that's what I generally render with. If I can get the bugs ironed out in this workflow, then I will probably try for eevvie workflow. Eevvie render is kinda weird, it doesn't show progress at all for me, it just freezes up blender, then shows a finished render when it's done, kinda freaks me out every time, I think blender is gonna crash on me. That forehead thing is for sure the cap from the hairs. It's weird how that material seems to be the only one currently having major issues. Another user said to just scale the cap down a bit, moving the mesh inside will work with some hairs. It's really hard to find hair that works for warrior elves lol. Most hair that woks OK with the ears, is like fancy updo hairs that would be more appropriate on royaly, not someone with sword and board.
Odd to me that the Blender images from @TheKD show a darker skin tone than the IRay version when I have experienced only the opposite: IRay skin is usually a darker tone than Blender (either Cycles or Eevee). Just an observation.
However, darker or not, the IRay render looks so much better than the Blender version although I have not been aware of such a vast difference in my experiments so far.
Iray version was rendered with just the default hdri lighting it, and I am fairly sure I didn't turn off the camera headlamp. I didn't mess with any render settings or tonemapping or anything, just did it to show that the cap was working properly in iray vs cycles. On a side note, be careful slapping a dynamic subd on hair, almost crashed my whole OS trying to render that, mouse was stuck and everything lol. Had to task manager quit blender, esc on render screen was doing nothin.
@TheMysteryIsThePoint
As for normals, as you can see in the HD exporter scrpt, diffeo doesn't care about them since blender rebuilds normals based on the shade and autosmooth properties. So are you sure you have to export normals ? Did you try just ignoring them and let blender do the work for you as diffeo does ? Just an idea trying to help, don't know if the alembic importer has different requirements.
Also there's the issue when the normal map doesn't find the uv map, but this should be fixed by the uv script.
Then let us know when you get the c++ version ready to test. And thank you again for your work.
@Padone You know, you may be right. I found that with the change to Blender, I did not have to export normals when the vertex cache was actually used (two or more frames), but I did not check to see if they were necessary without the vertex cache. I'll do some testing after the HD exporter.
I should have some time to finish it on Saturday. And no thanks are necessary... everytime I so easily convert a whole scene, materials and all, I am extremely grateful to the work you and Thomas have done. I simply can no longer imagine enjoying this hobby while being stuck in Daz Studio.
@Padone
Try the new version with your username. As far as I can tell, I got an exact match except for the floating point precision. Let me know if there are any problems. I think it'll need better error recovery, and the modifiers may not be 100% correct, but we can at least start testing.
My wife officially hates you and Thomas now :)
@TheMysteryIsThePoint
LOL please tell your wife she always comes first we nerds can wait for the new toys. I tested your first beta but I wasn't able to get it working. I updated the discussion at diffeo so I hope Thomas may jump in to help.
edit. Nope, I get an error but then it seems to work fine and there's the same error in the diffeo exporter. Definitely we need Thomas to look at it.
Can sagan do geographs and geoshells yet, or no?