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
Hardly a waste of time.... I've been using it extensively myself up until the beginning of this year. While it definitely has its quirks it's actually pretty decent. I even managed to morph G8 figures with it. The bridge between DS and Hexagon is also quite good which makes the whole thing even easier.
Of course, in all fairness, once I started using ZBrush I stopped using Hexagon entirely for obvious reasons. But just because ZBrush is a lot better doesn't imply that Hexagon has suddenly become a lot worse. It's a very decent and useful program.
"It's dead Jim!". I feel it is safe to say there will be no more developement of it so you are wasting your time trying to learn it over other modelling apps that are moving forward.
Lots of PAs used Hexagon for years and made real money using it. Its a capable and functional 3D modeller. Starting to show its age now There are lots of newer options available. And some PAs purchased those with money made with Hexagon3D.
To the original poster's comment, do a search for "Sculptris" prior to being purchased by ZBrush the creator of that program made Sculptris ALPHA available on the internet for free Its still out there. It will give you some real creative options to attempt modelling in an intuitive way.
Gotta love those who hate on a still capable program just for the heck of it..
I still use Hexagon mainly for the built in import/export bridge in Daz Studio, and well for me Hexagon is enough as I mainly do simple morphs to the teeth and so on.. I tried Sculptris and it is good for full body sculpturing..
I have tried Blender but it can be daunting at times and well it does not yet have the ability (that I know of) to hide body sections, like Hexagon can.. And well ZBrush while would be cool to have I do not have the sort of money, to buy something I would use only every not and then.. Not only that but even if folks buy a perpetual license still only get 1 years worth of free upgrades.. lol
You can use Blender for doing simple stuff too you know. I use it as a supplemental tool for my Daz work. Making clothing morphs in Blender is much easier than trying to use the mesh grabber in Daz studio. Earlier today i tried to use Daz studio to combine a rifle from a daz product and parts of another rifle that i downloaded on the web. The shapes didnt match up precisely in Daz so rather than messing around with mesh grabber, or geometry editor or any of the other tools i just used Blender. Imported my web model of the rifle, deleted the faces i didnt need. Easily modified the faces so that my two different models would fit together nicely. Deleted and cleaned up the excess faces. Adjusted scale and then exported it out of Blender and reimported it into Daz. Less than a minute of tweaking it into position, parented to the daz model and it was all done.
I love Mesh Grabber and use it all the time. It's great to be able to stay inside Studio for those little fixes and tweaks that show up at the end of a project. Once you've figured MG out, it's so easy to take care of them fast.
I have tried Hexagon so many times. I have never managed to get it to run for more than 30 minutes without crashing. I don't know why. I used to have an iMac and it crashed repeatedly within a few minutes. Then I bought a PC and tried Hexagon again - crashed. Then the new beta came out - ahh, maybe it is more stable, I thought. And it is but it still crashes. Then I upgraded my PC - almost all the inside components were replaced. Hexagon still crashes. So it is Blender or nothing for me, I'm afraid.
Probably one of those things of who knows why it happens with software.. While some have no issues, others do have issues one of the many mysteries of computers..
Although I do have to admit I every so often I have an issue, where the Daz Studio Bridge does not activate Hexagon but I have so far not had Hexagon crash on me.. 
Anyway the reason I use Hexagon is that I know how to use it and what it does, the inbuilt Hexagon Bridge in Daz Studio makes things easier..
While Blender would be good it still does not have the ability, (that I know of) to hide body elements as easily as it can be done in Hexagon.. If Blender could do that then I would probably switch, that and have a much better import/export bridge in Daz Studio..
Your reasons are precisely why I wanted to use Hexagon, especially the convenience of a bridge. While there has been a lot of work happening to get DAZ Studio scenes into Blender the more simple requirement of a GOZ style bridge to create morphs is still not with us.
I haven't had problems with Hexagon crashing that I can recall; I just don't like using it.
Same here, but I have 'always' (for the last 25+ years) built my systems with compatibility and stability in mind.
Trying to model with mesh grabber is like doing lego with oven mittens on :)
Just boot Blender and do the donut tutorial.
I honestly don't know what to say about your results, @marble. It's been many versions since I've had to mess with Diffeo's converted materials. Unless an idea occurs to me after import, I just leave the materials as they are, and 99% of the time they look very good. I did notice that sometimes the UV Maps are assigned incorrectly, but that is literally two clicks to fix, and they jump out at you in RED. Other than that, I don't find it necessary to even open the Shader Editor. You've made that statement before, and I wish I knew how to assist you.
"intimate knowledge of the workings of CG software"... OK that one made me laugh. I just kept repeating Andrew Price's tutorials, I check Blender Nation every day, and I'm subscribed to probably 2 dozen other content creators on Youtube. It's true that I'm beginning to grok Blender's internals and my Python ambitions are growing, but none of that has anything to do with how I use Blender in most contexts.
The rig once in Blender is exactly the same. After you select the armature and hit ctrl-tab to go into Pose Mode, posing in Blender is remarkably similar. Select the bone you want with the mouse or in the outliner, and you can use the rotate tool, but I would suggest just using rxx, ryy, or rzz for bend, twist, and side to side respectively. And, of course, the Pose Library is coming.
Gotta agree with you on Cloth Simulation, though. It requires way too much tinkering, and MD just works.
Amen. DTDT. Again. And again. I'm going to change my sig :)
Fair enough. I should appreciate more that it is an objective statement that Blender can be more efficient, to say that it is easier is not.
And I'm not going to act as if I did the Donut Tutorial once and then was comfortable in everything. Since I wanted to animate, I was highly motivated to stop using Daz Studio (but continuing to use its assets, of course) as soon as possible and I must have done parts 1 and 2 a half a dozen times each before I had any kind of facility.
Honestly, I push Blender so hard because DS and Blender complement each other so stupidly well, each has vastly improved my experience with the other, and I just want to spread the satisfaction that's given me. To the same degree that it feels terrible to want to do something that DS can't do or can't do in a straightforward manner, it feels good when it's a few keypresses and a swipe of the mouse or the wheel in Blender.
It would be really cool if Daz and Blender would collab a bit more and make a decent import/export bridge.. So that like Hexagon when in Daz Studio you click the send to Blender button, and what you are working on is sent to Blender.. But a case of one can dream I suppose..
The one big problem I have with Hexagon is the GUI... It's very 90s (very Kai Krause/KTP)... if you get used to it, it's kinda confusing to go back and forth between newer programs... like at least with Blender there has been a push to "normalize" the controls to make them more like other programs.
Hexagon is a very good tool to have, but I'd try and learn Blender first, as that will give you more "bang for yer' brain cells" and have a more longer lasting impact in the long run...
Blender will continue to evolve and gain more professional quality features and plugins and I'm afraid Hexagon, like Carrara and Bryce have all fallen to the wayside as far as development.
Hexagon was more normal than Amapi, its more-or-less ancestor - there you droppd a tool by moving the mouse off to the edge of the screen.
I don't see why Daz doesn't develop their own morph tool. Poser and CC3 both have one and it's similar in both. Be nice if DS had one too. **shrug**
I had both Amapi and Infini-D (which I guess more or less is the ancestor of Carrara)... I'm pretty sure I got them from CompUSA in the bargain software area... Actually, technically I still have them... I'm pretty sure they are still on my old Blue and White G3 Mac (if it still turns on)...
It's weird that the first real 3D programs I owned (Bryce was also one of the) all became property of DAZ, yet I never knew DAZ existed until I went looking to buy a newer copy of Bryce in 2007.
Regarding the IRay/Cycles thing - there was a thread a while back and I posted some comparisons. Maybe I'm just too demanding or maybe I like to tweak IRay quite a bit in the Surfaces tab and I don't relish doing that with Cycles because I am scared of the Blender node system.
Again with posing, I just find Blender less pecise and also limits don't work in Blender so you can end up with some horrific limb deformations with a slight slip of the mouse. As for the rig - I see recommendations in the Blender forum (here) to use the MHX rig which is not the same as the DAZ Genesis 8 rig (I don't think it is, anyway). Then there's the complexity of getting geografts to attach and work like they do in DAZ Studio (including morphs) - I believe it is possible but there are a few hoops that need to be negotiated first.
You are too modest on the "intimate knowledge" thing. Firstly you can write scripts and have written that excellent Alembic add-on/script/plugin (not sure how to categorise it but it is better than the DAZ version). So you must be familiar with some of the internals. I think I read that you have also contributed to the latest release of Diffeomorphic so, again, kudos and thanks for that.
Have you tried the Diffeomorphic Daz Importer? It works pretty darned well, at least in the cases that I've thrown at it. And perhaps most importantly, the main developer/founder is here on the forums and has inhuman speed in fixing bugs, and the guy that designed the excellent materials conversions is very active here as well.
For my purposes, I really consider the problem of getting DS content out of Daz and into Blender a solved problem. I just export from Daz, and import into Blender, and everything just works from there.
I think I remember the thread you are referring to, and I agree that it looked nothing like the IRay version. I didn't understand what was going on because I started to dabble with Diffeo aroung that time as well, and was much more satisfied with my results. Mabe you're right in that you void assumptions the material conversion relies upon with what you do in Surfaces prior to exporting.
Fair enough. I admit that I don't convert the rig, and I don't use geografts.
I can see why it may seem that way, but Sagan is an order of magnitude simpler than, say, Diffeo. Sagan just looks for geometry and exports everything it finds. There were much fewer Daz Grand Mysteries that I had to figure out. Thomas has intimate knowledge. Padone has intimate knowledge. I just figured out how to export geometry, and even that not fully enough to work with HD under all circumstances.
Maybe I would accept your accolade if I could make geografts work as expected :)
My only reason I have not yet to gone to Blender for morphing is that I do morphs of teeth and so on, and as far as I know Blender can not hide body elements yet.. I have used Blender for G2 To G3 texture conversion, but that is about it..
Ahh cool thank you for the info and help will try it out and see how I go..