convert genesis character to unified low poly mesh?

Artini

gibrril_fa945a6cee said:

Hi again, can I also export to fbx? Will that also transform the entire export into one mesh? And does an export to fbx preserve the textures? I was thinking of importing the exported mesh into blender and decimating it there, after which I would bring it back to Daz Studio... 

If you will bring the mesh back to Daz Studio from Blender, that will be quite an achievement.

I think, it is possible, but then, you will need to rig items again in Daz Studio and apply iray materials again in it.

 

csaa

In Blender, there are a few ways to reduce polygon count. Blender decimate works well, but these days my go-to tool is the free version of Simplygon. The devs released a UI integrated into Blender, which allows for selecting objects (and their related faces)  and applying a pipeline of compression algorithms.

I'm still learning about Simplygon. So far what's put it above Blender's decimate is an aggregation feature, which not only reduces triangle count but also combines faces into one blob. Pretty handy, I say, when you want shoes to have only one material, rather than several for its many faces, left and right! I read that Simplygon also has a foliage optimizer for background vegetation (not hero trees), but I haven't run into that use case yet. I've tried my hand at Python scripting the Simplygon API to automate the workflow but haven't had much luck.

In general, apart from using lower res textures (1K instead of 4K), its best to target hair strands for polygon reduction: eyebrows, beards and the crowning hair. Selecting uncomplicated hair assets at the get go yields good dividends. 

Ultimately, in this day and age of cheap disk storage and RAM, why bother? Particularly when the goal is a one-shot scene. But when producing a comic book, for example, the disk usage racks up. Great as it is, Blender also slows down noticeably when rendering high poly scenes. I think its useful to include poly conservation in one's workflow.

Cheers!

 

gibrril_fa945a6cee said:

Hi all,

I was wondering if it was possible to convert a Genesis 8 figure with clothes and hair into a single low poly mesh. For my purposes it would be perfectly fine if that mesh was no longer posable. But if it is still posable, also fine :) 

Can this be done inside of Daz Studio or Blender?

Thanks a lot,

Me

PerttiA

csaa said:

Ultimately, in this day and age of cheap disk storage and RAM, why bother?

Cheap disk storage and RAM doesn't help with the shortage of VRAM 

csaa

The operating system constitutes VRAM from disk and RAM. That's the working definition of VRAM that I understand (see wiki), unless we're talking about something else ... L cache on the CPU???

Cheers!

PerttiA said:

csaa said:

Ultimately, in this day and age of cheap disk storage and RAM, why bother?

Cheap disk storage and RAM doesn't help with the shortage of VRAM 

PerttiA

csaa said:

The operating system constitutes VRAM from disk and RAM. That's the working definition of VRAM that I understand (see wiki), unless we're talking about something else ... L cache on the CPU???

 

You are talking about virtual memory, that is not VRAM found on the GPU 

csaa

Right, I overlooked that. Thanks.

Cheers!

PerttiA said:

csaa said:

The operating system constitutes VRAM from disk and RAM. That's the working definition of VRAM that I understand (see wiki), unless we're talking about something else ... L cache on the CPU???

 

You are talking about virtual memory, that is not VRAM found on the GPU 

Artini

My graphics card has only 8 GB of video ram.

It usually fits max 2 Genesis 8 characters with clothes and hair on them, without dropping to RAM in iray rendering.

With decimated figures I can easily fit more characters in the scene.

Tristan 8, Babina 8 and Asher.

Decimator gives also overview of the polygons in the scene.

I was really surprised to find out how many polygons some figures have.

https://www.daz3d.com/ajc-2020s-modern-realness-outfit-for-genesis-8-and-81-females

Boots, pants from Modern Realness outfit has over 500000 polygons each - easy to lower with decimator to 10%.

csaa

I remember, @Artini, that you did good work in the Daz-Unity area. Do you use any polygon compression techniques in Unity after importing Daz assets?

Cheers! 

Artini said:

My graphics card has only 8 GB of video ram.

It usually fits max 2 Genesis 8 characters with clothes and hair on them, without dropping to RAM in iray rendering.

With decimated figures I can easily fit more characters in the scene.

Tristan 8, Babina 8 and Asher.

Decimator gives also overview of the polygons in the scene.

I was really surprised to find out how many polygons some figures have.

https://www.daz3d.com/ajc-2020s-modern-realness-outfit-for-genesis-8-and-81-females

Boots, pants from Modern Realness outfit has over 500000 polygons each - easy to lower with decimator to 10%.

Artini

Thanks, @csaa.

I have not optimized Daz assets after transferring them to Unity via a bridge, yet.

There was no need to do it with my tests.

I have tested scenes in Unity with more than 10 Daz characters and there was no problem with FPS.

Probably, if I would build a game, it could be done to improve further FPS in the Unity builds.

Below is an example of multiple Daz figures animated in Unity:

 

csaa

Really cool! Thanks for sharing.

Cheers!

Artini said:

Thanks, @csaa.

I have not optimized Daz assets after transferring them to Unity via a bridge, yet.

There was no need to do it with my tests.

I have tested scenes in Unity with more than 10 Daz characters and there was no problem with FPS.

Probably, if I would build a game, it could be done to improve further FPS in the Unity builds.

Below is an example of multiple Daz figures animated in Unity:

 

Artini

With my Nvidia graphics card with 8 GB of video RAM,

using decimator and Scene Optimizer - https://www.daz3d.com/scene-optimizer

I have succeded to render in Daz Studio iray 5 Genesis 8 based characters with clothes and hair

without dropping out to computer RAM - rendering time around 5 minutes.