Kitbash3D.com with Daz3d experiences/guide?
psfilipe
Posts: 164
in The Commons
Hi,
Wondering if anyone out there has some experience using Kitbash3d assets in Daz.
I tried to export a free one out of Blender but I don't know what I'm doing and the results are not looking great in Iray.
Any tips you're willing to share?
And by the way, Daz could you persuade them to just include Daz in their offerings?
A good partnership maybe?
I already tried to reach them about this via Instagram but they didn't seem that excited...
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Hello!
I have a bunch of the Kitbash3D kits and I think they are awesome. I posted my workflow here: https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/6715041/#Comment_6715041
Here are a couple of DS Iray examples:
Ciao
TD
They are gorgeous kits but they are very tedious to get converted for use in Daz. Not difficult. Tedious. I have no experience with Blender at all and it took me roughly an hour to convert a single building from the Cyber Streets kit, including getting all the materials lined up (because they don't all load in correctly into Daz so you have to go surface by surface and there are a heck of a lot of surfaces).
This is the tutorial I used - https://www.deviantart.com/peggywalters/art/Using-KitBash3D-Models-in-DAZ-Studio-863991507?fbclid=IwAR3D63OMLrgTRt_ph78rpmZuOJC1HTbj8NCOzrezIk_y8WxvKn1HFouEEEU
I've messaged Kitbash multiple times, commented on their Facebook posts and ads and once they sent me a survey about features requested and I always tell them to make it compatible with Daz, they just don't realize there's a userbase here who would want to utilize their sets. So maybe if more people email them they'll start to take note.
The easiest way to get them into Daz is to set the scene up in Blender how you want the buildings, unless you want to export each building by itself and place everything in Daz, I find this way much quicker. Then export the scene as an OBJ and bring it into Daz, I set the import scale 8734% (I'm sure there's a way to get proper scaling right from Blender but I don't know what it is and this method works perfect for me as the buildings are scale to Daz characters). And then I highlight everything in the surface tab and set to the Iray Ubershader. Then you go through and you link the materials from the Kitbash textures, or whatever textures you like. I usually use stuff from Quixel Megascans instead. This does take ten, fifteen minutes once you get in the groove, but then all you have to do is save it as a material subset and save that to your kitbash 3d folder for the kit itself and you never have to do it again, you just apply the material setting to your obj next time you bring something in from that kit, unless of course you want to change something.
These are two renders I did with the Soviet Blocks set and the Shangri-La set a month ago or so. I think the one on the balcony, those are Quixel textures for the bricks, but the buildings in the back were from Kitbash.
The girl image is now my new wallpaper.
Have you ever tried Multi Map Loader or Map Master Pro? They could potentially save you a lot of time on something like this. I only have Multi Map Loader, and that is incredibly finicky about how the files are named, so I don't know if I'd recommend that one, but I also don't know from experience if Map Master Pro is any better.
I have a dozen or so of the Kitbash models and have really nothing negative to say about them. The modeling is lightweight, but still very functional. The textures have all been excellent as well.
The biggest hitches you will have are already mostly touched on...
I created a simple profile in Blender to streamline the import / export process. It was a headache at first until I got through the trial and error. Now it is pretty simple.
Re-texturing to Iray can be tedious, depending on how close up you'd like to be for the models. I've found the best tactic is to export / import each set in its entirety. It's a memory hog, but a lot of the surfaces share names and resources. So retexturing the whole set at once is easier than every individual model.
The models are BIG. I can't stress this enough. If exported correctly, they come in scale with the Genesis models... But each building / structure is truely structure sized. Which can be good and bad.
Yes, exactly. Multi map loader is what I use now. I can convert a whole kit in about an hour with work flow I linked in my post above. That does not include tweaking matrerials. I just do that as I go during scene setup. But it gets all models as separate units into DS saved as scene subsets and with basic Iray materials and all maps loaded into the proper places.
Ciao
TD
Sorry I modified it.
I was just trying to use MML on a NeoCities building, and it was refusing to recognize the file format of the texture files, so I was hoping that your post would show the right way to set MML up to recognize the file names. Nope, you're just renaming them. That's exactly why I'm not super thrilled with MML.
edit: huh. It turns out that it recognizes the pattern with format 2, but we'll see if that actually works, since it thinks the "NEC", which is the product name, is that material zone. Wish me luck!
re-edit: NOPE!
That's awesome and really cool, I'm glad you liked it :)
For some reason I don't quite understand, Kitbash put all the models in their kits into one gigantic file, rather having one model per file. This does make getting started with them time-consuming. You'll need to load the file, then delete the models you don't want to use (or select them and export them one by one).
Out of the box, they also don't look that great in Iray. You'll need to do a fair amount of material tweaking to show them at their best.
That said, they are competently modeled and imaginatively-designed, and you get a lot of items in each kit.
They're currently having a 50% off sale across their entire store, so if you are ready to buy, now is the time. They have sales reasonably frequently, though -- you can probably expect one around Christmas, if previous years are anything to go by -- so if you miss this one, just wait for the next.
yeah that is a downright pain in any software
The ones I've used, no. They're just buildings and props.
The birds-eye view you get on the store page is pretty much a straight render of how the set loads into your modeling program.
Some do come with streets... The Victorian set, for example. I think the Storefronts one does. And there is a nice set of modular Highway peices that I've used multiple times.
thd777 said:
It's tweaking the materials that takes the time, so a map loader script doesn't seem useful to me. You still have to go through and look at each surface separately because the same setting might not work from one surface to the next. I run into the same exact issue when I convert sets made for Poser, such as those wonderful sets by Dante78 on Rendo.
I have their starships. Expensive, but worth it. It's not setting up the maps what takes bulk of the time in Daz. It's manually adjusting the surfaces for metals to look like metals, ceramics like ceramics, etc.
Very good quality models, though. Very clean. Since you have them already in Blender you can always, duh, KITBASH something with them before exporting.
I'd rather have each building set up separately as its own prop asset. Super tedious to do, but then I'm not locked in with that one kitbash I might have put together in Blender...I can just load in the single assets I want and kitbash them multiple times over in different scenes.
Well, that depends on what you're building. If I'm using something as a part of the landscape it's better for me to port it into Daz as separate props. But if I'm building a literal starship, then chances are I will join it, delete everything that is not visible and merge all the materials that can be merged so it runs faster in Daz.
Here's the thing though, and I apologize if I get the phasing wrong, I don't have my models handy...
If you export then import the entire set of models, the textures will be named the same.
So "Steel1" on Building 1 is the same as "Steel1" on Buildings 2 - 20.
By doing a search on the name I have been able to rexture the majority of the surfaces of a full set in short order.
There are a few oddball surfaces here and there that use a specific texture or is named different, but I usually note those and worry about them when using that specific model.
Also, if you import the whole set as one, the DS file is relatively small. So its easy to set up cameras to pan across each row and see the specific model you want to use, then delete everything else.
Once that is done then I usually use the PBR shaders to give the model some specific flavor for the project I might be working on.
I think this is the route I'm going to go. It's a little daunting to set up the entire set at one time, so I'll just do the pieces as I need them.
Thanks to all for the helpful tips and tutorials in this thread!
Here is one sort of final-ish image with the valhalla set. This took about 10 minutes of material tweaking after loading the models that I converted via my workflow linked in the second message in this thread.
Terrain is done with Ultra Scenery.
Ciao
TD
Great work - did you use UItraScenery for the trees/backdrop?
Yes, indeed. The Pacific Northwest pack and also C66 Ultra Scenery Toolbox to make space for the houses and flatten the ground where needed.
ciao
TD
Thank you all for the responses and tutorials!
This does seem a lot of work for my limited skills.
But it's something that sooner or later I'll probably have to learn.
Come on Daz... Make a deal with KitBash3d
To me it seems like the Valhalla assets aren't blending in that well with the UltraScenery assets. When I saw your image in the other thread I was actually kinda disappointed at the time, as I had purchased the Valhalla kit and hadn't done anything with it yet and was worried that the quality didn't appear to hold up. But it's probably the surface settings that are bugging me. I know some folks are pickier about that stuff...thinking some of them might need to be darkened a bit.
I know the Vikings reached parts of Eastern Canada, but it would have taken a lot of sailing for them to have reached the Pacific North West :-)
I grabbed the Dark Fantasy set last night and although it's a bit of work adding the UV maps and tweaking the settings, I think it's worth it if you like the models. They also have an extra 30% coupon on your first order, so that was enough for me to pull the trigger :)
i have the Valhalla set and when I tested it, it looked just like the promo page on kitbash's site, so it's probably a tweaking of the surfaces thing.