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The Kids 4 Complete and the DAZ to Maya Bridge

rnollmanrnollman Posts: 310
in The Commons

I am working with a design firm. They use Maya. I told them to download DAZ Studio and buy the Kids 4 Complete and the Lincoln Character and Hair for Genesis Males, and the Z Old Gentleman product. Once installed, they should be able to create scenes with the Kids 4 characters and the Lincoln character and the Z Old Gentleman product (for the sweater and pants) and then use the DAZ to Maya bridge to export these characters to Maya. Is that correct or am I missing something?

Comments

  • GordigGordig Posts: 10,173

    Z Old Gentleman is a pose pack. The clothing is from dForce Sweater Vest Style outfit and its material expansion. I don't use Gen4 at all, so I don't know how well Kids 4 would bridge to Maya compared to G8, so you may want to look for other G8 products.

  • FSMCDesignsFSMCDesigns Posts: 12,774

    That sure is nice of the design firm to actually d/l and install DS and buy those products for your project, can't imagine many companies doing that. Mind if I ask what the project is?

  • rnollmanrnollman Posts: 310

    I enlisted them to help me to create illustrations for a children's book. I was hoping that they would do the heavy lifting, but as it turns out, I probably will have to do a substantial part of the work. First problem is that I have to educate them on using DAZ. I am not an expert on DAZ and am struggling with it, so it is difficult to pass on my knowledge. I assumed that because they are familiar with Maya that it would be easy for them to come up to speed on DAZ Studio. My assumption is that if they buy the DAZ products that define the main characters in the book and install them on their system, they can then use the DAZ to Maya bridge to import the characters into Maya and then develop scenes that we can share and work interactively with. I am not sure if this will work as I do not fully understand what is required to pass files back and forth between programs. It may be the only thing that we can do is to share the main characters. The first milestone in the project is to define the main characters. Once that is done, I assume that they can develop scenes using Maya.

    When they initially presented their view of the main characters in the book, I was disappointed. I already had sent them renders of the characters using DAZ products (Kids 4 and Lincoln), so I thought they could simply take my images and create their own versions in Maya. It did not work out that way. 

    I think that one problem is that using Kids 4 was not the best DAZ product to use if I want to bridge to Maya as it is not a Gen 8 product. The problem is that I created a character that exactly depicts my view of the main character using Kids 4. If the Kids 4 figure does not convert, we are back to square one. The second character was a Lincoln figure that may be ok because it is a Gen 8 product. The biggest problem is figuring out how to use the Kids 4 product with newer products that were developed for Gen 8. 

  • rnollmanrnollman Posts: 310

    For example, when I try to apply a hair product to a Kids 4 character, the hair does not apply correctly. I have to disconnect the Hair object from the parent, move the hair in place, and then reapply the Hair as a child of the Kids 4 head. Then, when I move the Kids 4 character, the hair moves with it. There are other problems, such as the Preset thumbnails in Content Manager are not displayed correctly for Kids 4. Not sure why, but the titles like Actor and Wardrobe do not appear in the thumbnails --- just some image that looks like a tiny scroll as if there is something missing in the file. See attached image.

    Scrolls_01.JPG
    307 x 438 - 28K
  • rnollmanrnollman Posts: 310

    Gordig said:

    Z Old Gentleman is a pose pack. The clothing is from dForce Sweater Vest Style outfit and its material expansion. I don't use Gen4 at all, so I don't know how well Kids 4 would bridge to Maya compared to G8, so you may want to look for other G8 products.

    I am dealing with the two main characters, one is Kids 4 and the other is Lincoln. I used the vest for the Lincoln character and it works fine using the Z Old Gentleman product.  It is the Kids 4 character that is the problem. I should probably find a Gen 8 character that I can adapt. However, the Kids 4 variation of the figure is perfect, exactly what I want. It has the look and feel of the main character of my book.

  • FSMCDesignsFSMCDesigns Posts: 12,774

    hate to burst your bubble, but even you both own the same assets, you cannot share any actually 3d files, only DS scene files and presets that read the files installed already. Maya is a completely different experience than DS and more complex, especially the UI, so it will not be an easy transition from DS to Maya. last I checked though the DS to Maya bridge was one way

  • rnollmanrnollman Posts: 310

    So what the purpose of the Maya bridge? How might it be useful? What are some examples of what it could be used for?

  • rnollmanrnollman Posts: 310

    I watched the DAZ video on the Maya bridge and it talked about transferring a figure to Maya which could be used in Maya, manipulated, and then exported back to DAZ Studio. See attached screenshot from the video.

    DAZ to Maya Bridge_01.JPG
    1920 x 1080 - 150K
  • rnollmanrnollman Posts: 310

    Actually, one way is OK. According to the video, once in Maya, they can continue to work on the figure. I guess it would be too much to ask to be able to export from Maya to DAZ Studio. They can send me the images and I will have to recreate them using DAZ Studio. When I have made my changes, they make the changes in their version in Maya,

  • FSMCDesignsFSMCDesigns Posts: 12,774

    rnollman said:

    So what the purpose of the Maya bridge? How might it be useful? What are some examples of what it could be used for?

    Maya is a commercial industry grade, all purpose modeling and animation app. Daz creates some of the best 3D figures on the market at very affordable prices with lots of extras to go with them. For years, high end app users have been importing Daz figures into their high end commercial app work, Daz just tried to make that workflow easier in the hopes of getting more non hobbyists customers 

    Unfortunately the cost of Maya makes it out of reach for most hobbyists. Unless you are a student, teacher, have deep pockets or use pirated versions (many hobbyists do), then apps like Blender or DS are the alternative.

    I use 3DSMax, but don't do game design, or animations and can't afford the high end renderers that you can use with it and even with the bridge for it, setup and posing in max is a pain, so I stick with DS and Iray unfortunately. In my perfect 3D world, a plugin for Max that emulates DS inside of max and being able to render in Arnold, Maxwell or Vray would be epic!

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