Questions about Diffeomorphic

marth_e

I was wondering if there is any official documentation or tutorials for someone who would like to learn more about diffeomorphic. It looks absolutely amazing but I wold like to learn about more advanced things.

I have seen that it's possible to export the HD figure from Daz to Blender and was also wondering if once the HD figure is in Blender if it's possible to load HD morphs and how to do so.

Thanks in advance,

Martha

Padone

Yes there's the official docs on the site and videos on youtube, just google "diffeomorphic daz". As for HD morphs it's supported but clunky since you have to use the true HD mesh and the HD addon by Xin. Also a true HD mesh does not fit animation.

If you really need full HD figures honestly I'd stay with daz studio. But diffeo can do HD shapes easily, I mean without the HD morphs.

https://diffeomorphic.blogspot.com/p/daz-importer-version-16.html

marth_e

Hi, Padone. Thanks for the reply.

The link you posted doesn't seem to be working. I get a "Sorry, the page you were looking for in this blog does not exist." error.

Also, I understand I can import the true HD mesh to blender using Diffeomorphic. My question is: once the true HD mesh is in blender is it possible to further load more HD morphs directlly in blender as shapekeys using diffeo? The point here is not just loading the HD morphs in DAZ BEFORE exporting but if it's possible to load HD morphs in blender to the true HD mesh AFTER the exporting process has finished.

 

Thanks a lot,

Padone

Fixed the link. As for HD morphs yes it is possible but you need to use the HD addon by Xin, that atm works for blender 3.0, doesn't work for 3.1.

marth_e

Thanks, Padone.

Do you know where I can find some info about how to use Xin's HD addon?

 

Krys Kryngle

I have a tutorial on youtube that goes over using Xin's add-on (Export DAZ to Blender using Diffeomorphic - Part 3 of 3). 

One thing I've discovered and hopefully I can save you some time and frustration is that adding a lot of HD Shapekeys in Blender will slow Blender to a crawl and make it almost unusable.  I imported all the normal shape keys along with some extra div-2 shape keys while my character had 2 subdivisions (264,000 verts I think).  It might work if you only import a limited number of shape keys, but I stopped using it and stay at base resolution because of the performance issue.  Of course I could have been doing something wrong that made it perform so poorly but I did try it multiple times with the same result. 

Padone

Yes as noted above true HD doesn't fit animation. As an alternative you can bake to displacement always with the Xin addon. But personally I'd avoid to use HD morphs in blender and just import the HD shape with multires for animation.

Singular3D

Interesting discussion.

As I do stills most of the time, I wonder what would be the best way bring HD to Blender. Don't know much about multires so far and didn't play with Xin's addon. If possible, I would like to create native Blender characters out of the Daz characters. So using displacement maps for wrinkles and other stuff makes sense, as I used Cinema 4D as well in the past.

Will dive into multires and it's options next. 

Singular3D

By the way: Is there a way to get the HD stuff to the Multires Modifier? What would be the best approach?

SDev

Singular3D said:

By the way: Is there a way to get the HD stuff to the Multires Modifier? What would be the best approach?

The Xin Addon.

https://gitlab.com/x190/daz-hd-morphs

(Aber Walt, ganz ehrlich, wozu? Blender Sculpt Mode, a paar Alpha brushes, und a bisserl Geduld...  :P)

Krys Kryngle

I've spent many hours experimenting with different approaches.  Here is what I've discovered so hopefully it can save others some time.

To preserve DAZ HD details (sub 4/5 details found in the HD Add-Ons), we have 2 approaches.  

    1) Import DAZ character into Blender using Diffeomorphic and MultiRes
    2) Bake out the HD details to displacement/normal maps.

MultiRes-
Pros - Easy and quick, preserves all the details up to Sub 4.  DAZ has some HD details in sub 5 which should be baked out to normal or bump maps so sub 4 is sufficient.  We can keep the character at 0 subdivision levels in the viewport so we can pose/animate without Blender lagging too badly.  We can also sculpt in various levels of MultiRes to modify our characters (but we lose detail, see below).
Cons - Difficult to change HD details.  If we need to smooth out some issues when posing, the fine HD details get lost.  For example, if our character had a bend at the elbow or knee which requires some sculpting, using the smooth brush destroys the fine HD details.  We could bake out the fine details to normal/bump maps, but at that point why bother with multires?  Another example is using geografts.  They often need some smoothing and adjustment, which destroys the HD details.  Also, we can only import the HD details that already exist.  If we add additional HD details or change something, we have to repeat that change on every import. Our edits are not saved.  There is a 'Sculpt Layers' add-on that may fix some/all of these issues but I have not tried it yet.

Bake Displacement Maps for HD details-

Bake using Blender - I've tried (using bake from multires), but always get seams between the uv layers on the final render.  I've searched for a solution but have not found one yet.  Blender is planning on improving their baking process so maybe this will be fixed in future versions.

Bake using Xin's addon - Works, but the HD details did not seem to be very strong.  I could not get the level of detail I was hoping for.  Also, there is no way to adjust any details such as smoothing a wrinkle or bump, adding a crease, etc.  What you get from DAZ is what you get.

Bake using external program - Best so far, and what I currently use, except I had to buy Zbrush.  There may be other programs that are equally good at baking displacement maps, but Zbrush just works.  Export OBJ from DAZ (or maybe even use the GoZ link) and bake.  Flipped Normals has a tutorial on youtube which goes over the settings and process.  After getting the model in ZBrush, we can adjust any HD details we want with some additional sculpting.  Then we have displacement and normal maps that we can use on multiple characters.  Back in Blender we can sculpt and fine tune our characters all day without worring about losing any HD detail.  I also think this is the way to go for wrinkles in the face and other places on the character, although I have not gotten that far yet.  I'm thinking we can generate wrinkle maps in Zbrush and use drivers in Blender to activate those maps.

SDev

Krys Kryngle said:

I've spent many hours experimenting with different approaches.  Here is what I've discovered so hopefully it can save others some time.

To preserve DAZ HD details (sub 4/5 details found in the HD Add-Ons), we have 2 approaches.  

    1) Import DAZ character into Blender using Diffeomorphic and MultiRes
    2) Bake out the HD details to displacement/normal maps.

MultiRes-
Pros - Easy and quick, preserves all the details up to Sub 4.  DAZ has some HD details in sub 5 which should be baked out to normal or bump maps so sub 4 is sufficient.  We can keep the character at 0 subdivision levels in the viewport so we can pose/animate without Blender lagging too badly.  We can also sculpt in various levels of MultiRes to modify our characters (but we lose detail, see below).
Cons - Difficult to change HD details.  If we need to smooth out some issues when posing, the fine HD details get lost.  For example, if our character had a bend at the elbow or knee which requires some sculpting, using the smooth brush destroys the fine HD details.  We could bake out the fine details to normal/bump maps, but at that point why bother with multires?  Another example is using geografts.  They often need some smoothing and adjustment, which destroys the HD details.  Also, we can only import the HD details that already exist.  If we add additional HD details or change something, we have to repeat that change on every import. Our edits are not saved.  There is a 'Sculpt Layers' add-on that may fix some/all of these issues but I have not tried it yet.

Bake Displacement Maps for HD details-

Bake using Blender - I've tried (using bake from multires), but always get seams between the uv layers on the final render.  I've searched for a solution but have not found one yet.  Blender is planning on improving their baking process so maybe this will be fixed in future versions.

Bake using Xin's addon - Works, but the HD details did not seem to be very strong.  I could not get the level of detail I was hoping for.  Also, there is no way to adjust any details such as smoothing a wrinkle or bump, adding a crease, etc.  What you get from DAZ is what you get.

Bake using external program - Best so far, and what I currently use, except I had to buy Zbrush.  There may be other programs that are equally good at baking displacement maps, but Zbrush just works.  Export OBJ from DAZ (or maybe even use the GoZ link) and bake.  Flipped Normals has a tutorial on youtube which goes over the settings and process.  After getting the model in ZBrush, we can adjust any HD details we want with some additional sculpting.  Then we have displacement and normal maps that we can use on multiple characters.  Back in Blender we can sculpt and fine tune our characters all day without worring about losing any HD detail.  I also think this is the way to go for wrinkles in the face and other places on the character, although I have not gotten that far yet.  I'm thinking we can generate wrinkle maps in Zbrush and use drivers in Blender to activate those maps.

Krys, 

I'm sure you've already seen the works of Chris Jones at BA. He's working with wrinkle maps and drivers.

It seems he will release some updates 'very very' soon.

https://youtu.be/gh6WbaYzwFc

 

highStrangeness

Krys Kryngle said:

I've spent many hours experimenting with different approaches.  Here is what I've discovered so hopefully it can save others some time.

To preserve DAZ HD details (sub 4/5 details found in the HD Add-Ons), we have 2 approaches.  

    1) Import DAZ character into Blender using Diffeomorphic and MultiRes
    2) Bake out the HD details to displacement/normal maps.

 

Bake Displacement Maps for HD details-

Bake using Blender - I've tried (using bake from multires), but always get seams between the uv layers on the final render.  I've searched for a solution but have not found one yet.  Blender is planning on improving their baking process so maybe this will be fixed in future versions.

o go for wrinkles in the face and other places on the character, although I have not gotten that far yet.  I'm thinking we can generate wrinkle maps in Zbrush and use drivers in Blender to activate those maps.

 

Well, in fact, I found a solution for the seams issue.  The Bake Wrangler addon works well for this, because it allows you to set a margin for the displacement maps.  I tried it, and set a 16 pixel margin, and there are no seams on my figure.  I even viewed the displacement maps by connecting a material output node to the displacement setup - there are no seams.  The addon is worth it, and is quite flexible.   It's also node based, which is interesting.

https://blendermarket.com/products/bake-wrangler

 

marth_e

Krys Kryngle said:

I have a tutorial on youtube that goes over using Xin's add-on (Export DAZ to Blender using Diffeomorphic - Part 3 of 3). 

One thing I've discovered and hopefully I can save you some time and frustration is that adding a lot of HD Shapekeys in Blender will slow Blender to a crawl and make it almost unusable.  I imported all the normal shape keys along with some extra div-2 shape keys while my character had 2 subdivisions (264,000 verts I think).  It might work if you only import a limited number of shape keys, but I stopped using it and stay at base resolution because of the performance issue.  Of course I could have been doing something wrong that made it perform so poorly but I did try it multiple times with the same result. 

Thanks for the videotutorials, Krys. I've found them very informative and useful. Are you planning to do more tutorials?

Thanks a lot,

Martha

Krys Kryngle

marth_e said:

Krys Kryngle said:

I have a tutorial on youtube that goes over using Xin's add-on (Export DAZ to Blender using Diffeomorphic - Part 3 of 3). 

One thing I've discovered and hopefully I can save you some time and frustration is that adding a lot of HD Shapekeys in Blender will slow Blender to a crawl and make it almost unusable.  I imported all the normal shape keys along with some extra div-2 shape keys while my character had 2 subdivisions (264,000 verts I think).  It might work if you only import a limited number of shape keys, but I stopped using it and stay at base resolution because of the performance issue.  Of course I could have been doing something wrong that made it perform so poorly but I did try it multiple times with the same result. 

Thanks for the videotutorials, Krys. I've found them very informative and useful. Are you planning to do more tutorials?

Thanks a lot,

Martha

So glad you could find some useful information in them.  I thought about doing some shorter 2 minute vids, maybe after I learn rigging and animation...

marth_e

SDev said:

Singular3D said:

By the way: Is there a way to get the HD stuff to the Multires Modifier? What would be the best approach?

The Xin Addon.

https://gitlab.com/x190/daz-hd-morphs

(Aber Walt, ganz ehrlich, wozu? Blender Sculpt Mode, a paar Alpha brushes, und a bisserl Geduld...  :P)

SDev, so the Xin addon allows to load shapekeys on every level of the multires modifier and not only on the base level?

Thanks for the info,
Martha

Singular3D

marth_e said:

SDev said:

Singular3D said:

By the way: Is there a way to get the HD stuff to the Multires Modifier? What would be the best approach?

The Xin Addon.

https://gitlab.com/x190/daz-hd-morphs

(Aber Walt, ganz ehrlich, wozu? Blender Sculpt Mode, a paar Alpha brushes, und a bisserl Geduld...  :P)

SDev, so the Xin addon allows to load shapekeys on every level of the multires modifier and not only on the base level?

Thanks for the info,
Martha

As far as I understood the shapekeys work only on the base mesh for now. At least there is no more conflict with a multires modifier as in versions before 2.9.

Thanks to all for this discussion. A lot of valuable informations with pros and cons. So, I have to find a way that fits best to my requirements.
Whereas multires looks promising, it seems that there is still some way for improvement.
Displacement seems to be a good approach for now and I think about combining hight maps for that to add wrinkles in certain situations. 

Singular3D

SDev said:

Singular3D said:

By the way: Is there a way to get the HD stuff to the Multires Modifier? What would be the best approach?

The Xin Addon.

https://gitlab.com/x190/daz-hd-morphs

(Aber Walt, ganz ehrlich, wozu? Blender Sculpt Mode, a paar Alpha brushes, und a bisserl Geduld...  :P)

Danke, aber Geduld ist nicht meine Stärke  

Padone

The explanation by Krys is quite good, except that the addon by Xin should work fine it has been updated recently, but only works with blender 3.0 not with 3.1 yet.

To mark some points better.

1. Without the HD addon by Xin, diffeomorphic uses multires to bake the HD shape, and uses the base resolution for morphs. You can also bake the HD shape to displacement that's why both the base resolution and HD meshes are imported for HD. Then HD morphs are not available, because multires doesn't support HD morphs that's a blender limit.

2. The HD addon by Xin can generate a true HD mesh, that means that multires is not used, so HD morphs are imported correctly. The HD addon can also bake HD morphs to displacement maps to be used with multires, so to get something similar to the flexpressions that SDev pointed out.

The documentation by Thomas is quite good in my opinion and if you're seriously interested in HD then read it entirely and do your homework. It is quite an effort to get a full HD figure to work in blender though, despite the nice tools available. The best way is probably multires (diffeo) + HD morphs baked to displacement (by Xin).

https://diffeomorphic.blogspot.com/p/hd-meshes-version-16.html

SDev

Singular3D said:

SDev said:

Singular3D said:

By the way: Is there a way to get the HD stuff to the Multires Modifier? What would be the best approach?

The Xin Addon.

https://gitlab.com/x190/daz-hd-morphs

(Aber Walt, ganz ehrlich, wozu? Blender Sculpt Mode, a paar Alpha brushes, und a bisserl Geduld...  :P)

Danke, aber Geduld ist nicht meine Stärke  

Ich weiss. Deswegen ;p

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