DazToUnreal bug report - Morph export didn't work on child objects of a G8 figure

DryreL

Hi!

After two full days of trial and testing, I can approve this is a bug.

What I'm trying to do is export morphs of child object of a G8 figure. It should be working on the figure skeletal mesh because it is a new custom part of the figure. I exported again and again with trials and errors, I tried to do a new thing on every export. Yet, it NEVER worked!

Morphs are only worked when you export this custom part without G8 figure. But this way, it is unuseful for me, because it's just a custom part of figure...

I'm looking for an assistance or bugfix update to DazToUnreal.

Thank you.

DryreL

Just tested DazToBlender and again, I was not able to access child object (marked as red) morphs.

It seems this is not related to DazToUnreal but a whole transfer system.

I need an explanation. Why aren't the morphs of the child object transferred? I need it transferred.

I see the child object as visually, it's exported but it is useless if I cannot access the morphs for me. Morphs are not exported...

Edit: DazToMaya does not export child object morphs either...

catmaster

This is not a bug but well known limitation of official plugins, i.e. Daz To Unreal or Daz To Blender they both don't support geografts and geograft morphs.

To merge geografts and import geograft morphs it needs the Diffeomorphic plugin.

Method 1: Export to Blender with Diffeomorphic - Merge geograft and import geograft morphs with Diffeomorphic - Import back .obj into Daz - Rig and skin weight the model to genesis 8 rig - Transfer the normal morphs and geograft morphs to the new figure - Export to Unreal from Daz (Did not test this method because of too much effort but it may work)

Method 2: Export to Blender with Diffeomorphic - Import geograft morphs with Diffeomorphic - Convert Daz Morphs to shapekeys in Blender - Merge geograft and export to Unreal from Blender

Method 2 is what I'm using for some additional features:

Diffeomorphic rebuilds full daz materials in Blender, it also imports animations and pose presets, and it can convert the Daz expressions / bone drivers to exportable shapekeys for Unreal. These features can not be reserved if export the .obj back to Daz.

Diffeomorphic does not use the FBX and thus not limited by FBX limitations, instead it rebuilds the Daz scene description inside Blender, reserving the Daz material settings, morph settings etc. Using Diffeomorphic in Blender is almost like using Daz, plus all the powerful features provided by Blender e.g. modelling, rigging, integrated with other plugins etc.

Daz To Unreal is still useful for me to quickly send NPCs and animals, monsters etc. to Unreal, those NPCs do not need geografts and they could use the mannequin animations from Unreal market, Daz To Unreal gives a nice animation retargeter for reusing Unreal animations. However making a photorealistic player character with working geografts it needs lots of work especially for female characters. There is almost no usable animation resource in the market place for realistic female player characters, have to make hundreds of animations both in Daz and in Blender, and keep them as feminine as possible with modified genesis 8 female skeleton adding additional breast and butt bones etc.

Update: I've understood why there's almost no usable animations in Daz market after experimenting with animating in Daz. Posing is fine there with PowerPose and other plugins but to animate it... better to export the poses to Blender to animate them. If Diffeomorphic can import the Blender animations back to Daz someone could sell animations in Daz market.

Diffeomorphic can import the Blender animations back to Daz: https://diffeomorphic.blogspot.com/2021/04/save-pose-preset.html

DryreL

Hi acatmaster,

Thanks for your detailed comment!

So sad that Daz doesn't have tutorials or documentation about this.

I wasn't know the locution of this -- geograft morphs. Thanks to you, I made some researches on the Google/YouTube. And I have a great news, there is an easier solution!

I discovered Sacred Sage88 on YouTube and huge thanks again to him, he solved my all problems.

Watch these videos in order:

1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gq6eePZxxvE

2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kD4u5piKZkQ

3) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvxudXAcTtc

I hope it helps. It helped me a lot!

catmaster

I didn't expect that Daz has these hidden features because they didn't document these, good to know that Daz can copy geograft morphs, however I have hundreds of geograft morphs so I'd still prefer the Blender method using Diffeomorphic to batch load the morphs.

catmaster

Daz studio does very good job auto rigging and auto weighing any humanoid and convert them into genesis character morphs (Load .obj with Morph Loader and use the Joint Editor: Right click and select Edit – Adjust Rigging To Shape, then ERC freeze the rig with new morphs)

Manually skin weighing takes most of the time of rigging jobs, good auto weighing features are very useful. For this reason I've changed the default skeleton for game development from Unreal mannequins to Genesis 8 skeletons and retarget animations from other sources to Genesis 8 skeletons added with IK solvers.