Diving in (DAZ to CC4 to Unreal?, or DAZ straight to Unreal?)

dlm4001

I am just starting my journey on getting my DAZ Characters animated.  My intial target is to just get characters talking to the camera in short clips. (face tracking, some upper body, motion using Sony Mocapi maybe) ).

I have a lot of reading to do here before I start asking questions, but, for charting a course, does a pipeline from DAZ Studio -> IClone Character Creator 4 -> Unreal 5.x make sense or have value? Or, just DAZ Studio -> Unreal 5.x?

I am hoping to use my characters with materials and clothes: I like they way they look and don't want to create all new textures and materials.  (I realize this may not be the case.).  When I experimented exporting to a thrid party app, and having to create new materials, I ended up with something that looked like a different person/character.  I am trying to stay true to the character.

But first, I need to plan a path, and then educate myself. I do have David Vodhanel's site addy.  

Follow on Planning Question, another path would be to render in Omniverse.  In this case Daz Studio -> CC4 -> Ominverse?, or Daz -> Omniverse?

Thanks

Krys Kryngle

I think a lot of it depends on what final product you are trying to make.  A real time character in UE has a different workflow than something for rendering stills and video sequences in UE. 

I looked at CC4 a while ago and I don't think it had joint corrective morphs which was a no go for me.  One of the awesome things about daz characters is the joint control morphs (jcm's) along with additional jcm's and other custom morphs in the marketplace.  If you are making a game, jcm's are not quite as important.  If you want more realistic human movement, jcm's become much more important.  It's a whole thing.  Not sure what the advantage would be to using CC4.  Maybe someone else can answer that. 

As far as materials, yeah, you'll have to spend some time learning them and every renderer will require different settings.  Human skin is difficult to do well, but there is a lot of info out there.  Most of us use some variation of the Metahuman shaders in UE.

Tell us what your final project will look like, and we might be able to give a better path forward.  I've tried many.  And I'm tired...

dlm4001

For starters, I am looking for stationary, shoulders up headshot with facial animation (using Live Link).  Hoping to get some decent realism (I know that will take some trial and error and learning).. As I learn, I will prgress into more challenging animation. 

Krys Kryngle

DAZ to Unreal would be a good workflow to start with.  Unreal's control rig and animation tools are good enough to get up and running.  If you are interested in using Nvidia's tools, you could also look into their Audio2Face tool for facial animations.  Rendering in Unreal should be much faster than Omniverse, although I'm no expert in Omniverse.  Rendering in Unreal is nearly realtime with good quality. 

dlm4001

Much appreciated advice.  I downloaded Unreal Engine and I am watching videos for Daz to Unreal. Plan is to purchase a scene to test with, and then put my character into the scene.   

 Omniverse Audio2Face and Audio2Emotion look interesting. I am using ElevenLabs Text to Neural Voice.  I was thinkning I could animate the face using the audio file, without trying to capture face animation. While it looks like it does a good job with the mouth, the rest of the face looks a little static. -  I saw a video using a combination of iClone AccuLips for the mouth and then Omniverse Audio2Face/Audio2Emotion for the rest of the face animmation, and THEN, exporting the whole thing to Unreal. (I guess you could render in Ominverse as well. BUT, I am getting ahead of myself.  My first goal was to have a person in an idle stand, some natural looking motion body sway and breathing),  and talking to the camera.  I think the first thing is to get my character into Unreal. and then get the same character in Omniverse and just try rendering some generic animation.  UE5 demo reels look great. I am starting to realize that there may not be one majic tool for getting where I want to go, but a pipeline. 

Krys Kryngle

You are right there.  It takes multiple programs to get the most desirable results.  Every program is good at something.  It's up to you to figure out what end result you want, and what tools will get you there.  It's a deep rabbithole, but wicked good fun!