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This :)
That actually explains why cameras were pissing me off so much. I rarely render in blender, but when I was trying some tests, I had to split the view and use the stupid widget thingies to aim the camera.
I never adjust the actual rendering camera in either Studio or Blender, that's why I don't have that issue.
Heh, those 'stupid widget thingies' are the reason I finally gave Blender another serious try. I don't like trying to remember a thousand hotkey commands, and Blender was a nightmare until they finally decided to join the 21st century and update the interface.
I finally downloaded blender again. The barrier to entry has been reduced a lot.
Hmmm... DazToBlender8 ...
Btw, has anyone tested this > https://gumroad.com/l/CiEpM < plugin?
Some vids: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjmE-O2ktiG-vrMOV42P0Lw
Have you tried the free diffeomorphic DAZ to Blender exporter? It's established and been regularly updated for 2 or 3 years now.
I find diffeomorphic a problem; wondering if DazToBlender8 would be more intuitive to me.
This is news to me - thanks for the heads up. I wish the plugin description went into a bit more detail about what exactly is exported/imported though.
The JCMs would be enough for me; I couldn't discern whether they are present or not, but I'll bite, for $15...
Do tell us what you think of it. I'm in somewhat the same boat as @nicstt ... a little bemused by the Diffeomorphic plugin.
There are 42 videos on Blender's YouTube channel that cover the fundamentals of how to use Blender. After having just finished watching 28 of them over the last couple of weeks, I've concluded that I'm still not ready to learn how to start modeling content. Following a tutorial when you know what the finished render is supposed to look like is one thing. Creating something from scratch is a whole other ball of wax that I'm not ready to deal with, especially when I've yet to accomplish my principle goal of creating Horror-themed digital comics with DAZ and Iray.
I'm thankful for the improvement to Blender's interface but I'm going to stick with vendor content and continue developing my skills as a visual storyteller.
If you follow the creator of Diffeomorphic on their DeviatArt account they post as they are releasing and fixing things, and other utilities and explinations on making it easier, the latest you can get with additional scripts is dated 08252019 the one listed above was the official stable release dated 08072019 additional iray, pbr and animation stuff has been added. I heard about the one on gumroad will be checking that one out too
I dont know if I am allowed to link to mcasual's DA page in here.
Because of my not being able to do Iray I am looking for a workflow that incorporates the DazContent I have and want to get and and output method I am hoping the Blender route will be it.
So, I did try it; I really have to get some sleep, but it seems more professional and complete than Diffeomorphic. With caveats:
Diffeomorphic 1.4 couldn't import the Lash Master for Genesis 8 Females, but DazToBlender8 did.
But DazToBlender8 messed up the Jorja Nosering. It correctly parented it, but the translation and rotation was totally wrong.
They both totally scewed up the Iray materials, DazToBlender8 seemed like the more valiant attempt, i.e. the node setup is more elaborate, but it was ultimately worse than Diffeomorphic. But it gives me the impression that the attempt is serious and it'll get better.
But the main problem with DazToBlender8 is that if you don't tell it what morphs to export, it exports them all. I'm not sure how long the export took, because I dozed off, but I think it was around 20 minutes. And my system is pretty beefy. The import took a similar amount of time, I dozed off again :) but when I saved it, the blend file was 5.8 gigabytes. But again, I think that this is probably user error... the exporter says that it's OK to not choose any morphs, but it sure doesn't tell you the consequences of doing so :)
Off topic, but I've just realized that Blender on Linux is MUCH better than Blender on Windows... in Ubuntu, the UI is only slightly sluggish, while it was much more laggy on Windows. And the blend files saves MUCH quicker. That's surprising, but write another one up for the Penguinistas.
I haven't verified the IK claims nor the JCMs because it's just too laggy and I'm too tired :) But we all should definitely jump on this... I actually feel guilty that I made the minimum offer of $15...
Yeah, I'm in bed now but then it is only 10:00 pm here in New Zealand.
Anyhow, can I just clear up one point? When you say "they both screwed up the IRay materials" did you mean just for that particular export or that this appears to be a general failing of both plugins? Oh, and did you notice whether HD and geografts are exported? I'm assuming the export format is OBJ and not FBX or Collada, right?
Well, not sure I can truly say is is a "general" thing with just two data points, but neither one was even close with the materials on the same model I tried each with.
I didn't try HD nor a geograph. I can only wonder how heavy an HD would have been, if it's going to export allthe morphs unless you know the ones you want. But DazToBlender8 is clearly doing something more sophisticated because you don't have to tell it your DAZ paths, and it found the eyelash objects, and so maybe it would work.
From watching the process, I'm pretty sure it exports OBJ and then FBX, which means they're doing almost exactly what Diffeomorphic does.
@donalddade - When you get a chance, can you check in DazToBlender if it's the base mesh, or is subd applied through blender, or through DS, or something else entirely
Different subd algorithms between programs can cause issue with geometry such as bad eyes, gapped teeth, etc... Teeth are probably fastest/easiest to check
If it has exported OBJ, does that reflect DS's settings? (e.g if you set subd3 vs 1, is that change reflected) , and is rigging intact in blender with JCM's
Thanks
I got the impression that the plugin transfers the rigging to the Blender Rigify system ...
I tried to download the manual but there is a requirement to sign up to something called booth.pm and I was somewhat wary of doing so.
This quote from the Gumroad page was a little concerning too:
So the female breast is considered "special anatomy"? I'm guessing it means the extra bones as in G8 female pectoral bones.
Any one got and made use of the UV Squares for Blender If so what are your thoughts on this? I really like really nice even UV's esp for clothing to make using seamless textures nicer for my buyers but wanted to see if this was going to be a good one to have. It's free so can't complain but was wondering...
Thanks so much
Richard
Too be honest, there is just too little information.
Agreed, that's why @donalddade is being our unofficial QA tester. ;) I'd splash out $15 myself but I really do have to be careful - that's about half of what I spend on my weekly food shop. This hobby can be expensive at times but it keeps my old brain active.
Haven't tried it but looks like it could be useful, thanks for the tip. I think this one is the one to prefer - https://github.com/Radivarig/UvSquares - more up to date. The one you linked to was forked from this and is rather behind on the commits. If I find it useful I'll support the author - https://cgcookiemarkets.com/blender/all-products/uv-squares/
It's the base mesh, with its own settings; I had subd set to 2. And as you point out, the algos are different, and it is very close, but not vertex exact. I haven't investigated the JCMs yet but I am optimistic. And I just got a message asying there's been an update today. It's going to be a fun weekend.
I didn't look closely, but the pectoral bones came through, i.e. at least they exist.
Agreed... I haven't tested it very thoroughly yet but it looks good, I have to be honest, possibly better than Diffeomorphic's in certain ways. It seems more like a professional plugin designed to be idiot proof, more polished. If the IK works well, it will be the best $15 dollars I have ever spent, and I'm going to go back to the site and buy it again just so that I can give the devs a proper compensation. If it works, $15 would be an insult given the magnitude of the task they conquered.
Interesting. and Thanks!
You mean the IK you apply in Blender after transfer? So you are not transferring animated characters but animating them in Blender? If that's the case I'd love to see some examples of what you achieve. I'm just playing with the new IK in DAZ Studio 4.12 and, although it is promising (and bearing in mind that I'm a complete novice when it comes to animation), I am still getting weird limb movements and contortions.
You just have to register to pixiv that's somewhat a japanese deviantart. From what I can see the daztoblender8 plugin seems limited to G8 though, at least this is what the manual says I didn't try it.
To get the best materials from the diffeomorphic plugin you have to convert to the iray uber shader in daz studio before exporting and then choose the auto material option in the plugin settings with cycles selected as rendering engine in blender. In my tests this works fine with most standard G1-G8 characters and clothing. The plugin has troubles when the chomatic sss mode is used for the skin such as V8. And you have to use the development version of the plugin, not the stable version.
Also keep in mind that diffeomorphic imports daz instances as blender instances that's extremely useful for large scenes using this feature. It also imports LIE and geografts other than daz animations. And it has extra features such us converting daz hair to particles that's most useful for animation.
So overall the diffeomorphic plugin seems far superior to me. But I say this just looking at the manuals, didn't try every single feature.
EDIT. And another great "feature" of diffeomorphic, apart it being free, is that Thomas is usually very interested and responsive to bug reports on the repository, so anyone can contribute to test and make the plugin better.
Yes, the IK in Blender. I have not tried it yet. I am motivated to animate in Blender with IK, or Daz with IK because right now I am doing everything in Motionbuilder, which is very expensive. Now that Maya is an inexpensive option, I would like to try that to for HIK, but then there's the problem all over again of how to get the G8 out of Daz, with the JCMs.
God, if Daz just had any kind of animation tools or IK, Alembic would be enough to go from mocap in Daz to sim, VFX, and rendering in Blender.
I'm in the same boat; I haven't actually tried nearly anything yet, and I just gave my first impressions based on the simplest use case. Thomas being responsive is probably more important than any other consideration. I'll have to contact him about the eyelash problem. I think it's just a library path problem. Thanks for bringing that up. And I actually did not know that it converts hair... that's what I'm working on now myself.
It doesn't necessarily have to be vertex exact - but typically the more you subdivide the base mesh in other programs, the smaller the teeth are going to get. Tiny teeth with big gaps, buggy eyes isn't a good look for all types of characters. If you're saying it 's subd method has a way around that , without baking the mesh in DS (dense mesh, difficult to animate) - that's already a huge plus . It's a lot of work fixing teeth, eyes (just ask any orthodontist or opthamalogist :) .
In the DS FBX export options there is a "maya helper scripts" checkbox. Edit the export rules to include "pJCM". That will create a mel script which creates set driven keys for JCM's in maya