The "what could DAZ do to make game developers happy" Thread
f00bar.root_6039d0dd5c
Posts: 98
Hi,
since there is no game dev forum anymore I took the freedom to post here.
I have some small wishes that would make the life of game developer licensees easier. Please post your thought too. Game developers unite to get our forum back.
1) Exporters
Some statments from DAZ if they plan to fix the exporters in Daz Studio and maybe some dev roadmap would be nice.
- Collada: Gen 4 exported with collada is broken, exporting morphs of genesis results in file that does not import and validators say is invalid
- Morphs: applying morphs like V4 to genesis and exporting the morph is not ok. If baked the bones are moved to match the morph, but if exported as morph the morphs moves the hand away from the bones. The exporters should use the adapted bones to bring the morph to rest pose of standard genesis bones and then export the morph in that pose, and add the corrected skeleton as pose. This would solve the problem. At least provide an option for that.
- Collada: Cloth done with transfer utility sometimes is exported completely wrong (skeleton wrong, vertex groups wrong), same thing exported with fbx works
- Fbx and collada: the genesis skeleton in collada and fbx has different rest pose (bone rotation axis different). This is very annoying. And the joint axis should be along the limbs in both cases to be usable, but they are not.
- Additional option to export all active morphs would be nice (and for cloth the reverse, because with cloth only the active morphs are exported but not the rest)
2) LODs for genesis
V4 and M4 had LODs by default. Genesis has none. Please provide some or at least let people share them (at least if using RTEncoder or something). [automatic decimation never has the quality of hand tuned stuff]
In the following thread people go crazy about providing a LOD for genesis equals stealing. Crazy stuff there. Would it be allowed if combined with a license saying "only to be used with Genesis from DAZ" or if RTEncoded such that people must own genesis, or both?
http://forumarchive.daz3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=169513
3) Texture Atlas option to use existing uv map
Atlas tool should provide the option to use a predefined uv map as target map. Creating a new one for each material is crazy. Option for resolution higher as 2048x2048 would also be cool. I know there is the map transfer tool, but that does not realize that it could use a single texture.
4) Bring the game dev forum back
would be nice
I'm sure there are more somewhere in my head, will post them another time.
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Comments
Moved to DAZ Studio Discussion - Developer Discussion is for DS scripting.
I gave up using Daz for games long ago. Just checking my simple scene with each new release of Daz Studio and lurking in the forums for game dev news. But the Gen4 export got worse.
When the game dev forum was gone it was clear for me that Daz has no interest in landing in the game dev community. So I went away to shops with a heart for game devs.
About your 4 points: 1) probably never gonna happen, but 2) - 4) should not be much work for Daz, so I hope for you that they do that sometime, I for one don't care anymore.
Good luck (if you need some game ready shops PM me)
You are probably right that 1) is never going to happen. But this one I can solve with custom scripts. But the others should be easy for Daz. Especially a game dev forum, to collect the know-how. At the moment the game dev info is scattered over all forums.
PLEASE CREATE A GAME DEV FORUM AGAIN!!!
Added more problems of the exporters to the first post.
AND PLEASE CREATE A GAME DEV FORUM AGAIN TO COLLECT KNOWLEDGE!!!
+1
I buy a lot of product from YurDigital and
Renderosity Store Staff, they care about you and when you ask a question about something they answer.
If you ask about something they will do it if this is possible.
Right now you can use there model in a game without extra money for extra license!
So perhaps we can ask for a place to exchange Tutorial, Scrip, Everything Digital, Tool, perhaps the new Daws in low poly, for Game Developer!
I think these guys her don’t understand the way to make money or don’t care because they are to rich (fat).
If we are not so important, how do you think Unity Engine make his money in a year.
Just check Unity Store
I would be very careful with such blanket statements, as the current, publicly available license there does allow pretty much the same thing like the DAZ store license does, so you have to address the specific vendors yourself and be granted the specific rights in writing. May be that they granted you the license to do something, but that dos not mean that this license is granted to everyone - everyone else has to ask on their own unless the public license is adjusted.
Yes I would also like to see the game forum back. I realize Daz is kind of on shakey ground with it's plunge into the video game market, and there are a lot of problems that need to be overcome to make the content viable in a game, but if there is a place for people who are interested to converse and share there ideas, it would benifit everyone, including Daz. For me the cost of the game development license is a little high. If that was my only expense, it would not be to bad, but with all other expenses added, it is a little steep.Maybe if you paid the $500 and then had access to all Daz Original content, it would me more attractive.But having to pay for each item you want to use on top of the game license fee is exorbitant for a small developer. Other companies are coming out with competitive models and I think if Daz does not support this sector of the market, they may be left behind.Mixamo has many free characters to use, and have just launched FUSE, that allows you to create you own character. The pricing is high at the moment, but I can see the price going down in the future.There is also MAKEHUMAN, which basically gives you a Victoria/Micheal type character,without all the clothing support.
The real strength that I see in Daz is the three way connection between Daz-Mixamo-Unity. If you want to creat characters with clothing/hair/makeup customization, Daz is a strong choice. And the support from Mixamo, makes it easier to get animations onto Daz characters.Mixamo is also supporting the Unity community, and has a pipeline link to the engine, making for intuitive and quick animation editing. On the downside, Mixamo animations are also quit expensive for a small studio with a small budget. It becomes a matter of time/expertise.If you have the time and expertise, you could certainly model and animate your own characters from scratch.But making a video game can be a complex matter, and if you want to finish it before you 100 years old, you have to try and find things that speed up the proccess.
When it was new there was a sale. I got it then. But there was also the promise to make stuff better for game devs...
Question:
is DAZ Studio 4.6 any better than 4.5 with regard to exporting? Or atlas generation or LOD? Sorry, not motivated to touch DAZ as long as there are no improvements and not even a forum to talk/exchange work-arounds!!!
Please bring the game dev forum back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Now I do love the above suggestions,
Though I think the EULA is biggest pain for most.
Building a custom engine to work with encrypted data, good as you done some protection.
But premade engines not so much as they will either use the file as exported or convert it to a common model file format (*.mdl, *.md2, *.x).
So, I think Daz should stand to talk with some of the companies making Game Engines to get them to include custom encryption of the data so it's not so easy to go rip the model from one game using Engine X and using that model in another game using engine X.
It would stop almost all from ripping model files from the same engine as they are using.
I do know of a few indie level game engines that would be great to bundle with DAZ (won't say which ones due to forum rules),
and if Daz talked with some of these companies to get modifiable encryption in the engine import,
it would in turn make for great profits for DAZ and the company that supports it.
Why because most people in game development tend to specialise in either Programming, or Artistic Content. Even if they did both one would be of much poorer quality than the other.
And this is where almost all indie developers tend to do a compromise of getting pre-made parts to remove/cover their weak point and bring up the quality.
But even so most indie programmers can't make a realistic game engine on their own unless they spend like a year or two on it just for a well planned and made entry level realistic engine. (How long was F*Z in development? What 5 years)
Now I think the Artist might have an easier time (Though I'll admit Skinning and Rigging can be a Royal Donkey) in that they could get all a game's assets ready in about 6 months to a years pending on the amount of different props and characters.
Though I would smile even more if DAZ got one of them to license DAZ technology (tri-ax .. etc) and it got implemented, I think of the possibility of an indie Engine using Daz tech toppling the U***** 4 engine in certain aspects.
@Azure_Zero:
I don't want to destroy your dreams, but if you or your team cannot code content encryption into an existing game engine in a day then I have some doubts that you will ever finish creating a serious game...
Anyway, I assume for the "big" free game engines (UDK, Unity,...) there should be encryption plugins available (because some hobbyists want to protect their assets). However, since anybody with half a brain can grab all 3D-resources directly from the graphics card and no encryption can prevent that ever, Daz could just drop that rule.
Much more important would be that DAZ fixes the problems with the exporters (fbx or collada, what game engines eat). See the first post that gets no response from DAZ. They don't care.
Some basic stuff works, but try to export morphs or advanced stuff with fbx and collada and you see what I mean. But no, they create a new Genesis2 if they cannot even export Gen4 stuff or Genesis1 in a usable way!!!!!!! That will help for sure (Maybe G2 exports OK, I don't care anymore. Because from what I see, with G3 the G2-export will no longer be maintained so we all have to update to G3)
@fxbar
I hate to break it to you but your wrong,;
1) Unity and UDK along with all other pre-made engines, don't have encryption plugins available for assets, I've looked.
2) The Model loader in these pre-made Engines is in a blackbox you can't edit it, unless you buy the source Code which costs a crap load of money.
I have asked the founder of leadwerks, Josh Klint, about adding encryption system to the model loader system, and got back a reply along the lines "The engine won't support directly encrypted models and files, You can package files into encrypted zip files though."
And I do Agree DAZ really needs to work on their export utilities
For games I've always found it easier to create my own assets. That way I know the end result is mine to do with as I please, and there's no fussing with licenses or incompatibilities. It also means I can tailor the amount of detail to suit the game rather than tailoring the game to suit the assets. I can certainly see why people would turn to pre-made content to speed up development, but since it's fairly obvious that Daz figures were never really intended for games I can't imagine they have much incentive to change the way it works for a potentially niche market.
I see the use of Daz figures in games as more of a hobbyist's approach rather than a professional one. Not because of the lack of detail, but simply because there are more positives to creating your own.
First google hit for 'unity content encryption' is to the unity manual, you do not even need a plugin: http://docs.unity3d.com/Documentation/Manual/protectingcontent.html
And google also tells me that that UDK has built in encryption by default too ( http://forums.epicgames.com/threads/931569-Properly-Protecting-UDK-Assets-during-distribution ). So in both cases you do not even have to code it yourself. Also, you do not need source code to extend an engine, some kind of public API is enough.
And if leadwerks supports encrypted zip you have all you need. Why not use encrypted zip? You will want to load from archives anyway, loading single files is 1000 times slower (see DAZ studio...).
DAZ, we need a game dev forum to collect knowhow!!!!!!!!!! PLEASE
I browse the forums from time to time, just for fun. You have fun exporting Genesis 1 & 2 and V4 with the new Daz Studio? I'm happy I still have Daz Studio 3 around where it works at least a little.
Why does Daz bring new technology before the bugs in the old technology are fixed? So we will end up with Daz Studio 9 with 32 different model formats but not one exporting correctly?
So much fun seeing the same questions asked over and over again: Export of collada/fbx not working. And then people telling them that their 3d-tool where they want to import it cannot import the morphs from a collada file. So funny when these 3d-tools work but Daz Studio creates corrupted files (according to the collada file validator).
DAZ, we need a game dev forum to collect knowhow!!!!!!!!!! PLEASE
I've been tied up with other things and haven't tried DAZ to Unity in quite a while, but DAZ was selling game licenses for hundreds of dollars - so I certainly hope they'll re institute a game forum and fix any pipeline that's broken.
About the only thing they could do is to change the license agreement, the restrictions regarding the mesh means your stuck doing sprite based games, as none of the current game engines can safeguard the mesh from being "got at".
And let's just say this last cold snap not withstanding, it hasn't gotten cold enough in certain regions for THAT to happen
With game dev license you can use the models as 3D. You mean that the model must not be extractable from your game? That is no problem, as you see in the post about that on the previous page, any major engine has encryption (and if not it is piece of cake to implement), and that is enough according to my understanding of the license.
(It is impossible to prevent the grabbing from the graphics card, so if you would have to prevent that having a game dev license would not make sense at all)
...................DAZ, BRING BACK A GAME DEV FORUM....................
I believe one of the admins said something along the lines of
"If you use the license and you did something to protect the Character/3D Model data, your fine."
It is easy and piece of cake: encrypt resources and decrypt on loading them. Any major game engine supports that out of the box.
[Edit: forgotten:]
Daz, please bring back the game dev forum or something similar to discuss technical matters. There is no place for that at the moment.
1000 "export not working" threads later and we still do not have the game dev forum back. Sad. :-(
Since these are peer-to-peer forums, you might send through a ticket with the suggestion as it may never be seen by DAZ here.
Game encryption works pretty well from what I have seen, I have myself tried getting content out of games for personal use and with Unreal game engine created games it is near impossible.
Yes graphics rippers can get distorted mesh but certainly not in any decent useable form.
Skyrim of course I can get fully rigged models but that is because the manufacturer enabled it and provides info and support on the steam site to do so for mods and you are not allowed to use DAZ content in such games anyway.
The point is the game makers just like DAZ do not want you stealing and redistibuting their mesh either.
So it is a moot point.
I bought an indy license recently too and have found DAZ content needs to heavily decimated and texture atlased to use so certainly not in its original form by anymeans.
I mainly wanted it as a starting point as there is an awful lot to learn in making a game.
A forum for doing so would be greatly appreciated by me too.
Thanks, I will try that.
If you need a custom mesh with no IP issues or hassles, has anyone thought of using the make-human software?
Yes, I know that. But I have a Daz game dev license. Lots of cloths and stuff that does not exist for makehuman.
Just give us a game dev forum here, please.
Remove the limit of "ONE PROJECT" per Vendor Indy Game License. OR ADD A NON COMMERCIAL UNLIMITED USE option if you want a greater piece of any of the indy's profits.
I realize that this is a very old thread that was dug up but it also seems to only place to share thoughts on this subject without submitting tickets.
As far as I understand it all licenses for DAZ Originals are unlimited use!?
http://www.daz3d.com/commercial-game-developer-license
http://www.daz3d.com/indie-game-developer-license
Please staff correct me if I got the wrong impression about this.
- - -
I understand that everyone can come up with any kind of licenses they want.
As DAZ support confirmed holographic computing is covered by the game license as well.
To me it seems unreasonable to expect customers to pay for an artist specific indie or game license with limited numbers of use.
A customer can create an unlimited number of 2d images but he can only create 1 or 3 holographic images with the licensed content?
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In addtion please keep in mind that some customers have different kind of backgrounds and are used to different kind of licensing options.
I am very familiar with the area of licensed royalty free loops and sample based music.
There it is very simple:
You purchache a sample and loops product license once and then you have unlimited use for any possible usage for the rest of your life.
No worries, no clauses, no special cases.
Simple and easy for all three parties: The customer, the broker and the artists.
- - -
From that perspective what I hope to see is that more and more artists brokered by DAZ3D transfer their products to the DAZ Originals license.
Personally I am not at all interested in creating games but purchased first an indy and then even a commercial game developer license just to be able to use DAZ Original content for holographic computing.
What currently bothers me is
- Not all products of the same artists are DAZ Originals
- Products like shaders, any kind of presets or poses should all be DAZ Originals
- If a clothing item is DAZ Original all texture sets should also be DAZ Originals
- - -
Some examples to illustrate:
I do not know IF and HOW in the future there may be some metadata support to easily see if a product is DAZ Original or not inside DAZ Studio and the DIM as well.
But at least currently it is extremely time consuming to find in a runtime of 3000+ products those who are DAZ Originals.
- I have some favorite artists and am happy that they have DAZ Originals. Nevertheless it is extremely annoying to find out that the one character you wanted to use is not a DAZ Original while most of the other ones in the same runtime or database location of the same artist are.
- If I finally find a clothing item I like that is DAZ Original it is extremely annoying to find out that the texture set I would prefer to use is NOT a DAZ Original.
- The same is true for poses.
Customers should feel free to use any pose or preset files without having to worry about licensing differences.
As far as I understand it the poses and presets are for use with DAZ Studio. When files are converted to other formats and exported the main benefit of those products is lost.
Bottom line is:
In practice I just want to select a texture set or a pose without having to worry if it is a DAZ Original or not.
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I post this on the forum and do not write a ticket because i think that those points are not something DAZ can change from the top.
It is each individual artists who has to ask themselves:
Do I want to give the DAZ customers more possible usage options for their money and be brokered under the DAZ Original license?
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I can only share that in the last march madness sale the question if an item is a DAZ original or not has become imporant to me.
When in doubt if I should buy or not I deceided not to buy when an item is not a DAZ Original.