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The "bridge" between Daz and Zbrush is a two-way one. Zbrush focusses largely on soft-body sculpting and is limited on several aspects (say rigging/rendering/animation). Daz and Zbrush tend to complement each other. Zbrush's GoZ bridge is their initiative to provide a convenient option to artists so that they do not have to fiddle with export formats. From Daz's side, their initiative builds on top of the Zbrush's initiative. Had there been no GoZ bridge from Zbrush, this arrangement would not have been possible in the first place irrespective of whether Daz wanted it or not,
On the other hand, Blender is self-sufficient to a large extent, be it sculpting, rigging, rendering, animation etc. So they do not have any obligation to provide a bridge or any form of connector to other applications. That is of course, assuming their strongly copyleft GPL doesn't make it any simpler to package and distribute such connectors by proprietary applications.
The following two statements are mutually exclusive.
There is no reason for Daz to invest in Hexagon/Carrara/Bryce because Daz's customers can rely on Blender for those functions.
Daz can't maintain convenient bridges to Blender because Daz can't rely on a 3rd party to keep its side compatible when Daz innovates its figure properties, such as rigging.
That would be an inaccurate assumption. In case of Blender, its entire source code is in public domain. Any application (not just Daz) can "plug" into any of Blender's interfaces provided they have worked out the legalities of linking their code with a GPL application. As for "keeping compatible" Blender's side of things, all one need to do is submit a patch/pull request to Blender.
My point exactly.
Next,
The following two statements are mutually exclusive.
There is no reason for Daz to invest in Hexagon/Carrara/Bryce because Daz's customers can rely on Blender for those functions.
Daz would never share the source code for a new figure rigging innovation with Blender because it is public domain.
Corrected that for you
. As far as I know, the only part that gets "mutually/bi-directionally shared" with another application (such as Zbrush) is the mesh geometry, that too only at base resolution. The rigging part, again as far as I know, is at the mercy of the legendary Daz FBX exporter (there's several threads here if you seek those legends).
Genesis was itself at one time a new figure. Haven't corrected my statement by crossing out new figure and inserting Genesis X. Carrara can natively interpret the rigging of genesis and gensis 2. It isn't just the mesh. It does not need to go through the FBX export/import.. Carrara loads the duf file for Genesis and Genesis2 and then interprets the Daz rigging as Carrara rigging.
What I expected, and partially saw as the reply, was that many of the functions do not need to share proprietary source code in a way that puts Daz's intellctual property at risk.
What I am doing, for anyone who cares, is isolating the objections to creating a bridge from Studio to another program (whether Blender or anything else) to replace the current functions of Hexagon/Bryce/Carrara.
Here are a few questions which I am looking answers for. If anyone has them pleas oblige.
Was the Daz API or the native DUF file format different in those days? Is there any other program today besides Carrara that can use the rigging information from those DUF files? I understand that Genesis 3 onwards had different rigging which was never incorporated in Carrara (though there were some discussion in other threads about it in a closed beta release).
During the glorious days of Carrara, were there any other program other than Carrara that was able to use the rigging information of Genesis1/2 figures from its DUF files?
And most importantly, why did Daz acquire Carrara? What statement of direction for Carrara was suggested during its acquisition?
Ah! I found the thread here: https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/136706/daz-importer-for-blender-version-1-2-by-thomas-larsson/p2
But that still doesn't answer my question:
Glad to learn that I am not alone with my sentiments.
I'm not sure why they bought Carrara, but the fact they added native support for DSON and much of the underpinnings of Genesis to it implies to me that they at least wanted their newer content to work in other programs without needing to create two distinct versions of the base model. And the fact that G3 and G8 can be made to work in Carrara shows just where the issue of Poser compatibility lies.
I'd love to try this out! Where do I get it?
UPDATE: Oh, I think you're referring to the stuff at http://diffeomorphic.blogspot.jp/ I'll give that another try. :-)
Genesis and Genesis 2 work very well in Carrara. Those can load natively, be animated, be morphed, be integrated in a Carrara forest, or whatever.
Similarly, in a Carrara user's spare time, she adapted genesis 3 to work in Carrara for stills, animations, integration with other content. Very similar to your Blender user example.
Yes, I am fully confident that if Daz chose to keep it a priority, Daz could make it much easier to integrate its current and future figures/rigging with other sotware, including Blender.
So please don't misuderstand my posts. I am not arguing that Carrara/Heagon/Bryce are so wonderful that they can't be replaced. I am simply asking that if Daz continues to abandon Hexagon/Bryce/Carrara, that Daz make sure that easy integration with other software is a priority. And yes, when I have expressed that view, people have pushed back along the lines of the two statements I made above. In one thread, people actually said that such functionality would increase piracy, which is ironic because I am asking for preserving current levels of convenience.
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its on public record (ie another internet site) that they bought it to keep it out of other company's hands. Great move, unless you love carrara
You need to bear in mind that the Carrara import for Genesis 3, like the Poser import, is an approximation - it uses a different skind binding algorithm and so will bend differently. The results may be worthwhile for some users, but they are not truly Genesis 3.
Yes. That is why it would be preferred for Daz to complete its efforts for G3 and up to be Carrara compatible. Don't think that will ever happen. So if Daz has abandoned Carrara, the OP has asked for Carrara to be made open source. Alternatively, I am suggesting that Daz make it a priority to preserve the current functionality provided by Hexagon/Carrara/Bryce.
Blender can do it. OK, so if Daz's strategy is to send us to Blender, then make it a priority to preserve the current level of convenience that we have as provided by Hexagon/Carrara/Bryce (could be done with a bridge, but there are other ways). If someone says "Daz would never do X with a 3rd party," or "it is much more difficult to do X with a program not under your control..." then DON'T DO X with a 3rd party. Can still do the other stuff for which it is cost-effective to do with a 3rd party.
Priorities, not feasibility, are the potential obstacles.
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THIS ^
Daz has to pay coders to maintain official"bridges"
There are literally Daily builds of blender that may become
the "stable release" at any given moment,
Daz could require their "bridge" users to have the latest
"stable release" of Blender but they would have no control over the many
third party add- ons that may effect their official bridge"
so trying to provide support would be a fools gambit .
IMHO these sort of option are best left to dedicated third parties.
I prefer that Daz Focuses on much need Studio imporvements Like
a proper IK solver or a native cloth system that allows us to use our own
Cloth meshes "in the light of day.
...and if the cost of that (Edit: maintaining compatibility with Blender builds) is significant, then that is a very big drawback to sending us to Blender. So don't do it for functions integral to customizing content. Otherwise, Studio (Edit: Daz's product line) is taking a giant step backwards.
Can't have it both ways.
I am not sure if I am reading that right. I wouldn't use Daz, bridges and Blender in the same sentence considering how almost impossible it is to directly link to a GPL program from a GPL incompatible licensed one. ZBrush hasn't provided any bridge to Blender, neither did Nvidia (not atleast as a Blender addon/plugin). Was it technically difficult for them to do so? Or was it difficult to follow Blender's API change cycle? I would assume neither.
With that in mind, the best possible approach with Blender still remains file export/import. Even if someone develops a bridge using Blender APIs that bridge still has to remain in a GPL comaptible license so all its copyleft terms apply to the bridge as well all (and by the nature of copyleft - to the associated program as well). That way the bridge can never be integrated in Daz/Carrara so long as they distributed in a GPL incompatible (read proprietary) license.
Consequently, that bridge would remain open source and available to anyone and everyone to modify/update or even fork. So even if there was a change in Blender API, that could be resolved by anyone with the relevant skill set. How the governance (ownership, vetoing patch submissions/feature requests, support SLA) would work out is probably another subject altogether.
Programs that are built with GPL source code must be GPL, but merely interoperating with a GPL program or library does not require GPL. The DAZ Studio side of a bridge could be closed-source and proprietary.
We're pretty far off topic when we're arguing about the licensing of Blender add-ons.
Do you even understand what "copyleft" means? What you just said would be highly incorrect and misleading unless Blender "allows" classpath exception (or system library exception) to the GPL. Last I checked Blender's license specified no such clause. Whereas this classpath exception clause is explicitly stated by some vendors who allow such linkages with their GPL'd programs.
But then I agree this is not the thread (and probably not the audience) to dicsuss such issues.
Greetings,
It'd depend on how you did your interop. If, for example, you simply provide a network layer that takes a well-defined (or even crappily defined) protocol specific to the import process, then the network layer becomes the 'air gap' between the GPLed code and the proprietary code. And you most definitely can interoperate between code like that, or even on-disk without the network layer.
But I really don't get how we got to talking about Blender, when Carrara's in the room...
-- Morgan
See on the first page. People who like Blender say they can't understand why a Studio user would ever find something useful in Carrara, ask why wouldn't a Studio user just use Blender instead of Carrara, yadda, yadda, yadda. Praise Blender. Trash Carrara. Carrara users answer with list of functions that Studio doesn't have, that Carrara does, and point out how easy it used to be to customize Daz content in Carrara and integrate it in larger sets. Blender users say how much better Blender's version of those functions are, and that you can import/export Daz Studio stuff with Blender. Carrara users complain that those extra export/import steps add up to a LOT more steps when aggregated over all the times you have to do it. Ask for more convenient integration if moving to Blender. Blender users say it is too costly for closer integration, Pretty much the same $hi (back and forth), another day thread. Apologize for my part in the repitition. But everyone seems to be of good will, so it is all fine.
...while a bit OT this is also why I have come to the conclusion we probably will never see Daz produce a version of Studio (or any other software) that natively works in Linux. It's not just the constant updates, but the number of different distros floating about as well.
Back to the topic at hand, I remember back in the 6.1 days having no issue loading characters and even fairly complex scene subsets I created in Daz into Carrara. These days I keep getting error messages that the operation failed when doing so. Not sure what changed that.
If you're loading a .duf file, anything that requires a version of DS newer than about 4.5 could potentially fail. For example, instances will load, but won't display in Carrara. Simply because that's how old the .duf reader is.
Often happens that when the word 'Carrara' is mentioned, a few Blender enthusiasts will come running to spread the good word. I guess they presume all us Carrara users must be luddites who refuse to use anything but stone age tools, and that we need some preachers to knock some sense into our heads about the One App To Rule Them All (and in the darkness bind them), ie: Blender. :)
It's illogical because Blender is free, so presumably everyone has it in their toolkit already. I know I do. For the (extremely few) things Blender does better/easier for my workflow, I happily use Blender instead. For the (many, many) things Carrara does better, I use Carrara. Easy peasy, and no one's feelings get hurt. If Blender feels neglected that I don't use it much, well at least it has the decency to weep quietly to itself and not go on an unhinged SJW rant complaining to me about how I'm not practicing enough 'app diversity', or try to drag me into couples counseling. :)
I don't have a deep soulful personal love and committed relationship with Carrara; we're just friends (with benefits). Carrara doesn't get mad at me if I use Studio from time to time, for example, or yell at me if I was up late with Gimp the night before. Carrara doesn't even give me a cold shoulder when I come home with Hexagon's perfume on my collar. I don't believe in monogamy in apps, but I won't judge those who do. :)
...maybe that is all they need to concntrate on updating for now. With Carrara's ability to create complete environments as oposed to often having to "fake it" in Daz (using photo backdrops or HDRIs) I would much prefer using and building "real" 3D environments for my exterior scenes.
Its not always the convenience and ease of use that counts. Sometimes its the investment in skill and time that matters. Life is too short to learn multiple tools which can do the same job. The Blender community shall NEVER accept or tolerate the "fate" that Carrara is going through. Let me give you an example. Take the case of MySQL acquisition by Oracle. RedHat and community (CentOS et al.) simply switched to a fork of it and called it MariaDB.
The very reason Blender was open sourced and licensed under GPL was to save it from any such "fate".
Besides, convenience can be acquired through enough practice. One can only avoid fate or accept it.
I dunno, maybe I'm strange, but I really like it when I'm using some software and somebody tells me "hey, did you know about this other software? It does stuff like that 10 times better".
That's how I recently learned about DaVinci Resolve, an incredibly powerful free video editor that quickly replaced my Movie Studio piece of junk that I've been using for years. And Comic LIfe, another awesome app that makes developing comic-style stuff a breeze, rather than banging my head against the wall with PS. And the list goes on.
Never occurred to me to feel like they're "attacking" my Movie Studio or PS, or calling me a "luddite". In fact I'm glad to hear it.
And if something comes along that's a lot better than Blender I'll be outta there in a heartbeat