How to import your own hair inside Daz?

arthurblaquart

I've went through a few tutorials here: https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/447/#2963

But they don't really explained what I'd like to do which is creating hair inside a sculpting application as a solide mesh and/or rigged braids/plaits.

I don't want realistic hair, more like a hat I can plug on a specific character easily without having to place it by hand each time.

Basically I'd like to know the process how to export a top-head reference from a character in daz to be used in a sculpting software to make hair, and then re-import it as a ready-tu-use asset into Daz.

Thanks :)

 

 

 

Richard Haseltine

The method is essentially the same as for clothing - export an OBJ of the zeroed (no posing or haping) figure, model the hair around it, export as OBJ from the mdfoeller, import into DS using the same preset, rig using the transfer Utility (if that's desired) or simply parent to the head. For tails you may well want to add custom bones, either to the parented version or to the rigged version, but there's no point in looking at that until you have the hair in place.

arthurblaquart

Richard Haseltine said:

 mdfoeller, import into DS using the same preset, rig using the transfer Utility (if that's desired) or simply parent to the head. For tails you may well want to add custom bones, either to the parented version or to the rigged version, but there's no point in looking at that until you have the hair in place.

 

Hi Richard, thank you for your answer. For the beginning that's pretty much what I've done, I exported a Genesis 8 Male in t-pose in OBJ to C4D and sculpted hair based on this mesh. Then I exported the hair to OBJ and now I'm still a bit stuck since I haven't dealt with importing cloth in Daz either. I have no idea what's mdfoeller is and google doesn't give any answer so I guess it's just a typo. What do you mean by same presets? The transfer Utility is a tool that help position a mesh on a character?

 

Cheers

arthurblaquart

Also I'm having issues with scale when importing to Daz the haircut I made in C4D, which is weird since the scale I use in C4D is the right one for sure.

DestinysGarden

mdfoeller = modeller

Richard does awesome typos sometimes. I'm fairly certain it is because his brain works faster than his hands.

Edit: by same preset he means the same scale that you exported your model from DS. Like you don't want to export at the Daz Studio scale 1unit = 1 cm and import at the Cinema 4D scale 1 unit = 1 meter. Double check that you exported your figure at the C4D scale, and then reimport at the same scale. Or be sure to change both the export and import to Daz Studio scale, and it may be easier to deal with inside DS.

Hope that helps.

arthurblaquart

I'd like to be able to add any of my own .obj haircuts to an already posed character inside Daz and have the haircut go straigth where it's suppose to be when imported in the scene. How can I do that? I guess it's all about telling Daz that the imported .obj should act as an haircut. I know that's what 3rd party content do but not sure how to achieve that. 

arthurblaquart

Ok so I successfully imported the hair as .obj and saved them as Wearables which is great. Now I'd really want to create rigged braids, I've tried importing a rig from C4D in .fbx and collada but so far it just doesn't work. I guess I'll have to create the rig inside Daz, which is fine if I could find a tutorial that isn't outdated. 

arthurblaquart

I'm trying to rig a haircut inside Daz, kind of like a braid so I just need a bunch of bones one after the others really. I've had a look at a few tutorials and some of them said that I should create polygon selections where I wanted my bones, which I did in Cinema 4D, but when I opened the Figure Setup window in Daz the selections didn't show up in my .obj...

I guess my question is simple: how do you import a pre-made rig in Daz from Cinema 4D OR how do you make a rig in Daz3D (a tutorial that actually work NOW would be amazing).

Thanks

Richard Haseltine

Merged threads to keep the discussion focussed.

arthurblaquart said:

I'd like to be able to add any of my own .obj haircuts to an already posed character inside Daz and have the haircut go straigth where it's suppose to be when imported in the scene. How can I do that? I guess it's all about telling Daz that the imported .obj should act as an haircut. I know that's what 3rd party content do but not sure how to achieve that. 

You can't literally snap an OBJ on import, but if you save it as an aseet (a prop or figure, File>Save As>Support Assets>Figure Prop Asset) then you can, for a prop or a non-conforming figure, parent it to the figure's head and then save a Wearables preset. For a conforming figure if it is fitted when you save it will load that way, and will adopt the figure's pose. Extra bones, such as for a tail, won't autmatically adjust however - they will load as they were saved.

arthurblaquart said:

Ok so I successfully imported the hair as .obj and saved them as Wearables which is great. Now I'd really want to create rigged braids, I've tried importing a rig from C4D in .fbx and collada but so far it just doesn't work. I guess I'll have to create the rig inside Daz, which is fine if I could find a tutorial that isn't outdated. 

Ah, you'd found Wearables presets :) Yes, importing rigged figures doesn't work terribly well

arthurblaquart said:

I'm trying to rig a haircut inside Daz, kind of like a braid so I just need a bunch of bones one after the others really. I've had a look at a few tutorials and some of them said that I should create polygon selections where I wanted my bones, which I did in Cinema 4D, but when I opened the Figure Setup window in Daz the selections didn't show up in my .obj...

I guess my question is simple: how do you import a pre-made rig in Daz from Cinema 4D OR how do you make a rig in Daz3D (a tutorial that actually work NOW would be amazing).

Thanks

Grouping the mesh helps with bone placement when using Figure Setup (the boens lay in the boundign box of the group) and allow sections to be selected by clicking on the model in the viewport and to be hidden using the Visible proeprty, but they are not essential - you can add bones without groups if you wish to. That said, DS should be loading the groups from the OBJ into Figure Setup - do they show correctly if you reimport the OBJ into C4D? If you open the OBJ file in a text editor you groups will be shown by lines starting g, then the name of a group, in amongst the lness tarting with an f and then numbers. However, you can add bones by right-clicking with the Joint Editor tool (and you can create groups in DS with the Geometry Editor tool).