Tools for Generating Game-Usable Assets
gthang
Posts: 0
I'm thinking of Skyrim and Fallout 4 in particular.
Daz has such great body customization content available. It would be amazing if morphs and/or poses were made so that bodies could be exported for use in these games. BodySlide is a tool for Bethesda games that allows rigging an FBX mesh for use in-game. So, for someone that knows Daz well, it doesnt seem like it would take much to adjust a Daz model to line up with seams/skeleton.
Of course, these models would not be for sharing with others. But, it would be a huge value add for Daz users.
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DS wil export FBX.
Bad idea for two reasons, one is that DAZ mesh, even with the interactive license, can't be used for game mods which is what porting into an existing game is. The second is that if you spend any time in a game community such as the nexus, you know full well that as soon as a tool like what you want becomes a reality DAZ assets will be posted all over the web for users to d/l and put in the games, that is just the nature of the game community.
@Gthang
If you are only talking specifically about Elder Scrolls and Fallout games then you could just "trace" over the Daz body in Blender/Maya/3DSM. TES/Fallout uses facial morphs for its characters, which is why if you look at FO4 model extracts for Nate and Nora the faces looks nothing like they do in game. Because its only a base male/female head that is being extracted and not the morph data that fine tunes it to make it look like Nate/Nora. So all you can really use out of the Daz models are the bodies. It would probably be much easier to just take a CBBE body and adjust the verts on it (or use bodyslide) until its contour is similar to that of the Daz body. People make characters from scratch using ortho front and side pics. Basically you make a 3d object out of several 2D reference pictures. But with a 3d objects as a reference it is much easier to make another 3d object because in a way all you are doing is making a 3d trace.
You should ask on the Nexusmods forums why nobody uses Daz assets in Oblivion/Skyrim/FO3 and FO4 mods. Its possible that you dont see it a lot NOT because of a lack of tools. It could be something else like CBBE bodies and textures are already really good, or that the really nice looking Daz clothes arent video game friendly since thats not what they were designed for. Like i made a character for some personal renders but she would fit right into a FO3/FO4 post-apocalyptic type game, but she has like 1.4million tris which i think is a bit too high for a game.
Tracing, or otherwise ransferring, from a Daz mesh to another emsh would not be permitted for distribution.
Are you able to tell us at what point does it become permitted when using a Daz body as reference for a different 3d model? i'm not talking about if its being sold or being used for personal, game mod or a picture render. Also, not sure if you and me are thinking of the same thing when i say tracing...i might be thinking of something else. I dont know the technical term for it but i've seen people do it in Blender and Maya. They take a 2d front and side picture, overlay a cube onto it. Then subdivide it and then move each vertex until the shapes are the same. Except for this discussion we wouldnt be using a 2d picture but instead a Daz figure. And then taking a fresh cube, subdividing it and then moving each vert on the cube until the shape of it is close to that of the Daz figure. Thats basically what i meant by tracing or whatever it is people in CGI call it.
So at what point does using that method make it allowable to use a daz body as a reference? Nothing will change on the Daz figure. What if a CBBE body from Skyrim/Fallout is used and changed so that its shape is close to that of the Daz body? what if its a cube shaped but with a much lower poly count than the Daz figure? what if it has a much higher poly count? what if Daz textures arent used at all? or if the UV mapping is completely different? or what if its a Daz body or a character preset that someone sold but its shape is changed in Daz3d studio to a point at which it isnt the same shape as anything being sold on the Daz store THEN is exported for use as a reference. I know thats a lot of "what-ifs" but i was just throwing different scenarios that i figure might make it legit from a non-copyright lawyers point of view., but you probably know them better than i do. Since this is for a Fallout/Skyrim game they dont even have a head model and i dont think they have hands either. Not sure how that would factor in at all, if any. The method above too wouldn't be 100% perfect. It seems like when i tried tracing there would always be a part that is messed up.
Reason i'm interested in this topic is because i'm trying to move away from using ripped video game characters as my base for models. And no offense to you or Daz but its animation tools arent the best. If it was as easy to animate in Daz as it is in say Source Filmmaker (without the feet going all crazy) then i probably wouldnt be asking so many what-ifs cause then i could just keep using Daz3ds and Daz assets and stop worrying about porting stuff to blender to work with.
You should assume that if the Daz model is used as a guide then the result is a derivative and can't be shared (as a model). That's the safest and most ethical position to take.
You know there's actually a daz importer plugin for blender, right?
https://blenderartists.org/t/daz-importer/684697
I think that is a bad reason to avoid making these tools. That's basically saying that users who pay Daz for the models have to have the value of the product reduced because someone they don't know MIGHT use the tool to break their TOS.
I spend a lot of time in that community. That's what brings me here. There are apparently bandit-like sites around. But, Nexus takes intellectual property seriously and any Daz content being shared there would be taken down.
Yes. Only bodies are really usable. To a large degree, that is what brings me here. It's quite a bit of work cutting the head and hands off the mesh and lining them up with the Fallout 4 head/hand meshes. It seems that someone with advanced knowledge of Daz could make a template file that would have pre-built planes in place to help pose and cut the meshes perfectly before export.
Indeed, it is easier to make a custom CBBE shape. But, the base shape and sliders available for CBBE for myself (and many others) isn't great. (No offense to the author). Daz offers a higher level of quality and customization options. I can say that if someone could make using Daz bodies usable in FO4 or Skyrim as easy as using bodyslide, there would be a huge market of buyers in the mod community. The demand is there.
I am a long-time modder in that community. In fact, a lot of people ARE using Daz content in their private games (not sharing with anyone). It's just that it's a decently high bar for an average modder to learn the tools and have the time to cut up, re-align the meshes. Few can really do it.
The point of this thread, or at least my question...not sure about the OP's intention, is to find a way to get a Daz body's shape into a game mod and allow it to be redistributed legally. It wasnt about the mechanical aspects of getting it done but the legal aspect of making sure we are OK with doing it. And the whole reason i wrote that long paragraph is if a Daz body cannot be directly put into a game mod then is there anything we can do to copy its shape but without infringing on their copyright. And just to save you or anyone else the trouble that previous paragraph wasnt a question that you need to try to answer and i didnt need advice on alternative means since Daz bodies cant be used according to Richard.
I would just like to clarify that my intention is to lobby for tools that make it easier to use Daz bodies in games privately. Not to re-distribute them at all. My understanding is that private use is ok and re-distributing is not.