REVIEW: Daz To Blender Plug-In

MoonCraft3D

Check out my thoughts and review about the new Daz to Blender Plug-In

Part 1 - https://mooncraftrp.com/index.php/2020/07/23/official-daz-3d-to-blender-plug-in-part-1-review/
Part 2 - (coming soon)

 

TheMysteryIsThePoint

It's a strange way to design a program, but it seems like the script writes the exported character out to a temp location, and the Blender script reads it in, without the user specifically choosing a file. I just went to the n-panel, chose the Daz to Blender 8 tab, and hit "Import Character" or something. It took forever, but it did import the character that I had exported.

AshTheZombie

TheMysteryIsThePoint said:

It's a strange way to design a program, but it seems like the script writes the exported character out to a temp location, and the Blender script reads it in, without the user specifically choosing a file. I just went to the n-panel, chose the Daz to Blender 8 tab, and hit "Import Character" or something. It took forever, but it did import the character that I had exported.

That's correct. Per the python script, it designates the home or temp folder as "/Documents/DTB/"
On my Windows 10 machine that equates to "C:\Users\WINDOWUSERNAMEGOESHERE\Documents\DTB"

Padone

I'd advise you to try diffeomorphic that's much faster and powerful than daztoblender

http://diffeomorphic.blogspot.com/p/daz-importer-version-15.html

 

edit. Sorry I'm dumb I didn't realize this is a new version of the daztoblender plugin distributed for free by daz. Well this opens up a new whole set of possibilities since daz can decide to export triax and hd morphs and dforce etc. that are all proprietary things we can't export with diffeomorphic. As far as I can see this first version is very basic though. But the same as @nicstt I very welcome the new direction from daz that's awesome.

nicstt

I would agree, but I welcome the new direction from Daz.

the5amkebab

Yes, this is great that Daz is moving in this direction, I think it will pay off for them as more people are moving to animating with the advancements in rendering technology and GPU power. Unfortunately they have to improve this product a lot before it comes close to Diffeomorphic importer, but I'm excited to see them make the improvements in time.

Singular3D

I second what @Padone said. Maybe we can learn something from the Daz2Blender plugin when we get the source.

By the way: It might be the case that this plugin is based on the Daz to Blender 8 plugin
https://blenderartists.org/t/daz-to-blender8/1177588/171

Seems the original creator and Daz were in contact.

Paintbox

Just like the reviewer, I do not see the import add-on in my preference in Blender, does anyone know where it is hidden?

I just installed 2.83.

Kitsumo

Just looking at the options on the official plug-in, it looks like it allows you to transfer assets with higher subdivision levels, which previously wasn't possible with any other exporters. Anyway, I applaud this effort from Daz, I feel like it's a step in the right direction.

Paintbox said:

Just like the reviewer, I do not see the import add-on in my preference in Blender, does anyone know where it is hidden?

I just installed 2.83.

If you installed with DIM, you can check the "Installed Files". It should be near the top under Application Data. I had to manually unzip mine and put it in the Blender folder.

nonesuch00

I'm running it now and it's definately not ready for prime time but you can work within it's limitations to still use it.

1) The Genesis 8 character I tried to export was nested in a group and so the exporter stated it couldn't find a Genesis 8 / Genesis 3 actor to export.

2) So I unnested it so that it was a scene root. 3 export options but ain't sure what they do. 

     a) I go for the 3rd one (bottom one) 1st - export Genesis 8 Morphs - finishes really fast but it didn't actually seem to export anything.

     b) I go for 2nd one next - export Genesis 8 genitals - finishes really fast but again it doesn't seem like it actually exported anything

     c) I go for the 1st one  - export Genesis 8 - OK, now it is doing something. A dialogue. I choose subDiv level 2 and leave the export minimal morphs checked and export - all the other things in the scene are hidden (eye icons clicked) and only the actor is being exported. Despite eveything but the actor having the eye icon turned off, other things are still visible, eg the DAZ Seal, and everything in the scene seems to be relocated to (0, 0, 0) in 3D coordinates! It's been running 45 minutes already and only at 40% for the past 30 of those 45 minutes. Why? Oh, because I hid the clothing to make it faster to export and well that's a lot of clothing and meshes and it seems it's alporting all that stuff anyway! With that this seems like it's going to run overnight and so I'll leave this review at that and finish it tomorrow.

4) This morning it have finished (it spend 3 hours going through all these list of properties for absolutely everything in my scene tht wasn't selected and wasn't even a human or other character either) and when that was all done it do not put my scene back in the arrangement it was before I ran the exporter and felt the root level node all with the 'eye icon' off too.

5) After all those 3 hours of doing what it was doing in # 4 the DTB.fbx generated by the plugin is invalid and can't be opened by Blender. 

6) It finished creating an obj file from that Genesis 8 character about 10 minutes after I started the plugin and I am trying to import it into Blender now but it is 1.5 GB and so really not usuable. I'm just importing (if Blender winds up being able to do so) to see it the geometry on the OBJ is what I expect.

7) Interesting, Blender did finally import that obj and it did actually wind up being the entire scene's geometry but treated as a 'Genesis 8' character so interesting and totally non--functional to say the least. It's not a surprise the attempt to rig that as an FBX that Blender could use failed. 

So if you use this you really want to use it in a scene with the actor in a T-pose and with no clothing, hair and no other things in the scene at all from what I've seen. I'm sure it will be improved in the future and I've read the rigging is already primo in other posts so for animation in Blender it's good to use it would seem. 

smhoskins88

Yeah, I've tried everything, short of virgin sacrifice, I cannot get the Add on to appear.

Masterstroke

smhoskins88 said:

Yeah, I've tried everything, short of virgin sacrifice, I cannot get the Add on to appear.

I have it auto installed into "C:\Users\***\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\DAZ 3D Add-ons"
The auto install installs the zip right into add ons, where Blender can't find it.
You need to copy it into documents and install from there, then go to add-on, where Blender can then finally load it.

jdavison67

So what I'm seeing from the review above....this is all in beta stage...lots of bugs to work out...

I do look forward to this all ...it's the right move to make...

JD

SadRobot

To get the Blender add-on working, you need to go to Edit > Preferences > Add-Ons > Install…

This will open a file browser window. Navigate on Windows to "C:\Users\[YOURUSERNAMEHERE]\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\DAZ 3D Add-ons" (filling in your username and removing the brackets) or on Mac to "/Users/[YOURUSERNAMEHERE]/Library/Application Support/Blender Foundation/Blender/DAZ 3D Add-ons" (filling in your username and removing the brackets).

After that it should automatically search for the add-on. You'll just need to check it.

——————————

I've yet to get a project imported as the export/import process is pretty slow—although I have a character with a lot of morphs and a lot of mesh-based hair. Should have started simpler.

Paintbox

Kitsumo said:

Just looking at the options on the official plug-in, it looks like it allows you to transfer assets with higher subdivision levels, which previously wasn't possible with any other exporters. Anyway, I applaud this effort from Daz, I feel like it's a step in the right direction.

Paintbox said:

Just like the reviewer, I do not see the import add-on in my preference in Blender, does anyone know where it is hidden?

I just installed 2.83.

If you installed with DIM, you can check the "Installed Files". It should be near the top under Application Data. I had to manually unzip mine and put it in the Blender folder.

Perfect, that did the trick! Kudo!

DAZ_Jon

One other thing to note. The Blender bridge (and all the bridges) are open source. So if the author of diffeomorphic wanted to contribute to it for his own features or material conversions, its absolutely welcome. We need to get the current code up (will be very soon), and we have some clean up to do on all the bridges in getting the code structured better, the quality up, and some architectural improvements before we start adding more features. Like the majority of open sourced projects, we are more than willing to evaluate, provide feedback, and merge in pull requests and work with other developers in improving these and really letting the community have an influence in the direction it goes.

SadRobot

Some prelimanary thoughts after getting somethingg to import:

• The pose controls are pretty decent. I haven't tried converting to Rigify yet. Is there a compelling reason to do that?
• I did an export at subdivision 1 and it seems to work pretty smoothly. I tried a subdivision 2 export and it imported nothing. That could be user error, as I've only tried it once and I'm still getting used to the UI.
• The scene scale is horribly off. Very difficult to integrate a character into an existing scene. Can this be fixed, or is there a good reason for it?
• It seems to only import the diffuse texture. That’s fine, I guess, since I usually tweak shaders a lot, but it would be great to have it import all the textures present in the iray shader. Then even if we make changes, we don't have to go hunting for the files.
• Having morph controls for things like expressions are great. A better interface for choosing which morphs to import would be helpful. It would also be great to tie the morphs together for all the different components of the character. For example, if your character has a beard, you adjust the Smile HD expression for the character and his beard. It's probably easy enough to write a python script to link them, but it would be great to have it integrated.

Overall, it’s hard to complain. Having a poseable HD character in Blender is outstanding, even if there is a fair amount of "assembly required." Thanks for doing this, Daz.

benniewoodell

DAZ_Jon said:

Like the majority of open sourced projects, we are more than willing to evaluate, provide feedback, and merge in pull requests and work with other developers in improving these and really letting the community have an influence in the direction it goes.

Hi @DAZ_Jon, I just sent in a ticket to tech about this, but I just saw your post here and thought I'd mention it here too, also in case others come across this to know it's not just them. Last night while playing around, I brought in Renae Hair from Crocodile Liu and it was black in Daz, but it came in as blonde in Blender. I had to go into the materials tab and discovered the alpha and subsurface nodes were changing the colors. And also, when I tried to import a second character, it deleted the one I had already imported into Blender. Granted, I could save the blend files and append them into a new scene, but I'm sure there's a way to make it work to import multiple characters. 

I'm sure there's tons of bugs to be worked out, so it's not the end of the world, I'm beyond elated that you all are doing this. I love the rig  that it has, it's so wonderful and easy, especially the facial controls. And the skin materials look wonderful to me. Thank you! 

Panzer Emerald

DAZ_Jon said:

One other thing to note. The Blender bridge (and all the bridges) are open source. So if the author of diffeomorphic wanted to contribute to it for his own features or material conversions, its absolutely welcome. We need to get the current code up (will be very soon), and we have some clean up to do on all the bridges in getting the code structured better, the quality up, and some architectural improvements before we start adding more features. Like the majority of open sourced projects, we are more than willing to evaluate, provide feedback, and merge in pull requests and work with other developers in improving these and really letting the community have an influence in the direction it goes.

I read somewhere else in the forum that he basically told you guys to go pound sand when y'all initially approached him. 

tbh, I'd love it if he contributed to it, at least, in terms of making it lightweight like Diffeomorphic is currently. Everyone wins when it comes to Open Source, and Blender is only going to get more traction as the years go, so here's to future improvements and/or forks.

marble

This all happened since I last logged in as I live down here in New Zealand and I have just woken from my night's sleep.  Quite disappointed that DAZ couldn't find a way to work with Thomas and incorporate the diffeomorphic version. From what I see, the one they went with has serious shortcomings but am I correct in assuming that it can only work with Genesis 8? All of my male figures are G3M so that would be a non-starter as would any inability to work with geografts. 

nicstt

smhoskins88 said:

Yeah, I've tried everything, short of virgin sacrifice, I cannot get the Add on to appear.

Don't try that, seems a bit extreme.

nonesuch00

DAZ_Jon said:

One other thing to note. The Blender bridge (and all the bridges) are open source. So if the author of diffeomorphic wanted to contribute to it for his own features or material conversions, its absolutely welcome. We need to get the current code up (will be very soon), and we have some clean up to do on all the bridges in getting the code structured better, the quality up, and some architectural improvements before we start adding more features. Like the majority of open sourced projects, we are more than willing to evaluate, provide feedback, and merge in pull requests and work with other developers in improving these and really letting the community have an influence in the direction it goes.

Is he welcome to take the open source from these plugins to make Diffeomorphic better? 

TheMysteryIsThePoint

DAZ_Jon said:

One other thing to note. The Blender bridge (and all the bridges) are open source. So if the author of diffeomorphic wanted to contribute to it for his own features or material conversions, its absolutely welcome. We need to get the current code up (will be very soon), and we have some clean up to do on all the bridges in getting the code structured better, the quality up, and some architectural improvements before we start adding more features. Like the majority of open sourced projects, we are more than willing to evaluate, provide feedback, and merge in pull requests and work with other developers in improving these and really letting the community have an influence in the direction it goes.

@DAZ_Jon Can we please have a confirmation that it is both halves of the plugin that are being Open Source'd? Blender plugins like the importer-side half are just Python scripts and so, even if the GPL does not require them to be Open Source, they have to be human-readable. But the Daz-side exporter does not have this requirement. I ask because it shipped as an encrypted script.

TheMysteryIsThePoint

Panzer Emerald said:

DAZ_Jon said:

One other thing to note. The Blender bridge (and all the bridges) are open source. So if the author of diffeomorphic wanted to contribute to it for his own features or material conversions, its absolutely welcome. We need to get the current code up (will be very soon), and we have some clean up to do on all the bridges in getting the code structured better, the quality up, and some architectural improvements before we start adding more features. Like the majority of open sourced projects, we are more than willing to evaluate, provide feedback, and merge in pull requests and work with other developers in improving these and really letting the community have an influence in the direction it goes.

I read somewhere else in the forum that he basically told you guys to go pound sand when y'all initially approached him. 

tbh, I'd love it if he contributed to it, at least, in terms of making it lightweight like Diffeomorphic is currently. Everyone wins when it comes to Open Source, and Blender is only going to get more traction as the years go, so here's to future improvements and/or forks.

Did you notice that the Daz-side was a .dse? Thomas has made both scripts Open Source, where it looks like with Daz To Blender, only the Blender side is Open Source. That would sure explain why Thomas did not bite... if he had a large number of contributors, he probably couldn't have bitten. And c'mon, who here actually thought Daz had suddenly embraced Open Source beyond the degree to which they absolutely had to?

Cosworth

I used the bridge and I like it, though I'll be hyped when geograph imports come

marble

TheMysteryIsThePoint said:

Panzer Emerald said:

DAZ_Jon said:

One other thing to note. The Blender bridge (and all the bridges) are open source. So if the author of diffeomorphic wanted to contribute to it for his own features or material conversions, its absolutely welcome. We need to get the current code up (will be very soon), and we have some clean up to do on all the bridges in getting the code structured better, the quality up, and some architectural improvements before we start adding more features. Like the majority of open sourced projects, we are more than willing to evaluate, provide feedback, and merge in pull requests and work with other developers in improving these and really letting the community have an influence in the direction it goes.

I read somewhere else in the forum that he basically told you guys to go pound sand when y'all initially approached him. 

tbh, I'd love it if he contributed to it, at least, in terms of making it lightweight like Diffeomorphic is currently. Everyone wins when it comes to Open Source, and Blender is only going to get more traction as the years go, so here's to future improvements and/or forks.

Did you notice that the Daz-side was a .dse? Thomas has made both scripts Open Source, where it looks like with Daz To Blender, only the Blender side is Open Source. That would sure explain why Thomas did not bite... if he had a large number of contributors, he probably couldn't have bitten. And c'mon, who here actually thought Daz had suddenly embraced Open Source beyond the degree to which they absolutely had to?

Yeah, the more I read the more disappointed I am that DAZ has gone with this option. At the moment, I'm still inclined to wait for your Alembic exporter with your materials script if you are still intending to complete what you envisioned. At least then I won't have to worry about scaling or rigging or material conversion. It would be nice to be able to pose and animate in Blender but posing is the strength of DAZ Studio and I'm hoping they fix the animation timeline and don't abandon it now that they have provided bridges to other applications.

andya_b341b7c5f5

TheMysteryIsThePoint said:

... even if the GPL does not require them to be Open Source, they have to be human-readable.

According to the Blender website (https://www.blender.org/about/license/) the Python scripts used in Blender addons/plugins must be released under a 'GPL compatible licence', not just to be human readable.  I recall that when I (foolishly) spent $15 on the DazToBlender8 addon that the code was obfuscated, so that will clearly have to change.

My own interpretation of this requirement is that it needs an open source licence at least as permissive as the GPL.

 

andya_b341b7c5f5

nonesuch00 said:

DAZ_Jon said:

One other thing to note. The Blender bridge (and all the bridges) are open source. So if the author of diffeomorphic wanted to contribute to it for his own features or material conversions, its absolutely welcome. We need to get the current code up (will be very soon), and we have some clean up to do on all the bridges in getting the code structured better, the quality up, and some architectural improvements before we start adding more features. Like the majority of open sourced projects, we are more than willing to evaluate, provide feedback, and merge in pull requests and work with other developers in improving these and really letting the community have an influence in the direction it goes.

Is he welcome to take the open source from these plugins to make Diffeomorphic better? 

As I understand it, this Daz to Blender bridge leverages both OBJ and FBX exports/imports to do its stuff (which could be a limitation in that it depends on the quality of the importers/exporters).  Thomas Larsson uses a very different approach with his Daz Importer: he analyses the contents of an entire scene file and then re-builds the whole thing in Blender.   Hence, the Daz Importer will import non-human figures, props and environments as well as Genesis/Genesis 1/Genesis 2.  In light of that, I am not sure there will be much in the Daz to Blender bridge code that will be applicable in the Daz Importer.

TheMysteryIsThePoint

marble said:

TheMysteryIsThePoint said:

Panzer Emerald said:

DAZ_Jon said:

One other thing to note. The Blender bridge (and all the bridges) are open source. So if the author of diffeomorphic wanted to contribute to it for his own features or material conversions, its absolutely welcome. We need to get the current code up (will be very soon), and we have some clean up to do on all the bridges in getting the code structured better, the quality up, and some architectural improvements before we start adding more features. Like the majority of open sourced projects, we are more than willing to evaluate, provide feedback, and merge in pull requests and work with other developers in improving these and really letting the community have an influence in the direction it goes.

I read somewhere else in the forum that he basically told you guys to go pound sand when y'all initially approached him. 

tbh, I'd love it if he contributed to it, at least, in terms of making it lightweight like Diffeomorphic is currently. Everyone wins when it comes to Open Source, and Blender is only going to get more traction as the years go, so here's to future improvements and/or forks.

Did you notice that the Daz-side was a .dse? Thomas has made both scripts Open Source, where it looks like with Daz To Blender, only the Blender side is Open Source. That would sure explain why Thomas did not bite... if he had a large number of contributors, he probably couldn't have bitten. And c'mon, who here actually thought Daz had suddenly embraced Open Source beyond the degree to which they absolutely had to?

Yeah, the more I read the more disappointed I am that DAZ has gone with this option. At the moment, I'm still inclined to wait for your Alembic exporter with your materials script if you are still intending to complete what you envisioned. At least then I won't have to worry about scaling or rigging or material conversion. It would be nice to be able to pose and animate in Blender but posing is the strength of DAZ Studio and I'm hoping they fix the animation timeline and don't abandon it now that they have provided bridges to other applications.

Of course, @marble, I just have varying degrees of free time during the week. I hope to get at least the DSON parsing part done over this three-day weekend, and that will be enought for us, and then work on the other solution that @J Cade wanted for his workflow.

TheMysteryIsThePoint

andya_b341b7c5f5 said:

TheMysteryIsThePoint said:

... even if the GPL does not require them to be Open Source, they have to be human-readable.

According to the Blender website (https://www.blender.org/about/license/) the Python scripts used in Blender addons/plugins must be released under a 'GPL compatible licence', not just to be human readable.  I recall that when I (foolishly) spent $15 on the DazToBlender8 addon that the code was obfuscated, so that will clearly have to change.

My own interpretation of this requirement is that it needs an open source licence at least as permissive as the GPL.

Hi @andya_b341b7c5f5, I said "even if" to hedge my bet :) I thought that since it's an interpretted langauge and doesn't link anything, it didn't trigger the GPL. But I've googled it and see that you are right. The word "link" in the GPL does not refer to the specific final step in creating an executable, but rather the more general sense of "providing access to".

marble

TheMysteryIsThePoint said:

marble said:

TheMysteryIsThePoint said:

Panzer Emerald said:

DAZ_Jon said:

One other thing to note. The Blender bridge (and all the bridges) are open source. So if the author of diffeomorphic wanted to contribute to it for his own features or material conversions, its absolutely welcome. We need to get the current code up (will be very soon), and we have some clean up to do on all the bridges in getting the code structured better, the quality up, and some architectural improvements before we start adding more features. Like the majority of open sourced projects, we are more than willing to evaluate, provide feedback, and merge in pull requests and work with other developers in improving these and really letting the community have an influence in the direction it goes.

I read somewhere else in the forum that he basically told you guys to go pound sand when y'all initially approached him. 

tbh, I'd love it if he contributed to it, at least, in terms of making it lightweight like Diffeomorphic is currently. Everyone wins when it comes to Open Source, and Blender is only going to get more traction as the years go, so here's to future improvements and/or forks.

Did you notice that the Daz-side was a .dse? Thomas has made both scripts Open Source, where it looks like with Daz To Blender, only the Blender side is Open Source. That would sure explain why Thomas did not bite... if he had a large number of contributors, he probably couldn't have bitten. And c'mon, who here actually thought Daz had suddenly embraced Open Source beyond the degree to which they absolutely had to?

Yeah, the more I read the more disappointed I am that DAZ has gone with this option. At the moment, I'm still inclined to wait for your Alembic exporter with your materials script if you are still intending to complete what you envisioned. At least then I won't have to worry about scaling or rigging or material conversion. It would be nice to be able to pose and animate in Blender but posing is the strength of DAZ Studio and I'm hoping they fix the animation timeline and don't abandon it now that they have provided bridges to other applications.

Of course, @marble, I just have varying degrees of free time during the week. I hope to get at least the DSON parsing part done over this three-day weekend, and that will be enought for us, and then work on the other solution that @J Cade wanted for his workflow.

Thanks, you just cheered me up. I have not even bothered to install the new DAZ/Blender Bridge because the reviews so far indicate that it would not even come close to meeting what I would have hoped for. At least the Diffeomorphic importer can handle whole scenes which is essential. It also handles material conversions for Cycles better (again, according to the reviews so far) but I'm more interested in Eevee at the moment.