Exporting to Blender: a review

TheMysteryIsThePoint

nicstt said:

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TheMysteryIsThePoint said:

marble said:

5. Alembic. I've only tried the new utility written by @TheMysteryIsThePoint and he is still working on the materials side of that so I have put it aside for now awaiting that update. However, the advantage I see is that the figure comes across looking exactly as it does in the DAZ Studio viewport - HD morphs and Geografts included. If I understand it correctly, all the posing and animation needs to be done in DAZ Studio so we can't take advantage of some of the features of Blender such as the cloth sim and animation timeline which are supposedly better than the DAZ Studio alternatives.

Materials are done; it is truly one-click now. But one needs to set up paths to all one's resources, just like in Diffeo. An unlimited number of paths is supported. The final wrinkle is that there is a small problem when a surface has multiple UV maps, but @Padone has helped me work it out. I expect to have that done by the end of the weekend.

While the posing and animation need to be done in DS, cloth sim works beautifully in Blender. I've written some other tools to, say, pin a vertex group to the nearest vertex of another object. That's why the exporter has the option to mark a surface as "dynamic" so it won't be exported as part of the Alembic file, but rather as a separate object file. That's how I simmed the front and back of the skirt without it falling to the ground; its upper hem is pinned to the underside of the belt:

Phaedra in the Galería de la Basílica de San Isidoro

Walking Back

Damn, excellent job.

Thanks, but I think no caught the glaring error:

I wrote a tool to analyze the animation BVH and detect the best places to cut in order to loop it, based on a root mean squared error (that I'll publish as well). But the Blender cloth sim did not seem to like the character going from stationary at frame 0 to a full speed walk at frame 1, an extremely high acceleration, and you can see that it caused the material at the very top of the skirt where it is pinned to the belt to stretch a lot, and so it looks kind of wierd because the polygons around the skirt's hem are huge. So I wrote another command line tool to "ease" the character into the motion by prepending enough frames so that it just matches the right velocity at what used to be frame 0 with a smooth, reasonable acceleration.

I'd like to offer every tool I've written to get me over some problem I encountered, but I'm not sure people will appreciate needing a Linux machine to use them :)

marble

Now, a Blender noob question for the more experienced old hands here: 

I import a scene and set up the lighting and materials. I know I can save that as a .blend file but how do do the equivalent of Save Scene Subset or Save Material Preset or Character Preset or any of the other common presets available for saving in DAZ Studio? Additionally, where would I find the textures library or the poses? Can I set up a Content Library structure similar to the DAZ library? I should add that I don't go near Smart Content in DAZ Studio - I rely on the folders so it might be a little easier for me to adapt.

TheMysteryIsThePoint

marble said:

And this is my best effort yet with Cycles. This time I used a different HDRi and added a spotlight. I then ventured into the material nodes and tinkered with specularity, roughness and height (bump). I'm quite pleased with the result and, as you say, I'm beginning to appreciate the lighter tone but I'm sure there must be a way to replicate the IRay tone, I just don't know which I prefer. I'll try playing with SSS too just for fun :)

I love seeing the Blender bug biting deeper into soft, unsuspecting flesh :)

Seriously, not only is that a great render, I believe it's the first time you've referred to anything node related as "fun". What's next, you saying that you appreciate Cycles for Cycles, and don't feel the need to replicate IRay anymore? ;) Congrats.

marble

TheMysteryIsThePoint said:

marble said:

And this is my best effort yet with Cycles. This time I used a different HDRi and added a spotlight. I then ventured into the material nodes and tinkered with specularity, roughness and height (bump). I'm quite pleased with the result and, as you say, I'm beginning to appreciate the lighter tone but I'm sure there must be a way to replicate the IRay tone, I just don't know which I prefer. I'll try playing with SSS too just for fun :)

I love seeing the Blender bug biting deeper into soft, unsuspecting flesh :)

Seriously, not only is that a great render, I believe it's the first time you've referred to anything node related as "fun". What's next, you saying that you appreciate Cycles for Cycles, and don't feel the need to replicate IRay anymore? ;) Congrats.

I did say that I don't know which I prefer but I suspect that if I had been used to the Cycles version and then saw the IRay one with the much darker tone, I might have suspected something was wrong with the IRay render. If you've eve got used to listening to a song recoded for a studio album and then heard a live version on another album, you'll follow what I mean.

I must say that after playing with the settings for the Eevee render, I'm impressed by how close to the Cycles version it looks - at least at first glance.

 

Padone

As for materials Thomas implemented a major rework that I tried to help with. But it's new and I didn't have time to test it extensively yet, so there may be something we missed. I find it odd the case posted by @jcade since cycles should mimic iray quite fine if you use the volumetric skin. Please use the new plugin version that should work fine.

https://bitbucket.org/Diffeomorphic/import_daz/issues/154/material-issues

Also there are improvements for eevee on the way. But please understand that converting iray materials to eevee, especially skins, is not always possible and we have to compromise.

https://bitbucket.org/Diffeomorphic/import_daz/issues/179/i-believe-i-nailed-v8-act-2-aka-decent-sss

marble

Which is the new plugin version you mention? I downloaded this version a couple of days ago so is it the one I need?

Diffeomorphic-import_daz-cb1d6dcb63fd (EDIT: nvm - I see there's a later one so I've just installed that).

Also, how do I know if I'm using a volumetric skin?

the5amkebab

Looks good! I'm finding skin on some characters to be a bit flat in Blender too, but increasing the dual lobe in both Eevee and Cycles gives them more "depth". As for HD details, this may have been mentioned in other threads that I've missed, but aren't they mostly made of normal maps in daz as projection morphs? I've noticed only on some characters I import to blender with the diffeo have a "Normals" setting in the  material editor part of the plug in, when I crank that up to 3 or more that's when the HD details come out without having to do anything to the actual subdivision. But not every character I import has this option even if the character has been created in Daz with their HD details.

the5amkebab

Padone said:

As for materials Thomas implemented a major rework that I tried to help with. But it's new and I didn't have time to test it extensively yet, so there may be something we missed. I find it odd the case posted by @jcade since cycles should mimic iray quite fine if you use the volumetric skin. Please use the new plugin version that should work fine.

https://bitbucket.org/Diffeomorphic/import_daz/issues/154/material-issues

Also there are improvements for eevee on the way. But please understand that converting iray materials to eevee, especially skins, is not always possible and we have to compromise.

https://bitbucket.org/Diffeomorphic/import_daz/issues/179/i-believe-i-nailed-v8-act-2-aka-decent-sss

I've just downloaded CC3.3 trial as the realtime game engine skin shader looks awesome so I want to see what it looks like compared to Daz models in Eevee. Do you think there might be any tricks in their shader that might help you with Eevee conversions? If I knew what I was even supposed to be looking for I'd do it myself but I'm a noob when it comes to this kind of stuff, I'm good at using sliders, that's about it lol.

Padone

@marble With the new version you have to select bsdf and render with cycles to get the volumetric skin, no more multiple material choices are needed/allowed. The idea is that cycles always uses bsdf and eevee always uses principled. Actually Thomas allows eevee for bsdf too, but it can't work fine. We disagree on dropping it and he's the boss of course.

bsdf: cycles only, full iray materials

principled: cycles and eevee, limited iray materials

The new improvements for eevee are not implemented yet. You can keep an eye at diffeo to follow the progress.

https://bitbucket.org/Diffeomorphic/import_daz/issues/179/i-believe-i-nailed-v8-act-2-aka-decent-sss

 

@the5amkebab Unfortunately custom shaders in general are of no help for iray skin conversion. The issue is that the iray uber shader uses a true volumetric solution that's not possible to translate into a sss model, because sss can't do volumes. So we approximate trying to get a decent eevee conversion.

As for cycles there are no issues since cycles can do volumes and we have the volumetric skin that mimics iray quite fine.

TheKD

Oh balls, I think I figured out why my renders were coming out so weird looking lately. I experimentally changed import to principled to see what the difference was, and seems I forgot to change it back lol.

Singular3D

Krampus said:

marble said:

And this is my best effort yet with Cycles. This time I used a different HDRi and added a spotlight. I then ventured into the material nodes and tinkered with specularity, roughness and height (bump). I'm quite pleased with the result and, as you say, I'm beginning to appreciate the lighter tone but I'm sure there must be a way to replicate the IRay tone, I just don't know which I prefer. I'll try playing with SSS too just for fun :)

 

 

Just something to keep in mind regarding cycles renders -

There was a guy on DeviantArt that was making some pretty good stuff exporting from DAZ and rendering in C4D/VRAY ('Random 1 by the artist Bamhor').  He said the skin textures in DAZ had luminance values that were too high and may not work well in other software.  Since all of these textures are made specifically for DAZ and IRAY rendering, it's definitely a possibility and after some experimenting I tend to agree.  You can add a brightness/contrast node or an HSV node between the original DAZ texture and the Principled BSDF to darken.  You can also take the texures into an editor and adjust there.  I like sliding the Levels up a bit on the input slider (screenshot:  https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/425906/exploring-daz-to-blender-skin-material-sss-w-diffeomorphic-nodes#latest).

 

It seems that Bamhor is working now with Vray and Maya. I did some renders with Vray and C4D, but I had to rework the textures in Photshop. I can only second, what Bamhor said about Daz textures.

marble

Padone said:

@marble With the new version you have to select bsdf and render with cycles to get the volumetric skin, no more multiple material choices are needed/allowed. The idea is that cycles always uses bsdf and eevee always uses principled. Actually Thomas allows eevee for bsdf too, but it can't work fine. We disagree on dropping it and he's the boss of course.

bsdf: cycles only, full iray materials

principled: cycles and eevee, limited iray materials

The new improvements for eevee are not implemented yet. You can keep an eye at diffeo to follow the progress.

https://bitbucket.org/Diffeomorphic/import_daz/issues/179/i-believe-i-nailed-v8-act-2-aka-decent-sss

 

@the5amkebab Unfortunately custom shaders in general are of no help for iray skin conversion. The issue is that the iray uber shader uses a true volumetric solution that's not possible to translate into a sss model, because sss can't do volumes. So we approximate trying to get a decent eevee conversion.

As for cycles there are no issues since cycles can do volumes and we have the volumetric skin that mimics iray quite fine.

Perhaps it might be better to have an Import Selector for Eevee or Cycles rather than BSDF or Principled? I have to admit that I had completely forgotten to check what was selected for all the examples I've posted so far (Edit: looks like I have it set to Principled by default, so all of the Cycles renders above would have been done with the wrong selection).

Last night I tried with another character, this time with a caucasian skin and it too came out several shades too light. I also noticed with light skin that the nostrils were showing white instead of in deep shadow. I clicked on Ambient Occulsion and that seemd to fix it but didn't fix the overall lightness of the skin. I'll try again today (it's early morning now in NZ) following your advice on BSDF etc.

 

marble

Another suggestion for Thomas: in the Material Editor he provides, it would save a lot of time to have a quick click to select only the skin areas.

I've tried to find out how to do this in Blender but I'm not sure what to search for. Still looking.

TheKD

If you hover the pointer over bsdf or principled it should have a popup there for what to use it for. I admit I completely forgot about the setting until I saw the screenshot lol.

marble

TheKD said:

If you hover the pointer over bsdf or principled it should have a popup there for what to use it for. I admit I completely forgot about the setting until I saw the screenshot lol.

Yes, I saw that too but I just didn't think to change it. Maybe marking the buttons as Cycles/Eevee might be a more meaningful reminder? Not really a serious issue once we are aware of it though.

the5amkebab

In the dev build I'm using if you have Eevee set as the render option before you import it'll import Eevee shader/material conversions, same for Cycles. I can see the difference in Eevee view as the cycles materials will have that cloudy box around the character for volumetric effects. I've tried all the different import options you mention but I'm getting the best and most consistent results by selecting render engine in Blender first then doing the Daz diffeo import.

marble

the5amkebab said:

In the dev build I'm using if you have Eevee set as the render option before you import it'll import Eevee shader/material conversions, same for Cycles. I can see the difference in Eevee view as the cycles materials will have that cloudy box around the character for volumetric effects. I've tried all the different import options you mention but I'm getting the best and most consistent results by selecting render engine in Blender first then doing the Daz diffeo import.

Ah yes, I see what you are saying. If Blender is set to Eevee then the Importer automatically selects Principled and for Cycles it selects BSDF. I hadn't noticed that previously.

TheKD

the5amkebab said:

In the dev build I'm using if you have Eevee set as the render option before you import it'll import Eevee shader/material conversions, same for Cycles. I can see the difference in Eevee view as the cycles materials will have that cloudy box around the character for volumetric effects. I've tried all the different import options you mention but I'm getting the best and most consistent results by selecting render engine in Blender first then doing the Daz diffeo import.

Oh, thanks for the tip.