Looking to replicate two essential Studio features
SnowSultan
Posts: 3,599
I'm pretty confident with using Blender's interface now, but there are two things that DAZ Studio has that I cannot imagine not having in Blender and I'd like to know if there are any add-ons (commercial or free) that can fill in these gaps (or included features that I haven't learned about yet).
- Surfaces in DAZ Studio have names, like Head, Blade, Roof, etc. In Blender, they're all just labeled "Slot" (Slot 1, 2, etc), and they get renamed by the texture that is applied to them. There MUST be some way to permanently rename them...I hope, because heaven help anyone who tries to use a bodysuit or complicated environment otherwise.
- From what I understand so far, Blender doesn't have any sort of content library system built in; everything is recalled from other scenes using Link or Append. That's insane for anyone coming from Studio, and although I think I've seen some library plugins for sale, I'd like to hear from anyone who has found a satisfactory solution to this issue.
Thanks for any advice or suggestions.
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Comments
Thank you for pointing this out because I thought I was missing something obvious. I've been searching for some kind of tutorial that would show me where the Blender equivalent to the Content Library is but I had no idea what search terms to use and I just found nothing. Looks like there was nothing to find.
As for slots this is usually not an issue if you use material names. I mean of course you can share materials among slots but this is usually not done. So material names in blender are the same as surface names in daz studio. If you want to change a material texture you edit it in the shader editor. You don't use slots for this. I don't know why blender exposes slots to the user but you can just ignore them.
As for libraries you have a thumbnail view in the browser to preview blender files and you can append or link collections. Including a search box and a filter. What's wrong with this ? If you mean a smart content system telling you what item does fit to another this makes sense only in daz studio, once you export your asset to blender it just becomes a generic scene asset. The blender browser is very similar to the daz studio content library tab.
Unless I miss something of course if you have specific needs may be a real example would help to clarify things.
There is a Materials Library VX; not sure if it needs enabling in addons, can't remember. I personally don't like it; you also might find that you need to move it as it is by default in a place that doesn't allow writing to; that isn't why I don't like it - as I moved it to plugins. There is a paid one iird, and there is something by both Blender Guru and Chocofur that might help you out.
I have a Blend file I keep specifically for materials (and other blend files to - poses for example), I just append one when I need. I also added some material groups to the Start Up file.
Personally, just create some blend files whilst you experiement.
I'm thinking about a script at the moment that will apply the materials I have in the blend file for skin and assign the correct textures based on a name input. My writing it will depend on how irritated I get by the couple of minutes it takes currently to change them.
Edit
I believe I read somewhere that a 'proper' material library is coming; it might be with version 3.0; I actually thought it was version 2.9, but haven't seen it mentioned in anywhere and I can't locate it.
AMD's Pro Render does have one, and it looks quite decent, although I have no idea if we can add our own to the pre-existing ones. That's a whole new render engine, which whilst doing nicely is still under development.
I have it on my system atm, and it doens't appear to be causing me any issues, although I have seen it said that it can on occasions, but that was some months ago.
I'd also take a look at Blender Kit; you might find that useful, however, as it stores materials online, it couldn't be used to save any containing Daz items - even though they are stored in your own repository.
Marble: Yeah I looked for a while too. Still makes no sense to me.
Padone: Well material names in Blender aren't really like surfaces names in Studio because a figure's head doesn't get renamed to something like GunMetallic_Rust4K if you apply a texture to it or god forbid, make a mistake and click on the wrong drop-down menu. :) Blender also doesn't seem to have anything similar to Studio's Surface Selection tool, so you can't directly click on a surface to see what it is. If I decide later that I want to add a different metal texture to a robot that has fifteen materials and half of them are named "Metal1", how do figure out *which* Metal1 needs replacing?
In regards to libraries, the Blender way sounds like one would spend all their time just trying to keep track and move assets between files. If I make a scene dedicated to saving materials and then I create a nice new wood material in a different project, I'd need to reopen the material scene afterwards, then Link the wood material (and good luck finding it thanks to the previously mentioned issue), and save. If I forget to do this right away and later, I want that wood texture, I have to browse through all of my projects, opening each one in the hopes of finding it again? I understand that Blender users usually create scenes for each project and often don't have the need for a catalogue-like system of presets like Studio users do, but not even having the option is very odd in my opinion.
nicstt: Thanks for that information, I'll check a few of those addons out and see if they can do what I need.
An asset management system is in development for Blender, as nicstt said. I was hoping to see it in 2.9 also. There are currently a few add-ons that you can use in the meantime if you want to spend the money. I'm too cheap. I don't want to buy one and then Blender will come out with their own, probably the day after I buy one. The link below is a fairly popular one from what I've seen.
https://blendermarket.com/products/asset-management/
mcjTeleblender had a nice feature that would pull materials from a blender file and apply to your export from DAZ. So, if I made a custom character materials, which we probably all do, it would apply those custom materials from that blend file to the character you were exporting. If I had one request for Diffeomorphic, it would be that. It's a minor nuisance since it only takes a minute to append a previously made character and copy all the materials. In case anyone does not know, there is a tool called 'material utilities' that needs enabled in Blender. This will allow you to copy materials from one object to another. For example, we can select the untextured character, then select the imported character with finished textures, and copy.
nicstt - what is the advantage of importing poses from a blend file versus using Diffeomorphic to import a pose? I'm sure there is one, otherwise you would not do it, I'm just not smart enough to know what it is...:)
There is an addon, but I forget what it's called.
One can sellect a material a particular type, and change them all at the same time.
Poses you've created in Blender; or poses adjusted and then saved.
I actually import the data block that is the pose library, so it can contain all the poses saved for a particular character. It's like appending a material or a collection, or anything else.
I rarely import poses these days; they can prevent the simple IK working that's been added and can cause issues with Rigify. It's useful if there are a number of poses you want to use without tweaking, but how often does that happen. I find Rigify and the simple IK implemented to be generally quicker now I've got used to it. And with libraries you can transfer then. It doesn't have to be a full pose saved either, but only part.
Edit
Any pose libraries saved will be in Actions
... Basically, the time taken to track down a pose I'm after, and then tweak what I find to what I want, is longer than creating it.
The only exception is if a pose gives me an idea.
https://blenderartists.org/t/asset-wizard-for-blender-2-8/1149311
https://wp.h0bb1t.de/index.php/about-asset-wizard/
A free asset wizard. Thomas Material wizard is pretty nice too :)
.
This is why I'd like to see DAZ Studio's DSON & other functionality ported to Blender by DAZ 3D. Studio's good but DAZ is primarily a content company. Managing that and improving on that in Blender is something DAZ's current programmers could easily do and get all the physics and rendering engines and pipelines and so much more in Blender off their plate as they don't have the funding to keep pace, but the funding to add those DAZ Studio specific things to Blender they have and can do quite well.
SnowSultan :
Yeah, it sucks that there is not a direct way that mimics Studio's great Surface Selection tool, but that doesn't mean there is not a comprable way to select the correct "Metal1" MATzone to apply your new texture to.
If you are seeing multiple same texture names - it is likely due to the same texture applied to multiple MATzones (I thought this was no longer an issue, but if you are experiencing this, then I guess it was not fixed), and each one has a duplicate assignment in the Material Tab (1 for each material zone).
However, you can use the Material Tab and while in Edit Mode (for facet material selection -- works in any selection mode [vert, edge, face]) use the Assign/Select/Deselect buttons (obviously, Select in this case) on a selected material, and the MATzone it is assigned to will be selected -- You can then take it from there...
Also, for everyone, as stated by others, they are working on an asset management system which is more in line with how Studio's content database works, but it still won't be the same thing.
The closest I have seen developed is by a great coder named Andrew Peel (which they may be basing the official A.M. from his work, or maybe just parts of) who gave us a Blender clone a few years ago with a content library by the name of FluidDesigner.
If you are interested, you can test drive his current Blender clone (named PyClone) with content library (that has drag-n-drop assets and materials) by going here :
https://creativedesigner3d.com/2020/05/27/pyclone-asset-manager-for-blender-2-83/
Or they won't, but what you bought will stop working with the next release.
Importing and converting to Rigify. That's a skill I have not been able to master yet.
yeah I found that awkward about Blender that it has no asset directory of any sort even for materials
this is basic stuff in other softwares
Cheers for this info, always looking for one that feels useful, and it's always fun to check out addons.
Daremok3: Thanks for that tip, it took me a bit to understand exactly what you were talking about, but that is a reasonable way to at least select a surface.
Does anyone have any recommendations for free addons or which ones to activate that are included with Blender? I turned on Node Wrangler, although I'm not really a fan of so many keyboard shortcuts to begin with. I tried turning on Materials Library VX, but cannot find any panel or settings for it after activating.
Asset Manager from Pitiwazou was one of the first addons I bought along with hardOps in 2018. If there are problems, they usually got fixed within days. Some developers also have discord channels for more or less instant help.
Neither blender does. What do you mean ? You can have plenty of textures in a blender material and they don't change the material name. Below is a daz character imported with diffeo with the same daz surfaces. The main issue with blender materials is that it is hard to edit multiple materials together, that you didn't mention. And for that there are material utilities in the diffeo importer.
Again if you mean slots then just ignore them and use materials instead.
Just go to edit mode and select the material you wish, as shown in the picture above.
Well how does this differ from the daz content library ? You have to save materials in the presets > materials folder then track them down lately when you need them. You do exactly the same with the blender browser. Create a materials folder and save material files there. Then link or append back as needed. Then sure you can mess up or forget things but this is the same with the daz library.
Again you even have automatic thumbnails and a search box and a filter, so actually the blender browser is very similar to the daz content library tab.
Again if you mean a smart content system then this makes sense only in daz studio to handle different genesis generations. Not in blender where files are just generic scene assets.
Select an object you're interested in.
Navigate to the Materials Properties Tab, and scroll down - once activated it appears below Settings "Material Library VX'
I have a blend file with a number of materials I want to reference, all I do is occasionally append materials to it, then I know where they are - actually easier to find that in Studio at times; certainly not harder.