Daz to Unreal Update 4.0
Richard Haseltine
Posts: 100,858
This week Daz released an update to the Daz to Unreal update, done by David. Here are the items in the update. Enjoy!
- Now Supports Environments (http://davidvodhanel.com/daz-to-unreal-environment-transfer/)
- Basic Support for Genesis 8.1
- Basic PBRSkin Material
- Fixed the morph list when exporting clothing items separate from the character. This is done by generating the morph list from the character down, rather than just from the clothing item.
- Support for 4.25
- Fix morph preset in Daz Exporter
- Allow morph curves to be exported in animations
- Added a new animation blueprint to deal with the conversion from Quaternion to Euler rotations.
- Fix Bone Rotations (http://davidvodhanel.com/daz-to-unreal-fix-bone-rotations-option/)
Comments
I know everyone wants 4.26 unfortunately it is not a one-click install but, here is a workaround in the meantime.
This more easier done with Install Manager but, can be done with Daz Central as well.
First off there should be a new update for everyone make sure you update before following these steps.
There will be a file on your pc now it is downloaded when you installed the Bridge.
Step to find the file.
1. The Default location will be "C:/Users/Public/Documents/DAZ 3D/InstallManager/Downloads"
2. Search for "IM00072003-04_DazToUnreal464bit.zip" and unzip it.
3. Once its unzipped, open up the folder "Unreal_Engine_4_(64-Bit)"
4. Inside there you will find "DaztoUnreal_4.26"
To install DaztoUnreal for 4.26 you will need to manually install the Unreal Engine Side.
1. Open up your plugin folder by default it will be. C:\Program Files\Epic Games\UE_4.26\Engine\Plugins
2. Copy "DazToUnreal_4.26" to the Plugin Location.
3. Rename the Folder to "DazToUnreal"
4. Open up Unreal Engine and it should ask you to enable the plugin.
This will only be temporary until we can make it an automatic option.
Hi there. I tried to find that file in all my entire pc without success. How can I download it please?
Are you using Daz Central? It looks the download location can be changed.
The first thing I want to make sure of, have you already tried to install the plugin? It doesn't download the zip unless you try to install it first.
Second thing, if you can't find the download folder, press the gear icon at the top right of Daz Central and see where your base location is.
At that point, it should be, "BASELOCATION\Application\Data\DAZ 3D\InstallManager\Downloads\"
If you still can't find it let me know!
https://helpdaz.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/requests/new?ticket_form_id=23788
You can also make a ticket so one of the customer support reps can take a look as well.
Sorry, but what is the Bridge I have to install. I only have Adobe Bridge
Sorry, stupid me, i thought it must be an extra software and not the plug-in.
Sorry, delete this stupid post please
After going thru the DC uninstall/reinstall/restart system routine 7 times for the Daz to Unreal plugin, I finally had a 4.26 project show the plugin installed but not active.
After activating it normally and restarting, I get the attached error and the project won't even load now. Good thing I'm familiar with this type of crap from Daz and was only working with a test project. The only way to get back into the project is to delete the daztounreal plugin folder under Engines/Plugins and then restart the affected UE4 project. You then get a standard UE4 plugin not found error but you now have the option to disable it so the project will load.
Someone is spending too much time on social media and not coding.
I apologize for the confusion; to confirm, are you using Daz Central to install this bridge? As it appears that this is so from your screenshot, so I'll base my instructions on this installer. As Sam noted previously, you will need to manually install the file to its proper location for 4.26 in order to utilize this version of Unreal. For the time being, you will not be able to access 4.26 by simply downloading the update via an Install Manager.
To do this you will first want to grab the Unreal 4.26 bridge file from wherever content is installed to on your machine; this should be similar to "...Users/Public/Documents/DAZ 3D/InstallManager/Downloads". You can see this from within Daz Central by naviagting to the gear icon in the top right-hand corner of the window and taking note of the location listed under Daz Studio 4.5 Install Location.
Once you've located the downloads folder in your files, copy the entire "IM00072003-04_DazToUnreal464bit.zip" folder to your desktop (you can delete this afterwards), right-click and extract the files using 7-Zip (or similar). Then locate the file for DaztoUnreal_4.26 and copy it.
Finally, navigate within your files to wherever you have your Unreal plugin installed to, which by default is located under C:\Program Files\Epic Games\UE_4.26\Engine\Plugins; and paste the DaztoUnreal_4.26 file here and rename it "DazToUnreal".
Once you have manually installed this file to this location, you should be able to locate the plugin and enable it within Unreal the next time you launch it.
"Then locate the file for DaztoUnreal_4.26 and copy it." >>> "Then locate the folder for DaztoUnreal_4.26 and copy it."
"rename it "DazToUnreal"" + "replace if a DazToUnreal folder is already in there"
That seems to have worked ! Thanks you.
Glad it worked for Tsuba! Thank you for being so patient with us!
New update has been added to fix the 4.25 issue that would not package correctly.
The latest update fixed the packaging issue. But I'm still experiencing the problem where I cannot send custom environments to Unreal. Is there a difference between vendor created environments and a set of grouped props? I'm confused as what is considered an environment by the plugin and what isn't.
It seems like all the environments are set up differently. I'm basically working through the hierarchy below the selected node to find objects. Can you send a screenshot of what your scene outline looks like?
I created an example "environment" using primitives: A "house" comprised of 5 planes and a cylinder grouped together in a single node. (See attached) When I select the node and send to Unreal as an environment, it just sends over an empty folder. Can you please see if you can reproduce this?
Looks like there is something the bridge isn't like when you use primitives. I am looking into it now and will let you know if I find a workaround/solution. Although, is no environments working for you?
I was able to successfully import an environment from the DAZ store into UE4 as a test. However, I want to be able to export an environment created from .objs that I've imported into Daz which currently does not work. I'm still unsure as to what differentiates vendor created envs from custom props grouped together in a scene.
Most likely they just used a different type of parent node to group them. It's also possible the meshes are a different asset type in Daz Studio.
Is there some special prerequisite for an environment to be compatible with the plugin (i.e. naming convention, geometry type) ? The environment transfer doesn't appear to work with DAZ primitives or imported objs.
I haven't tried exporting environment to Unreal yet, so while my guess would be adding terrain texturing options inside Unreal (e.g. blending smaller DAZ environments with large Unreal landscapes), I could be totally wrong.
There's so much happening with Unreal at the moment that it's hard to keep up - I love DAZ for stepping up to the plate, but I also got to pity the devs a bit too - they do the hard work so we don't have to, hehe.
Yes, I'm using DC and no, there is no zip file downloaded anywhere named IM00072003-04_DazToUnreal464bit.zip although there is a manifest file for it in the installmanager folder.
I uninstalled Daz Studio and DC, removed all folder/file references, restarted and reinstalled DC, then DS then UE plugin. I then searched my drive for the referenced zip file but it is not found. I posted earlier where I went this 7 times before until UE4.26 showed the Daz plugin as installed. I'm tired of all this BS...why don't you guys simply attach the damn zip file to this post?
Not intentionally. I tested it by loading a bunch of different Preload environments in Daz Studio and transferring them. If something doesn't work, it's probably just a bug because of a case I never hit.
is a working 4.26 version out for the bridge or not ?
They are trying to get us to manually install an engine plugin (not a big deal) from a file no one can find. The version that installs from Install Manager is compiled against a different version of the engine - I imagine they haven't recompiled it for 4.26.1 yet.
I have to say though - the exporter for unreal is the cleanest one so far out of several I tried. Very nice FBX file.
there is a working version on the unreal marketplace so i do not understand the hesitation here
you could buy that and support the developer if you wanted to
if you are poor like me you wait and use 4.25 or import FBX manually (I believe duplicate nodes need renaming)
I use iclone 3DX6 to fix that which I have had for years (when I had an income) because I cannot afford iC7 pipeline either
I do believe it's just a matter of renaming bones in DAZ studio otherwise using the editor
I understand the frustration on this, I have attached the IMM to this comment.
You can follow the same step given in this thread on manually installing.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/64eqerps7b0nb28/IM00072003-04_DazToUnreal464bit.zip?dl=0
New update so...
Is this going to happen at every update ?
I installed the plugin step by step, and the error message disappeared. It looked like it works... I activated the plugin, restarted the project, but the DaztoUnreal plugin button didn't appear.
There is a Window menu, at the bottom you can see the DaztoUnrel text, but it doesn't do anything.
I tried this an still get the same error.
I need to remove that menu item. There's nothing in there. That means the plugin is loaded though. If you send something from Daz Studio, it should pick it up.
I am using Windows 10, Daz Studio 4.12.86 64-bit and Unreal 4.25.4 and the plug-in is not working properly for me, I have spent 2 days and many hours, uninstalling and reinstalling the plugin and trying many different G8M and G8F figures and it doesn't properly automap the skeleton no matter what I do. The characters look fine, and the textures and all that look good, but the animations never work right. when I try to play the 3rd person animation in unreal for example, it runs as if the legs are broken. It does this even with base G8M figure with no modification. Clearly there is something wrong with my setup since no one else seems to have this problem.
i also get these errors everytime I import a figure:
I get these FBX Import errors everytime, even with a generic unclothed, unaltered G8M:
"! No smoothing group information was found in this FBX scene. Please make sure to enable the 'Export Smoothing Groups' option in the FBX Exporter plug-in before exporting the file. Even for tools that don't support smoothing groups, the FBX Exporter will generate appropriate smoothing data at export-time so that correct vertex normals can be inferred while importing.
The following bones are missing from the bind pose:
ik_foot_root
ik_foot_l
ik_foot_r
ik_hand_root
! ik_hand_gun
ik_hand_r
ik_hand_l
This can happen for bones that are not vert weighted. If they are not in the correct orientation after importing,
please set the "Use T0 as ref pose" option or add them to the bind pose and reimport the skeletal mesh. "
Can I get a link to the correct instructions to use? Also what version of software works for both DS and Unreal. Are there some Daz plugins that are incompatible with the Daz to Unreal plugin?