Hi Casual.. I noticed what might be causing the problem.. On Auxiliary Options / Process Materials.. the save option is set for .blend and not .mtl?
When Blender opens the figure, the path for the specular textures are correct apart from a pink sheen across them .. when checked in the Node Editor the Diffuse path is unavailable resulting in the pink colour.
Very odd.. maybe the path saves from previous version are conflicting? no idea really :)
Thanks for the quick reply Casual.. I shall experiment further, I did notice that after deleting version 2 and replacing with version 3 in both Daz Studio & Blender that the save paths for Blender.exe + blend/obj/image files were still present, from previous version, are these paths saved somewhere? If so I may need to delete them?
Maps were collected so its slightly confusing..
Version 2 does everything perfectly though. Thankyou again for this great script.
the settings are stored and retrieved by the Windows registry [ or the mac's equivalent ] in a section named mcjteleblender
but you would not really gain anything by deleting tke key values
mcjteleblender has a ''restore defaults'' button which puts it in the default state
Hi Casual.. I did use the "restore defaults" but get the same results.. when I resort back to Version 2 all is fine.. Going to try using mcjBlendBot2 with mcjteleblender3.
That has solved the problem! by using the blendbot from version 2. BTW what is mcjShareTheTextures.py and should this be included in Modules folder?
I had the same confusion with mcjBlendBot . The latest version of mcjBlendBot is for Teleblender2 and Teleblender3.
Hi Casual, and noticed that from DAZ version 4.5, you can export only the selected objects as objs.
// Do not limit export to selection - only available in 4.5.x +
oSettings.setBoolValue( "SelectedOnly", false );
// Do not limit export to the selected roots - only available in 4.5.x +
oSettings.setBoolValue( "SelectedRootsOnly", false );
// Do not limit export to the primary selected root
// This setting overrides SelectedRootsOnly - only available in 4.5.x +
oSettings.setBoolValue( "PrimaryRootOnly", false );
// Do not export items that are parented to the selection - only available in 4.5.x +
oSettings.setBoolValue( "IncludeParented", false );
Hi Casual.. I did use the "restore defaults" but get the same results.. when I resort back to Version 2 all is fine.. Going to try using mcjBlendBot2 with mcjteleblender3.
That has solved the problem! by using the blendbot from version 2. BTW what is mcjShareTheTextures.py and should this be included in Modules folder?
mcjShareTheTextures was made following a request
it's standalone
to run standalone python scripts in Blender
you open a Text Editor panel
then you load the script
then you click the Run button
------
i dont know if it still works but
it's supposed to merge together materials that use the same texture images
for example, all the body surfaces that use skin.jpg
I'm using teleblender successfully in Blender 2.73a - working very well, thank you.
Qusetion on animation - I can export an animation and it makes an .obj per frame, but does not open Blender automatically. I can open Blender manually and import any of the singles frames, but can't figure out how to open the .obj sequence.
I'm using teleblender successfully in Blender 2.73a - working very well, thank you.
Qusetion on animation - I can export an animation and it makes an .obj per frame, but does not open Blender automatically. I can open Blender manually and import any of the singles frames, but can't figure out how to open the .obj sequence.
Any help, please?
when you use teleblender's 'export animation" button teleblender exports each scene-frame as an .obj and it creates a .bat file if you double-left-click on that batch file an invisible Blender will render each .obj/scene/frame one after the other which can take hours - note that in teleblender before using the 'export animation" button you must specify which frames are exported and which frames will be rendered ----------- when you use the teleblender's "export current frame" button teleblender launches a ( visible) blender it also produces a .bat file which could be used at a later date to re-open the same scene in blender, independently from Daz Studio -----------
i didn't write teleblender thinking i'd want to open individual animation frames in blender but you could open the .bat is a plain-text editor like notepad and you will see a series of text lines which look like
the number at the end is the frame number to render the "-b" part is what causes blender to run in invisible mode and immediately render the frame
if you want to open frame 4 in Blender in Visible mode, and not immediately launch the render then you could write ( with notepad ) a .bat file which looks like
--------- when i render animations, what i usually do is use teleblender to render the first frame ( not in animation mode ) adjust the materials and the lighting in Blender save this blender scene as myMaterialLibrary.blend delete all the objects except the lights save this blender scene as myEnvironment.blend close Blender
then in teleblender set "Render Engine" to "Scene file", and specify myEnvironment.blend as the scene-file which will be re-used and set "Process Materials" to "Use mat-lib", and specify myMaterialLibrary.blend as the materials which will be re-used and turn Off the Export lights option since we'll be using the ones in myEnvironment.blend export the animation use the animation-rendering .bat file to render all the frames
I finally got around to taking the same model I rendered before and rendering it again using an HDRI. Only problem was with Youtube's compression. It really messed up the video with the background in it. So, I put a link to the original AVI videos for others to look at uncompressed. There's a big difference in the quality of the original AVI and the Youtube version. I wish Youtube had quality streaming like Netflix.
I finally got around to taking the same model I rendered before and rendering it again using an HDRI. Only problem was with Youtube's compression. It really messed up the video with the background in it. So, I put a link to the original AVI videos for others to look at uncompressed. There's a big difference in the quality of the original AVI and the Youtube version. I wish Youtube had quality streaming like Netflix.
recently i tried adding a simple bump map like this one here
and it's very subtle but it does change the way the surface diffuses the light
it also seems to soften the shadow lines
in Blender if you reduce the "size" parameter of the lights, from 1 to .1 or from 0.1 to 0.02 it makes the shadows crisper
and probably improves the 'rim lights'
second bmp map is the same, but i ran a photoshop high-pass filter to remove the apparent tiling
but it's hard to handle, like on the bent shoulders that stretch the bump map
recently i tried adding a simple bump map like this one here
and it's very subtle but it does change the way the surface diffuses the light
it also seems to soften the shadow lines
in Blender if you reduce the "size" parameter of the lights, from 1 to .1 or from 0.1 to 0.02 it makes the shadows crisper
and probably improves the 'rim lights'
second bmp map is the same, but i ran a photoshop high-pass filter to remove the apparent tiling
but it's hard to handle, like on the bent shoulders that stretch the bump map
Am I doing something wrong or does teleblender not import bump maps
I can't seem to get it to work.
I thought I had it going once before.
It seems to work for objects and clothing but not for skin.
Even if I have a material library blend with the bump maps setup, they get removed in the import.
Am I doing something wrong or does teleblender not import bump maps I can't seem to get it to work. I thought I had it going once before.
It seems to work for objects and clothing but not for skin.
Thanks Greg
testing it ...
first make sure the bump map works in Daz Studio software render bump strength 100%, Max = 2cm
for my first test i used mcjTeleBlender's "collect maps" option which relies on Daz Studio's built-in exporter it correctly exported a copy of all the texture files into a Maps folder located where Daz Studio creates .bat, .py, .mtl and .obj files in my case I:\tmptmp\Maps in blender things didn't go well, textures were gone then i inspected the materials and saw that Blender was looking for them in C:/maps which is not the correct location i opened the scene.mtl file and saw that the image locations are specified like
newmtl Cloth_1
d 1
Ns 0.85
Ni 0
Ka 1 1 1
Kd 1 1 1
Ks 0 0 0
Km 0.00048
map_Kd /Maps/mcjsball2x.jpg
map_Bump /Maps/TankTop_Bum.jpg
in the past i'm pretty sure Blender interpreted this as meaning "the file is right here in this folder, in the Maps sub-folder" which in this case would be "I:\tmptmp\Maps" but recent versions of Blender seem to have changed ( probably with good intentions ) the way the obj/mtl files are imported and now Blender thinks \Maps means C:\Maps
my quick fix for this render was to copy the content of "I:\tmptmp\Maps" to "C:\Maps"
another way could be to not use the "Collect Maps" option because we then get MTL files which look like
newmtl Cloth_2
d 1
Ns 0.85
Ni 0
Ka 1 1 1
Kd 1 1 1
Ks 0 0 0
Km 0.00048
map_Kd I:/aoa/mcjHoney/New folder/mcjsball2x.jpg
map_Bump C:/Program Files (x86)/DAZ/Studio/content/Runtime/textures/Idler168/V4A4Clothing/TankTop_Bum.jpg
so the location of the image files are specified so precisely that Blender cant miss them
another patchy way of solving this would be to copy an old version of Blender's built-in obj importer and paste it over the one of your new version, ( the file C:\Program Files (x86)\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.71\scripts\addons\io_scene_obj\import_obj ) but that's not an ideal solution
--- Other things to look for ---
maybe none of the above applied to your problem
if your bump image is not a jpg file, but instead a tga for example try converting it to jpg , because Daz's exporter sometimes exports images as jpg and tells blender to use the .tga
also, if the bump file filename contains characters other than letters and numbers ( blank spaces, hyphens ) this may prevent Blender from finding it
and if the file is located in a folder with a 12 ft long path with spaces and things then you could try placin the file in a simpler location like C:\Users\YourNameHere\Documents\Maps
Am I doing something wrong or does teleblender not import bump maps
I can't seem to get it to work.
I thought I had it going once before.
It seems to work for objects and clothing but not for skin.
Even if I have a material library blend with the bump maps setup, they get removed in the import.
Thanks Greg
maybe Blender doesnt understand the word "map_Bump" anymore"?
looking into this ...
ok i found out Blender's mtl/obj importer only understands the word "Bump" not the word "Map_Bump"
and i think mcjTeleblender's "Fix .mtl for Blender" option is in charge of this
and is not doing its job anymore !
turns out that a few weeks or months ago i added the
/ in front of the /Maps/ paths because Blender 2.71 seemed to require it
but it was probably not the right thing to do
and in teleblender3 i dont see the code which made Blender happy
by replacing the word "Map_Bump" with the word "Bump" in the material file
just to make sure i'll do just that "by hand" right now ....
* i close Blender, open scene.mtl in wordpad,search and replace Map_Bump with Bump
* save
* re-open the scene by double-left-licking on scene.bat
Am I doing something wrong or does teleblender not import bump maps
I can't seem to get it to work.
I thought I had it going once before.
It seems to work for objects and clothing but not for skin.
Even if I have a material library blend with the bump maps setup, they get removed in the import.
Thanks Greg
Ok i located the problem
in a recent mcjTeleblender3 update it seems that i removed or sidelined
the function ( FixMtl ) which takes the mtl file produced by Daz Studio's exporter
and prepares it for Blender
if notably changes the word "Map_Bump" with the word "Bump" ... ( not sure 'bout that anymore )
it adds quotation marks around the paths to the images
one odd thing is that Blender doesn't seem to care about missing quotation marks for non Bump textures
----
the short version is that i'll have an mcjTeleBlender3 update this afternoon
UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE
- V 3.08 - V 3.08 - V 3.08 - V 3.08 - V 3.08 - V 3.08 - V 3.08 -
Only the script was updated, no need to touch blendbot
Apr 8, 2015, 12:54 PM
removal of the quotation marks from the .mtl file during the "FixMtl" call is now optional.
There is a checkbox in the "misc" section of the Third tab to re-enable it
Ok I think it's DAZ after all
I try and do a straight export of a gen 2 female and the only parts that get bump maps are the mouth parts.
All other parts get exported without the bump map.
Tried this with several different characters and that's as far as I got.
Any ideas anyone??
Ok I have worked out a way around it.
I have a blend file that originally had two characters in it.
I worked on the figures adding bump maps to improve the textures.
This was working fine. I then deleted one character from the blend file and tried to use it.
The problem was all the materials had names like Toenails_Vicky etc I then tried to import a single character scene which only had names like Toenails. Thus the Toenails_Vicky didn't match and my materials weren't being used.
Rename the Parts in the material blend file and it all works as expected.
I should have realised.
May help someone in the future though.
The direct DAZ export problems still remain though.
you could try some other random gray image as the bump map
and see if it's because the file is too big or the file-path is too long or contains 'illegal' chracters or is not in jpg format
note that teleblender is better at handling default daz materials
maybe maybe teleblender cant find the bump map in the skin shader
because the shader doesn't use the word "Bump" and Bump Strength
if you know how to do this, try replacing the shader with the default Daz Shader , or shaders that look like it
in the image below you can see how mcjBlendBot creates materials that include bump maps
it creates a multiplier node and plugs it to the displacement input of the output node
then it creates an image node and plugs it in the multiplier node
the UV map setup is possibly superfluous
i did a test just now and indeed the genesis 2 shader doesnt get its bump map transfered i will have a solution for this
i just have to teach teleblender how to find the bump map in that type of shader
------- if you look at the mtl file that gets exported from daz studio you can see that the daz studio obj/exporter supplies very little information about materials using this shader (omUberSurface)
mcjBlendBot was counting on the mtl file to contain the bump map but it's not there
mcjTeleBlender does look for bump map settings, but it too was counting on the exporter for the transfer of the bump image
the easiest option ( for me ) would be to change the surface shader to DS Default
but but, since this is 2015, i'll update mcjTeleBlender to work well with Genesis2 !
newmtl Legs
d 1
Kd 1 1 1
map_Kd C:/Program Files (x86)/DAZ/Studio/content/Runtime/textures/DAZ/Characters/Genesis2/BaseFemale/V5BreeLimbsM.jpg
tech note : the omUberSurface bump channel names are "Bump Active", "Bump Strength", "Bump Minimum", "Bump Maximum" Ds Default bump channel names are "Bump Strength", "Negative Bump", "Positive Bump"
In the upcoming version of mcjTeleBlender/mcjBlendBot when we detect the presence of a bump map we will transfer the bump map path and bump parameters using a statement in the scene.py file ( nope not by modifying the mtl file )
Hey , Im using blender 2.74 and daz Studio 4.7 , Everything is coming across purple , even when the maps are collected , I think blender does that when the textures don't get applied correctly , I could manually apply all the texture , but I guess that defeats the point of the scripts you wrote ? I am at a loss.... Has any one else got 2.74 working ?
This is the same with both Mk 4 & both Genesis types.
O.k , so basic primitives with your daz shader presets applied and lights and cameras come across perfect , which is amazing in itself !! but I can't seem to get textures transferring across on figures. Just all this crazy purpleness........mmmmh
the bump map once in Blender had a strength of 0.05 which looked too harsh on close-ups
so i reduced it to 0,02
but at a greater distance and with the jpeg reduction of crispness we don't perceive it much
now that the onUberSurface bump maps makes it safe and sound to Blender
i'll see if i can fix other issues
( the issue wherein, by default, Gen2 get zombie white eyes )
---
Fig 2 - ambient strength support added for shaders
O.k , so basic primitives with your daz shader presets applied and lights and cameras come across perfect , which is amazing in itself !! but I can't seem to get textures transferring across on figures. Just all this crazy purpleness........mmmmh
you could try yesterday's update of the mcjTeleblender script
just the daz script
( though later today the update will involve the mcjBlendBot kit of Blender scripts too )
Hey , I'll wait till later.... I'm in England so It's 1 o clock in the morning at the moment.... !! I was up to date on the scripts.. But still a whole lotta purple. I'll give it a go tomorrow and see how its working , Cheers buddy.
the omUberSurface shader uses "Active" on/off switches on many surface properties
and it so happens that the eye materials for genesis have 100% strength specular settings
.... but the "Specular active" switch says 'Off'
so to avoid white zombie eyes in Blender, mcjTeleBlender will now
be on the lookout for shaders with "specular active" switches
and act accordingly
that's a Blender Cycles render immediately after applying the Genesis2 Bree materials
the only tweak i did was to add 15% light-cyan Ambient light to the Irisses
You'll notice that the Bump map strength is too high,
on close-ups the skin looks like sandpaper
but i'll leave it to you to adjust it either in DS or in Blender
presently a Bump Strength in DS of 25%, Min/Max = -0.1, 0.1
in Blender becomes Bump Strength = 0.05
the formula i used BlenderStrength = DSMax - DSMin * DSStrength
note: sometimes the bump map effect is not very visible
BUT it can help hide the polygon edges !
Cycles is physically based and the angle between adjacent facets
of a figure can become apparent, notably on very long renders
where the render "noise" is not there to hide this
i wonder if a 0.25-pixel wide gaussian filter would be appropriate on that image to soften but not erase the bump effect
It's funny but I am pretty sure the normal map works if you have one for your character but not the bump.
It's tricky working with one API but you have two to deal with.
Yep I found that about .007 was good for skin but .02 works good for lips.
A bit of a side effect is you can get more noise with the bump map added with strong lighting but the results are way better.
I'll post some results soon.
I would love to sort out the eye reflection stuff. DAZ doesn't do the best eyes but they should be able to be better with cycles.
I am still trying to get my head around your eye reflection material.
BTW when you do the bump nodes in cycles I think you are supposed to set them as non-color data. Not sure what it does but I've heard it works better (according to Andrew Price and he supposedly got it from one of the devs)
mcjTeleBlender3.09 -
- now detects and sends Bump maps from omUberSurface shaders ( ex Genesis2 ) , also gets the the ambient channel strength.
- now takes the omUberSurface shaders "Specular Active" switch into consideration thereby solving the white zombie eyes issue ;)
mcjBlendBot V 11 -
now ready to receive and apply Bump maps which were not in the .mtl file
note that the April 8th version of mcjTeleBlender also contained a tweak
which may help cases where Blender can't find texture images
and they show up as plain magenta'ish color
if this problem still occurs, you can try
- turning On mcjTeleBlender's "no quotes in .mtl files" which is in the misc. section of the third tab.
- make sure the mcjTeleBlender's "fix .mtl for Blender" option is On
- make sure your figure doesn't use non-existant texture images
- you can look in the .mtl file ( mcjTeleBlender exports .obj .mtl .py and .bat files ) using a text editor you can see which image files mcjBlendBot did/will attempt to use. Sometimes the .mtl file says something like Maps/skinmap.tga when in fact the file in maps is Maps/skinmap.jpg and you'll have to fix that somehow.
- if the image filename or the path to its location contains non-alpha-numeric characters ( hyphens maybe ) this may be the problem. Sometimes the 'space' character is the problem ... well it's worth a try to rename the texture image.
Comments
Hi Casual.. I noticed what might be causing the problem.. On Auxiliary Options / Process Materials.. the save option is set for .blend and not .mtl?
When Blender opens the figure, the path for the specular textures are correct apart from a pink sheen across them .. when checked in the Node Editor the Diffuse path is unavailable resulting in the pink colour.
Very odd.. maybe the path saves from previous version are conflicting? no idea really :)
the settings are stored and retrieved by the Windows registry [ or the mac's equivalent ] in a section named mcjteleblender
but you would not really gain anything by deleting tke key values
mcjteleblender has a ''restore defaults'' button which puts it in the default state
=====
unrelated image
Hi Casual.. I did use the "restore defaults" but get the same results.. when I resort back to Version 2 all is fine.. Going to try using mcjBlendBot2 with mcjteleblender3.
That has solved the problem! by using the blendbot from version 2. BTW what is mcjShareTheTextures.py and should this be included in Modules folder?
I had the same confusion with mcjBlendBot .
The latest version of mcjBlendBot is for Teleblender2 and Teleblender3.
Hi Casual, and noticed that from DAZ version 4.5, you can export only the selected objects as objs.
Quite useful when working with mdd.
mcjShareTheTextures was made following a request
it's standalone
to run standalone python scripts in Blender
you open a Text Editor panel
then you load the script
then you click the Run button
------
i dont know if it still works but
it's supposed to merge together materials that use the same texture images
for example, all the body surfaces that use skin.jpg
Hi Casual:)
I'm using teleblender successfully in Blender 2.73a - working very well, thank you.
Qusetion on animation - I can export an animation and it makes an .obj per frame, but does not open Blender automatically. I can open Blender manually and import any of the singles frames, but can't figure out how to open the .obj sequence.
Any help, please?
when you use teleblender's 'export animation" button
teleblender exports each scene-frame as an .obj
and it creates a .bat file
if you double-left-click on that batch file
an invisible Blender will render each .obj/scene/frame
one after the other
which can take hours -
note that in teleblender before using the 'export animation" button
you must specify which frames are exported
and which frames will be rendered
-----------
when you use the teleblender's "export current frame" button
teleblender launches a ( visible) blender
it also produces a .bat file which could be used at a later date to
re-open the same scene in blender, independently from Daz Studio
-----------
i didn't write teleblender thinking i'd want to open individual animation frames in blender
but you could open the .bat is a plain-text editor like notepad
and you will see a series of text lines which look like
the number at the end is the frame number to render
the "-b" part is what causes blender to run in invisible mode and immediately render the frame
if you want to open frame 4 in Blender in Visible mode, and not immediately launch the render
then you could write ( with notepad ) a .bat file which looks like
---------
when i render animations, what i usually do is
use teleblender to render the first frame ( not in animation mode )
adjust the materials and the lighting in Blender
save this blender scene as myMaterialLibrary.blend
delete all the objects except the lights
save this blender scene as myEnvironment.blend
close Blender
then in teleblender
set "Render Engine" to "Scene file", and specify myEnvironment.blend as the scene-file which will be re-used
and
set "Process Materials" to "Use mat-lib", and specify myMaterialLibrary.blend as the materials which will be re-used
and turn Off the Export lights option since we'll be using the ones in myEnvironment.blend
export the animation
use the animation-rendering .bat file to render all the frames
Thanks for that detailed info :)
Being as curious as I am, I hit the .bat file and got this - only about 20 min.
Next time I'll do the whole process as you describe :)
http://youtu.be/7TeeYm3q0RY
I finally got around to taking the same model I rendered before and rendering it again using an HDRI. Only problem was with Youtube's compression. It really messed up the video with the background in it. So, I put a link to the original AVI videos for others to look at uncompressed. There's a big difference in the quality of the original AVI and the Youtube version. I wish Youtube had quality streaming like Netflix.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9mbWBj2TrM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJsjDvVyLDc
looks good to me !
recently i tried adding a simple bump map like this one here
and it's very subtle but it does change the way the surface diffuses the light
it also seems to soften the shadow lines
in Blender if you reduce the "size" parameter of the lights, from 1 to .1 or from 0.1 to 0.02 it makes the shadows crisper
and probably improves the 'rim lights'
second bmp map is the same, but i ran a photoshop high-pass filter to remove the apparent tiling
but it's hard to handle, like on the bent shoulders that stretch the bump map
Yeah, that bump map does help.
When I get a little more time, I'm wanting to try out this skin tutorial on Blender Cookie. http://cgcookie.com/blender/cgc-courses/skin-shading-cycles/ If I can apply those techniques to this model it should really add some realism. This one is free but it isn't as in depth of a tutorial. http://cgcookie.com/blender/cgc-courses/creating-a-realistic-head-in-blender/
Am I doing something wrong or does teleblender not import bump maps
I can't seem to get it to work.
I thought I had it going once before.
It seems to work for objects and clothing but not for skin.
Even if I have a material library blend with the bump maps setup, they get removed in the import.
Thanks Greg
testing it ...
first make sure the bump map works in Daz Studio software render
bump strength 100%, Max = 2cm
for my first test i used mcjTeleBlender's "collect maps" option
which relies on Daz Studio's built-in exporter
it correctly exported a copy of all the texture files into a Maps folder
located where Daz Studio creates .bat, .py, .mtl and .obj files
in my case I:\tmptmp\Maps
in blender things didn't go well, textures were gone
then i inspected the materials and saw that Blender was looking for them in C:/maps
which is not the correct location
i opened the scene.mtl file and saw that the image locations are specified like
in the past i'm pretty sure Blender interpreted this as meaning "the file is right here in this folder, in the Maps sub-folder"
which in this case would be "I:\tmptmp\Maps"
but recent versions of Blender seem to have changed ( probably with good intentions ) the way the obj/mtl files are imported
and now Blender thinks \Maps means C:\Maps
my quick fix for this render was to copy the content of "I:\tmptmp\Maps" to "C:\Maps"
another way could be to not use the "Collect Maps" option
because we then get MTL files which look like
so the location of the image files are specified so precisely that Blender cant miss them
another patchy way of solving this would be to copy an old version of Blender's built-in obj importer
and paste it over the one of your new version,
( the file C:\Program Files (x86)\Blender Foundation\Blender\2.71\scripts\addons\io_scene_obj\import_obj )
but that's not an ideal solution
--- Other things to look for ---
maybe none of the above applied to your problem
if your bump image is not a jpg file, but instead a tga for example
try converting it to jpg , because Daz's exporter sometimes exports images as jpg and tells blender to use the .tga
also, if the bump file filename contains characters other than letters and numbers
( blank spaces, hyphens ) this may prevent Blender from finding it
and if the file is located in a folder with a 12 ft long path with spaces and things
then you could try placin the file in a simpler location like C:\Users\YourNameHere\Documents\Maps
------
BUT WAIT
the bump map is still not there !
maybe Blender doesnt understand the word "map_Bump" anymore"?
looking into this ...
ok i found out Blender's mtl/obj importer only understands the word "Bump" not the word "Map_Bump"
and i think mcjTeleblender's "Fix .mtl for Blender" option is in charge of this
and is not doing its job anymore !
the case continues
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2gNV5l_seY
turns out that a few weeks or months ago i added the
/ in front of the /Maps/ paths because Blender 2.71 seemed to require it
but it was probably not the right thing to do
and in teleblender3 i dont see the code which made Blender happy
by replacing the word "Map_Bump" with the word "Bump" in the material file
just to make sure i'll do just that "by hand" right now ....
* i close Blender, open scene.mtl in wordpad,search and replace Map_Bump with Bump
* save
* re-open the scene by double-left-licking on scene.bat
it didn't work !!!
maybe them suspiciously missing quotation marks?
Ok i located the problem
in a recent mcjTeleblender3 update it seems that i removed or sidelined
the function ( FixMtl ) which takes the mtl file produced by Daz Studio's exporter
and prepares it for Blender
if notably changes the word "Map_Bump" with the word "Bump" ... ( not sure 'bout that anymore )
it adds quotation marks around the paths to the images
one odd thing is that Blender doesn't seem to care about missing quotation marks for non Bump textures
----
the short version is that i'll have an mcjTeleBlender3 update this afternoon
by default, mcjTeleBlender3 will now, leave quotation marks in the .mtl files
even when the "Fix Mtl for Blender" option is used
but in case this is required for other situations ( some software do like their filenames unquotemarked )
there will be a checkbox to re-enable quotation marks removal
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stay tuned, the update is coming up next
UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE
- V 3.08 - V 3.08 - V 3.08 - V 3.08 - V 3.08 - V 3.08 - V 3.08 -
Only the script was updated, no need to touch blendbot
Apr 8, 2015, 12:54 PM
removal of the quotation marks from the .mtl file during the "FixMtl" call is now optional.
There is a checkbox in the "misc" section of the Third tab to re-enable it
https://sites.google.com/site/mcasualsdazscripts4/mcjteleblender3
This should fix the cases where the bump maps didnt make it to the blender scene
( though i didn't ascertain why it didnt affect other maps )
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tip : to make the shoes brighter i set their diffuse color value ( HSV ) to 1.33 instead of the usual 1.0
Thanks heaps for that.
Downloading update now
oops i just realised i made all my tests in DS3 !
i'll make sure it works in DS4.7, DS4.8
looks like it does !
photo of a slice of breas applied to a Daz Studio primitive-sphere
DS4.7 - 64bit - Blender 2.71 - 64bit
Ok I think it's DAZ after all
I try and do a straight export of a gen 2 female and the only parts that get bump maps are the mouth parts.
All other parts get exported without the bump map.
Tried this with several different characters and that's as far as I got.
Any ideas anyone??
Ok I have worked out a way around it.
I have a blend file that originally had two characters in it.
I worked on the figures adding bump maps to improve the textures.
This was working fine. I then deleted one character from the blend file and tried to use it.
The problem was all the materials had names like Toenails_Vicky etc I then tried to import a single character scene which only had names like Toenails. Thus the Toenails_Vicky didn't match and my materials weren't being used.
Rename the Parts in the material blend file and it all works as expected.
I should have realised.
May help someone in the future though.
The direct DAZ export problems still remain though.
THanks Greg
you could try some other random gray image as the bump map
and see if it's because the file is too big or the file-path is too long or contains 'illegal' chracters or is not in jpg format
note that teleblender is better at handling default daz materials
maybe maybe teleblender cant find the bump map in the skin shader
because the shader doesn't use the word "Bump" and Bump Strength
if you know how to do this, try replacing the shader with the default Daz Shader , or shaders that look like it
in the image below you can see how mcjBlendBot creates materials that include bump maps
it creates a multiplier node and plugs it to the displacement input of the output node
then it creates an image node and plugs it in the multiplier node
the UV map setup is possibly superfluous
i did a test just now and indeed the genesis 2 shader doesnt get its bump map transfered
i will have a solution for this
i just have to teach teleblender how to find the bump map in that type of shader
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if you look at the mtl file that gets exported from daz studio
you can see that the daz studio obj/exporter supplies very little information about materials using this shader (omUberSurface)
mcjBlendBot was counting on the mtl file to contain the bump map but it's not there
mcjTeleBlender does look for bump map settings, but it too was counting on the exporter for the transfer of the bump image
the easiest option ( for me ) would be to change the surface shader to DS Default
but but, since this is 2015, i'll update mcjTeleBlender to work well with Genesis2 !
tech note : the
omUberSurface bump channel names are
"Bump Active", "Bump Strength", "Bump Minimum", "Bump Maximum"
Ds Default bump channel names are
"Bump Strength", "Negative Bump", "Positive Bump"
In the upcoming version of mcjTeleBlender/mcjBlendBot
when we detect the presence of a bump map
we will transfer the bump map path and bump parameters using a statement in the scene.py file
( nope not by modifying the mtl file )
Hey , Im using blender 2.74 and daz Studio 4.7 , Everything is coming across purple , even when the maps are collected , I think blender does that when the textures don't get applied correctly , I could manually apply all the texture , but I guess that defeats the point of the scripts you wrote ? I am at a loss.... Has any one else got 2.74 working ?
This is the same with both Mk 4 & both Genesis types.
O.k , so basic primitives with your daz shader presets applied and lights and cameras come across perfect , which is amazing in itself !! but I can't seem to get textures transferring across on figures. Just all this crazy purpleness........mmmmh
it shpuld be ready this evening
here's a render
the bump map once in Blender had a strength of 0.05 which looked too harsh on close-ups
so i reduced it to 0,02
but at a greater distance and with the jpeg reduction of crispness we don't perceive it much
now that the onUberSurface bump maps makes it safe and sound to Blender
i'll see if i can fix other issues
( the issue wherein, by default, Gen2 get zombie white eyes )
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Fig 2 - ambient strength support added for shaders
you could try yesterday's update of the mcjTeleblender script
just the daz script
( though later today the update will involve the mcjBlendBot kit of Blender scripts too )
Hey , I'll wait till later.... I'm in England so It's 1 o clock in the morning at the moment.... !! I was up to date on the scripts.. But still a whole lotta purple. I'll give it a go tomorrow and see how its working , Cheers buddy.
the omUberSurface shader uses "Active" on/off switches on many surface properties
and it so happens that the eye materials for genesis have 100% strength specular settings
.... but the "Specular active" switch says 'Off'
so to avoid white zombie eyes in Blender, mcjTeleBlender will now
be on the lookout for shaders with "specular active" switches
and act accordingly
that's a Blender Cycles render immediately after applying the Genesis2 Bree materials
the only tweak i did was to add 15% light-cyan Ambient light to the Irisses
You'll notice that the Bump map strength is too high,
on close-ups the skin looks like sandpaper
but i'll leave it to you to adjust it either in DS or in Blender
presently a Bump Strength in DS of 25%, Min/Max = -0.1, 0.1
in Blender becomes Bump Strength = 0.05
the formula i used BlenderStrength = DSMax - DSMin * DSStrength
note: sometimes the bump map effect is not very visible
BUT it can help hide the polygon edges !
Cycles is physically based and the angle between adjacent facets
of a figure can become apparent, notably on very long renders
where the render "noise" is not there to hide this
i wonder if a 0.25-pixel wide gaussian filter would be appropriate on that image to soften but not erase the bump effect
It's funny but I am pretty sure the normal map works if you have one for your character but not the bump.
It's tricky working with one API but you have two to deal with.
Yep I found that about .007 was good for skin but .02 works good for lips.
A bit of a side effect is you can get more noise with the bump map added with strong lighting but the results are way better.
I'll post some results soon.
I would love to sort out the eye reflection stuff. DAZ doesn't do the best eyes but they should be able to be better with cycles.
I am still trying to get my head around your eye reflection material.
BTW when you do the bump nodes in cycles I think you are supposed to set them as non-color data. Not sure what it does but I've heard it works better (according to Andrew Price and he supposedly got it from one of the devs)
UPDATE - UPDATE - UPDATE - UPDATE - UPDATE - UPDATE - UPDATE - UPDATE -
April 9th 2015 11pm
mcjTeleBlender3.09 -
- now detects and sends Bump maps from omUberSurface shaders ( ex Genesis2 ) , also gets the the ambient channel strength.
- now takes the omUberSurface shaders "Specular Active" switch into consideration thereby solving the white zombie eyes issue ;)
mcjBlendBot V 11 -
now ready to receive and apply Bump maps which were not in the .mtl file
note that the April 8th version of mcjTeleBlender also contained a tweak
which may help cases where Blender can't find texture images
and they show up as plain magenta'ish color
if this problem still occurs, you can try
- turning On mcjTeleBlender's "no quotes in .mtl files" which is in the misc. section of the third tab.
- make sure the mcjTeleBlender's "fix .mtl for Blender" option is On
- make sure your figure doesn't use non-existant texture images
- you can look in the .mtl file ( mcjTeleBlender exports .obj .mtl .py and .bat files ) using a text editor you can see which image files mcjBlendBot did/will attempt to use. Sometimes the .mtl file says something like Maps/skinmap.tga when in fact the file in maps is Maps/skinmap.jpg and you'll have to fix that somehow.
- if the image filename or the path to its location contains non-alpha-numeric characters ( hyphens maybe ) this may be the problem. Sometimes the 'space' character is the problem ... well it's worth a try to rename the texture image.