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Honestly, I haven't found anything that is as easy to use as Carrara, or that has a similar interface (I have Raydream, but really only started using Carrara with version 2). I know at least couple of Carrara users "graduated" to Modo, but it's pretty pricey. I've gone to using Daz Studio for figure centric renders, and Blender for other things (though I have used DAZ figures a couple of times in Blender, but they weren't the focus). It's a bit of a learning curve for Blender, and some things are kind of a pain compared to Carrara (like using DAZ figures, and even simple things like rotating a texture), but other things are a dream compared to Carrara. Sculpting and painting in Blender is miles ahead of Carrara, fluid and cloth simulation are also better. Eevee is simply awesome and Cycles is great as well. You will need to learn to use nodes for shaders, but that's pretty common with most render engines now. Speaking of render engines, there are a lot of external render engines with plugins for Blender if that's your interest, including Vray, Renderman (Pixar), ProRender, etc. One big plus for Blender if your an animator, there are a lot of render farms that support it. There are also a lot of great plugins for Blender that extend it's functionality too.
To lower your learning curve and the associated pain, I would suggest doing a course or two on Blender (I got a couple of courses from Udemy that helped, cgcookie.com also has a lot of Blender tutorials, ans seems to be a popular choice). There are a lot of good free tutorials on YouTube if you want to learn for free. They can be a bit hit or miss though. Blender 2.8x is so much easier to learn than previous versions. I was actually able to start using the sculpting tools within a half hour of first working with it (I'd opened earlier versions and given up in frustration). The modeling tools are really good, but are different than Carrara's, so that will take a bit of learning and getting used to as well. There are some modeling specific add on's that can really speed up modeling if you model a lot. IIRC there is one similar to Architools. There is also one that will easily import DEM's if you used Ground Control in Carrara (BlenderGIS).
Overall, I'm quite happy with Blender. There are some things that I still think are not as easily done as in Carrara, but I'm quite happy that I moved on. IMHO it's hard to beat the features and "power" of Blender, especially once you consider the cost. I'm so happy with it that I will sign up for the monthly membership to help support development when finances get better. Even though Carrara still works in Win10, since DAZ stopped development I was always worried when the day would come that it would no longer work in the latest OS (like what has happened in your case). I was surprised how happy and relieved I was once I realized Blender could replace Carrara. Evidentially the lack of development was bothering me more than I realized.
I would say give Blender a serious try. While it's not initially as intuitive as Carrara, Blender 2.8 really isn't that difficult. The biggest thing will be figuring out how to do things in Blender similar to what you were doing in Carrara.
Yes, Cycles can do out of core rendering, I've done it. But I'm pretty sure there is no drop back to CPU option (but I could be 100% wrong).
Thanks nicstt and mindsong, i'll check it out! I appreciate the feedback :)
Keith
@andya It looks like a regression that behaviour you get was before the fix. Going to check the particles hair and eventually bug report it. Thank you for pointing this out.
@JClave Please keep us up to date with your progress. Having mdl support in cycles will get us the uber shader right into blender that's amazing to convert daz assets.
I suppose I would have to always enable both; I could do that I suppose and just limit it's thread useage.
Thanks nicstt and mindsong, i'll check it out! I appreciate the feedback :)
Keith
I have another weird question, hopefully someone can answer it whenever they have time. No rush.
Is it possible to export a figure (with clothing, hair etc) from Studio to Blender either poseable through Diffeomorphic or simply as a static OBJ, subdivide it in Blender and do detailed and high-res sculpting or morphing on it, and then send it back to Studio - and this is the important part - as a static OBJ (I know it can't be sent back as a morph) but with the UVs and surfaces intact so that textures can be reapplied? If so, could someone kindly describe any important steps for doing so? Thank you very much in advance.
@SnowSultan Here's a possible workflow, if I understand what you need.
1) Subdivide your figure in daz to the desired resolution then convert to prop.
2) Export the obj and do your sculping in blender. Do not modify the topology.
3) Import back as morph in daz.
Hm, I've always understood that you're supposed to export a figure from Studio at the base resolution for morphing. What you're describing sounds like the way to make the HD morphs that everyone says can't be made without vendor tools.
I don't care if the figure is poseable when it gets back to Studio, but I want to be able to sculpt high resolution detail and deformations on the mesh while in Blender and not get the limited, more blocky D-former-like results we get when we create morphs the usual way. Hopefully I'm being clear enough and sorry for any misunderstanding.
it is
as long as you're not changing the uvs, then even with extra geometry you could at least just copy and paste the surfaces settings from daz to the re-imported model.
If you already know how to do morhps, then you're there.
Just import the obj, as opposed to using Morph Loader Pro
I've stopped rendering in Studio though, I just do renders in Blender (usually Cycles), but have used Eevee.
For morphing yes; if you're using the sculpted model as the render object then it doesn't matter; as long as you're not changing the UVs, it should be relatively painless.
I have not been able to successfully bring a morph back to Studio using any of those methods (I think someone said that Studio and Blender use different subdivision methods which make it impossible to do at anything other than base resolution), but sending it back as a static prop does retain the UVs (after some export fiddling) and textures can be reapplied. Thank you for the information.
You do need to keep the geometry the same; the only thing you're allowed to do when creating morphs is change the position of the individual vertices.
Delete a vertices, then add one, and chances are it would break because the reference numbers (for want of a better term) get messed up; this is even though it still has the same number of vertices.
Right, but the last part of Padone's comment above made me think that we could subdivide a DAZ figure, export it, morph it at a higher resolution, and then import the changes back as a morph as long as the subdivision levels matched up. I probably just misunderstood.
I have another issue with this exporting-as-a-prop method, sorry to have to ask again. When the static figure gets back to Studio, the UVs are intact, but because it's an OBJ, all of the clothing and hair surfaces are now mixed in with those of the skin texture and MATs can no longer be used. Exported OBJs are always single objects, correct? Should I use a different format for exporting in order for the different 'figures' (hair, clothing) to remain separated (but still static objects)? I did try FBX briefly, but the scalp of the hair didn't export correctly.
Thanks in advance.
That might relate to the HD stuff being worked on?
I'd export back as selected objects: figure, hair, (maybe brows, lashes but depends), individual clothing items.
I re-created a prop in Blender, and all the walls, doors etc were together; it was relatively straightforward to seperate them and then add shaders and tweak to my liking.
I mean I always tweak in studio, so the only loss in time between Studio and Blender is setting up the shaders/settings for whatever I move.
Once I've done that I create a .blend file with just a particular item in it; i can then easily append it if required again.
The benefit, I seem to get faster renders, and I don't have to use Nvidia cards when I finally decide to upgrade. As I've posted previously, my Threadripper renders faster in 2.83 than my 980ti, and as Blender does out of core, if I fancy doing I can use both for a good speed increase and with then no issues of not rendering due to not enough RAM. I tend to use card only during scene setup, hell I'm rarely happy with a render anyway, so final renders are really moot.
@andya @nicstt Thomas fixed the particles hair now it works again in 2.8.
https://bitbucket.org/Diffeomorphic/import-daz/issues/108/particles-hair-doesnt-work
Cool, thank you.
@Padone (or anyone else)
Im trying it now, but is it possible to convert an object hair exported and imported?
Oh, and do you know if the change to hair is available yet?
@nicstt Just download the development version it includes the fix. As for converting an exported hair yes it's possible by using the hair cap as "human" as explained in the docs. That's what I did when I tested the toulouse hair with 2.8.
http://diffeomorphic.blogspot.com/p/hair.html
Cheers; I'm already using one, so will get the latest.
Hello guys, I have disappeared some days as I lost my job last week and I was trying to figure out whats next.
For those who downloaded the new blender 2.83, is a stupid question but I am not able to bevel an edge , is for a studio lighting, I used to do that in 2.82a easly and now I am not able to do a simple task like that, can somone help with this ?
This thread is facinating, but does anyone have any renders to show us? I'm interested in seeing if Daz characters look good in Blender.
I'm still working on getting my err well workflow right.
I was comparing times in the two render engines: Iray and Cycles - as best that can be, and one of these images is Iray, the other Cycles. I'm wanting an idea of times to ensure I'm not actualy wasting my time moving to Blender; although there are other benefits, Rendering outside of Iray is a main one for me. Cycles also does out of core rendering, meaning I can use CPU and GPU and not worry about textures etc fitting on the graphics card.
They aren't the same, but are fairly close.
The one posted in this post is far fewer samples but run through the denoiser (Intels), and there is nothing to distinguish the results (in Cycles) other that slight artifacts around the green ball mainly. My issue with Iray's and Cycles denoiser is they suck at skin; the Intel one does a much better job, amazing one actually. It also works on AMD, Nvidia and AMD and Intel CPUs.
Renders are faster using my CPU than the 980ti, which is why I was using it.
I'll post an example when I got one finished. :)
Thank you for these, nicstt! Would you be able to post a comparison of just the character? I'm curious how Cycles does in relation to Iray in terms of realism.
Can anyone point me the the blend file for the reference scene, please? Or is it just the reference scene converted via Daz Importer?
@Leonides02 The diffeomorphic plugin converts iray materials as they are so you will not get more realistic materials with it. Especially for skins the uber shader is translated as is. The blender way to do things is very different since cycles gets a dedicated sss solution.
So to compare cycles with iray in terms of realism it makes sense to use plain cycles materials instead of materials converted from iray.
So is there a workflow to convert it to cycles materials at the moment, or is it still in research?
I say this, as person who has completely migrated from Maxon C4D to Blender 2.8x for Genesis clothing content creation animation/VFX rendering.
Daz inc has provided an unmatched combination of Hi definition ,purpose built models and materials for still portrait renders in NVIDIA IRay.
Yes,some feel that Cycles offers them an alternative to Having to buy expensive graphic Hardware from NVIDIA, and while this is technically true the Daz Genesis 8 still portrait renders wont look any better in Blender cycles than in DS IRay with native Iray Materials and in most cases the IRay renders will likely Look better from experienced Daz studio users.
And the Volume Based SSS Skin shaders, created by the Diffeomorphic, plugin and 4-8K textures will likely kill any speed advantage that cycles has over IRay on the same hardware and when you factor in all of the Additional labor (documented in this thread) your time savings compared to rendering in Daz studio are even less
IMHO The biggest advantage of moving to Blender based pipeline is that blender is a full professional level 3D/CG/VFX suite for content creation, Game development, and animated filmmaking particularly with the REALTIME EEVEE engine.
But for still portraits etc Daz studio remains the better option IMHO.
I converted it manually I think; I'd have to ask if the distributer of said file minded. I'll ask the originator of the file - just as soon as I can find their name.