Introducing the Daz to Blender Bridge & native Blender File Formats

DAZ_Jacob

The most versatile 3D Library just got a whole lot bigger. 

Daz 3D is here to help you make amazing 3D artwork. That’s why Daz is excited to announce The Daz to Blender Bridge and native Blender File Formats! To continue to make morphable, mashable, and photo-realistic 3D models even more available for digital artists, we’ve developed two new ways to take your 3D content with you, wherever you work.

Daz Bridges 

The new Daz to Blender Bridge is ready to transfer your Daz Characters into Blender. This cross-platform port fully converts the rigging, textures, and character functionality that you expect from Daz to get your 3D characters ready for an exciting new adventure.

How it works

Daz handled the complicated stuff like rigging, polygons, and textures. Daz Bridges do all the hard work so all you need to do is:

• Download

  • Download Studio for free, and get automatic access to Daz to Blender Bridge (also free!).

• Build

  • Explore over 30,000 items to find your perfect product. Then use Studio’s built-in sliders, morphs, smart content and auto-fit to make your perfect character.

• Transfer

  • Once your character is ready to go, open your Daz Bridge and import your project to your 3D software simply, quickly and easily.

• Finalize

  • Put in the finishing touches - pose, animate, render!

File Formats

Daz is also announcing File Formats, a new effort to share sensational 3D characters, props, poses and environments with the entire 3D art community! File Formats unlock a brand new world of Blender content for you to explore..

3D Artists prefer Daz because we offer content like you’ve never seen, with built-in functionality that takes your 3D art to the next level.  What can you build with the most versatile 3D Library?

The Daz to Blender Bridge

Need Help? See the Help Center.

Learn More about Daz Bridges, File Formats, and how you can create amazing 3D artwork. Your 3D Universe is waiting… what will create with tens of thousands of new 3D models at your fingertips?

TheMysteryIsThePoint

If the Blender versions of these assets have native Blender materials, Daz is going to make a killing bringing their value proposition to Blender, and they're going to deserve every penny.

But the most interesting thing about this post? :)

https://www.daz3d.com/shop/#filter_compat_software=3ds%20Max%5EBlender%5ECinema%204D%5EMaya&filtered=1

Who knew.

 

TheMysteryIsThePoint

I clicked on one of the products and looked at the file list. There's no .blend file. How is this then a "native" Blender format? How are the materials converted, because Daz to Blender is not particularly good at converting materials.

mike_from_nz

TheMysteryIsThePoint said:

I clicked on one of the products and looked at the file list. There's no .blend file. How is this then a "native" Blender format? How are the materials converted, because Daz to Blender is not particularly good at converting materials.

Ahh you answered my question, do they come in .blend.

MelanieL

Have you looked in your Product Library (under your account here)? The products from that list (at least the ones I own and checked so far) have Blender downloads which contain .blend file and texture maps.

benniewoodell

So I just have come across another issue that has been happening a lot in the past two hours. It seems every single item of clothing I'm picking for my character, once I try to import it into Blender it comes up saying it's not supported because it's too skin tight? That's eliminating like half of what I have it seems, I don't know if that's something on the radar or not, but because the scaling is different from importing another way (I had the DTB model and an import from Diffeomorphic as I was going to just do the old parenting switcheroo and the Diffeomorphic import was like a small ant compared to the DTB), I can't even import what I want on another character and just parent it to the daz to blender import. I hope this is something that gets addressed in a future update. 

TheMysteryIsThePoint

MelanieL said:

Have you looked in your Product Library (under your account here)? The products from that list (at least the ones I own and checked so far) have Blender downloads which contain .blend file and texture maps.

Oh thank you, @MelanieL, the product page must be just out of date. I'll look!

TheMysteryIsThePoint

MelanieL said:

Have you looked in your Product Library (under your account here)? The products from that list (at least the ones I own and checked so far) have Blender downloads which contain .blend file and texture maps.

Well, I just purchased something inexpensive just to see, RDNA GroundCovers Vol 1,  and no .blend was included. Some objs and materials, but that is not a native file format. I was ready to by a vacation house, but now that my $2.99 was wasted...

Padone

For a start the G8F pack doesn't come in blender format, at least I don't see it in my downloads. I guess they need some time to settle things up. Nevertheless the new direction is exciting. Providing content not only for daz studio but for all the main platforms out there does sound amazing. I am also very glad that they included blender.

I guess we also have a clue now what they were working on and why the daz studio log wasn't updated for so long.

Let's see what it will be.

Artini

Thanks for the heads up about the different file formats.

I have checked https://www.daz3d.com/operation-theater

and it has Blender and the other file formats.

Wow, this is great. Well done Daz.

Artini

and another, older item from the former RDNA

https://www.daz3d.com/rdna-mushrooms-vol-3

CypherFOX

Greetings,

Is this a round-trip bridge, like the Hexagon one was?

I used to use the Hexagon bridge *constantly* to smooth out models, and build morphs with the smoothed fixes, until Hexagon broke on my Mac.  (Not 64 bit.  :sobbing-face:)

If it is a round-trip bridge, I _VERY_ much want to see the source code, because I want to build something like that for...other modelers.  Specifically Silo, if it's at all possible.

I'm looking forward to the source drop...

I just wish someone had already built the various DAZ import libraries that I'm having to write manually in C#...but that's a different story.

--  Morgan

 

nonesuch00

Well great, Blend Files but rather than redownloading or manually downloading blend files I'd like Blender to be added to DIM application path, and a DIM Blender download path, and a Blender Content Library Path and Blender specific Install ZIPs for our existing products that have .Blend files available. That'd be totally awesome.

Paintbox

nonesuch00 said:

Well great, Blend Files but rather than redownloading or manually downloading blend files I'd like Blender to be added to DIM application path, and a DIM Blender download path, and a Blender Content Library Path and Blender specific Install ZIPs for our existing products that have .Blend files available. That'd bew totally awesome.

+1

 

Artini

There is even one, older poseable figure - https://www.daz3d.com/scraac

so hopefully it will animate in Blender

drinformation

Since I use daz connect only, Have to wait for the manual installation guide, please put that on the top priority.
I wonder, is this bridge two ways? can I bring back the modified assets from blender to do the rest and rendering in daz?

Richard Haseltine

CypherFOX said:

Greetings,

Is this a round-trip bridge, like the Hexagon one was?

I used to use the Hexagon bridge *constantly* to smooth out models, and build morphs with the smoothed fixes, until Hexagon broke on my Mac.  (Not 64 bit.  :sobbing-face:)

If it is a round-trip bridge, I _VERY_ much want to see the source code, because I want to build something like that for...other modelers.  Specifically Silo, if it's at all possible.

I'm looking forward to the source drop...

I just wish someone had already built the various DAZ import libraries that I'm having to write manually in C#...but that's a different story.

--  Morgan

No, it's strctly DS to Blender I'm afraid.

jochensutter

Is it not possible to load poses to the G8 figures in blender?

Emo Sludge

It looks like Mitchy made a guide for using the new daz3d version of his plugin here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/16helhf0K9RDGt_45rvoG1fy8rXG0JXNI/view?usp=sharing

a lot of useful but hidden features in there!

jochensutter

Emo Sludge said:

It looks like Mitchy made a guide for using the new daz3d version of his plugin here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/16helhf0K9RDGt_45rvoG1fy8rXG0JXNI/view?usp=sharing

a lot of useful but hidden features in there!

Thank you very much ????

benniewoodell

Emo Sludge said:

It looks like Mitchy made a guide for using the new daz3d version of his plugin here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/16helhf0K9RDGt_45rvoG1fy8rXG0JXNI/view?usp=sharing

a lot of useful but hidden features in there!

Thank you for posting this, I'll take a look later this afternoon!!

benniewoodell

Artini said:

 

Artini said:

Hi @Artinni, thank you for bringing this to our attention, this is AWESOME!! Granted it took me like 50 items in my product library until I found a blend file, but the Industrial Garage looks fantastic :D I'm sure it'll be a gradual upgrade of everything in the store, so I shall sit tight in anticipation for the environments I want to use to show up whenever they do. 

And I couldn't wait until after I finished work to look up that manual and there are some tips in there that I never would have known about otherwise. I think one of my big problems could be solved already with this tutorial being the huge file sizes, I'll have to try it and see. 

nicstt

jochensutter said:

Is it not possible to load poses to the G8 figures in blender?

It is if you use the Diffemorphic script; works well too.

benniewoodell

nicstt said:

jochensutter said:

Is it not possible to load poses to the G8 figures in blender?

It is if you use the Diffemorphic script; works well too.

If you look at the manual posted above, it tells how to import poses!

almahiedra

Questions:

1. Will all the DAZ Store, or at least a big part of the DAZ Store, be converted to File Formats?
2. Can non DAZ store products be transferred by the pluging?
3. Can the shaders be transferred? In that case, is it worth transferring the shaders?

benniewoodell

GiGi_7 said:

Questions:

1. Will all the DAZ Store, or at least a big part of the DAZ Store, be converted to File Formats?
2. Can non DAZ store products be transferred by the pluging?
3. Can the shaders be transferred? In that case, is it worth transferring the shaders?

I imported a product that was not from Daz on a character last night a-okay. And with shaders, it seems to transfer everything for the most part. Some hairs are coming in blonde when I have them black in Daz, but then I just go into the shader nodes and turn off the alpha and subsurface nodes and it goes back to being black. Pretty much any shader you want to use, you could put it in the shading editor itself. You could just find where the textures are and open them in the image texture nodes that transfer over. I too am curious about the products in the store all being converted as well. 

DaremoK3

* Just a heads up for those who don't use DIM :

The Manual Download and Install Files are available at Daz3D's Github page

I downloaded them yesterday and tonight manually installed and had a play with default Genesis 8 Female  --  DS Script exported fine, and Blender imported G8F.

SadRobot

DAZ_Jacob said:

File Formats

Daz is also announcing File Formats, a new effort to share sensational 3D characters, props, poses and environments with the entire 3D art community! File Formats unlock a brand new world of Blender content for you to explore..

Is Daz in the process of converting these still, or is the current back-catalog of .blend file content all we’re going to see (besides new releases henceforth)?

Thanks.

almahiedra

benniewoodell said:

GiGi_7 said:

Questions:

1. Will all the DAZ Store, or at least a big part of the DAZ Store, be converted to File Formats?
2. Can non DAZ store products be transferred by the pluging?
3. Can the shaders be transferred? In that case, is it worth transferring the shaders?

I imported a product that was not from Daz on a character last night a-okay. And with shaders, it seems to transfer everything for the most part. Some hairs are coming in blonde when I have them black in Daz, but then I just go into the shader nodes and turn off the alpha and subsurface nodes and it goes back to being black. Pretty much any shader you want to use, you could put it in the shading editor itself. You could just find where the textures are and open them in the image texture nodes that transfer over. I too am curious about the products in the store all being converted as well. 

Thanks. I used blender once following a tutorial, so I need to know if to learn blender (and python blender) worth it.

benniewoodell

GiGi_7 said:

benniewoodell said:

GiGi_7 said:

Questions:

1. Will all the DAZ Store, or at least a big part of the DAZ Store, be converted to File Formats?
2. Can non DAZ store products be transferred by the pluging?
3. Can the shaders be transferred? In that case, is it worth transferring the shaders?

I imported a product that was not from Daz on a character last night a-okay. And with shaders, it seems to transfer everything for the most part. Some hairs are coming in blonde when I have them black in Daz, but then I just go into the shader nodes and turn off the alpha and subsurface nodes and it goes back to being black. Pretty much any shader you want to use, you could put it in the shading editor itself. You could just find where the textures are and open them in the image texture nodes that transfer over. I too am curious about the products in the store all being converted as well. 

Thanks. I used blender once following a tutorial, so I need to know if to learn blender (and python blender) worth it.

I personally think it is worth it. Daz can do some amazing things, and I use it for a lot of my still work, but I always find there's something I need from Blender, and animations I do in Blender as well. Also, if you don't have the best computer to render, you can use render farms with Blender without a problem. Also there's Eevee, which is the real-time renderer, which the trick to make those renders look great is lighting more than just with an HDR. Put some point lights up, maybe a sun on top of it, pretty much over expose it and then when you bring it into photoshop and play with it, it's going to look awesome. 

Watch some tutorials from Blender Guru, CG Geek, Aria Faith Jones, and Royal Skies LLC (the last two are who I get the most info for what I need, but typically Blender Guru and CG Geek are the ones everyone starts off with) and once you get the hang of it, you'll wonder how you've lived without it. 

glaseye

TheMysteryIsThePoint said:

Well, I just purchased something inexpensive just to see, RDNA GroundCovers Vol 1,  and no .blend was included. Some objs and materials, but that is not a native file format. I was ready to by a vacation house, but now that my $2.99 was wasted...

They do show up in my product library, the 'original' file + 4 new ones for blender, C4D etc.. I can't tell if they show up in DIM, as I don't use that.