DAZ vs BLENDER... Help me understand
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Greetings folks... please be gentle as I am struggling to get my brain wrapped around all this...
So I've been dabbling around with Daz for maybe 18 months now. I have a pretty decent set of assets, plugins etc etc, and just enough skill to make me dangerous to myself.…
But it seem like, whether it is the new Filament render thing, Spring Dynamics, or folks just looking to get a new non-Nvidia GPU, somebody always chimes in with some sort of, “I do all my rendering in Blender”, “That feature has been around for like, 8 years in Blender”, or “Blender is just so much more versatile than Daz”.
Ok…
I’ve bitten on the hype, and downloaded Blender and have gotten maybe halfway through making that freakin’ donut 4 or 5 times…
But I am not getting it. Hear me out, and correct me (gently) if I am wrong but here is how I see it.
DAZ is like a big toy store.
I get the GI Joe with the Kung-Fu Grip (G8M) just for walking in the store. Then I skip over to the stuff/Theme Aisle and pick up “Mission to Spy Island Bundle” which has a cool inflatable boat, black spy outfit, Silenced P-38 etc. Then I stroll over to the Scene area and pick up the Cave Island. I hit the register, run home and dump it all out on my floor. I assemble the pieces I want where I want them and take a picture (Render).
BLENDER
When I open up blender…
It seems like, “Here is a lump of sculpty clay, a pair of scissors, and a handful of pipe cleaners… you can make some really cool stuff with this that is even better than what you can find at Toy Store, but you gotta make a donut first to be worthy."
Yes, I’d love to make a medieval inspired backpack that is friendly to being opened and closed, and I would love to have animations with smoky fires etc etc… but how the heck is that happening? Do I have to spend thousands more in another store? Just poking around, I see I can get a Horse Pro Model for only $249. And, at least the toilet seats are cheaper than government ones… they're are only about $30 just for a toilet (not an entire bathroom scene, just the toilet).
Now I see there is a DAZ to Blender Bridge… but what does that even mean? Does it just import Characters like G8Fs or can I import any of my $1000s of Props/Scenes/Materials too?
Do I set up my scene as my GI Joe Example above in Daz and then hit a button and it magically goes into Blender were I hit another button to Render it or ????
Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.
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Can someone just make a *good* youtube tutorial for all of these people explaining setting up diffeomorphic etc. Save everyone a lot of time.
If Daz Studio is a toy store, then Blender is a toy factory. Just depends what you want to do. :)
I do like your analogy. It works well. It isn't quite "set up in Studio and click magic to Blender". Do it is very close.
daz to blender bridge just imports people, and not very well when I tried it. If you use the diffeomorphic plugin, you can import full scenes you set up in DS to render in blender, add particle effects or many of the other things possible in blender.
https://diffeomorphic.blogspot.com/p/daz-importer-version-15.html
That's the plugin, be sure to look at the blog archive section on the right hand side for a ton of info on it as well.
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/436402/diffeomorphic-daz-importer-version-1-5-0-release-candidate/p1
Diffeomorphic thread here
Agreed. Depends on what you want to do. At some point, you may want to fix your character's hair because it does not look right in DAZ. So, export to blender, make a morph, and load that morph back into DAZ. And then, the character's hips don't quite look right in that pose. Export to blender, move the vertices around, and import the morph back into DAZ. Now you want your character sporting a Illudium PU-36 Space Modulator, but it does not exist for DAZ. Go into blender, model and texture, then bring it back into DAZ. Then, your character gets tired and wants to sit down. Now we need to edit the character and the chair to emulate real world interactions between the two. How? You guessed it, Blender.
At some point you may think - wouldn't this be easier if I just brought the character into Blender?
DAZ and Blender are just tools we use to create our end product. Use DAZ, start supplementing with Blender, and then migrate over to Blender if you want to. If DAZ lets you create what you want without having to learn Blender, then go for it. The only person you have to satisfy is yourself. DAZ is easy to use but limited, Blender is harder to use but much less limited in what it can do.
Just my $0.02.
Your analogy is a good one. I think anyone would agree that Blender is extremely powerful, but it is a greater time investment than Daz Studio.
I criticize Daz Studio a lot, but I never speak poorly of the framework that allows us to leverage all the hard work that the PAs have already done for us... I think the Genesis framework is pure genius.
But @Chumly has hit upon another Daz thing: The value it brings. There is just no other way you could get a character of Daz's quality for the price Daz asks. The same is true to a lessser extend for assets.
So, it is very important to be able to bring these things with us into Blender. To do that, I use three different tools: OBJ export, Sagan, and Diffeomorphic Daz Importer.
First, OBJ import. This will introduce you to some important concepts that the other methods will reference.
You import an object into Blender. It will be rotated, mirrored, scaled 100 times too big, the normals will be flipped, and the materials will not be very good. All but the last are trivial to fix:
In Object Mode with the imported model selected, "r x -90" will correct it. (I think it is x, it might be y or z.)
From the Object menu, "Object, Mirror, Global Y" will correct it. (I think it is y, it might be x or z)
In Obect Mode, "s .001" will fix it. Hit "." on the numpad to re-frame your newly shrunk object in the viewport again.
Find the overlay drop down in the upper right of the viewport, and select "Face Orientation". Your object, if being viewed from the outside, will be all red. This is bad. Hit a to select all the geometry, and from the Mesh menu, select Mesh, Normals, Flip. Your object should be all blue now. Hit tab again to go back to object mode, and turn Face orientation back off.
For materials, your object from Daz is probably already UV mapped, and the Wavefront file format will have done its best to preserve the materials.
If any of the the object's materials are a fuschia color, it just means that the paths in the mtl file that the obj file used were wrong. Hit the "Shading" button all the way at the top, and you'll see the nodes for the object's current material slot.
You'll probably see several orange Image Texture nodes. Click on the file icon and make sure the file it is referring to actually exists in that location. If not, fix them one by one for each map in all the object's material slots.
Trust me, the nodes are something that, if it seems difficult at first, will pay you back a hundredfold the time you expend to grok them. Trust me... nodes are ubelievably amazing. They can do much more than just assign materials.
While you're doing this, start to think about what all the inputs to the Pricipled BSDF shader node might mean. Some are obvious, some are not. Instead of complaining insessantly that nodes are hard, which isn't going to make you any better at it, go into Cycles and turn knobs and levers, seeing the results. Watch all the youtube videos linked from blendernation.com as you have time for. It'll all slowly start to make sense.
At this point, you might be able to achieve the results you want by using cheap/free native Blender materials from Quixel Bridge, Poliigon, Blenderkit, BlenderMarket, or magnanimous souls from Blendernation.com that offer their PBR materials for free. Importantly, every time you have a Eureka moment when you got a material to look the way you want, append it into another blend file that will serve as a repository for all your materials so you can reuse them.
Next up is Diffeo. With literally two clicks, you'll probably have your basic character (not HD, no geografts, Iray materials) in Blender. Others may have to correct me on this, if I misspeak.
If you have any instances, convert them with the Instance to Object addon. Make sure your scene file is saved. I just unzip the diffeo file somewhere, go to the script interface, load the "export-to-blender" script, and execute it. The Daz side is done.
In Blender, I go to "Edit, Preferences, Addons" and locate the diffeo zip file (it may be inside the zip file you got from the diffeo site) and install it. Always be in Cycles render mode (not EEVEE), go to File, Import, and select the duf file. After a fashion, the entire scene will most likely have been imported. If the original Daz model used IRay materials, and you didn't forget to switch to Cycles (you can edit your startup file), Diffeo does a pretty damned good job at converting materials... Thomas and our very own @Padone have really done a remarkable job. I understand that it has two modes of operation: One that creates a custom node setup, and another that uses the Principled BSDF. I don't know under which circumstances either is better.
You'll probably want to merge all the rigs, and load the default JCMs.
The better you understand all the node types and what they do, the better you'll be able to tweak things to your liking. I Highly recommend the Cycles Encyclopedia to know basically how a ray tracer actually works, you don't have to read the whole thing. And more importantly, there's an ebook called the Cycles Node Encyclopedia or somethimg similar, that describes each node in detail. THIS IS THE SINGLE GREATEST THING YOU CAN DO to unlock Blender's power. Complaining that nodes are hard (not that you did) won't do much to make anyone better at them, but mastering a node every few days will. Just experiment and you brain will internalize your findings if you play around enough. Blendernation.com is a good place to find links to tutorials on nodes, as well.
This is where you'll pay the majority of your Blender dues in your time invested, but I'll bet dollars to donuts that this is also where the Blender Bug will bite you and you'll end up loving tweaking things.
The last tool that I use is one that I'm writing, with the help of others. Sagan is an Alembic exporter for Daz Studio that is "Blender Aware" in many ways. Check out the link in my signature for that thread, to see if it might be useful to you.
Between these three tools, I've got nearly my entire Daz catalog in Blender, now, and use a combination of Daz imported content (because it's cheap and usually pretty good), native Blender assets from various sources (generally better quality, but more expensive), things I've kitbashed myself in Blender (it's a world class modeling environment, but again, you have to put in the time... but it's so fun it won't seem like work), and things that I modeled from scratch.
I find myself just wholesale converting assets... just loading EVERYTHING into a Daz scene and converting the whole shebang. Just get the objects into blender, adjust the materials, and then organize them so I can kitbash them later.
To answer this question directly, for everything that I want to do, the Diffeo plugin is far superior to Daz To Blender. Particularly materials conversion. It is pretty close to the magic you describe.
Seriously. I would watch/buy the crap out of a complete nuts to bolts Diffeomorphic Udemy course. I am using Daz To Blender bridge daily but I know Diffeomorphic would be better but there is so much to sift through to try to learn it from user posts and misc videos. It seems like it can do almost anything... but I am a bit rabbit-hole fatigued.
Ok, so, I'm thinking about it. Can we get some ideas on what we would want to see in a tutorial? What are must haves? How should it be divided to make it easier to use?
Daz give you pre-built assets so you don't have to build your own in blender/AutoDesk/Maya, build a character from scratch is a very very complicated thing in any 3D modeling/sculpting tool, 1st detailed human model, then realistic texture & shader, and most complex of them all, a fully functional skeleton and muscle/skin bending system, to morph them is even more headache,
Daz’s large character library & morphing tool solved this problem , that’s why so many artists don’t model anything anymore but just to purchased a morphed character into blender and poish them farther to do their creation.
a lot of models they sell online are pretty overpriced so be wary. but there are plenty of good free sites. check out 3dmodelhaven.com/models and blenderkit.com
For example, a free rigged cat from blenderkit that I modified
Mysteryisthepoint
I'm gobsmacked! Thanks for the expanation! I will certainly give it a go!
Krampus
The main thing for me, as a beginner, is that folks that know enough about a program or asset of a program to do a tutorial have forgotten what it is like to be new and clueless to the program. I can't tell you how many TUTs I've seen where, you are trying to do action "E", but, in order to get to "E" you need A, B, C and D first. They just kinda -"Click - Click - Click" through A to D, rambling on about something and, I am like, "Wait, how did you get that screen open?" Espcially if there are a bunch of Keystroke shortcuts involved. Its best, at least for me, when the TUT Master says...
"Ok, in order to get to the Thingyboby screen where we will add wings to the football, you need to take your mouse over to the the Top left corenr and click on "File", then move your mouse down to "Open" and after clicking that the "Fabulous Wing Maker Screen" will open up..."
@Chumly Personally I use daz studio to export assets to blender with diffeo. I agree daz gets a great shop. That's why diffeo is so dedicated and does its best to import assets complete with rigs and materials. Also more advanced features as geografts, shells, HD, SBH (in the latest update), LIE and even instances are supported quite fine, together with lights and cameras to import scenes and environments.
Also @TheMysteryIsThePoint provides a good alembic exporter that works fine with diffeo. And @JClave is working on z-Cycles to fully support the uber shader. Then @jcade and @Krampus contributed to the HD exporter. Not to talk about @engetudouiti at diffeo that's another great help for rigs and tech things in general. So diffeo is really a community supported software and that's also the beauty of it.
http://diffeomorphic.blogspot.com/2020/11/strand-based-hair-for-real-this-time.html
https://bitbucket.org/Diffeomorphic/import_daz/issues/268/sbh-hair-error
@lilweep @Krampus As for a diffeo series on youtube, the thing is that diffeo is evolving so fast that documenting it is a job by itself. Writing manuals and doing videos takes time. Thomas does a fair job documenting new features in the user guide or in the blog. But we're lucky that his passion is coding rather than documentation. I myself have little time lately, and when I have some I like exploring for improvements or new features rather than docs. So yes diffeo could definitely benefit from someone who likes making good docs and tutorials. I can help with advice for what I know.
Everything is said :)
Indeed I feel like there is a missunderstanding. People are not using Blender instead of Daz to do specific things but most likely work with both. Daz is a very powerful software dedicated to pose 3d model. The store is offering quality assests and you can acheive beautiful render quickly and easily. Most of daz users don't feel the need to go further and prefer to focus on posing and rendering. But for any other task you will want to get your hands on, for example modeling, you will want to use an other software because Daz is not made for that. That's where Blender comes in. But you could use other 3D soft, cinema4D, maya, 3dsmax ... The only reason you've maybe heard more about blender is because it's free and there is huge community around this soft who are ready to help.
Unfortunately, these software are much more complicate to lurn compared to Daz. You will have to spend a lot (and I mean A LOT) of time on blender if you want to know how it works. The donut tutorial is just an introduction to the software.
The instructions work very well.
There is at least one thread here detailing them with screenshots.
Lot, lot more work creating the vid than setting Diffeomorphic up.
Something guaranteed to cause issues.
- If you use different files in Studio than the extention in Blender, then you are going to have said issues.
Download the zip file.
Install in Blender (if you don't know how - go learn Blender).
Find the Diffeo Tab (DAZ Importer), set up paths - Global Settings > Paths.
In the zip file, you'll find the Studio files - copy them to studio.
My recommendation.
First, ensure there is nothing else in the scene. Load a figure; don't add morphs, don't add a pose; also leave without clothes or hair.
Save as Scene.
Turn off sub d resolution.
Save the file using the Diffeo script.
Then import the scene file using the plugin.
If it loads correctly, chances are excellent that you have everything set up correctly.
Start small.
Just import a figure, no hair, clothes, no pose. If it imports, things are looking good. (Do NOT click in the 3d space.) A to select all, with mouse pointer in 3d space. In the DAZ Importer tab there will be something to Merge Rigs. It's the Corrections dropdown, and get used to doing that IMO.
Select the rig (bone thingies), and change to pose mode (will probably be in Object Mode), once a bone is select try G (grab) or R (rotate), then move the mouse a little; the figure should deform with the skeleton; i then right click to cancel. (That might be left click by default as I have Right click set as select, which is how Blender used to be - and is how I prefer so changed it from default. Blender asks you iirc which you want.)
I do similar to the above every time I install a new version of Diffeo - just to be sure installation went ok.
I don't export whole scenes, if i want to use props, (be it a lamp or a whole room), I export those seperately and save in a seperate .blend file; they can then be appended to my current project.
I export figures, depending on what clothes I'm using may depend on if they are naked or partially/wholly clothed.
I have hair files set up; just with a hair in them, which have been converted to Blender's particle system. I use whichever I want, or find anther to export.
Make sure hair has a scalp, if not create one from G8 (or whetever G you're using), or borrow one from another hair.
There is some upfront work getting a prop/selection-of-props ready, but regardless of when it is done, it still needs doing.
So was the Geograft export removed from Diffeo? It's a while since I used it but I thought Thomas also added HD? Or are you saying that these added extras will takje a few more clicks?
I meant that I didn't know how well they worked, nor how many clicks it would take. I don't use geografts nor HD.
I must thick, because I've never been able to get this to work. Not once. I tried this again. All it does is rotate the entire V8 figure I imported.
@brainmuffin
I also find it useful to use rxx, ryy, and rzz (local rotations) for the equivalent of bend, side-to-side, and twist that one is used to in Daz Studio.
So very true and could not be better explained. All the models & props in the Daz TOY Store where created in a 3D modeling app like Blneder, Silo, Hexagon, Lightwave, ZBrush, 3DCoat, Modo, 3DMax, etc.
There are tons of free & paid Blender Addons (Boxcutter, Hardops, KitOps by the incredible Chipp Walters, Fluent, Quad Remesher, etc) that make modeling easier.
One of the appeals of Blender is the cycle rendering engine which is much better at handling large scenes. Except for e-onsoftware's ecosystems, Blender could give Vue a run for it's money for rendering. And Blender is FREE and well worth the effort of learning.
I may have finally been able to do this correctly.
Yup that's it; I should have highlighted/capitalised or something the Pose Mode instruction in my instructions, sorry bout that.
Now I have to learn how to pose in Blender.
I suggest, importing poses at first.
It lets you get used to tweaking and creating a pose library and saving tweaked poses.
Select the rig, and place in Pose Mode - it's ready for tweaking then. Either select all the bones (A), or none of the bones (A for me); (can't remember what the default deselect is as it used to be A and I prefer it like that, so changed it).
Import a Pose by navigating through the Diffeo menus; then select a pose like you would in Studio. The pose will them be applied.
You can navigate to the pose section in Blender (image 2), and to Pose Library. There is unlikely to be one, so create one and then save pose you imported, which was applied to the figure. (You'll notice that image two example contains a pose library with one pose saved.)
If you want to reset (image 3) to A/T pose - Pose > Clear Transform (then all or whatever you want to reset).
NOTE: if you import a figure in another other pose than default (A/T) then that pose will be the default, and will make importing poses difficult - to put it mildly.
NOTE2: when saving poses, if only some bones are selected, then only those bones are saved to the pose; if you update a full pose with only some bones selected you will in affect remove most of the pose as only those selected are saved.
I'd reccommend messing about with poses, importing, creating libraries, and saving and applying poses to get used to them.