Daz/Zbrush/C4D workflow

stevenmenegozzi

I am new to Daz 3D and wondering how I can create a workflow using Daz, Zbrush, and Cinema 4D. I love that Daz allows you to import fully rigged characters into Cinema. Ideally, I would get a rigged character from Daz, customize it in Zbrush, and then animate and render it in Cinema. How could I do this while maintaining the rigging from Daz?

hzr

Not really great with c4d and daz. Better use maya instead, since that is the only software I can think of that imports the correct joint alignments how they are in DS. Been working with C4D for an eternity and Daz has not yet succeeded or bothered to fix the fbx exports so that C4D would read the files correctly and import it with proper alignments. So if you plan to use corrective morphs for bending etc in C4D, it will not properly work cause all the alignments are wonky. Exports from iclone work with C4D and correct alignments, so the problem is on DSside, not C4D.

I hoped they would finally fix this when the bridge was announced and the new devs seemed very motivated to do so, but yeah... it seems the sheriffs have long left the town again.

If you do not care to use the JCM morphs from DS and sculpt your own, then it should work rather easily, but will of course be very labour intensive since you will have to create all the fix morphs manually for each joint, and setup the whole rigging for things like facial joints moving in combination with morphs etc. You might learn alot doing this so might be worth a try. I know I would if I had the time, but sadly that is not the case right now :)

As for the rest of the workflow. It all works. The connection between ZBrush and C4D works just as well as GoZ with other apps, so the main issue is sadly the connection between DS and C4D. But I would really not get my hopes up. I have been using C4D for around 12 years with Daz figures and those issues have been present ever since. Only way to get things over to C4D with all the fidelity from DS is to animate/pose in DS, then send it over via OBJ for static poses and Alembic for animation.

But have fun animating with DS when you really come from a professional application ;)