Export and import dForce dreadlocks hair from DAZ to Blender

kim.devylder

Hi there,

I have been spending days trying to export a Genisis 8.1 figure with a simple walking animation (from Mixamo) and Mehrloc Hair dreadlocks (https://www.daz3d.com/mehrloc-hair-for-genesis-8-and-81) from DAZ to Blender.

In Daz the hair is simulated and animates nicely, reacting to the walking animation. Now I am trying to get this to Blender

I tried the Daz To Blender bridge, the Diffeomorphic DAZ Importer and exporing/importing fbx files.

The only way I am able get the figure with the animation and hair from DAZ to Blender is by experting exporing/importing an fbx file.

However the physics on the hair do not work in Blender.

Is there a way to transport the hair animation to Blender? 

Preferably also with the Beads in the hear which also animiate incorrectly (you can see them floating arround in the gif above) but I've been spending so much time on this I'm willing to just remove them from the figure.

Thanks!

TheMysteryIsThePoint

This is exactly the scenario for which Sagan might be your best option.

kim.devylder

TheMysteryIsThePoint said:

This is exactly the scenario for which Sagan might be your best option.

Thanks! I'll give that a try if I can figure out how.

TheMysteryIsThePoint

Sagan: A DAZ to Blender Alembic Exporter

You can look here for help.

Padone

I agree with Donald, if you animate in daz studio with dforce and want to export the exact same animation to blender then go for alembic with sagan. As for diffeomorphic that's to export and animate in blender, though it can import some animation from daz.

kim.devylder

Thanks al lot for your replies. I will surely give Sagan a try. It can take a while, it's a hobby project. I'll provide feedback here.

kim.devylder

I'm a bit of a noob so it took a while for me to figure out which exact directory to download (I downloaded the sagan-source-2.0.0.tar.gz file and ended up looking for a .dll file that wasn't there) and how to use it but eventually I managed to make it work.

Looks great! 

The animation is correct, the dreadlocks animate nicely. The beat animate with the hear but seem to be slightly off in some frames.

However, I dont see any textures in Blender. In the Sagan Alembic Exporter window, in the "Materials" tab "Write Texture Maps" is checked. A "textures" folder containing texture jpgs is created. Materials are created in Blender and assinged to the objects but they use the basic surface settings, no nodes.

Did I overlook anything or am I supposed to build the material nodes manually in Blender?

Anyway, I am impressed and very happy I am finally able to export my figure to Blender.

TheMysteryIsThePoint

@kim.devylder

Unless you are a developer, you don't want the source.

"The beat animate with the hear but seem to be slightly off in some frames." - I'm sorry, I don't understand. But I think you might need to change the Blender FPS (probably 24) to match the DAZ Studio FPS (probably 30).

The "Write Texture Maps" options is only for when you want to rebuild the textures completely in Blender. It just saves all the texture maps, named so that you can figure out what is what. Probably not what you want.

As for textures, the Alembic format does not support textures. It will, however, preserve the material slots. I think what you want to do is to deselect "Write Texture Maps" and instead select "Use Diffeo Materials". This will cause Sagan to name the Blender material slots in such a way that if you export with Diffeo first, and then import the Alembic file, the Alembic objects will "inherit" the superb Diffeo converted materials. You can then delete the Diffeo objects, if you don't need them.

I haven't tried it in a lone time, but it used to be the case that the Diffeo materials would reference its own normal maps, and wouldn't work when the materials were applied to the Alembic object. So when "Use Diffo Materials" is selected, Sagan will also create a script in the scripts directory to correct the normal maps on the Alembic objects.

Lastly, Sagan also creates a script in the scripts directory to rename the Blender material slots to more meaningful names, based on the material group name in DAZ Studio.

Lets move any further conversation to the Sagan topic.

kim.devylder

TheMysteryIsThePoint said:

@kim.devylder

Unless you are a developer, you don't want the source.

"The beat animate with the hear but seem to be slightly off in some frames." - I'm sorry, I don't understand. But I think you might need to change the Blender FPS (probably 24) to match the DAZ Studio FPS (probably 30).

The "Write Texture Maps" options is only for when you want to rebuild the textures completely in Blender. It just saves all the texture maps, named so that you can figure out what is what. Probably not what you want.

As for textures, the Alembic format does not support textures. It will, however, preserve the material slots. I think what you want to do is to deselect "Write Texture Maps" and instead select "Use Diffeo Materials". This will cause Sagan to name the Blender material slots in such a way that if you export with Diffeo first, and then import the Alembic file, the Alembic objects will "inherit" the superb Diffeo converted materials. You can then delete the Diffeo objects, if you don't need them.

I haven't tried it in a lone time, but it used to be the case that the Diffeo materials would reference its own normal maps, and wouldn't work when the materials were applied to the Alembic object. So when "Use Diffo Materials" is selected, Sagan will also create a script in the scripts directory to correct the normal maps on the Alembic objects.

Lastly, Sagan also creates a script in the scripts directory to rename the Blender material slots to more meaningful names, based on the material group name in DAZ Studio.

Lets move any further conversation to the Sagan topic.

 

Thanks again. 

Indeed, importing the Diffeomorphic exported object in Blender first, followed by the object from the Sagan Alembic exporter resulted in populated material slots.