How to import a rigged model into DAZ Studio? Need help ASAP!

[Chosen Few]

OK, this is not an SL question, but I've spent the last 9+ years answering enough SL questions that hopefully that can be forgiven.  I know there are DAZ Studio users here, and I urgently need your help. 

Before I explain the question, let me first say I have already asked over at the DAZ forums, but so far nobody there has been able to provide an answer.  I'm hoping someone here might be able to step up. :)

OK, here's the situation.  I’ve been hired at the 11th hour to create a ton of content for a project already far along in development.  For reasons I really can’t get into here, the project is married to DAZ Studio, as the hub of its animation and rendering pipeline.  If I could work entirely in Maya, as I normally do, there would be no problem, of course.  But the fact that I need to bring everything into DS is proving to be crippling.  I've hit a wall.

When I try to import a rigged model (made in Maya) into DS, I get an error, saying: “Rigging limitation: bones without root skeleton”.  The skeleton, although fully listed in the scene pane, is invisible in the viewport, and does not deform the object when bones are rotated.

If I export an existing DAZ character to FBX from within DAZ Studio, open it in Maya, re-export to FBX, and then re-import to DS, it works just fine, so it’s clear that there’s no direct lack of Maya/DS interoperability.  However, if I bind anything else to that same character’s skeleton in Maya (such as a pair of pants I made, for example), I end up with the error in DS.

I’ll be damned if I can figure out what’s different about DAZ’s pre-existing rigging from my own rigging.  Within Maya, everything appears to be rigged identically.  What am I missing?

 

The people on the DAZ forum have tried to steer me towards tutorials on how to rig within DS itself.  Nobody seems to know how to bring in an already rigged model.  The bottom line on this is I don’t have time to re-rig a million models internally inside DS, when they’re already rigged in the standard manner to be compatible with nearly every other 3D modeling platform, animation program, and game engine on this planet.

I have to believe it can be done.  Frankly, it would be beyond ridiculous if the program can’t understand something so utterly standard and simple as a basic skeletal bind.  There’s got to be a way.

Thanks in advance for any help.

[Medhue Simoni]

It's likely that anything I say is not going to help you, especially if the people on Daz's forum weren't much help. I've recently had the exact same problems, as the character I wanted to use was created in Maya. I even got Maya, just the free trial, to see if I could figure out what the problem was. I get exactly what you describe. So, much like yourself, I'm stuck on that project and basically had to abandon it, for now. The good thing was that is was only 1 of my own projects and not for a client.

You tho, have a number of options. The 1st, of course, is to create the whole rig in Daz, which might sound like a nightmare, but Daz is quite fun to play around with. A better option would be to use an existing Daz skeleton and use the transfer utility tool in Daz to transfer the Daz skeleton onto your model. This is literally a couple of clicks and you are done. Plus, your new character can utilize all the features that the Daz characters have, without any headaches. You will likely need to clean up some weights, but even that's not a big deal in Daz. You might need to make sure the model imports with the right size and rotation to do this correctly.

Now the last option I don't know much about, other than I've seen it done and this is how all Daz's crazily morphed characters are make, but this requires Zbrush, or possibly using Hexagon. Like I said, I don't know how to do this or much about it. This might also require the same typology as the Genesis character, so an existing model, that is not made from Genesis, might not work. What do I know tho? Basically, you can take your model and have Genesis morph into it. You'll have to ask in the Daz forums or get some info from Daz's PDF files.

Of course, the best way would be to not have to do anything of this and just import your model. I'd still hunt around, as I agree with you that it should be possible. If you find out how, please post it here, as it would help me with my own project.

On a side note, if your people need an animator, I'm extremely proficient in Daz and Poser. Plus, I've been taking on more and more jobs in both of them lately.

 

[Medhue Simoni]

Oh, I forgot 1 option that might be viable. If you can export your rigged model in a Poser cr2 format, it will import into Daz perfectly. I'm not sure how you might do that tho, lol.

[Chosen Few]

Thanks, Medhue.  I'll take a look at that transfer tool.  That might do the trick.

 

For now, there's no animation work needed, but for the next phase, there might be.  The trobule is the next phase won't happen if the aforementioned super tight deadline is not met.

[Medhue Simoni]

Here's a video for that tool, just so you don't have to find it.

[Chosen Few]

Thanks so much for your help, Medhue.  The transfer utility did the trick for me, since all the assets in this phase of the project are humanoid.  Just transfer from the Geneisis figure each time, and it's gold.  Whiule it's obviously nowhere near as elegant as simply importing the model with its existing rigging, it'll do, and I think we're in good shape on our deadline at this point. 

Just so you know, nobody on the DAZ forums was able to come up with this suggestion, and neither was anyone at DAZ itself, when I called them.  You saved the day, man.

[Medhue Simoni]

That's great to hear, Chosen! The Transfer Utility tool is a great feature and I've recently used it to turn normal clothing into ripped up and stretched out clothing for an animation project. The great thing about you using the Genesis skeleton is that it uses TriAx Weighting, which will allow you to create customized morphs. I have a tutorial on doing this, and I'm sure it will come in handy later on.

On a similar note, if you need non-human skeletons to do the same thing, Daz has a number of animals you could do the same thing with. Some of these are free too, including a lion, horse, cat, dog, and a dragon. I'm sure these are a bit more tricky than doing it with Genesis, but it's possible. Keep in mind, irreguardless of how they are weighted, you will want to convert these to TriAx Weighted, for all the morphing options that I mentioned earlier, which is literally a few clicks also.

That's crazy they didn't mention Transfer Utility, as it's the first thing I thought of. Have fun, Chosen!

Here's my tut on making morphs, as I'm sure it will be useful. Oh, and I suck at making tuts, but hopefully I'll get better at it.

[Gaia Clary]

hi, Chosen;

I am curious about how you initially tried to transfer the rigged characters to DAZ. Did you use Collada by chance ? If so, then there is an issue with Maya's Collada export which indeed creates rigs with no root. However there is an easy fix that needs to be applied to the collada-file.

[maxciri]

http://i.imgur.com/x6xDWHY.jpg

 

Hi there. I register exclusively for this topic.
First of all, I apologize to you, so bad I'm writing in English (using a translator).
My goal is to use a character from "poser" and import it into DAZ Studio. This character is the Grey Alien.
When I import the character into DAZ STUDIO, the rig is disproportionate, as rotated (not all bones, but some). I am a newbie on the 3d, to understand what happens. With my poor English, I can realize that you are giving a solution for it ... and I was wondering if you would be able to explain to me how to fix this error.

http://i.imgur.com/gG5cOp1.jpg

Thanks a lot.

[Medhue Simoni]

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maxciri wrote:

http://i.imgur.com/x6xDWHY.jpg

 

Hi there. I register exclusively for this topic.

First of all, I apologize to you, so bad I'm writing in English (using a translator).

My goal is to use a character from "poser" and import it into DAZ Studio. This character is the Grey Alien.

When I import the character into DAZ STUDIO, the rig is disproportionate, as rotated (not all bones, but some). I am a newbie on the 3d, to understand what happens. With my poor English, I can realize that you are giving a solution for it ... and I was wondering if you would be able to explain to me how to fix this error.

http://i.imgur.com/gG5cOp1.jpg

Thanks a lot.

---

How are you importing the character into Daz? I would think that the proper way to do this would be to import the cr2 file. Daz excepts cr2 files. What you can also do, is import your whole Poser library into Daz, by using the feature in the Content window.

[maxciri]

Cr2 and load the files from the poser's library, is exactly the same result. some parts of the rig, are turned, or broken.

I have also tried to import a BVH (previusly exported from POSER). The same error.

The solution you were talking about before, can he fix it?

[Medhue Simoni]

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maxciri wrote:

The solution you were talking about before, can he fix it?

---

Yes, it worked for Chosen, but this is not the same as what you are doing. Chosen was using the same Genesis body, which he needed to attach a head to and then reimport back into Daz. He doesn't mention that here.

I suspect that your problem is bone lengths. Somehow they get changed, at least from what I remember from the image. I wonder if you couldn't just change the bone lengths.

[maxciri]

I am afraid that is not a problem of the length of the bones. It is rather the direction of the bone joint.

If you'd like, I send the character somehow, and you check in DAZ.

Thanks