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DAZ Studio 4.0 SL compatible?


Calico Carissa
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I was a big fan of dazstudio years ago. Recently, I got the 4 version and played around with it creating videos. I just popped it open to see if all the animation stuff is still compatible with exporting. I already imported lots of mocaps when I played with it for the videos, but never tried to export anything.

Ok, you have to import the SL Avatar and animate on that to be able to export it and work. Use the avatar_mesh download that you can get from LL, and import the cr2 file. Daz might not find the object, so you might have to find it for them. Once you are done with the animation, just export it and make sure Secondlife Compatibility is checked. Oh, and don't forget to leave the first frame as a T, or at all zeros. You might be able to export an animation off the Genesis character, but you will have to set up the export of the bones right. Simply checking the Secondlife Compatibility box will not give you something you can use in SL.

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Hi Calico

I've used DS3 for years and it's fully compatible.  Puppeteer is especially useful for producing nice animation loops, bu they can be a bit glitchy.  Poser uses spline interpolation between frames and is smoother. I just got DS4 which I reall think is a big improvement on DS3, especially the Genesis character.  I haven't yet tried out the animation system so I don't yet know if it's any better than DS3.  But jeez, you can get the base program for free so give it a try.

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I made this video with daz, not even a month or so ago. This is a mocap and lip syncing test I did. The motion capture is all stuff that I made for SL. None of the motion was even editted. I just imported the mocap and applied the lip sync. The first 1 is actually my voice, and the rest are preinstalled voice overs. This was just a test, so I didn't want to spend too much time on it.

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i thought you could do your aniimation then export the bvh file. i guess not. there is a module for the conversation to second life that works for 3.0. i havent used it myself. DAZ doesnt give much information about second life and bvh.

i didnt know you could load the second life model objects as avatars into DAZ. wouldnt it make the convertor to second life sort of useless? rightt now i am trying with 4.0 and genesis but i think my 3.0 and 4.0 got messed up.  i can find my vic 4 now.  i have one model thatt is 3.0 that i use for testing. but i would rather see genesis and have animations even though you cant use it in sl.

i talk to poser developers at siggraph a few years ago. they werent interesting in make game stuff.  the thing, if we can make a model in DS 4.0 and put in animation and then export fbx, and dae that would make me happy for right now.

maybe i should go into DS 3.0 /DS 4.0 and remove everything and start all over again, including my vic/mic 4.0 and then rest of the stuff i have.. then i can be certain what i have.

 

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You can make animation in DAZ Studio 4 and export as bvh to SecondLife, but you must use the SecondLife avatar with the SL rigging. Although you can make animations with Genesis first, be prepared for major adjustments for the SL avtar before output to bvh.

When it comes to exporting DAZ Studio models to FBX and DAE, you are not allowed to do that unless you have purchased a gaming license and I am not even sure they would sell you that for use in SecondLife. 

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Hi Calico,

If you want a free, quality software for 3D content creation, including animation, you might want to try Blender.

About animation using Blender latest version, you could take a look here:

http://community.secondlife.com/t5/Animation-Forum/Blender-Animations/td-p/1291429

I hope this might be of help in your software search :)

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Daz has an what seems to be a great user interface, once you take the time to learn it, but man is it difficult to learn how to save your presets, character models and animations. Is it possible to keep this as an SL thread for DAZ Studio users?

 

I have it and would definitely like to get to know how to use it better but DAZ Studio's tutorials are horrible. I know the bvh files are read in second life, but they do not even show you how to save, create your own presets, and load work that you left off. With out knowing how to save and load the proper files with second life's Avatar mesh, I lost all point in messing with it, for now.

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Once you import the SL avatar cr2, then choose the obj file. Delete the Genesis figure and Save it as a Scene. You can load a scene at any time. I would create a new scene for every animation. To save a pose, you goto file/save as/pose preset, or you use the icon in the tool bar, which is called Pose Animate Presets. Saving presets can get very tedious, choosing all the bones that get saved, but it is easy to go back and make presets later. The cool thing is that when you make a preset you also take a picture of it in the view port. Going back and seeing the actual pose in the picture is handy. Plus, you can save sets of frames. The hard part is finding those in that thing they call an inventory. It is crazy, lol. The only thing that really keeps me from using it, is the playback rate. It is choppy cause it is made to record high quality video. Maybe there is a way to change the playback rate, but I've not found it. Editting motion capture requires you to see every frame, or as much as your eye can see, to make sure it is all smooth. Generating a video everytime you want to see the animation at the correct framerate would take forever.

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HaHa, well, I think the timing is just perfect. Like I said, I just started playing around with the latest Daz version a month or 2 ago. The reason was that I was looking for something to create decent movies in. So, I sat down with the program and tried to use everything I could to test how all the tools work. I'm quite impressed by Daz. I never even tried it to make animations for SL, as I already have a number of programs that I use all the time.

From what I've played with, I like Daz very much. If not for the framerate problem with playback, I'd seriously consider using it to make stuff for SL. Maybe, if you are not dealing with motion capture and you are making all the movements by hand, then the playback rate is fine.

Ultimately, I'm just a program whore, and I'll try anything that is free, lol. I think the concept behind Daz is that the program is free, but the content is not. I guess, techinically, Daz is kind of doing what LL does, but the final product can only be seen in video or still photos. The really cool thing is that we can now import our SL meshes into Daz. What I'm thinking about doing, is creating an RPG in SL, and then using Daz to create a decent movie type of series promoting the RPG. This is no small project and likely will never happen, but it is cool we have free software like Daz to create with.

 

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  • 4 weeks later...

Idea -- if anyone figures out something neat to do in DAZ, describe it here step by step. We can compile it into a decent how-to.

 

Pinning body parts. This lets you fix a body part in place so that it will stay there while other parts move. In this example, I want my guy's hands to stay where they are folded in front of his body while I move his chest to simulate his breathing.

1) Select a hand by clicking on it until you see the coordinate box around it. 

2) You should see a little thumbtack icon on the upper right of the selected area. Click it.

3) If you want the hand's position in space to stay fixed, select Pin Translation. If you want its position relative to the forearm to stay fixed, select Pin Rotation. Try combinations of either or both of these to see how they look

4) If I grab his chest to make it move with the hands pinned, he gets to a point where I pull him off the floor, so what do I want to do? Select his pelvis, and choose Pin Translation. I've pinned his butt to the floor. :)

5) Now I can move his chest slightly while his hands stay in his lap and his body doesn't float up off the ground.

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How to move a body part. 

1) Click to select it. Clicking repeatedly will switch the selection box from around the individual part to around the entire model. You'll know when a part is selected because the white corner brackets will be close to it and so will the other controls like the pin and the coordinate axis (the arrows). The body part will also be highlighted in orange.

2) a. To translate the body part, or move it in space, click it and drag it around.

2) b. To rotate the body part, make sure the Editor tab is selected on the left hand control panel, and use the x, y, and z sliders to rotate the part around the different axes. 

2) c. Another way to rotate it, which gives you more freedom but less precise control, is free rotate. To use this, hover your mouse over the origin of the coordinate axis (the place where all three arrow lines meet). You'll see a highlighted circle. Click and drag that circle to rotate in all axes. 

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How to use the animation timeline.

1) Click Window -> Tabs -> Timeline on the top menu bar. This will give you an animation timeline that you can drag around the screen or dock to the top by dragging it up just underneath the menu bar.

2) The gradations on the timeline represent frames, not seconds. On the far right there are boxes that say what the framerate is (default is 30 fps) and which frame is currently selected. You're likely on frame 0. Type 1 in the Current Frame box because this is actually the first frame of your animation.

3) Pose Mr. Gumby the way you want him to be posed at the start of the animation. Once you've got him there, look at the timeline control bar. It's got play, rewind, etc. controls on it. It also has some icons that look like keys. The key with a + sign in it is the one that will add the current pose to the selected frame. Click that key to lock the pose into the frame.

4) An animation is basically a series of poses. Click a later frame; remember that there are 30 frames in a second, so if you want him to go from pose 1 to pose 2 in half a second, choose frame 15 here. 

5) Pose him the way you want him to end up, and with frame 15 selected, click the plus key.

6) Now if you click the Play button you should see him start in the initial pose and move smoothly to the second pose in half a second. 

7) On the left end of the timeline bar there's a box that says Total. The default setting is 30, or one second. If you want more time to work in, change that number of frames. I'm putting mine to 120, which is four seconds. Beside that there are two boxes marked Range; if you want to zoom in on part of your longer animation you can set that to say (for example) 10 and 20, which will show you in detail those ten frames of the animation. 

8) To be continued. :P I think from here it's just a matter of being able to make it look graceful.

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Okay, here's a technical question, actually. Even though I've pinned his hands into his lap, in both rotation and translation, they move. :P What I'm doing is moving his chest with his hands pinned, so that he looks like he's breathing and his hands are resting there. When I move the x slider for his chest back and forth, it's fine. But when I'm trying to place keyframes on the timeline, his hands leap up out of his lap even though they're supposed to be pinned. What's happening?

ETA: It has something to do with the tweening, the filling-in that the program does to get from one pose to another. I've actually created two preset poses and placed them at different points in the timeline to work as keyframes. In both of those presets the hands are in the same place. But when the program tweens it, the hands bob up and down. Maybe I have to make more specific keyframes, or make the motion less exaggerated.

ETA2: actually, I think I figured it out -- the tween frames are still there in the timeline even though I've erased the keyframes and started over. :P So I have to figure out how to properly clear the timeframe so that there's nothing on it, and then start over. Those hand bobs were relics of an earlier attempt.

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Awsome Millicent! Daz does have some great features. Learning how to save presets is essential, and extremely handy. Considering that Daz has a Marketplace, I wonder if they would allow us to sell SL animation presets on their marketplace. Plus, it would be cool to just jump into Daz and for a few bucks get a set of presets to start animating with. Daz is definitely 1 of my most favourite programs.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I have a relevent post here, though not a totally helpful one. But, if anyone is subscribed to this or checking this in the month of Feburay of 2012..well. DAZ 4 Pro (not free studio) is free!

Also free, this month, are Hexagon(sculpties and mesh objects exported and converted using other prog), Bryce(3D terrian, not sure if you can do much for SL with this version), and a bridge for people to work back and forth between daz studio pro and Photoshop(I presume for texture painting or baking on models?) and uh...well, there are some neat thing in there. Some plug-ins come with DAZ 4.0, teh fbx (or is that fxb?) file exporter is one that might work for some people using unity...Isn't that the one that has animations coupled to it? Either way, I think autodesk makes a converter for free to convert from this file to another.

Ok, Ok..where is all this! Alright, links!!!:

DAZ's website: http://daz3d.com

You might want to read the description of the product offering well, instructions on regestering the plug-in for fxb export are in there! Basically, use your daz 4.0 license number...though, I would read them myself...I have a flaky memory on this because I didn't really commit it to memory!)

Converter, for those wanting dae files from FBX: http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/pc/item?id=10775855&siteID=123112

 

Alright, hopefully this works out well. Thanks for those helping with this, I might be giving this version a try myself sometime soon!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Ok I found it and i imported the .obj file but it is hidden behind the other figure now how do i get rid of that?

 

 

Hello I clicked your link and still cannot find Second Life Avatar Mesh to use in DAZ 4 i found this link but still cannot find it 

http://secondlife.dolphpun.com/daz3d/

but still no luck any help please would be appreciated

 

Thanks

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Funninonebabe McBride wrote:

Ok I found it and i imported the .obj file but it is hidden behind the other figure now how do i get rid of that?

 

If you look on the right side of the screen, you should see a tab for that right side window, labeled Scene. The Scene window shows you all the items in your Scene. 1 of those items should be the Genesis figure. Click on it in the Scene, and then you can rightclick/delete it. Make sure to save the Scene after you do this. This way you can bring up that scene everytime you make a new animation.

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