Blender vs Daz3D: What's Best for You?

[Saki_Sliz]

ah the famous 3 clicks render.

Can you pull it? Where I can see that?

edit:bad engrish

I wish, maybe it is just me, but no matter my import technique, the shaders are always messed up, and my custom shaders are always better. If they just had decent default shaders, and automatically imported the joint correction morphs (something I am trying to get working now) then perhaps blender could be able to pull the 3 click render. But for me, it is more of a 3 hour setup.

 

[toolkitxx]

I think both tools have completely different areas of expertise. Blender is much more an actual mesh creation/modification tool where DAZ is mostly focused on posing and scenes of finished models and props

 

[Saki_Sliz]

where DAZ is mostly focused on posing

I actually have a much better time posing and animating in blender than I do daz. But that is custom poses. As for just test poses to preview a character design, then yeah, I'll continue to work in daz. But when I do want to make poses or test animations, I'll be doing it in blender.

 

[Deleted member 1121028]

I wish, maybe it is just me, but no matter my import technique, the shaders are always messed up, and my custom shaders are always better. If they just had decent default shaders, and automatically imported the joint correction morphs (something I am trying to get working now) then perhaps blender could be able to pull the 3 click render. But for me, it is more of a 3 hour setup.

Everytime I import an Iray skin I know well it will end up in full spaghetti nodes, I just can't help myself . I like diffeo approach to try to import critical iray layer (well for skin at least) like dual lobe. I think SSS always gonna be a mess somehow, as artists handle translucency in various way, especially older skins with different PBR model.

That said Im curious about Blender-MDL build, even if it only do an 'okayish' job, it could ease drastically any Daz/Blender workflow.

 

[Synx]

I can't even find the texture files for the vast majority of Daz assets. Importing them into blender wouldn't be an issue if the texture themselves are saved somewhere seperatly, you can just plug them back in and get a decent result from that. But the vast majority of assets texture files are in some wierd file format that only Daz seems to be able to read. Guess that's the reason why you need a special exporter/importer for Daz.

Annoys the crap out of me. I can get any model from any 3D program into blender without a problem and just reapply the textures if needed, but that one time Daz has an asset I was looking for I pretty much got to retexture everything....

 

[Cul]

to test animations, I'll be doing it on my

You must be registered to see the links

( hopefully stylized 2d will age well, by then... )

 

[Deleted member 1121028]

I can't even find the texture files for the vast majority of Daz assets. Importing them into blender wouldn't be an issue if the texture themselves are saved somewhere seperatly, you can just plug them back in and get a decent result from that. But the vast majority of assets texture files are in some wierd file format that only Daz seems to be able to read. Guess that's the reason why you need a special exporter/importer for Daz.

Annoys the crap out of me. I can get any model from any 3D program into blender without a problem and just reapply the textures if needed, but that one time Daz has an asset I was looking for I pretty much got to retexture everything....

Textures are centralized in runtime/textures. Majority of them are JPG, PNG, TIFF or EXR. Nothing particular with them, I'm not sure what you're talking about. Far I know, there is no encrypted files outside HD morphs.

I think the end game of that Blender-MDL build is to reverse DUF/DSF (who use JSON syntax) files and read material shader setting, morphs & maps location directly from there. In theory you could directly use your Daz library and completely obliterate Daz Studio. Could have few problems as DUF file can be used as container for edited meshes (ex: "dForced" mesh), but nothing really critical I think (but I may be wrong).

[Attached a Daz script that will collect every maps from a node for people having trouble with Daz studio]

 

[Saki_Sliz]

Blender-MDL build

I'm not too sure what MDL is, Morph displacement Lemonade?
If its daz teck talk, I don't know much, other than JCM or joint control modifiers which is what I'm working on.

as for texture, I am lazy and just fbx export with textures to folder. While this makes a lot of redundant image files, one nice thing is compatable makeup textures for the face just get layered together as one image (ie eye liner), daz does a good job at making an export image.

 

[Deleted member 1121028]

I'm not too sure what MDL is, Morph displacement Lemonade?
If its daz teck talk, I don't know much, other than JCM or joint control modifiers which is what I'm working on.

You must be registered to see the links

. I'm not sure if my definition 100% fit, but basically it would make Cycle "understand" what language Iray shader is speaking and translate back natively the best it can.

 

[Synx]

Textures are centralized in runtime/textures. Majority of them are JPG, PNG, TIFF or EXR. Nothing particular with them, I'm not sure what you're talking about. Far I know, there is no encrypted files outside HD morphs.

Wait they are... I thought they were located in the assets themselves and only saw DSON files in there -.- well that will help for further assets I suppose.

 

[SpearUK]

Daz3D recently released a number of much improved exporter addon's the one for Blender is very good based on my limited testing.
I exported my Daz3d Gen8 model to blender and rendered it with about 5-10 clicks (I am a Blender newbie so my lighting and especially around the eyes needs more work).

You must be registered to see the links

 

[Deleted member 1121028]

Daz3D recently released a number of much improved exporter addon's the one for Blender is very good based on my limited testing.
I exported my Daz3d Gen8 model to blender and rendered it with about 5-10 clicks (I am a Blender newbie so my lighting and especially around the eyes needs more work).

You must be registered to see the links

Daz3D didn't release anything, they just bought

You must be registered to see the links

's scripts and put their name on it.
I strongly recommend you to use

You must be registered to see the links

instead, who does a better job at almost everything.

 

[SpearUK]

Daz3D didn't release anything, they just bought

You must be registered to see the links

's scripts and put their name on it.
I strongly recommend you to use

You must be registered to see the links

instead, who does a better job at almost everything.

Oh I didn't know about that thanks I'll give it a try.

 

[ModraHD]

Agreed on the diffeomorphic point. daz->blender bridge is a bit of a nightmare, lol.

 

[cbsx]

While both sides have made good points here, I think the point of what tools like Daz and Renpy allow is being missed... composition, production and presentation for people who simply have a story in their head and a creative itch, but scrapbooking won't cut it.

I seriously love some of the content I have found here and paid for things I only expected to pirate at first, but to the comment about a 'studio' like UbiSoft adopting Blender into their workflow and that being a sign Blender gaining traction in 'the industry'... spending millions on personnel and internal tool chain development.

From the perspective of what is typically put out on F95...

I have turned over DAYs of my life to reading and watching these pretty pictures (mostly) and reading those smutty(sometimes well fucking crafted) words... BUT...

I think people need to remember the scope of most the content created here vs. what they think is worth while time spent learning. There is no way in hell I would suggest to someone who is primarily a writer that they should learn the mathematics of what makes humans attractive and the applied physics of light scatter... and then go do it all from scratch in Blender.

It's obvious from the discussion here, that there are definitely very skilled and informed people active in this community, but I find it humorous that after 8 pages and nearly 2 years the only direct response to what recreation said on page 1 in post #6 about was possible in Daz3D, and had done for themselves, was that they were just wrong in post #10. Obviously.

And No_Name is also just wrong and needs to learn how to Google to better know their business. Obviously.

It's super dry in comparaison to Daz/iray for pron VN.
What Blender users produce the most is endless internet logorrhoea about what they could eventually do.
If you're lucky you may see a render one day.

Spoiler

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

Spicy as hell though. This reminds me of Arch Linux users vs any other distro (besides Gentoo, who are arguably worse). Sorry for the wall of text, I'll see myself out. (My Plex server runs Arch... ^_^)

Use the correct tool for the job at hand, friends. Scope is key.

 

[Cheesecake Studio]

Blender imo produces a much better quality image and lighting overall for me. All my models are ported from Daz into Blender. Diffo is fine, but so is the Daz to Blender exporter. Either way, you have to know your way around Blender to actually make the models look like they do in Daz, if not better. If you for example, simply export the character from Daz without having any idea how to use the node-based materials, your character will end up looking like what SpearUK posted (no offense).

Just getting the model and the genitals to blender imo is only about 30% of the work involved. Texturing and know how to use nodes are most important.

 

[tk99]

Blender imo produces a much better quality image and lighting overall for me. All my models are ported from Daz into Blender. Diffo is fine, but so is the Daz to Blender exporter. Either way, you have to know your way around Blender to actually make the models look like they do in Daz, if not better. If you for example, simply export the character from Daz without having any idea how to use the node-based materials, your character will end up looking like what SpearUK posted (no offense).

Just getting the model and the genitals to blender imo is only about 30% of the work involved. Texturing and know how to use nodes are most important.

Playing https://f95zone.to/threads/godson-v0-1-cheesecake3d.82650/ , I wish I would have your blender skills.
The renders are perfect.

But even after playing around with blender for nearly a year now, I'm not able to produce anything even close to your renders.
And good how to's are rare

Which rendere did you use in godson?

 

[fr34ky]

Basically, you are going to miss some keyword and without it, it is like part of the internet is hidden from you.

This quote was genius and I was actually thinking about that exactly while doing some research on different Blender things.

Thanks for taking the time of making this post, I'm recently learning Blender but I'm self-taught on graphic design, music production, computer programming and some other things.

 

[stevejackhammer]

My focus over the break has been blowing the dust off of Blender, now that 3.0 has been released, and reviving my attempt at a Daz-to-Blender pipeline. So far, the results are promising. I'm using Diffeo as the transfer mechanism.

* Use Diffeo to move the figure over.
* Redo the materials using existing textures but a simpler and more effective node setup
* Delete the armature and rebuild with Auto-Rig Pro

And off we go.

Why this approach?

A few reasons. Because Diffeo is no longer being developed, I can't expect improvements or fixes for material transfers or armature work. If all I want to use Diffeo for is essentially the mesh, I won't care. Honestly, I don't need Diffeo for that -- any of the built-in imports can handle mesh transfers, but Diffeo has some nice options. By switching textures and armatures to native Blender solutions instead of porting them from Daz, I'm on path that is enjoying more development and maintenance effort.

And anyway, Blender is just better. We all know that. Cycles X is now pretty darn fast. Everything else continues to be supported and improved. So I use Daz to create the meshes, and then move it all into Blender for sculpting, rigging, posing, rendering, and compositing.

At least that's the plan. As long as I don't have a cast of 30 characters, this ought to be very doable. My initial tests look good.

 

[Deleted member 1121028]

A few reasons. Because Diffeo is no longer being developed, I can't expect improvements or fixes for material transfers or armature work.

You must be registered to see the links

is still actively

You must be registered to see the links

? (As recently as 50 min ago).