I just played with Diffeomorphic again to try and import a rigged character from Daz with genitals. Is it me or do the instructions not correspond to what's actually in the UI. For example, I import a character with genitals. Instructions say select the character and genital and click Merge Anatomy but the anatomy is already "merged". It's a geograft. So that option doesn't work.
Diffeomorphic, difficult to use and a pain in the ass?
- Thread starter PlayfulUK
- Start date
- Oct 2, 2020
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Good thing you have us to answer these questions
The genitals should not already be merged with the base character mesh by default. The only situation where it would be, is if you enabled "merge geografts" in the Easy Import Daz settings. Assuming you didn't do that, it should look something like this:
As you can see, the female anatomy and the character mesh are two separate objects.
At this point you can use the merge geografts function to fuse them together. But note once you do this, the geometry of the character will change, so you will be unable to import morphs.
Also if you use rigify the bones are bendy by default, which is also weird. Who the hell wants that.
OK, I think I was selecting the wrong two things in Blender, as there were two meshes, just the genital mesh was nested one down.
Another question, is there anything in blender that allows you to drag IK around like you can in Daz with ActivePose?
Very difficult to work with.. I've been trying for two days to get the genitals to have morphs and cannot for the life of me figure out how to apply those. It seems that they need to be separate bodygroups. So I uncheck merge geografts but without results. I use 'New Gens For Victoria 8' and I never get the morphs.
- Oct 2, 2020
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You need to import the .dbz morph to both the character mesh and the geograft. Ex. If I have a "curvy" morph, I would use the import .dbz function to add it as a shapekey to the character mesh. Then I would do the same for the (separate) geograft mesh. And then when you merge the geograft, the morph will still be there for the merged mesh as well.
- Aug 22, 2021
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The lead programmer does it as a hobby and doesn't have time to update the blog, so it's all horribly out of date.
Not true. I created a geometry nodes technique that's in Diffeomorphic now, if you use that you can import morphs whenever.
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I create my own from scratch so I can't say how it's implemented in the exporter now, but if you learn geometry nodes it's not that hard to DIY.
The rig has no IK on its own, you need to add either Simply IK or convert to MHX or Rigify.
I clicked Import Custom Morphs, and did that on the main mesh and also the genital mesh. I think did Merge Geographs, after importing visems and expressions. After merge I added Rigify.
In my shape keys on the mesh I've got some of the expressions that don't seem to work all that well (they're just wrong but not exploding or anything like that). I've also got no genital morphs at all.
But anyway, this is pretty hopeless without proper instructions so I guess it's going to the recycle bin.
In my shape keys on the mesh I've got some of the expressions that don't seem to work all that well (they're just wrong but not exploding or anything like that). I've also got no genital morphs at all.
But anyway, this is pretty hopeless without proper instructions so I guess it's going to the recycle bin.
- Oct 2, 2020
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Interesting, wasn't aware of this feature. I'm not sure how applicable it would be for my usecase though, since I only use Diffeo as an intermediate tool to bring stuff into UE. I use multiple geografts so I'm not sure how that would work. Also, I would feel bad instructing people who are struggling with the basics of morph importing to use geo nodes, especially if they don't have much experience in Blender.
- Oct 2, 2020
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Did you check that the morphs are functional before merging the geograft? I generally like to go in and check that the shapekeys are working as expected before merging anything. Might be worth scrolling through the shapekeys and checking that each individual viseme/expression is working as expected before merging.
IIRC, I believe that the visemes and expressions provided by Diffeo are for G8, unless there was an update that also added them for G8.1. If you are trying to import the visemes and expressions to a G8.1 character, they probably won't work correctly.
So I clicked Import Custom Morphs with the futalicious selected (this is before any merging), selected a bunch of basic morphs of shaft and testicles and clicked OK. Checking the shape keys, only the testicle morphs are there. No morphs like shaft up/down, etc. I'm guessing these aren't actually genuine morphs then; they move the bones not the vertices, which is why they're not added as shape keys.
This is hopeless really. No JCM either. I'm going to try UE5 export and rigging in there. At least I'll get an opporunity to build a rig I can apply to other characters without having to go through this bullshit.
- Oct 2, 2020
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I have futalicious working in UE with morphs and JCMs. It's important that you don't have *any* morphs applied to futalicious when you import it into Blender. What I do is:
1. In Daz, customize the shape of futalicious to the default shape you want to use
2. Import that into Blender via Diffeo
3. In Blender, delete the futalicious geograft (but keep the bones)
4. Back in Daz, I remove all morphs from the futalicious graft
5. Then I import that back into Blender
6. Finally, I import the default futalicious shape as a morph to the graft in blender
What this gives you are bones that fit the default shape you want futalicious to have. But it also means you can apply multiple morphs at the same time without things getting weird due to the default futalicious mesh having morphs applied to begin with.
Alternatively, you could attempt to rig it yourself in UE with control rig. That's not something I've tried myself, but I'm sure you could get it to work fine.
View attachment db20496f87e51e19c2ec3e2c9b435c9c.mp4
- Aug 22, 2021
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Yeah you really need to become a Blender generalist to know what you're doing with Diffeo. I already was, so making my own geonodes wasn't too big a deal. Blender isn't really for beginners though.
I don't use Unreal but I see it can weld vertices, which is exactly what's needed to make geografts. Have you tried exporting the meshes separately and joining them in UE?
So I started playing with Blender to make a basic animation, with "easy" diffeo import, no difficult things like geos to worry about, not caring about materials or anything like that. First time doing animation with blender. I think it's pretty fantastic.
Anyway I read at the diffeo site
Python: Traceback (most recent call last):
File "C:\Users\Robin\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\3.2\scripts\addons\import_daz\error.py", line 208, in execute
self.run(context)
File "C:\Users\Robin\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\3.2\scripts\addons\import_daz\animation.py", line 1551, in run
self.saveFile(rig)
File "C:\Users\Robin\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\3.2\scripts\addons\import_daz\animation.py", line 1801, in saveFile
struct["scene"]["animations"] = self.getAnimations(rig)
File "C:\Users\Robin\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\3.2\scripts\addons\import_daz\animation.py", line 1831, in getAnimations
self.getTrans(bname, pb, locs, 1/rig.DazScale, anims)
File "C:\Users\Robin\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\3.2\scripts\addons\import_daz\animation.py", line 1895, in getTrans
if not self.includeLocks and self.loclocks[pb.name][idx]:
KeyError: 'nasolabialLower.L'
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. Would have taken a while in Daz, to get the knees pointing in the right direction and the hands and feet stabilised.Anyway I read at the diffeo site
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. I'm not really ready to fully jump to Blender with Daz assets. Things like setting up materials and the geograft issues will be a huge timesink for me right now. Problem with the latter is I get an error when I click "Save Pose Preset". Not really sure what a nasolabia is but apparently it's an error...Python: Traceback (most recent call last):
File "C:\Users\Robin\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\3.2\scripts\addons\import_daz\error.py", line 208, in execute
self.run(context)
File "C:\Users\Robin\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\3.2\scripts\addons\import_daz\animation.py", line 1551, in run
self.saveFile(rig)
File "C:\Users\Robin\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\3.2\scripts\addons\import_daz\animation.py", line 1801, in saveFile
struct["scene"]["animations"] = self.getAnimations(rig)
File "C:\Users\Robin\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\3.2\scripts\addons\import_daz\animation.py", line 1831, in getAnimations
self.getTrans(bname, pb, locs, 1/rig.DazScale, anims)
File "C:\Users\Robin\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\3.2\scripts\addons\import_daz\animation.py", line 1895, in getTrans
if not self.includeLocks and self.loclocks[pb.name][idx]:
KeyError: 'nasolabialLower.L'
I suppose I should also add that Blender animation is light years ahead of Daz, so if you want to learn to make something that's quality, assuming you have the talent (to be decided in my case), you really have no choice but to try to get these tools to work.