Using Daz3d Assets for Adult Game Development in Unreal

Dilly_

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Game Developer
Oct 2, 2020
343
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I managed to import in unreal engine a G8F with genitals but with some problems:
1) How can I export the textures with it?
2) How to export the morphs that I added in blender?
I added them with "Import custom morphs" but when I export it it doesn't have any morph or texture
Thanks in advance
1. Textures can be brought over & automatically converted to UE shaders using the Bridge. But you can always import the .fbx from wherever you want, and assign the textures later.

2. Double check the morphs actually imported correctly by looking at the shapekeys tab. If they're there but not exporting, it's probably because you have unapplied modifiers. Make sure your base character mesh does not have a multi-res, subdivision, etc modifiers, and if it does, either remove them or apply them. Keeping the armature modifier is OK though. Blender will not allow you to apply modifiers to objects with shapekeys, however there is a plugin that will allow you to do that:

 
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Azz1231

New Member
May 25, 2019
4
1
1. Textures can be brought over & automatically converted to UE shaders using the Bridge. But you can always import the .fbx from wherever you want, and assign the textures later.

2. Double check the morphs actually imported correctly by looking at the shapekeys tab. If they're there but not exporting, it's probably because you have unapplied modifiers. Make sure your base character mesh does not have a multi-res, subdivision, etc modifiers, and if it does, either remove them or apply them. Keeping the armature modifier is OK though. Blender will not allow you to apply modifiers to objects with shapekeys, however there is a plugin that will allow you to do that:

Thanks, I will try it as soon as possible
 
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Dilly_

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Oct 2, 2020
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Yes, that link was wrong. Here's a working link:

You do not necessarily need to restrict yourself to only G8.1. You can get the benefit of micro detail textures with G8 characters as well, you'd just need to use the BasePBRShader included with the bridge, plug in your G8 textures, and then obtain some micro detail maps from anywhere (most G8.1 characters have them).



I don't mess with the UVs after merging the geograft. Or before really. I don't make changes to the UVs. A helpful tip as well is that in Unreal, when you have a mesh asset opened, you can view all the UV indices associated with that mesh by going to character > advanced > UV visualization. This will help you figure out what index to set the texture coordinate node to when trying to get Dicktator textures working for instance.
View attachment 1845888

Here's a look at how my BasePBRSkin material is setup for dicktator:



In order for this to work, you need a dicktator texture that is blended with your character torso texture. Think of it this way: In Daz, we use a geoshell to blend the Dicktator textures with the character textures. In Unreal though we don't want to use geoshells, but instead apply the geoshell textures directly onto the Dicktator mesh. So in order to do that, we can use the mask provided by Dicktator, and then use photoshop to blend together the torso texture with the dicktator texture. You can use the Map Transfer tool in Daz to create a copy of the torso texture that matches the Dicktator UVs. Then in Photoshop, you can bring in the dicktator mask, dicktator texture, and the torso texture you created using Map Transfer. That will give you a blended texture you can apply directly to the dicktator mesh and have it match with the character skin:

View attachment 1845903

Then you can plug this blended texture into the BasePBRShader, as well as the mask, like I have it setup in the above image.

It looks like you have correctly added the Texture coordinate node everywhere you need it, all you are missing is the lerp, which I show in the above image.
Just wanted to point out (for anyone trying to do this) that I actually gave some bad info here. It's not actually necessary to use Photoshop to create a blended version of the Dicktator texture. You can just plug in the regular Dicktator textures/mask, then use a scalar parameter to adjust the saturation and a vector parameter to adjust the color. That way you can get it to match with any skin tone fully inside UE without having to do any additional work in photoshop.

Capture.PNG
 

Dark Erotic 3D

Newbie
Game Developer
Jul 5, 2021
40
6
I managed to import in unreal engine a G8F with genitals but with some problems:
1) How can I export the textures with it?
2) How to export the morphs that I added in blender?
I added them with "Import custom morphs" but when I export it it doesn't have any morph or texture
Thanks in advance
When you import your character into Unreal does it generate the dreaded all white materials? Also, are your using the Diffeomorphic Daz Importer plugin in Blender? My suggestions assume that you are...

1) From my experience, textures/materials don't export well into Unreal (which really sucks). See earlier posts on this thread from Dilly and no_Name for ideas for how to handle this inconvenience. To make your life a little easier, once your G8F character is in Blender and you've saved your file, go into the "N" panel for the Daz Importer plugin and "Save Local Textures." This will save a copy of the textures used for your character in the same folder as your Blender file. You can then drag those textures into Unreal after you import your skeletal mesh. From there you'll need to either use those textures to build materials from scratch or use auto-generated materials via the official Daz2Unreal plugin. To do the later, export your character from daz again, this time via the Daz to Unreal plugin. This second character will be used solely for the materials that are generated in the process. In order to make geografts (genitals) work, see earlier threads from Dilly and no_name.

2) If you added the morphs in accordance with the Diffeo documentation and they were working fine in Blender, you may try to look in the Advanced settings of the plugin under the "Mesh" category -- Convert Morphs to Shapekeys. I found that some morphs transfer better once they are converted to shapekeys. I'm no expert but it seems that Daz morphs and Blender shapekeys are slightly different in nature (If anyone has more insight on this please let me know).

All of this is a real pain in the ass but it can be done. I've been working on a step-by-step workflow for the entire process but I need to do a lot more testing before I can say which is the best way. If you have further questions, please be as specific as possible. Let us know how it goes and good luck!
 
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Dark Erotic 3D

Newbie
Game Developer
Jul 5, 2021
40
6
1. Textures can be brought over & automatically converted to UE shaders using the Bridge. But you can always import the .fbx from wherever you want, and assign the textures later.

2. Double check the morphs actually imported correctly by looking at the shapekeys tab. If they're there but not exporting, it's probably because you have unapplied modifiers. Make sure your base character mesh does not have a multi-res, subdivision, etc modifiers, and if it does, either remove them or apply them. Keeping the armature modifier is OK though. Blender will not allow you to apply modifiers to objects with shapekeys, however there is a plugin that will allow you to do that:

Nice, just saw your post. You anwered it more concisely that me :) Thanks for the link to the plugin too.
 

Dilly_

Member
Game Developer
Oct 2, 2020
343
3,633
Here's an interesting feature, and something I've been experimenting with recently:

You can use control rig to get head/eye tracking features working with Daz characters. It's very easy. There's a guide on how to do so here:

The video covers head movement, not eye movement, but the process is exactly the same for the eyes. You just create two additional Aim nodes in control rig for lEye and rEye. Then you can adjust the weight values such that the head moves slower than the eyes (as is the case in real life).

Result:

 

Dark Erotic 3D

Newbie
Game Developer
Jul 5, 2021
40
6
Here's an interesting feature, and something I've been experimenting with recently:

You can use control rig to get head/eye tracking features working with Daz characters. It's very easy. There's a guide on how to do so here:

The video covers head movement, not eye movement, but the process is exactly the same for the eyes. You just create two additional Aim nodes in control rig for lEye and rEye. Then you can adjust the weight values such that the head moves slower than the eyes (as is the case in real life).

Result:

Yes, thanks for sharing. I've seen this tutorial as well. Nice results Dilly_
 

Deleted member 1121028

Well-Known Member
Dec 28, 2018
1,716
3,295
Here's an interesting feature, and something I've been experimenting with recently:

You can use control rig to get head/eye tracking features working with Daz characters. It's very easy. There's a guide on how to do so here:

The video covers head movement, not eye movement, but the process is exactly the same for the eyes. You just create two additional Aim nodes in control rig for lEye and rEye. Then you can adjust the weight values such that the head moves slower than the eyes (as is the case in real life).

Result:

Solid.
I need to get better.
 
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Dilly_

Member
Game Developer
Oct 2, 2020
343
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Building off what I posted before, you can use the Accumulate Lerp node in control rig to slow down the movement of the head and the eyes, so that they don't always immediately face the target (in my case, the camera) which is a bit unnatural. It takes time for you to move your head to look at something in real life!


Lower blend value = longer the delay. I have it setup so that the eye blend value is higher than the head/neck (because eyes move faster than your head)
 

RenzloDRXXX

Newbie
Feb 14, 2022
36
110
Here's an interesting feature, and something I've been experimenting with recently:

You can use control rig to get head/eye tracking features working with Daz characters. It's very easy. There's a guide on how to do so here:

The video covers head movement, not eye movement, but the process is exactly the same for the eyes. You just create two additional Aim nodes in control rig for lEye and rEye. Then you can adjust the weight values such that the head moves slower than the eyes (as is the case in real life).

Result:

Where can I find more of this my friend? Not on your DeviantArt page.
 

RenzloDRXXX

Newbie
Feb 14, 2022
36
110
Building off what I posted before, you can use the Accumulate Lerp node in control rig to slow down the movement of the head and the eyes, so that they don't always immediately face the target (in my case, the camera) which is a bit unnatural. It takes time for you to move your head to look at something in real life!


Lower blend value = longer the delay. I have it setup so that the eye blend value is higher than the head/neck (because eyes move faster than your head)
Love this. Is this game out yet?
 

RenzloDRXXX

Newbie
Feb 14, 2022
36
110
When you import your character into Unreal does it generate the dreaded all white materials? Also, are your using the Diffeomorphic Daz Importer plugin in Blender? My suggestions assume that you are...

1) From my experience, textures/materials don't export well into Unreal (which really sucks). See earlier posts on this thread from Dilly and no_Name for ideas for how to handle this inconvenience. To make your life a little easier, once your G8F character is in Blender and you've saved your file, go into the "N" panel for the Daz Importer plugin and "Save Local Textures." This will save a copy of the textures used for your character in the same folder as your Blender file. You can then drag those textures into Unreal after you import your skeletal mesh. From there you'll need to either use those textures to build materials from scratch or use auto-generated materials via the official Daz2Unreal plugin. To do the later, export your character from daz again, this time via the Daz to Unreal plugin. This second character will be used solely for the materials that are generated in the process. In order to make geografts (genitals) work, see earlier threads from Dilly and no_name.

2) If you added the morphs in accordance with the Diffeo documentation and they were working fine in Blender, you may try to look in the Advanced settings of the plugin under the "Mesh" category -- Convert Morphs to Shapekeys. I found that some morphs transfer better once they are converted to shapekeys. I'm no expert but it seems that Daz morphs and Blender shapekeys are slightly different in nature (If anyone has more insight on this please let me know).

All of this is a real pain in the ass but it can be done. I've been working on a step-by-step workflow for the entire process but I need to do a lot more testing before I can say which is the best way. If you have further questions, please be as specific as possible. Let us know how it goes and good luck!
Exactly where I am. Having a hard time understanding it all. I have cracked the Metahuman skin, eye, and mouth/teeth texture conversion process and added a layer based system for instant tatoos, scars, freckles, makeup and body paints that I'll be releasing soon but the genitals is just showing white. Can someone please aid me?
 

slawdos

Active Member
Oct 25, 2019
545
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Dilly_

Member
Game Developer
Oct 2, 2020
343
3,633
Exactly where I am. Having a hard time understanding it all. I have cracked the Metahuman skin, eye, and mouth/teeth texture conversion process and added a layer based system for instant tatoos, scars, freckles, makeup and body paints that I'll be releasing soon but the genitals is just showing white. Can someone please aid me?
It's a UV issue. The gens use a different UV index then the rest of the skin materials. You'll need to plug in a texture coordinate node to the diffuse/normal/SSS etc textures on the parent material for the gens. Probably it's using UV index 1 or 2.
 

slawdos

Active Member
Oct 25, 2019
545
561
Exactly where I am. Having a hard time understanding it all. I have cracked the Metahuman skin, eye, and mouth/teeth texture conversion process and added a layer based system for instant tatoos, scars, freckles, makeup and body paints that I'll be releasing soon but the genitals is just showing white. Can someone please aid me?
Also check and this yotube pl