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[Andy]

This Daz to Blender Bridge FAQ covers all kind of questions and problems that might come up while using the exporter. We’ll also explain many advanced tips. As you already know, there is a new Daz to Blender Bridge tool available. It helps to export and import Genesis models between the platforms. You can also read our full Daz to Blender Bridge Tutorial that guides you through all the basics and the installation.

For those already familiar with the tool, well, next in line is a resourceful FAQ section to help you overcome possible common problems. Since this is a new tool, there are still many things that need some fine-tuning. However, as we wait, we can put these solutions into practice.

For this set of tutorials I will be using the Monique 8

I do not find the directory to my add-on in Blender. Where is the ”Appdata” folder?

Some directories are hidden by default. Make sure to mark “Show hidden” in the Blender file view window. Go to the filter icon in the upper-right corner and tick the option.

What is the difference among SubDiv 0, SubDiv 1 and SubDiv 2?

The terms refer to the SubDivision levels or amount of polygons in the model mesh. The higher the number the higher the quality (and size!). Level 1 has more than 60,000 polygons and level 2 more than 240,000. You can start a test by exporting a model with level 0 and see how the computer performs as you increase in units.

What content can I export with Daz to Blender Bridge?

You can export most of the stuff that you would want to. The main purpose of Daz to Blender bridge is to transfer characters and all the assets attached to them. Meaning stuff like clothes and hair. More than that, you can also transfer poses and even animations.

Additional assets that are not connected to the characters can be exported too. Mainly I am talking about the environments, but also props.

Where are my export files stored in?

By default they are saved in C:\Users\<your user name>\Documents\DTB. These files are generally OBJ and FBX. You will want to check this folder from time to time, generally to delete any unused or unnecessary data since the export files occupy significant storage.

Can I pose my model in Daz and then export to Blender?

Yes. To do that you need to simply use Daz to Blender bridge on a posed character. No additional work needs to be done. In the same way you can even transfer animations. All keyframes will be exported to Blender automatically.

Posed Genesis 8 figure in Blender from Daz to Blender Bridge Tutoria

Can I improve the skin appearance of my model?

Here is one small adjustment that has a great impact on the render. Click on the Torso material. As soon as we open the Node Editor we will see mcy_skin generated by the add-on. Click and enter the settings inside the node.

It looks a bit messy, I know, but we are just going to change one little detail. By default, the last Mix Shader is connected to the Cycles output and the Principled BSDF to the Eevee one. The truth is that they should be connected the other way around as seen in the picture, since the Random Walk setting was designed to work with Cycles.

Before the adjustment

After the adjustment

We can now see a more vivid color and a fresh look on the skin.

My renders look completely different in Blender from those generated with iRay.

Skin has been updated in the newest Daz To Blender bridge versions. And it now transfers a lot more stability and with higher quality. But you still may want to know how to improve on it or other parts of the scene, such as clothes textures or hair.

Since the export process is not perfect, we will need to manually adjust a few things. An essential part of Blender is the Node Editor. Here we can make adjustments and add texture maps to obtain more realistic renders as tested with the skin. Some texture maps are not automatically linked by the Daz Extension, so I encourage you to dig inside the texture folders of your character to make sure all the resources are conveniently linked. To be honest, working with the texture maps deserve a special article but I will mention some details that I found relevant.

As part of the library exported from Daz, we can see there are many base color maps for the eyes. So always check your texture library because you can find additional maps and alternative color choices.

For the eye lashes, I made the following arrangement adding the RGB Curves node and changing the color to black in the Diffuse BSDF node. This solves the problem of white eyelashes that come as default with the import settings.

Leaving the eye lashes behind, for the Sclera material I made a few adjustments. The most important one is inside the mcy_eyedry node. Trace the Hue Saturation Value editor and increase the number to obtain a whiter eyeball color. In my case, from 1.000 to 3.000.

The result:

My hair texture looks strange, as if it was a low-poly mesh.

This usually happens when we export with SubDiv 0 applied. The hair is the most noticeable mesh to suffer the loss in quality. What we can do is a little trick. We will export our model with SubDiv 0 settings applied. Inside Blender, make sure to have the hair selected and apply a Subdivision Surface modifier. It will double the amount of polygons for that specific mesh for every unit increased so you can compensate for the previous loss.

The quality of the hair texture still is not good enough compared to my renders in Daz, what else can I do?

Recently a new shader was introduced to Blender called the Principled Hair BSDF Shader. You can edit each of your hair materials and add this shader along with a mix shader to add some realistic details to the final render.

My scene has a lot of polygons and it is consuming a lot of memory from my computer, what can I do to work more efficiently?

I personally recommend two things: Hide elements that you are not currently using and limit specific areas that you want to see rendered. In the Object Mode, Ctrl + B and then drag the mouse in the area of interest. This will just render the area within the frame. To Ctrl + Alt + B to unmark.

What are good render parameters?

One important detail before rendering our image is to check final settings inside Blender. In past tutorials I made a reference to both Eevee vs Cycles, explaining that Cycles performs better in final renders whereas Eevee is a real-time graphic engine which optimizes resources to provide speed.

Apart from that, we should pay attention to other outputs such as the color management settings. In general terms, we want to make sure we always have the Filmic option selected and probably Medium-High Contrast output. The software tends to wash out some colors and this option compensates well the issue.

[Anonymous]

Thank you for this tutorial! I considered importing my original Daz morphs to Blender to create clothes for them, and even toyed with the idea of using it with Marvelous Designer, once I learn how to use it 🙂

[Author]

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