The DAZ Studio EULA prevents taking DAZ character, modifying them, and then reselling them in the Marketplace because the content would contain DAZ Studio copyright meshes.

So how can we take advantage of the multitude of DAZ Body Morphs and still keep the characters legal to resell? Easy. We use iClone characters!

This tutorial will outline how to take a iClone character, bring it into DAZ Studio (free software if you don't have it), apply one or more of DAZ's body morphs and then bring the results back, into iClone, as a fully functional character.

Requirements:

1. iClone
2. 3DXChange
3. DAZ Studio (free download if you don't have it)

Outline:

What we are going to do is export the iClone character's Upper and Lower meshes. Next we are going to bring them into DAZ Studio and treat them like clothing. This will allow them to automatically change shape when the DAZ figure changes shape. Lastly we will export the results back into iClone.

Process:

1. Open a G5 or earlier character, such as Chuck, in 3DXChange
2. On the right hand side, in the Character section, select "Adjust Standard Bones"
3. Uncheck the Active check box
4. Load the DAZ Conversion TPose (attached to this tutorial)
5. Re-check the Active check box
6. Click the property tab (3rd icon across the top)
7. We need to apply slight offsets for extracting the iClone meshes.
Uncheck the Auto check boxes and fill in some manual values.
The lower part of the character seems to need:
Feet Offset: spacing 5.00, height 2.00
The upper part seems to differ based on character (because they are different heights?).
For Chuck the values I used were:
Feet Offset: spacing 5.00, height -10.0
8. After playing either the lower body values or the upper body values, click Convert.
9. Use the Replace Mesh tab to select Extract Mesh. Save the mesh.
10. Click on "Adjust Standard Bone" and repeat steps 6 to 9 for the other body part.
11. I suggest you keep 3DXchange open since you will need it again soon.
12. Open DAZ Studio
13. Add a Genesis 2 male or female figure. These come with the free base DAZ Studio.
14. Import the Upper mesh saved in step 9.
15. Import the Lower mesh saved in step 9.

Note: At this point the meshes should be somewhat covering or covered by the DAZ Studio figure. If the iClone mesh is either too high or too low (typically you can tell this by looking at the arms) then you will have to go back to step 7 and use different values. The good news is that once you find values that work for a character they should be the same values each time.

16. Use the Edit | Object | Transfer Utility on both the Upper and Lower imports. The target
should be the Genesis 2 Figure, the other selection should be the import mesh (either
the Upper mesh or the Lower mesh). The type should be set appropriately. I use Pants
for the Lower (but use Dress if the lower represents a dress) and Shirt for the Upper.
This is the key step that will cause the Upper and Lower to transform when we change
the DAZ Studio figure.
17. Click on the Genesis figure in the Scene and use the eye icon to hide it.
Now you should be selected on the genesis figure but only see the Upper and Lower.
18. On the Parameters tab for the Genesis character, find the Actor section and use any
of the body based morphs to change the character (e.g. pear shaped, body builder, etc).
As the morphs are used, the Upper and Lower meshes should adjust.
19. There is also a adjustment on the Parameters tab of the Upper and Lower mesh.
20. Once you are happy with the results, we need to export the results.
To do this hide (click the eye icon) all meshes except for the one that you want to
export. This is important...you must export the Upper and Lower mesh individually or
it will not import back into iClone. For example, hide the genesis figure (should already
be hidden from step 17 and Upper to export Lower. Use Export from the File menu.
21. Export as a OBJ file. Ensure that "Ignore Invisible Nodes" is checked and that Write
Groups is unchecked (it will likely be checked by default so uncheck it). In my export,
I also have "Write UV coordinates" and "Write Normals" checked.
22. Repeat 20 to 21 for the other body part.
23. Back in 3DXchange the character should be set for exporting a body part (whatever
part - Upper or Lower - that you did last). So in the "Replace Mesh" section click on the
"Replace Mesh" button and select the appropriate mesh that was saved from DAZ.
24. A popup will show up, select "Default" which should be the only selection.
25. Click on the "Adjust Standard Bone" in the Character section.
26. Switch the property settings to the values for the other body part. Click Convert.
27. Use the "Replace Mesh" button to replace the other body part (once again accepting
the "Default" selection in the popup).
28. Lastly we need to return the figure to the standard iClone TPose.
29. Click on the "Adjust Standard Bone" in the Character section.
30. Uncheck Active.
31. Load TPose and select the iClone TPose provided as an attachment to this post.
32. Check the Active check box.
33. Set the Feet Offset properties back to "Auto".
34. Press Convert.
35. Export character.

This may seem like a long an complex process but once you get the hang of it, it is fairly easy. Especially once you determine what the offset values are for your favorite characters.

Sample transformation can be seen at:

http://www.mediafire.com/view/lmpuikamkv2mzi9/Chuck_Gym.png

"We often compare ourselves to the U.S. and often they come out the best, but they only have the right to bear arms while we have the right to bare breasts"
Bowser and Blue, Busting The Breast

Good tips for daz users.

I posted a video on your thread. You were probably typing this while I was screencapturing.
https://forum.reallusion.com/Topic233747-385-4.aspx#bm233836

This might be easier to digest.

Nice work...I include a TPose for the iClone to DAZ pose conversion and one for the reverse...but your quick capture does illustrate part of the process well. Thanks.

"We often compare ourselves to the U.S. and often they come out the best, but they only have the right to bear arms while we have the right to bare breasts"
Bowser and Blue, Busting The Breast

Interesting.
Does this process all kind of character modification morphs from DAZ to ICLONE ?

Actually, RL allows DAZ Morphs with Slider in 3DXchange. It should allow the same inside ICLONE.

[ I understand you are playing with ICLONE characters. ]

Then perhaps, one could play with Squash n Stretch for Avatars dynamically inside ICLONE.

You seem the type of user that likes to contributes to a community and give something back.
A screencapture software would be really useful and handy.

This concept isn't for bringing morphs from DAZ to iClone...it is basically for baking DAZ morphs to iClone characters...what is the difference, you may ask? A true morph (or blend as it is called in other software) allows you to change the value in real time while this solution applies the morph but make it "permanent". Consider a drastic morph like a werewolf morph. If it does with an actual morph, then you can actually animate the change from human to werewolf by gradually applying the morph. With the technique that I suggested the morph is "baked" so you either have a human character or a werewolf character but none of the steps in between. Thus the technique is more for things like making a muscular character (such as my example) or making a plump character, and so on.

This technique will work on any morphs that change the upper or lower body. It is not usable for any parts of the character that doesn't have corresponding clothing (e.g. face). I modified only the Upper and Lower meshes but I think the same would apply to feet (as boots) and hands (as gloves). You might be able to do even some head morphs by importing the mesh into DAZ as hair but I have not tried that.



Yes but actual Morphs imported from DAZ contain part of the DAZ figure mesh and thus, by the DAZ EULA, are not allowed to be re-sold. You can use them for your own personal use (hence why they developed the Genesis Extension) but they are not allowed to be re-sold.

The solution that I outlined, on the other hand, does not use any DAZ meshes at all and thus any character made from it is not subject to the DAZ EULA (and can be re-sold)...since the iClone EULA does not prevent iClone meshes from being used in the marketplace.



This is why I came up with this tutorial because the options in iClone are very limited. They basically just scale the X, Y and Z axis which, for the most part, is useless. A fat person, for example, is not just a Y scaled person. Typically the only scaling that is applicable is in the Z (i.e. taller/shorter).

I figured, DAZ has many (free) morphs for changing body shape so why not use that...however because of the DAZ EULA, it was necessary to figure out how these morphs can be used with iClone character so that selling the end result does not violate the DAZ EULA.

"We often compare ourselves to the U.S. and often they come out the best, but they only have the right to bear arms while we have the right to bare breasts"
Bowser and Blue, Busting The Breast

it doesn't work that way, in the current set up, you have to use the same exact mesh, the face count has to be exact. It's not a relative morphing system. Even if you decimated the mesh to be the exact same count, it wouldn't work because of the edge flow. I hand you to swoop for some advanced lessons in edge flows and proper topology.

You aren't looking for something we haven't looked for and found ways around. It's still fun to watch though, I admit. The 3D guys do things in a way that isn't so easy to work around.

I could do way more for my shop if I was bent on it, but my focus is becoming a better director, and anything i make in the process I share in the shop, I'm an incidental developer. My obsession with learning stuff made me learn way more than i intended to lol.....trying to forget some of it actually.

• My Spotify  My Twitter  My Virtual Art Gallery
  
• My NFT    My Marketplace My Blog
  
• Music Sync Licensing

☯🐉

"To define Tao is to defile it" - Lao Tzu

I'm not so familiar with Daz but what's the advantage of using daz morphs than doing the morphs in the typical way, zbrush, 3dcoat, modo, etc?

In DAZ, you could use simple Sliders to create Morphs, unique characters and facial expressions in barely few minutes.

Because the morphs are premade for daz characters.
This workflow suggested seems to use G5 characters in daz studio. Can daz studio activate the smile morph in G5 characters?
Or is this just a skinwrap method? Meaning the changes on the daz base mesh physical attributes drive the changes on the G5 mesh. Its like a constraint, too.