Hi all,
First of all - I have seen video tutorial about importing daz asset into iClone. It works well.... theoretically. I other words, it is total bull****. I will explain why. If you are importing some  dress or spacious clothes or if you want your character just stand and not move it is ok, but as soon as you try to sit or lean or raise hands - flesh shows from below clothes. I don't know, may be some clothes are rigged better and flesh does not moonshine when you move, but I've tried about 5 different pants and had same problem in every case.  
It is not a problem usually ok? I bring model to 3ds max, delete vertices below clothes and voila! But in this case I can not - in case I want facial animation in iClone. If I delete vertices in 3ds max, morpher modifier simply stops working - because damned daz exports full body as morph target. So, speaking in other words I can not optimize meshes, can not do anything, just have to accept terrible daz exported models with hundreds of thousand polygons. Additionally, daz decimator is total sh** - if you use it it deforms your clothes, pushes them below skin, and simply makes everything look terrible. The only use I found for it is reducing hair polycount... just in some cases. It never comes near decent things, like prooptimizer from 3ds max...So again models are heavy and terrible. 
Of course I know about possibility to use opacity masks and have pain in.... damn it! But I would like find better way. Anybody found any acceptable way to import daz assets with facial morphs and be able correct fbx files exported by daz?
Thanks.

Can't speak for facial stuff but I can and do import all kinds of clothing from Daz into CC (and then into iClone) and have no problem with the movements of the cloth physics.

You need to understand what you are doing -- and, yes, it isn't just a one-button solution.  I have created a lot of video tutorials, though, which show how anyone (and I mean anyone) can master this, but given that CC3 is so close now (perhaps only a few months at most) what I would suggest is buying the pipeline standalone version (for around $150) and it should do most of what I teach and more or less if not automatically at least a lot simpler (although my own workflow takes less than five minutes even for a flowing dress).

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Alienware Aurora R16, Win 11, i9-149000KF, 3.20GHz CPU, 64GB RAM, RTX 4090 (24GB), Samsung 870 Pro 8TB, Gen3 MVNe M-2 SSD, 4TBx2, 39" Alienware Widescreen Monitor
Mike "ex-genius" Kelley

I understand there can not be one -click solution. I am usually taking model in 3ds max, correct it and only then bring it to iClone or game engine. Problem is with facial animation keys I can not do anything: Can not manipulate\delete vertices or I will have no morphs and no facial animation. If only there was a way to apply those morphs only to face, not entire body. I dont know does daz suck feaure or not. 
As for CC3 I hope it will be great and will have ability to create different looking characters, but daz has huge library and for indie developers and small studios it still will be better choice when it comes to dresses or characters. Any way I would like to have some good pipeline for importing characters with facial morphs.

Yeah, well I completely disagree with you -- while Daz has a huge library of clothing and sets/props (which can all be used inside of iClone easily) the characters are nothing special, and CC3 looks to beat them all to hell for animation purposes (particularly in regards to LOD).

For me, at least (a small shop if there ever was one) the perfect combination is CC and Daz clothing/sets.  I don't need anything else (and in a couple of months it will only get better).

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Alienware Aurora R16, Win 11, i9-149000KF, 3.20GHz CPU, 64GB RAM, RTX 4090 (24GB), Samsung 870 Pro 8TB, Gen3 MVNe M-2 SSD, 4TBx2, 39" Alienware Widescreen Monitor
Mike "ex-genius" Kelley

I really like some videos about CC3 and I admit it has potential, but not sure about diversity of faces. In CC2 you hardly can create many faces. I've tried manipulating sliders all ways, but every tim found out that I am still looking at original face (with some minor changes).  I would be happy if CC3 will have ways to create different faces. 
And one thing what I would like to see in CC3 is ability to automatically import daz clothes. I would gladly buy such CC. So far importing and rigging clothes into CC3 (judging from trailers) do not look too time saving and attractive. 
Lets just wait and see. I will be happy if CC3 will be great.

I use CT8 Pipeline for my faces and am very happy with how they turn out (and I can use Daz characters for this process):

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Alienware Aurora R16, Win 11, i9-149000KF, 3.20GHz CPU, 64GB RAM, RTX 4090 (24GB), Samsung 870 Pro 8TB, Gen3 MVNe M-2 SSD, 4TBx2, 39" Alienware Widescreen Monitor
Mike "ex-genius" Kelley

And here is just a TINY fraction of the Daz clothing I've imported into CC (like I said, takes about five minutes):

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Alienware Aurora R16, Win 11, i9-149000KF, 3.20GHz CPU, 64GB RAM, RTX 4090 (24GB), Samsung 870 Pro 8TB, Gen3 MVNe M-2 SSD, 4TBx2, 39" Alienware Widescreen Monitor
Mike "ex-genius" Kelley

Ive had plenty of luck importing Daz characters with clothing with facial animation. I prefer working with Daz genesis 1 or 3 in Zbrush than CC. Probs my modeling skills or lack thereof... I find CC base doesn’t give me the flexibility of Daz. I’m super hopeful that changes. But also note I’m only dealing with stylizied toon type characters. For normal looking character KTs method with Crazy talk is rather quite easy. not quite one button but pretty close. Several buttons But that doesn’t work for stylized characters. Tokomotion toons are a work of art! But if you’re looking for a different look... good luck. Converting Daz with facial and clothing really is easy. Takes less than 5 mins. But... if you want to change clothing, you have to reimport etc. Tgat gets tiring. Super excited for CC3 hopefully that takes Daz out of the equation.

Great vid btw Mike! Looks pretty awesome.

My "NEWEST" Latest  Movie Made With Amaaaazing iClone


—> High Noon”ish” in Narrow Valley<—

Ok, after some experiments I found out following:
1. 3DXchange can not identify mesh as daz figure if it differs from original by vertex count or vertex positions. It means you can not use daz->editing application->iclone pipeline. Even more, you can not even use decimator on figure to reduce polycount - 3DXchange can not identify such figures as well. 
2. You can not use hide vertices\figure feature from daz geometry editor. It will export correct mesh. Even more with "no hidden" export option you can get rid of not needed vertices, but again - 3DXchange will not identify such mesh as daz figure.
3. You can use saved tpose and profile to correctly convert above type meshes, but you will have no face features. 3DXchange correctly imports morphs and if you have eternity you can manually apply those sliders.. but it will take hours or even days. Ive tried to use save\load profile from expression editor, but it does not work. It seems damned thing remembers not only sliders positions, but also vertex count of meshes, so it is completely useless. If there were an option just save sliders positions, it would solve problem, but currently it is impossible.
4. You can use opacity masks to hide some mesh parts, but it is bullshit - even if you hide them polygons are still there! This is no way acceptable for game developers - especially for developing mobile games.
Conclusion: iClone can not be used as an animation tool by game developers to animate daz models. Pity. Of course there exists another option to do everything manually but to be honest, this is bullshit - easier alternatives exist. You can use Motionbuilder or other animation\mocap tool. As for facial animations, you can make them in daz and apply as additive animations.

KelleyToons,
Very interesting videos. I am not sure about clothes import into CC as I really hate weights painting (actually I think if hell exist, people there paint vertices all days) but using daz render for CT looks promising. I will perform some experiments. Thanks.

So you didn't watch my clothes tutorial, then -- you don't have to paint weights.  Those will be correctly transferred automatically by Blender.  Takes about five minutes no matter the clothing.

However, CC3 should make this even easier (faster?).  So, yeah, I would NEVER paint weights myself (never have, and never will) but I *might* use CC3 to "adjust" some of them.  We'll have to see what it offers in the way of these tools, as the auto weighting from Blender is near perfect and I would expect no less inside of CC3.

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Alienware Aurora R16, Win 11, i9-149000KF, 3.20GHz CPU, 64GB RAM, RTX 4090 (24GB), Samsung 870 Pro 8TB, Gen3 MVNe M-2 SSD, 4TBx2, 39" Alienware Widescreen Monitor
Mike "ex-genius" Kelley