It's actually all over the board for some time now. One of the most recent https://forum.reallusion.com/FindPost451420.aspx

I’m aware of Skingen, but will itimport HD details from Daz figures? I didn’t see that.

Oh, I would not know that for sure. That is why I said, lets wait. ;)

But meantime, I went ahead and purchased that monster. One thing's for sure, I like the outcome with Substance Painter you posted the tutorial for whole lot more, than Blender.
It took more time though to prepare hi/lo versions than actually baking. But baking was done in one shot and I got 4 nicely done maps, which I'll try to push along to CC via Transformer tomorrow (which I feel is going to be more painful than anything else).

Blender Repaired Hi/Lo mesh

76% of original size (was 666x19) - Click to enlarge

Substance Painter Baked normal maps for LP

76% of original size (was 666x19) - Click to enlarge

Ah. I’m a bit skeptical myself.
The Substance result looks a lot better from those pics. I look forward to seeing the final result.

A very nice result 4u2ges (yes I promised myself I would let it go for now because I am out of time, but I can't) 

When you say it took you a long time to prepare the model, you mean because the UVs are all over the place? 

For me that was the problem. The face worked because the UV was in the correct place, but I hadn't ticked the "collapse UVs" button on my Daz Export, and the rest of the UVs (leg, torso, arms) were appart. Collapsing the UVs made it work for me as well!! 

But now in CC the baked normals don't align with the diffuse map. No idea why :D 




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I think this is an area where CC might actually make things a little bit more annoying because it changes the UV’s of Daz characters to match the CC uv’s.

You say you tried to convert the model via 3dxchange at some point. Try it on that version really quick and see if it works. The UV’s should still be the same on that, and a drag and drop should work.
Just a theory. I haven’t opened CC in months.

That Blender image is just to show a prep for export (not normal maps application outcome).
Blender generates normal maps fine, but it is not automated. You have to click a lot and tweak settings to get a clean, artifacts free output.
Substance Painter on the other hand is fully automated.

Unfortunately, there is no way to export original low poly in DAZ to OBJ. So I had to use FBX and strip from armature.
I did not want to take any chances and prepped hi/lo mesh for  Substance Painter (SP) thoroughly. Got rid of unnecessary meshes and materials.
Consolidated the rest based on texture maps. And only had 4 at the end for hi and lo. Exported both as OBJ out of Blender for SP.

Importing via transformer was quite smooth. Generated profile and then specified normal maps in .ini file. The only thing I did not like, is that normal maps came matted white. Seams still need to be workout a bit.

76% of original size (was 666x19) - Click to enlarge

I also did 3DX, where I applied maps directly. So here is an outcome (can I call them three graces? :w00t:)

76% of original size (was 666x19) - Click to enlarge


Finally, I converted normal maps to height maps and applied to displacement channel. This is where seams broke through hard. So definitely needs fixing.

76% of original size (was 666x19) - Click to enlarge

BTW I did not collapse UV in either export - OBJ, nor FBX, they are still apart. But that did not affect workflow at any step.

I did not mention: Credits for normal to height conversion go to r/gamedev - https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/fffskm/convert_normal_map_to_displacement_map/

So yeah, the 3DXchange one is definitely the better looking one. I'm just wondering why that is when it looks like you accounted for that during the 3DXchange import.

Oh, and I'm not sure displacement in Iclone works in a way that'll give good results here. Then again, I never use it!

3DX obviously left maps and mesh intact and it has around 1000 more faces. Guess that is the reason it looks *slightly* better.
Displacement did not workout well. This feature in underdeveloped. I could not get rid of seams even if I cranked tessellation level to the max and only had minimal value for multiplier.
Ideally, if you paint edges of the UV  islands with base color, it should weld it and have them stay place. Did not happened (or I did not spend more time).
It should be handled by software as it was pointed out many times here on the forum.
But I left height maps in place and this way normal map values are sort of driven by displacement maps.

Anyway, final fun render...

76% of original size (was 666x19) - Click to enlarge

I like it!! 

This was a very useful thread, thanks for everything guys!!

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