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By rgathje - 16 Years Ago
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For those of you that use Poser items but the poly is to high, DAZ has come out with a product called "Decimator for DAZ Studio" that will lower the poly count for gamers. The link is http://www.daz3d.com/i/shop/itemdetails/?item=10673 if you want to take a look at it.
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By Christy0 - 16 Years Ago
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Yeah!!! Brilliant, :D also check out Texture Atlas to go with it. I see all are included in a bundle, Decimator-Atlas-Fbx exporter, great deal if you don't already have any of them. I just love it when people make life easy :D
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By bluemidget666 - 16 Years Ago
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$104 for all 3 looks very tempting .. anyone used it ?
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By Dreamcube017 - 16 Years Ago
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Hey that's not bad. I'd like to try it, but I've still got no budget for it right now... as usual. :\
I wonder if it works in EVERYTHING availible in DAZ Studio.
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By Illustrator Cathy - 16 Years Ago
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There's an article at the CG Society as well: http://features.cgsociety.org/story.php?story_id=5657 with a quote from our own John Martin - "The combination of the innovative Digimi Game Developer Kit with Reallusion's robust software packages creates the perfect pipeline for 3D artists and animators to leverage the wealth of DAZ 3D-Gizmoz content into real-time 3D filmmaking. Now, users of iClone 4 and 3DXchange 4 can benefit from even more high-quality assets."
-- John Martin II, VP Product Marketing, Reallusion
Cathy :hehe:
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By lundon - 16 Years Ago
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I just got through trying it. I loaded Michael 4 into DAZ Studio, added a shirt and shorts and then decimated all three down to about 15%. Next I ran Texture Atlas, clicked a few buttons and had a single diffuse map that combined all three texture maps. Next I created a simple animation and then exported it using the FBXExporter. I brought the fbx into 3DExchange, saved it out as a character.
It loaded into iClone and it looks pretty darn good. The animation worked fine.
I'm almost afraid to say this for fear of jinxing it, but I'm really impressed so far.
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By bluemidget666 - 16 Years Ago
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for $4 over the origanal cost of the fbx exporter im more than interested
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By peteradam6 - 16 Years Ago
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"I loaded Michael 4 into DAZ Studio, added a shirt and shorts and then decimated all three down to about 15%."
Could you let us know the exact poly/face count of the 15% iClone version?
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By lundon - 16 Years Ago
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peteradam6 (5/14/2010)
"I loaded Michael 4 into DAZ Studio, added a shirt and shorts and then decimated all three down to about 15%." Could you let us know the exact poly/face count of the 15% iClone version?
22,016. I could probably have gone lower. The whole exercise was just to see that it would work as advertised.
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By Dreamcube017 - 16 Years Ago
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Hey, I've got what may be some magical news for some...
So has anyone played with the XSI Mod Tool?
Well did you know it has a polygon decimator... oh yeah it's free too. You SHOUDL NOT render with it, but you can import and export thins with no limits... it can export to FBX and collada as well as OBJ too I think. I konw 3DX can take at least two out of 3 of those.
I took an object that was about 40,000 polygons and made it turn into around 2,000. Now this was a very funny shaped object that could afford to have tons of polies knocked off. Depending on what it is, results may vary, but that goes for any decimator anywhere... so I'm just saying to give it a try before you spend 100 dollars.
To export things from DAZ Studio, I kow you can use .obj files as export.
Oh... UV Map... hmmm I don't THINK this should bother it much, but it's something to keep in mind when doing this.
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By peteradam6 - 16 Years Ago
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I'm pleased to report that the price on the DAZ website is what you pay, there's no extra tax added.
I'm quite pleased with it. It does what it says. Being able to liberate a huge Poser&Daz library into iClone in lowpoly form -- along with additional animations added through use of the aniMate Plus plugin -- makes it well worth the price.
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By Dreamcube017 - 16 Years Ago
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That's pretty awesome... oh the XSI post will only work on static meshes... not characters because no bones will be saved.
Wow it makes it worth buying the stuff in the DAZ store now. Main reason I never got it was becaues even though it looked great, animation wasn't easy to do and things were just choppy and I had to wait for renders.
I'm wondering though... Couldn't I just animate the character in iClone if I didn't wanna get aniMate+? Also, would the character have facial animations or no? I'm guessing that's a NO.
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By Apparition - 16 Years Ago
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Folks:
There is also PolygonCruncher!
I use it and works VERY nice, keeping the textures well preserved.
It can go down to dramatic reductions!
Mike
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By W.VEEKE - 16 Years Ago
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Many solutions are there:
I reduce the vertexes & polys in max without any plugin. You can exactly tell how many vertexes you want.
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By peteradam6 - 16 Years Ago
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"Couldn't I just animate the character in iClone if I didn't wanna get aniMate+? Also, would the character have facial animations or no? I'm guessing that's a NO."
You can apply any DAZ&Poser motions that come with the character, if you can find them amid the confusion (DAZ's library-management method is no better than it is in Poser).
aniMate Plus just gives you a big extra range of animations, and the exciting part was that I had success loading these animations onto characters they were not intended for. For instance, loading Victoria animations onto robots, and they work!
Of course, you can just import the rigged DAZ figure to iClone and then make your own animations.
The ability to do mouth and most face animations in iClone are lost, because the lip morphs are lost. You might...
* still be able to move a jaw bone
* do speech in close-up and switch the scene to a CrazyTalk version of the DAZ face.
* green screen all your important face animations in DAZ, then bring into iClone
* model an iClone-standard head with Argile, so as to fit with a screen-capture of the DAZ model's face and texture. Then export the DAZ model with an opaque (missing) head, then attach your new iClone head to the DAZ body.
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By Dreamcube017 - 16 Years Ago
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Hmmm... As my main issue is body and face shape... I think I'll just continue to fight with iClone to get the look I want.
Hmm... plycruncher? It'll take a look.
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By Apparition - 16 Years Ago
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I agree with DreamCube!
Too many convolutions to get something done. All the DAZ involvement seems a little bit extravagant to me!
Iclone does A LOT of things. Actually it takes quite a while to master it, if such thing is possible.
Why not learning iClone first?
Mike
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By Dreamcube017 - 16 Years Ago
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True. Also Mike I saw your hair modeling tutorial and I really enjoyed it and found it useful.
I've just got to get a few things and I should be fine.
And now that I have Photoshop, I can just paint right on the clonecloth too i think... hmm this is traying of topic and DAZ does have some good stuff. I've made some cool hings with the DAZ software, but could never do muchbecause of render times. So this is pretty awesome either way.
But I think I'll use XSI ModTool for decimating for now. It's pretty good.
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By peteradam6 - 16 Years Ago
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Too many convolutions to get something done.
For $100 up-front and five minutes of work per character, you can bring any DAZ/Poser character or prop into iClone in low-poly and animatable form. It's really easy, once you've installed it and done the process once.
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By bluemidget666 - 16 Years Ago
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I am not convinced that even if you mastered Iclone character creation within Iclone, that you could get the body and face shapes that you can with Daz or Quidam... I may be wrong but dont think I am:)
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By gizmo - 16 Years Ago
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peteradam6 (5/24/2010)
"Couldn't I just animate the character in iClone if I didn't wanna get aniMate+? Also, would the character have facial animations or no? I'm guessing that's a NO." You can apply any DAZ&Poser motions that come with the character, if you can find them amid the confusion (DAZ's library-management method is no better than it is in Poser). aniMate Plus just gives you a big extra range of animations, and the exciting part was that I had success loading these animations onto characters they were not intended for. For instance, loading Victoria animations onto robots, and they work Cheers for the inspiration Peter. I had a go and it worked very well although I could not as yet re-use the animations for another character. I exported the animation OK but could not re-import onto another successfully. I'll try again tomorrow, although its just dawned on me that I did not try on a non human character. (Getting myself a little confused now as I saved Vicki as both character and prop). Also I had little time to play with the bone bounding size gizmo in exchange4. Did you touch this? Any tips on the export/import? I've been importing Daz props for quite a while now, again inspired by a good forum friend of mine who I will not name as she is quite a shy girl, and knocking off the poly's using Meshlab. That works well on most but not all Daz products but this latest development could be exciting in terms of utilizing Daz characters who do not require a speaking part. I'll even consider aniMate Plus when/if I'm satisfied with what I get. By the way, I totally agree with your comment on the Daz library-management. Its a total nightmare. Cheers again.
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By Apparition - 16 Years Ago
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bluemidget666:
Maybe not maybe yes... I wonder! The best and more illustrative would be some of you folks posting some pictures of those "outstanding" characters and faces. :w00t:
One thing I am absolutely unsure is: Do all this imports behave as fully compliant G3 avatars? This mean can they take clothing from libraries and content? I seriously doubt it! Cloth content (at least the iClone standard) also includes the mesh belonging to the upper, lower, hands and shoes. This means upon application of any clothing, the "outstanding" body parts in the original avatar get replaced by those packed in by the clothing developer.
Actually, after dressing an avatar with library content clothing, the avatar is totally replaced in his basic body with the body parts applied under the clothing.
I guess, the DAZ converted, crunched and animated characters, will be sort of "humanized" props but not actual iClone G3 standard avatars... Nice, but nevertheless, props!
Am I wrong?
Mike
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By bluemidget666 - 16 Years Ago
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I guess, the DAZ converted, crunched and animated characters, will be sort of "humanized" props but not actual iClone G3 standard avatars... Nice, but nevertheless, props!
No you are not wrong, right now there is Iclone avatars that can be clothed and have animation applied to them easily and can lypsyc but "Limited" body shapes or avatars that look just the way I want them but are awkward to animate and have limited facial animation and clothing options...
As for body shapes Iclone can not do ... I would say try creating a realistic looking pregnant woman ....
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