[Video] Exporting and Importing Characters From DAZ 3D into UE4 - No Third Party Software

Hi,
I’m Ibrahim Akinde, and here’s a tutorial on exporting and importing beautiful high-poly characters from DAZ 3D into UE4 directly, without any additional software needed. The tutorial and showcase are based on version 4.13 of UE4, and DAZ Studio 4.8. So there shouldn’t be any problems with compatibility upwards, at the very least.

Feel free to leave suggestions, comments or questions below. You can also reach me via mail at contact@adrayvia.com or ibmaxx@hotmail.com. My Skype ID is: IBMAXX1.
Enjoy.

Showcase

Tutorial

That characters use the default unreal epic skeleton ?

No, they have their own rigs. But you can always unskin the characters and re-rig.

Hi guys,
Check out my thread for free templates and tutorials here: Free Blueprint Templates, Tutorials and Other Stuff - Community Content, Tools and Tutorials - Unreal Engine Forums

A new video tutorial about importing animations and rigged clothes is coming up next. Stay tuned!

So much to do, so little time. Still working on the animation video. Coming soon.

Go go =D !!!

Uploading a preview soon.

Ah, finally! Took all day, but it’s here.

Check out my short cinematic for Adrayvia:

Now, if only I could get some awesome custom anims…:slight_smile:

@Maxx_Rexx - was gonna ask, what do you use for animations on your DAZ characters (as in your Rise of the Nin trailer)?

I was going to try getting the DAZ character with skeleton into Mixamo to get their anims on it, but they made the hip joint into the root, which means the chains don’t match up, so it wasn’t able to be imported.

(Also, on the topic of your Rise of the Nin trailer, I think the “jiggle factor” could be toned down a little :P)

Hmm… not too sure what you mean by “what do I use”…my hands?? :smiley:
Sometimes I actually go frame by frame or use the Puppeteer and animate2 to animate. Sometimes I use marketplace content, like Kubold’s anims or SKA’s. Ultimately, as long as I get to tell my story the way I’d like to, ko re de ii (Japanese for any way is fine - literally ‘this is it’). :slight_smile:

Ah, sorry, I’m not an animator, so I tend to use stuff from marketplaces. What I meant was, how do you get animations like Kubold’s etc. onto the DAZ rig, given the skeletons are not the same?

You can try retargeting, but that might be a pain, and even if it does work, you’ll most probably still end up with some bones deformed, so you’ll have to either tweak the animation manually or tweak settings on the skeleton (Recursively set all bones…).
Another way is to simply unskin the DAZ character and reskin it with the SK Mannequin rig (Epic’s Rig). If you do that right, the anims should work without problems.
Another way is to take the SK Mannequin Rig out of UE and into a rigging engine like Blender/MAX/Maya and add/remove bones to/from it to make it similar to the DAZ Rig, while still keeping the animation. Note if you get this right, when you import back into UE, it’ll be a new skeleton, and the animation may not work on the standard Epic Rig.

Basically, there’s no easy way to do it, yet, as far as I can tell. If anyone has an efficient, easy way to do this I’d really love to know, cos I actually need it as well.

Dang, I was hoping you had a magic bullet. Right now my process is basically getting the initial skinning onto a Mixamo rig with just the base mesh, then copying that to other LODs, and then renaming and adding bones until it’s the same as the Epic skeleton.

Unfortunately Mixamo’s skinning leaves something to be desired, and Maya’s skinning tools are terrible (at least I have a lot of problems with getting smooth gradients, and painting across seams).

Speaking of which, do you have any trips for painting weights across seams? Because it seems to work pretty poorly. I tried to find plugins or scripts to help but most don’t seem to affect the ability to e.g., smooth across a seam in the mesh.

Sorry mate, but I don’t really have any :slight_smile:

Hi guys, here’s a quick showcase for the June 2017 update for The Art of Combat:

Enjoy.

Get it on the Marketplace: The Art of Combat in Blueprints - UE Marketplace
Get it on Gumroad: https://gum.co/theartofcombat
45% off Discount: adrayviancombat

The Art of Combat Forum Thread: The Art of Combat - Melee Combat System for the Unreal Engine - Marketplace - Epic Developer Community Forums

Morning guys!

I started a Tutorial and Overview series for The Art of Combat. You can check out the thread here:

Hi guys. These are the tutorial videos for The Art of Combat thus far:

Join our live Discord for real time-updates and discussions: Adrayvia Live

If I’m not mistaken, the upcoming version of iClone will provide export features to the UE4 skeleton, along with already present import features for DAZ characters. As far as I understand it, using those two in your pipeline, you will be able to create characters in DAZ, bring them to iClone, animate (e.g. facial expressions, lipsync) if needed, and export them to UE4 with the epic skeleton layout (+ blendshapes).

There’s also the Character Creator for iClone, but compared to DAZ it seems to have a long way to go still, especially content wise.