Introducing MegaDaz
MegaDaz is an extension to the MegaFiers system (MegaFiers is required to be able to use this product) that allows for easy importing of Daz3D character morphs. You just need to load the original Daz base character file such as the Genesis dsf file, then after that all you need to do is select the folder with the morph files in and then pick and choose which morphs you want to use with your game character. You can easily update your selection or add new morphs as you purchase them from the Daz store. The system also works just as well with decimated Daz characters.
Normal Daz characters can have tens of thousands of vertices which can make them not ideal for games especially mobile games but MegaDaz allows the morphs to work just the same with heavily vertex reduced meshes, so in Daz you can use the decimator to reduce the vertex count to a few thousand vertices and the system will be able to load the morphs to that character easily. And donāt forget once you have your character in and morphing in Unity you can use the MegaFiers Wrap system to apply any Daz3D clothing or any other object to your character.
MegaDaz is available now for $30 in the Asset Store or on our website. A copy of MegaFiers is required to use this system.
Workflow Video
The video below shows the system in use and shows morphs being added to three versions of the Genesis base character, the first is the full high detail mesh, the second has had the vertex count reduced by 75% and the third has been reduced by 90%.
Daz Clothing
This video shows the old way of getting Daz morphs into Unity which the system now replaces but at the end it shows the Wrap system in MegaFiers being used to add Daz clothing items to a morphing character.
Just got this and it works brilliantly, so much easier to use. I am so happy that I can have all the work I have done in Daz working in Unity and with automatic clothing to boot, thank you so much for this.
Hey. How do I install it? Which folder to throw?
The editor works fine, but when assembling the compilation error:
ArgumentException: The Assembly UnityEditor is referenced by MegaDazEditor. But the dll is not allowed to be included or could not be found.
UnityEditor.AssemblyHelper.AddReferencedAssembliesRecurse (System.String assemblyPath, System.Collections.Generic.List1 alreadyFoundAssemblies, System.String[ ] allAssemblyPaths, System.String[ ] foldersToSearch, System.Collections.Generic.Dictionary2 cache, BuildTarget target) (at C:/BuildAgent/work/d3d49558e4d408f4/Editor/Mono/AssemblyHelper.cs:113)
When applying the base DSF file for the vertex mapping (e.g., Genesis.dsf) to an FBX model in Unity, can the model have baked morphs already? For example, I was thinking of creating distinct male and female versions of the Genesis model for FBX export and just baking the morphs in directly, rather than having those gender morphs be morph targets in Unity. Can I still use the base Genesis.dsf file in that case?
Will MegaDaz only work with decimated models via Dazās Decimator? Iām finding that the Decimator algorithm produces weird artifacts and asymmetry in the model, and thereās still some inefficiency in use of polys, even when adjusting the weights. Iād like to do a manual retopology of the model, but Iām not sure if thereās something specific about the Daz Decimator that makes it the only way you can decimate a model and still work with MegaDaz.
@EgorKa - Sorry for the delay in responding Unity didnāt send out the email saying a post has happened.You need to make sure the dll files are in an āEditorā folder, you can put them somewhere where they would be included in a project build as the system uses UnityEditor classes. If you just install to the package as is all should work fine.
@GXMark - We do not currently have any Genesis II files to test with, I assume from your question that they do not use DUF files any longer. It does seem tha Daz keep changing their minds as to how they deal with objects, the system was written around the files used in the current release of Daz Studio but we do get the odd email saying Daz uses other file formats. We will look into adding support for other formats just as soon as we can get some test files from Daz and figure out the file formats.
@chiapet1021 - The system works by loading the base data from the DUF file for a character and then trying to map that to the fbx mesh you import into Unity, if that mesh is a lot different form the base mesh in the DUF file the system will not be able to correctly match the vertices up. Can you not just add extra morph channels for your base deformations? As for decimation you can use whatever software you like to reduce the poly counts for the FBX file you import into Unity, the system as I said will try and match the points correctly to the base mesh and will weight vertices according to the closest fit, so it doesnāt matter if you use Decimator or any other system to reduce the poly count on your object.
Just so you know if you have a problem it is best to post a support ticket at the website, we can then make sure we can respond as soon as possible to questions instead of counting on the rather iffy email notifications Unity sends out for forum posts.
Thanks for the answers! That was actually exactly what I was hoping for, so youāve made me very happy. I actually havenāt purchased MegaFiers and MegaDaz yet, and I wanted to vet this out first. Iām working with a game art studio to modify the base mesh, due to the Daz Decimator issues Iāve run into.
Back to the base DUF file, I can definitely add the deformations first prior to export. So does that mean the base file can be a DUF? I think the Genesis base file in my version of Daz is a DSF file (and I think thatās the file type thatās used in your demo video). Iām not sure of the differences between those two extensions, although they do seem very similar.
Has anyone tried using Megadaz more extensively in a customisation character scenario. More to the point, how is the MegaWrap working giving the length of time it takes to map a clothing item to a character a full outfit would takes along time. Ok if you processing this offline first. But even if you are doing this then how is the megawrap data being saved to achieve this. Which data do you need to save to remove this lengthy wrapping process?
If the wrapping process is taking a long time then you probably need to reduce the max dist value, the aim is to use the lowest value that maps all the vertices, so start with the slider at the lowest value then slowly increase it, wrapping should only take a second or two on complex meshes. It would be possible to serialize the wrap data, there are issues with Unity and prefabs with dynamic meshes which are trying to work around.
I got this problem as well. You have to move the āMegaDazā folder into an āEditorā folder in the root of your project. It doesnāt install that way by default from the Asset Store, so you have to do it manually.
How many characters can you realistically run at the same time with this megadaz system. I mean 20, 50, 100 characters on the screen at the same time all with the megawrap components etc. It seems abit heavy weight on one character let alone an army.
How long is a piece of string, it depends on your system and how much you decimate the characters, if you want an army of characters all doing their own thing then with the default Daz character then that is not going to happen obviously, if you reduce the complexity of the mesh and the use the same mesh in multiple objects then those extra ones just take the normal mesh cost. As well if the morphs are not actually changing at all you can turn the system of so it uses no extra CPU power over normal mesh rendering. The system was done to make it easier to get Daz characters into Unity and if that is what you need then it will do the job As to how many just cant say without specific information.
@SpookyCat - Has the ability to save prefab been addressed yet? Where are we at with that. It has been a year. Has Unity offered you any help to fix things on there end. The MegaDaz is useless without the ability to save a prefab. Why is taking unity so long to make the corrections needed to make this work?
A new prefab system was added in version 2.68 of megafiers, its now on version 2.74, so far not had any reports its not working. The prefab system is part of MegaFiers not MegaDaz so it didnāt get posted here.
This looks like a very interesting project. I have a couple question about it though for character creators.
1) Does it work with the Daz Genesis 1 or Genesis 2 models? If not what are the known versions it does work with?
2) Can I make a character editor with it? Like can I swap out different clothes onto the base Daz model at runtime in Unity3D?
3) Other then morphs, can your system let me scale the individual Daz model legs and arm bones to say make the characters arms longer by only scaling out the forearm bone pragmatically in Unity3D? (Sorry if this is a silly question, just trying to make sure I understand your plugin a little better)
Iāve bought Megafiers and MegaDaz, and have been messing around with them the last couple of weeks. Iāve got a handle on everything, but Iām having an issue with the morphs not mapping correctly ā specifically with the inner mouth, fingers and toes. Everything else works pretty much as expected, but some vertices donāt seem to be getting mapped.
Iām using the full Daz model (no decimation), so it should map up exactly with the morphs, but it isnāt. Iāve been mapping at a tolerance of 24.4 (for Genesis 2 Female) in order for it not to give any mapping errors. Iāve also tried with Genesis 2 Male and just normal Genesis, but they all have the same issues with the inner mouth, fingers and toes. Since I want to be able to do facial animations, I need them to match up (since currently any face morphs disfigure the model pretty horribly). Iām attaching a screenshot of the issue using a Height morph to show how some arenāt mapping.
In this example I got no errors in the mapping process (at the Tolerance of 24.4). So even if the vertices didnāt map to the correct part of the body, shouldnāt they still have moved with the morph (since they should be mapped to something)?
Edit: Seems there are two problems. The first is that some parts arenāt mapping. But also, the bones donāt change when the morphs are added, which means any animations wonāt work correctly when the body has been changed. Is there a way around this? I figure these must be problems you are aware of and hopefully have fixes for (though looking at the web player demo, it seems like the bones arenāt changing in that either, so any bone animations wouldnāt work correctly).
I was having this problem too, and itās a Mega Fiers thing, really, not Mega Daz. When you wrap the clothing, make sure to choose the lowest setting you can for āMax Distanceā, like 0.01, and see if that works. Also, if youāre not using Decimator on the Genesis meshes the clothing is going to take a longer time to wrap (not to mention other issues).
I actually havenāt purchased MegaFiers and MegaDaz yet, and I wanted to vet this out first. Iām working with a game art studio to modify the base mesh, due to the Daz Decimator issues Iāve run into.