DAZ 3D now has a great art pipeline

[dazpro]

Lots of gamers have wanted to use DAZ 3D assets for a long time but the DAZ EULA prevented it. In March 2010 DAZ 3D launched a new website with a new EULA dedicated to gamers. http://developer.daz3d.com
Now DAZ 3D has come out with a new tool set called the Digimi Game Developer Kit that allows gamers to take the pre-rigged and textured figures in DAZ Studio, decimate them down to game level poly counts, combine and scale all the textures, and export as FBX.http://developer.daz3d.com/i/shop/itemdetails/?item=10675
The workflow would be:
1. Start with DAZ Studio (it's free) and load the base models (Michael or Victoria)
2. Load clothing (zombie, knight, anime, soldier, spaceman, etc. etc.) and Morph and/or animate.
3. Decimate (using Decimator for DAZ Studio)
4. Combine and scale textures (using Texture Atlas for DAZ Studio)
5. Export - including morphs and animations- (using FBX plugin for DAZ Studio

Go directly to GC or go to other 3D tools to work on animations etc.

-

[BigDaz]

Here's my guy in engine, looks great. 

[dazpro]

BigDAZ,

Looks great indeed!

That looks like Michael 4 and the bodysuit maybe?

Did you use the Game Developer Kit from DAZ 3D or other tools?

Thanks for sharing.

[BigDaz]

Yeah it's Michael 4 and the bodysuit. The shoes came from elsewhere and I added the gloves myself. I did try the Game Developer Kit but ended up just exporting as fbx and then lowering the polycount using a combination of XSI and 3D-Coat. I didn't like having to triangulate the model to decimate it and there didn't seem to be options for symmetry and things which XSI does really well. The morphs for facial expressions and blinking might come in handy later too, I'd like to try that sometime.

[dazpro]

Sounds good.

Symmetry is on the list of enhancements slated for the Decimator for DAZ Studio but yeah you got really good results. I am glad that DAZ content is working out for you.

[gekido]

I have also been experimenting heavily with the Daz Game Kit as well and having very good results.  What I am liking alot about the decimator is the ability to prioritize different areas of the character prior to decimation - so you can balance getting a decent poly count while keeping poly's where it is important.

The Texture Atlas functionality is also pretty sweet for optimizing texture usage / sizes.

[BigDaz]

Here's a huge library of 2500 Daz-Friendly motion capture files -
http://sites.google.com/a/cgspeed.com/cgspeed/motion-capture/daz-friendly-release

Tutorial video 1

Using the Daz-friendly Carnegie-Mellon BVH release - PART 1

Tutorial video 2

Using the Daz-friendly Carnegie-Mellon BVH release - PART 2

[BigDaz]

I've been playing with the Mimic tool today. It's very good for facial animation, quick and simple to use.
 
Lip Sync Test 2
(Voice from Acapella-box.com)

[gekido]

Just posted a video of my new project (Fleet Defender) - I'm using Daz characters exclusively for the characters in the game and have been having great success with them.

I posted a video on another thread of the results in GameCore:

http://www.gamecore3d.com/forums/index.php/topic,929.msg6846.html

[cysphere]

bought mimic pro and gamestudiopack from daz, too. Looks good so far. The Decimaor toolset works fine, but seems to be in some settings at low poly tricky. So I will not update Poser and will use and experiment with daz3 tools further.

Any Tips how handling low poly chars, which lvl is the best for an char. In the past 5k polys was the limit for a char, today is 9k-12k polys a good handling size for the biggest lod. Yes it depends on the game, but I think that was the middle of usement.

gekido how did you implement mimic pro facialanimation and sound in your char and gamecore. Do you have any tips about motionblending at character movement. thx