Rigging

  • Convert DAZ Rig. Convert the current character to a different type of DAZ character, with a different rest pose.
  • New Rig. The new type of DAZ character.
  • Apply Rest Pose. Apply the current pose as rest pose. The active object must be an armature. The meshes that are children of this armature are also changed.
  • Copy Bones. Copy the bone locations in edit mode from the selected armature to the active one. The active object must be an armature.
  • Copy Poses. Copy the pose from the selected armature to the active one. The active object must be an armature.
  • Add Mannequins. Add a mannequin for the selected meshes. Fast to pose because the meshes have bone parents instead of armature modifiers.
  • Add To Group. Add mannequin objects to a named group (collection in Blender 2.8x).
  • Group.The name of the mannequin group/collection.
  • Add IK goals. Make selected bones into an IK chain and create an IK target.
  • Add Winder. Create a winder bone that controls a chain of bones.
  • Add To Group. Add selected objects to a named group (collection in Blender 2.8x).
  • Remove From Group. Remove selected objects from the named group/collection.
  • Group.The name of the group.
  • Show Prop groups.
  • List Bones.
  • Get Fingerprint.

Convert DAZ Rig


This button converts the armature for one type of DAZ character, e.g. Genesis 8, to another, e.g. Genesis 3. This feature is somewhat obsolete. For some time there was a bug in the posing algorithm, which meant that Genesis 8 characters were not posed correctly, but older characters were.

Copying bones and poses

There is usually not necessary to use the other buttons in this section when the file is imported with Mesh Fitting set to Json file. They were necessary in version 1.1 when obj or Collada files were used for mesh fitting.

Assume that we want to fit a character's feet into high-heeled boots.

Select the boots and shift-select the character (the armatures, not the meshes), and press Copy Poses. The copies the pose from the selected rig to the active one.

The feet are now inside the feet. With the character selected, press Apply Rest Poses to make this the new rest pose for the feet.

Mannequins

DAZ characters often have quite a large polygon count, which may affect viewport speed. This is especially true if you try to animate scenes with several characters on and you use an old computer, as I do. Replacing meshes with low-poly versions helps to some extent, but the viewportcan still be painfully slow. It appears that the main obstacle is deforming meshes with an armature modifier and vertex groups.

This is where mannequins come in. A mannequin is a collection of meshes that don't have armature modifiers, but instead are parented directly to bones. Tests indicate that posing with mannequins is much faster than with normal characters. The suggested workflow is:
  1. Animate your scene with mannequins.
  2. Save the action.
  3. Open a new blend file with the real characters.
  4. Append the action from the mannequin blend.
  5. Render. This is the only step where you will suffer from slow deformation, but you don't have to sit and watch.
  • Add Mannequins. Split the selected meshes into chunks that don't have armature modidiers, but instead are parented directly to bones. The mannequin meshes are added to a separate group together with the rig. This means that you can choose whether to link to the mannequin or to the original meshes in file linking.
  • Head. How to split up the head into chunks. This is most relevant for Genesis 3 and Genesis 8 rigs, where the head has a face rig with many bones.
    • Solid. Keep the entire head as one mesh.
    • Jaw. Split the head into a head and a jaw mesh. Thus is usually the default.
    • Full. Split the head fully. This is usually a bad idea for characters with a face rig.
  • Add To Group. Add the new meshes to a group (collection in Blender 2.8x).
  • Group. Name of the group/collection.

After Add Mannequins has been pressed, there are many new meshes parented under the rig. These meshes are parented to different bones and named rig-name_bone_name.

Because a mannequin consists of so many meshes, it can be difficult to select them by hand. However, if the Add To Group option was enabled when the mannequin was created, all meshes can easily be selected by group. Otherwise you can use the following trick:
  1. Select all meshes that should go into the mannequin.
  2. Move the selected meshes to layer 2.
  3. Make layer 2 the active layer, hiding the original layer 1.
  4. Make Mannequin.
  5. Move all selected meshes back to layer 1. This works because the same meshes are still selected.
  6. The original meshes are now on layer 1 and the mannequin on layer 2.
Here is the same pose for the original meshes and for the mannequin. Note the behavior when bones are bent at a sharp angle, such as the right hip and knee in this example.

Here we only selected the body and pants before making mannequins. We can make mannequins for all rigs, but the rig must be finished first. So we can convert the rig to MHX or Rigify and make mannequins afterwards, but the opposite order will not work.


IK goals and winders

IK goals and winders are useful for quickly posing long flexible object with many links, such as chains, rope, whips, etc. From DAZ Studio we import a chain with the root bone at the center.


We want to control the right side of the chain with an IK goal. To this end, select the bones that should belong to the IK chain, and select Add IK goals. A new bone appears at the end, and we can pose the entire right half with this bone.


The left side we want to control with a winder. Select the first bone on the left side (not the root bone, but the first bone to the left of it) and press Add Winder. A new winder bone is created, and we can pose the left side with it.

Groups

These buttons make it possible to quickly add or remove objects from a group. For a single object, this can just as well be done in the object context, but this becomes tedious if the number of objects is large. E.g., the chain above consists of an armature and 54 link meshes, which are bone-parented to the armature bones, and adding each of these objects to a group takes time.

Select all objects that you want to add to the group, and type the group name in the box. Press Add To Group and all 55 objects are added.


Utilities

Show Prop Groups
Bone drivers are implemented using property group, which can not be inspected directly in Blender. This button prints a list of the values of the property drivers for each selected bone in the terminal window.

List Bones
Prints a list of the active armature's bones in the terminal window.


Get Fingerprint
If the armature has a child with a recognized fingerprint, print that in the terminal window. Cf. the Mesh document.