Friday, July 26, 2024

Diffeomorphic Add-Ons version 4.2.0 Released

 DAZ Importer version 4.1.0 did not work at all with Blender 4.2. The reason is that Blender 4.2 has a strong (or less weak) typing system, which causes almost every button in the DAZ Importer to crash. Therefore it is time for a new stable release of the DAZ Importer and the other Diffemorphic add-ons. The add-ons have been tested with Blender 4.1.0 and 4.2.0 and also briefly with Blender 2.83, and there is a good chance that they will work with intermediate Blender versions too.

Apart from making it possible to use the DAZ Importer in Blender 4.2 at all, there are also some other improvements:


The DAZ Studio export scripts (export_to_blender.dsa and export_highdef_to_blender.dsa) have also been updated and should be copied to the Scripts folder in a DAZ Studio directory. Old versions of the scripts still work in most situations, but the new versions are needed for the improvements of rigid followers and HD import.


DAZ Importer
The DAZ Importer is a Blender add-on for importing native DAZ Studio files (.duf, .dsf) into Blender. It also contains some tools to make the assets more animation friendly.
Download:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/5xh2xun51kn3c851y85ju/import_daz_v4_2_0.zip?rlkey=uapugueahv4otj7q07aliocyc
Documentation:
https://bitbucket.org/Diffeomorphic/import_daz/wiki/Home


MHX Runtime System

The MHX Runtime System is a Blender add-on for posing the MHX rig, that can be generated by the DAZ Importer.
Download:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/wi5x9m7phck8yxjme42tz/mhx_rts_v4_2_0.zip?rlkey=fy6dkyj04ueloygbvvemjb3ft
Documentation:
https://bitbucket.org/Diffeomorphic/mhx_rts/wiki/Home


BVH and FBX Retargeter
The purpose of the BVH and FBX Retargeter is loading animations from BVH or FBX files to a given armature, and editing these animations in various useful ways.
Download:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/5qvty2bnvp3x6bs6ido67/retarget_bvh_v4_2_0.zip?rlkey=lmk28nweryfkdzic0cnn54c82
Documentation:
https://bitbucket.org/Diffeomorphic/retarget_bvh/wiki/Home


The next three add-ons were recently spawned from the DAZ Importer in order to keep down its size somewhat. They contain rather specialized tools that are probably not of interest to most users. They are also poorly documented.

Important: The DAZ Importer must be enabled first, before any of these three add-ons can be used.

DAZ Preset Exporter
This add-on contains some tools for creating pose presets and other assets that can be used in DAZ Studio. It has not been updated for Blender 4.2.0.
Download:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/nfqjioymya3sofq71pcv4/export_daz_v4_1_0.zip?rlkey=4nujmfmir99dqf6sm7y0weyzi
Documentation:
https://bitbucket.org/Diffeomorphic/export_daz/wiki/Home


DAZ Rigging
Some specialized tools for rigging certain types of figures, link chains and tails.
Download:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/dbrvarajfb7173u7q0hfa/rig_daz_v4_2_0.zip?rlkey=ep0vif4h6pdxktvwm9n6sfras
Documentation:
https://bitbucket.org/Diffeomorphic/rig_daz/wiki/Home


Shell Editor
Contains some tools for manipulating shells imported from DAZ Studio.
Download:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/v08r48o9z2nswb57fpv0y/shell_edit_v4_2_0.zip?rlkey=boo9zmie3jei1rztsktefnj65
Documentation:
https://bitbucket.org/Diffeomorphic/shell_edit/wiki/Home