For our fish and tail example it would be ZXY. On my cylinder the order doesn’t matter, but for a human leg the order would be YZX. The second axis is the one that least likely reaches a 90 degree rotation, while the third axis the one that most likely reaches 90 degree rotation. If you think about the bones of a fish or the tail of a dinosaur, it’ll be along the Z axis (so it’ll be ZXY or ZYX). For my upright standing cylinder, or the legs of a character, it’ll be the Y axis (so the rotation order will be YXZ or YZX). The first letter denotes what axis the bones should be aligned with. The first axis is the “twist axis”, around which a bone rotates. Let me try to explain how I remember them now: For me that’s the part I used to struggle with most, simply because I couldn’t comprehend what it meant. Our next step is to set the Bone Rotation Order. Again it’s tricky to explain in words, especially where to click. To do that, let’s left-click and drag one on top of another: Middle onto Bottom, then Top onto Middle. In my example, all groups are on the same level, but I’d like for them to appear as child objects as if they were a figure. Once it appears on the right, you’ll see each face group in the hierarchy as a list of bones. It’s tricky to explain exactly so I made a GIF: This next step is a little confusing: we need to drag our object from the left side over to the right side, onto the Geometry cube. This will allow us to import the OBJ file we’ve created previously. On the right hand side, in the empty column labelled Geometry, right-click and choose Add Geometry. Open something ever so slightly intimidating called the Figure Setup Tab (Window – Tabs). Save your scene if you like, then remove the cylinder so that we have nothing in our viewport. Regardless, with these “zones” defined and exported as OBJ, they’ll stay intact and we’ll be able to infer bones from them in the next step. Blender for example calls them Vertex Groups, while ZBrush calls them Poly Groups. What DAZ Studio calls Face Groups is called different things in other 3D apps. If they’re material groups, select and convert them. not a cylinder), you may have similar groups already setup on your model. It is very likely that on a real life object (i.e. Head over to Export – Wavefront OBJ and choose the DAZ Studio preset. We need to save our object as OBJ file now, but these groups will stay intact. All of these options will appear on the Tool Settings tab.įor my example I’ll end up with three groups like this: Give it a name and repeat for all other groups. To do that, select the polygons you want grouped, left-click onto Face Groups, then right-click on that heading and choose Create Face Group from selected.
Let’s switch over to the Geometry Editor tool and create three polygroups for the top, middle and bottom parts of my figure. I’ll enable the Wire Texture Shaded view so I can see my geometry. This will space out the geometry into easily selectable squares. I’ll choose one with 150cm height, 50cm diameter and 12 sides/segments. Creating and preparing my objectįor this example I’ll do everything inside DAZ Studio so we’re all on the same page.
#Skyrim import daz models manual#
I’ll explain the Figure Setup version here and will leave the manual bone creation for another article. Note that there are two types of rigging things in DAZ Studio: with the Figure Setup Tab, which will generate bones from the polygroups of an object, and by creating bones manually.
#Skyrim import daz models how to#
Perhaps with this simple list of steps, we’ll all be able to build on the basics and remember how to get started next time. Like many things, it’s not actually all that difficult to comprehend. I’ve had many attempts at understanding the official documentation on this subject, but severe lack of knowledge and understanding have kept me from transferring this information into my brain. Believe it or not, the above picture is the result of trying and failing to understand rigging in DAZ Studio for years.