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Feature Request: Exporting an .obj sequence from DS4.5 to support Elements 3D from video copilot.

linvanchenelinvanchene Posts: 1,382
edited January 2013 in The Commons

Does anyone know of a plugin or script to export .obj sequences from DS4.5?

What I basically would like to do is set up a short animation loop with either animate, keymate, graphmate with a lenght of about 25 frames.
Then I would like to quickly export an .obj of the figure / scene at each frame.


I guess I could manually move the slider and then export the .obj and name them sequentially but you can probably see how an automated solution would speed up that process.

- - -

Why am I asking for this now?:

The After Effects Plugin Elements 3D is updated to version 1.5 and is now supporting to import .obj sequences.

Here a link to the youtube promo video:

Element 3D: V1.5 New Features

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_p_fUfKYTM

- - -

Post edited by linvanchene on

Comments

  • jestmartjestmart Posts: 4,449
    edited December 1969

    I believe that is what the MDD in the export options is for. But I don't do animation so I can't be sure.

  • linvanchenelinvanchene Posts: 1,382
    edited January 2013

    jestmart said:
    I believe that is what the MDD in the export options is for. But I don't do animation so I can't be sure.

    Jestmart, thank you for reacting to my question.

    As far as I understand it the MDD does indeed collect a series of .obj but it also compresses them into one file format called .mdd.

    I posted a screenshot of an .obj sequence.

    - - -

    Background information:

    As far as I understand with the Genesis figure neither collada nor .mdd export seem to work. I assume the problem is that those formats were not really designed with morphs in mind. (Please correct me if this has been fixed in the meantime.)

    In contrast to that exporting .obj sequences has the benefit that a series of uncompressed .obj are exported.
    Luckily it seems that .obj is one fixed standard that can read by almost all 3d software applications.

    Therefore having animation sequences in just .obj format solves a lot of problems.

    - - -

    The only real downside is the file size.

    The way I understand it collada and mdd take the information of one .obj and then add the movement data at each frame to it.

    With an obj sequence you have as many .obj as you have frames.

    So maybe you will not want to use that technique with huge files but only with low poly versions to be used as animated particles.

    - - -

    Anyway for this and many other reasons in Maya, 3DS, Nuke etc people have started to use .obj sequences for tasks were collada, mdd, bvh, fbx etc are not an option.

    So the ability to export .obj sequences would be a way for DS.4.5 to make up for the fact that all other options for animation export seem to fail with the genesis technique.

    - - -

    A task for the DAZ software team or an opportunity for a DAZ store plugin product creator?

    So is anyone on this forum or in the DAZ office that has an idea how to make such an .obj export script? From the outside it seems like a simple thing to do. Just some batch export script to export one .obj at each frame and name them in a sequential fashion.

    obj_sequence.jpg
    1920 x 1080 - 213K
    Post edited by linvanchene on
  • linvanchenelinvanchene Posts: 1,382
    edited January 2013

    I added a feature request to the mantis bug tracker:

    https://bugs.daz3d.com/view.php?id=49044

    If you feel like this would be an useful feature please add a note to the feature request at mantis bug tracker.

    It would also be great to have a .obj export function in carrara.

    - - -

    Can a forum admin please move this thread to the commons so maybe a few more possibly interested people may see it?

    I posted this originally in New Users because I thought there might a solution be available that I do not know of.
    As a feature request support topic the commons seems a more fitting place.

    Post edited by linvanchene on
  • frank0314frank0314 Posts: 13,936
    edited December 1969

    Moved to the Commons as requested

  • linvanchenelinvanchene Posts: 1,382
    edited December 1969

    Frank0314 said:
    Moved to the Commons as requested

    Thank you a lot! :-)

  • ArtiniArtini Posts: 9,357
    edited December 1969

    Give a try of mcjTeleBlender
    https://sites.google.com/site/mcasualsdazscripts/mcjteleblender-for-ds1-2-3-4
    It exports Daz Studio scenes and even animations as a series of obj files to Blender.

  • linvanchenelinvanchene Posts: 1,382
    edited February 2013

    Artini said:
    Give a try of mcjTeleBlender
    https://sites.google.com/site/mcasualsdazscripts/mcjteleblender-for-ds1-2-3-4
    It exports Daz Studio scenes and even animations as a series of obj files to Blender.

    Artini, thank you a lot!

    This actually worked pretty well.

    To quickly test it I
    - tossed a 40 frame aniblock on the default Genesis.
    - Baked the aniblock to the studio timeframe
    - Then run the script
    - Set the path to the .obj save location
    - Set Scene Frames to export as "Animation Range"
    - Set Scale to 100% (This worked for me for Elements 3D. The default setting at 2% was too small to see where the object is)
    - Select to Export the animation

    As reference the 40 Genesis in .obj format used about 462MB of space.
    One has to take into consideration that 3D elements was mainly intended to use low poly CG models as particles.

    The best thing of it all is that I did not even need to install blender for the exporting part of the script to work!
    - - -

    Still if DAZ finds the time to include this as an official feature I would be glad.
    There is always the risk that one day the plugin will not work after a version update of Studio.
    For some occasions it would be useful to have all advanced export options like in the default single .obj export dialogue.

    - - -

    For the moment thank you very much for sharing this very useful tool.

    Now that I have the script allready installed I may even give the cycles render engine another try.
    The documentation provided in the link you posted is really great!

    Post edited by linvanchene on
  • ArtiniArtini Posts: 9,357
    edited December 1969

    You are very welcome, linvanchene, and I am glad that it works for you.
    If you find the time, try cycles render engine. It is really great and if you have the graphics card that it supports,
    you will get a nice GPU acceleration as well.
    I have tested it on the card with GeForce GTX 670 chip and it shorten up the rendering time up to 5 times.
    Special thanks go to Casual, who created such a vast amount of scripts for DazStudio and make them available for free.
    He sometimes posts in DAZ Studio Discussion forum
    http://www.daz3d.com/forums/categories/16/P25
    like the one about Kinect motion capture for DazStudio
    http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/15404/#232889

  • kgv5kgv5 Posts: 4

    Hi, this seems to be an old post, is it a way to export obj sequence now in 2016? I have a 4.9 version installed, tried to use mcji teleblender but daz cannot see the plugin/script. I followed some installation guides, i have a blender 2.76b installed with mcjblenderbot but somehow I cannot use it. How to use mcjteleblender? Help!

  • mc_deimonmc_deimon Posts: 20
    kgv5 said:

    Hi, this seems to be an old post, is it a way to export obj sequence now in 2016? I have a 4.9 version installed, tried to use mcji teleblender but daz cannot see the plugin/script. I followed some installation guides, i have a blender 2.76b installed with mcjblenderbot but somehow I cannot use it. How to use mcjteleblender? Help!

     

    Can you see this video:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfs4smese84&t=7s

    Can you use this script: https://sites.google.com/site/mcasualsdazscripts/mcjgeosender?pageId=116434769822225992420

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