A Practical Guide To Exporting Scenes From Daz Studio To Octane Render

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2 Revision 1.0 (2011) Content Information Copyright Disclaimer Usage Limitations Contact Information Chapter 1 Manually Exporting Daz Studio Scenes to Octane Render Considerations To Make While Composing Your Scene In Daz Studio Manually Exporting the Scene Obj. Format Exporter Options Summary, Conclusion, and Tips Chapter 2 Importing Your Daz Studio Scene With Octane Render Importing The Scene File With Octane Render Enabling Smoothing The Scene Fails To Load Summary, Conclusion, and Tips Copyright is Copyright Disclaimer There is no warranty explicit or implied by the author of A Practical Guide To Exporting Scenes From Daz Studio To Octane Render. The Author is no liable for any damage incurred to hardware or software from using A Practical Guide To Exporting Scenes From Daz Studio To Octane Render. Usage Rights No reproduction partially or in full without the author's express permission. No distribution without the author's express permission. Contact Information paper_tiger_01@hotmail.com WEB: 2

3 Chapter 1 Manually Exporting Daz Studio Scenes To Octane Render Topics discussed in this chapter Composing your scene in Daz Studio Making the correct export settings Importing the resulting OBJ file into Octane Render Summary, Conclusion, and Tips Considerations To Make While Composing Your Scene In Daz Studio When composing your scene in Daz Studio it is important to remember that you do not need to worry about the surface settings of each material or lighting and camera placement. These parameters will not be exported, therefore there is no practical reason to make changes to them. It is important that you keep in mind the limitations of your current hardware when setting up a scene. As shown in Figure 1.01 a simple scene with one Victoria 4.2 figure, two primitives, and a simple background should be used to test your export capabilities. Octane Render exclusively uses the GPU (graphics processing unit or video-card) for rendering. What this means that the amount of RAM you have on your GPU is the limiting factor to how large and complex the scenes you render can be. There are several ways to reduce the memory footprint of a scene and they will be discussed in later chapters. Figure 1.01 When composing your first scene keep things simple. Do not Change material settings or worry about setting up cameras and lights as they will not be exported. 3

4 Manually Exporting The Scene After you have composed and saved your scene in Daz Studio you may begin the manual export process. To do this select File from the Menu bar then Export from the drop down menu as shown in Figure1.02. You will be presented with a dialog box that will prompt you to save the exported OBJ file in a location of your choosing Figure Please take care to give the file a name and save it in a location that you will not forget as you will need to access it again later. Figure 1.02 From the menu bar Select File > Export. The export process is initiated in Daz Studio through the menu bar. There are several file formats Daz Studio can export scenes in, for this tutorial you will be exporting files in the Wavefront Obj. File type. Along with the Obj. file the materials used in the scene will also be exported in a sub-folder entitled Maps. 4

5 Figure 1.03 Give the OBJ file a name and save it in a location that you can easily find for quick access later. Take care in remembering the location of saved file and name as you will need to access itfrom this location in the upcoming steps of this tutorial. Next you will be presented with an OBJ Export Options dialogue box, shown in Figure You may use the manual export settings that are provided with the Octane Render Beta PDF manual (see figure 1.04). You may also save the settings as a preset for later use. Upon clicking the Accept button Daz Studio will begin the process of exporting your scene as an OBJ file shown in figure Exporting the scene this way is a relatively easy process. It will allow you to easily use the Daz Millennium figures such as Micheal 4, Victoria 4, and Genesis in Octane Render. It is possible that you have trouble with exporting some models, however it is unlikely that this will happen. Start with smaller scenes at first and work you way up to larger more complex scenes as your hardware allows. 5

6 Figure 1.04 The Object Export Options are setup to mirror those used in the Octane Render PDF manual. These setting settings have worked well during testing. Obj. Format Exporter Options Scale = % Ignore Invisible Nodes = Enabled Remove Unused Verticies = Enabled Write UV Coordinates = Enabled Write Normals = Enabled Write Object Statements = Enabled Write Groups = Enabled Write Groups Used Node Name(s) = Enabled Write Surfaces = Enabled Write Material Library = Enabled Write Surfaces Collect Maps = Enabled 6

7 Figure 1.05 After clicking the accept button Daz Studio will begin to export the scene as an OBJ file. This process can take a few moments depending on the complexity of your scene. Summary, Conclusion, and Tips In this chapter, you have learned the most efficient way to setup your scene in Daz Studio for export into Octane Render and what settings to use for exporting a scene for use in Octane Render. As a reminder you must remember to start by exporting small simple scenes until you familiarize yourself with Octane Render and the limitations of your current hardware. Tips Do not set up materials, lights (unless they will be set as emitters), cameras in Daz Studio as they will not be exported to Octane Render. Start with simple scenes limited to one figure and 1 to 2 pieces of clothing. Make a habit of remembering where you have placed the exported files so you can access them later. 7

8 Chapter 2 Importing Your Daz Studio Scene With Octane Render Topics discussed in this chapter How to import the OBJ scene file into Octane Render Enabling smoothing on all objects in the scene What to do if the OBJ scene file fails to import Summary, Conclusion, and Tips Importing The Scene File With Octane Render Now that you have composed your scene in Daz Studio and exported it as an OBJ format file open Octane Render. Once Octane Render is open use your mouse to Right Click anywhere on the Graph Editor, this will open a menu that will allow you to import the OBJ file that was exported from Daz Studio as instructed in Chapter 1. From the menu select Objects then Mesh as shown in Figure You will be presented with the Select Mesh to Import dialog box shown in Figure Next locate and select the OBJ file you saved when you exported the scene from Daz Studio. Upon clicking the Open button Octane Render will begin the process of importing the scene as shown in Figure Figure 2.01 You can right click on any area inside Octane Render's Graph Editor and the menu will open. Select Object > Mesh 8

9 Figure 2.02 Figure 2.03 Navigate to the location that you stored the exported file Daz Studio created during the manual export process you completed in Chapter 1. It is always best to keep these files in locations that you are familiar with and can be quickly accessed. After you have located the files and selected the Open command Octane Render will start to load the scene file you exported from Daz Studio. Depending on the complexity of your scene this process could take a few moments. 9

10 After Octane Render has successfully imported the OBJ file click on the new Node that appears in the Graph Editor. The node will have the same name as the OBJ file you exported from Daz Studio. The scene will appear in Octane Render's Viewport allowing you to interact with the scene while it is rendering as shown in Figure Figure 2.04 Move the camera to a suitable location so you can see the majority of the objects in the scene. Scenes will likely load with the camera in an undesirable location. Enabling Smoothing Now that you have successfully imported your scene into Octane Render you can enable smoothing on all surfaces. The most efficient way to enable smoothing on a surface is by using Octane Render's Outliner to select each node and then checking the Bool Smooth option box from the Node Inspector. A check mark will appear in the box when this step is properly completed and smoothing will be enabled for the current node as shown in Figure Figure 2.05 Use the Outliner which appears on the left side of the screen. The Outliner provides the user with an easy way to access all nodes present in the scene and edit them. 10

11 Figure 2.06 To enable smoothing the Smooth value must be checked. The Scene File Fails To Load If the OBJ scene file you exported from Daz Studio fails to import it is very likely you have exceeded the memory limitations of your GPU (video-card). To solve this problem you must reduce the size of the texture files that were exported by Daz Studio during the manual export step. The easiest way to reduce the size of the texture files is by using a program such as Xnview which has a batch processing feature that you can set to reduce the size of all the images in a folder by dimensions or percentage. You can also reduce the size of each texture manually using your favorite graphics editing program such as GIMP or Adobe Photoshop. The textures used for the OBJ scene file you exported from Daz Studio will be located in the MAPS sub-folder where you previously saved your exported scene. Once you have located the files you may reduce the size of each file by 50% and attempt to re-load the scene again. 11

12 Summary, Conclusion, and Tips In this chapter, you have learned the steps necessary to import your scene into Octane Render for rendering, how to enable smoothing on all objects in the scene and one possible solution for a common reason why scenes may fail to load in Octane Render. Tips Enable Smoothing on all nodes. If a scene fails to load reduce the size of the textures located in the Maps folder by 50% and attempt importing the scene in Octane Render again. Upgrading to a NVIDIA card with more on-board RAM, 1gb is the minimum. 12