I originally posted this in the DAZ Studio forum, but 30 views later there is not a single reply, so I'm hoping for better luck here!

It appears from the videos on YouTube that there are quite a few ways to get DAZ figures out of DAZ Studio and into Blender. I just watched quite a few of them and to be honest, none of them are telling me what I need to know. Basically, I'm wanting to export V4 along with her morphs into Blender, so that the morphs show up in Blender as Blender Shape Keys, and for the rig to be set up automatically. I know about the DAZtoBlender8 plugin, but it's for Genesis 8 only, so what I'm looking for is pretty much the same sort of thing, but with the ability to handle V4.

I don't have Daz Studio, so I can only help on the Blender end of things. I won't waste your time any further but I'm just curious if you tested the FBX export/import format? FBX can retain rigging and morphs/blend shapes. However, the rigs will almost always need to be adjusted or modified to work as they did in the host application.

A quick Youtube search turned up this video. Don't know if it will be helpful, but it does show how to use FBX with certain morphs.

The tutorial that LuxXeon posted above IMHO would be the best approach there is a tool that has shown some promise that is also free and that is the Daz Importer But I am not sure if it will work with V4 hopefully you will be able to achieve your goal with either the tutorial above or this add-on

Good Luck

No, the DAZ Importer - Lobo3433 mentioned above - works (afaik) only with naitive DAZ|Studio-Files (.duf/.dsf) and so pre-Genesis-Figures are not supported. If older (or other) figres should be used, they have to be converted to .DUFs first.

And even Genesis 1 causes many problems. It seems, that sucess or fail heavyly depends on the versions of the software (Blender and DAZ|Studio and the Exporter-scripts itself) used. It seems to work a bit better with Genesis 3+, but I have this Exporter never really tested.

Here is V4 as a straight FBX exported to Blnder 2.82 with animation from Daz studio 4.12...NO third party plugins.?

Could not be bothered to fix the Hair material or Add SSS with a scatter mask node to fix her Skin and as you can see this 13+ year old legacy figure has HORRIBLE joint deformation with out her multitude of Poser magnets to Fake genesis style JCM's.?

My advice ...You have DAZ studio installed. DUMP the old Hag!!! and move up to at least Genesis 2 who can wear all of V4's skins and clothings/hairs natively in Daz studio for export to Blender.?

https://youtu.be/WO9HdKd6-rM

Diffeomorphic is brilliant for getting content from DS to Blender - but not the pre-Genesis models. Found it only yesterday and haven't stopped playing. Sent over and rendered about five different models. Don't know about animating - that's not my thing - but the armament looks good, so it probably will animate well.

It does not import animations from Daz studio. So it is more of a still render tool for blender. ?

True - I'm not interested in animation - computer too puny for that. For me it is useful because the Cycles renderer is far superior and faster than Iray and the materials nodes system is so much better. One can animate within Blender, which is a lot more versatile than DS. Probably even import pre-made .bvh animations. Something i'm still trying to figure out is that it seems that the materials brought over bring my computer to it's knees - trying to use Eevee brings Blender crashing down. The same model imported as .obj or .fbx causes no problems, but the materials need a lot of work. Still, I've only had it a couple of days - still need much learning.

@RoyGaylard

Possibly this may help for the beginning: Blender Cycles materials for DAZ Studio characters (@sharecg)

.. not the top of Cycles-shading but these nodegroups may be a usable starting point. But I don't know if they work in newer Blender-versions as expected ..

@MaNae Thanks for the link - I'll give a try. The big problem between Blender and DS is that they are both developing rapidly - no sooner does someone develop a good 'bridge", than one or the other does something which breaks it. I'm thinking here of Jacques mCasual's great work and many attempts to keep up. Would be great if Daz and Blender got together officially to o-operate - the makers of the best and most popular figures and the best and most popular 3D software. The number of customers of both would expand exponentially!

Agree. It is one thing to develop a bridge-plugin, but another to keep it up-to-date.

I use mcj's teleblender3 for years now if I want to transfer geometries from both, D|S and/or Poser, to Blender. Or if I just want to render TipThumbs for D|S, so that I already in D|S get an idea how - for instance - a makeup-texture in Cycles will look like. This works fine for me. It's a bit .. no, correct: waaay ..faster than the common export-/import-procedures.

Buuut .. I have no need to get the DS/PS-content 'instantly ready-to-perfectly-render' in Blender because I always work on it (deleting unneeded geometry-parts, combining or separating MAT-zones, combining textures - makeup+lips - and such.) It's IMO worth the time to learn these kind of things, cause it makes Blender/Cycles to sooo much more than just an 'external renderer'.

I tried mcj's FBX exporter yesterday - worked with Blender 2.81, broken by 2.82. Blender 2.83 is now out in Beta and the next version, 2.9 is out in Alpha. There's no keeping up with these guys!

Just a hint:

you can have as many different versions of Blender on your computer as you want. Grab the portable version (.zip archive, not the installer) that works for you and tansfer your dollies always using this one. Save the .blend and either re-open it in your default Blender or append / link its content into a new scene.

All released Blender-versions can be found here: download.blender.org/release/

Thanks for the hint - mcj's 280 FBX plugin works well with B2.80, excepting all the materials are set to full metallic. Easily fixed. See quick composite. V4.2 works as well - comes in posed, although she quickly reverted to T-pose, for no reason I could see. Also has a bright red render - I'm too lazy to analyze:)