How To: Bake Daz Materials to One Material in Blender

Guide by Cerbskies


6 / 28 / 2023

Blender v3.6
Diffeomorphic v1.7.0
https://bitbucket.org/Diffeomorphic/import_daz/wiki/Home

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SimpleBake Addon: https://blendermarket.com/products/simplebake---simple-pbr-and-other-baking-in-blender-2
ZenUV Addon: https://blendermarket.com/products/zen-uv


Im keeping this as simple as possible. Feel free to expand on it, this just works for me.

NOTE: I highly recommend procuring the Blender addon: SimpleBake and ZenUV. It makes the process easier.

The baking / UV process can be done without it, but its not worth the hassle. I learned it once, then found a quicker way for it and forgot.
It may be easier these days to do it in base blender now. Concepts are the same regardless.

Why would you want to do this? Merging the models textures makes it easier to edit the model itself instead of Daz's 5000 separate textures.
Some quality may be lost depending on your CPU but honestly if its for porn, even 2K textures pass. No one cares.
This example uses Dicktator. Same concept applies to any addition genatalia and nipples.


1.

  • Starting with my Initiates v2 model that's freshly imported and converted using my previous guides.
  • Heres the basic materials that come with an imported Daz model...


2.

  • Select your model > edit mode > and make a new UV map called SimpleBake
  • It will automatically copy the main UV with the camera icon, as long as its the body UVs its fine.

NOTE: Save Copies as you go so you dont have to start over!


3.

  • Now we're gonna merge Dicktators UVs to SimpleBake.
  • Basic concept: The default Daz UVs take up 7 UV tiles / sections (Udimms).
  • We need to move over Dicktators UVs to the 8th section, so when we merge them, they don't conflict.
  • If you need to you can turn on the UV tile grid as shown. (2nd Image)



4.

  • Select Dicktators UVs.

NOTE: AVOID the UV cluster on the bottom left (where the 3D cursor is).

  • That cluster is bad juju, it'll fuck you over. Just make sure you select Dicktators UVs in tile 2.
  • Move those to the 8th tile. If you have ZenUV you can just put 6 in MoveIncrement and move it on over.

NOTE: Dont forget to save!


5.

  • Now we're gonna copy Dicktators UVs to SimpleBakes UV map.
  • Select Dicktators UVs once again, select Copy in ZenUv.
  • Select SimpleBakes UVs now, and click Paste.
  • If you did it right, itll look like below.



6.

  • Now we gotta pack ALL the UVs in SimpleBake into 1 Tile. I dont do UDIMMS, worse on my toaster.
  • You can either move ALL the UV islands by hand into one tile OR use blenders UV packer like I do.
  • Select them all, go to the UV menu, select Pack Islands with my settings shown or experiment.
  • When theyre all merged together, you may have to shift them over to the first tile.

NOTE: I deselect Rotate cause Daz UVs are pretty solid the way theyre positioned. I dont want anything rotated.


7.

NOTE: Switch to Cycles for baking. You can switch back to Eevee after youre bakes are done.

  • Now we're gonna tell SimpleBake to bake the original UVs to the SimpleBake UVs you just made.
  • You can control the quality of bake by adjusting Cycles render settings. (mines at 1024 with denoising on).
  • SAVE, you can never save enough during this bullshit.
  • Select your object for baking and input it into SimpleBakes Bake Objects settings like shown.


8.

  • Select the maps you want to bake.
  • I prefer to do most of my bakes in the "special bakes" section in 3D coat, its up to you how far you want to go.
  • I just select as shown, keep it simple.
  • I usually bake at 2048 resolution. You can go higher or lower, your choice.
  • Unless you're doing really REALLY close scenes, 2048 is a pretty good balance especially if its stylized porn.
  • That said I will absolutely do 4K when I finally upgrade my PC, I just like the extra detail even if no one sees it.


9.

  • In export bakes section, make sure you export your bakes.
  • It will automatically export it to a folder called SimpleBakes. I leave it at that.
  • Select "PREFER EXISTING UV MAP CALLED SIMPLEBAKE". That will tell it to bake textures to your SimpleBake UV tile you did a few steps up.
  • Theres a foreground and background option, I usually just do foreground but you can always try background if you want to use blender while baking.


10.

  • Hit BAKE!
  • Fuck off for a few minutes while it does its magick. Good time to stretch them legs and iron out those hams.
  • When its done, you will see a message. If all goes good, you should have maps like mine.



11.

  • SAVE
  • Select the body and go to the UV Maps section like before.
  • Switch that CAMERA ICON from Base Male (or whatever youre baking) to SimpleBake.
  • It will look fucked up, its fine.


NOTE: Dont forget to switch back to Eevee if thats youre render engine of choice!

12.

  • With the body still selected, head over to blenders material propertys tab and delete all the materials.
  • Then make one fresh (I called mine Body) and assign it to the body if it hasnt been assigned already.


13.

  • Open up blenders Shader Editor.
  • Select your Principled BDSF node that was automatically created when you made a new material (or make one yourself).
  • While selected, in the Node Wrangler tab, select Principled Setup.
  • Navigate to your SimpleBakes folder in the popup and select all your textures.

NOTE: It will only assign 3 maps and ignore the bump map. Thats fine.

  • The bump map is if you want to add a displacement node or for texture editing. I always need it eventually so I included it.


14.

  • DONE.
  • Maps all baked and UVs set, make some adjustments.
  • Save, experiment.

  • Some models will have fucked roughness maps or something wrong with them. Its just how models are some times cause Daz models are largely ripped from games and hastly imported into Daz. Baking the maps lets you fix or enhance the model yourself.

Closing

  • If your eyes are white, you could always select the shell in Edit Mode by selecting an eye vert, Select > Select Linked > Linked.
  • Then delete them, or add a seperate material and use them.


  • I recommend 3Dcoat or Substance Painter for texture editing. Both are simple to learn if you take a few days and just play with it.
  • From here you can rebake your textures from an old save to 4k, tweak settings, whatever.
  • DONT FORGET TO SAVE COPIES.

  • Goodluck! Hope this helped.
Edit
Pub: 18 Jul 2023 01:13 UTC
Edit: 04 Aug 2023 11:45 UTC
Views: 775