Using Mixamo Animations in Daz Studio via Genesis 2

Importing Mixamo animations into Daz Studio has always been a passion of mine, but the process has never been simple. I’ve previously described how to use the Genesis 1 figure as a workaround, but the hand and finger movements were off and needed some further attention.

When Travis from Daz forwarded me a post by the 3Dstorbist, suggesting to use the Genesis 2 figure and a magic correction script, I tried my hand at it and thought the results looked great, so much so that I wanted to share the process with you in my own words. I found the original article a little confusing, but here are the steps in a nutshell:

• load Genesis 8 or 8.1
• load Genesis 2 (same gender)
• adjust Genesis 2 so that it matches the A-Pose
• bake joint rotations
• export as FBX, upload to Mixamo
• apply pose, download new FBX from Mixamo
• import into Daz Studio, save as Pose Preset with animation
• apply Pose Preset on Genesis 8 figure
• run 3Dstrobist’s magic script

Let’s go through this step by step. I also have a video coming soon that I’ll add to this article when it’s released. We need the Genesis 2 and 8 Starter Essentials installed, and a compatible version of Daz Studio. I’m using 4.20 for this, but previous versions should work as well.

Creating the Genesis 2 A-Pose

Before we upload Genesis 2 to Mixamo, we need to turn it into an A-Pose that matches the Genesis 8 figure as closely as possible. Load both figures into the scene, then for convenience make the G8 figure un-selectable (CTRL-click the little arrow icon in the Scene Tab, the one next to the eyeball icon). This will ensure only the G2 figure can be adjusted as you click a limb.

The figures have a slightly different shape, which makes 100% exact pose matching impossible. Here are the values that seem to be working well enough, but feel free to make your own adjustments at this step. For the Genesis 2 Male figure:

• Left Shoulder Bend: -45
• Right Shoulder Bend: 45
• Left ForeArm Twist: 10, Bend: 15
• Right ForeArm Twist: 10, Bend: -15
• Left Pinky 1 Side-Side: -7
• Left Ring 1 Side-Side: -5
• Right Pinky 1 Side-Side: 7
• Right Ring 1 Side-Side: 5
• Left Thigh Bend: 1, Side-Side: 6
• Right Thigh Bend: 1, Side-Side -6

For the Genesis 2 Female figure, all values are identical except for these:

• Left ForeArm Twist: 10, Bend: 17
• Right ForeArm Twist: 10, Bend: -17

For your convenience, here are the two pose files for Genesis 2.

Baking Joint Rotations

Once the pose is applied to Genesis 2, switch to the Joint Editor tool and right-click onto your figure. A context menu opens up. Choose Edit – Bake Joint Rotations. This will make all our adjusted values the new defaults, so whatever may have been -20 will now read zero. If you’re familiar with Blender, it’s the same concept as “applying the rotations”.

Switch back to the Universal Manipulator, we’re done playing with bones.

Exporting Genesis 2 for Mixamo

If you haven’t already, make your Genesis 8 figure invisible so that only our Genesis 2 geometry will be exported. CTRL click the eyeball icon on the scene tab on Genesis 8 to assure any attached items will be indivisibilsed, like eye lashes and tear ducts. Now click on the Genesis 2 figure and head over to File – Export and choose Autodesk FBX as the file type. A context menu for export options will appear, here are the settings that seem to work well for me:

Make sure only one figure is visible, and that any other objects in your scene show as “not visible” at the very bottom. When you’re done, hit Accept. Delete the G2 figure from your scene, we won’t need it anymore. Leave the G8 figure intact though, we’ll need it later.

Import into Mixamo

Log yourself into Mixamo and upload your new character. There should be no error messages, but be aware that it’s SaaS (Software as a Service), and as such, changes in Mixamo can happen at any time. Let’s hope it’ll work as well in the future as it does when I’m writing this article (in April 2022).

Pick an animation you’d like to use and make the appropriate changes to arm width and in-place movement. Hit the big orange Download button and choose the following settings:

• Format: FBX 6.1
• Skin: with skin
• Frames per Second: personal preference (30 will work fine)
• Keyframe Reduction: none

Creating the Pose Preset

With your Genesis 8 figure still in the scene, head over to File – Import and load the file you’ve just exported from Mixamo. An options dialogue will pop up, select mixamo.com from the drop-down menu.

We’ll need to save this data as a Pose Preset so that we can apply the motion to the Genesis 8 figure in the next step. Select the Genesis 2 figure, then head over to File – Save As – Pose Preset. A dialogue will first ask for the file name, followed by a choice of Current Frame or Animated Range. We need the latter option.

Now select the Genesis 8 figure in your scene, make it visible and apply this pose preset, either by double-clicking from the Content Library, or by choosing File – Merge. Play the animation and notice that it works for some of the motion, but not for the arms or legs. We’ll fix this in the next step.

Fixing Joint Rotations

The 3Dstorbist has a magical script on his DA page. It’ll fix the rotational differences we get between our figures. For it to work, both the imported Mixamo FBX and the G8 figures need to be in your scene at the same time. Open the Script IDE pane (under Window – Panes), dock it at the top, then paste his script into the box.

Now hit the big blue Execute button and and after a few seconds, the Genesis 8 figure should be fixed and run almost parallel with the imported G2 figure when you play the animation.

Although the figures are not 100% in sync, the G8 figure by itself is usable for most cases. Feel free to delete you G2 figure from the scene, we won’t need it anymore. You can now save a new Pose Preset from the G8 figure and apply it directly to G8 and 8.1 figures in the future.

For completion, here’s the script:

function transferY(a,b){
	var t8,t2;
	t8=Scene.findNodeByLabel(a);
	t2=Scene.findNodeByLabel(b);
	var valr=t2.getYRotControl().getValue ();
	t8.getYRotControl ().setValue (valr);	
}

function transferX(a,b){
	var t8,t2;
	t8=Scene.findNodeByLabel(a);
	t2=Scene.findNodeByLabel(b);
	var valr=t2.getXRotControl().getValue ();
	print (valr);
	t8.getXRotControl ().setValue (valr);	
}

var nframes=Scene.getAnimRange().getDuration ().valueOf()/Scene.getTimeStep().valueOf();

for( var fr = 0; fr <= nframes; fr+=1 ){
	Scene.setFrame( fr );
	transferY("Left Thigh Twist","lThigh");
	transferY("Right Thigh Twist","rThigh");
	transferX("Right Shoulder Twist","rShldr");
	transferX("Left Shoulder Twist","lShldr");
	transferX("Left Forearm Twist","lForeArm");
	transferX("Right Forearm Twist","rForeArm");
}

I strongly suggest to head to the original source for the code, but just in case it ever goes down, I’ve pasted the script here to keep it in another safe place.

Further Reading/Viewing

• 3Dstorbist’s DA article and original script
• a video I’ve made about this process (coming soon)
• a Daz stream I did using this principle for creating an animation