Introduction

The Khalibloo Panel hosts a growing collection of tools that handle a lot of common repetitive or tedious tasks in Blender such as changing properties of multiple objects simultaneously, editing multiple meshes at once, shape key operations, modifier operations, constraints, etc.

It also contains a set of tools tailored specifically to meet the needs of DAZ Genesis (and Genesis 2, 3 and 8) users, like auto-rigify (requires the Rigify addon enabled), importing morphs (when used with the bundled DAZ Script “Khalibloo Blender Morph Exporter”), material setup, etc.

The addon currently supports Genesis, Genesis 2 male/female and Genesis 3 male/female. This includes all the derived characters like the Michaels and Victorias and so on. Basically, all the characters you'd find in the DAZ shop are derived characters and therefore all supported by this addon.

The source code for the addon can be found here https://bitbucket.org/Khalibloo/khalibloo-panel/src/master/

If you find this addon useful, consider making a donation or pledging support on Patreon https://www.patreon.com/khalibloo to support its continued development.

Installation

Khalibloo Panel is free to use for any purpose. It is licensed as GPL. However, if you would like to support its development, consider making a small donation here on itch.

Khalibloo Panel is installed like any other Blender addon. Simply download (and extract) and copy the "khalibloo" folder into your Blender addons folder and enable the addon in Blender's User Preferences under Addons>Khalibloo. See Blender's manual for more information on this.

However, users who wish to use the DAZ Genesis tools should ensure that they enable the Rigify addon that comes with Blender by default and also enable the "Autorun python scripts" option in the User Preferences.

If you find it useful, consider making a donation or pledging support on Patreon https://www.patreon.com/khalibloo to support its continued development.

Companion Utilities

Blender Morph Exporter

A DAZ3D script that helps in exporting large numbers of morphs in obj format for use in Blender. See the Morph Export tutorial below for more information.

List All Properties

A tiny DAZ3D script that generates a list of all available properties (morphs, shapes, ets) for your figure. See the Morph Export tutorial below for more information.

Usage

Once installed, the addon can be found in the right panel (N-panel) of Blender's 3D viewport. The tools are all nicely arranged in the various sections and tabs of the interface. And there are lots of generous tooltips just waiting to serve and guide you.

The tools are classified into platforms:

• General - General Blender tools.

• DAZ Genesis – Tools for working with DAZ Genesis figures.

• DAZ Genesis 2 – Tools for working with DAZ Genesis 2 figures.

• DAZ Genesis 3 - Tools for working with DAZ Genesis 3 figures.

GENERAL

The General platform is further divided into the following tabs. Note, this documentation doesn't include a lot of the newer tools yet. It is being updated. Use the tooltips in such cases.

Object

Selectable – Makes all objects in the scene selectable.

Unselectable – Makes all selected objects unselectable.

Render-visible – Makes all selected objects visible in renders.

Render-invisible – Makes all selected objects invisible in renders.

Start Multi Edit – Begin editing of all selected mesh objects as one mesh.

End Multi Edit – End the multi editing session. Separates the meshes into their individual objects. The multi edit process uses vertex groups to keep track of which vertices belong to which mesh. Any vertices not belonging to any “Khalibloo_multiedit” vertex group at the time the multi edit session is ended will be assigned to a new mesh. It is also worth mentioning that every property (modifiers, constraints, materials, animations, etc.) the original meshes had will be restored. This is possible because the original objects are not deleted, but rather hidden in layer 20 (commonly referred to as the junk layer). If the original objects had shape keys, any changes made in the multi edit session will be added as a new shape key of the original object.

Mesh

Copy all shape keys – All shape keys of all selected objects will be copied to the active object.

Material

Receive transparent – Enable “Receive Transparent Shadows” on all materials of all selected objects. This is only useful when using Blender Render.

Remove materials – Remove all material slots on all selected objects.

Enable textures – Enable all textures on all material slots of all selected objects.

Disable textures – Disable all textures on all material slots of all selected objects.

Modifier

Add modifier – Add the specified modifier to all selected objects.

All or Specific – This determines how the following buttons will affect the objects. When set to "All", every modifier will be affected; when set to “Specific”, modifiers will only be affected if they match the type selected. Note: use the selector immediately above the Add modifier button to choose the type of modifiers you want to affect.

Enable real time – turn on real time display of modifiers of all selected objects.

Disable real time – turn off real time display of modifiers of all selected objects.

Enable render – enable modifiers of all selected objects during render.

Disable render – disable modifiers of all selected objects during render.

Apply – apply modifiers (in order) of all selected objects.

Delete – delete modifiers of all selected objects.

Armature

Rigify neck fix – fixes a rare condition where rigify’s neck is greatly enlarged.

Constraints

Mute – mute all constraints of all selected objects.

Unmute – unmute all constraints of all selected objects.

Delete – delete all constraints of all selected objects.

Mute bone constraints – mute all constraints of all selected bones.

Unmute bone constraints – unmute all constraints of all selected bones.

Delete bone constraints – delete all constraints of all selected bones.

DAZ GENESIS

This category has the following tabs.

Figure

Rigify – Generate a Rigify rig for the currently active genesis figure. This process relies on positions of certain bones contained in the default genesis collada armature as well as certain vertices in the mesh itself. It is recommended that you carry out this operation immediately after importing the collada file containing the genesis figure, before any parenting, mesh edits that alter mesh topology, etc. The Rigify addon must be enabled in order to use this tool.

Rigify vertex groups – Mixes and renames the default genesis vertex groups to match rigify’s bone names. This works on clothing items as well. If this is done after Rigify, the armature modifier will be added and parenting will all be setup nicely. The process is reversible.

Unrigify vertex groups – renames the previously rigified vertex groups to their original collada names.

Import morphs – import all .obj files from the specified folder as shape keys of the active genesis figure.

Setup materials – sets up the materials of the active genesis figure with reasonable values for most settings. If “Merge” is enabled, materials with common diffuse maps will be merged. If “Textures” is enabled, the texture slots will be setup too. The texture slots will be set up for diffuse, spec and bump maps. However, you may still need to load in the proper maps for spec and bump.

DAZ GENESIS X

The tools in this platform are identical to those in the DAZ Genesis platform except that the Rigify operation is modified slightly to fit the needs of Genesis X figures where needed.

DAZ GENESIS SETUP TUTORIAL

1. Export your Genesis (or Genesis 2/3/8) character from DAZ studio using collada. Recommended: enable “Merge materials by diffuse map”.

2. Import the collada file into blender. Under the Khalibloo Panel, select Genesis (or Genesis 2/3/8, depending on which one your character is) as your platform type. If your character is a Genesis 2/3/8 figure, you’ll further need to specify whether it’s the male or female figure.

3. With the character selected, click Rigify. With the character still selected, click Rigify vertex groups.

4. Now, select all your clothing items and click Rigify vertex groups. Note, for Genesis 8, the eyelashes are a separate geometry, and should be treated as clothing items also.

5. For the material setup, select your character again and click Material setup. If you want spec and bump texture slots setup, enable “Texture” before clicking Material setup. This only works for the Blender Internal (BI) render engine.

DAZ GENESIS MORPH IMPORT TUTORIAL

1. In DAZ studio, run the DAZ script “ListAllProperties” in the Script IDE tab. The results will be printed to the console below the text editor. Copy and paste the result to a new txt file (eg. in notepad). Delete any unnecessary items in the file (eg. JCMs, MCMs, Translations, etc). Leave only the morphs you wish to export for your character (eg. facial expressions, speech, etc).

2. This is hard work, I know. but once you've done it, you'll never have to do it again unless of course you install new content later on that includes new morphs you'd like to use in Blender. Once the text file has been created, select the character you wish to export and execute the khalibloo_blender_morph_exporter. You will see a dialog asking you to locate the text file. After that, another dialog will ask you where you want the objs to be exported. It is highly recommended that you choose an empty folder! After that, just fold your arms and sit back. It’s also worth a mention that this process works for clothes and props too.

3. Now go back into Blender and select your character (or cloth/prop, depending on which you’re working on). Above the Load morphs button, type the path to your obj folder that was created earlier. Do not use a relative path if the folder is located on a different drive/partition. Finally, click the Load morphs button. All the objs will be imported as shape keys of the active object.

GAME RIG SETUP TUTORIAL

The Rigify rig isn't game engine friendly. It's usually more convenient to use the metarig or a modified metarig instead. This process sets up bone constraints on the metarig so that it follows every move of the Rigify rig. This metarig can then be used in the Armature modifiers of the character (and clothing items) instead of the Rigify rig. Since the metarig follows the Rigify rig, the Rigify rig can still be used to animate the character.

In this setup, the Rigify rig animates the metarig which in turn moves the character. Animations can be baked to the metarig using Pose > Animation > Bake Action. Then when exporting to a game engine, the metarig is exported rather than the Rigify rig.

To get started, simply duplicate the metarig left over from the Rigify process in "DAZ GENESIS SETUP TUTORIAL". Select the rigify rig, shift + select the duplicate metarig. Then under the Khalibloo Panel's "General" platform, under the "Armature" tab, click Hookup Metarig. Then edit the Armature modifiers of the character to use this new metarig instead of the Rigify rig they're currently using. That's all!