4 · Your first character#

Create it#

project window, create character panel
_{The Add character panel in the project window.}

In the project window press Add character (or drop a .duf anywhere).
Choose Daz scene… — pick the character's scene file. The studio reads it, fills in Genesis and Gender, and checks that the scene holds exactly one character with an empty animation timeline. Create anyway overrides a failed check — except a scene already belonging to another character of the project, which is refused outright.
Name it — the name becomes its folder in the project.
Fill from character (optional) — copy a working ROM definition from any existing character across your projects.
Press Copy & Create — the scene is copied into the character's folder and your original stays put (a toggle turns the copy into a move). Link & Create leaves it where it is; a scene already inside the project shows a plain Create.

Tip

No scene yet? Press Create without scene — the character's folder is created for you (including daz3d/primary), so you can save your new scene there straight from Daz Studio. The page stays locked until you link that scene as the primary.

Character settings#

character page top — primary Daz scene, hair items, Genesis 9 dials, derived Gender, linked Houdini project
_{The top of the character page: the primary Daz scene, hair items, the Genesis 9 dials, the derived Gender, and the linked Houdini project.}

Genesis and Gender are set at creation; Gender never changes. On the gender-neutral G9 it comes from the GP/DK geograft — Golden Palace → female, Dicktator → male — the same detection that drives the GEN section. All four generations are selectable; G9 is the deeply validated path.

Three Genesis 9 dials sit under the hair items (greyed out on other generations):

Set UE5 tear UV — switches the Genesis 9 Tear figure's UV Set to UE5 during the build, so DTH's Lacrimal Fluid material lines up without the manual Surfaces step. Off by default.
FACS detail strength / Flexion strength — the G9 dials FACS Detail Strength and Flexion Automatic Strength, applied at frame 0. Leave at 100 % unless the stock correctives need dialing.

Linked files — Daz scenes & Houdini projects#

Daz scenes — the primary plus any number of outfit/look variants: drop a .duf on the card to add one. Added scenes pass the same checks as at creation, plus the same GP/DK geograft as the primary. The primary can't be unlinked; extras can. Each scene's open icon is a menu: Open scene; then Open last ROM once a ROM animation is saved — there whenever the file is on disk, whether or not it was built from the character as it reads now; and Generate new ROM, always offered.
Houdini projects — drop .hip/.hiplc files to link them, or let Generate project build one. Click a card to open it in Houdini, Alt+click to reveal its folder, click its name to rename it (the file on disk follows; in-folder projects only). A .hip from outside the character folder asks Copy in or Link in place — see project checks for what a copied project needs afterwards.
Saved something new? Save a .duf or .hip anywhere into the character's folder, tab back, and a banner offers to Review the new files — one wizard page per file, running the same checks as adding by hand.

Tip

Hair items and everything else around multiple Daz scenes on one character — outfit variants, the selected scene, per-scene overrides — are in Advanced: Multiple Daz scenes.

Script install location & export directory#

The Daz scripts generated box shows where the generated ROM_…, Export_… and Export_Hair_… scripts install on Save: <My DAZ 3D Library>/Scripts/DTH-Character-Studio/<project>/<character>/ — each detailed in Working with the scripts alone.

_{The Daz scripts generated box: the install location and the two export directories.}

Daz export directory, further down the same box, shows where the export lands. It's fixed and read-only: daz-export inside the character's Houdini folder, next to the .hip that reads it — see where the Houdini project fits. Below it, Export directory is the pipeline's final stop: the folder the character's Houdini networks export into, and what Unreal imports.

Advanced options#

character page, Advanced options panel expanded
_{The Advanced options section on the character page.}

Not needed for a working ROM:

Morphs set at frame 0 — dialed once at frame 0 of the ROM. With no item scope — the labels under the field reading All items — a row lands on every node carrying the morph, so a clothing Expand All reaches whichever outfit pieces the open scene wears. Picking a suggestion instead scopes the row to the item its dial lives on (✕ returns it to every item), which is what a fit value meant for one item needs. A scene without the morph — or the item — skips it.
Preserve node transforms — the listed node's transform is memorized before the ROM loads and restored after, so posed nodes (the eyes, say) keep their orientation. Enter the node's label as it appears in Daz.

Both lists are overridable per scene.

Morph values no longer need a list of their own: current DazToHue releases hold them across the ROM load by themselves, so the old Preserve morphs after ROM loading field is gone.

The ROM definition#

character page, ROM sections
_{The ROM sections on the character page.}

A ROM is a fixed sequence of eight sections. Each can be enabled or disabled and runs in Preset mode (the DTH release's stock pose assets) or Custom mode (your own poses and morphs). Above them a colored timeline bar maps the whole ROM live as you edit — hover a segment for its frame range.

Golden Palace & Dicktator — the genitalia (GEN) section#

GEN section, Golden Palace art-direction frames
_{The GEN section's Golden Palace art-direction frames — a morph set per frame.}

GEN is the genital geograft's range of motion. You don't enable it by hand: it turns itself on when the primary scene contains a Golden Palace / Dicktator geograft.

In Preset mode the studio drops the DTH release's stock GP/DK ROM block into the fixed GEN slot. The preset supplies the motion — the look is yours: the section lists the block's Art direction frames, and for each you set the morph (or morphs) giving it the shape you want. Frames flagged required — empty in the preset ROM do nothing until you set a morph there.

The geograft must be fitted to the figure in the Daz scene.
Preset only appears where the DTH release ships that asset.
Built your own pose asset for the graft? Switch GEN to Custom.

Note

The studio computes every frame number from this structure — you never type a frame, and the Daz and Houdini outputs can't drift apart.

Tip

To learn the ROM process itself, read mrpdean's DazToHue documentation.

Custom morphs#

For this example, add some Full Body Morphs (FBM): switch the section to Custom and list the morphs your character should use. Filling in those rows is its own chapter: → Custom morphs

Save = generate#

Press Save. Every save regenerates the character's files:

ROM_<Name>_G9.dsa — the Daz apply-script, installed into your Daz library under Scripts/DTH-Character-Studio/<Project>/<Character>/.
<Name>_pose_asset.csv — the Houdini PoseAsset import CSV, kept in the project's hidden .dcsmeta/characters/<Character>/ folder. The export script copies it into the export folder when it runs; see Into Houdini to grab it by hand.

Two more appear when they apply: Export_<Name>_G9.dsa (whenever a Daz export directory is set) and Export_Hair_<Name>_G9.dsa (when the character lists hair items). Every script does one job — the ROM script builds, the Export script exports, the Hair script grooms — and each gets its own Content Library icon, so you can tell them apart in Daz.

A character with per-scene ROM overrides additionally gets per-scene PoseAsset CSVs — see What Save generates.

Tip

Change anything later and simply Save again — both sides stay in sync.

The rest of the character page#

Everything above covered the ROM. The page around it, box by box — open the one you need:

The header — avatar, rename, path chip, Save/Discard#

character page header
_{The character page's header: avatar, name, path chip, Save/Discard.}

Avatar — click the portrait to use the primary scene's thumbnail, drop an image file (cropped square in the built-in editor), or paste a URL. Applied immediately; stored in the project's .dcsmeta/images. The same dialog has a Vertical offset slider: Daz frames a figure in its previews by how tall it is, so a short or tall character can come out sitting high or low in the square. The slider moves that character's picture up or down in every avatar and scene thumbnail at once, and the dialog previews the result while you drag. 0 is the default.
Name — click to rename. The folder, notes and generated scripts follow. If the character has already been exported, renaming also deletes those exports — the exporter names every file after the character and writes the name inside them too, so the set on disk belongs to the old name and nothing will write to it again. A dialog lists exactly what goes (both export folders, with sizes) before anything happens, and your linked Houdini projects are repointed at the new names in the same step. Re-run DTH Export afterwards to rebuild them; your Daz scenes and saved ROM animations are untouched.
Subtitle — the generation, the skinning the ROM targets (DQS or Linear, derived from the preset assets), and the custom-frame count.
Path chip — where the definition lives on disk.
Save / Discard — the page edits a draft: nothing touches disk until Save (which also regenerates). Discard reverts to the last save. Ctrl turns a settled Save into Re-save, force-rewriting the files.

Notes — and the Products tab#

Freeform markdown notes for this character: hover, hit the pencil to edit, drop images or files straight into the editor. It autosaves to <Name>.notes.md beside the definition (media in .dcsmeta/media), so notes travel with your project backup. The project page has the same tab for project-wide notes.

A Products tab appears when the project switches it on — see Daz product scanning.

The run report#

After a ROM run in Daz had problems, a report banner appears the moment you switch back: every failed frame with its reason, grouped under the scene it came from. Clicking an entry switches to that scene and jumps to the pose row, and the failed rows are tinted red in the tables. Dismiss clears it; a clean run clears it automatically.

Filling the ROM from another character#

Operations → Fill from character opens the same two-step wizard as at creation: pick a source character (same generation and gender) from any project, then check which of its ROM sections to copy. Retargeting always rides with JCM; the Modify JCM frames rules and the preserve list are optional extras. The checked sections replace this character's config in the editor draft; nothing lands on disk until you save, and GEN keeps its own scene-derived setup.

Export & import — the whole character as one zip#

Operations → Export packs the character into a self-contained <Name>_<date>.dcsc.zip: definition, notes, all Daz scenes, all Houdini project files, avatar and metadata. Two toggles add the regenerable — often gigabyte-sized — Daz exports and Houdini exports trees. Save first.

The zip restores in two ways:

Onto a character — its Operations → Import button, or dropping the zip on its page, opens a wizard pre-selected for a full restore that lets you dial it back: the name, which ROM sections, which Daz scenes (the primary always; existing scenes are always wiped) and which Houdini projects.
Onto a project — drop the zip on the project page and it is restored as a new character.

Every stored path is fixed for the new location — including each Houdini project's $JOB, which needs a paired Houdini install. The .dsa scripts and CSV are regenerated. A scene or .hip linked in place outside the character folder keeps its original absolute path. This can't be undone.

Deleting a character#

Operations → Delete removes the character's folder and generated files, with a confirmation that lets you keep the Daz files folder (your scenes) and keep the Houdini files folder (your .hip projects). Either way daz-export goes: regenerable output, often gigabytes of it. This can't be undone.