Custom morphs#

A ROM section in Preset mode runs a DTH release asset as it ships. Switch it to Custom and you list the morphs yourself. This page continues Your first character.

Each pose row has two name fields with very different jobs:

Name — your name for the generated morph; it travels to Houdini and later Unreal Engine. Letters, numbers and underscores only — Houdini rejects anything else. The group's Left/Right suffix is appended automatically.
Parameter name — must exactly match the parameter's internal name in Daz Studio (not its display label), or that frame fails in the ROM run.

Import from an existing Daz scene#

A section already posed on a Daz timeline doesn't have to be typed in again. Import from Daz scene reads those keyed frames and turns each one into a pose row. Click it, then pick a scene — or drag the .duf onto the button. The scene must hold exactly one figure, of the character's own generation, with animation on the timeline (the opposite of the check when you add a scene). A failed check blocks the scan and says why, with the usual "Scan anyway" escape.

Start scan hands the scene to Daz Studio — the same job runner DTH Export uses, so it needs the Runner plugin. Daz opens the scene, scans it with no dialogs and clears it again; if Daz wasn't running it is started minimized.

Scans you already made stay listed in the same dialog, newest first — one scan of a scene can feed several ROM sections. Browse takes any CSV you curated yourself, and running Scan_Frames by hand in Daz lands in the same list.

An import fixes the names for you. Daz property labels are prose, so Torso Muscular is imported as TorsoMuscular, which reads the same and passes Houdini's rule. The raw Daz property stays on the morph as the Parameter name. A name you type is flagged rather than silently rewritten.

Several Daz morphs in one row#

A pose row can drive its one output from several Daz morphs at once — expand its morphs toggle.

Expanded pose rows: a single-morph row, and rows combining several morphs into one output
_{Expanded pose rows — a plain single-morph row on top, and two rows combining several morphs into one output below.}

Every entry in that list carries its own:

Node — the scene node the morph lives on (Genesis9, GoldenPalace_G9, a bone, …); autocomplete fills it in when you pick a suggestion.
Parameter name — the morph's internal Daz name.
Value — what this morph is dialed to at the pose's frame.
Base (optional) — the value the morph returns to on the frames around the pose (default 0). Only read when Auto is off.
Auto — on by default. Reads the base from the morph's current scene value when the script runs.

Why Auto is on by default. ROM morphs and base-shape morphs are allowed to overlap. With Auto on, a morph the open scene already dials to 100 % sawtooths back to that value around its pose instead of being flattened to 0 — so the ROM stops erasing the base shape. A morph the scene does not dial reads 0 anyway, so for most morphs Auto changes nothing.

Combining several morphs into one output — why you'd do it#

Combining bakes a shape that only exists as a combination of dials — or a controller plus its corrective — into a single clean morph for Houdini and Unreal: all the listed morphs are keyed together on that one frame and blend into the output named in Name. Add morph adds more; the trash icon removes one (a pose always keeps at least one).

Bone scale — morphs that scale bones (reference skeletons)#

Some morphs also scale bones (Torso Length, Proportion Height…). Generated morphs can only move vertices, and Daz's FBX export doesn't carry bone scales — the body would reshape while the skeleton stays put. Such frames need a reference-skeleton FBX, which the Houdini PoseAsset points at for that frame (its Reference FBX File input).

Tick Bone scale on the pose row and the studio handles it end to end: the frame is handed to the DTH Exporter Plugin, which writes the FBX into a Reference Skeletons subfolder of your export directory, and the CSV gets its path filled in.

the Bone scale toggle on a pose row
_{Tick Bone scale on a bone-scaling morph — its reference-skeleton FBX is exported and referenced for you.}

Note

Bone scale only acts when the export actually runs. Building the ROM alone leaves a ticked Bone scale a no-op — the reference-skeleton FBXs are written by the export. Run Export_<Name>_G9.dsa (or the DTH Export button) and it becomes live, no re-ticking needed.

Only GEN and FBM poses can be reference frames — the two categories DazToHue supports reference skeletons in. DTH's own Guide To Creating Custom ROMs describes the feature in depth.

Section & group tools — suffixes, mirroring, reordering, inserting#

Each section header has its Enable switch and Mode select. In Preset mode you can pick the exact DTH release asset when several match; a red no G9 asset chip appears when the active release ships nothing for it. The JCM section's Custom mode takes a path to your own pose preset (.duf).

Grouped sections carry per-group settings in their header:

driver bone(s) — the bones driving the group's poses (JCM/GEN/PHY).
Generation / Calculate from / Suffix — how Houdini computes the group's morphs (Default / Individual / Additive / Cumulative / Advanced Additive), what deltas are measured against (Rest Pose / Animation Frame), and the side suffix (_l / _r, appended automatically).
Mirror right — on a Left group, appends a mirrored right-side copy.
The frame chip shows the group's computed range live (frames 104–107).

Inside a group, drag rows to reorder (frames simply renumber) and the small + next to a frame number inserts an empty pose before or after it.

Finding the internal Daz name#

The Parameter name is the parameter's internal name, which usually differs from the slider's label (label Body Tone → internal body_bs_BodyTone). The comfortable way is the studio's autocomplete: one unattended scan (Tools → Scan & index) covers every generation, and from then on each Parameter name field suggests matches as you type — searchable by internal name or Daz UI label, filling in the exact internal name and the right node.

A morph's internal Daz name Looking up a morph's internal name in Daz
_{Left: a morph's internal name differs from its slider label. Right: the manual route via Parameter Settings.}

Parameter name autocomplete suggestions
_{Each Parameter name field autocompletes from the scanned index.}

Building the index — Tools → Scan & index#

Open Tools → Scan & index → Scan project, tick what you want and press Start scan. The studio hands Daz Studio one batch and works through it unattended.

Base morphs builds each generation's stock figures and indexes their morphs and skeleton, feeding the Parameter name fields and the bone field of Modify JCM frames. It covers Genesis 3, 8 and 8.1 female and male, and Genesis 9 twice — being gender-neutral, that pair is differentiated by geograft. Installed new morph products later? Just scan again.
Character morphs opens every linked Daz scene and indexes the dials the base index doesn't have — fitted clothing, hair, third-party geografts. Each find is filed under its scene and only suggested while that scene is selected, so two jackets in two scenes stop competing for the same Expand All.

Base morphs first. A scene scan works out what a scene adds by subtracting the base index — without one it stops and tells you, rather than filing the whole stock figure as "what this scene adds".

Running it by hand. The runtime installation also puts the base build into your Daz library as Scripts/DTH-Character-Studio/Build_Genesis_Index.dsa — the same thing the scan batch runs. It stays useful for one case: indexing a scene that isn't linked to any character. Save your open scene first (the stock build clears it), then run it from the Content Library.

Build_Genesis_Index in the Daz Content Library
_{Manual execution: the index script in Daz's Content Library, under Scripts/DTH-Character-Studio.}

It confirms which generations it found, builds the stock figures one at a time, finishes on an empty scene, and summarizes what was indexed per generation. With figures already loaded it offers to scan the open scene instead (that path never clears anything), and if that scene is saved it asks how to file the finds: For this scene or into the base index.

Build_Genesis_Index run summary dialog
_{The run summary: morphs and bones indexed per generation, and the geograft file each pick settled on.}