tools and tips

for machstudio pro

Introduction

A few years ago a GPU-Accelerated renderer named MachStudio was selling for as much as $4000

it was (is?) even used by some studios

It was designed to run on graphic workstations equipped with the high end graphic card ATI FirePro

But it does work on consumer-grade NVIDIA and ATI/AMD cards as long as your card and Windows are DX11 ready.

Eventually they gave away the program (licenses) for free and seemingly closed shop.

The StudioGPU web site is now in ruins

But using archive.org's "way-back machine" you can download some of the documentation

In this page i'll give you some links and tips to help you experiment with MachStudio Pro

Breaking news

thanks to Daz3D user 3drendero , there's a rather complete archive of the StudioGPU site, which includes big samples (assets) !

anyways, there are some more live downloads here, including 500+MB of tutorial assets:
http://web-beta.archive.org/web/20110807034322/http://www.studiogpu.com/machstudio/tutorials
The manual:
http://web-beta.archive.org/web/20111017005218/http://www.studiogpu.com/download/machstudio-pro-user-guide.php

The links i had found before the breaking news

you can see all the 668 pieces of the web site that are in archive.org's archive

http://wayback.archive.org/web/*/http://www.studiogpu.com*

Daz Studio - to .obj - to Blender - to MachStudio

As you know, you can export en entire Daz Studio scene as an .obj and an .mtl file.

Blender in turn can import obj / mtl files

and there's a set of tools that let you export Scenes from Blender in the one format that MachStudio understands

Those files disappeared from StudioGPU's web site, but they are part of MachStudio's installation ! we're saved.

here is the Readme for the Blender Installer

on my PC this Readme.txt was located in C:\Program Files\StudioGPU\MachStudio Pro\Exporters\Exporters\Blender\Windows

0)This will work only with Python2.6.2. I havent tested any other versions.

1)First find whether your python is 32 bit Intel version
or a 64 bit amd version. (those are the two versions that we support)

THe following script detects that. import sys sys.version

2)Please install the contents of the $(Platform)\sgpuExporterPythonBinding folder
to $(Python26Root)\Lib\site_packages\sgpuExportLib.
If you dont have such a folder, please create one.
where $(Python26Root) is the place where you have installed Python2.6.2
Eg: I have installed Python2.6.2 at c:\Python26
and $(Platform) is either '32bit' or '64bit'.
2)Please copy the python file 'StudioGPUExporter.py' to the
blender scripts directory.
Eg: C:\Users\kgeorge\AppData\Roaming\Blender Foundation\Blender\.blender\scripts

So i downloaded the old Blender version 2.49b here:

and i downloaded Python 2.6 (it's required) from here:

i Installed Python 2.6 in C:\Python26

and then i installed blender in C:\Program Files (x86)\Blender Foundation\Blender

then i copied the blender-python script given by MachStudio : StudioGPUExporter.py

from C:\Program Files\StudioGPU\MachStudio Pro\Exporters\Exporters\Blender\Windows

to C:\Program Files (x86)\Blender Foundation\Blender\.blender\scripts

then in the folder C:\Python26\Lib\site-packages i created a folder named sgpuExportLib

then i copied the 5 files found in C:\Program Files\StudioGPU\MachStudio Pro\Exporters\Exporters\Blender\Windows\32bit\sgpuExporterPythonBinding

to C:\Python26\Lib\site-packages\sgpuExportLib

Blender will now be able to export scenes in MachStudio's format.

Exporting a scene from Daz Studio

In Daz Studio, you can export a scene as one big .obj file, by doing

File / Export / Wavefront Object (*.obj )

Since MachStudio only accepts .obj files containing surfaces (groups) that have 1 and only 1 material

you must check mark Daz Studio's "Write Groups" and "Use Surface Name's" options

it's also probably better to use the "collect maps" option to help Blender find the textures

Importing the .obj in Blender

if we imported the .obj from Daz Studio right now, it would look all rough and faceted.

open the .obj file using a text editor like wordpad or notepad

add the following on the first line of the file

s 1

that's it, you can save the .obj file

This told Blender to turn smooth on

start Blender 2.49

do a File / Import / Wavefront.obj

If you're new to Blender, it's a bit awkward but you'll get to your .obj file

click on the buttons as shown below

note that an option is ON when the button is dark green

your Daz Studio scene should now be in Blender

if you're not familiar with Blender 2.49 this must be a scary place, but we're not staying for long

all the objects are outlined in magenta to indicate that they are all selected

CTRL A would de-select everything and CTRL A would re-select everything

Exporting the Blender scene in MachStudio's format

If you installed the MachStudio-supplied tools correctly ( in the correct Blender and Python folders )

do a File / Export / StudioGPU (.gxb )

This panel should pop up

select the 2 options : "All" and "TexCoords"

click on "Export"

specify a filename that ends with .gxb ( example: myscene.gxb )

Importing the GXB scene in MachStudio

in Mach Studio, do a Create / Load Objects

and select the .gxb file you exported from Blender

The default export scale of Daz Studio makes objects in MachStudio way too small

this scale also prevents rendering from working correctly

Just after you load your .gxb scene file, change the scale from 1 to 100 as shown below

one last note: the texture images in MackStudio are (sometimes?) inverted (upside-down) in comparison with Blender and Daz Studio

so you'll have to go in the folder named "textures" that was produced during the Blender export and flip the images using a paint program

or in Mach Studio, change the Texture Placement's "U scale" from 1 to -1