M4 and V4 character bundles
Hi,
Sorry for the novice questions here. I am new to DAZ and with all these great sales going on, I want to make sure I am getting all the stuff that I really am going to need in the future.
I see so much content online specifically for M4/V4 characters but not that much for the new M5/V5 ones. But it is very confusing to me as to whether some of these characters, costumes, props, etc. will work in the new Genesis out of the box. Or do I need to buy the base models of V4/M4 first. I also have read about this Iconic shapes pack here on the forums but still am not really clear on what that will do for me. Will it allow me to use most of this older M4/V4 content?
Thanks.
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What you will need in the future is a hard question to answer as the direction you take is your own personal choice and taste. You might buy a ton of clothing for everyday wear and end up doing Scifi etc. Daz3D won't like me for this but start slow, think about what type of images you want to make and decide accordingly. Learn about the software first is my advice.
As for M4/V4 clothing on Genesis...some will work out of the box and some won't as the Autofit tool isn't 100% perfect but does a better job now than it used to. I don't have much trouble with shirts, pants, long and short, capes can be a little fiddly to get right. Long dresses and robes can also be hit and miss too. Shoes are a real pain for me but they have gotten a little better.
If I am doing a full figure wearing footwear I stick with M4/V4 as I haven't got any Genesis made footwear yet.
Gemini
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I would suggest starting with V4/M4. There is a ton of stuff for them. They work with Daz, Poser , and Carrara right out of the box. These is a TON of freebies for them.
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This will give you an opportunity to discover if you like this hobby or not.
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There are a LOT of sales going on right now, here and at Runtimedna.com
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Best of luck!
Yeah, I have already bought a bunch of stuff this week. The biggest things was the SuperSuit bundle. At 50% off I knew I coudln't pass that up. I really want to do a lot of Super Hero and fantasy stuff with DAZ.
I think I am going to grab the M4 and V4 starter bundles. They seem to have enough in those bundles to start with. And there seems to be a lot of free and cheaper stuff for those characters online. I also found the Iconic Pack which several people have recommended but is that necessary if I purchase M4/V4 starters?
Thanks.
It depends on what you want to do. I just started this last February, and I thought I was going to use V4 and M4, so I got the basic stuff for them (morph++, elite morphs, muscle morphs as the sales came along) but I've found I rarely use them. They're handy to have for using GenX, which transfers older characters over to Genesis. The older characters are often cheaper, but that's the only thing I use them for. That, and using Posemaster to transfer good V4 and M4 poses over to Genesis.
Genesis is for me so much easier to use, and it bends much better. I think there are bending fixes you have to buy for V4 and M4. So I have to admit that if you aren't already attached to V4 and M4, I would go the Genesis route. Most clothing transfers over very well, except for some shoes and long dresses / long cloaks / long capes.
From what I can tell, It costs more to use the 4th generation figures because you often have to buy unimesh fits if you want to use one piece of clothing on a different model than it was designed for. With Genesis, clothes designed for all Genesis shapes (Hiro 5, Stephanie 5, M5, V5, Hitomi, etc.) will work for every other Genesis shape without a hitch. Plus it's quite easy to design your own unique characters with all the shaping dials Genesis has.
My first recommendation is to buy the old Figures, Avatars, and Characters book, first edition. It comes with a bunch of older content that works with Genesis. (It comes with V4, A4, H4, and M4, their starter packs, the 3D starter pack, Apartment 39, a bunch of animals, etc.) You can find it here. It's well worth the price!
My second recommendation is to get at least 1 month's membership in the platinum club if you're planning on buying a lot. You'll get access to thousands of $2 items, which is well worth it. But you'll also get 70% off all DAZ originals for the rest of this sale, instead of 50%. And once this weekend sale goes off, you'll get 40% for the rest of the month. In December it will go back to normal, 30% off DAZ Originals. If you calculate it out, you'll probably end up saving a good amount of money going this way.
If you go the genesis route, but you still want access to the variety of Gen4 characters made for V4, M4, etc., then you'll want to get morphs++ for V4 and M4. And then you'll want to buy GenX when it goes on sale so you can transfer the characters to Genesis. If you want, you can get the elite and muscularity morphs, but they are used far less often than morphs++. Also, as a side note, the V4 and M4 elite texture bundles are pretty high quality for closeups, so those can be handy. But it's not a crucial thing. You can pick those up in other sales. They work great on Genesis, although apparently the eyebrow shape changes slightly from what others have said.
The next thing I would buy is the Genesis evolution head and body morphs. (Edited to add: Genesis Evolution Muscularity is helpful for adding realism into renders, since there's a function you can turn on that automatically flexes the appropriate muscles when Genesis moves.) The evolution expression morphs are handy, too.
Then, to optimize autofit, I'd buy all the Gen3 and Gen4 shapes for Genesis. David 3 for Genesis is sold separately, I think. These aren't just the shapes, they also include UV maps that allow autofit to transfer clothing made for these characters as well. And yes, do get the V4 and M4 shapes for Genesis, too. I didn't at first, since I already had the UV maps (they come with DAZ3D 4.5 and I had the original V4 and M4. No need for the V4 and M4 shapes for Genesis, right? Wrong. :) Some characters for Genesis use the V4 and M4 shapes, and the character won't load properly without them.
Then there's the question of whether or not to get V5, M5, S5, and H5. Essentially, they're shapes for Genesis. So all the clothes and hair that come in their packages will work on any genesis shape. But they come with their own UV map, which means the characters created for them (the shapes and skins) will only work with that UV map. So if you want the characters based on the Gen5 shapes or their skin textures, then you'll want to buy the base shape. I have ended up doing that but you may decide that one of the Gen5 shapes just doesn't suit you.
The other thing that I have found incredibly useful is Marieah's Fabricator and the add-on packs that go with it (Ye Old Clothes, Lacemaker, Totally Bazaar, and Machpack.) I love, love, love it, and her store is 50% off right now. These are shaders that allow you to apply new cloth weaves and colors/patterns to any clothing you have. It's beyond awesome. That means that older items with lower resolution textures can be repurposed and become entirely new. Plus there are a bunch of free add-ons at sharecg for this as well. This is great for making unique renders that you can personalize to your taste. Here's the link to the old forum thread that had the freebie links and a discussion on how to use and render with these shaders. And don't forget to take a look at her Gemologica, as well. It does the same thing as the Fabricator, but for metals and gems. The possibilities are endless there, and very, very fun. :)
There's a good number of other helpful things in regards to lighting, posing, etc, that I've found, but none of them are on sale right now, and none of them are essential to getting started.
Also, keep in mind that there's probably going to be a Christmas sale of some sort, and March Madness has a lot of artists' stores half off, as well.
Well, I already bought the M5/V5 bundle because I wanted (and just purchased) the SuperSuit Pro Bundle. All three were great deals with this 50% off.
But it seems that most of the clothing and other great content is only for use with the V4 and M4. Like you said, I am just getting started with DAZ so I have no problem just learning everything with M5/V5 and no attachments to the original stuff but it would be nice to know if a lot of the Gen 4 stuff would easily work with the new stuff since these deals are really good. Also, there seems to be a lot of other sites having great deals but next to nothing seems to be made for M5/V5.
I wish I knew about how the Platinum Membership worked. Would have been nice to save more money on the stuff I just bought.
In my opinon the product are very good here and are of high quality. The platium club product are of high quality too. I have been shopping here since 2006. and have been a Platium Club member for about a year now. I am glad I did, you really save on products.
With autofit, which comes with DAZ3D 4.5, you can use clothes from any model (V4, M4, S4, G4, F4, H4, etc.) as long as you have their UV maps. DAZ3D 4.5 comes with some of them, but you get the rest by purchasing iconic shapes for Genesis. I've been quite happy with autofit generally. Some boots and shoes transfer over poorly, but not all by any means. My experience is that most dresses, capes, and cloaks that go below the knee don't do well, but everything else comes through great. Also, each new version of studio has an improved autofit, so I have hopes that dresses and shoes will eventually have fewer problems.
For example, even though I use Genesis as my model of choice, at least half of the clothes I use come from V4 and M4. It's great. Most of the skin textures I use come from V4 and M4. Most of my poses come from V4 and M4, which I then run through posemaster. Once I get around to transferring my V4 and M4 characters to Genesis through GenX, then most of my characters will be from V4 and M4, since I have far more of those.
Basically, with Genesis you get to use everything from all of DAZ's models from generation 3 through generation 5, except for some boots and dresses. That's awesome. And I'm not worried about the boots and dresses since there are more Genesis clothes coming out all the time, and you can mix and match the older generation stuff with the new stuff for Genesis.
Something to keep in mind is that I've heard it's a lot easier to make clothing for Genesis than it is for the previous generations. Now that Genesis works in Poser, the share of clothes made for it should go up.
And about the money you could have saved with the platinum membership. You can always put in a support ticket (it's faster if you call customer support, though) and return the products you've already bought. Then you buy the platinum membership and re-buy what you returned. Customer service is very helpful about that kind of thing. Chances are the money won't be credited back to your account by the end of the sale, though, since support won't open till Monday. So if you have the resources, you can essentially buy them twice and get a refund for the higher price.
After rereading your second post, I realized you may not realize that V5 and M5 are shapes for Genesis, just like you can get the iconic shapes for Genesis (the older V4 shapes, etc.). So V5 and M5 are Genesis, and all you need to look for are things you can use with Genesis, either naturally or through things that you've bought the shapes for, which is what you get when you buy the iconic shapes for Genesis. Since I've bought this, this, this, and this, I can use any clothing product or character designed for S4, D3, A4, H4, F4, G4, A3, H3, G3, F3, M3, and V3.
I'll give that thought it's own paragraph because it's the key to your question. I can use any clothing product or character designed for S4, D3, A4, H4, F4, G4, A3, H3, G3, F3, M3, and V3 because I've bought their shape for Genesis. (One caveat - without GenX, you can't get a character based on, let's say, M4, to transfer over to Genesis , but you can still use the skin textures, makeup, eye colors, etc.)
And the really cool thing is that all of V5's clothes work on M5, and vice versa. Just like V5's clothes work on any Genesis shape, and vice versa. It's all transferable. So when you look at all the sales, you can buy everything you have a Genesis shape for. Just follow the links in the paragraph above to buy them.
Please note that you can use/buy already any product made for V4 and M4 because the free version of DAZ3D 4.5 comes with the UV maps for V4 and M4. So you'd only need to buy this for genesis characters that rely on it for the shape of their character. Like Stefan.
And just in case you're wondering, you can use hair from generations 3 through 5 on Genesis without buying the shapes. That's because you can fiddle with the hair to get it to fit right. (I won't go into that since it's a separate topic.) So that means you can buy hair from generations 3 through 5 without worrying too much about it.