Why I won't be buying anything else for G3F

I'm afraid I haven't read the forums at all since the G3F release, and have no idea what others think of her, or of any reasons/excuses from DAZ as to why G3F is as she is. My disability is limiting my use of the computer more and more, but I've become determined to actually produce a rendered story (not having actually really produced anything for quite some time) and have been using all my computer time on that, currently finalising tweaking character morphs and textures ready to start the actual story soon, and collecting every prop, environment, piece of clothing etc I'll need; which hasn't left any time for forums and whatnot.

But I've taken a little time out to look at G3F; bought her V7 Pro pack and a few other things assuming I'd want to switch to her from G2F as soon as I had what I need to start with her, as with all previous figures. However I've now realised I don't like her; that from my POV DAZ have gone completely wrong with her; that she is and will remain useless to me; and that I now deeply regret the money I've spent on her and stuff for her. I'd just like to publically explain why: maybe so someone from DAZ might at least see this bit of customer feedback; maybe to explain to some PAs from whom I've bought a lot of Genesis and G2F content (like Zev0 and Sickleyield) why I won't be buying the G3F stuff they produce (though i'm sure they won't notice my absence).

It's not that I'm a luddite who doesn't like change in the figures - I've been right with it since I started with this stuff in 2004. Now, excuse some history, but this will become relevant and explain why I think G3F is the worst figure since Victoria 2. Yes 2, that's not a typo.

I started this 3D graphics stuff in March 2004, getting Poser 4 as something to distract me in a difficult time in my life, and knowing nothing when I downloaded, installed and started it. The first thing I wanted to do was recreate a particular female character from a book I was writing ... and with each new figure over the years that's been the initial test, trying to make a new, better version of that same character each time, right through to G3F. Within a few days of first opening Poser 4 that first time I had appreciated that P4 Posette (and Dork, but I'll limit this to the female figures) was too limited,and had discovered DAZ. Still very ignorant, and looking at the then cheap Victoria 2 and expensive Victoria 3, I bought Victoria 2 (and Michael 2). Rapid disappointement. This female character is fit, athletic; she's not a bodybuilder by any means, but has noticeable and defined muscle. Couldn't get that with Victoria 2. Within a day I'd discovered and understood why - mesh topology. V2 and M2 were completely different meshes: M2's mesh had the polygons arranged to follow the major muscle groups so muscle bulk and/or definition could be morphed in/out; V2's competely different mesh was not arranged to reflect the muscles of the human body so no definition could be morphed in because of the polygon arrangement. But, I also understood, there was original Stephanie, who I immediately bought. Later Stephanies, from S3P, were small, slim versions of the contemporary Victoria, but not original Stephanie - she was V2's athletic sister. In fact she was the M2 mesh reshaped to V2's size and shape and attached to V2's rig, so she looked just like V2, posed the same, could wear the same clothes - but because she had M2's mesh and therefore M2's mesh topology that folowed the muscles of the body, unlike V2 Stephanie could have muscle bulk and/or definition morphed out of her.

But within a couple more days I learnt more, and how poor the bending of the Generation 2 figures were compared with the Gen3 ones. And the Gen3 figures were a unimesh, V3 and M3 having the same mesh toplogy as each other, so V3 would share M3's ability to morph muscle definition. So I gritted my teeth and forked out the not inconsiderabele sum at the time to buy V3 (and M3) plus morph packs and whatnot. However, another couple of days and I had a new problem - I wanted my character to have realistic proportions, and V3 didn't - the legs are way too long and the head too small for the size of the torso (something true of EVERY Victoria right through to now). and, back then, one couldn't change just the leg lengths - in Poser4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and part way trhough Poser 9, and early DS y scaling just the thighs and shins broke posing and conformed clothes. The solution back then was Stephanie 3 Petite, who had more realistic proportions (legs to body - not overall height as that could be changed by simple scaling) - and she also posed better.

So, in my first week with Poser in 2004 I had learnt and graduated through Posette, V2, Stephanie, V3 and S3P - an expensive learning process, but I did learn a great deal about mesh topology and a lot of other thinsg about how this stuff all worked, and I was, at that point, on the then latest, state of the art figure, S3P (and David for the males when he came out soon after. as he morphed and posed better than M3).

After that - well, I immediately saw the huge improvement in V4 and switched to her as soon as she came out (and she was a - new - unimesh with M4, sharing again a muscle contour following mesh topology). Same with Genesis - instant convert (and as Genesis was both male and female, again she had the muscle contour following topology). G2F ... I was angry about G2F, but not because of the technology of the figure. I was angry because they'd separated the bases by sex again, and what I knew that would do to the clothes market (and I was right, with bells on). For my female characters I want realistic, practical clothing, and especially various unisex and uniform kinds of clothes; but the market for the female figures is all loads of girly-girly or impractical and/or sexualised clothing, Right back from my second week with Poser 4 in 2004 through to the release of Genesis I spent a huge amount of my 3D Graphics gtime learning to and painstakingly converting clothing made for the male figures over to my female ones (which was hellishly difficult for me for the gen2 and 3 figures, not that much easier for the Gen4s) - and even that limited by the proportionally tiny amount of male clothing in the stores compared with the huge amount of girly-girly/sexualised/etc female clothing I have no use for. With Genesis it was bliss - lots of the clothes I wanted, and fitting the female shapes even if the PA had principally been making them for male characters (as often shown by male figures only in the promos). Now, with G2F, male and female split again, I knew the clothes market would revert ... which it indeed did. But at least it was easier to convert male clothing sets to female. And after about a four day huff after the G2F release, I did realise the improvements in the figure over Genesis in terms of bending, expressions, morphability etc, put my huff aside and committed to G2F. So, a week initailly in 2004 progressing through Posette, V2, Stephanie, V3 to SP3, then immediate adoption of and move to V4 and Genesis on their release, and four days after release of G2F of sulking over what was going to happen to the clothes market before moving to G2F. Not a Luddite. Ready to see the advantages and immediately movre to the new figure platform since 2004

But not this time. For me, G3F is a crock, and a return to V2. It went like this:

As I said, Not having produced much for years, I have this project to render out a quite lengthy story, which features this one long-time character I created years before the 3D graphics, but trying to re-create whom in 3D CGI form has been my first main test of each new female figure. As I've gone through versions of her - V2, Stephanie, V3, SP3, V4, Genesis, G2F - the likenesses have graadually got better, and the latest G2F version I finalised in detail last week is the first version of which I'd say 'She looks exactly like that' rather than 'she's supposed to looks sort of like that'. Over the last few months I've been buying (or finding frrebies of, in some cases) props, environments, shaders, clothing, vehicles etc to have everything at hand for the project, custom morphing the five main characters, many of the minor characters, tweaking textures, etc, etc. Right now I'm literally vertex by vertex tidying up the messy result of autofollow on a converted item of V4 clothing (you'd think someone would have made a proper, simple racer back sports bra for G2F!) Then I see G3F has come out.

On previous new figure releases I've immediately got them, seen the improvements, and abandoned what I was doing seeing how much better e.g. the bending would be with the new figure .. and then basically twiddled my thumbs for weeks, months, even years waiting for certain textures and/or morphs (and often clothes, though less so these days with easier transfer from one figure to another) to appear which I need to do any of the things I want to do with the new figure. This time I got the V7 Pro pack and G3F morph packs immediately as I was sure that I would want to move up to it, as with all the previous figures, and I might as well get them with intro discount; but I was determined to carry on with my project. I was sure it would be many months before a suitable texture (especially as G3F can't use the V4, Genesis and G2F UV ones) and certain needed morphs arrived for G3F before I could try to re-create the particular female character who is my usual test of a figure and is one of the main characters in the story. So I only loaded G3F briefly to see if my one big complaint about G2F's bending had been dealt with in G3F (answer: no, G3F just as bad in that respect) and a quick dial fiddle. Plus I'd bought the first pose transfer utility and had it batch convert a bunch of G2F poses and tried the results on G3F (result: hideous - really, really hideous). My intention was to continue my project with G2F, and just keep an eye on the marketplaces and gradually collect texture sets, morphs and clothes for G3F until I had what I needed as a base to transition to her in - I guessed - quite a few months and after the current rendering project.

First - at the time pleasant - shock. The very first batch of PA products for G3F contained a perfect texture set to tweak (add some scars, a tattoo that had been the result of one very drunken night, etc) for my female character; just as good and suited in the important specifics as the one I'm using on G2F. I was really surprised as it was ages after the release of the figure before a suitable V3 UV one, V4 UV one, V5 UV one and V6 UV one came out I know this character well, and have very specific requirements for a a texture for her). Here was a G3F one the day after the G3F release! But I put G3F aside again as one vital thing I needed was one or more morphs. The G2F version of the character uses a mixture of quite a lot of morphs, but one important one is quite a lot of Gia 6 body (no head), and there weren't morphs in the G3F Body morphs set with which to re-create that effect closely. Again I thought it would be months, put G3F aside and went back to my project.

Second shock - and it was this that revealed the true horror (for me) of G3F. What, a week? two weeks? later the morph packs comes out with the G2F legacy morphs for G3F, including a Gia 6 morph! Very surprised at how soon what I thought I needed was appearing, I bought it, loaded my G2F version of the character, loaded G3F alongside and set to. Basic shape - easy with the new Gia morph for G£F and equivalents to other body morphs used. But something was wrong. Rendered the two side by side, basic shapes the same but the G3F version is flat - lacking detail. My character is a very fit, physicaly active women at about 12 percent body fat. She is NOT a bodybuilder - she trains hard for a compromise between explosive strength, speed and endurance; bodybuilder bulk muscles and training for them LOSES strength, speed, flexibility and endurance. 12 percent body fat gives reasonable muscle definition, though not total ripped bodybuilder definition, and she has noticeably unusual (for a woman) muscle bulk but not bodybuilder size. She's more like some of the real world female 100m sprinters or heptathletes, NOT like a bodybuilder. Some Gia 6 gave me the definition I wanted with G2F but Not with G3F.

Puzzled, I removed the textures from the two and set them both just morphd to Gia 6 at 1 (no normal maps). Basic shape the same, G2F has some muscle definition, G3F has none. I dialled them both up with ONLY their respective Bodybuilder Defintion (not Bulk) morphs at 1: G2F has good definition, G3F has only vague, blunt hint of muscle definition. I came back to the DAZ store and really looked at the promos for the G2F body morph pack and the G3F body morph pack. Both have a promo of the untextured figure with Bodybuilder (Bulk and Definition) at 1; promos clearly show good muscle defintion on G2F, vague muscle defnition on G3F, more like an off season bodybuilder walking around with maybe 18 percent body fat; very different.

Surprise heading towards being appalled, I switched to looking at G2F and G3F side by side in Wire Shaded view so I could see the polygons and their topology. And there it is - no wonder. For the first time since Victoria 2, DAZ have released a female figure whose polygon topology does NOT follow the shape and flow of the anatomy and particularly the muscles on the body. The Gia 6 morph for G3F, and the Bodybuilder Definition morph for G3F CANNOT produce any real level of muscle definition because the polygons are not arranged in a way that they can morph to show muscle difnition. And it's not just muscle DEFINITION: it's also muscle FEXION. Without the polygons arranged along the boundaries of the muscles you can't morph definition OR flexion in a meaningful way - flexions that should be visible in characters with far more fat and less muscle than this particular one of my my characters, even in the other non-muscular female character in my current story rendering project.

So we're back to Victoria 2 and why I mentioned that - back to Victoria 2 in the polygon topology on the body not matching the muscular anatomy of the body.

Of course DAZ will probably say 'Oh, you can do muscular definition with HD morphs'. Yes you can - with a whole load of sub-division - but:

1) That means I would have to take the processor hit for a heavily subdivided HD morphed figure even some way in the distance in a render where the definition and/or flexion would be visible, a low defintion morph would do fine, and heavy subdivision and HD morphs are otherwise completely unnecessary.

2) I'm completely reliant on DAZ or a DAZ PA to produce any such HD morphs as no-one else can produce HD morphs.

3) I can't do any editing of any such morphs myself - as I've done on all other muscle and defintion morphs from Stephanie, through V3, S3P, V4, and Genesis to G2F - as I can't save HD morphs myself, not being a PA.

3) I can't transfer any such morphs from Genesis or G2F or to G3F since G3F simply doesn't have the mesh in the right places to receive the morphs. This matters as, for instance, on G2F I use the Muscle and Flexion morphs for Genesis which I transferred using the Transfer Utility (identical with the results obtained with GenX2 set on high detail when that became available later) EVEN THOUGH I have the Muscle and Flexion morphs for G2F - simply because I spent time comparing the two on G2F and think the converted Genesis ones on G2F are actually and noticeably better than the set made and released for G2F.

DAZ go on about how G3F has a face with polys following the muscle structure to provide far more 'points of articulation' for better expressions. By the same logic one should have polys in the body following the muscles to provide more points of articulation for better representation of the way body muscles change shape with movement of the body. But instead they've REMOVED the match of polys to muscles in the body. Mad.

I've been thinking these thoughts for days - since the day the G3F Gia6 morph came out and I came to realise what DAZ had done to G3F's body. And I've been building up to write this. The day I decide to actually write, we get Karen 7 as a kind of G3F equivalent to Gia 6, and RawArt's MASSIVE for G3F. Gia 6 and RawArt's MASSIVE for G2F I jumped on and eagerly bought on the day of release (although I've found I have no use for the MASSIVE as I'm trying to present realistically strong women who train hard for what they do but are not bodybuilders, as Bodybuilder training goes against strength, flexibility, speed and endurance, as mentioned above - being a bodybuilder is aesthetic, not practical for other things). I will NOT be buying Karen 7 or MASSIVE for G3F. Why? Because I've looked carefully at the promos (having learnt my lesson from only casually glancing at the promos for the Body Morph pack and the legacy figure morphs)and could immediately see what I expected due to the terrible body mesh topology. Karen 7 - like Gia 6 for G3F - does not show the muscle definition I want and which Gia 6 shows on G2F - it can't, because the poly boundaries are not in place to allow it. MASSIVE shows definition on the HD version of the morph, but only coupled to the bodybuilder-type muscle bulk. I want good definition that lets me set muscle bulks separately. It would need DAZ to produce an HD add-on to the Bodybuilder Definition morph in the Body morph set - and if they were going to I think they would have done it in that set, rather than having the promo showing the much lower defintion than in the promo of the G2F set. AND I'd have to take the processor hit when nothing else in the scene needed HD morphs, plus the other disadvantages of relying on HD morphs I listed above.

To me this is terrible - and illogical. The base mesh of the body should, as a fundamental issue, have a topology that reflects the underlying dynamic structure of the body, namely the muscles. It's something DAZ have provided since original Stephanie, and to change this is, for me, a big - and indeed fatal - mistake. I'm sure DAZ have their reasons that are good to them; perhaps they are also good for the bulk of their customers - I don't know. But for ME the cons massively outweigh any pros, and so I will be staying with G2F. And if the next major version of DS requires such a 'new technology' G3 type figure and won't work with Genesis 2, then I won't be moving up with DS either, though I hope it doesn't come to that. I will not be using G3F, and feel I have completely wasted the money I spent on the Victoria 7 Pro bundle and a number of other G3F items I bought in the DAZ store and other stores beside.

I will still buy - where it's something I need for my projects - props, scenes, sets, vehicles, weapons etc. And I will still buy - where it's something I need - things for G2F and G2M. But I will buy nothing further for G3F directly, the only exceptions being possibly the odd clothing item or hair which both (a) I'm sure will convert to G2F well and easily, and (b) it's something there isn't a G2F version of, or it has some important improvement over any G2F version. So nothing for G3F at all, only MAYBE odd G3F clothing and hair to be converted to and used with G2F instead. I feel very sorry for the way I will be abandoning certain PAs, especially Sickleyield, from whom I bought a lot of things for Genesis and G2F and G2M, and Zev0 from whom I bought ... well pretty much EVERYTHING for Genesis and G2F and G2M.

This, then, will be the first new generation of DAZ figure since I started in 2004 that I will not be adopting. I feel ... actually I feel betrayed by DAZ; but that's an emotional response that isn't at all logical. I'm only one customer, and from the nature of the contents of the DAZ store right the way through from 2004 to now I'm clearly not a 'normal' customer with 'average' customer needs and tastes; I can't expect that evry choice DAZ make will be the best for me. They're doing what they think is best for the majority of their customers. This time, maybe it is, maybe it isn't; but it's the completely wrong thing for me.

I do feel sad at this parting of the ways. For eleven years DAZ has been travelling down a broad road that included where I wanted to go so I went with them. Now, they've turned into a narrower path that does NOT include where I'm trying to go, and so I won't be following with G3F (and presumably G3M, unless they're not using a unimesh for Genesis 3 and G3M has a different, suitable mesh topology). With original Genesis, DAZ praised the move to a single figure base for both male and female, crowing the advantages as a selling point; with Genesis 2 they completely reversed themselves, praising the move to separate male and female bases and crowing THOSE advantages as a selling point. Personally I was for the single base and against the return to separate ones, but it did show DAZ making a 180 degree turn over a change in one generation of figure. Maybe - just maybe - G4F will show DAZ making another 180 and return to mesh topology matching body anatomy as it has from original Stephanie to G2F. If so I'll be happy to re-join the DAZ figure journey; if not then I suppose if and when G2F doesn't cut it any more I'll have to look for some other source of 3D figures.

Anyway  - G3F, not for me. Mesh toplogy following the anatomical structures is, for me, completely fundamental and a necessary requirement of a figure. Sorry, DAZ, for me you've got this wrong in such a fundamental way it can't be fudged or fixed in any way but a new mesh. You and a few PAs have a little bit of money from me for G3F things, but what you have now is it - no more. And please knock 1 off the total number of V7 sales when you look at them to judge how many people approve of G3F: I bought V7 Pro, but wish I hadn't and won't be using it.

Right - back to my story creating and rendering project. As before the G3F release I'll be spending all my limited computer time on that, and none on forums etc. I won't be debating this in the forums, not even this thread. Please don't expect me to read, answer, discuss or debate any replies: my head's too muzzed with prescription painkillers, the pain levels rise too high, and available time is too short. I just felt I had to say, publically, what I find so fundamentally flawed about G3F (and the basic design of the mesh topology is about as fundamental as it gets) and therefore why I won't be using G3F or buying anything more for G3F.

Peace. Out.