More of a tech discussion point

ibr_remote aka infinity10

I model and rig my own humanoid figures and am a bit curious about why figures in the generic genesis 3 series / michael 7 series required development of  different Uv maps for the same base geometry.  Well if this is a business strategy, I understand that no further comment can be made.  If it is a technical matter, I am very curious to understand more.  Of course, one geometry may be unwrapped in several ways, I appreciate that fact.  What made it necessary - in the case of each custom character of a normal human male, for example, in the Michael 7 series - to need different UVs ? 

DestinysGarden

I don't think it was strictly speaking "neccesary." In fact a lot of PAs didn't either because it was common place to use Genesis 3 base male as the development UV to use for character's skin textures. The rationale was asthetic, to have a custom fit skin for each body shape to minimize texture stretching. The unfortunate side effect was that it limited interchangeablity and versatility between texture sets. The Genesis 8 line appears to be sticking to a base UV, unless the figure shape is so extreme to warrant a new UV map.

wiz

DestinysGarden said:

The rationale was asthetic, to have a custom fit skin for each body shape to minimize texture stretching.

Except that it didn't. I ran some calculations on polygon distortion and the meshes based off the custome meshes weren't any better than the ones based off base figures. In some cases, they were worse.

Just a marketing gimick.

ibr_remote aka infinity10

Uhmmm ok, I do understand the need for custom UVs to avoid overly-stretching textures - had thought that that may only have affected aliens, gremlins, and other more extreme forms based off the geometry. Can also accept a business strategy requiring customisation.  Was wondering also that if pure procedural shaders (no textures involved) were used, it may not matter so much which UV was in play.  Just thinking aloud.

nicstt

Even if the shape is extreme, creating a new texture series on that new shape should really negate any stretching issues. Any problems are far more likely to be excessive resizing on some of the geometry in comparrison to other parts.

... George amply demonstrates the lack of any issues; it is worth noting that the torso is a 6k image though.

ibr_remote aka infinity10

oh yes, increasing the resolution for a "stretched" geometry part may help. 

Zev0

wiz said:

DestinysGarden said:

The rationale was asthetic, to have a custom fit skin for each body shape to minimize texture stretching.

Except that it didn't. I ran some calculations on polygon distortion and the meshes based off the custome meshes weren't any better than the ones based off base figures. In some cases, they were worse.

Just a marketing gimick.

This was not a marketing gimmick. It was more standard practice. In fact it was a process that was very much needed for Genesis 1, because the mesh was morphed more extreme to be male, female and creatures, and that just became the standard practice with Daz'O's up until Genesis 3. This meant each official shape had its own UV set, didn't matter how big or small the changes were. Now this was still viable on Genesis 2, but with the better mesh of Genesis 3, Multi UV's became less important because the distortion levels weren't as bad, but Daz still followed the process as before.

So all in all I am just glad it was finally dropped and we only have one UV to worry about now for Genesis 8. This means all skins, LIE effects and 3rd party skin products are compatible with each other. Better for the consumer....and content developers. The reality of the situation is most users still have no issues with distortions of using something like V4 maps on genesis 1,2 or 3, or even 8, so if they happy with that, there is no need for Daz to be technically correct by producing all these accurate UV sets. It was just Daz's responsibility to release content properly, with matching UV sets for shapes they produced. Because guess what, If they didn't make all these matching uv sets and there was visible distortion, imagine how people would crap on them for being lazy or unprofessional. End of the day a decision had to be made. Go with Technical Accuracy? Or drop that and go with the route that is better for the consumer and content developers, by supporting just one UV set.

ibr_remote aka infinity10

Interesting⭐️✨✅

kyoto kid

...for G3F I just use Skin Builder Pro3 and Beautiful Skins.  Saves me a lot on all those specialised UV textures.