Daz inc. innovating,imitating or stagnating??
wolf359
Posts: 3,936
So here we are, officially at Daz studio 4.12.
I must ask ,where is the innovation that brought us the amazing Genesis figure framework those years ago??.
Admittedly Dforce was a decent hybrid/weightmap based replacement for the limited optitex plugin that( foolishly IMHO) depended on a third party for the optitex enabled clothing meshes.
However the new IK node system is based on manual IK/KF blending methodology that was in use 12 years ago, in other character animation programs, so not so much an innovation IMHO.
And the lack of a global foot contact ground plane
instead of manually adding a plane primitive each time is a bit "last decade" as well compared to to other modern systems.
Daz co-opted, re-engineered and rebranded the existing Garabaldi ?? plugin. for strand based hair with some well discussed "limitations" for non PA's
Daz bought the rights to the formerly paid ,third party graphMate and keyMate plugins and bundled them into daz studio which is nice.
However they made no native improvements to them such as tangent handles,or cycling options or native key reduction/culling for the hundreds of keys created when baking an aniblock to graphmate for manual editing.
To be fair could be due a "licensing" matter like the 32 bit Audio based mimic plugin
And now they have built in a new paid($50 USD) photo based "face generation" plugin that appears similar to the photo based, facegen artist pro application from what I have seen publicy posted.
while for lipsync we are still stuck with either installing the 32 bit version of Daz studio.
Buying the $50 USD Mimic live Plugin with no native ability to use
pre recorded audio ( without a Hack involving two computers /sound cards.)
Or purchasing the $90 USD anilip plugin from a third party who happens to vend in the daz store for the time being.
(I am not mentioning the 64 bit papagayo lipsync script as I have only tested it with DS version 4.8)
I would have loved to have seen a camera based facial mocap system that supported ANDROID Phones. 
So I ask again..is Daz inc innovating,imitating or stagnating??
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Comments
Not sure what the point of the question is?....is it simply to cause controversy? Because all you are asking is for personal opinions.
The simple fact is that Daz keeps adding features to D/S and the program continues to grow...and that is cool.
Garibaldi is the base for the Strand Based Hair editor, dForce hair can use the output (for PAs) but it isn't intrinsicly tied to it.
The Timeline update is more than just adding KeyMate/GraphMate.
It's been a few days since Wolf complained about IK in Studio, he needs to catch up. ;)
Clearly I lack an understanding of Strand Based Hair and dForce hair and how they do or do not interact. I've not been paying much attention of late. I've seen some of these rumblings. And noticed that the strand based product I bought does not appear to be "dynamic".
Perhaps someone could condense this for me. Or point me to a concise analysis?
It's a start: Tutorial by Divamakeup
GH could not paint on Genesis 3 or be rendered in Iray. The SBH can. Aside from that, there has been numerous fixes under the hood that they dev team have done. And there is NO difference between what the PAs have for the SBH editor and what the customers have because PAs dont need the SBH editor to make dForce Strand based hair. So there are no limitations for the customer, only improvements over what was originally GH.
GH could export .obj files, haven't found the place on the SBH to do that, have you?
I kind of agree scenes still take eons to load, memory gets bogged down but the preview seems faster
To the OP's questions I have a simple answer. DS is not a pro level tool and is not primarily an animation tool.
I think this nails it. I came to the same conclusion a while back.
I don't think it has to be pro level for pro work. I don't use it for animation anyway. But I'm curious how the face generator works. I have never gotten facegen to work properly for me.
This made me laugh!
Never wrote that it did. But if you're doing more than making VN's or making any real money off your work there are better options.
The facegen honestly has me puzzled being limited to 3 saved faces strikes me as a free trial not a new feature.
Haha, I didn't mean anything personal by it, but I know every time Wolf leaves a long comment, he's going to complain about DAZ Studio's animation capabilities. :)
Kenshaw, it actually is a trial. The full version is in the store now.
Withdrawn ... misunderstood.
Drama royalty in the house?
Hmmm... FREE continues to be all the innovation I really need.
The fact they do still add things for me is just gravy.
If you want cutting edge, ZBrush is only $825 or Maya is $1,545.00 ... a year. Blender is free but you may have complaints with it as it is not as up to date with cuting edge technology as ZBrush or Maya.
Thank you, DAZ, for continuing to provide your software for free and giving us this wonderful engine we can use to create art in. The fact you purchased previously available add ons and incorporated them FOR FREE into the software is another reason to thank you. So, thank you. :)
Set Preview PR Hairs to ON, and set the number of sides you desire:
HTH.
- Greg
ETA: Then export OBJ as usual.
Native lipsync, facial mocap, and VR capabilities are probably coming as quickly as Daz can cheaply get them done. FaceTransfer is evidently a move to bring in NEW users, and that is what VR capabilities will do. As you have noted elsewhere, increasing Studio's animation tools is presently not really a Daz priority. But if Poser would get out of their feelings and reach compatibility with Genesis 3 and 8 and then decide to revamp their animation engine...
The single framers have all the tools they need
This ^
"I would have loved to have seen a camera based facial mocap system that supported ANDROID Phones. "
and this ^
Before VR or other new technology, isn't it time that DAZ caught up with other developers when it comes to real time rendering and soft body physics. I've seen some amazing things happening in game engines and I'm just a casual onlooker - I have no investment of time or effort in that software. Just watching a few YouTube videos shows what can be done already and it makes me think that DAZ is a decade behind the times, at least. Blender has also made significant leaps recently with Eevee and the cloth sim, animation and soft body physics.
By the way, Blender is free. Unity is free. Unreal is free.
How much investment have all those had though.. :)
I have a "Mimic Live! for Daz Studio 4.12 (Win 64-bit)" in my DIM. So, this appears to have eliminated the 32-bit jibe. Now, if they will just get rid of the "Live!" part.
Let's face it, DAZ Studio is only free so as to provide a platform for its main business: that of selling content. I'm no businessman but it looks to me like a pretty successful model that has worked for many years now. It is just my opinion that DAZ could attract more customers for its content if that platform were to be brought up to date in line with those others in the market. It doesn't have to compete with ZBrush or Maya - these are false comparisons. All it needs to do is provide an exciting creative environment so that we users can express our fantasies on screen. The days when it was enough to create a static image which takes hours to render may already be slipping into history. That has been enough for me for 15 years but I want to see what else is possible with those figures and props and DAZ is not keeping up with the real competition.
I think the emphasis on dForce Hair completely overshadowed the Strand-Based Hair and SBH Editor when they were introduced. Garibaldi Hair and Look At My Hair are products that depend on features of the 3Delight render engine to produce the hair/fur during a render. The hair created by both programs will not render in Iray as is. Converting them to OBJs, (LAMH can also be converted to Fiber Hair,) is needed to render in Iray.
Strand-Based Hair is a rewrite of Garibaldi Hair, but don't assume it was easy. The code had to be rewritten extensively to create a strand hair that renders in Iray natively. It's like installing a Porshe engine in a Volkswagen Beetle, (though undoubtedly a lot harder.) The bug may look the same, but it's a whole different animal under the hood. The biggest advantage to using an existing plugin as the interface is there are any number of people who will know how to create hair with this editor for having experience with Garibaldi.
I'd call that innovation.
I'm not as familiar with IK, KeyMate, GraphMate, or animation in general, but I suspect it took a great deal of programming and rewrites to update and integrate these functions. And had Daz waited to release 4.12 until they'd added features that didn't already exist in plugins, it could easily be another year before we saw a new release. Perhaps the updates the OP is looking for will be in 4.13…
Not bad for a program that's completely free to use.
Out of curiosity, what is it that you do see as the real competition for DS?
- Greg
Personally, I reckon the only competitor is Poser. And, having started 3D figure rendering with Poser 4 a good while ago while Metacreations owned it, I don't feel Poser can currently hold a candle against DS. Which is a shame really, as close competition between the two could be very good for each other.
Reallusion