How long until Gen9?
MoonCraft3D
Posts: 379
in The Commons
From a business perspective, I keep watching the G8 content rollout and am left wondering, "How long until they feel they have hit peak saturation and want to roll us to G9?"
Any word on G9? Any thoughts on what improvements will come with the next generation of models?
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We've been told it won't be coming this year.
From a business perspective, I think the constant new generations drive more people away than what profit they could get if they stopped forcing people to keep upgrading. I mean, just look at today's new releases. Tons of great content that does not require you to buy everything again (for a new generation).
With a longer than previous generation's "lifespan" the number of people who have a significant investment in G8 is pretty high. Those people won't be terribly interested in buying lots of very basic things again unless there is some major step forward in technology. I'm guessing that G8 is the new V4 honestly. Until some major step forward in Daz's tech happens it will be the default figures.
It cannot be about how much has been invested. With that in mind, you just stop making new figures. If you are a customer, you know in advance, that your figure will be nr1 for a limited time.
On the other hand, you are right about the question, what more to expect. I think, every possible improvement is pretty much independent from the mesh's geometry. So since the mesh is not needed to be altered, G8 character morphs could still work with Genesis9.
Also it shouldn't be a matter of some nebulous 'saturation' but rather a matter of Genesis 9 having some significant advances in design and/or technology to make it something other than just 'a differently posed G3' which for a while was all g8 seemed to me to be.
I have yet to migrate to G8F and I'm currently doing a series of figures based on G3F. I am less than eagerly awaiting the arrival of G9F. I think the previous posters have summed up the case for delaying G9F very well.
Cheers,
Alex.
I would prefer a Genesis 8.1 upgrade.
After converting maps, morphs, clothes, hair, ... from the previous generations to G8, I don't plan to repeat it again.
Yeah, I think this is the biggest issue with a new generation.
The trouble is that it isn't possible to chnage anything (substantially) without breaking the backward compatibility - so they may as well break everything that's going to benefit from a change (and usaully at least try to provide some kind of conversion tools).
Agreed. I wouldn't mind starting fresh with a new figure if that figure was way more advanced than genesis 8 (not even sure what that would look or be like). Otherwise, just give me an upgrade to genesis 8.
The major things I'd like soft body physics and more realistic bones/muscles/skin.
Honestly I don't understand what is the gain to use Genesis 8 apart from the new core figures.
The 9th generation should not be a revolution, just a specific update for some users.
...yeah that is why I am staying with G3 for the most part, save for a couple of the more "everyday" G8 male characters. The cost to completely retool to a new generation is just getting to be too much anymore. Yeah maybe G8 will be the next Gen4, but not about to toss aside the hefty investment I already have in G3 resources and bankrupt myself moving up to G8 given the minor advancement it was over its predecessor.
Felt like G3 had one of the shortest lifespans of the Genesis line.
I'd happily dump all previous figures and start over with a G9 that has these. Otherwise, I see no point in yet another small, incremental improvement.
ditto, but thats related more to the software than the figure :)
improvements to the software in this regard seem to be on the cards, the question is how much of it will be locked to non-PA's
I spent way too much money on Genesis 8 figures/clothes/hairs/morphs to even consider upgrading to Genesis 9 when it comes out, no freakin way !
we all say and do that..... in the beginning, LOL
That was my initial thought too...until I remembered I'm still on G1
and 3delight, LOL
I think DAZ should
+1
all I like to see should be possible with g8:
- soft body simulation
- hd hands and feets
- 8k skin textures
There are names for people like me...neo luddite springs to mind
Given that about 2/3 of my continuing cast list is of aging, elderly, and downright old characters, I had very good incentive to jump on the G8 bandwagon. Not everyone else has that particular incentive.
And enough of this talk about a 2-year development cycle. That was a glitch. I tend to doubt that any of those short lifespans were exactly planned. Although cutting G3's cycle that short was probably an oportunistic decision.
G1 was a major game changer, but enough of the market (and the content creators) was not willing to take up the banner to cut its development cycle short. G1 barely got two full years.
G2 was basically an emergency patch. A few more polys and the gender division, possibly a few other tweaks that the end user barely noticed. It was pushed out the door as a place holder in hopes of building back the market while they all went back to the drawing board and figured out what else they could do to improve things.
G3 was another game-changer. New rigging system, new UV layout, no backwards compatibility to gen4, but by this time people using Studio were finding gen4 a bit lacking in usability. And some 4-ish years down the tracks there were enough new Studio users who were getting the bases free to make use of them.
I do agree that the jump from G3 to G8 was probably a bit premature, which may be part of why we're getting an extended period with G8. I also think that the company was taking advantage by timing G8's release as it did *because* they'd only given Genesis parts 1 & 2 two years each. It made it look like an established pattern.
I also agree that G8 is even more clearly G3, part 2 than G2 was to G1. And, apart from the facial rig, most of the visible tweaks ('A' pose, separate eyelash figure) appear to be geared to content creators, more than end users. So if people want to 2nd guess what will be new in G9 -- which will show up eventually, but who really *cares* when -- maybe they should try extrapolating what will make the figure more attractive to the content creators.
I absolutely agree. My favorite model was V4 until G8 arrives.
Focusing on software is why Daz 3d decided to hold off on G9.
Add me to Team G3. I had invested pretty heavily into G3 when G8 came out and I bought a few G8 things. But then, due to budget and other reasons, I decided to stick to G3. I figured that as Daz offered more G8, I'd see some really great prices on G3 but I don't see that, especially in the latest sales events and Fast Grabs--compared to older G8 items, relatively little G3 has been offered. Also few sales promos for the G8 figures I am really interested in--because I don't have anything like them for previous generations, if similar products existed for G2/3 (e.g., Mrs Woo, Hitoshi character)
I leapt from V4 in Poser to G8 in Studio, with a tiny invrestment in G3 that didn't take hold. My current investment in G8 is not nearly as big as my V4 investment, but it's getting close. (And I also kept V3 limping along mostly with Laura and Aiko 3 figures.) So, I don't have the G1, G2, or G3 money blues. That being said, I'm not looking forward to upgrading to G9 anytime soon. There are still tons of things that G8 lacks that V4 had in droves (from a pinup artist's point of view).
...this is why I tend to have shifted to investing in resource content instead of figures and characters like Merchant Resource Morph Kits, GenX 2, Growing Up Morphs, UHT Hair Shaders, Beautiful Skins for G3, Skin Builder Pro3, Angenesis, Pose Converter for G3, Pose Builder for G3, and Ultimate Pose Master as the content list for G3 was rather short in comparison other Genesis versions.
For hair again I have done manual hair fits for years, however there is now the built in Strand Hair tool as well.
It may not be obvious, but G3 was a significant change to G2. They changed the weighting completely and this is also the reason, why it cannot be used in Poser any longer. So G3 is really the new V4. G8 might be seen as V4.2, as they changed minor things that brought some improvements. You can even use most textures of G3 on G8.
Since G3 the figures also became more industry friendly. It is easier now to use them and animate them in external programs, like Maya, Unreal or Blender.
So, if G9 shall be the next generation figure, they need to introduce something new and also a way to transfer the figure to other software with almost the full feature set. This may include soft body dynamics, dynamic clothing and hair (dForce is already nice, but there is always room for improvement). Conversion tools for the older generation content (at least G3/G8) would be nice as well.
So let's see...
Except that V4.2 had the same mesh and rigging as V4, which is not the case for G8 and G3.
Not quite, V4.0 didn't have the eyebrow mesh and bone, that came with V4.1 as well as the EXP morph channel system, V4.2 was pretty much just bug fixes.
TBH V4.0 wasn't all that big a jump from the Mil3's, magnet based JCMs and the limbs and torso being on separate textures were about the only real difference, so it would be better to class G2F as the new V4, with G3F being the new V4.1, and G8F being a "bug fix" like V4.2
If she were to come with conversion tools then yes, I believe more people would migrate, at least I would, as I'm all for 100% innovation!