Why I won't be buying anything else for G3F

Rogerbee

Thought you might like to see some of the G3F Musculature in action. This is G3F with sub-d at 4 and the Flex Control dialled to 20%. I'm impressed!

CHEERS!

Rogerbee

kyoto kid said:

...I've yet to get much past the opening screen.

...and I've tried it several times over the years.  Having to key every move in, even for the camera just doesn't work for me. Hexagon makes much more sense, just wish it was more stable though.

Me neither, LOL. Manuals are hard to come by too, I don't have one for the current version.

CHEERS!

kyoto kid

...I tried the tutorials even got a book on it and still feel lost.  A lot of what I struggle with is memorising all the hotkey controls, doesn't help matters when one has short term memory lapses either (which is why I prefer PDF tutorials over video ones).

I feel I need an old "WordPerfect 5" like template on the keyboard so I know what does what.

Rogerbee

Here's another,

I'm no anatomist, but, I'd say that the definition and the way it all bends looks really good to me.

CHEERS!

Rogerbee

kyoto kid said:

...I tried the tutorials even got a book on it and still feel lost.  A lot of what I struggle with is memorising all the hotkey controls, doesn't help matters when one has short term memory lapses either (which is why I prefer PDF tutorials over video ones).

I feel I need an old "WordPerfect 5" like template on the keyboard so I know what does what.

Not much hope for me there then! I too prefer .pdf's to videos. I've got a Wiki manual, though it's not clear as to which version it relates to. If I get an excuse to, I'll have to study it.

CHEERS!

kyoto kid

...latest stable release is 2.75.

IndigoJanson

Kerya said:

Any chance for a link? Pretty please?

Here you go Kerya, should have bookmarked it but I found it in the end:

http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/59665/tutorial-converting-textures-from-gen2-to-gen3/p1

J.Cade's the genius behind this, but I've worked through it a few times now so can maybe help if you get stuck somewhere. I use Blender almost daily but did have some initial problems myself with the baking stage... The good news is once you get it all set up and working, any further textures are a lot easier.

Rogerbee

kyoto kid said:

...latest stable release is 2.75.

I see, I have 2.74, I'll go and get that then.

CHEERS!

Kerya

IndigoJanson said:

Kerya said:

Any chance for a link? Pretty please?

Here you go Kerya, should have bookmarked it but I found it in the end:

http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/59665/tutorial-converting-textures-from-gen2-to-gen3/p1

J.Cade's the genius behind this, but I've worked through it a few times now so can maybe help if you get stuck somewhere. I use Blender almost daily but did have some initial problems myself with the baking stage... The good news is once you get it all set up and working, any further textures are a lot easier.

 

Thank you! :-)

DarkSpartan

IndigoJanson said:

Kerya said:

Any chance for a link? Pretty please?

Here you go Kerya, should have bookmarked it but I found it in the end:

http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/59665/tutorial-converting-textures-from-gen2-to-gen3/p1

J.Cade's the genius behind this, but I've worked through it a few times now so can maybe help if you get stuck somewhere. I use Blender almost daily but did have some initial problems myself with the baking stage... The good news is once you get it all set up and working, any further textures are a lot easier.

Thank you kindly. I was having a hard time finding it.

IndigoJanson

No problem Kerya and DarkSpartan, hope you both can get it to work smoothly for you. It's a bit tedious and I can't imagine converting every character (and every makeup, more to the point), but it's worth it for those you just can't be without. J.Cade and Kattey (who shared how to transfer morphs) are my new heroes. :)

Kattey's tutorial is only a page or so back, but here's the link in case anyone was wondering: http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/24093/transferring-morphs-from-genesis-to-g2m-g2f-and-from-g2m-g2f-to-genesis-now-with-clones-works-on#latest ;

DarkSpartan

IndigoJanson said:

No problem Kerya and DarkSpartan, hope you both can get it to work smoothly for you. It's a bit tedious and I can't imagine converting every character (and every makeup, more to the point), but it's worth it for those you just can't be without. J.Cade and Kattey (who shared how to transfer morphs) are my new heroes. :)

I'm at the point now that if I have a base to start with, I can make nearly anything I need. Right now, I'm just pushing through the little stuff before I start shipping characters to stores. The one I have on the board now (my final learning project), is the first of twenty-four for a single series of characters I wrote for a book/game I wrote a couple of years ago. When I can afford a license for DO's, I'll get to work decimating and converting for Unreal.

IndigoJanson

I'm looking forward to seeing Rumiko released, nice work there and new Asian morphs are always going to be welcome.

DarkSpartan

IndigoJanson said:

I'm looking forward to seeing Rumiko released, nice work there and new Asian morphs are always going to be welcome.

I have to get a store to take her first, and that's the hardest part. I've been working on refining the textures so as to make the clearing committee at DAZ happy, as well as morph changes for a more complete product.

Joe.Cotter

j cade said:

Okay, once more: the way the topology is set up doesn't just benefit game meshes. It's pretty much also a standard setup for anything planning to use subd/be sculpted, because subd likes relatively even density meshes. Before we all lose our heads about how DAZ is abandoning people who want to make art for the video game world remember that no one from DAZ has actually said that the reason for the shift in topology chance was for games. The promo stuff however does mention all quads and less vertices with more than 5 points, none of which are at all important for games, but are generally considered one of the hallmarks of good topology.

The idea of the flow of polygons not effecting bend, texture stretching, etc.. is fundamentaly mistaken. As to the Sub-D, just throwing more polys at a mesh that doesn't have an optimal flow will not fix the underlying issue. In non-organic meshes this would not be as much of an issue as there isn't the deformation of form that organic meshes have.

Joe.Cotter

Fixmypcmike said:

Well, unlike the topology argument, which clearly people are disagreeing about (although it should be noted that Mallen Lane, who created G3F, also created all those figures going back to V3 that are being praised in comparison), the UV mapping is pretty clearly superior.  The ONLY thing bad about the UV mapping is that it's not compatible with the V4 material zones.

While separating out the UV islands differently may be a big enhancement, topology does have a bearing on how a texture stretches as the mesh stretches and in this regard it is not superior. It seems a lot of people are basing judgements on some of the issues here with a limited understanding of topology and organic meshes.

Joe.Cotter

wowie said:

Genesis 2 with V4UVs. Tiling at 10. Arms bent down and at default pose for comparison.

To properly compare UV functionality in an organic mesh, looking at a pose or two is not very helpful. One really wants to put the shape through a variety of deformations and then the comparison is only valid for that set of deformations.

Joe.Cotter

I don't disagree with what MallenLane said here even though my previous comments would suggest it other then the issue about JCM's. There it's not so much a disagreement as a statement that there are tradeoffs either way. While DAZ and MallenLane have come to the conclusion that this mesh with the JCM's is more in line with where they see the figure going, it doesn't discount that the previous method of a baked in topologically more advanced mesh without need for so many JCM's wouldn't be superior for some people. Unfortunately, understanding the differences takes an advanced understanding of this area to fully understand the tradeoffs.

I think in the end, playing with both will get most people where they need to be in deciding which better suits their purpose. Luckily Genesis2 items have still been coming out on the market so it appears that people don't have to worry about support at least in the near term. If people continue to voice their choices with their purchasing, I'm guessing vendors will support those choices, especially as we have distinct advantages/disadvantages for V4 through Genesis3 and especially Genesis1-3.

MallenLane said:

A lot of the decisions I made with this mesh are about balancing and getting away from old ideas.

Anatomy being baked into the poly flow was good for when we had more limits. Moving forward, it was better to have a lower count, an even spread better for sculpting, and a flow more suited to animation. This also relates to why it cannot have backward compatible UVs. Those material borders date from V4, and I repeatedly kept them there despite the fact that they were often detrimental to the poly-flow. It was time to move on.

The move to this weight method was an easy choice. It would be very impractical to rig that many bones in the face with Triax, which has six or more weight-maps per bone. The memory use of such a thing would be ridiculous. Single-weight dual quaternion is also a very standard method of rigging you can find in most 3D packages.

Bear in mind that almost every expression you see, has been done using the facial rigging alone. People not liking expressions is something that has been floating around for a long time; people are very subjective about such things. Now, if you don't quite like an expression - you can simply tweak it however you want.

The rest of the skeleton choices were about filling in some of the remaining gaps for articulation, and a couple were to overcome a standard limitation this rigging style has with twisting motions.

She bends so well, because she has around 130 custom sculpted corrections shaping her. Somewhere along the line 'JCM' became a bad word. It's very common to use sculpted corrections in higher-end programs. When you bend an arm in a 3D program, using only weights, you are essentially folding it half. That's not how your arm works. Muscles shift, bones change alignment - ultimately the shape changes. You have to express that shape changing to get realism and accuracy, and the most control for doing so is sculpting.

Sorry, this was a bit long-winded.

 

Rogerbee

Having spent the past couple of days looking at the new musculature pack with the flex control, I find G3F to be superior to any other mesh I've worked with. The muscles look to bend and flex very naturally and the base texture works with them very well (I haven't bought anything else yet!). I would suggest people get this musculature pack and play around with it. By just using the flex control alone (I set it to 20%), you don't have to change the build of the figure at all, but, should you wish to, all the main muscle groups are there. If a similar pack is done for G3M then we really will see something. To my mind, you have to be willing to give things a try..

CHEERS!

DarkSpartan

Rogerbee said:

Having spent the past couple of days looking at the new musculature pack with the flex control, I find G3F to be superior to any other mesh I've worked with. The muscles look to bend and flex very naturally and the base texture works with them very well (I haven't bought anything else yet!). I would suggest people get this musculature pack and play around with it. By just using the flex control alone (I set it to 20%), you don't have to change the build of the figure at all, but, should you wish to, all the main muscle groups are there. If a similar pack is done for G3M then we really will see something. To my mind, you have to be willing to give things a try..

CHEERS!

The other things I consider necessary at this point are Wear them All, SY Ultra Templates, and the Head/Body morphpacks. If you can get the last two in that set, then I'll have a challenge waiting for you

Rogerbee

I got the head and body morphs, but none of the others. Next on the list is V7 and her HD pack, anything else depends on how much I have left.

CHEERS!

cherpenbeck

Terribly sorry to tell DAZ, but ...some of  these muscle morphs in the promo pictures look like I'm seeing an alien. Won't buy. Genesis2 muscles look better.

Yes, I do know, they are all artificial people.  But Genesis 3 sometimes looks just weird. I don't say I will never use Gen3, but at the moment I prefer working with Gen2.

PiratesMoon

At art school I had a portrait teacher who’s mantra was - to create a really good portrait, it needed to have a bit of caricaturization (a simplified or exaggerated treatment).  Personally, I’ve never agreed with that, but I’ve pondered it frequently over the years. So my take is this:

I don’t consider v2/m2 and v3/m3 very good, so I have never used them.
V4-M4 each have a topology, as discussed here, that leans more to the realistic.
G1 – with its unisex topology is more of a caricature tool.
G2 – turned back to a realistic approach.
G3 – so far appears to again be a caricature tool.

Not being privy to the internal discussions at DAZ, I’m not sure why the figurative topologies are wavering between caricature and realistic. I do know that for my work I’ll stick with G2, as it’s more suitable for what I do.

Taoz

.

kyoto kid said:

...I've yet to get much past the opening screen.

...and I've tried it several times over the years.  Having to key every move in, even for the camera just doesn't work for me.

Must be made by people from the days where you only had a keybord, some of them still seem to have a hard time using anything else. Never understood why, the mouse has made many things so much easier and intuitive.

 

Joe.Cotter

One thing that hasn't been addressed in comparing G2-G3 meshes/jcm's is how well the two work with clothing/poke through. I have not had the time to put G3 through the paces to see how the two compare when posing with clothing items.

Rogerbee

Hongyu's Bikini for V6 works well on G3F.

CHEERS!

WitchStorm

I never cared for G3 much my self.

Kharma

So far I have only bought the V7 probundle/ head & body morphs/ expressions and HSTW morphs for G3F as I want to learn to make my own characters and use as much of my library as possible before grabbing at the oohhh  New!  Shiny!!....  I have wishlisted several things for the future sales and some utilities for converting poses etc.  but I have discovered that my library is still full of new" and never used"  and if I keep going this way I will be broke and never learned anything of how to create my own  lol.  I will be a purchaser of Michael 7 when he arrives and probably more tools for creating characters from him, but in the meantime I have lots to learn and lots to convert.  I just find that the characters and clothing is pumping out so fast and the sales are stacked one on top of another that if I wait I will get so much more content for so much less cash.  I like all the models from every generation, they all have their pros and cons and little quirks and will probably end up with more than a few eventually, just not right now.

kyoto kid

...when I feel I can create this little gal with G3F and make her look just as good then I may consider it.

 

Rogerbee

I'm sure something will be along soon, when they've finished with the adults that is!

CHEERS!