hD ADD ONS

chris_settlemoir

i dont really know for sure but are they worth buying how can they make the character any diffrent

nemesis10

I should explain what they are for before answering your question.  Daz Studio uses subdivision as one of the ways to create detail in a given model.  Traditionally, in the Poser world, details were added through modelling, and the various forms of displacement through bump maps and normals.  Daz Studio starts with a relatively small figure and through subdivision reveals more detail depending how close you are and what subdivision setting is used.  This is fine for your scene that has Vicky and Michael at a distance. Ultimately, the detail reaches the limit that the figure was modeled with.  The Hd addons involve more detailed modeling at a higher resolution using a propriatary system to keep the file size down.  They are much more useful for closeups such as a face or a hand for example.  An analogy would be hdtv's; it probably makes no difference if your resolution is 720 or 1080 if your screen is only 22 inches. on the other hand, a 720 resolution on a 60" tv looks like a blurry mess. To sum it up, if you do closeups and extreme closeups in a more photo-realistic style, they are tremendously useful. 

chris_settlemoir

so if you want the most out of said figure for reallly up close or super realistic get it?

SpottedKitty

The only gotcha to watch out for is that the HD addons will gobble up your computer's free memory as if you'd been starving it for weeks — if you only have just enough RAM for the usual kind of scenes you do, with the usual number of figures, you will start running out if you activate the HD settings on those figures. You might also find things like moving a camera around the scene to be noticeably slower.

CypherFOX

Greetings,

The HD morphs shouldn't cause memory pressure until they render; at least that was my understanding.  I'll have to try that out...  But when they render, they will _definitely_ cause memory pressure.  In 3Delight they're automatically handled; under Iray, I think you have to manually set 'Render Subdivision' to a number like 4 to get the HD morphs visible.  But it might be my turn to be passing along inaccurate information...  :P

Anyway, the idea is that the HD morphs bring significant amounts of detail to the table, and work with *any* texture/UV map (unlike displacement maps).  I disagree that closeups are required; I find that the better HD morphs show knees and the throat/collar area so much better as to be almost a requirement if you're trying to make realistic characters.  The worse HD morphs are only marginally useful, but the main ones (M7 and V7's for instance) have some really good fine detail.

--  Morgan

 

jestmart

The Genesis series of figures have a low polygon count and use sub-division give them a smoother appearance.  Sub-division increases the polygon count by a factor of 4 per level but it does not add detail it actually decreases it as the mesh is smoothed a bit with each level (add sub-d to a cube and set the level to 4 or 5 it becomes a sphere).  HD morphs are morphs that have been sculpted at higher sub-d levels (usually 3 but some 'creature' ones may go to 4) to add detail and maintain that detail.  IMO HD morphs are only worth it when they add detail that needs to be real 3 dimensional otherwise good normal and bumps maps are enough.