Why G9’s Surface Logic Breaks Trust—And Why I’m Stepping Away

Miss Animated

I've seen alot of posts like this, and thought "Nah, it won't happen to me!"  I'm usually pretty upbeat about things and figure bat it around a while,a nd it'll fall into place.  Not this time.  I'm crossing into that camp of G8 or ealier.  I'm not angry, not going to call for boycotts... if you have it working for you GREAT!  Hats off, and it's amazing that you have conquered it.  I am not looking for debate, or agreement, just voicing a concern.

I've spent hundreds of hours building emotionally expressive scenes with Genesis 8, 8.1, and now 9. And what I've learned is simple: when a figure's surface behavior undermines scene intent, it's no longer a tool—it's friction.

With G9, LIE masks for lips are the only path to controlled modulation—and yet the moment I adjust base color, everything fails. The masks disappear. The emotional zones collapse. And there's no dedicated "lip override" slot to reroute or preserve the detail. Seems this issue plagued G8.1 too (among other things which I skipped over), and it’s been carried forward with no structural remedy.

I’ve tried everything:

• Painting black-lipped maps to isolate tone—doesn’t work.

• Reordering mask logic—ignored.

• Swapping shells, shaders, and blend modes—hours wasted.

The result? No reliable separation of emotional zones without breaking realism or functionality. If the mask system is locked behind shader behavior that contradicts emotional choreography, it’s not a usable tool.

I’m not asking for gimmicks—I’m asking for clarity, reversibility, and zone-specific control. Realism isn’t the goal when the emotional legibility gets buried beneath shader hierarchy. At some point, it stops being expressive and starts being punitive.

I won’t chase a G10 figure if it continues down this path. Trust is earned through consistent, emotionally safe workflows—not promises of anatomical upgrades.

Some will defend this system as “accurate.” But expression is accuracy, too. And if I can't dial in clarity without crushing a scene, then the figure doesn't serve the story.

In closing, all I can say is this.  I am not asking DAZ to fix it for us, but challenging them to see emotional legibility as the baseline, not a bonus.  Thanks for reading. :)  

Padone

To overlay shaders LIEs can't work as they work on textures, not shaders. You can use either shells with a opacity map that's the common way, or uvw decals.

crosswind

Actually I don't quite understand OP's opinon about "surface logic breaks Trust..." on G9's makeup or "Lips" to be more precisely.

I'm not defending the new mechanics of how makeup works on G9, especially on figure's Lips for which no separate surface is defined.... but what're the issues to be exactly ? Any screenshots to show the problems ? 

With different Shader on G9 (Iray Uber / PBRSkin), the way of setting makeup on Lips are totally different.  Normally, 1) with Iray Uber, LIE goes to Base Color slot and sometimes Diffuse Overlay is also used to make more effects with a Mask; 2) with PBRSkin, LIE with RGB textures goes to Makeup Base Color slot while LIE with Masks geos to Makeup Weight slot.

In my experience of using G9's makeup, as long as one gives them correct settings, they'll work as expected... 

Richard Haseltine

Moved to Technical help (faute de mieux) as it is not a Daz Studio application topic.

DrunkMonkeyProductions

I get that op is annoyed at how G9's surfaces have changed, but i'm not following the intent.

What the heck is an "emotional zone", or "emotional choreography", and what does material settings have to do with it?

 

i haven't played around with g9 all that much, so my idea to solve this issue might be stupid
Just make a new surface for the lips.

I know it'll break presets and require making new ones, and you'll have to go through the process everytime there's an update to G9, but if the way it works now is so problematic, i'd probably accept that trade off.

Now, tell me how many other problems this creates, please.

Also, can somebody tell me how to add it ot the 'skin' surface, i can't quite figure that one out.

 

tsroemi

I'm wondering about the 'emotional zones' as well, maybe areas closely around the mouth that are important for expressions? 

crosswind

DrunkMonkeyProductions said:

I get that op is annoyed at how G9's surfaces have changed, but i'm not following the intent.

What the heck is an "emotional zone", or "emotional choreography", and what does material settings have to do with it?

 

i haven't played around with g9 all that much, so my idea to solve this issue might be stupid
Just make a new surface for the lips.

I know it'll break presets and require making new ones, and you'll have to go through the process everytime there's an update to G9, but if the way it works now is so problematic, i'd probably accept that trade off.

Now, tell me how many other problems this creates, please.

Also, can somebody tell me how to add it ot the 'skin' surface, i can't quite figure that one out.

 

Technically it's doable but as you said, it'll make preset and makeup scripts stop from working correctly.

As for "add it to Skin selection set...", you can do it in Surfaces pane's context menu > Edit > Surface Selection Sets....

DrunkMonkeyProductions

crosswind said:

Technically it's doable but as you said, it'll make preset and makeup scripts stop from working correctly.

As for "add it to Skin selection set...", you can do it in Surfaces pane's context menu > Edit > Surface Selection Sets....

Cool, i was concerned it might break something more significant that i wasn't considering.

And,  that worked perfectly for adding the lips to it.

THanks for the info.

 

 

 

crosswind

DrunkMonkeyProductions said:

crosswind said:

Technically it's doable but as you said, it'll make preset and makeup scripts stop from working correctly.

As for "add it to Skin selection set...", you can do it in Surfaces pane's context menu > Edit > Surface Selection Sets....

Cool, i was concerned it might break something more significant that i wasn't considering.

And,  that worked perfectly for adding the lips to it.

THanks for the info. 

You're welcome! 

GhostofMacbeth

My suggestion is to build additively. Find a good base skin and then add lips, etc. That way you don't waste time when you change the skin completely. 

Matt_Castle

Miss Animated said:

I've seen alot of posts like this, and thought "Nah, it won't happen to me!"  I'm usually pretty upbeat about things and figure bat it around a while,a nd it'll fall into place.  Not this time.  I'm crossing into that camp of G8 or ealier.  I'm not angry, not going to call for boycotts... if you have it working for you GREAT!  Hats off, and it's amazing that you have conquered it.  I am not looking for debate, or agreement, just voicing a concern.

I've spent hundreds of hours building emotionally expressive scenes with Genesis 8, 8.1, and now 9. And what I've learned is simple: when a figure's surface behavior undermines scene intent, it's no longer a tool—it's friction.

With G9, LIE masks for lips are the only path to controlled modulation—and yet the moment I adjust base color, everything fails. The masks disappear. The emotional zones collapse. And there's no dedicated "lip override" slot to reroute or preserve the detail. Seems this issue plagued G8.1 too (among other things which I skipped over), and it’s been carried forward with no structural remedy.

I’ve tried everything:

• Painting black-lipped maps to isolate tone—doesn’t work.

• Reordering mask logic—ignored.

• Swapping shells, shaders, and blend modes—hours wasted.

The result? No reliable separation of emotional zones without breaking realism or functionality. If the mask system is locked behind shader behavior that contradicts emotional choreography, it’s not a usable tool.

I’m not asking for gimmicks—I’m asking for clarity, reversibility, and zone-specific control. Realism isn’t the goal when the emotional legibility gets buried beneath shader hierarchy. At some point, it stops being expressive and starts being punitive.

I won’t chase a G10 figure if it continues down this path. Trust is earned through consistent, emotionally safe workflows—not promises of anatomical upgrades.

Some will defend this system as “accurate.” But expression is accuracy, too. And if I can't dial in clarity without crushing a scene, then the figure doesn't serve the story.

In closing, all I can say is this.  I am not asking DAZ to fix it for us, but challenging them to see emotional legibility as the baseline, not a bonus.  Thanks for reading. :)  

With all respect, did you write this yourself, or is this the work of ChatGPT? 

Because a lot of the phrasing in here is really bizarre, and it's peppered with AI's favourite em-dash (which is not normally available on a standard keyboard)

TheMysteryIsThePoint

Matt_Castle said:

Miss Animated said:

I've seen alot of posts like this, and thought "Nah, it won't happen to me!"  I'm usually pretty upbeat about things and figure bat it around a while,a nd it'll fall into place.  Not this time.  I'm crossing into that camp of G8 or ealier.  I'm not angry, not going to call for boycotts... if you have it working for you GREAT!  Hats off, and it's amazing that you have conquered it.  I am not looking for debate, or agreement, just voicing a concern.

I've spent hundreds of hours building emotionally expressive scenes with Genesis 8, 8.1, and now 9. And what I've learned is simple: when a figure's surface behavior undermines scene intent, it's no longer a tool—it's friction.

With G9, LIE masks for lips are the only path to controlled modulation—and yet the moment I adjust base color, everything fails. The masks disappear. The emotional zones collapse. And there's no dedicated "lip override" slot to reroute or preserve the detail. Seems this issue plagued G8.1 too (among other things which I skipped over), and it’s been carried forward with no structural remedy.

I’ve tried everything:

• Painting black-lipped maps to isolate tone—doesn’t work.

• Reordering mask logic—ignored.

• Swapping shells, shaders, and blend modes—hours wasted.

The result? No reliable separation of emotional zones without breaking realism or functionality. If the mask system is locked behind shader behavior that contradicts emotional choreography, it’s not a usable tool.

I’m not asking for gimmicks—I’m asking for clarity, reversibility, and zone-specific control. Realism isn’t the goal when the emotional legibility gets buried beneath shader hierarchy. At some point, it stops being expressive and starts being punitive.

I won’t chase a G10 figure if it continues down this path. Trust is earned through consistent, emotionally safe workflows—not promises of anatomical upgrades.

Some will defend this system as “accurate.” But expression is accuracy, too. And if I can't dial in clarity without crushing a scene, then the figure doesn't serve the story.

In closing, all I can say is this.  I am not asking DAZ to fix it for us, but challenging them to see emotional legibility as the baseline, not a bonus.  Thanks for reading. :)  

With all respect, did you write this yourself, or is this the work of ChatGPT? 

Because a lot of the phrasing in here is really bizarre, and it's peppered with AI's favourite em-dash (which is not normally available on a standard keyboard)

It's also got a lot of the "It's not this, it's that" idiom, as well.

 

Bejaymac

First off what makes you think the OP speaks english, they may have used something like ChatGPT to translate and this is what they got.

Second I have a fair idea what the OP is on about.

Not sure if it's Iray in general or just how it's implemented in DS, but it can't use Alpha channels, there is no way to plug in an RGBA texture for Iray to use the Alpha directly, you have to "jump through hoops" with LIE or the built in image editor to "force" the issue.

Things can get messed up pretty easily if your trying to change settings in the surface tab, which can get frustrating AF, especially as G9 doesn't have a separate Lips surface, so any changes affects the entire head and neck.

Silas3D

Hi everyone, I've created a product that was released today that adds a dedicated lip surface for Genesis 9 using geografts - not only that but you can apply Genesis 8/8.1  male or female materials and there's a script included to copy Genesis 9 Head material to the lip graft so it doesn't have to be done manually :)

To get full list of features and to see some promos you can visit the store page here: https://www.daz3d.com/lip-service-for-genesis-9

Commercial thread: https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/745211/now-available-lip-service-for-genesis-9-commercial

luci45

I would only be buying this for the feminine version of Xola. Makeup for G9s don't work well because her upper lip is a little bit higher. Would this work on her? Or is it a one size should fit all?

Silas3D

@luci45 unfortunately there will always be exceptions - that's exactly why I included the blending geoshell because textures won't perfectly follow the geometry boundary.

Here's a couple of Xola Feminine images showing:

1. The graft applied with the head texture transferred plus one of the lip color presets
2. As above but with the shell applied to the figure and a darker color preset for contrast

luci45

Silas3D said:

@luci45 unfortunately there will always be exceptions - that's exactly why I included the blending geoshell because textures won't perfectly follow the geometry boundary.

Here's a couple of Xola Feminine images showing:

1. The graft applied with the head texture transferred plus one of the lip color presets
2. As above but with the shell applied to the figure and a darker color preset for contrast

Wow, amazing! Thank you so much for posting these.A great and much-needed product.

Silas3D

@luci45 no problem! Something to be aware of that I've only very recently discovered is that HD morphs do not transfer to geografts. This shouldn't present much of an issue for the lips because it's quite a small area and most characters come with very detailed normal or bump maps.