Conversion Crisis
whispers65
Posts: 1,034
Okay quick overview: I've been away for a while. I have a lot of stuff like 8000+ items, but still don't have what I want lol. I have a lot of Genesis 2 and Genesis 3 stuff. For my projects I was going to convert everything or try to up to Genesis 3. For Genesis 8 (8.1 just confuses me) and 9, I have like 1 character, basic female clothes, and nothing for the male, but it gives me an oppurtunity to see what they are like. I have a mid range computer that is like 10 years old. I'm working on illustrating my novels, just for me or maybe putting a few posts on patreon to illustrate a story or two. the first novel dealt with basketball, and the one I'm editing now is baseball.
So here's the deal. After reinstalling a ton of stuff last night to get organized, I tried the genesis 8 and 9 characters and kind of like them. So I'm at a cross-roads. stick with original plan and convert to genesis 3 as I will need a lot of characters. like the basketball team is 7 players. or maybe try and convert upward to 8 or 9, not sure if have anything to do all of that though.
Thoughts? Suggestions?
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I regularly use a mix of Genesis 3 and Genesis 8 figures as my primary models, as the two generations mix well visually and I find that that combo has by far the best selection of character age ranges and ethnicity and excellent cross compatibility for things like clothing, hair, and skin textures... I actually personally prefer the look of the more idealized G3s in general, but the 8s have a lot of great older characters and the largest single base of assets of any Genesis figure. The only real issues to keep in mind are that 1.) G3 figures tend to load larger than G8s so one needs to establish the right scaling ratio if you're mixing G3 and G8 based figures in the same scene, and 2.) the expressions, especially the smiles, on G8 and 8.1 can get a little weird due to the facial bones. As a bonus, those assets are older so they're generally a lot cheaper than G9, which is also, frankly, still a mess in a lot of technical ways. The biggest of these is the bending issues, which are going to be a problem if your art has a lot of extremely dynamic poses... and, of course, the fact that everything for g9 tends to be more expensive across the board.
So, my recomendation would be to upgrade to G3/G8 and work with the figures that you're familiar with.
I really like the look of 9 as well for some things, but honestly, I love my g3 and g8 models and I have literally thousands of them. At some point, I'm hoping that Riversoft makes a character conversion for G3 and G8 to G9 but in the meantime, I honestly prefer the G3 and g8 models. And there are so many ways to make them pretty darn realistic if that is your goal.
I use Riversoft's character convertors, and it's relatively easy to convert from Genesis 3 to 8, less so from G3 to G9 in a single step. No conversion necessary for G3 to G8 textures & material settings. With clothing (except footware) much of the time G3 to G8 & vice versa needs no convertor at all as the only thing that often needs doing is to change the default target character (sorry, not explaining it well as I'm not infront of my machine & so can't specify the steps)..
There is a LOT of G8 stuff around, with much new being created - very little here, but lots at almost every other retailer of DS content where the ratio of G8 to G9 is about 3:1. However, G8 is not the latest and it may be that you need to think hard about investing significantly in a base figure that's not the latest and is going to become progressively more out of date.Or even whether to wait for G10 <heh heh>.
If you're comfortable with G3, then there will be no surprises with G8, there are some more face bones (I think, maybe, maybe not) but everything else is named the same and in the same place in the scene tree. What is a slight improvement is that there is a twist slider in the upper arm bend bone and a bend & side to side slider in the upper arm twist bone (and equivalents in the forearm) - just makes things quicker. All your G3 poses can be re-used if you then run a corrective script afterwards (provided limits haven't been crashed) or add set values to bend/side to side. They are so similar that I think of G8 as a Mk2 version of G3, or G3 as a Mk1 G8. In your graphics card, G8 has fewer facets than G3 or G2, but average texture sizes are 4k, so to render in GPU assume 2Gb per character without serious work to reduce texture sizes. G8 is no worse than G3 in Iray - they can share textures after all. G9 can have some 8k textures and that eats GPU VRAM.
I am the wrong person to be entirely neutral between G8 & G9 as I am yet to be persuaded that for me and my full-character moderate distance images (as opposed to close portraits) that G9 offers anything extra over G8. If, however, you do close portraits, G9 has better expressions than G8 even though there are fewer facial bones. Which is wierd, but there we go. The 8k textures help close realism too, but it's lost at any distance.
As a different take, I am also learning how good Iray and G2 can be - with a number of experiments into a TriAx version of V3 in Iray just to keep the oldies a bit up to date. You don't have to give up the older stuff or even loose much/anything by sticking with them.
I hope this ramble is food for thought for you rather than just extraneous noise. Anyway, hope it helps.
Rehards,
Richard
richardandtracy,
You mention G3 to G9 conversions. As I'm only taking tentative steps into character conversions, how has your experience been? What tools worked for you?
Looking at the Forum thread for RSSY's G8 to G9 migration tool, folks are reporting mixed results. I came to Daz during the G8 era so I'm in a holding pattern now, hoping that there's a good way to keep my investments via character conversions.
Cheers!
I wasn't quite sure what you meant by "1.) G3 figures tend to load larger than G8s". Do you mean actual size or takes up more memory? Sorry, I wasn't sure. Expression always kill me. I see some great renders but when I use expressions, they just don't seem to work and I'm still having issues doing a render without that "dear in the headlights" expression. My characters tend to be from school age to old age. My current novel focuses on grandparents to a certain extent so I'm going to need older characters eventually. Money is non existent, but I'm looking for ways to make stuff and I am interested in really learning for once how to make my own daz content too.
It doesn't have to be ultra realistic as good enough. I do have one converter - G8 to G3 I think but haven't had much luck with it. and I do have the old GenX for lower characters but it's a matter of getting back into the swing of things and that is taking a while.
You're good. One of the reasons I hesitated toward G8 or G9, well other than money, was because I automatically assumed that G8 or G9 would take up a bigger footprint for memory and cpu power. Like now that I just bought my basketball uniform, I want to tweak the colors and logos and names and such like that. it will be a totally of 8 figures in the scene, 7 players plus the coach, who for whatever reason reminds me of Sigourney Weaver. So that's like 8 characters in a gym setting. My computer is an i7 but an ancient one, one of the first ones to come out. I have a gaming GPU - RX580. so not the greatest set up but I haven't won the lottery yet. I need to soon with the cost of bread. anyway, that's kind of wear I am leaning at the moment.
G8 actually has less polygons than the earlier generations, however none of that is really relevant as it is the texture sizes that will tax your computer. The newer generations often have more maps that the older ones, which can mean they take more resources, though naturally those extra maps can be stripped off. You should try to buy this https://www.daz3d.com/scene-optimizer, unless you already have it. This can strip off certain maps that are only really useful on close ups, and it can also resize the textures so you can cram more characters into one scene.
I would recommend you convert most of your stuff to G8. This base was the DAZ standard for 5+ years, and there is a ton of content for it, including many freebies. There are many scripts available to convert characters/poses/clothing/hair etc from older generations to G8.
I do like G9 too. I don't really see the awful bends other users do, and there are products available to improve those areas where bending is not perfect. G9 expressions are very good, and there are some quality characters available for it.
ps: When Cyberfox said G3 tends to load larger, I think he was refering to the characters height. A lot of tall chars were made for G3 for some reason, although G3 and G8 bases are the same size.
Thanks. I do not have the optimizer but I wish listed it. Height is another thing. I normally don't use main characters as opposed to custom ones. I add a freebie height measure stick and typically go by that. I'm not sure how accurate it is. Posing messes up a little bit with characters of different heights, but they aren't are posed separate anyway.
As far as I can see there are no commercially available G3 to G9 convertors in one step. You'd need G3 to G8 and then G8 to G9. At each step there is a risk of error, so one step would be much better. I have tried a 2 step V3 to G3 and then G3 to G8. Well, to be kind, I could recognise that the result had arms & legs, but any relationship to the supposed character shape was entirely accidental. 2 steps is best avoided if possible.
The one step way is to use a clone. Unfortunately I don't really understand how to do it. Catherine explained it in a tutorial, and I never quite followed, and then foolishly lost track of the tutorial. I think Crosswind also explained it once too. Anyway, I have never done it and worry about getting the character textures on the converted character. Sorry I can't be of more use.
I am not a huge fan of G9, I admit. I have a couple of Mousso G9 characters I have paid for (a deeply traumatic experience) and a few more I got for free, a couple of Cynder Blue characters paid for (more trauma), and that's where my memory fails me. None of the others enthuse me enough to even remember them. V9 is memorable, but I rarely want an image with her in. Oh, and Zombie 'Beau'; have used the feminine version, but not in an image I was sufficiently pleased with to show.
Regards,
Richard
whispers65,
Apologies for inserting myself into your thread. I'm in the same boat too, so I thought I could contribute to the discussion!
richardandtracy,
Thanks for the reply. I appreciate the candor.
The topic of conversion is probably old hat for most folks, but new for me. Searching for G8 to G9 conversion by means of a clone turned up two techniques:
I have to admit this aspect of Daz is pretty new to me, so I haven't tried any of these approaches. Eager to try them out though, particularly the Blender one.
Cheers!
This made me laugh. I can so relate. I'm sure I'm doing something wrong or trying something that I shouldn't try.
I absolutely don't mind at all. things like that doesn't bother me. I'm just trying to learn.
I use G8.1 as the base for nearly all my characters. You can use G3, G8 or G8.1 textures, G8 or G8.1 morphs (also G3 with XTransfer), and G3 clothes generally work well with the scene ID trick. If you familiarize yourself with Map Transfer, you can mix and match figures and textures made for different UVs as well.
I really need to look into the differences between G8 and G8.1. I dont' get it. I put Xtransfer on my wish list. :)
The actual difference is that Genesis 8.1 splits the back of the head and the torso into two surfaces, they are one in Genesis 8, and has an alternative UV maping to take advantage of that (giving more detail to the back of the head). 8.1 also has a different system for expressions, using the FACS that isa vailable as an add on for 8, and to avoid confusion it blocks the Genesis 8 expressions (but this can be unblocked). 8.1 characters also introduced the PBRSkin shader, but that can be used on anything.
Just some conversion methods that I collected in 2023. Maybe helpful for some of you.
Unfortunately Texture Transformer 2 is no longer available, but I am lucky to have a license.
My target generation is G8/G8.1. So, I look at tools that convert G9 stuff backwards.
There may be some errors in this image and I plan to rework it till the end of the year.
well I've been doing a lot of research and thinking again this morning and basically identified about 10 areas or so and solutions to get me to genesis 9, realizing of course there are problems along the way. It's been interesting. I can find converters for the most part. The only thing I couldn't come up with is freckles and tattoos. I like freckles. I'm not big on tattoos, but it's all about experimenting on how to get everything to work to make unique characters. I did work with LIE and geometry shells a little bit a long time ago so I'm going to look into that again.
Just want to add another vote for the huge amount of content stacked behind the extended G8 family (G3, G8, G8.1). I don't quite see any benefit in moving to G9 (for myself anyway, I do see the benefit to Daz).
As the OP's primary objective is illustrating their stories, you might want to look at a workflow that starts with roughing out your image in Daz, using a paint program to tweak any e.g. uniform changes, then image-to-image the result in some AI program. The latter is also probably more adept at creating various non-realistic illustration styles (comic book, painterly etc.)
/..one conversion tool I picked up on near the end of the PA sale was RSSY's Clothing Converter from Genesis 9 to Genesis 8. It includes scripts to convert to both G8 genders
As I mentioned in another thread sadly there is no hair transfer utility. Not sure if there will be one as even manually parenting hair is hit or miss as from what I understand, strand based hair often does not always parent well without a cap.
Probably the most powerful combination of utilities is Generation X2 plus XTransfer as I can transfer morphs not only from Gen4 but G1 and 2 to G8 via XTransfer. these two have been indispensable for custom character design.
Thanks
I tried making a lot of characters for G9 the last several days, but I think for now I'm going to fallback to G8. G8 seems to be a lot more compatible with what I currently have.
Right now I have next to nothing for 8 and 9, but at least after reading a lot 8 makes more sense to me. I tried hair on 9 and finally for a couple of pieces I ended up fitting it myself and then parenting it and using it that way.
...manually fitting hair from 8 to 9 iworjs fine, it's going the other way which can have issues.
The two good things about G8 is first, there is a lot of content (about 5 years worth) and second if you don't have a much yet, often G8 products tend to see more and better discounting, particularly in the Featured Artists' category during sales events.
G8 and G3 are still my mainstays.
What issues do you have in that dierction, other than dForce hair growing directly from the figure's head which is a problem regardless of figure involved.
I think in the short to medium (5 year) term, you are probably right. G9 may last, who knows? But G8 is already one of the longer lived generations and new content is still offered for it in quite large quantities on sites away from daz3d.com. Furthermore, with G3 being functionally a Mk 1 version of G8, this tends to make virtually all G3 content available to G8 too. And in 5 years, maybe a G10 will be available with a significant technical advance on G8/G9 (which use basically the same technology), making it the next sensible step to take. Thinking much further than 5 years forward at the current rate of AI progress is probably unwise, as AI is likely to be the thing that breaks the model, if anything is going to.
Regards,
Richard
yeah I've seen a lot of good sales for things I want. I just need to make some money somehow.
not sure if this was aimed at me or not, but the problems I had with the hair is that when it tried to autofit, the hair was rotated so that the top part of the hair was down in the face making the figure look like a wookie.