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blue_
Posts: 39
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Post edited by blue_ on
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Think of figures as part of an ecology or mechanism. We are now reaching the point where Daz Studio can be optimized for the figures and there are still things to be worked out such as products that improve bending, new skin shaders, and enough infrastructure and products are owned by users. Generally, the figures change when there are technological innovations to warrant it. The question of unimesh vs non unimesh is complicated with vendors preferring unimesh and kitbashers preferring separate characters often.
Yes and no. It has advantages and drawbacks.
Some vendors like having an unified figure (for example because it makes creating content for both genders easier), but some prefer having dedicated figures rather than starting from a neutral base.
Some said that the G9 topology makes it easier to sculpt, but others say it makes it harder for them to create characters.
G9 has a lot of developer tools which help with creating content, but it also has its quirks and limitations.
Not necessarily, but after some time when the majority of customers has adopted the new figure it makes more sense for vendors to move too as that's where the money is.
Some vendors do release conversions of some of their sets, but nowadays there are many ways to convert content so a lot of people don't buy such conversions and rely on autofit or character conversions. There are some products where having a new version does make sense (for example morph packs, clothing with specific elements that don't convert well, or anything which would benefit from features specific to the new figure), but beside that the market for conversions is more limited, so spending that time on original content for the new figure is often more cost effective for the vendor.
Do you mean selling content in general? Yes, some vendors do make a living from this. But that requires a lot of investment and time before you reach that point, and don't expect to get rich.
Releasing a new figure would be a good idea only if it brings enough innovation to make people adopt it. Otherwise it might be counterproductive.
Usually there's a period where content for both new and previous figures is released. But as I already mentioned, after a while the majority of customers has moved on so creating content for older figures is not interesting anymore from a business perspective.
No one knows except Daz (and maybe a few vendors working on the new figure if there's one, but they would be under NDA), and they usually don't give any info beforehand.
Each has advantages and drawbacks.
A new figure doesn't automatically mean more sales. Existing customers with dozens of scripts and plugins designed for GenX and GenX-1 have no desire to need to rebuy those assets for GenX+1. If you look in the Art Studio forum, you will see a lot of content with GenX-4 (to keep up with my nomenclature) figures and older. GenX+1 would have to a quantum leap forward to attract people.
And a GenX+1 usually has more complicated and denser meshes and higher density textures resulting in a need for better and better GPUs to keep up. In the current environment, who wants to tell their customers "Just upgrade your GPU and buy more VRAM."
There does really need to be a technological improvement to warrant a new generation.
I largely started with Victoria 3 (called 'Unimesh' because male & female were morphs of the same mesh -strange how far back some ideas go). V4 was a huge improvement in terms of rigging. Then G1 came out with a unisex mesh, autofit and TriAx weight mapping. This was a huge leap forward. G2 broke the unisex mesh into two again. There were rigging changes, but the changes were not a big leap.
G3 changed the rigging again and added general weight mapping and Iray. This is a big change. Then G8 added further rigging changes, especially to the head while keeping G3 texture and clothing compatibility. This was a major advance.
G9 reverted to unisex mesh and apart from re-naming bones and improving the facial rigging a bit, didn't make much of a technical change. So, where next with the 'improvements' to warrant a new generation? To be honest, beyond soft-solid body simulation it's hard to imagine the technical leap that could be big enough to warrant a new generation for a while, even now.
G9 wasn't a huge step from G8 for the users (facial rigging is improved, no question but body rigging seems little improved, the PBR skin shader is not restricted to G9 so is a DS feature not a base figure feature. The use of so many sliders actually makes things like mirroring poses more difficult and the use of separate mouth and eye models increases the places where things can go wrong). G9, broke the easy backwards compatibility that had been a feature of G8/G3 for clothes and materials. I think the next easily implemented steps are probably too small to be more than a G9.1. Then consider the effort going into DS4->6 update. It's taken several years of effort, which has probably put G10 on hold as a project. I'd like to be proven wrong, but I'm not sure I will be.
Regards,
Richard.
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Yup. For simplicity I keep the same name over different websites. These are the only two relating to 3D figure modelling & 2D art from the models that I contribute to. I should have recognised your avatar, but I confess I didn't.
I am moderately active on another platform regarding cross stitch & used to be very active on a fountain pen forum and contributed a couple of times on a model engineering forum.
Regards,
Richard
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I am pleased you got V4 to work using my tutorial. Good to hear.
To answer some of your other questions: Jim Burton's Glamorous Vicki uses a modified version of the V3 mesh with different joint control morphs to improve some of the joints compared to V3. The result is a version of V3 that looks remarkably like my wife (face excepted) when we met 36 years ago. I am still more than a little dotty about her so it's fantastic to have her treated as a celebrity with her own 3D clone.
There have been no versions since - though Jim Burton did do a number of somewhat different 'Glamorous' Poser characters like
None of the figures were really the same, and GV3 only appeared with her own .cr2 file modified from the V3 base figure. GV3, like Blackhearted's GND2, was a relatively limited character in relation to clothing, shoes and hair as she was a non-standard shape at the time and not much V3 clothing fitted. I think Poser clothing of the time had to have the correct figure morph built into the clothing to have it automatically dialled in by crosstalk and then it would conform to the character, so no built-in morph = no fit for the clothes. Only Jim Burton sold clothing for GV3, though GND2 had a slightly wider range of PA's creating clothes for her.
Anyway, the similarities of GV3 to my celebrity/boss makes me unusually determined to keep this V3 variant vaguely current.
Regards,
Richard.
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