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Actually the suggestion is a way to get the detail we want without needing HD. And amazingly enough creative people like finding other ways to do things than just accepting the status quo.
I saw five options for what I wanted to do (which is create more detailed morphs in DAZ characters):
I'm pretty happy with option 5, it's what I'm going with at the moment. It's defintely not the right solution for everyone, but it works for my specific needs. I'm ok with putting in some extra time and the happy side effect is I end up with my own custom made end product. Plus, the idea of working with a "vintage" 3D model is oddly appealing to me. Different techniques for different artists, right?
Yep. And V4 has plenty of things that don't convert well to the Genesis line that are great to play with. 110.1 from Aeon Soul is one that comes to mind...
Well if going back to previous generations works for you that's fine. However, as technology moves forward you do need to learn how to adjust your workflow to work with figure advances. I will note that one of the big complaints in forums is that PAs never share tips on how to make products, yet when useful information is dispensed, it is basically ignored. I'd bookmark my posts if you need to ask information on the best way of handling details as I won't repeat it again.
Well, we've all got to follow our own star.
@pearbear - Keep doing what you're doing, it's fantastic. You could really make produts out of these things - especially improved expression morphs for V4/M4. I wish I had your skill at modelling (and a copy of ZBrush
).
Why do you assume the technology moving forward can only go in one direction? That's the beauty of innovation, there are many ways to bring things forward and many situations where a different solution is useful. Just because Genesis 1-3 are low poly doesn't mean the idea of a higher poly base figure is 'backwards'. Now that our systems are more robust, they can handle a bigger load and we can see where we could go with a figure like that.
If that's not your particular path, fine. It doesn't mean a high poly figure with better rigging wouldn't be progress for those that work in high poly morphs. And the next Genesis would still be an innovation on the low-poly till subdivided line. They don't invalidate each other. Last I checked there really is no 'one true way' that anyone's workflow had to be.
I'm with you pearbear! I tried using the transfer Utility in DAZ to bring in a subD version of G3, but the rigging from G3 to the higher rez G3 did not transfer all the bones. If you delete the G3 then the bends are horrible with the higher rez G3 and you would need to fix via weigh mapping. Toes do not translate well as when you bend them it take geometry from the next toe with it. Mapping looked like another pain. You only seem to get basic rigging with the transfer utiliy so I would have to add bones the the feet and face. I might as well just subdivide the figure and start from scratch. My V4 characters are a joy to sculpt in in Zbrush....those extra polys come in handy. The SubD G3 was really nice to sculpt as well but getting her rigged seemed like an uphill battle. I render in Octane so I have not figured out how to get good displacement in that renderer.
Technology advancements or changes in techology generally requires change, and in order to use it you have to adjust to those changes in workflow. If bending techology requires lower poly figures to be used, then you have to adjust your workflow and tools to work with that, not request a higher poly figure that will not work with. The fact that people are creating characters without high poly figures shows that those people have adjusted their workflows to work with those figures. Over the years, I've moved from dials to zbrush and was able to change over to lower poly sculpting. Any high poly details are done after my base shapes are done. If you have zbrush, you have tools to project high poly details to the lower poly version and you can create displacements and normals, and that's really the workflow changes that those working with genesis with custom morphs need to work on, because that's the same method PAs are using to make the base characters, HD is just the final step for a finished character.
You say technology moves forward, which is of course true; however, the different meshes available are not really about advances in technology, specifically regarding the mesh density. How that mesh density is treated can be considered advances. And pearbear has brought V4 right up-to-date, so s/he isn't working with old technology, merely an old mesh:). After all, the mesh is just a collection of co-ordinates, and I've seen posts arguing how aspects of G3 are a step back; but they still works very well (I've bought enough G3, and can say on the whole I prefer the model to G2, although there are a couple of areas that irritate me.), and better in some areas than what has gone before. (When Daz get around to creating G4, they will no doubt take what they liked from G3, and leave out any aspects they didn't.)
The point is still workflow adjustments need to be made to make your morphs regardless of mesh density. It does need to be pointed out though that the morph that pearbear made for the polys available is not very detailed in the nose and cheek areas and most likely made using no brushes beyond the move brush, which is a common complaint among those that say they don't have enough polys to make a morph.. because they don't have enough to move using older workflows.
Here's my morph for Jesse G3M that's currently in the store. This morph was done at base resolution from the base genesis 3 male figure... using the clay, standard, inflate, dam_standard, move and move_topical brushes. This was not started from HD:
The HD version of this morph only adds more cheek creases, and flesh detail, but only added so that the detail isn't smoothed out when the subdivision level was raised. But the point is the base morph was already done before I exported a slightly higher version of the the morph to work on because I learned to morph the low poly cage. You can see the check crease detail on this right side, the side brow crease, the detail at the bridge of his nose. So basically I created something store-ready with over 50K less polys because I shifted my workflow to work with the technoloy and that's really what I'm suggesting others do because that's what using the figure actually requires.
NOTE: This was rendered without any HD morphs, and uses render subdivision of 2. Also before I started any HD tweaks, the head morph was made slightly asymmetrical.
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Different people would like to achieve different goals with different techniques using licensed content sold at DAZ3D.
There is not just one way how to create more detailed characters.
If you want to use a workflow that combines low resolution morphs and maps. Fine.
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Other people would like to:
- sculpt on a high resolution mesh and bring all the details back as either morphs or original high resolution geometry
- create humanoid like creatures with more extreme morphs
- create characters with destinct facial features as morphs that can be dialed in to give the character a different age like 30+, 40+, 50+
- animate high resolution facial features like the folds around the mouth, eyes, nose and cheek that grow, shrink and move when a character changes expressions
There is a lot you can do with combining maps and morphs.
But there are even more things that you can achive by creating and animating (!) high resolution morphs for high resolution geometry.
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Unfortunately at this point in time the possibilities are restricted for the majority of the users by the available technology.
Maybe after GTC 2016 it will be easier to illustrate some ideas how the situation could be improved...
http://www.gputechconf.com/
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Of course there are differnt ways to get detail into characters, however, I think you've been told on several occasions by mods to drop the conversation about HD morphs, because they aren't available to people that are not PAs. You have already been giving the methods in order to make morphs for Genesis, so I'm not sure what the value would be to keep creating threads pushing for high poly alternatives. This time is better served learning to do low poly sculpting and normals/displacement as that is what are the only things that are available to you.
As I posted above, that is how you create morphs for genesis, and that was the method for genesis characters before the HD tool was developed.
Must say it gets old hearing that there is only one true workflow and no other way of doing things can ever be. Or that the just because someone likes the status quo that we should just accept it and never suggest any change.
I remember when the status quo was that Genesis could never work in Poser. Or when people got harshly criticized for wanting to use G2 and V4 maps on G3F. I recall many times seeing it said that 'the technical advances in G3 mapping means it's impossible' and we should just accept it and 'move on'.
There are multiple workflows and tools for use when making genesis characters. However, Genesis is a low poly character and will most likely be that way for the forseeable future. As a result your workflow has to incorpoate low poly sculpting techniques and there's really no way around that.
The image posted looks great. You validated your stance, which didn't need doing; it works for you, and conforms to what G3 is. We work with the geoetry we have, and sacrifice it in areas we are content for it to be sacrificed in. Personally, I find the area around the stomach button way too low polly, but much prefer it to sacrificing those on the face.
This is not a thread about HD morphs but a thread to look for alternate high resolution figure solutions that can be acceptable to both the customers and DAZ3D.
If you are not interested in discussing such ideas and actively finding solutions then fine don't.
But please let those users who are interested in sharing constructive ideas do that in peace.
What I presented so far is a resolution for high resolution detail that should be acceptable, practical and realistic for customers in light that those suggestions still need to be supported by vendors, customers and DAZ in general. Other figure options may not be acceptable for discussion if the item can not be sold at DAZ3D. Any solution will still need to fall into what can be offered here.
I think the problem is this; the average customer is already complaining about having to have an above average computer to be able to use Iray effectively, so anything that would only be useful for a small percentage of the total user base isn't going to be well received by DAZ, no matter well intentioned the discussion is.
I use Iray just fine on a sub-$400 pc. Maybe I can't render everything in under 5 minutes but I never managed that with 3delight eithier. And we were using high poly figures for years before DAZ made subdivision the solution to everything. Studio can handle a pretty impressive amount of polys even on a low end machine.
We aren't all trying to make figures work in game engines.
I was toying with another idea. Take a G3 and subdivide and export her as an .obj out of DAZ. Bring her back into DAZ and use the trasfer untility to "remake her" using a standard rez G3 as the donor. There are some problems....the bones from the G3 when transferred to the new subdivided G3 .obj does not bring all the bones over. You have to keep the standard G3 character invisible in the backround to keep decent bending. If you delete the regular rez G3 then you have to fix all the joints and bends since the new SubD G3 becomes like a rubberband. Seams look real bad with the new SubD G3. This all might be able to be fixed since I have limited knowledge about rigging in DAZ.
Ultimately at no point is it about a lack of capacity to show detail. Any artist who can do the kind of sculpt and/or maps pearbear did for that render can get that sculpt and/or maps into DS. The fact is that the number of artists who can do that is quite small even among PAs (and I say that in the full knowledge that I am not one of them). Photorealistic design is an incredibly difficult skill set requiring a LOT of time and experience, and without that skill set it doesn't matter how far up you turn the SubD.
For people wondering about Blender, I have and use both Blender and Zbrush. Zbrush can handle up to about 6 million on my system (two GTX 980's, 64 gb RAM, 3.50 GhZ 6-core Intel CPU) before it starts to lag. Blender gets laggy before 1 million, usually it's hard to sculpt anything higher than about 600,000 polygons for me without it becoming impossible to create detail owing to mouse and viewport lag. I still use Blender to sculpt lower-rez items because I like its interface (I used it exclusively creating the sculpts on my water product that comes out the 20th), but for normal maps like the ones that sold our Beautiful Skin line, it's got to be Zbrush. No program that I know of competes with it on the capacity to sculpt past a million polys.
Thank you for expressing the ideas that I was having trouble getting out as clearly as you did. And I'd think it's going to be just as hard to work with that high poly (800k+ vert) mesh in DAZ Studio on the average user's PC as it is for you to try to sculpt a fairly high resolution mesh in Blender on the computer you have.
What if DAZ3D would sell a 4'357'308 vertices version of Genesis 3 female and male?
- the UV would be the same -> all G3 textures maps can be used
- the rigging and bones could be the same -> all G3 poses could be used
That way DAZ3D would not have to support two completely different lines of figures but two similar lines of figures that share some traits.
Maybe DAZ3D could even find a way that morphs of the 17'418 standard Genesis 3 female figure could be used on the 4'357'308 vertices version of Genesis 3?
Maybe it would even be possible to create a version of Genesis 3 at each subdivision level from 1-5 and sell them in a bundle.
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This approach would solve three issues:
- The technology would not rely on sharing access to a HD morph tool.
-> The technology would only work with figures that share the Genesis 3 UV layout and bones.
- Published artists would not have to support a completly new line of figures
-> UV maps, pose products are shared between different subdivision level versions
- Users can use that version of Genesis 3 subdivision level to create their own morphs that their system can handle.
-> Users can create high resolution morphs at the subdivision level of their choice without loosing weight maps and rigging
Nah, Studio can handle it. I've had very high poly scenes on a computer over a decade old in Studio. But Sickleyield is right about how uncommon the sculpting skills for that level of photoreal detail are.
What bugs me is that some of what I'd consider useful morphs such as wrinkling the forehead are HD and really weak even then. Displacement would be fine for age wrinkles, but it's not so useful for things like that caused by facial expressions that need to be dialed in and out. Maybe I missed one of the new bones for facial poses but the forehead wrinkle morph for G3F is almost unnoticeable no matter how high I set things. While I don't make morphs I have to wonder if there's a lack of polys even subdivided that leads to these poor morphs. (Or maybe they're just badly done.)
It' is difficult to weightmap high poly figures, that's why low poly figures are used and bend so well. The weightmapping wouldn't be the same as well as any jcms, so you would end up with 2 distinct characters, not one that would use a single set of clothing and definitely not morph. This would not work on that point alone. Two figures will split support, so this would not be a realistic solution for only a small set of people that be able to afford tools to morph this figure. All the tools for genesis still revolve around the low poly figure, so workflows still need to happen with that.
Guess that's why nobody ever tried weight mapping V4
To make a long story short if we want more polys its going back to V4/M4 and working with those figures. I found a product on Runtime DNA - WMV4: Weight Mapped Victoria 4. It looks like a weight mapped V4 but its for Poser. There are other products that improve her bends which is the main benefit of Genesis 3 characters. I love the G3 characters, but must messing with V4 tonight and seeing much more realistic renders with her....
Weight mapped V4 topic:
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewthread/36125/
They weightmapped it, but then iit's not a 800K figure. Also the weightmapping had some issues, including in the elbow area. I would suggest being less adversarial in this conversation; I'm only stating how this tech works.
Also keep in mind that just because V4 was weightmapped, it didn't mean there were lots of vendor support for it. The support was nonexistent and there were basically no custom morphs available for it because the market still didn't want to support one native figure for each platform.