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As a very long time fan of anime (over 15 years, and I still watch 3-4 hours of anime every week) I absolutely agree with this. Anime is fundamentally a 2D art and I believe even the Japanese themselves have had difficulties in translating it into 3D, in fact I think there has been no real appetite for it in the industry. It's only in 3D games where it's seriously been tried (not surprisingly, since 3D games are, well, 3D). FF is a good example (the game and movies), and the resulting look has generally been quite a bit different to 2D anime (they actually remind me of Japanese BJDs more than anything). The closest I can think of to the DAZ anime characters is the JRPG series Star Ocean:
Other games, such as Persona, have stuck to the 2D style, and I wonder whether it's because the producers think this is the only way to stay true to the anime feel.
I think what worked well with Hiro 3 and 4 was the huge array of 3rd party characters that emerged for them. Some with outstanding textures, clothing and accessories (some, I have to say, have hardly been exceeded in quality even today). Hiro for Genesis generations sadly did not inspire that kind of enthusiasm and frankly it doesn't suprise me that DAZ thinks it not worth bring Hiro to the later generations.
Inspired by this thread, I made an anime-style thing. Cranked up eye size as much as I could, tweaked other things. It's not suitable for all anime, but it's at least in the ballpark.
(Uses PWToon for the general style)
Is there something general purpose like SF Anime character builder for Genesis 2?
I thought there was... but maybe it was an anime shader kit thingie?
Considering what Aiko has become with Generations 5 & 6... she's not really completely anime anymore, is she? She sort of fills a space that's left between fully realistic and toon style characters. She's not a real girl, but she's not a cartoon either. She's a girl that can fight dragons, kick butt, go on a space misson... or simply dress for a night on the town. Anime Girl Aiko seems to have become Fantasy Girl Aiko. It would be nice if she had a male companion figure along those same lines. He doesn't have to be a Hiro... but he should be a hero, and just as versatile as Aiko has become.
More like game character Aiko I think. Which seems to catch on better with customers..
Now we're gettin' there!
I think a game type male base figure would be cool. I feel like that is what Aiko 5 was more of, and that is actually why she is my favorite aiko, she was semi realistic but styalized enough.
Even with a cool looking Hiro 7, I would still hesitate to buy simply due to the fact that there is a huge vacuum of hair for him. I can make some decent looking anime/manga style hair by mixing/matching but it's tediously exhausting and there's no guarantee it will work on other figures. Hair is one of the most important factors to differentiate characters yet currently for anime/manga males the choice is just terrible.
I think that's going to be another reason to move a little bit more toward fantasy than anime/manga. Those spiky, cool, crazy hairstyles look wonderful in 2D, but I think they fail to inspire when they're 3D. I'd rather have some fantasy styled male hair that's NOT Elven (or Elvish)... not historical... and not just plain nonsense. And a fantasy male or female character doesn't always need some special kind of hairstyle to make them work. Most of them just have normal hair.
Must be getting late... I think we all know that we need more male hair.... period.
Coming to the thread late. First... There's not gonna be Hiro 7?!? But but... most of my 3D anything is centered around toons and anime!!!
There's an anime character builder??? I gotta find this. Now.
Truth is I still use Aiko 3 and Aiko Toon 3. Aiko Toon 4 is nice and all but doesn't have the same look at Aiko Toon 3.
The Japanese have done a *very* good job of translating 3D into a 2D look. Certain American companies can make claims they're the first all they want, but I've been noting "hey that's a 3D person" in animes for a few years now. They're good enough that someone on Facebook suggested I wasn't a real artist because I use 3D for a lot of things (yes, I can draw, but ya know you use tools to fit the job)... and they were posting all sorts of "real anime art" to prove their point. Until I said "oh my I wonder what render engine they use" and showed them how to tell if it's 3D.
3D has been in anime a long long time.
That bieng said, I'm concerned at the lack of toonness and often do my part when I have time.
I'd be fine with it if he was in the right general theme. I have a stupid number of anime girls now but still no anime boys to match them.
Sometimes if a thing doesn't sell it's not the genre/niche but the specific product that is lacking. I feel this is true for a lot of male items (PAs: "They don't sell!" Customers: "They look don't look good.")
I like a lot of Sickleyield's work but honestly the Anime Character Builder's looks just don't appeal to me. But I also didn't like Aiko 6 that much. I feel like anime characters in genesis are really difficult to make and have them look right. I love Keiko's shape, but hate her head (luckily there's Haiku.) I love Star's head but I'm not really into the bishoujou style of her body and she doesn't work with other figures so I can't mix and match them. Picked up Hitomi yesterday and I'm really impressed with her (and she does make saving for Hiro 5 more tempting because she matches well with him, unlike Aiko.)
Basically if you aren't doing pinups you need characters of both genders in matching styles. G3 lacks that in teen males and anime lacks it all around.
Star has some morphs both at Renderosity and.. .I think.. Runtime DNA... two different vendors that can make her body less stylistic.
There is a valid point made here regarding a dearth of anime styled characters. There really does appear to be a dearth, and its a reasonably long-standing one. All the more so if you do not consider anime characters to be 'Toons.
'Toons are making a determined comeback. And people seem to like them. Genesis 1 had a swarm of 'Toons. Genesis 2 hardly any. Stylized characters, yes. Fantasy characters, yes. 'Toons, not so much.Even Girl 6 was the least 'Toony Girl we've ever seen. Genesis 3 seems to have the 'Toons making a comeback. Who knows, maybe the anime styles will piggy-back on the 'Toon revival.
I'm aware of them - I meant that you can't do Star's head with Keiko's body, or something along those lines. Rumours of a Star for G3F abound though, and will go a long way to fixing this (though rebuying content is annoying.)
These are the ones I can think of (I'm sure I'm missing some.)
Anime Girls (Genesis and beyond)
G1 Aiko 5 (+Tsukiko)
G1 Hitomi
G1 Asobi
(+ maybe Satsuki)
G2F Aiko 6 (+maybe Lotus & Riven)
G2F Keiko 6 (+ Sakura, Effy, Juvi, Izzy?)
(+maybe Karyanna, Haiku)
G3F SF Anime Character Builder
Non-Genesis: Star!
Anime Boys
G1 Hiro 5 (+Arashi, Takeo?)
Are you really so sure about that? If anything, it looks as though DAZ is slowly trying to distance itself away from Stylized characters in general. As you said, with Genesis 2 we barely got any REALLY stylized toon characters and even then they were most realistic than they should have been. This has only gotten worse with just about all the stylized characters yet. This is why seeing Captain Charisma is a genuine surprise to me.
Girl 7 is much closer to a Girl/Callie hybrid (or what you might call the perfected toon Girl look) and we even got a Guy 7.
I know this is probably going to be an unpopular opinion/theory, but I think another aspect to consider is that anime (and by extension, JRPG video games that aren't Persona) isn't quite as popular as it used to be a few years back. There's shows like Attack on Titan and Kill La Kill that've gotten degrees of mainstream popularity (speaking of which, I'm genuinely shocked we haven't gotten bootleg KLK outfits yet, given they practically hit all the "popular Daz Store item" ticky boxes, hehe), but that's all I know of and have seen in most places. Maybe the anime-specific market's shrunk too greatly for Daz's fiscal comfort since Aiko 6 was released?
Eeee'yup. It all boils down to how they look. I'm not a fan of Star for the same reason I'm not a huge fan of Hiro 5 or Hitomi: that style in 3D just doesn't sit well with me and feels kinda creepy, lmao. I do think there is a burgeoning revival of toon characters -heck, we got Guy 7, after all-, probably in large part to mainstream CGI cartoons from companies like Disney and Dreamworks finally starting to look less like the freakish monstrosities from early Pixar films and late 90's/early 00's video games and cartoons, and now beginning to look more aesthetically pleasing overall, and thus warming people up to the '3D toon character' concept. I mean, just look at Girl 7 compared to the 'I'm gonna snap at the waist thanks to my grotesquely large head and boobs' look of Girl 4.
Anime-inspired characters could very well make a comeback, but it all depends on how they look and what accessories (i.e. hair, clothes, etc.) come along with them.
Heroes are also making a continual resurgence, in movies obviously but also in gaming now too. I can see the new Toons (and today's hero man) fitting in well with that. Funnily enough heroes are also the new "thing" in shounen anime.
Everytime I look at 3D Universe's characters I think of Pixar and Dreamworks (the older G1/2 ones and the kidlet things for G3) but Girl and especially Guy fit in that realm really well too.
As for the popularity being worth it... who knows. I can get by quite easily for females mixing and matching all the older content that's available, but I can't even do that for males, so it's really awkward doing character designs. Lack of corresponding characters just makes me think that all the female models are really just intended for solo pinup posters :/
Anime might not be as popular (not sure), but superhero stuff is still gangbusters.
I mean:
Anime is still magnitudes more popular than Daz/Poser. I'm looking at an anime list site and popular animes average in the millions (# on peoples' lists) new upcoming animes that haven't aired yet over 100,000. It seems like it would be a really good crossover market for Daz, considering that a lot of anime fans like art/manga/creating characters/whatever (anime style images still have a huge presence on DevArt.) I can only assume sales of the products that have been made haven't reflected that potential.
If you really like Hiro 4 or 5, and you haven't totally given up on Genesis 2 as a base figure, you could just buy the Legacy shapes for Generation 4 or 5. Each has the Hiro for that generation as separate head/body moprhs, and if you get an Anime Eyes G2 add-on, you can have a very servicable young anime male character with all the flexibility of Genesis 2.
I would still love a less chibi-looking Hiro, however. Call him Neo-Hiro if you think it'll help the marketing!
Yep. Littlefox posted a preview on her Facebook. I'm excited by this because I like to dial mix and match to come up with new toon characters. With her in the mix that may even give a bit of slam to the style.
But I still use Genesis *a lot*. It isn't that I don't like 2 and 3 so much as what others have pointed out here: less options. And Genesis, once I got used to it, can switch genders. Also like that *a lot*. Turning a generated female toon into a male is just a matter of switching and tweaking.
Also, if I remember correctly, AnimeDoll got transfered to G2. Or was it Kururu? Either way, because I prefer to use the original models, I have them... but I really dislike the geografted head solutions in these cases.
Yeah the idea of Star becoming Genesis 3 is exciting, but also not because there's a giant wall between her and basically every other anime style character that's stuck on Genesis 1+2. I've been trying to get Hitomi to smoothly transfer to G2F but still having some smoothing issues, but I imagine that's mostly due to inexperience. At least there's a Keiko 6 shape for G3F.
It's frustrating that we have to try all these workarounds and scripts to get by these walls Daz has put up between its characters.
Spearcarrier: One of the many reasons I really like GenX2 is that it lets me gender swap Genesis 2, which is cool for everything you mentioned. Among other things, it means that when someone has some odd geografted Male (or female) only item, I can... swpa it anyway.
I've said this before and it's not my intention to be blunt or demean anyone's work. Michael makes great stuff, much of which I've bought and used, and I always look forward to seeing what he makes next.
With that said, I believe the only way we're going to get real anime figures is for Japanese artists to make them. I don't know what it is, but when Westerners attempt to make anime figures, they very, very rarely end up having the correct look. For us, anime is a very specific style, but for them it's their 'everyday' toon look. If we want a genuinely anime Hiro, we're going to need MayaX, 3doutlaw, or Yamato to do it.
Now I personally also do not believe that a true anime style translates to 3D very well; the huge eyes and tiny facial features are genuinely creepy in photorealistic renders. 3D Universe Disney-esque toons fit the style much better, and I'm still holding out hope for another Aiko 4 American morph one of these days. :) More choices are always good, even if they're not what anyone considers "authentic".
I'll point out that given things like ToonyCam, PWToon, and similar, at least some of the market isn't aiming for photorealistic yet stylized anime.
Those are all good products, and yes we should not be aiming for photorealistic anime to begin with unless we want to give ourselves nightmares. :)
Now I have this urge to render an 'anime style' character but make the textures all gruesomely realistic.
Granted, I don't have any REALLY solid anime morphs/styles, so I can't, really. It took lots of fineagling to get my prior image even in the right ballpark.