Why Is So Much Cool Stuff for Older Generation Figures?
nelsonsmith
Posts: 1,337
Was looking for really cool sci-fi uniforms, and it seems like for the military look most of the really cool designs are for older characters such as M4 and V4 and even older. For instance the entire Space Defender line, which is a really cool concept is for V4.2. and probably one of the neatest militeristic designs, Starship Crew an add-on for the MOS Invasion bundle is for Michael 3. Good Grief !
But this is the case with a lot of stuff. Want some gowns circa the French Revolution -- Victoria 4.2. Want some classic scuba gear? V4 or Genesis. We're finally starting to see some decent Western gear, but instead of another pair of platform shoes, or yet another bathing suit, it would be really nice if someone could update some of this stuff for genesis 3.
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Comments
A good part of it is simply a factor of time on the market. DAZ's 4th generation was at the top of the market, by itself, for as long as all three of the Genesis generations combined... that's 2006-2011 for Victoria 4, for example, as compared to 2011 to 2013 for Victoria 5, 2013- 2015 for Victoria 6 and 2015 to present for Victoria 7), and for various reasons the 4th Generation has continued to be the go-to figure for many Poser users. That's 10 years worth of content just for the V4 generation without even counting the four years that the Victoria 3 generation was the dominant figure (2002-2006), wheras none of the newer Generations has had more than 2 years at the top of the pyramid. For the artists who opted to support the Poser market, that meant coming up with ever newer variants on themes which breeds variety. And that meant filling out every possible niche and subniche to weasel every last possible penny out of the market. Look at the more recent V4 characters and you see a lot of things like elaborate tatoowork and multiple skins to make the new characters stand out, as they've pretty much hit the end of what can be done with the standard morphs of the base mesh.
The other thing is that since one of the big perks of the Genesis generations is that, except for shoes, they can use any of the previous generation's clothing, so for the smaller niche products there's the question of whether doing a new G3F or whatever version will really sell that well, or whether the existence of the Gen3/Gen4 version will satisfy that need to the point where they cannabalize any potential sales of newer versions. For some of the major products like the MFD and the Mech suit we have seen upgrades for the newer generations, and the G3s are still less than two years old so there are probably still upgraded versions of older outfits in the works, but I doubt that we'll ever see a generation of figures with the depth of support that V4 and her kin enjoyed.
That's exactly the reason why getting Victoria 4 for Genesis 2 was by far my best purchase to date. It lets you use V4 clothes on G2F (and if you save it as a wearable then you can have G3F wear it as well). And not only does it let you wear V4 clothes on G2F (and via autofit G3F) but it also lets you use V4 textures/skins on G2F as well. It's an awesome product that I can't recommend enough. :)
I agree that a lot of older content especially scifi outfits are well made and quite detailed. Sadly current interest appears to have shifted away from making functional uniforms and outfits and more towards making things sexy which sells I guess.
I don't use gen4 figures except as background characters and find their clothing fits with varying degrees of success newer figures.
I do really like what some pa's are doing such as Luthbel for scifi. But I do admire the details and drama of some of the gen 4 line which we are missing for Genesis 3.
This is one thing I love about the dynamic stuff, where you can take those outfits and just settle them around later figures.
Another thing I've found when doing conforming is that half the time I'm better off not autofitting and just posing the clothing around the figure. It takes more time, but better results. (Although the first thing I try is going into hidden parameters and undoing a lot of morphs to see if that works)
Uzilite had that really cool outfit http://www.daz3d.com/veronica-year-three that I would love to see upgraded to the new figures. I don't know what it is about that outfit, but I love the designs on the back of it. So much detail.
I love Uzilite's work. An excellent pa with fine attention to detail. Particularly like the firearms which look awesome still.
Agreed, one of my all-time favourites of his is "When Tomorrow Comes" for V3 (it's still available at Rendo); he did a V4 version, but the V3 version absolutely rocks if you need a female Han Solo-type character.
-- Walt Sterdan
Yeah, I've stumbled across Uzilite's work many times while looking for specifics items. Piggybacking off another post I started, many of his promo's for items for M3 look better than promos for new stuff I'm seeing.
How well does this product work in practice? Do they need lots of tweaking to fit right?
There are indeed a lot of cool things for M/V4 that don't seem to have an equal. Its a bit irritating to me, especially when there are so many things that look strikingly similar to each other for newer generations (figures and clothes.)
Agreed. There are workarounds for almost all generations clothing to be used on newer figures. I can't imagine buying many new items remade for newer figures when so many work well already. With the dynamic script, I have also been using poser, TY2, and Miki clothing on GF3, LOL.
For V4 to G2F, textures/skin transfer is pretty much flawless. Clothing transfers usually work extremely well on tight fitting outfits while more finagling is required with looser items. Shoes are okay, much better than the V4 to Genesis 1 process, but for tight closeups and things like solid shell items, like suits of armor, or accessories lke swordbelts/scabbards, you may find you get better results manually placing the item rather than using autofit or the transfer utility.
Especially when DAZ keeps runnning 80% off sales on the back catalog. At those prices I'll buy an entire outfit just to get a pair of shoes or a hat I like. :)
So this item is all that's required for getting M/V4 clothes to G2? No extra addons? I'm just looking at this for clothes. I have managed getting some skins transfered, but stayed away from clothing.
Not positive, but I think Uzilite is a she ;)
It is all you need to get clothes and skins from V4 onto G2F, but for M4 to G2M you need the companion product from Slosh:
http://www.daz3d.com/michael-4-for-genesis-2-male
Thanks, I didn't know that.
-- Walt Sterdan
A lot of Uzilite's stuff transfers quite well to newer generations. For example, here is Eva 7 (GF3) wearing the MOS Invasion Ranger outfit for M3 ( http://www.daz3d.com/mos-invasion ) with Starship Crew textures ( http://www.daz3d.com/starship-crew-for-mos-invasion ). I used autofit to transfer from M3 to Genesis (the original) and then saved that outfit as wearable preset and then autofitted it to G3F in a second round. I also updated the materials to Iray.
Ciao
TD
Damn, I have that product; who knew!
Obviously not me, until now at least.
There are a lot of talented artists here at DAZ, but to me, the ones who deserve the most acclaim are the ones who make the utility products that make other products more useful and expand their lifecycle.
Same here. Obviously I bought it for just that reason, and it got lost in the my content library.
There is a kind of weird logic I've heard on several occasions that tends to allude that the only reason we have any unique and varied articles at all for V4 is simply because it was around so long PA's must have exhausted all their ideas for skimp wear so they eventually had to create something different, and that we'll probably only see a similar assortment of articles when another model lasts as long before getting updated. Crazy, but that actually seems to be the case.
Wow, thanks for that info. I've been leery of getting the really older stuff, like the M3 outfits. I was afraid to waste the money, even if it was only a little. Obviously that was an error - that is a great outfit and a start of a great image. I'll be getting those M3 outfits (once my wallet has recovered from the Stonemason sale)
I don't think it's so much that they ran out of ideas for skimpwear... they're still making V4 skimpwear out there... as it was people's libraries were filling up with it and more vendors getting to the point where they were willing to gamble on something different in hopes of standing out from the pack. Ironically, with the V3 generation things seemed to go the other way, ie: there was a greater assortment of uniforms and unique items because it was harder, in general, to make the figures themselves stand up to the closer scrutiny that V4 and the Genesis figures can. So, a lot more long legged pants, full length sleeves and a lot of outfits based on 2nd skins rather than close fitting mesh.
Yes, thanks alot, I just purchased that article because it really looked too good to not use, even if I had to use older generation figures V4 was really as far back as I was willing to go, and that was primarily because of all the support from sites like Rendo. But as I mentioned Uzilite's promos were so good, I figured it was worth the chance even if I couldn't make it work. There really isn't a true equivalent to that uniform for Gen3 figures.
I remember wheb Uzilite came out with M304 and all anyone wanted to know was which female character was used in the marketing renders.
Call me whatever you wish, but I've bought every version of MFD, including all the addons.
Yes, those Uzilite outfits are some of my all time favorites. They are well worth spending a bit of time to transfer properly. The clothing works quite well with autofit (especially with Sickleyields templates), the helmet and belt accessories (if want them) look better if just positioned, scaled and parented.
Here is proper render of the outfit above. I added some subdivision to the coat to get it looking smooth.
Ciao
TD
I think it's more practical to do so for some outfits than others. Items that aren't figure-conforming, like long dresses, are a lot more futzsy to adapt, so buying the new version may make more sense... especially if it's as cheap as the MFD upgrades always are. On the other hand, an upgrade on something like Mech Girl or a hair isn't as necessary. And while I automatically bought most of the upgrades that were made for V4-Genesis, I've bought relatively few of the G2F-G3F step ups... they're just not that different most of the time. Of course, a lot of that is also partially due to how many other items I've accumulated in the meantime.
I find a lot of outfits work better if you just parent and tweak them, particularly baggier/stiffer things.
Wow! That's just nice. I'm inspired now. There is so much to learn.
+1
It sounds plausable, but that doesn't make it accurate.:) I expect it was a combination of reasons, including that one, and maybe included: PAs bored with skimp wear, or a particular look from a film (or elsewhere) was in vogue. I was looking at a figure at the other site, and if had been for G3F would have bought; it looked really beautiful.
This suggests to me another possibility; V4 was around so long, that PAs got really skilled at rendering; IRAY, so often used, is new and everyone is still learning how to use it, so the looks tend to be less varied - although that is starting to change.
Wow, I have to struggle to see skin on the female model.
In contrast, this new product, which I really like: http://www.daz3d.com/broken-doll-for-genesis-3-female-s is quite different.
http://www.daz3d.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/thumbnail/689303033aebc8cae535000c73c8db4b/b/r/brokenpromo04-daz3d.jpg
Personally, damaged limbs are the result of thinking such an outfit is armour.