Why no 'The Kids 7'?
Panzer Emerald
Posts: 727
This is something that's been in the back of my head for a while now: with all the advancements of Genesis 3, why hasn't there been a Kids 7 set yet?
Sure, you could make the argument that the Tween characters and Zev0's Growing Up sets kind of render The Kids pointless, but the Tween 7 kids look more cartoonish to me, and aside from a few smoothing issues, Growing Up starts at 6 years old-ish. It'd be nice to have something a little younger than that, that's not an outright stylized Toon character.
Plus, it'd be a great opportunity for someone to release an official Kids 4 to Genesis 3 clone (if there isn't one already), since AFAIK, there isn't one out there. And it'd get more little kid-appropriate clothing and props out there on the marketplace as well (not just contemporary, but for fantasy and sci-fi as well), as I've seen people constantly bring this particular issue up every time a Tween/Teen character has been released.
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Comments
Apparently, kids don't sell.
Laurie
You can use GenX to easily create a Kids 4 clone for Genesis 3. However the size of this is still not much less than the growing up morphs at 100%.
Yeah I've got GenX2 in my wishlish, but you have to admit having a few actual kids in the store would really cut down the hassle of having to have a $40 add on.
I'd love to do some renders with kids, but I've always found The Kids 4 in Daz to be rather creepy looking. If the OP thinks the new Tween characters look cartoony, then Kids4 would seem highly stylized IMOH.
I agree with your last statement, oversized 10 year old heads on 3 year old bodies look very odd. Whilst GenX seems expensive, if you can pick it up, plus the various plug-ins, on sale it could save you money in the long term. There are a number of younger figures from the previous generations that can be moved over to Genesis 3, including ones like Luke and Laura from generation 3, which I do not think look stylized.
This is today's equivelant:
http://www.daz3d.com/little-ones-mega-bundle-for-genesis-3
http://www.daz3d.com/kids-play-time-bundle
I've bought Kids4. But I agree, most of their characters look downright creepy. Just not as it should.
Zev0 has some pretty good morphs here - http://www.daz3d.com/growing-up-for-genesis-3-bundle
Given that from the looks of things all of the river of new Genesis 3 character bases seems to be an excuse for seling people bundles of content, it's a little surprising that we're all still childless. A bundle of kid-appropriate clothing built to the current tech would probably sell quite reasonably. Not everyone uses Studio for sexy pinups, after all. And it's not likely that they would tie such a bundle to a PA solution to the problem.
I've found that Zev0' morphing products are great but only to a certain point, and they tend to not work on female characters well because most of the base figures are so overly endowed in the first place. It takes a lot of work that would completely put off most beginner level Daz users. A couple of kid characters (with subsequent morphs) would definitely be the "easiest" way to go.
The Kids 4 look fine but their tech is outdated. I find it surprising that some think they look creepy. Could it be the Kids 4 in context with the typical DAZ horror render is creepy?
As far as a Kids 7, you don't need Growing Up products but they add more options to the morphs and label them so you needn't figure out which DAZ morphs to use, but if you do own the DAZ Body & Head Morphs for the male & female you can get them to be very childish looking but you need to apply the morphs to the head and body to make a child more child-like - nose smaller and more button-like for example. When is the last time you saw an infant with a Roman nose? So you can get a child to look about 5 -7 years old with the DAZ Body & Head morphs products but that's about the limit.
I don't mind kids 4. They look cute to me.
But...I actually prefer even the older generation 3 teens to the current offerings. They look more real to me.
Josie/Jayden etc. Just are too stylized for me. But I don't tend to care for the popular Thorne look.
Laziness is the reason :(
The biggest issue I have with the growing up morphs, is that once you morph past a certain point (ie 60%+) all the faces look the same, and you need to apply some very strong additional morphs to change that look. If you look at renders with younger characters generated from Genesis 2 or 3, they are often using those same growing up morphs, and as a consequence all the faces look very similar.
How do you get to that conclusion?
I've gotten some pretty good results with the morphs offered, but I agree that we need a "proper" kids release. Not to get me wrong, I love Julie and Ryan, but they lack the natural look of generations prior - particularly The Millenium Family. Everyone still chases that Thorne look, which while they work for fnatasy situations, don't also complement a "grounded in reality" story (which is often what I create).
That is where a product like the upcoming OneClick or the FaceGen Artist Pro can help, although the FaceGen Artist Pro says upfront it is not designed to make models of child like faces. Also, doing things like making the height of the nose bridge and size of the nose bulb proportionly smaller but the same shape as the adult works. It's almost like caricature making but in the opposite direction. Instead of exaggerating facial features you emphasize in the opposite direction. So an extreme adult caricature would have very small beady eyes but the same character as a child would have very large eyes. Soften the jaw. Enlarge the head. And so on.
Fact is, the younger the child, the more they look alike. I've been scolded for saying this, but to me all infants do look mostly alike, certainly more than adults look alike (toothless, bald mostly, chubby, large head, and so on), although once out of infancy, a face will often look mostly what they will look like as grownups.
The Generation 3 Kids were definitely the best looking. I'm one of the people that think the Kids 4 look creepy ;).
Laurie
This is true and one of my main qualms with Growing Up, though I'd like to stress this is absolutely no fault on the part of Zev0. It just is what it is and you work with the hand you're dealt.
I looked up the Millenium Kids and yeah, they do look better and worth the cost of the pair + the specific GenX add-on. And yeah, I do think The Kids 4 are cute, but it's also about time they got a much-needed upgrade to the new technology, too.
I agree. IMHO, the recent toon kids don't count. If nothing else, having a Kids 7 set out there would get some sorely-needed kid-appropriate clothing and props out there for a change. Especially poses, because let's be real here: there's hardly any Genesis 3 poses, especially for females, that feel appropriate enough for a kid (barring the handful that are out there already) because I'm pretty sure it would cause some horrible posture development at that age, ahahahayikes.
I'm saving my pocket change for Toon Generations 2 coming in December, which includes kids and babies!
...liked Matt and Maddie, didn't much care for Luke and Laura as the looked more like slightly smaller adults to me (particularly the faces).
Creating a teen character in Gen 4 was a real pain as there was no base "Teen" figure. I spent years adjusting morph, mixing character shapes first using Thorne's characters just to get petite physiqes and breasts for teen girls and later Jamminowolfe's Tindra Thompson (sort of a proto version of "growing up") and finally Steph4 and the NPMs.
Actually did manage to pull off creating an 8 year old from Vicky4, but it took a lot of time properly proporioning limbs and torso areas using actual growth charts.
If one works the morph sliders carefully it is possible to tone down any "stylised" appearance (unless the figure is toon based of course).
As to Kids4 I agree, they were cute. There were also some really nice K4 characters available both here and at Rendo.
What's wrong with Little Ones (Mega Bundle) for Genesis 3 - http://www.daz3d.com/little-ones-mega-bundle-for-genesis-3
They are for both Genesis 3 Female and Genesis 3 Male. The bundle was at deep discount during the August 2016 sale.
Kids 4, as I recall, was the precursor to Genesis because the base mesh was "genderless" and the individual kid characters were sculpted on that. While it would be nice to get similar child characters today, and the clothing for them (meaning what mommy/daddy want them to wear, rather than what they want to), I don't see it happening when such characters aren't viewed as profitable for the creators/DAZ.
Eh, too cartoony for those of us who want a little more realism. I get that every character has some degree of stylization, but I'd rather not use a Little Ones next to Olympia 7 or Gianni 7 (or even Guy and Girl 7, since they're more Disney*toon and less 90's indie low budget CGI*toon like Little Ones). They stick out like a sore thumb.
Those look great, love the idea that you can mix and match them with existing G3 characters. That sold me on Star 2.0.
We definitely need some non-stylized babies too, though. New kids and babies would be great, in a bundle would be even better. Instabuy here!
I wish there was a current generation of realistic kids, along with clothing sets (possibly in a bundle). The more recent crop of stylized kids looks uncomfortably toy-like to me. That's fine for toys, but not so fine for more real world characters. Ideally, any kid option would allow for a degree of variety among kids' faces (something similar to how Freak 5 came with different tough guy faces), because unless you're doing a Village of the Damned homage, you don't want all your kids to look alike! :)
...that was a particular an issue I faced creating Gen4 teens and children (the latter prior to K4). Fitting what Gen4 female clothing would have been appropriate on a small or flat chested female figure resulted in terrible distortions in the breast area.
Below is an iray render of Little Ones (Caucasian Male) for Genesis 3 Male - http://www.daz3d.com/little-ones-caucasian-male-for-genesis-3-male
Looks cute, but also looks like a character from a Pixar film. It would look almost as odd to stick him next to a character like Victoria 7, as a human next to Jessica Rabbit.
The point is for people who are doing photo realistic renders the presence of young children is a bit of a hassle, hence you don't see a lot them showing up in renders. That doesn't really equate with "such characters don't sell", because you don't have a solid enough basis to make that claim, you'd have to create a character like that first and there hasn't been one for some time.
Skyler, Little Ones: Male and Female.
Oh, yeah, Toon Generations 2 in December. Those to me are the most exciting characters in the DAZ Store since Girl 7 & Guy 7.