Question - Poses, do you want specific shape presets or do you like to tweak?
Hey all!
As a pose creator, I'm constantly looking for new sets to build and a question has arisen that I thought I'd come in here and ask of you, the New User.
When looking at a pose set, do you want poses that are designed for specific body shapes (ie: Victoria 7, Aiko 6, George, etc) or do you like to fiddle with the base poses to get them to work with whatever character shape you've got in your scene?
I know seasoned users like to tweak a base pose to fit, but at the same time I know many users despise posing and I can't help but wonder if maybe people would use more of the different shapes if poses were available for those specific shapes? I know that there are some sets that cater to specific shapes, particularly those that surround a new shape's release. But what about in general? Would you like to see more shapes supported in pose sets, or would you prefer to tweak a set to fit your needs?
There is no wrong answer here. I'm just trying to research a path that I'm considering for a new set that I'm working on, to see which would be of the most value to my customers. So, if you'd be so kind, would you let me know your preferences in this regard?
Thanks!
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Thanks for creating poses! I have a couple of your pose products that I haven't had the opportunity to use yet, but hope to do so soon.
Here's my uneducated and very naive reply: If the pose says it works with G3F, then it should work with any figure that is based on G3F. I hate tweaking figures to perfect poses because I end up messing it up. I know I can lock limbs etc. but it's just too painful a process for me.
My other wishlist item for poses is that it would be great if expressions could be included with them, and who better to create the expressions than the person who is designing the pose? I say that because you probably have a specific scene, activity etc. in mind when you design a pose, so you might also have their expression in mind as well? Your "serious" expression for a particular ballet pose you are making, for example, would likely fit much better with your pose than the "serious" expression that a separate package may include.
Now, I have no idea how difficult it is to create stuff for DS. Maybe creating expressions is a huge project in itself. Just wanted to share my wishlist thoughts.
Actually expression poses aren't that difficult and in a lot of my sets I include expression preset poses. I just recently learned how to make expression morph dials so that you can add as much or as little of an expression as your scene requires. I plan on doing more of these in the future.
Regarding poses that say they're for Genesis 3 Female/Genesis 3 Male/or any of the other Genesis iterations - the truth of the matter is that poses built for the Genesis 3 Female base were designed to work perfectly with the base shape. If you apply another shape, depending on that shape, the pose will be altered, and not necessarily in a good way. That's where the tweaking comes in.
In general, poses that are made for the female base will also work with Victoria 7. You might need to raise her feet out of the ground plane only. But if you were to use that same base pose on say Tween Julie 7, Monique 7, the Girl 7, or Star 2.0, you will get vastly different results. Some will work, but some will not, particularly if the pose is part of a vignette (a pose that involves two or more characters that interact).
And now that you've spoken up, I have to wonder how many other new users are under the same misunderstanding about this and they buy a pose set thinking it will work with all the shapes of a base model, but will be disappointed to find out that this is not the case. It's not unreasonable to assume that a pose will fit across the board because clothing and hair models do. So I can see where the confusion comes in. But the bone positions move from shape to shape, and poses are based on bone locations, not on the mesh, like a clothing model or a hair model.
See this is why I think it would be beneficial to include poses that were shape specific so that a customer can use the poses on any of the included shapes without having to tweak the base pose. However, that does require making additional presets, which is more time, which would translate into a higher priced product, which might potentially deter customers from purchasing my product. Ugh...product production is so much more complicated than people know. Lol.
But I'm willing to do what it takes to make my customers happy.
Just out of curiosity, do you have any particular favorite Genesis 3 (male or female) shapes that you would like to see poses for? I'm compiling a list of which shapes to focus on. (There are so many to choose from at this point that the list is overwhelming, so customer input is important.)
Well, that certainly explains things a bit.
As for favorite characters, I'll toss a vote for Gwennili. Plus if you look at the most popular items on Daz, she's ranked 12th at the moment...out of everything!
So...you really can't go wrong with her. Then again, the existing poses may already work perfectly with her, haven't tested them much.
There's always the growing up and aging morphs by Zev0. In fact, I'm not sure I've *ever* seen elderly poses (bent back, hunched over, limping, cane, etc.). I'd buy those. Granted, use your own judgement because you have to make a living. But if old-people-poses has truly never been done before...could be unique enough (like George) to become a popular item.
EDIT: Never mind. Just realized this was addressed to New Users, which I am decidedly not. Sorry about that.
Aging poses are a very good suggestion, and something I've thought about doing. Also poses for large, overweight characters, like George. I love George. He's a great character. I wish there were more older and less "ideal" shaped characters for us to play with. I love making poses for these shapes because they're so different to look at.
Actually, I'm open to any one who wants to respond. :) I'm not fussy.
I've only been buying product for less than a year, so I have under a dozen characters, and all of them are G3F/V7 type figures. I primarily like to render fantasy/warrior scenes (thus why I chose Dawnblade as my username) because I love video games like Skyrim, Dragon Age etc. Sometimes sci-fi scenes too.
When I buy weapons I look for those that include poses too, like Brutal Weapons.
Akimitsu
BD-Esther (based on V7)
Girl 7
Summer (based on V7)
MRL Willow
V7
I just bought Isa and Lexi (both based on Rune 7) and Rune 7 today, so I can't say they are my favorites yet. But I'm looking forward to using them in warrior scenes as well.
Here is a character renders post that Novica created, if it helps you see how some of these figures have been used.
I don't know what the best answer is, I can see arguments in both directions. I do appreciate stock poses that will work right away, since the whole purpose of buying a pose is to avoid having to do it yourself, and making all the adjustments is very labor intensive. I've avoided purchasing poses for a different shape for fear that they will be a lot of work to use with a different figure. However at the same time I often have to adjust my poses anyway, and I did stock up on poses for different figures along with the pose converter requiring modification vs. not having those poses at all.
Perhaps it would depend on the nature of the poses. Somebody with their arms crossed, or holding an arm with a hand or whatever would presumably not translate well into another figure without significant effort and thus perhaps would be more likely a purchase for the intended figure, vs. a generic standing pose with arms out that would probably work fine without adjustment for multiple figures.
I may be able to help you with Rune 7. I'm trying to stick mainly to supporting the Daz O shapes, since there are way too many PA shapes to keep track of. However, if your characters, like Isa and Lexi, are based from a Daz O (in this case Rune 7) then the poses I make for Rune 7 should work with your new characters. At least, it's my hope that this is how this work.
I will, however, make exceptions for PA characters that I'm particularly fond of, or ones that I know have sold rather well in the store. Shapes like George for Genesis 3 Males and Opal for Genesis 3 Females. I love both of these characters because they are beautifully crafted characters and I think it's fun to make poses for them since they are so outside the normative realm of what we usually see in the store. But this will be a rare exception, as I don't want any PA to feel like I'm sleighting them in any way. So, I'll mainly stick with the Daz O shapes. For now.
Sounds good. As I was listing my characters, I had a feeling the non-DO figures would be problematic, since there are so many. I completely understand.
Not a new user here... My two cents is that I appreciate special poses for characters who derivate a lot from the base shape, but especially for such poses where the character touches itself, like the head or hip. The same is true for couple or group interactive poses, but all you need to do is change the height of a character, and things will need massive tweaking to work out.
what I really would like are a few more non-suggestive, non-photoshoot poses, though I have to admit I rarely buy poses nowadays, as everything is G3 and I am still mostly working on G2, and those two can't exchange poses between them.
Thanks BeeMKay for your input. I appreciate it. With the appearance of G3 on the scene, I tend to forget about G2, or even G1. And the sets I make for the PC+ are only for G3, at their request. But for my catalog products, I'm not so inhibited. So I apologize for any oversight I may have made neglecting you and the others who still use Genesis 2. I guess I just figured everyone had moved on, as I had. I will take this under advisement and will consider adding G2 presets to the set I'm currently working on. (Or maybe even just make a separate set just for Genesis 2.) If you go to my facebook page (click on the link in my signature) you will get a sneak peek of what I'm currently working on.
For the sake of argument, which of the G2 shapes do you prefer?
Just as a test, this is BD-Esther with one of your "Classic Pin-Up Standing Poses for G3F." No adjustments were made to your pose, and as you mentioned she would probably just need to be raised off the ground.
No need to apologize, FeralFey. Using G2 is a personal choice, and I understand that making poses takes a lot of time, and you create for what sells best. I often use G1 or M/V4 poses on the G2 characters, either through pose converter or direct application, and that usually works fine. Just G3 doesn't play well downwards, so it is not simply apply and tweak a little.
If you make separate sets for G2, it sure would be something I'd buy. Maybe it would also be something to test out if there is still a market for them.
as for G2, I mostly use characters based on the base shape, M and V 6, and the teens. I also use growing up based characters. Sometimes, Freak and Scott.
I'll go and check out your facebook info as soon as I am back at my PC.
Yeah, a lot of poses that don't have a lot of the figure touching itself (sorry for the inelegant turn of phrase here) or interacting with another figure won't require much, if any, adjustment moving between the different shapes, which is fortunate. Things get more complicated the wider the shoulders are, or the length of the arms/hands/fingers, and the width of the hips and thighs of the different shapes. And even more tweaking is required if you go from a shape of one height to one of even a slight difference. There are so many different factors involved, and it's just easier to ignore them and only do presets for the base shape.
That's why I posed the question to begin with. If folk are OK with doing the tweaks, then I wouldn't worry about including shape specific presets. But I'm gathering, so far, that it would be a help if I did include the extra shape presets. So that's the route I'm going to take on this set I'm working on at the moment. I'll see how sales are to get a better idea if it's something that I will continue to offer.
I hate to put it in those terms. As much as I feel like the extra presets are a necessity, if the market doesn't respond to it, I'll have to consider income versus production time. I don't mind putting in the time, but this is my employment/business and I have a family to support. So I'm really, really hoping that this is something customers will get behind.
I fully understand that.
Here's a comparision - the same G3F pose applied to G2F and G3F. It's totally kaputt. So for the (most likely) minority like me, using G2 and older, G3 poses are totally worthless. Between G3 Base and various DAZ shapes, it's usually limited to some tweaking.
Love the poses on your facebook site, by the way. I do own George, so this might actually be something I'd buy.
Yeah, the difference between G3 and the earlier iterations is staggering. Converting the poses from G1 to G2 and back are pretty minimal in terms of work when you compare converting G2 to G3 and back. Even using the conversion pose utilities it's still more work to convert G3 than it is to convert G1/G2 poses. I have a system down now, but even that is too much of a pain, that if I need to convert a pose, I just build it from scratch. I did my fair share of complaining about it, too.
However, that being said, I do think the rigging and bone structure of G3 is far superior. The joints bend much more naturally, which makes Genesis 3 my personal choice when doing my art renders. But the world doesn't revolve around me, lol, and I totally understand that people have valid reasons for sticking with the older models - which as a vendor doesn't mean I should abandon you all, right?
Okay - forgive me if I'm in the wrong place & please excuse my stupidity..... I'm kinda new to this. Using Mac & Daz 4.9 I'm trying to pose G3F characters using G2F poses. I just picked up G2 - G3 pose converter from Zev0 - but can't seem to figure out how to apply it. (& don't see the answer in the forum)
Not end of world stuff but I have a whole heap of Genesis & Gen2 poses & I hoped that the converter (on sale) would save me a little money....... & a whole lot of time(?) Any useful help or advice would be welcome.
Zev has an official thread for the products: http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/58837/v4-pose-converter-for-genesis-1-genesis-2-female-commercial#latest
I tend to use a Pose preset as a starting point for many figures, then adjust, tweak, rinse, repeat to make the pose fit my feel/intent for the scene and to also accomodate the morphs I am very likely to have applied to the figure- usually to remove hands and arms intersecting hips or chest or to alleviate mesh issues of clothing around shoulder, elbow, knee areas, etc.
A thing I'd really like is a set of poses that do not affect the hands - the numbr of times I have added a prop (weapon, etc.) to a figure, then posed and ... the grip pose that applies with the prop gets replaced and it quite often is teh case that to redo the grip I need to delete the prop and re-add it as no seperate hand grip pose exists.
Wouldn't it be great if there were scripts to convert a base G3F pose to the other G3 base shapes. I don't know how difficult that would be, but it would seem a lot less effort than making poses for each figure separately. I know I'd buy a utility like that.
Hi rixstudio. I have Zev0's and Draagonstorm's pose converter. It's what I have used to convert G2 poses to G3 (and reversed). It works pretty good, except that there are still tweaks that need to be made as the poses don't convert exactly - but it's better than nothing. It's late here at the moment, but I promise when I get up later this morning, I'll break mine out and see what I can do about helping you. You can send me a site message here with the particulars of your problem (like what exactly are you doing and what are the results you are getting) so that I'll have some idea of where to start in order to help you. I know that when I have used it, it would save the poses to a weird location, despite where I told it to put the newly converted files. You might be experiencing something similar.
@ SimonJM - it's for this reason why I include hand poses separate in my pose and prop sets. I know people like to kit bash and perhaps want to use a prop with a pose of their own. Daz now requires us to load props with hand poses already applied, which gets you the situation you are in. I don't think you'll find a pose set that has a full body pose minus hands, because hands are an integral part of any pose, prop or no prop. You might consider applying the desired pose before you add the prop rather than the other way around as a matter of course. Or what you can do is load the prop onto your model, and then save out the hand pose for you to use whever you need to fix the hand after another pose has been applied. (Click on "Save As"/"Pose Preset"; navigate to where you want to locate your hand pose and click "OK"; on the next pop up screen, go to the pull down menu on the right hand side of the screen and click on "check only" then "check rotations only"; then expand the hierarchy in the screen and untick all the checked boxes down to the right or left hand. You'll want to uncheck the hand bones as well, because if you don't you'll be saving information that will overwrite any hand bone information in the pose you want to apply, which you don't really want. Trust me. (Caveat - you might want to include the pose control information for the hand in question, as a lot of prop makers who include poses for their props tend to use the pose controls for the hands and fingers for expediancy's sake, and if you don't include this information when you save out your new hand pose, you'll get frustrated in the end.) Save the pose by clicking the "Accept" button at the bottom of the screen. Then next time you use that prop that loads with the hand pose, when you apply a new pose on top of it, you don't have to delete the prop and start over. All you have to do is apply your new hand pose and all will be right with the world.
Thanks so much for your kind offer. I'm not having any trouble with the pose converter, though. I own it and have had reasonable success. What I was suggesting was a script that could tweak a pose designed for G3F base, so that it would be optimised for say Victoria 7 or Girl 7 etc. :)
I've been using DS for a while now and I still can't really get used to saving out 'my own stuff' as presets ... ;) Maybe one day the penny will finally drop! :)
I'd personally prefer if all poses were bade on the base mesh of the model. I find most of the shapes similar enough, and I never use any stock shapes any way. Having separate poses for v7, G3F, and A7, for example, or M7, G3M, Leo 7, just clutters up the content library.
Believe me, I have often wished for this. And in fact, I had had planned on getting up the nerve to discuss this very thing with Draagonstorm (who was a wiz with scripting) but then she just recently passed away. I'm horrible with scripting, and now if I'm going to ever do anything about this, it looks like I'm going to have to learn to do it on my own. The lesson here is to not wait on doing something.
I pay zero attention to which shape a pose preset is designed for as I always expect to have to tweak. My priority is those sets that offer the poses split by region, imho makes any given pose set infinitely more useful. Infinitely!
/may be exaggerating slightly.
While I appreciate the fact that people like sets that have the poses split up by region, my main reason for not including them is that the final pose that has been Frankensteined together rarely looks natural and/or balanced, at least not without additional tweaking.
I'm not saying that pose sets like that are wrong. They do give people a variety of options to try out. But I prefer to make poses that are integrated and balanced (from a gravity point of view), that are real-world motivated, and are realistic and true to nature. You chop up a balanced pose and you get a bunch of unbalanced limb positions that may or may not look good when recombined with other pieces parts.
That's not to say I haven't considered making a set that is broken into parts. There is a vendor I know who profits from this "chop-shop" approach in their sets, and honestly, I wouldn't mind making more money from building content. But I'm just trying to find a way to do it so that a) the customer will have a balanced and reasonable looking, finished pose when they are done with little to no tweaking, and b) that it will be a quality product that I'd be proud to put my name on. I've been experimenting with this for years and still haven't stumbled onto a solution that works. I think the closest I will come are my hand pose sets - but I have been toying with a hand/wrist/arm position set, so that might be something in the offering in the near future. (Well, to be honest, it IS going to happen. I just have to finish the set and get it submitted. I'm hoping some time in the next couple of months, if all goes according to my build schedule.)
Valid points but awkward posing from cobbling together pose sets is on me. Like I said I always tweak poses and as you point out stitching together partial poses pretty much requires it. But I do not see why making balanced poses should preclude offering the same poses as partials, aside from the time factor. On the other hand, if someone offers a pose without partials and I only want, say the upper body, I have no problem loading and then resaving the pose as a preset with the undesired parts removed. But having the original artist provide it is of course much more efficient, especially when sifting through bulk content, several hundred arm poses for ex.
Well, that is a valid point as well. I will reconsider my position on it and perhaps put together a set that includes partials (more than just hand poses). I don't think it would work exactly with the set I'm currently building, because of the nature of the set (vignette poses for multiple figures, but I'll not rule it out just yet), but perhaps the next one I produce for my catalog? It couldn't hurt to test the waters and see if it increases my sales, right? :)