This is what I was afraid of.
deleted user
Posts: 1,204
I will NOT be supporting G8...
I called this out a year ago and I hate that I was right. G8 has even LESS polys then G3... As if it wasnt already generic as it was... Daz you've lost my interest completely.
How can I work with this hunk of junk? It's like trying to scultp a statue with a sledgehammer. You will not be getting my support. At this rate your becoming the MCdonalds of 3D. Just keep getting cheaper and cheaper and cheaper...
21k G2
17k G3
16k G8
let me guess, G9 will be 14k poly points?
I'm really really upset right now. I'm an artist and this is a very obvious attempt at stripping us from having any sculpting power without buying premade morphs. This is an insult... Trying to castrate anyone who isnt a daz PA from being able to create their own art... G3 was already borderline insulting. G8 just proved that I'm right...
Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
7533 S Center View Ct #4664
West Jordan, UT 84084
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2025 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
It seems the polycount is only about 1% less and that is due to some "improvements".
I am new to this so what is the problem with G3 and G8? I want to get into the modeling stuf next.
I do think the G8 Tendons and Muscles (look at the hands) are amazing!
a loss of 862 Poly points is acutally a lot... When your a sculpter like myself thats a huge loss. If G3 was 25k polys I wouldnt care so much but G3F is so cheap you cant even make a proper Navel with her... And G8 is even cheaper that THAT.
Well at least there is a Navel slider with her!
So not enough polys, that when you sculpt they basically tear apart then?
I was really really hoping I was just being a conspiracy nut.... I was hoping I was wrong. I didnt want to be right... But heres the proof right in front of me.
Well 2019 is only 2 years away, LOL! Wadya think? Third time is a charm?
Victoria 4 has 62k....
Genesis has 19k... Genesis 1!!! G1 is more flexable then G8... G1... Just let that sink in for a second. Pick up on the pattern and its impossible to miss.
G2 had 21k I think it was an experiment. Then a huge dip from 21k to 17k... Dropping even lower then G1. Now. G8 is out. And Everything is an extra charge for "HD" which their "HD" morphs arnt even comparaible to G2 on base res. They are literally doing every artists worst nightmare right now... Outcasting anyone who isnt "in" I understand its their model but... This is unacceptable if I'm going to be spending hunreds of dollars on skins and clothing and hair and shaders... For this figure? No..Not a chance... Forget it.
Perhaps the idea is to get as close to game-ready as possible, and less (polys) is more in this case. V4 is still around and can wear the later gear.
I would believe that if there was 2 optional resulutions.
High res one, 30k, for render artists, and one for games @ 15k...
Then I wouldnt be upset. Then I would be really really happy in fact.
But thats not the case. Thats not what I'm seeing here. shes not being presented as a gaming figure. Shes being presented as a rendering figure...
We have a word for this. It's called regression... but where not really going backwards. It's fowards... So long as your the kind of person who likes to buy a morph. Dial it in, and click the make art button... But people like me.. They are trying to castrate us out of the loop. This will come back to haunt them one day cause people will stop buying stuff at this rate... They need to let people make art too... Or people lose their will and interest. At this point I have enough toys. I wont be supporting Daz anymore until they fix their tune about how they treat their customers like their stupid suckers with bigger wallets then brains.
I'm sticking with G3, I'm going to skip the G8 generation completly and utterly and wait for G9 and see, and if G9 isnt at least 20k polys I'm done with Daz indefinitely.
Forgive me if the answer to this question is terribly obvious, but I'm a relative 3D noob.
I've read that G8 can use G3 skins since it uses G3 UV maps. I thought that a UV map was basically an "unwrapping" of the 3D model with a 1:1 correspondence between poly's in the model and tri's on the map. But if G8 has significantly fewer polys, how can it use G3 UV maps?
Hmm honestly I havn't noticed a difference working on G8. I think some of the poly loss is in the eyes where geo has been simplified a bit. And nails are no longer separate but welded to the base. Both very welcome changes.
haha game ready. thats a good one :)
The problem with polygons wouldn't be a big deal if anyone could make hd morphs and work with subd figures... but we can't, so it is.
Looks as if it is suiting gaming and simple animations.
But the demand of photorealism (the claim of the iRay render engine) they're careless about.
That's not quite how UV maps work. The relationship is between the pixels on the texture map and the positions of the polygons laid over the map. Essentially, your "tri's on the map" are exactly the same polygons as in the figure. They are just for the sake of editing purposes, spread out on a flat surface.
You can therefore easily create UV maps for the same textures for figures with different polycounts. Your job as the person creating the UV map is to adjust how the geometry is laid over the texture map with a 3D modeler like 3d Studio, MODO, Maya or such you can make such adjustments to existing maps.
What has happened here is simply that the geometry on Gen 8 has been adjusted to fit the same textures as on Gen 3, despite Gen 8 having fewer polygons.
If you have zbrush, you would turn on dynamic subdivision and that will give you the illusion of more polygons. Just remember to either mask out the parts you don't want in zbrush or undo the polygons you don't want affected when you import using the Polygon editor in DS. Keep in mind you don't start off with HD morphs when you make a morph, so you use tools that allow for low poly sculpting or you overexaggerate your morph so it give the detail you need. i've been making morphs for genesis figures since the start. You don't need a whole bunch of polygons if you're using the right tools.
Also the lower polygons would be the result of the eye geometry simplication and the removal of eyelashes to make them conforming.You're probably working with the same amount of face geometry.
DAZ is a content seller. Genesis is still there for sculpter like you. G8 is here for end users like me. Period.
I'm not so much concerned with poly count as poly topology. For me Genesis 3 was a huge mistake in the toplology area, and Genesis 8 is exaclty the same, which stopped me from managing to successfuly recreate the body of my most important female character (some issues with the head too, but worse in the body).
History of DAZ figures:
M1 and M2 (same mesh) had a mesh toplogy with edgeloops outlining the main muscle groups, so you could morph definition and muscle bulk; V1 and V2 (same mesh as each other) had a completely different mesh topology with edge loops for morphing big boobs and butt, but not round the muscle groups, so you couldn't morph muscle definition on her (no HD back then). Then came original Stehanie, made by taking M1/2's mesh and changing it to the same shape as V1/V2 and giving it V1/2s rigginf. Looked like V1/2 but you could morph definition round the muscle groups - but very poor boob-and-butt morphing. V3/M3 (first same unimesh) - had edgeloops round the muscle groups and for boon-and-butt. Same with V4/M4. Same with Genesis. Same with Genesis 2 M and F.
Genesis 3 (actually the 7the gen figures) was first generation since the generation 1 and 2s not to have edgeloops round the main muscle groups. And this really, really sucked, unless you were a PA who could sculpt the mesh in 3rd party software at HD and import the morph at HD (or generate normal maps from it).
Here's the issue for a user like me who can't sculpt HD morphs for myself (haven't the tools, the skill, or the ability to concentrate that long - or the HD morph importer):
Its' all about variety in muscle/tendon etc definition that should be visible through the skin. Lot's of real life women - actresses. models, athletes of various kinds - show some muscle definition. Note DEFINTION, not muscle bulk. It's just body fat level, and plenty of actresses, models, athletes, gym bunnies and women with very physical jobs have a low enough fat level for some definition, even if they only have relatively small (and often with actresses and models VERY small) actual muscles. Nothing to do with bodybuilders (the only people who look like bodybuilers are bodybuilders - and off season bodybuilders can still have huge muscles but virtually no definition at all).
And the lack of edgeloops round many of the main muscle groups and tendons makes creating many actual real world looks just impossible for users like me. It's in three parts:
1) Many places in the body where one may want some definition - like the muscles over the lower ribs - there's just a plain square mesh. SD morphing is only vague, and tracks off according to however it works out with the subdivision and smoothing rather than following a body structure edge defininng edgeloop built into the topology. Just compare Bodybuilder details morph on G2F and G3F and G8F (don't need the bodybuilder bulk as well - it's the DEFINITION). The G2F version of the morph gives much more detail - because there are edgeloops there to morph. For the G3F and G8F versions of the DAZ morph, the name is a joke - as SD morphs they can't morph much deifnition at all comapred to g2F, Genesis, V4, even V3.
2) The lack of edgeloops defining these structures in the base mesh as there were in DAZ figure generations 3 to 6 means that the user is utterly reliant on DAZ and PA created HD morphs and/or normal maps for decent morphing. And DAZ HD Lvl 4 morphs just about kill my computer to render. Plus one is limited to what is made for sale - can't tweak morphs in a modeller like I did on previous generations.
3) The killer. With e.g. G2F, you can mix any morph - SD or HD - and any normal map, because when the morphs/normalmaps were created, all the creators could see which bit of the mesh was meant to be what structure, see the edges of thsoe structures, and get fold lines along those same structure-defining edgeloops. So any morphs or normal maps that created defined e.g. external oblique thoracics aligned with each other - everyone knew exactly which bit of mesh was which structure. Even if one morph say twisted something to a different angle, it would still combine with another morphs of that body structure, combing the twist with their effect Consequently, by mixing morphs and maps adding and subtracting from each other, you could morph any kin of definition you wanted - the definition of the genesis genepool. But with G3F - and G8F - all the people making the morphs in many areas just have a square grid, and when they make a rough SD morph whose actual edge is wherever the Subd level and smoothing take it on the mesh, or an HD morph or noaml map, they each pick their own bounds for structures like ribs, external oblique thoraci muscles because there are no outlining edgeloops in the mesh - AND THE MORPHS AND NORMAL MAPS DON'T ALIGN. DAZ and all the artists are using anything from slightly to very different parts of the emsh for the same structures. So one CAN'T just mix SD Morphs, HD morphs nd normal maps as one could with G2F. If you take the external oblique thoracics as one example (of many), the GIa 7, Karen 7, Eva 7, Rune 7, Opehelia 7, RAWArt MAssive (at low levels) Sd and HD morphs and normal maps, and the Bodybuilder or Fitness Details and ShapeShifter Torso morphs, the Musculature morphs affecting that area, etc just don't combine - they all think the edges of muscles adn tendons are in different places on the mesh, and if you try to combine a few then Bad Things happen. Depending which, at best defined parts are 'smeared' where two morphs or normal maps don't quite align but are close; in the middle are things like a muscle suddenly bifurcates at the end where it shouldn't because the morphs and or normla maps decide different bits of the mesh are included at the end; and at the worst is Rune 7 where the normal maps and the HD morph (and to a lesser extent the SD morph) can't be used with ANYTHING else that adds any definition to a number of bodyparts because it has the edges of structures at radically different angles. (If the G3F/G8F mesh just had the main muscle bounding edgeloops of G2F you could make a figure with exactly the same shape and detail as Rune 7 morphs and normal maps but which would play with all the other G2F morphs and normal maps - because e.g. the external obliques, while twisted to a different angle, would be the same mesh as those parts in other morphs; in G3F as it is it's totally different mesh beijng morphed to be those structures, and if you mix it with anything else you get a checkerborard interference pattern instead of muscles and ribs). Basically you can only use certain characters as they are without mixing in any of the other morpsh or maps that would affect the definitions ... which would be OK if DAZ or a PA made a figure with morphs and normal maps exactly as I want for my characters - but they don't. DAZ and DAZ PAs have always been terrible at producing a range of the different kinds of real world athletic and/or BMI level figures, with almost all falling into only two types (and one of those messed up by having way oversize breasts that are very hard to morph away to something like most athletes actually have), ignoring all the rest. Up to and incuding G2F I could mix up all the other real world types I wanted, but with G3F killing the mixing of morphs of these features that's it, and G8F seems to be identical with G3F looking at the UV templates.
End result,, I can't get the degree of deifnition i want (NOT a bodybuilder, but is quite athletic and has a low BMI) on G3F, despite having bought every product that affects any of the details I want BECAUSE I CAN'T MIX THEM. The lack of major muscle, tendon and near-surface bones outlining edgeloops effectively massively affects and removes lots of mixing possibilities and drains the Genesis 3 - and 8 - genepool. Making my (real world based) character body types with G2F - easy: combined a bunch of morphs and normal maps from many different products, all of which combine with each other additively and subtractively.
So, Mesh Topology of the body. G3F terrible. G8F exactly the same. No major muscle group, tendon and near surface bone edge defining edgeloops as in all previous generations from 7th to 3rd, which utterly desstoys the ability to mix morphs, especially HD morphs, and norrmal maps that produce such details. For the simple reason that without those body structure defining edgeloops, all creators of the morphs and maps have no guide where to put the edges and folds of the features, so all the products contradict each other as to which bits of mesh are actually in the structures, where the fold lines should be, and the morphs mess each other up when you try to mix them.
I am so, so disappointed. Something with the main body surface topology of G2F and then whatever-the-hell in fingers annd nailbeds and whatever and I'd have been overjoyed. But this is just another figure I can't get the body details i want because the morphs and normal maps won't work together to mix what I need.
Well, despite initially seeing the problem in Genesis 3, I did keep buying all products - DAZ and PA - affecting these areas of body deifnition and low BMI morphing in the hope that somehow a few would work togethr to give what I wanted. But it's all been a huge waste of money, adn I never managed to morph the figure I want (as I did with G2F). What's that saying about an idiot being someone who keeps on doing the same thing aand expecting a different result? Those missing edgeloops mean all the G8F body-defining products aren't going to match up on G8F aither, so that's it - not buying all the stuff for it.
Feel sick, actually.
Genesis 1 was a huge leap ahead, but may have been too huge a leap. The fact that you can still stand a well made Genesis 1 character with anything released after (without relying on HD morphs) is a testament to that.
I'm extraordinariliy confused. Someone please explain this to me like I'm a 2-year old because I know absolutely nothing about modeling. If poly count and topology matter as much as Angel-Wings and DavidGB say they do, then why do so many artists use all of this tech, and why do I keep seeing so much amazing art featuring it?
I believe I spoke to you about this before. Because the edgeloops for muscle definition was removed, it actually makes it better to create different body types that actually mix better together. And you can do that without pulling out the definition that you would have done before in previous generations. This is how I can get different body types as show below. Your assertion in the post are actually false:
Note and these shapes were created in low poly BEFORE I added any HD details on them. You simply need the proper tools to do the job.
Whit zBrush u can take a 8k game mesh make them look killer with vetor maps ,displacement maps ,normal maps.
I'm good with a 8k Vicky
Thanks for the reply Henrikmk, I think I understand it a bit better now.
I am not a modeller/Sculpter/contentcreator but I do understand at least logically your frustration here. I would simply point out that there are many different types of users of DAZ content and we all have different levels of knowledge and utilization. By creating Genesis 8 as they have, DAZ has simply expanded their market again in a way.
Also as someone said before " up post" from my comment:
Nnot everyone has the most powerful PC's and the latest and greatest Nvidia card. For those people ( of which I am one) fewer polygons is most likely a very good thing.
Hah, that's nothing. I can do with 1 poly Vicky. Just create a plane, and plant a 4k picture of a real life person on it, and you are golden. As a bonus, with that 1 poly Vicky you also get environment and real life dynamic clothing. So much details that you won't believe, skin always looks completely life-like and lighting comes in the same package. It has quite limited posing capabilities, but it renders lightning fast... Heh, seriously speaking, currently displacement maps do not really work with Iray. I have never really even tried 3Delight, so maybe with that engine displacement maps are a valid option.
What I remember is that I was never able to get more than 5 gen4 figures into a scene and be able to render it. I once managed up to 18 Genesis 1 figures. The program slowed to a crawl. But it rendered fairly quickly.
For scene building, I'd call that a win.
I thought the HD morphs were for hi-res rendering
So it is not so much a limit for the end users like myself, as for some sculptors with more limited tools and access to make the morphs they need. So myself as a dial spinner and poser the newer and better looking G8 is a good thing, but it continues to limit others. Got it now I think.
In principle there is nothing wrong with reducing the number of polys in the base mesh, IF it is also possible to morph a subdivided mesh in zbrush (or whichever program you like). However as timmins said, it is not! So V8 remains at least as much as a problem as V7. Whether or not the lost polys are in invisible or less important areas remains to be seen (by most of us at least). What is clear is that the hobbyist sculpter has no benefit in using V8. I almost never render an unmorphed genesis 3 figure and many of the morphs I use are custom made not bought from the DAZ store. I do use store bought morphs, but I usually tweek them in zbrush. As the Genesis figures become lower and lower resolution in base form, morphing becomes more and more difficult. This could be solved in an instant by allowing morphing of subdivided figures. Yes, I know many HD effects can be achieved by making and applying maps, but I'd much prefer to morph a higher resolution mesh. The new expression system for V8 seems interesting, but I know I would want to further morph the face and body. V8 is not making my life any easier, I'll probably give it a miss until HD sculpting is made available by DAZ or somone else.
I've probably mentioned this multiple times but HD sculpting adds only detail, so you need to learn how to use tools that manipulate low poly meshes. HD is not sculpting on subdivided meshes, it's adding extra detail to low poly meshes that you've already created.
Indeed you have, ad nauseum. We have a fundamental disagreement and of course you are in the right, you have told me so many times. Not to worry, we will continue to disagree and you will continue to tell me that you are right. :)