This is what I was afraid of.
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Yeps, that certainly does the trick........I use Substance Painter and paint normal, height and displacement maps straight on the model......BTW, the fewer polygons the simpler morphing becomes......especially of the corrective variety and those are needed in raw quantities for any Genesis mesh and guarnmemt. Since well Autofitting isn't that cool......try autofittting a shirt to Genesis 8 and make the little punk raise her arms.....or also fun take a fitted guanment from one of the PA's and turn of all the morphs.....you'll be amazed. And remember most of these morphs are custom made......that takes more then 80% of the work (in my experience) and that involves a lot of back and forth between DAZ and modeling program. Genny raise your left arm, make the guarnment not visible, export her to .obj, make the guarnment vissible, make Genny disappear, export the distorted guarment as .obj.......import both in your modelling tool, in my case Blender so check the bloody "Keep vertex order" checkbox from hell. Grab sculpt mode and restore the guarnment.....save everything (check the Selection only and keep vertex order checkboxes again), export the cleaned up mesh to DAZ and replace the standard JCM with a new one and test, and if all went well things should work now. And that for all major bonegroups.....no better templates are the way to go, so I grow my own....they have there shortcummings as well, but they make life just a little easier. And with G8 it's back to square one again.
greets, Artisan
Displacement maps work nearly as well, even in DAZ3D Iray and you get more or less the same effect without the higher polycount so probably also lighter on the render......but that needs to be checked. BTW, I love this work especiall\y the molerat is cute as hell :-).
Greets. Artisan.
Now lets be frank, how high poly is that high poly HD thingy....1 level extra, 2 levels extra....frankly I own a few HD characters and I am bit molish but I personally only spot the difference in a head to head (in the litteral sense of the word) comparison and then I must zoom in pretty far up to a point that I would poke the photographer in the eye if I were Vicky :-), human skin is not meant for extreme closeup.
Greets, Artisan...
...same here, I purchase more merchant, morphing, and skin resource than I do clothing or character content. For me it is a much better investment as I can create my own characters. Having spent months perfecting teen and even child characters for my writing using V4 (as there were none at the time) I became very comfortable working morphing and shaping. When I do pick up a new Genesis figure, it has to offer something unique to the gene pool and then it is only the base model rather than one of the Starter or Pro bundles, as too often they include content I would rarely if ever use (particularly skimpwear and fantasy themed clothing/accessories).
For me G3 was a pain at first solely because of the skin mapping change that precluded using older skins which I felt reduced the versatility even more than gender split with G2. With the release of Beautiful Skins for Iray and now Skin Builder Pro 3 (along with morph/shaping resource content that I have been adding to my library) that all changed, as for my purposes they finally made G3 far more useful.
...agh 01:35 nodding off here as there has been way to much to sift through. Time for bed.
I'm frustrated by lack of access to the HD morphs, too, because I like to do weird creatures and having some more polygons to put a spiracle or something would be incredibly useful.
That said, Normals and occasional displacement do pretty well -- I just like the ability to mix and match morphs and skins more.
Ah well!
Of course the other problem I'm having right now is that if I want to make marketable characters, which flipping figure should I use??
maisie?
heh,
--ms
Hmmm, I think I have to take my words back. Displacement maps do work in Iray ( I could swear that they didn't, when I tested them earlier ). This is with subD displacement 5, but lower values do give decent results
Normal face shader without subD renders in my system in about 20 seconds, and with subD5 it takes about 55 seconds, but to get that kind of result from sculpting, you'd probably need tons of polygons so increase in render times in understandable. I didn't have time to test in my lunch hour how much difference using real skin shader would make, but at least it looks like that newer versions of Iray at least support displacement maps, but you just have to crank up the subD. For test I took some scale mail normal map, and changed it black&white, so it's just a test. Of course, if you only wanted to increase few details for the eyes or something, using SubD displacement level for entire material zone might get little taxing, but at least a quick test seems to show that displacement works.
I don't know what HD morphs can do, since I'm not a PA, but I assume you can change polygon/vertex count with those. And even if you don't think human skin should be used for closeup pictures, or don't see any noticeable difference with HD morphs, why does that make any difference to you if I'd like to be able to use those. It takes absolutely nothing away from you. Those HD morphs are there for a reason, and I honestly believe with those you can improve you mesh. PAs would not use those otherwise, don't you agree?
Well I am eterenally grateful that I can now render a character so more realistically with her arms held up vertically and with a so-called "realistic" extreme expression on her face. Just what I've been waiting for.... an army of Victorias praying to the Daz marketing department.
I did not respond because I went to bed. But as you saw from Joequick's comparison, you could make those nipples with a normal map without the extra steps of HD if you wanted. It just goes back to no one even trying. For end users, a normal map is easier; and most of that is because no one has tried to even do any low poly techniques. You need to learn that first because HD isn't a shortcut.. it's a commerical tool that require more steps that you don't make messes of the genesis gene pool with morphs that aren't properly done and cause issues with clothing fitting the morphs. And it shouldn't be hard to do: Make a low poly nipple morph to the size you want, subdivide that and add the detail you want around it and make that a normal map. Aside from the normal map, you would be doing the same flow for HD.. but there would be more steps after that. That's the part no one seems to get in these discussions.
@Joequick. for the argument of the end user, my comment about normal maps is correct. There is more complexity to making HD morphs especially for human characters; if they haven't even tried with normal maps, they are going to truly make a mess thinking HD will directly solve their problems. It's this lack of understanding and use that keeps the tool under wraps. It is what it is, so it's best learn low poly techniques and get used to that workflow. The longer no one adopts these techniques, the longer it would take for any type of HD tool release because the first part is absolutely necessary.
Oh, HD morphs vs normal/displacement maps again :)
There are things that you cannot do with normals/displacement which is trivial with morphs:
At the same time I agree that taking into consideration the general state of development tools in Studio it would be not practical to release HD tools to the public adding even more burden :) It'd be better to open .dhdm format instead.
About polycount in G8F - it's basically the same mesh as G3F. Removed polys belonged to eyelashes (now separate figure God know why) and nails (nails now are 'embedded' into fingers, not separate islands). Eyes also changed a little. So nothing is lost resolution-wise compared to G3F.
If you want higher resolution figure you always can subdivide/export/import/transfer rigging. But personnaly I would like the saving/loading of LODs to return (sorrily this will require major changes in DSON format).
I did bother actually. Yara (released a few days ago) includes a HD nipple and navel morph.
https://www.daz3d.com/yara-hd-for-genesis-3-female
Some nude renders here: http://bluejauntepa.deviantart.com/gallery/
To be honest I done understand why people insist on
Daz releasing the vendor HD tools to the general user.
More visible HD skin details only serve as a scathing indictment
of how far behind the Daz hair technology has become by comparison.
You are never going to fool even the most uninitiated
layperson ,into believing your Iray render is"photorealistic"
with essentially the same hair technology from the 1990's era of poser4.
Sure Fiber mesh may be passable for mens facial hair
if it is properly done, Like MEC4D's unshaven for the G2 male.
But for long head hair Daz studio needs a spline based System
like Blenders or the one we have in C4D.
I did not want to participate in any discussions until after the release excitement has calmed down.
One questions seems important enough to answer tough:
For the same reasons DAZ Studio Pro was made available for free:
- Grow the DAZ3D community as a whole
- Improve the quality of content available for the whole DAZ3D community
- Give everyone access to the creator tools to people can learn how to use them
- - -
Edited:
The quality of 3d models in the DAZ3D store is stagnating. Instead of new artists who bring in new ideas you have the same old crowd creating 3d models with the same old technologies as before.
Only a bare minimum of the existing DAZ3D artists seem to be willing to actually learn how to use the tool.
However, artists like Josh Crockett have shown that clearly more would be possible:
https://www.daz3d.com/josh-crockett
- - -
As long as this tool is not shared with the community new artists can not learn how to use it.
-> FIRST you learn how to use the tool
-> THEN you deceide if you want to create licensed content for this community
You can not expect Zbrush artists to "blindly" sign up to a non disclosure agreement as published artists at DAZ3D just to find out afterwards that they may not like the workflow.
- - -
DAZ3D used to be both:
A provider of software and a provider of licensed content.
If a company would care about the quality of their software they would make sure to include all the tools with the goal to provide the best possible software for everyone.
The DAZ3D community as a whole risks to loose if this "infighting and arguing for selfish reasons" does not stop.
If the customers do not have access to all tools they cannot compete with other artists who use more professional software with more advanced features.
If customers can not earn money by making a living with computer graphics then customers have no more money to spare to buy licensed 3d content.
I choose DAZ3D because it provided both professional content creation tools and licensed content.
Stop driving a gap between customers and content creators.
Everyone needs to have access to the same toolkit.
This was the whole idea of making DAZ Studio PRO free for everyone.
- - -
I think what @Male-M3dia is trying to get across to folks is that you don't NEED a hi poly base to work with; there are a lot of folks that are so used to working with 30k+ polygons that they simply cannot grasp the concepts behind how the HD tool works.
Thank you also.
Future PAs most often start as general users, who reach their potential and decide to take it to the next level because they want more professional results. It makes no sense to criticise those users on their lay efforts and then deny them access to the tools they would need in order to achieve a higher level product.
To my mind the issue of wether the users understand
its function is not even relevant here.
The "HD tool "is proprietary DAZ technology.
DAZ gets to decide who has access to it even for
Market share control reasons.
Why should Daz be held to a different standard than any other
company that only provides certain level of access to its
registered developers.
This is a gratuitous assertion based on no publicly
available statement or Data.
A classic loss leader business model
of giving away the software so people can spend their money
on Paid content at the same webstore,
does not mean completely handing over all of your IP.
On balance I would say that the transfer tools and morph loader
tool being made free for all was the smartest thing Daz has done.
People have already Shown that HD morphs can be done with other
software. if one is really serious about it one has those options.
Exactly the opposite is the case:
DAZ3D is held to the SAME standard as Pixologic, Autodesk, Maxon, Sony, Adobe as a provider of Creative Software.
Imagine Pixologic would witheld some brushes from the ZBrush community, create a store and then sell content created with those brushes to the rest of the community who do not have access.
Unthinkable. The whole community would be in an uproar.
This is true. Everyone has access to the developer toolkit for iphone development, but that doesn't give you complete access to everything on the phone. Some of that is reserved by Apple. For instance, try to make an app that allows you to share your internet connection without jailbreaking your phone. You won't get far.
We are talking about the creative industry.
The point of creative software is to provide content creation tools.
I can not think of any other company in the creative industry that
- has a software
- has a store with licensed content
- grants access to exclusive creation tools to a select few partners
- - -
The opposite is the normal business practice:
Example E-on vue:
Everyone has access to all creation tools in vue.
Everyone can learn how to use all tools of the software.
All products in the content store were created with public tools.
- - -
My impression is that DAZ3D has a conflict of interest by taking two positions in the supply chain.
- providing software
- providing licensed 3d content.
-> It is time to adress that conflict of interest and focus once again on the responsibilities as a software provider.
- - -
Note: instead of no posts I made now three posts allready. I will now "bow out" and return when emotions are less high.
Normal maps for "HD" do not work. It's diffacult and if you mess it up you have to re-render it over and over. They create seams in the mesh and do random weird things... They are a messy sloppy way of making "HD". I like true geomettry, not fake "illusions". And plus, you cant mix n match or save them as morphs to apply to another actor. Especually in Iray where Normal Maps literally are fake. If you angle the surface you can see that its flatter then a pancake. It dosnt acutaly change a thing... It's an illusion. And a simple rasing the mess Up or Down isnt enough. Some morphs, like the corners of the eyes are angled. Same with Navels, and arm pit wrinkles. Nose Wrinkles, Brow wrinkles, glute lines. The list goes on and on.
Sony?? LOL!!!
They are the poster child for proprietatry closely held formats
,to their ultimate undoing in many respects.
If DAZ was anything like sony we would not even be able
to import or export any content from studio at all
https://www.fastcompany.com/1290466/sonys-long-list-format-failure-betamax-memorystick-micro
And as a ten year Maxon User I know that the Internal code to their
limited cloth engine is not avaible outside Maxon inc.
Because if it were we would not all be using external options
like Syflex ,DAZ ,poser .
Someone long ago would have used the SDK and given C4D's cloth engine the ability
to do dynamic clothing on moving characters that it still can NOT do today
I don't know if this is the right place to mention it but, has anyone else had a ton of issues with the studio update? Luckily I had the last version on my computer still. It seems like they rushed this update out, to coincide with V8. The sliders are almost unresponsive in real time as I'm adjusting morphs. It's frozen my mouse (no idea what that's about) several times while adding lights and such to iray previews, to the point where I have to restart my computer and lose all of my unsaved work. I have no issues at all with the previous version.
They do work, there are several PAs that started with genesis using normal maps for their characters because HD did not exist. It does require practice to make them. Also when V4 released, how many people used the mesh to make wrinkles, or did they just paint on specular textures to give the illusion?
Yeah, I've been facing the weird proposition that if I want access to the vendor tools I have to first impress Daz enough with some other different product, because I can't work out how to use a tool I don't have access to to try to pitch Hd stuff.
It's a weird and stupid catch-22, but oh well.
I'm sure eventually a solution will surface. If DAZ becomes popular enough there will be more interest in this, and different methods will be developed. I don't think one can cap the genie bottle for too long. Regardless of how much some PA's or the store may want it.
Genesis is a low poly mesh. To impress them enough to get access to the HD tool, wouldn't it make sense to show what you could do with a low poly mesh and a normal map? It's not a catch-22, that's the workflow you would need to even start on the road to use the tools. Also do you know what a projection morph is? That's important as well. I mean that's how some of the new character makers came on board.
EDIT: Let's go over how easity this scenario would be using Joequick's image:
You went through the process of making a character, and texture it using the low poly mesh. You took a copy of that mesh and subdvided it, making the details and saving that out as a normal map. You render an image of the the finished character and send to DAZ3D: "This is my finished character with the normal maps for sale, if you accept it for sale, I think adding the HD to it would make it work better." Then the review team either accepts or rejects your product based on what you've shown... and gives you access to the tools based on that decision as well.
What part of that was so difficult to do where you had trouble visualizing your work without a using a tool you don't have access to?
Oh well, I give up or this would be an endless loop. First I'd post a closeup photo of an old man with lots of wrinkles, and you'd post a guy from 3 meters away, and tell something about low poly sculpting and normal maps. Then I'd point out that your pic has nothing to do with closeup photos, old men or their wrinkles, and urge you to show how you'd do those gazillion wrinkles with normal maps. Then of course you would reply, that I'm not ready for that level yet, and I need to learn low poly sculpting and normal maps first, before I'm ready for the big leagues. Then I'd post a pic of an old wrinkled man and..... So let's just save ourselves from a lot of trouble, and just agree to disagree...what you say?
When it comes to availability of HD morphs, yeah, I'd sure like to have access, but I still don't think Daz has any kind of responsibility to release those to the general public. It's their software and models, and they can do whatever they want with those. Daz has already given us lots of tools, and I'm grateful, but improper use of those current tools will mess up my models already, so I don't think they try to save us from mistakes. Personally I think, that keepig those HD morphs a secret has nothing to do with low poly sculpting or normal maps, and it's a calculated business decision to give their vendors an edge against competing vendors. Of course we could argue about freeware this and that, but in the end it's always about $. If keeping HD morphs a secret helps Daz keep DS free, go ahead, but please don't try to blame it on end users lack of understanding of low poly techniques or normal maps. That just sounds really condescending.
Wow, she looks really good. I don't know how I missed her, but thanks for the heads-up
Let's go though
Even if no one believes that the process is more extensive to make HD than a normal map, yes it's ulitmately DAZ3D's brand, and they're under no obligation to give it away. You have industry standard techniques to add detail in lieu of not having access to a tool only a few have access to. But I'm not being condescending if you're not trying to understand that you need to learn how to use low poly techniques to even use the HD tool. It REQUIRES a low poly sculpt. If you're arguing that you need more polys to even make a low poly sculpt, you're instantly dead in the water when it comes to the tool.