Alex & Hunter are (Essentially) the Same Mats
Patroklos
Posts: 533
I had no idea about this. The words "uniquely custom sculpted in Zbrush" is used in the advertising blurb in both cases. It goes on to say the "skin was created using high quality photo references" not pointing out that exactly the same photo reference had been used on one or more other mats. They each have "7 Realistic Eye Colours". So the "uniquely" bit is mentioned, and the very much not unique bit is not mentioned. For sure they both have different optional Tattoos, and the body shapes are a bit different, are there other differences?
I feel that I have paid twice for the same thing.
Has this happened in other cases?
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Well, they are similar. FW does great work and he comes out with many characters quickly. I'm not a PA but I'm assuming they use the same photo references on multiple characters, especially ethnic ones because some are difficult to get. There's nothing wrong with that, though it can be annoying when everyone decides to leave in the same mole for authenticity. I have that issue on a few female characters from multiple PAs. There's a huge mole in the left armpit that I keep photoshopping out whenever I find it.
Anyhow, let's look at these guys side by side: first is Alex, second is Hunter
The morphs are different. The skin looks like it's a different hue, though that could be lighting differences. Facial hair is slightly different. Tattoos options are different between the characters. The eyebrows look the same (there are products in the store to change that if you want to.) They definitely look like they're related, but that's not surprising since every PA has their own style when making characters and you learn to identify it pretty quickly once you've shopped here for a while. If you bought them within the past 30 days, you can always return one (or both) for any reason. In the future, if a character seems too similar, you could always wishlist it and wait for another sale. Those are bound to happen.
EDITED TO ADD: Sometimes user renders will look totally different from promos. Waiting to see how they look in other people's renders who have bought a character can help too. If you don't have Ati and Overdrawn's DAZ Deals plug in, it's worth installing. It includes a link on every product page to gallery renders using that product. It's a very helpful feature.
Hello Llynara and thank you for your comments.
I find it quite easy to change the skin shading, indeed I quite enjoy doing it to try and draw something different out. These two have two small marks on the left side of the face, nose & jaw, and a largely healed injury under the eye. I have not looked so closely at the right side of the face. I have no issue with the quality of the mats, and welcome the light shade of the base as its easy to add colour but not easy to take it away. I also welcome the stubble/no stubble option. I would have been much happier if an option without these blemishes had been offered on at least one of them so as to make it possible to offer more distinctly different characters.
As to the shapes, yes, I do find it worth paying for different body and particularly head shapes, however these two characters are indeed very similar, with Hunter looking as though lithe or thin has been added to the mix.
Overally I feel that these characters are too similar.
At some point it might be better to revisit the whole unique character thing. Sell a skin pack. Sell a morph pack, but it seems odd to me to buy the same skin-resourced product over and over as an original item, when it is not.
FW's characters are all nice looking but he often appears to use the same skin resource. It is obvious if you pull up the skin texture and take a gander. Usually something is altered like the base color, or a tattoo, or the eyebrows, but yep, same basic skin. He isn't the only PA who does that.
I put in a ticket recently because FW makes the same mistake on a particular body part. The same texture is getting used with the same error. I find it frustrating that this keeps happening.
I know where you mean, two eyes are not better than one if a brown eye
It's one of those market things where people just are generally less willing to buy products that aren't morphs AND textures
I certainly have bought characters without textures, Boris being one I use a lot.
And some I have bought for the textures mostly by Morris or Mortem Vetus, but yeah a package seems popular to most, I rarely actually use the matching textures on a character myself on purpose and have been slowly converting all my M4 ones in particular with Ultimate Unwrap 3D repaint to the G3M mapping.
Recently I've been looking at characters as morphs and textures seperately as well. Many of the free characters on say sharecg have a nice morph, but I won't be using the texture that came with them. I think I would prefer seperate skin and morphs, then I could mix and match easier.
I've definitely started preferring morphs and skins sold separately. I like the LY body/face packs, for example, plus Skin Builder or the Fantasy Skins product. My only problem is that I have to remember to look in the Shaping tab rather than the Figures tab to see those morphs. There's probably a way around that though.
I sort of think character creation should be restructured. Sort of like a clothing room. Choose shape, texture, size all independently of the bundled character concept. Buying the same skin resource over and over or base figures with their own Uvs that new content is never made for again does not make a lot of sense. Pa's can release shapes, figure expansions morphs and skins. The user should be able to change skin tone, hair and eye color to make their own figures.
I too never really use characters as they come in the store unless as a background character. I prefer mixing the skins and morphs around
if you're within 30 days you could return 1 of them.
or ask for a store credit in the refund amount, is handy.
BTW, I have no idea how one can refund an item. And I never could find an answer to this question.
Click on Help at the top of the page
Then Contact US link
TheSubmit A Help Ticket
You then fill in the form and select Sales under Contact department.
One of the problems I can see with separate skins and morphs is that non-HD characters rely on good normal maps to add details and give the appearance of HD. When you apply those to a morph other than the one the skin was designed for you can end up with mismatched details. Also skin texture details such as wrinkles, eye creases, lips and brows can look all wrong on a different morph. Obviously the more extreme the character, the more individual the skin would be. I imagine separate skin packs would need to be lacking such detail (as most MR skins are) and might ultimately offer less variety than a full character.
I do it all the time too! But as end users we can use/abuse our purchases however we like, and ignore hidden/ subtle mismatches. As a universal skin product going to market though, I can see it being an issue.
Thank you very much!
isn't that what we have now?
No we have uvs for characters which are made with no new characters beyond initial release date. I'm thinking something more like the sims creation screen if you've ever payed that.
They just need to look at the anatomical elements textures from this pa. It is very bizarre that the same error keeps happening and slightly annoying now since it keeps happening.
Which version, though? ;)
Okay, I'll bite. Does that mean there's an error that gives him two of those? Because so far I haven't been able to find even the one he's supposed to come with. Maybe I need better equipment. Not to mention a medical degree.
Seriously though, if anyone has more info about this mistake, especially advice on how to fix it -- though it's unlikely I'll be doing any scenes requiring a closeup of that -- please do PM me with the relevant details.
I think the problem is that most character creators don't separate skins from morphs, because they have a certain visual concept in mind when creating the combination. This is compounded by thr fact that skin resource kits don't generally sell in the same volume as "character sets" do, so it ends up being more feasible for them to live on the income.
The Elite texture series for V4 and M4 were just skins, though the M4 sets, which came out a little later than V4's, included face presets for the guys used in the promos. I think only Marie of the female sets came with a face. I use these textures a lot on dial characters I make for Generation 4, Genesis, and Genesis 2.
I'd definitely buy more products like the Achilles HD head morph for G3M -- and it's also more in my budget range. I wouldn't have minded paying a bit more for a matching body shape too.
I think enough characters are fairly cookie cutter that a type of universal skins will work well enough for most people and a lot of characters. If something specialzed is needed, then make a unique skin. If you have a particular vision than by all means go for it.
Endless creations of UV's for one character that never has anything made for it again? I'm not sure how sustainable that is and people don't like it. Scott 6 never had anything made for him again ever. Do we need that additional UV for anything but fitting the limited Scott material?
Endless copies of the same skin with a mole or an eyebrow different and a bit of tint added to the skin? Don't need that either. A skin pack would do just as well for this type of creation.
Actually, during one of the webinars over at Digital Art Live, that question came up, and the PA who held the webinar explained that "in the old days", you'd have enough income from a skin/character that it was financially solid if you hired a model and took a day or three to have a photoshoot that covered the entire body in the detail you needed. Nowadays, with living expenses also increasing for the PAs, hiring a model to do it "the old way" just isn't an option any more. Sources that supply human skin pics appear not to have the proper detail that is needed, or the skion has some other problems that makes it unusual for 3D. Hence, the merchant resource leather rinse repeat.
Perhaps, this would be something for a crowd funding project - make skin pics of ten people of various ethnicies and gender, and do so every year...
Every character sold at any store is the artist's vision of the character, even if the skin is similar to another one.
As far as I know, Genesis 3 is the last one that has separate UVs for the DO characters.
Perhaps you and others on the forum don't, but not everyone cares to scrutinize the skin textures of every character they buy to see how similar it is to another one they have.
That's kind of the point, we don't want to have to scrutinize textures to find out how many nearly exact duplicates we have. I'd like at least the option to install morphs separately from textures for this reason.
Everyone's 3D needs and how they use the technology are different. I seldom if ever seek to reproduce another's exact character. So reprodcing Someone's vision isn't a goal of mine. I want the morphs and skins to use for different products. This is why repeat textures have less value to me.