ISO history of Aiko 3
TSasha Smith
Posts: 27,255
I am trying to find the basic history of Aiko 3. Like when was she released? what were some major developments for her? I want some info about her for a report I am working on.
Post edited by TSasha Smith on

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This is more of a general history, but might be a good place to start:
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/24257/daz-3d-human-figures-a-history/p1
I don't know if it's all accurate (I only joined in 2010 well into Gen 4) but this might have the info you need: http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewthread/24257/
ETA: Snap!
Also, this can be a bit hard to find. Here's the (discontinued) product page for the original Aiko (released 5/31/2002)
http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/read_me/index/673/start
Ands while I'm poking around in documentation, here's Aiko 3's page (released 11/23/2004):
http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/read_me/index/2866/start
Aiko3 doent have her own dedicated wiki page?
Closest thing is this: https://poserdazfreebies.miraheze.org/wiki/Aiko_3
i thought wikipedia was pretty much, open, surprised no one here created a page for her.
Here is a Poser render I just did of Aiko 3.
...I have the original AIko
"i thought wikipedia was pretty much, open, surprised no one here created a page for her."
Actually, not that surprising, despite the popularity of the figure enjoyed amongst the community here. Wikipedia, unlike many wikis, has rather more stringent rules regarding their content. Anyone not familiar with technical writing and/or publishing papers would find things rather restrictive. They basically have what is commonly referred to as a style guide that must be adhered to. For example, everything I have said here in this post would require citations and references. i.e. what popularity? what community? what rules? And they tend to frown heavily on the use of unsubstantiated opinions, no matter how casually they might be expressed..
Hmmm, doing some research. A few of the articles are mentioning Daz3D originally being Zygote, but the problem with that is that Zygote still exists. They are still in operation in American Fork, UT, having been established in 1994. They currently do highly detailed 3D anatomy models for other software, but not for Poser or Daz Studio.
I'm sure there's a story there, but I'm doubtful that I'll get any clarity here if there was any 'bad blood' involved. Also, the backstory doesn't particularly interest me, but if the info out on the net is inaccurate, well that's not a good thing...
I'd love to see more renders of the original Aiko, especially with the default pose from a few angles, as I wouldn't mind taking a crack at replicating and updating her as G3/G8. But she's been EOL'd, along with Victoria 1 & 2... The only picture I can find of the original Aiko (Anime/Manga Character) via the internet is the one I shared above (from the Daz documentation page).
Zygote spun its Poser division off to form Daz 3D, while it concentrated on support for the 3D suites.
Was the first Aiko originally released as a freebie? I'm sure I had her but she isn't in my product library. That usually means an old freebie when you didn't go through the store to "buy" them for $0.00
I might have a look through my old backups to see if i can find her installer, but I expect I have lost her.
I don't believe so, my recollection is that the original Stephanie was a freebie with purchase of Michael 2 but that Aiko was not free, even conditionally.
There were several articles I saw mentioning Aiko 3 being given away for free, as part of some promo, sometime around 2004-2006.
I'd still like to see some Aiko 1 renders. Yeah, she's primitive by today's standards, but I'm still curious.
Aiko 3 wasn't the original, though.
Yes I know. I was simply pointing out that I saw several mentions of Aiko 3 being given away for free as part of some promo in the mid-2000s, as perhaps that might have been what Peter Wade was thinking of.
I recall some -- or maybe all? -- the Generation 3 figures being available for free at a download site, though I've forgotten the name of it. I think the figures were LE or LR versions, except for Hiro 3, who was fully loaded.
I mostly remember this because it caused all sorts of trouble for the RTEncoder thing when I bought Melody and Micah at RDNA years back. Littlefox had to unencode the figures for me before I could use the morphed CR2s.
Yes, almost all of the bases were free for a while.
I'm pretty sure I paid for Aiko 3. My memory is very vague on this but I think I got the original Aiko, then when Aiko 3 came out I wondered if the two Aikos could wear the same clothes, I found they couldn't after I bought Aiko 3. The question is, if I did buy the original Aiko why isn't she in my product library? Even Victoria the original Millenium Woman is there. Unless I didn't get the original Aiko, but I'm fairly sure I did ... maybe I'm having a senior moment.
There was a period for a couple of years that *all* of the DAZ bases were free. Not sure about the original Aiko, but everything that was a DAZ O human base character that was still in the store was free. A3 was certainly included. Possibly in a, LE edition. But definitely all of the gen 3 character bases were included in that offer. And I am pretty sure that the Mil gilrls and Mil boys were as well. (Not sure whether the rest of gen 2's line up was still in the store by then, and pretty sure that gen 1 wasn't.)
I *think* that this policy was around the tag end of gen4, or possibly the first year of Genesis 1. I am pretty sure that I only downloaded Freak 3 during this period and my download date for him was mid-2011.
I literally have no content for her, not even hair. But this is her as default minus changing her material zone (Of which she has some head zones, a pubic hair zone, and one skin zone) black so as not to have her nekkid and break the forum rules. Out of the box, no pose or anything.
This is exactly what I needed! (short of the actual model, not that I could do much with it either.).
You rock! Very very much appreciated!
Thanks FWIW!!!
---
It'll be a bit before I take a crack at this, and obviously I'll need to take a few liberties updating to Genesis 8F while doing my best to maintain her proportions, etc, but I'll share my results eventually... if someone else doesn't beat me to it.
Early 2010 DAZ "gave away" all of their "human" base figures, they even added A4, G4 and the rest of the Gen4 characters into the mix, so yes you could have gotten the original Aiko for free at that time.
There was a free SciFi bundle that included an Aiko
As well, Aiko 3 and Hiro 3 (with clothing, hair, etc.) were provided on a CD that came with a copy of 3D WORLD MAGAZINE # 86; I think they might have been offered with 3D ARTIST as well (I'd have to dig though my storage boxes of old magazines to confirm).
As to Stephanie/Aiko/"Maiko", I'd previously purchased models from Zygote and downloaded some of DAZ's early freebies, but it wasn't unil they released the first Aiko/"Maiko" that I jumped into DAZ with both feet. They provided a more stylized character set, as well as ones I felt looked younger than Mike and Vickie, which is what I was after. I've attached a few of my early test sheets (from 2009), as well as a more recent test from 2014 to see how they hold up. If there were more clothing available for them, I might still be using them.
Back in early 2008 both the 3D Starter Bundle - SciFi and the Aiko 3 Professional Bundle were free; IIRC the sci-fi bundle was free for several years.
So Aiko 3 was released in 2004? When was Hiro 3 released? Which version of Daz Studio was out in that time, around December 2004/January 2005?
According to wikipedia, DS 1.0 was released in fall 2005 (Poser 6 would be the latest version at that time...)
No readme anymore on Hiro 3.0, but it's bodysuit, with a SKU# very close to it, was released in april 2005
The original Aiko was based on stephanie 1.
She was avalable as a morph of S1 or a stand alone.
The morph changed the head only. So she could wear any S1 clothing.
S1 and Victoria 2 were very similar except in the breast so Aiko could wear a lot of V2 lower body stuff.
There was no Aiko 2 but one or two erroneously named items were released on other sites or as freebies.