I know Genesis means beginning but...
R1CH1
Posts: 80
Hello forum, Im sure a thread already exists for this somewhere. I find the searching difficult on these forums.
so ok, Genesis means beginning. The problem is that DAZ never gets passed the beginning.
I've been using DAZ on and off for quite a few years. When I say on and off, I mean I open the program,, explore,, spend a bunch of money and then I'm off being busy for months at a time. To the point that when I come back to pick up where I left off, all the conent is for a whole new model and my model is out dated,, so to do anything I have to spend a bunch of money ***again to buy basically the same base content from scratch. Like for instance I must have the same muscle morphs for 3 different models. why?
Now I know that DAZ is like a pay to play thing... and I don't mind spending money on some new morphs, poses, textures, maybe an outfit etc. But I can't seem to get a grasp on what to do anymore. Am I using G2, G3? I liked G3. ,,now there's G8 ,, by the time I'm finished typing this thread there'll be a G9. Then when I want to make a scene I have to buy the kitchen sink all over again for G9. it doesn't seem fair.
So can someone explain some tips on how they work with these models. Thanks
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You seems to be missing the point. The point you are missing is that you "don't have to" spend a bunch of money and start all over again. Your old content still works and noone is forcng you to use newer content. Daz Studio is just an app. There is no pay to play model, that is totally up to you. Personally I could never spend another dime at DAZ and still use the app for renders and animations. Thnere are plenty of free meshes on the web and with the many modeling apps out there, you can always take it to the next level and actually make some of the content you use.
Another thing to consider, there are many plugins and products that help with backwards compatibility so all your older content can be used on the newer generations.
DAZ is a company and they need to make money to keep the doors, the store and the forums open, simple economics. While I hate that they change generations way to often myself, it is what it is. If they follow the timeline, we should see a G9 in a little over a year.
There's a LOT of really good free content out there. I highly advise going through the Freebies forum and, in particular, the stickied lists of free content about (whatever topic).
If you are judicious, between that and ShareCG and free stuff on Daz and other stores, you can get a LOT without spending a penny.
Well, now that we've exposed DAZ's master plan, I'm really upset at the way humans keep changing fashions.
Why keep inventing new clothes? I mean, we've been designing clothes for what, 30,000 years? You'd think we'd gotten it right by now. 
And yeah, there was the obvious improvement from fig leaves, to furs, to cloth, to silk, and then the plethora of synthetics. But really, do we need to keep changing the patterns and the way they drape? 
What was wrong with togas and diapers? I liked them. 
And for that matter, what about furniture too? The concept of a chair is pretty easy, how many forms can it take? People haven't grown extra legs or tails or morphed into having retrograde knees. And don't get me started on shoes! There's just too much redundancy and unnecessary reinvention in the world. -- Perverted Wisdom from an Ancient One. 
There certainly is no reason you cant't make your own content - as long as you take the time to learn how to do it. With the exception of HD, PA's don't have any tools that aren't available to you, and DAZ does supply you with the base models for each generation. Of course most of us don't have the time or talent to make our own content, or are just too lazy to do it ;) And that's the point where you open your wallet...
Without first establishing your creative objectives you will never know "what to do" with all the new content.
Acquire content only as you need it for whatever you plan to render.
Now if an older generation Genesis ,that you prefer, is not supported anymore,
You must do what I have done, and learn to model your own clothing.
Just as you would have to code and compile your own new software if you decided to stick with windows XP or Vista.
This is the way technology works Mate.
My wonderful situation exactly!... I spend ZERO dollars at the Daz store..
Completely liberated from the Daz $$content hamster wheel$$
I dont even have to bother installing the latest version of Daz studio
( still on 4.8) as it is only a temporary staging ground/dressing room
before I send my Digital actors out to my Final render environments of C4D or Lightwave
There is no reason you can't just use what you have and buy the new stuff only if you want. The old stuff still works
And with GenX2, you can migrate Morphs over many generations. I've used Genesis 3 morphs on Genesis 1. Wooo.
(The rigging is messed up; I didn't know how to properly ERC freeze when I did this)
What are you thinking. It creates jobs, man!
It WAS the beginning. The beginning of releasing new figures every year or two for their current "Keeping up with the Joneses" business model. Luckily, previous generations still work whether Daz supports them with new content or not.
I agree that Daz is dropping figures too fast. I mean Victoria 3 appears to have been released in 2002 and Victoria 4 in 2006, yet 2012's Genesis had one year before it was followed by Genesis 2 in 2013, then Genesis 3 in 2015, and Genesis 8 in 2017. So unless Daz slows down I expect Genesis 9 in 2019 (between October and December I'd guess), with last year's Genesis 8 being mostly abandoned by Daz3D shortly thereafter. Then the process might repeat itself again in 2021 or 2022 with the release of Genesis 10. I'm not sure this is sustainable, but I assume they'd slow down if there weren't enough people willing to start over with a new base model every couple years.
If you want to use newer generation's clothing, autofit clones can usually get G3 clothing on G2 and maybe G1. Also, I've had some success getting G8 content onto G2 with a custom autofit clone I made (seems to require a different procedure than making your own G3 autofit clone. I'll finish writing up a tutorial when I have a chance).
This right here. Although I am collecting all of the Genesis 8 Pro Bundle stuff (just to get the free previous bundles), once they cut to Genesis 9, I'm off the hamster wheel. You get into this loop of acquiring content just for the sake of having it with the intention that "maybe" you will use it. I can't count how many times I have gone to create an image, thinking I must have everything I need for it...just to find out that after all the content I've acquired...I STILL DON'T HAVE EVERYTHING I NEED.
It sux. If they don't do something with Carrara, then I'm going to abandon it and go with C4D. Hex and Daz Studio I will continue to use, but after this round, I'm done buying this stuff. If I don't have it already, I'll just have to make it.
I happily buy stuff to save me time I want to spend on other stuff.
i mean, maybe I could manage to sculpt a gothic cathedral, but I’ll happily give someone money and save myself months.
I think your information might be a bit inaccurate. Genesis came out in 2011 - while I wasn't here at the time I know that it must have come out in 2011 because Victoria 5 was released in 2011. The time between the release of Victoria 5 and Victoria 6 was four months shy of 2 years. Since then they've had a nearly exactly 2-year release schedule for the new generations. And since Victoria 6 it's always been in June.
So yes, if they continue on the same release schedule we might see Victoria 9 and the new generation released in June of 2019. There's nothing to say that they couldn't switch things up though, we'll have to just wait and see if they continue with the same schedule or if they mix things up. Personally, I wouldn't mind either way. I am really enjoying Genesis 8 (and still use a lot of Genesis 3 content - the G3 skins are great, imo). And if Genesis 9 is a step forward toward realism then I'm sure I'll enjoy G9 too. :) But no one is forcing anyone to buy new content. I'm striving for as much realism as I can with my art, so of course if the next gen is a step closer to that, I'll be happy to adapt to the new gen. But not everyone is after as much realism as possible in their art, so there's nothing twisting their arms saying that they HAVE to keep up with the latest gen. Of course, as a PA, I'm grateful to those who do support the new gen - it helps me to pay the bills. :) But I don't hold it against anyone who chooses not to.
Weird. Genesis Starter Essentials lists "2012-08-16" as the release date, but, yeah, Victoria 5's page says she came out in 2011. I used the Daz3D Documentation center to research the release dates, and used links to cite the pages I referenced.
I was not, in any way, advocating a boycott. I don't want the PAs to lose sales - financial insecurity is terrifying and I don't wish it on anyone. What I meant was something along the lines of "If their release schedule proves as unsustainable as I suspect for too large a portion of their userbase, sales will drop and hopefully Daz will adapt before they and the PAs are hit hard financially." I've seen so many places, local and online, dry up and die that I worry about this stuff.
The more selfish part of my frustration comes from how close I came to wasting a ton of money on G3. I literally had the the tabs open for the basic morph packs and textures to make G3 useful for my needs when G8 was released. I'd like to continue buying clothing, hair, and accessories for figures from the PAs, but new figures aren't supported long enough (nor are they improved upon enough) to justify investing in a new figure.
That was more or less what I intended as my main point, though it may have gotten lost in the rant paragraph. :D I also made sure to suggest autofit clones for people who don't want to switch figures, but want to use G3's stuff (or G8's stuff on G3 - there's a clone for that). Autofit is VERY hit or miss though, but maybe dForce will help with that?
Someone's done that already. :)
Perhaps, however when speaking in the context
of a previous generations being abandoned by the PA's,
I think we can all agree that were are talking primarily about
clothing content first, followed by skins and morphs.
Stonemason does not have to release a new version of "Urban Future"
every time a new generation of genesis arrives.
I needed a "near future" Doctors outfit
for a G2 female based Character for my Film project.
I went from my "base encasement mesh" ,That I have for
every genesis(evenG8), on the left.......
To the nearly complete outfit on the right in less than a day
I do not consider myself a 3D modeling savant.
So let us please dispense with the oft repeated mythology
that content development takes "weeks"
Particularly when it is for personal use and not having to pass Daz store QA.
I again agree with wolf359. Stonemason was a great example. So let me clarify my stance. When it comes to certain props and accessories and building structures, if it's unique or looks great, I will buy. And I will always be a fan of Hexagon and Daz Studio (I rarely use Poser anymore). But come on, how many different superhero, warrior, fighting, combat, action, and damn near anything else type poses do you need? Some of these characters almost look the same, just with different tweaks. How many vampires, zombies, witches, warlocks, fairies, elves, and other humanoid characters do you need? And while the diversity pool is finally increasing...you still have the AWFC (Another White Female Character) syndrome...again, just how many do you need? Even clothing and hair can be a bit redundant.
I understand that PA's are gong to stick to what sells and no one is telling you not to. You folks need to make a living and the work you do is great. And it's obvious that no one is twisting anyone's arm pay for these things. We are all victims of the "rats like shiny things" complex, it's how Apple has become a billion dollar business...lol.
But for me, someone whom has been with Daz since 2004 and have characters and clothing spanning all generations starting with Victoria 2...that's a lot of content to have and still not have everything you need for a scene. For me, it does come a time when you should jump off the wheel and progress to the next obvious step of making your own stuff.
Stonemason and Jack Tomalin (and to some degree, Dreamlight) will always get my money, though...lol.
Dropping too fast for you; for others it is just right. Hell, for some, maybe they aren't dropping them quickly enough.
I buy at my rate though; I couldn't however buy if they didn't produce.
I will have to say that I think I would be a bit more comfortable with a 3-year development cycle than the present 2-year one, but my needs are not everyone's needs.
I wandered in at a point about halfway through the extended development cycle of gen4. And from what I can see, each new "generation" of figure has offered some major part of the marketplace *something*.
Gen 4 was based on the premice that each individual "official" figure should be a morph of the base figure for that gender. It took the developers close to 5 years for them to retool all of the major named figures that they were going to revise as morphs for the base Michael and Victoria.
There were several years worth of content out there for the older figures, and it was a hassle to use any of it on gen4. There was no autoft. There were 3rd-party conversion utilities (which didn't give reliable results, and one of the main ones didn't run on a Mac anyway). Gen4 clothing often included unimesh fits, which was a help, but not much if the unimesh was old enough not to support the morph you were trying to dress.
And, by the last couple of years of that cycle, the market had started getting antsy over weightmapping being the new Ultima Thule, and gen4 was not weightmapped.
Genesis offered one hell of a bang for the buck. Weightmapping, *and* autofit, *and* an infinately morphable, ungendered figure, and, just to top it off, out of the box, Genesis came with support for *all three* of the main gen4 UV sets, and included the basic male, female and child morphs. You could use *any* gen4 skin on Genesis 1. Just go to the surfaces tab and select the one you wanted from the drop-down. To some of us, after struggling with gen4, this was Nirvana.
Of course that was also potentially too much change to contemplate. Or at any rate, not all at once. A good 2/3 of the stalwart developers for gen3 and gen4 backed off fast. Or, they produced one (1) Genesis product and then abandoned ship. The customers might have been overjoyed, but I suspect that developers may want more readily defined limits for the things that can go wrong.
Gen4's development cycle was something close to 5 years. Genesis 1's lasted a year and a half.
Genesis 1 was also the point at which DAZ started lumbering us with a new UV set for every "official" new base morph. I'm not sure where that may have come from, but it's possible that there may have been issues with texture stretching when a gen4 base was morphed to something like the Girl. Or, since Genesis supoorted K4 UVs as well as V4 and M4, sombody in the development crew decided that this was a UV accident waiting to happen, and started fleeing when none pursueth. Or maybe the custom UVs for every figure were just a marketing gimick.
Well, with the developing community abandoning ship left and right, the company needed to do *something*. And do it fast. G2 restored the gender split. There were a few other minor adjustments as well, but that was the major one. It helped. Not immediately, but it did help. By the 2nd year of G2's development cycle some of the older developers had started trickling back, and there were now several very good new ones who had been early adopters of the new technology.
G3 was where everything broke. First they abandoned Triax. Not sure what the rationale was there, but Triax was proprietary, and from an outsider's viewpoint, other clients (especially Smith-Micro) didn't seem eager to license it. Dual-quaternion is not proprietary and is in use elewhere, and I will admit that stationary poses do look very good, using it.
DAZ also made the decision to abandon any version of its legacy UV Layouts. Which instantly rendered nearly a decade's worth of gen4, 5, and 6's skins unusable. It was some months before conversion utilities and things like Cayman Studios's work-arounds managed to re-close the gap. And it's still going to take years before the current stock of G3 (and G8+)-native skins comes close to filling in some of the backlog.
However, the development community has been *much* faster to hit the ground running with G3's tech. So as much as I may grouse about the work it's going to take to port over a hundred continuing character files to post-G3 tech, it doesn't look like DAZ is losing money on having made those decisions.
G8, mercifully seems to have abandoned the custom UVs for each new base morph. The new eye surface geometry is a bit awkward on the user ed, but I gather that developers are pleased with it. The new base stance of the 'A' position replacing the 'T' position I gather is also designed to make things easier for developers. I personally find it a nuisance, but it's easily enoughed replaced by the other, regardless of which direction you approach it.
But people who are stating that G8 is basically G3.5 are probably more right than not. The changes really don't look all that significant, even though there have been changes.
And at this point, from an end user's perspective, it's hard to discern what changes are likely to be significant enough to justify a new launch cycle for G9. Obviously development is still being done. But there is a point that one ends up making changes just to be making changes.
Although, with the usual 20/20 hindsight, it might make better sense to start asking what are the *developers* asking for in the figure that they want to develop contend around? WHat makes their job either easier, or gives them a better end result? What direction should the rest of us be looking in, to get a glimpse of what is lurking over the horizon?
I saw this when researching Genesis 8 recently. I'm thinking the release date for starter essentials gets changed when there's a significant update. Doesn't make sense to me (they really should have an 'updated' field instead), but I distinctly remember getting G8F starter essentials via DIM in June of last year, not months after the fact as the Documentation page would indicate.
I'm pretty sure that V5 and Genesis 1 launched around November 2011. Toward the start of the month, but I may be completely off in left field on that. October is PC Anniversary Event, so I don't think she came out as part of that, unless it was at the very tag end of the month (went and checked. My purchase date was October 26, and I am pretty sure I bought her fairly quickly after release).
At that point the PA sale event was in November.
Since then, Victoria has come out in July, but no particular time of the month.
Those dates might be misleading — IIRC the contents of the early Starter Essentials installers were changed at least a couple of times, so that page might be showing one of the update versions instead of the original release. Also, I think that was the Genesis generation that didn't release any named base characters until several months after the base figure release, which would knock the dates even further out.
I never clean out my inbox. The "Introducing Genesis 3D Character Creation from DAZ 3D" email is dated June 10, 2011. The figure is first mentioned a week earlier.
I believe the Genesis Starter Essentials pack was created during the development of DIM in 2012. (DIM itself wasn't released for more than half a year after it was announced.)
Victoria 5 was released on October 25th.
Since Victoria 6, they've all been released in June.
Victoria 6 - June 20th, 2013
Victoria 7 - June 23rd, 2015
Victoria 8 - June 15th, 2017
If they stick with that schedule (and they, of course, may not) then we could see Victoria 9 (and Genesis 9) in the latter half of June 2019.
In thinking about it, I can't think what major improvements they could make to G9 that would be a boost over G8. All the things I think of are DS related and not figure related. if they really want users to shell out more money for the next generation, they really to take it up a few notches more than they did with G8
I don't know, we still have a long ways to go before we hit true realism, imo. And the figures themselves can be improved with advanced rigging, skin stretch dynamics, etc.
Whether or not it can be feasibly done for the target Daz customer base is another question though. And while I don't think we'll get anywhere close to that with Genesis 9, I do think we'll see an improvement from the current figure and a step closer to realism (at least that's what I'm hoping for!). :)
Sorry Diva, I should have clarified, there is a long list of things that can be done to move towards realism, I am just thinking in the smaller scope of DAZ and DS and not the big 3D picture. I tend to think that the small changes that get us closer to realism will come from PAs and innovative produicts, not from DAZ since they have to cater to a wider range of consumers, many of which don't care about realism, so to focus on that would take away from other areas they can be working on. Apps like Max, Maya and C4D, even blender can get you closer to what you want than DS at the moment if you have the skill and as seen in the forums there are users that are taking their work to the next level also.
Hmmm I guess I don't see how Daz isn't moving us more toward realism than the PA's products. Daz gave us the awesome facial rigging that comes with Genesis 8, as well as the improved muscle follow and bends, as well as dForce (which I think is going to make great strides forward as it becomes more polished). I see a lot of great products from the PAs moving us forward, don't get me wrong. But Daz is also playing a major role in that. Just look at how far the figures have come since V4 - the bends and expressions and added realism is a result of the base Daz Genesis figures and advancements that have come with them and the program itself with Iray and dForce etc. :)
Well, the major improvement with G8 is the facial rig that finally works. But what I was wondering was what are the developers asking for?
Thinking about it; I could see some development effort going into more integration with whatever indie game developers are working with. I know that they've got their Morph3D sister site, but I don't know how much business is being generated over there.
And, while it isn't figure development, precisely, the various recent plug-ins to toss content back and forth between Studio and, say, Maya, are certainly being asked for by *somebody*.