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What usually happens with me is:
1. I resist buying the new figure for about a year.
2. Eventually, some character appears that I really want but is only available for the latest figure. I buy it and try to make clothes from the older generation work.
3. DAZ starts having sales at huge discounts as the deadline for a new release approaches. I grab a bunch of things that were beyond my means when they first appeared.
4. The new figure appears and a swear I will give this one a miss and work with what I have.
Well, there is an element of kidding myself that I'm avoiding the hamster wheel when I clearly am not but I do have enough self-control to avoid breaking the bank buying shiny new baubles. Some DAZ sales are worth waiting for.
Hmmm... How a model can be outdated ?
Genesis (2011) and Genesis 2 (2013) are old but you can still use the new wearables (Genesis 8 clone for Genesis 3 -> Genesis 3 for Genesis 2 or Genesis 3 clone for Genesis).
They can also use the textures of the Genesis 3/8 figures (Genesis 3 UVs for Genesis 1/2) and GenX can bring them the Genesis 3 morphs.
Millennium 4 (2006) is very old but Renderosity still releases some new products for Poser users.
And if it's not enough, Legacy UV and GenX help you to update your models.
Michael 3 upgraded to Genesis 8
The big thing that gets outdated is expectations of posing. Also some of the skins over the last 5 or so years have gotten increasingly realistic/high fidelity.
I've experimented with putting really good Iray skins on V4, and the results can look awesome... until I bend anything. And then eek.
Precisely.
@Oso3D
About the poses, there is a converter for Genesis 1/2/3/8 : Daz3d Pose Converter
Genesis 1 is all I need, and my go-to figure of choice for everything. With clones, it can wear any clothing from any generation of either sex going back to M3/V3. With GenX it can have any character shape going back to M3/V3 and forward to Genesis3. With uv maps it can use character skins from M4/V4 to Genesis3. Can put any hair on it from any generation. With pose converter plugin you can use the massive V4 pose library as well as Gen1 poses with it, and just saw in another thread there's a pose converters to use poses from Genesis1 - 8 backward/forward compatible (As NoahLGP linked to in the post above; I didn't know about that before, but that's a pretty nifty tool)
You can make similar arguments for any succeeding generation of Genesis as well, though imo none is so versatile as Genesis1, but my point is only that whatever your favorite generation of Genesis is, there's really no reason to throw that away in favor of whatever is newer. As for all the 'must-have improvements' of the the latest/greatest generation, well most of it should be filed squarely under the 'Emperor's New Clothes' file. :)
Couldn't agree more
It's not about converters, it's about the rigging and the joints in the figures. Posed M4 looks very old and dated next to Posed genesis 8 male IMO
I just downloaded and converted all of my gen 1 2 and 3 poses to Gen8. I was stunned at how easy and how well this worked. And it converts Genesis poses straight to Genesis 8. I did have to fix the fingers and do a tiny bit of adjustment but I am totally impressed with this script. The improved bends in Genesis 8 come through just fine on the older poses with a very minimal amount of tweaking. And I converted over 2000 poses in less than 5 minutes.
Yeah, what FSMC said. I was very impressed at how well V4 looked with Iray versions of her skin. And then I tried bending an arm.
...
Ms Gumby, sheesh
I think what many may be overlooking here is the casual hobbyist user. The type of person who for different reasons, looks for ease of use before anything else. It is quite a task to just learn Daz Studio, it is whole different deal to learn different programs like Hexagon or Blender or whatever. Not to mention potentially expensive as some programs can be hundreds of dollars. A person who has a full time job, a job that requires them to work outside the home, and has a family to spend time with and support; has a very limited space of time to play around with something like Daz Studio. So telling such a person they need to learn to create their own content is pretty harsh.
To this kind of casual user, older models really are dated. Yes, they can still use old content, but finding new content for older models is rare. Conversion tools do cost money, like GenX, the texture converters, and so on. There is always a new Fit Control, and so on. Autofit sometimes works, sometimes not. If this person invested deeply into Genesis 1, they have a right to feel bummed about Genesis 2 or 3 or 8. In My Opinion the 2 year cycle is silly, and I feel that it is more about making something "new" than providing real innovation. Otherwise this cycle would not function like clockwork. Every single person in this thread believes that Genesis 9 will be launching sometime around July 2019 or near that time. That is how predictable this cycle has become. I do not believe this is a good thing in the long term. At some point you will reach a saturation that will become a real problem. 3D art is not like cars, and it is not like Call of Duty or sports video games (which releases a new version every year.)
Obviously Daz needs to make money, but I don't see how that means they must release a new figure every 2 years. As long as they offer compelling content, they can do good business. Good content will sell, regardless of this cycle. And personally, I believe they could sell even more by staying within their base for about 3 years or so and focusing on a stronger and more compelling upgrade. I also think that if there are compatibility issues, Daz needs to work in house on the products needed to help make them so, instead of relying on vendors for that. GenX has been a staple product for Daz, and many were looking forward to a Genesis 8 update. But sadly its creator passed away. And it is doubly sad that this plugin will never see an update. Now Daz has a problem, as now people will be more hesitant to upgrade to Genesis 9 when it comes without some form of shaping transfer in place.
The 2 year cycle bugs me, but the problem is I think Daz is right.
The way people react to markets, novelty creates a sense that things are thriving. New stuff excites people. New figures and possibilities, however much we might groan and moan about it, gets people in the door.
So I don't think Daz has a choice, if they want to make money; people might claim they'd buy as much or more if there was more time between figures, but there is little evidence (if you look across many different markets) that this is actually true.
I mean, if people were hesitant to jump onto new figures because the last couple of generations have been 2 years apart, wouldn't people hardly be buying anything now? It's not a new observation.
This is business logic 101 right here. Daz, along with Adobe, Microsoft, Autodesk, etc., is a business and it has a business model to maintain. They look at matrices every month to see what products are performing as well as constant R&D to see what will push their products further. Developing Daz Studio and making it free, along with now Hexagon, are brilliant strategies to get people more into this and spending money on the pre-made content.
Each new generation does bring some sort of improvement over the previous ones, so people who are loyal customers do get some satisfication from that.
Daz isn't releasing these models just for kicks...they are trying to sustain a business and that's completely understandable.
However, that being said, at some point, it becomes about the art and craft, even if you are a serious hobbyist and less about keeping up with the Jones. A previous poster said something about it being a bit harsh to say that someone should make the time to learn a program to make their own content and sighted all these reasons as to why that is not an appealing option to a hobbyist.
But this range of thinking suggests that a hobbyist is only doing it just to past time anyway and they wouldn't be to serious about what they are doing. I don't know. I like drawing as a hobby but I wanted my pictures to look recognizable as well, so I learned and practiced as much as I could with what little time I had. I'm a filmmaking enthusiast as well, and this is from someone who has a child, holds down a regular job, has a house to manage and still found inspiration and desire to get his Masters in Computer Science last December. So don't tell me you can't learn how to make your own stuff if you really want to.
I think it falls on those of us who have a broader understanding of this cycle to make the conscious effort to recognize that you actually may have EVERYTHING (with the occassional need to create something yourself) you need to do your projects.
Although I am collecting all of the Gen 8 Pro Bundles, I do most of my work with Genesis, Genesis 2, and Genesis 3 characters. If someone creates an app to switch character morphs between like GenX, I will roll Genesis 8 into the mix...but after 8 generation, I think I may have all I need, so I have to get off the Daz drug and check myself into rehab.
I spend thousands of dollars every year buying content and about half of it I barely use (and I'm sure I'm not the only one). Daz sees this and knows their stuff is selling. Come on, they've released a new G8 model almost every two weeks!!! And as much as people complain about Mika 8 and compare her to Karyssa 8...she will still sell.
So, I once again agree with wolf359 when they stated that at some point, we as artists do need to get off the Daz hooka and learn how to do some models (not all) ourselves. Daz's business model will only disappear if they go out of business.
I don't see that happening.
Question:
What products does one need for GenX to use on Genesis 1-3? I have no idea what exactly I need ;) All I really want is to transfer maybe from the Generation 4 characters on up.
Genesis Generation X2, GenX2 Addon for Genesis 2 and GenX2 Addon for Genesis 3, right?
Laurie
They DID stay in business while Daz Victoria 4 was the reigning queen for all those years tho (6 years I believe). I'm not saying they should go an entire 6 years, but 3 would be real nice. I honestly felt that at the time they brought out Gen8 that G3 was just starting to hit its stride.
Yeah, you need these three to go from V4 and G1 to G3:
https://www.daz3d.com/genesis-generation-x2
https://www.daz3d.com/genx2-addon-for-genesis-2
https://www.daz3d.com/genx2-addon-for-genesis-3
I believe they'll need to be installed into the same content Library as the characters that you want to transfer.
Indeed that is the interesting thing about reality
Call it "harsh" if you like, however it always prevails.
Most of us can agree that the reality is that this two year upgrade cycle
means that whatever figure generation you choose, you have about 24 Months of major vendor /PA support and this excludes the clothing content you may not care to own such as more female skimpware ,orc battle armor etc.
So what are your options really ??
Keep buying into the new generation as most here do.
Stay with your older Generation and perhaps endure the vicissitudes
of trying all manners of force fitting the new gen content onto your older
Figure.
Simply make do with whatever content you were able to aquire during to 24 month support window.
Learn to at least model head to toe clothing items and support your older figure yourself as well as liberate yourself from the prevailing
predominantly female Clothing market trends regarding the latest generations.
Consider that clothing modeling skills can apply to any generation
not just the older ones.
from a few back...
That's my entire decision-tree in a nutshell. *Tools* that enable me to build/tweak things, not buy them, and *things* that cost me less to buy than to model (and can be tweaked into what I really need, if necessary...)
cheers,
--ms
Regarding modeling your own stuff:
It's intimidating at first, but not as tough as you think it would be. Anyone who sticks to this hobby for long enough, at some point you're just going to find some little thing that isn't premade, or is made just a little bit wrong for your purposes, and you just need to do some slight alterations. You might have sworn you would never learn modeling and always use premade, but the honest truth is that at some point you're going to need to learn to do a little modeling. My advice is just jump in and rip the bandaid off and do it, you'll be surprised at what you'll learn and how much less complicated it really is to use most of the broad modeling tools to make alterations or create stuff. Get something inexpensive or free to play with (Carrara is my primary app, so I can model right there without switching to another program, but there are several free or very inexpensive modelers around, Hex for example). Invest a little time into playing around and learning the basics from tuts, you'll find that having even just a smidgen of power to do some creation/alteration via modeling will really open the doorway to many possibilities that you didn't even realize were closed off before.
Good points, you raise.
They may think of it as harsh, but telling someone such a fact isn't in itself harsh.
A person has two main options, which can be further split; they can also be combined to suite.
... They can follow whatever main figures are and buy those they like as they appear, and adopt each new itteration also as it appears.
or
... They can learn to model, texture, animate/pose (via rigging), and then render them themselves - figuring out the shaders and lighting.
Doing it oneself is time-consuming. So presuming there is disposable income, spending some of it to make the end-goals more attainable, seems like a sensible option. Unless one prefers the process; I like modelling, but am not as keen on texuring.. I positively loathe rigging.
This is where my bafflement about hobbyist came from.
'You should learn how all this stuff works and tinker with it yourself, if you find this stuff lacking.'
"But I'm a hobbyist!"
Me: ''But that's exactly what hobbyists DO... ??''
I mean, if you don't want to or prefer to do other stuff or whatever, fine, but the hobbyist defense just doesn't seem tenable to me.
You are baffled because you are applying the widely understood
definition of "hobbyist" as used in the modern, western vernacular.
It is my observation ,over the years, that this term IMHO, has been perverted by many, in both the Poser and Daz communities
to mean essentially:
"Dont expect me to Know/learn any technical skills or do any actual work or labor or have my "art" subjected to any objective criticism..I am just a Hobbyist"
Frankly the canned, click load &render nature of Daz/Poser content has fomented this mentality to the point where I have read actual posts in this forum ,where people literally refuse to move a morph slider that dials back George HD to 70 percent
but instead demand that the Pro PA's create a whole new Character that is only 70 percent as Fat as the full george HD.
You can also change your own oil. Its pretty easy, and you don't need an education in oil changing to do it. Yet oil changes are big business, I bet you can locate multiple places within a few miles of your location that change oil assuming you don't live in the absolute stix. And even then you can always find one local spot in even the smallest of towns. Daz Studio is the Jiffy Lube of 3D.
3D, which itself has a stigma about it that scares people. Where do most people play video games? On a home console. And while modding is popular and also pretty easy nowadays, the vast majority of PC players do not mod their PC games. The vast majority of people never even open their own TV menu, even if they use the TV every single day. They don't touch the settings or make any attempt at improving the picture. You have no idea how many times I've heard people say they didn't mess with their TV options because they didn't want to mess something up. Its also very simple to make your own whipped cream, but millions of people just buy it from a can or container.
So, how many of you pay someone to change your oil, have never modded a video game, or never calibrated your TV, or never made your own whip cream? Each of these things is much easier than learning how to use Blender.
If you are guilty of any of these, then you can take a moment to reflect on the statement to ask someone to learn to make their own content, how that person may feel reading such words. Its not too dissimilar from the "Learn to get gud" you hear on a gaming forum if somebody complains about a game being too difficult.
You guys are not normal. I'm sorry, but you aren't (and I don't mean that in a bad way!) But most people don't post about 3D in a forum. You are already more passionate about 3D than the vast majority of people in the world.
Whether you are a hobbyist, enthusiast (which for some reason seems to be the defacto term for the person between hobbyist and pro), or pro...art is art. Daz content is suppose to help facilitate an image or project but the project shouldn't always be limited to what is available.
I personally think that sometimes, this content does make us a bit lazy when it comes to the creation process. For every positive there's a negative.
As far as how hobbyist has been defined nowadays, I consider myself an enthusiast now...but mainly, I simply enjoy creating art, whether it's 3D, 2D, photography, or film. And because I love it, I will always keep learning. If you love something as a hobby, THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT YOU DO.
Oil is a bad example. I live in an apartment. Just where am I going to change my oil?
Plus it’s dirty.
Plus I don’t consider myself a car hobbyist. If I did and refused to actually change oil, I’d expect to get laughed at.
Also, we’re not talking about Blender, we’re talking about setting Nose Bump to .5.
It isn't learning how to model that I find daunting, it is getting that object (clothing, in particular) to work in DAZ Studio. I do lots of clothing mods in Blender using the sculpting tools (sometimes the edit tools) so I have an idea how that works. But I don't know and am quite intimidated by the DAZ side of things like JCMs and FBMs, weight mapping, ERC freezing (whatever that is), rigging and so forth.
Also, I've seen amateur stuff on ShareCG - I've downloaded lots of it - and to be honest, most of it is tried and discarded. It just doesn't meet the requirements. So I tend to wait for sales and buy stuff that I can morph myself. As for characters, I rarely buy more than a few examples of each generation - usually something out of the ordinary like George or Ivan or Edie. For the most part I buy and use the morphing toos from Zev0 and skin shader tools like Altern8. None of the characters I end up with look anything like the originals in the store. That's where the fun is for me.
Regardless of the term used, people are free to do as much or as little DIY as they feel happy with. I would expect that most people will, in due course do something on their own, whether it's posing or lighting or texturing or modelling, or some combination, but there's no timetable by which people must have started to one or more of those things, nor is theer any requirement that at some point they do all of them, nor is there anything remotely wrong with choosing to use only combinations of the pre-made content. The great thing about Poser/DS/Vue/Bryce is they they provide a virtual CGI team, and users are free to be the director or to take over one or more roles within the team as their tastes and skills dictate.
+1 I would go a step farther even and say that NO ONE is obligated to do anything farther than what they're comfortable with. Not everyone is an artist nor does everyone aspire to be. If someone wants to just use the base figures out of the box and not learning the morphing, texturing, modelling part of it - they DON'T HAVE TO. And frankly, this "holier than thou" attitude that some of the community has toward people who don't want to learn how to do that sort of thing is just gross. Not everyone has the time or even the desire to do that. Do what is right for you, don't expect ANYONE else to want to do what you do. We're all human with VASTLY different skill sets and desires. It's none of our business if someone else doesn't want to dig into the nuts and bolts of 3D rendering. There is not a thing wrong with not wanting to, and I'm sick of people acting like there is.
TLDR; This bullcrap of "you have to EVENTUALLY learn how to do X, Y, and X needs to stop. You do you, boo. Leave others to their own desires and aims.
Well the thing about motivating hobbyists to get smart about DAZ Studio SW is where is a concise and comprehensive DAZ Studio manual in PDF format that covers all the topics in DAZ Studio they might want to learn? The DAZ YouTube page is OK but far from comprehensive and not really convenient to scrub back & forth in.
Really what motive do hobbyists have to guess about everything DAZ Studio can do via long drawn out trial and error process of change 1 parameter, render long enough to see the results and then repeat? And then they should record all that because they are unlikely to remember it.
Things like Dual Lobe Specular, Top Coat, Diffuse, Glossines, and all those other parameters and then all the nuances of building or modifying existing shaders and by that I don't mean changing a couple of Surfaces settings as a guess or deciding to use one of dozens of opinions one spent hours sussing out of the DAZ forums or DA via Google Search only to find out after 30 minutes or more of adjustments and another 30 minutes or more likewise for rendering well they were just guessing too and the results aren't that great, although those instructions worked OK for one particular set of materials for one particular scene that was set up as found in the forum post or often a thread running dozens and dozens of pages.