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All very good points. For me it is just a frustration in that I just do not have the time to make everything myself. If I did- I would not be at the Daz store! I absolutely love making my own characters but skin- ugh--- and finding more than 2 good realistic, good enough for close up skins for g 8 men???? I adore Ollies skin- but he is quite distinctive- and I can't just use his skin over and over again... and it's quite depressing really, looking for good middle toned male skins. And that leaves out, Mexican, South American, Native American, East Indian- especially South Indian, Arab....
I wish someone would just put out a skin pack for golden, coffee colored and darker G 8 males, and I do get it that the PA who made it would make a lot more $$ by putting out a pretty fairy-- but it still makes me sad. i just hope ollie sold enough so that PA makes many more characters of the same quality!
I often use the time that I'm waiting on renders to complete to check the Daz store, etc.. Daz is 'locked up' at that point, so instead of waiting and twiddling my thumbs, well that's a great time to see what's new in the store.
The skins can be adjusted in the surfaces tab to give different looks. If you have a light skinned character you can often adjust their skin settings to be darker.
Here's Kagiso with Ollie 8's skin - the settings adjusted with Altern8 plus one manual adjustment to the Base Color setting.
While it's not the best solution (and I agree that more male content would be great), it's at least a workaround until more of the fellas get released. :)
Here's the Altern8 formula for the above look with Ollie 8's skin, in case you have it and wanted it (if you don't have Altern8 PM me and I can send you screenshots of the settings so you can manually adjust it if you want).:)
Altern8 Forumla:
And then manually adding a Light Gray color to the "base color".
Again, it's not the best solution to the "not enough male content" and the "not enough PoC content" but maybe it helps a little until more content gets released. :)
that works...
As Diva pointed out, you can change skin quite a bit in the surfaces tab. The interactive IRAY preview makes playing with settings easy and you can see direct results.
This image uses the Ronen character skin https://www.daz3d.com/ronen-character-hair-and-briefs-for-genesis-8-male with some changes in the surface tab
Funny...I hardly ever render anything but my own characters. But, I still buy lots of pa and Daz characters. I guess that's the collector side of me.
make sure they are wearing gloves otherwise the palms will be the wrong color (most people have the same color for their palms, soles, eyewhites, and gums irregardless of skin color).
I wouldn't say they're automatically the wrong color. While many PoC have lighter palms and soles, many dark-skinned people also have palms that aren't that different from the rest of their skin tone.
And a couple of Childish Gambino because he's awesome!
I think the reason we get characters like Ollie and Edie, is because of awesome sellers like Mika 8. I'm sure we will get even more characters over the coming months that take risks. All because of the the highest selling usual style characters.
Good point, and a lot of Caucasians have dark palms (we had a grad student who was half irish/half italian and his palms were a lot darker than mine.
The problem might be, that there are different "goals" for these preferences, too.
When the goal is just to have sexual intercourse, stuff like looks and charisma usually are the more important part. When it comes to breeding and having a family type relation, the females often start to set their preferences more to the non-looks abilities of the potential partners, so that the offspring has a good chance to get raised properly.
Alas, that's how it was supposes to have been during the olden days...
But as genetic finds have proven, there was quite a lot extramarital sexual intercourse going on even in what could be called "closed social environments" - like ashkenazi jews - with females being married to someone who would give them financial and social security, but at the same time having other sexual partners - with higher values in the "looks/charisma" department - and getting pregnant from them.
Nowadays, as females have better chances to be able to take care themselves for their financial security and a somewhat changed look of society on "single mothers" the need for a "providing partner" has diminished a bit.
For males it probably is a wee bit simpler: as the motto is "spread your genes around, the more the better, to make sure your offspring outnumbers any other man's" going "for the looks" is used more than "going for some person to live with for a lifetime". And even certain older physical preferences resulted in this "have to breed" genetic setting. Wide hips - to give birth easier and with less problems - and great mammalian protuberances - so the babies have something to suck on - with a complete "healthy" appearance where once the basic reasons to choose a female partner to raise offspring with. For the gene-spreading done outside of the partnership the requirements usually were way lower. Usually "willing female" would take the #1 spot in the list. Most other things were optional...
Again nowadays this has changed. Medical science has evolved, so that certain physical preferences are outdated and lose importance. But as women get more independent from "financial supporting males" and have changed some of their preferences, man have to - or would have to, as many aren't able to - adapt.
But in 3d art breeding and family usually has little influence on the art itself, which makes the "it's all about the looks" approach from both, male and female, artists the rule instead of the exception.
Thanks Diva! I do have and constantly use Alterna 8- and will be trying your tips out today. Alterna 8 is worth it just for the improvement in the eyes alone, BTW.
FSMCdesigns- wow-that looks great! I'm definately going to try playing around in the surfaces tab. Thank you for that.
I see where you're going with this, Diva. And I've seen this discussion come up before with many individuals so I feel compelled to chime in this time. In my limited opinion I find that photographs like these are not reliable for the palms soles discussion. Show me close ups of the hands of people of color and you will find that there is always some degree of tonal shifting on the palms and soles. Even in the images you've displayed while there may not be a major shift in lightness, there is at least a slight red shifting of the palms. The image of the darker skinned woman is heavily photoshopped processed and undersaturated. I find this image the least convincing of all which is a shame because her darker complexion should indeed demonstrate the shifting if not for the way this image has been processed.
As a person of color myself who has known a lot of people of color I simply have never met a colored person who had the same colored palms as the back of the hand. The melanocytes that you find in other areas of the skin simply do not exist on the palms and soles to the degree that they exist on other areas of the skin because they arent necessary. Even in the depths of the African continent soles and palms are exposed to much less direct sunlight than other areas of the skin. There are also additional layers of skin on the soles and palms which further hide and obscure the melanocytes we can see visibly in other places. I've always been interested in the appearances of people who have a high degree of genetic mixing, as some really interesting combinations come into existence. Still, there are basic rules of anatomy and one of them is that as skin tends to get darker so too do all other skin elements, but along with that there is still some disparity between palms and other skin.
Please see this completely non-scholarly article on the subject
https://www.quora.com/Why-does-the-skin-on-our-palms-and-soles-of-the-feet-have-less-pigmentation-than-other-parts-of-the-body
I've also included a couple of quick photos of my own right hand to demosntrate how undeniable and yet subtle these tonal shifts can be.
To put it another way. Maybe there are a rare set of individulas who defy this basic pattern, but for the majority of humans this pattern of tonal shifting at the palms and soles indeed exists. If we want to darken skin tones that is fine but we need some sort of filter to control the amount of darkening at the soles and palms. A simple masking layer is all that is required. But without that difference between soles and palms, the skin will reveal itself as a lighter skin made to appear darker.
As my own personal photos demonstrate, while when observed at a direct angle the transistion between back of hands and palms may be subtle to non-existent, however once fully flipped the shifting is undeniable. Kennedy the cat apparently seems interested in marking me with his facial scent glands. Must be time for his wet food!!
I totally agree! I'm happy for Daz to bring on the characters that sell so that their business stays healthy. And I'm grateful to PA s like Darwinsmishaps and Malemedia 3, who keep pumping out the guys.
I think Thorn's work is absolutely gorgeous- and my daughters adore her style- but I don't have any uses for her style of character ... so I also understand the frustration when you are hoping to find a Lee 8 in the shop and instead another cute fairy pops up.
Truth be told there is lightness shift on the palms and soles on even pale white people too. A large part of the reason is the soles/palms or the feet and hands have very thick horny layer of dead skin as a protective mechanism against injury of such heavily used body surfaces. Also they are so rarely exposed to the sun for extended periods of time that the body would not of needed pigmentation cells there and so would have dropped them as a wasted expenditature that could be better used maintaining the body elsewhere. That thick protective layer of horny skin has no pigmentation in it.
Horny skin huh.... Mmm k! lol
There is one flaw... paper cuts... YUP, they get cha' in those thicker layers of skin! lol
Sadly my hands aren’t horny enough.
I had to pull 3 splinters out of the fingers that I got by building my little vegetable garden today, it’s worth it.... but boy I wish my hands were hornier....wait...maybe not. 
LOL
Use the gloves Luke! And if your gloves aren't cutting it, there's always razor wire gloves...
After shredding the umteenth pair of gloves stinging barb wire, I got these and haven't looked back. Doesn't help with the pant/shirt snags though, but at least my hands are nice and protected!
They also work great when battling with goat head/puncture weeds
It would be a great conversation that would go on here - I completely agree with your sensibilties regarding both the primal motivations and the changing intraspecies agendas. I love what you wrote, and the obvious complexity and context that drives these interactions. Well said.
I believe your last line accounts for the bulk of the impulse (gotta have that good looking model) sales, but would add that the also-mentioned 'character appeal' is as much a draw to those trying to tell believable stories (vs create appealing standalone stills/portraits) with plausible non-perfect but appealing characters.. This is an extension of your comment, not an argument.
There are many great comments, products, and techniques in these forums that discuss ways of dirtying up props, and humanizing these perfect models we collect, purely for the sake of believeability.
For me, the draw of the recent HD morph releases is that the wrinkles and bones that press through our sacks of skin are somehow needed, to really 'sell' these human creatures as being legit (uncanny-valley stuff).
fascinating,
--ms
Well maybe that's why they call callouses callous, extra layers of horn.
I have often gotten splinters in my palms and fingers that just went through the horny layer and back out the horny layer without penetrating the nerve and blood filled deeper layers.
I am planting this week a half dozen each of red currant, black currant, and white current (actually it's albino red currant), 3 rugosa roses, 4 gooseberry, 2 honeyberry, and 4 oregon grapes. I'm very excited in anticipation for future harvests.
Oh I love currants. I have a planter full of red currants.
I love vegetable and fruit gardening but I live near a field so anything I grow has to be covered due to field mice and squirrels. So in addition to making raised beds I have to put wire below the ground and over the ground and make a bunker, I just about gave up until I realized I could build structures to stop the vermin I hate working with wire and the staple gun though.
I grow tomatoes.... I’m fond of unusual heirloom varieties and I like to grow beans. Decorative pumpkin and squash.... I grow onion all year around since they keep well in the ground and it’s convenient and less expensive
My only problem has been deer. There was a mother doe last year visiting with her triplets that would eat my sunflowers. She has been coming with her fawn for a few years now. They, the rabbits, squirrels, mice, raccoons, groundhogs, and all those other creatures oddly leave everthing else alone. I have instead problems with Japanese Beetles, Stink Bugs, and Apple-Cedar Rust.
The deer & other animals though will graze my lawn if I keept it mowed but not too mowed. They like the succulent new growth. I also have 3 big hickory trees, 2 black cherry, and have planted multiple American Persimmons, PawPaw, and American-Chinese Chestnut hybrids to distract them from the food I like better.