Yesterday was Victoria 4's 12th Birthday...
WandW
Posts: 2,903
Time Flies. She's still pretty useful...
December 14, 2006 03:55 PM Eastern Standard Time
DRAPER, Utah--(BUSINESS WIRE)--DAZ 3D, Inc., a leading developer of professional quality 3D models and software, today announced the immediate availability of Victoria 4.0, the latest version of the most widely supported 3D figure commercially available. This new release of Victoria, based on live human models, is closing the gap between real life and models typically seen in 3D environments like Second Life, The Sims, and Halo.
Since her first release in 1999, hundreds of thousands of unique users worldwide have downloaded a copy of Victoria making her the most heavily downloaded 3D figure ever. Victoria has been widely used by digital artists worldwide and has graced the covers of magazines, newspapers, and television across the globe.
“The expressions and various details that characterize her (like the fact that the eyelids move together with the eyes) make her very complete. She is certainly the best model we have worked with so far,” said Siliphiel of Aery Soul Studios.
Principal new features in Victoria 4.0 include a realistic, versatile mesh geometry that delivers natural, true-to-life body shape and proportions; superior joints and anatomical accuracy that provide the ability to pose Victoria in ways not previously possible and still enjoy consistently realistic body contours and joints; and unparalleled skin map layout resulting in an amazing level of detail and realism....
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20061214005898/en/DAZ-3D-Launches-Victoria-4.0
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Comments
HBD.
Never, however, has 12 looked so old.
Happy B-Day to the queen dowager!
That figure was a workhorse, wasn't she? Fueled an incredible number of renders, including the ubiquitous NVIATWAS.
I still work with her; her many morph add-ons keep her useful for my purposes.
imo, she still prettier than the subsequent victorias
So many great looks for V4. Excellent in iray as well. Daz owes alot of its success to V4.
Victoria who?..........
I haven't loaded V4 in years and the other day I loaded up an old project file with V4 in it. Man, she is really showing her age compared to newer figures IMO.
Honestly i got a lot of use out of V4 and learned many things working with her, but I can't imagine I'll ever have a use for her again. Thanks for the memories Vicky!
Agreed !
Useful when her figure tech was the cutting edge in this consumer space
But truly a vestigal relic of a (thankfully) bygone era compared to what we have at our disposal today.
Take a look at this V4 from the gallery today by Elianeck. She's still got it. https://www.daz3d.com/gallery/#images/701726
Still Got ....what ... exactly??
an easy way to rig clothing for her??
New characters/ morphs /skins from the prime Daz PA's??
Support from Facegen pro???.
I have the GENX 2 plugin.
There does not exist a V4 Character that I can not replicate
with My G2/G3 females if I really wanted to.
And frankly the newer Genesis females are far more realistic
particulary for animated films
However their joints will look much better and I will be able to
rig my custom made sci fi clothing with a modern user friendly set of free
projection tools in Daz studio
Not some cumbersome medieval alchemy from last century.
Granted IMHO V4 still looks better than any of the "saviour" females
released for poser over the last decade
however for DS users and Content creators, this model has Zero advantages or market value
in my opinion.
..with a bit of fussing around she even made a pretty good teen and child.
That's a gorgeous render
Thanks nonesuch00!
she and her earlier counterparts actually have one huge advantage
you can easliy load 20 or more of them dressed and haired into DAZ studio
and for that matter iClone too if you can be bothered assigning all the morphs everytime in expression editor
they are much higher poly and look better FBX exported too
You still need the original to use GenX in order to replicate. And as Kyoto said you can pile V4s in a scene with little impact to your computer. You will not get a dozen Genesis 8's a single scene unless you have serious hardware or make dramatic changes to optimize. And while some of that is due to increase texture use, it is still a point to be made. This makes V4 a good choice for people stuck with weak machines. And with all the Iray converters out there, its easy to bring V4 into the current era for those that can do Iray.
V4 was also seemingly a peak for likenesses and such. No Facegen doesn't work for V4, but there are already hundreds of custom made shapes of many famous people by dedicated users, a lot of which was never replicated. Do you want The Duke for a cowboy shot? You need M4. The cast of Star Trek? You need Generation 4. There was probably more content for Gen4 than every other generation combined. You can even still find brand new V4 releases at other sites.
V4 has certainly been surpassed, but she's not pushing up digital daisies just yet.
...thank you for the props, but I believe that was Wendy who mentioned about loading 20 fully clothed Vickies with hair in a scene.
I just enjoyed turing the tall fashion model into teens and kids as there were none at the time for Gen4 (well there was K4 but by then Genesis was already waiting in the wings)
Very nice renders Kyoto Kid.... I like it when folks put their characters into interesting situations. I had to smile at some of the greetings for dear Vicky 4. "Happy birthday - by the way your joints are bad and you really are showing your age!"
The original genesis one is a better choice for lesser capable hardware
if you use the free texture reduction script to downsize the ridiculous
4K textures typically found on every clothing item as well as the figures.
One can easily populate a scene with several G1 models at ZERO subD level
for background people.( and of course there is the optional Decimator plugin)
And G1will have better JCM's in extreme poses and be able to wear all of V4 Skins
and clothing By default, thus why would one need to even load V4
Except out of some myopic sense of nostalgia
Also, for us animators, G1 can,by default use everyV4/M4 compatible BVH & animated pose files(Pz2)
And save them as G3/G8 compatible Duf's with no need for plugins or
external retargeting programs like $$$Iclone$$$ or Autodesk Motionbuilder
( see details here)
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/3675321/
Why????
Assuming you have high quality front & side photo references
and knowledge of the programs usage
Why would John wayne or Deforest kelley not work with Facegen
& genesis???
Obviously to each their own
However being a Daz content creator myself as well as an animator
in the Sci fi genre, who has been enabled by the transfer utility.
I personally find Zero utility in using a V4/M4 Figure for any of my work.
I, and I don't think anyone else, is bashing what can be done with the character; it's a case of why bother? Folks make their own choices for their own reasons.
I just can't recommend anyone bother if they're new to the scene.
There are some great textures available on V4 characters; I transfer them over; I don't bother with morphs, just tweak the ones I have to get the look - cause then I have the so much better posing.
I kept it simiple, but 32 G8F (just about dressed)
I kept the image small, hoping it would stay on the GPU, it did. They all have Default G8F textures.
Edit
Doubleing the image size, resulted in CPU mode; and with just Studio hogging 33 Gigs of RAM
With V4s higher geometry, there would have been a greater resource issue.
she freak4 totally gorgeous character, stephanie 4, girl4
I think I had just discovered Daz Studio shortly before this, was using the free V3 that came with the program. When V4 came out, she was being offered for free to those that signed up for the Art Zone at DAZ. So, yeah, great introduction for me to the world of 3d.
For those bashing Vicky, um, I think you have totally missed the point of this thread. Just sayin'.... :)
Happy Birthday ol' Gal!
Those of us that still enjoy using her, will continue to do so, and those who don't, can just leave her be, m'kay?
Happy B-day Vicky . I only use her in poser now days. She still a great figure for poser.
Works well in Bryce as well ( https://www.daz3d.com/gallery/#images/17600 )
DAZ should turn V4 from pz2 to DUF format file with all morph .
I'm not bashing V4; the technology, being 12 years old, yep I'm saying it's old and past it.
Sure, I can admire vintage cars; especially polished and on display, or when seeing them getting an occasional outting on a nice day, but use one regularly... No thanks.
I'm thinking those defending 'her' are missing the point; creating art is about results not how one gets there; use the best tools for the job. Vicky is no longer the best tool.
Like I've said before, I simply could NOT recommend V4; or even Genesis or G2, although the Genesis figures offer something that makes them worthy of at least looking at in prior generations.
...yeah that's how I feel most mornings.
That's a piece of cake, Bamber. You could do that yourself very easily if you wanted.
In a related matter, I'm old. I have my problems as a consequence. Newer models don't. No argument there. But dismissing anything purely because its old and not shiny new seems ridiculous to me, although admittedly I may be biased. I like old stuff, not because it is "just as good" as something newer, but, somewhat ironically, because its not. Some people will get that, some won't. I can certainly understand a PA being concerned about too many people hanging onto their old content instead of buying new, much the same as software developers disliking people hanging onto their older versions because it does everything that they need it to. A lot of effort goes into trying to convince such people that there must be something wrong with them, even to the extent of trashing the old versions that they once were describing as the best thing ever. People can certainly be odd at times.
So, happy birthday, Vicky. You'll always be welcome in my runtime.
Oh, and at the risk of belabouring a point, I have a 1956 Chevy parked in my driveway. Its old, the technology is out-of-date and cannot compare to the new cars they make nowadays. Its big, heavy, not terribly aerodynamic, not fuel efficient, has outdated steering and suspension, etc. But I still like it despite all that. Its not worthless, or even useless. If I put a "For Sale" sign on it today, how long do you think it would take me to sell it? Probably a long time, I guess, because its so old and outdated. Like me. I probably wouldn't get much for it because its so old, even if anyone wanted to buy it.
Yes, I was being sarcastic. I actually don't own a '56 Chevy (I wish).
Here's an idea that should appeal to the DAZ marketing team and some PA's: why not celebrate V4's birthday with an anniversary product instead of worrying about people continuing to use her?
Please feel free to disregard this post, because I'm old and shouldn't be taken seriously.
Francesca for V4.
...recreating a scene just to do it with newere technology is like redoing a painting or film and it never ever comes out the same.
Case in point, the image titled "Child of war" that I posted above. This was done on a 32 bit notebook in Daz 3.1. Because of extremely limited resources I had to cut a lot of the set's surrounding elements out (thanks to Stonemason making his sets so modular) and go with only a couple lights to keep the render process from crashing. In spite of these limitations, the end resuslts were rather surprising. I like to consider this one of my best works in the ten + years I have been at this. I could remake it again, with Genesis G2 or G3 and render in Iray, but why? OK it would look more "photo real" but would it necesarily be "better"?
I captured what I wanted to why take the Hollywood remake path?
I am the same with a lot of films as often the remake (because of "better tecnology") fails as the focus shifts from the story being told to the "improved" on screen appearance of the film and effects. New actors tend to approach the characters diffferently, oft poorly, and key parts of the story are glossed over, changed, or even omitted. For example, loved the original Day the Earth Stood Still, hated the remake as it came no where near the stark chilling feeling of the original. I also disliked the "reprocesssed" versions of the first Star Wars trilogy where digital effects were added in years after the original release (in the scene where Han meets with Jabba at the the Mos Eisely landing bay, Jabba looked so fake, and wasn't even the the same scale in comparison to other the characters as he was in Jedi).
I actually did an experiment where I took one of my very early scenes (again V4 as the base) and recreated it using Genesis and Iray (the original file was lost on a HDD crash many years ago). I had to do a number of substitutions as freebie content I used was no longer available (the installers I had backed up on DVD became corrupted) and one of the items that fit V4 (a pair of rollerblades) distorted due to weight mapping so I had to omit them. I used the original rendered image as a guide to rebuilding the new scene and still couldn't get everything exactly where it needed go even after days of trying to do so (even the pose was a little off). In the end comparison, I actually preferred the wey the lighting and shadows fell in the old 3DL/LDP version and the character's expression was better.