What happened to to Daz models while I was gone?
ericjcant
Posts: 28
Been involved with other things that don't involve 3D for more than a year, but I'm just going to be up front when I say that all the models in Genesis 8 don't look so good. And it's not just the figures either, it seems like much of the clothes, the interiors, all looking sort of poorly made, poorly lit, etc. Did something change over the last while? Or maybe I'm having delusions about how great so much of Genesis 3 was? I was expecting to be rifling through new stuff and adding to my want list, but other than one pair of shoes, I'm not really seeing much. Just my impression.
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Comments
I agree Genesis 8 lacks the asthetics of G3F, but it bends much better, and can look very good with a bit of bashing about.
The clothing seems pretty good to me but the dForce stuff come with very few morphs if you want to use them non-dForce.
Poorly lit - much of what I see on the Shop Page is not fully rendered and is grainy in areas. Which is surprising when you'd think vendors would want to show off their products at their very best.
I agree about several of the Daz Original characters and renders but I think most PA products are getting better and better! Like this character (and many others) by Mousso. And Linday has some incredible products and some of the best renders I’ve seen! And Rarestone, and..and..many others...! But unfortunately I do agree about many of the Daz Original characters... It’s kind of weird that most PA products outshine the ones listed as purely Daz. And most of the PA promos I think are WAY better than the ones for Daz Original characters. Sorry Daz...
You merely need to drink the kool-aid. ;)
Genesis 8 moved towards regular-looking people, which meant less glamourpusses, (though we now finally have an authentic anime doll, Sakura 8, thanks to RareStone). But Mousso and, at times, Raiya & P3Design have kept that end stocked. For interiors you should look at the ones who were prominent in your day (Stonemason, Jack Tomalin, Polish). After getting past some initial hiccups, Tesla3dCorp & Digitallab3D have churned out a lot of high quality, render-ready interiors (with a few forays into exteriors). New stars include RareStone, bluejaunte, D.Master (stylized characters), Linday, Josh Crockett (creatures), Herschel Hoffmeyer, Chungdan (not so new---but newly ascendant), & RiverSoftArt (scripts & utilities). Then there are the stalwarts that keep plugging along, like The AntFarm, DzFire, RawArt, 3D Universe, Virtual_World ---and for hair: RedzStudio, AprilYSH, OutOfTouch, goldtassel, SamSil, & 3DCelebrity, with Kool and Sarah Payne making recent rumblings.
Seek, and you shall find.
Agree. As I just posted few days before, a G8F dragon lady (Ms SWOLE) even can not wear a G8 sandals! She totally twist that poor shoes.
Hmmm, I cannot agree at all. I think, things never looked better than today. It is the opposite effect for me. I look back on older models and promo renders and think: "oh jeeez I'm glad those days are over."
I can't agree also, I constantly work with scenes that have both figures in them and with so many things including clothes and skins being interchangable, many times I can't tell them apart till I look at the generation specific morphs
That's true. The only ones I can truly tell apart anymore is Vicky 4 from the Genesis line (but not the individual Genesis's sometimes). Even then, I get stumped now and then by a really good V4 morph.
Laurie
i went from using Poser6/7/9 with V4/M4 then got pissed when i liked the look of the new Genesis figures but Poser and Daz went differnt ways and the new Genesis range were a nightmare to use within Poser9. I also got pissed with paying for Poser9 because it kept crashing all the time. I then stopped using Poser all together cos i started to get sick of V4/M4 and the crashes from Poser and put 3D rendering to the side since i could not be arse learning Daz3d and paying for it since i already paid for Poser9. (think daz studio was not free back then) that was back in 2011 or 2012. One day late 2017 i seen some 3d art that had G8 female in them and i was blown away by how awsome the genises figures were looking. I then went to have a nose on Daz3d and was shocked to see Daz was now FREE so i decided being bored over xmas 2017 to install Daz and have a play around with it. Was very shocked that the learning curve pretty easy and the program was stable. Ive now played with both G3 and G8, i like G8 a little more cos they seem more natural real looking. G3 is still cool but i think the jump from G3 to G8 is only little however i was lucky to go from V4 stright to G8 my mind was blown away it was like jumping from 8bit gaming to 32 bits lol.
Maybe it's a shock because Daz decided to go a slightly different way with Genesis 8 and introduced not just figures, but characters. And by that I mean figures that are somewhat outside their norm, like Ollie and Edie, Floyd and Mabel. Even Edward, Alexandra, Christian and Sydney are outside the norm since they aren't the usual model-pretty 20 somethings. However, if the latter is what you want, you can still get it with Genesis 8. Charlotte 8 and Zelara 8 are quite pretty and there are a plethora of pretty PA characters.
Laurie
To answer the thread's title:
They got better.
I also was around here whenever DAZ was not free and Poser crashes sent me in another direction as well. So last year I started dabbling in 3D again..and this time with the figures, landscape art has always been one of my passions. . (I am trying not to spend much this year due to being laid up for the next 6 weeks/major surgery.. but starting to get bored).. I don't have much for a vid card and need to upgrade, however, I have to say I rendered Eddie--it took an hour and still wasn't finished, but was shocked!!.. and it was love. I only had a few V4 era figures and I think Cookie so most of what I have started to buy is all G8.. I think it is outstanding.. am really loving the cartoon characters some artists are putting out (please keep it up).. seems to me once i get my card, the sky is the limit on what you can put together with characters, looks, etc. If I had money to buy all of the G8 figures I fav on wishlist, I would be beyond broke, the artists never cease to amaze me.. and NO folks that is not koolaid.. that is just appreciation for artists and their wares.
See the positive point, at least it saves your money if you're not satisfied.
It may also help to cure the Daz addiction.
...wish they had offered such characters with G3 (Molly is the only one). Takes a lot of work sometimes using merchant/morph resources to undo the "glamour factor".
On the other hand takes a fair investment to adopt a new figure having to purchase all the morphs, models, and utilities all over again, particularly since we will likely have no new updates to Gen-X. Time I have, money I don't.
...still waiting on "Little" Cat 8 though.
Personally I am to poor by far to afford all the great G8 characters or I seriously would have bought nearly 100% of them. There is no doubt they were much more earnestly created to be original and to be a little more like the real world in addition to new takes on toon styles. I also love that they created Ollie & Edie for the old fairy tale type stories. It's not even a question that G8 is much better quality than G3.
@Wonderland "It’s kind of weird that most PA products outshine the ones listed as purely Daz"
Who exactly do you think make the DAZ original characters? Do you think DAZ has an in house modeling staff?
I don't think the G8F characters are very good, but the G8M characters are incredible. I've never seen such realism as with Edward 8.
Thanks you guys. Good info, and I have an open mind so we will see how things pan out. I think it has been the Daz original female characters that struck me as looking very much alike, but a lot of newer clothes that I have breezed through remind me of older Genesis days. I have no complaints about the pros who have consistently always made fabulous stuff (Stonemason, etc). Anyway I will keep trying and follow up on some of your recomendations and see what I come up with. Thanks!
I have to agree with OP. In my opinion there's been couple of good G8 characters ( I think Sakura 8 is one of the best, if not the best, anime characters I've seen ), but the rest I've had zero interest of. One of the biggest reasons why I didn't jump the G8 bandwagon was appearance of V8, which divided opinions quite sharply... and I was one of those who didn't like her. Then after next 3 or so Daz Original characters that looked like her identical sisters, I was already too critical to change my opinion of G8...oh well, like others have said, you haven't missed anything, and if old cycle repeats, it's only 4 more months to G9, and hopefully V9 is more related to V7 than V8.
DS has always had a free version, even though DS3 and early versions of DS4 also had commercial versions which included some of the advanced features available as plugins.
I couldn't disagree more. While a couple of the figures look like they could be related, we've had some incredible diversity with Generation 8.
Oh no, they look so much alike.. however will we tell them apart? /sarcasm lol
I do think a couple of the figures this generation do look like they could be related, but the vast majority of the DO characters this generation have been quite diverse, imo.
I think G8 is awesome. Each Generation just keeps getting better. And the PA's are nocking it out of the store. I have a slew of G3 as well.
Now when did Daz Studio cost money? I have been using it since 2003. I somehow remember they were going to charge for it.Yet I never noticed. I did take a hiatus in I think 2009 or 2010, though it was for 6 to 12 months.
G8 is the best, IMO. I do notice DAZ coming out with more characters than they ever did with previous generations though, wether or not that's a good thing, is really anyone's guess. Several PAs seem to be stuck with using the same formula (for lack of better word) in making their characters, in that they churn out one character after another that looks very much the same as the previous one or 2 or 3 characters ago. When I see a new release character from a PA and can guess right away the PA behind it, I know it's time to stop buying that PA's products.
...I'd like to work the new more "real world" characters G8 has but to get everything to make it as versatile as G3 is for my needs is just too cost prohibitive for my budget these days.
Then there is not only the investment I already have in G3 it is also the time and work I put into developing and perfecting specific characters for my stories. As someone else mentioned on another thread, sometimes you just have to "draw the line" and say that's it.
I am fortunately finding more and more useful ways to work backwards between generations as I discover more skills so the HD details on the more distinctive later generations trouble me less as I now in fact can transfer them better to M4 and V4 who still are far more highpoly and thus more morphable to any other figures for a someone not a DAZ PA with access to HD morph technology.
If you ask how, simply by fitting the 4's as one would clothing, hiding the source exporting obj and using the attenuate feature on morphloader pro and the handy fact those legacy figures can do separate body part morphs to create obj morphs, doing the ExP crap to create injections still a PITA though, I find that annoying and wish there were an easier way but at this point in time nobody is going to develop a utility.
that aside here is the crux
it's the reliance on HD morphs that will ensure each generation of Genesis will always be better as they get lower poly in the base mesh.
This is what makes the Genesis 3 and even more so Genesis 8 distinct from 1&2, the high use of such morphs and why the latest figures in active development are always going to look better, GenX can only do the bases even if someone does create an equivalent for Genesis 8 to below.
Agreed; although, I'm fine with Cat 9 too. :)
Haha.
Daz needs to break the two year cycle imo; this is so folks's buying habits down slow down once they feel a new version is imminent.
My response to the OP was short.
Divamakup's was more descriptive and longer; also used were images to support her claim.
I haven't been a fan of Victoria, until Victoria 8 came along; mind you, I don't use any character as-is; morphs get mixed, I make my own, and I customise the skin textures. I bought them because they were the first Pro bundle released, not one I would have preferred. To illustrate my point: I didn't own any Gia until December 2018 (good deals
- really, really good). Yet if they had been released first, I'd have bought them. I was, however, happy to buy Victoria 8 for the look - recognisable yet also believeably real.
I wouldnt even say they moved more towards regular people
Many gen 8 daz originals females that get their own pro bundle are unusually tall, strong jawed and often older than 35 or 40.
Gen 3 / gen 2 females tended to have softer rounder faces that are more representive of normal people where I live. The earlier gens were also often younger and shorter looking.(to my brain looking at body/head ratios) than their overlly tall gen 8 counterparts.
Obviously this doesnt apply to what many PA's make. They are just as good as ever. As are many of the pro bundle characters who didnt adopt the "gen 8 look".
So I agree with the above - look around the store and you will find characters you like. Dont just look at the iconic characters.
I got started in the hobby in 2009, & Daz Studio 2 was out, followed shortly by D/S 3. Both were free. However, there was also a Daz Studio 3 Advanced, which was $230 list price, although it may have been on sale frequently, like Carrara. D3A had additional features like Figure Mixer, Morph Following, Shader Builder/Mixer/Baking, IBL, & HDRI. I didn't know HDRI was that old. (Yes, I looked up the product & my order info.)
I got it during the 2010 Anniversary Sale for $1.99, when Daz had a promo similar to last year's PC+ For a Day, but with voting on what was offered.
so did I
but I bought DS4A before it was free
I believe it was only 'sold' for about 6 months.