Why is it that daz never ...
otherunicorn
Posts: 374
Why is it that DAZ never considers that you might like to use an older character design with newer functionality? Or when they do, they do it poorly or make it near impossible to do?
What if I am doing a comic or animation and have been using the same character for years? What if I created her as and A3, or an A4?
Why is it that after spending $100s I still can't succeed?
All I want to do is use an old A4 design with the advantages of Genesis, and the new outfits etc. and so far the tutorials have let me down. I follow the steps, and something won't be there, or something won't work as advertised, or I have to spend another fortune on another bit Daz left out, and it still won't do it....
This is after two days of beating my head against this problem, so you maybe you might understand that it isn't just a rant. I would really like it if Daz and other suppliers actually updated things. If I could buy a G8 version of the character I would.
And why the heck was dance poses for Victoria and Michael (i.e. V1) considered worthy of including in Build A Bundle? Stuff that is that useless should be hidden under a legacy checkbox or something.
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Comments
Maybe because it's hard?
I get that you can't get a customized figure to look the same throughout generations... but it would have been nice if the ones that are supposed to be a particular base or iconic character looked the same... maybe it's me but I think a good example would be Aiko... A3 was pretty iconic, A4 I could sorta see an attempt, but as the generations went on it seemed like "she's some sort of anime character, or maybe not, or perhaps yeah... or not".
For me that's kinda a deal breaker, you don't really have the same basic body or face dimensions and details as a starting point to work from... if I were to use even a simple base character for a project, I know as time goes by the new figures will not be remotely the same, so if I have a character I like why bother upgrading, it's easier to just deal with the old models then bother and waste money... of course if you are into just collecting and rendering pretty faces, that's a different story... which I imagine is what the majority of people do.
Why bother upgrading? Because the technology gets better.
Stuff bends better, it's easier to morph stuff, it's easier to pose, to adjust shapes, to fit cool new clothing, etc.
I suspect that a new package of iconic shapes would probably sell if it were available. We did have those for Genesis 1, and it came close enough to duplicating the base shape of the more popular gen3 or 4 characters to pass, *and* to fit them into most of their original clothing. I don't recall whether there was such a package for anything more recent than G1, though.
Of course, that was the base shape, not individual character shapes. For those you definitely had to resort to something like GenX with some of its add-ons. And once you cross the divide between G2 and G3 you'd need to give them different skins in any case. Cayman Studios's geograft system might work for you, but it's a kludge, and probably not something that you'd want to have to depend on for an ongoing project.
But really, hell's bells, if you can turn G8F into a hedgehog, you certainly ought to be able to turn her into A3.
For me, it came down to time and money; could I recreate characters on a different framework - yes, probably. Would it be worth the many, many hours of time per character to do it? Nope. I did bring one character up from V4 to Genesis, because the autofit clothing advantage was worth it to me. There is no advantage to using G8 - losing the skins changes the character look even more, even beyond the having to recreate skins for 3Delight, because many of the new ones are set up exclusively for iray.
If you want to bring an A4 up to Genesis, that should be doable. I think it's diminishing returns to go past Genesis, truthfully (I love the ability to cross-fit clothing across genders, and the vast quantity of morphs). The only thing that will never be yours is HD details. Depending on the kind of art you are producing, that may or may not be a consideration.
I don't know about A3 its self But there is Gen 3 Iconic Shapes for Genesis https://www.daz3d.com/gen-3-iconic-shapes-for-genesis
& there is the generation 4 legacy morphs for genesis an geneisis 2 https://www.daz3d.com/generation-4-legacy-shapes-for-genesis-2-male & https://www.daz3d.com/generation-4-legacy-shapes-for-genesis-2-female
Well, here is my 2 cents. I would say that if you can wait a few years for AI and Quantium computer to get created and for new breed of programmers who can program for the new cpu. I would say your old model with the help of a AI will work wonders. The problem with current 3D technology is that it is the beer can solution with bones. What is needed is a 3d object technolgy that simulates air pressure and gravity via alogrithms. The 3D world as it is now>> happens in a no gravity vacuum. We need gravity and air pressure to make things look more realistic. This in turn is a complete simulation with alot of physics involved. It would bog down renders and it would make the code very dense(unless someone gets creative). There is nothing wrong with your old 3D models>> it is the 3D enviroment that is in a very primitive state. Could this be done with present technolgy? Sure, but even the large 3D software packeges call this 3D Physics and this is a lie it is just the enviroment we live in and if you want make something look real it needs real physics. Daz doe not have 3D physics much less real physics but how can we blame them when the software is free and paying coders is expensive. Oh, on a different note: the reality plugin creator made the plugin code Open Source, if someone knows how to code I would like to see blender evee code added to this great render plugin so it can work in daz studio.
Thank you for the useful info.
This thread has been drasticly pruned (including my previous post).
I do stand by my comment about question begging - asking why Daz does not do X skips over the question of whether Daz does not do X, and in this case I think it does consider that people want to use older content - hence, in pre-Genesis figures, the backward compatible figures and in Genesis AutoFit and keeping the same UVs avaiklable where possible. I do, however, get the point about the look of characters shifting - especially Aiko - but as noted above there are options available to help.
Personally, I like the look changing.
As folks age we change, I like the analogy for the characters although it's more a case of their look changing that any particular change attributable to age.
I've transferred a few dial-spun OC's across generations. I have some of the products that allow using old textures on new base models. Mostly, the bodies are not so much work. The faces are more work, and yes, there are products for that too, but I don't have those yet (wishlisted). I have the old TC2 product that converts generation 3 skins to V4, and the V4 UVs for G2F. I also run Iray converters on old texture sets I really like. I converted a Laura3 character that was a custom OBJ morph to a dial-spun almost-match, first on V4, then on G2F. These two are 3 generations apart:
https://www.deviantart.com/slimerjspud/art/Blame-it-on-Rio-Again-796553901
Happens in media all the time. For long running series, whether on the big or small screen or print media or videogames, character appearance changes as time and technology progress. Compare designs for the original Dragon Ball series compared to the more recent DBSuper or for playstation Final Fantasy VII compared to the 2019 remake for PS4. Even the character designs in comics and manga have changed as artists adapt their techniques over time. Change. whether you see it as good or bad, is inevitable. It means more work and more money spent, but if your artwork improves as a result and your consumers are happy, then that's definitely a plus.
And to quote Worf on Star Trek: Next Generation as to why the time travel past Klingons look so different from the "modern" version, "We do not discuss it!" :)
You can use the Face Transfer ability of Daz 4.12 to take the face off your old character and apply it to the latest generation. HeadShop was another way to do this. Simply load your old character, without hair, then take a screenshot, and import that into HeadShop. Apply that face to a G8, and then adjust the shape using sliders until you get the same figure.
If you made it once, you can make it again. I bleated about G2M for G8M, and it never happened with any kind of script, so I just painstakingly remade the character. It took almost a week of tweaking and changing to get it right, but now I have my favourite character as a G8. The materials were a bit harder, but I explainied it away in my story imagery with my character spending too much time in space; not enough sun! ;p
Huh. Well, duh. It never occured to me that HeadShop was supposed to be used for character transfers.