Why doesn't Daz do updates of old actors?

Comments

• felis Posts: 6,072

  March 1

  What you are linking is not an upgrade, it is an conversion, which potentially has flaws.

  And why Daz doesn't convert their older products to newer, is (my guess) most likely based on pricepoints. They can sell a new character at "full" price, but will it be fair to do the same with a converted?
• Richard Haseltine Posts: 109,102

  March 1

  Even when they reuse a name (e.g. Victoria or Michael) they do new characters with - at most - a similar vibe.
• nightwolf1982 Posts: 1,233

  March 1

  Part of it is a tech issue - Genesis 9 has new features that aren't available/compatible with Genesis 8/8.1.  As for characters like Alexandra 8 or Victoria 8, these are add ons; they aren't new models, they're modified versions of the base G8 figure with new textures.
• Cybersox Posts: 9,464

  March 2

  Richard Haseltine said:

  Even when they reuse a name (e.g. Victoria or Michael) they do new characters with - at most - a similar vibe.

  They have done tried doing exact remakes on occasion, with releases like teen josie 7for teen josie8  and Michael 7 for Michael 8 , being good examples, while I remember that Freak 5 was actually criticized by some for being too close to a near perfect clone of Freak 4.  Ultimately, though, I would imagine that the fact that there are noiw a number of ways to port characters to other generations probably cannibalizes a good portion of the market of those who just want a newer versions of the exact same character, and. finally, there are alot of us who never use the commercially made characters "as is" anyway.  .  
• Matt_Castle Posts: 3,067

  March 2

  omvendt said:

  Daz is issuing new models on an ongoing basis. I wonder why they don't update all their existing models first. Wouldn't that be easier than making brand new models?

  In short, no. 

  Doing a basic conversion of the shape and textures is one thing, but there's a lot more to the model than that; any number of corrective bend shapes and the like that take a large portion of the time, and those are specific to each figure base.

  And each time a shape or texture is transferred, it loses quality, and you would then have to repair that.

  And then you've got to go beyond that to actually make the figure an upgrade rather than a straight copy that few would see the point in grabbing.

  Generally, it's not much effort saved to just start on something new and it'll have a larger market than something you already sold to people five years ago.

  Cybersox said:

  Richard Haseltine said:

  Even when they reuse a name (e.g. Victoria or Michael) they do new characters with - at most - a similar vibe.

  They have done tried doing exact remakes on occasion, with releases like teen josie 7for teen josie8  and Michael 7 for Michael 8 , being good examples.

  Those are, to the best of my understanding, conversions done by Gravity Studios, but which have to be sold as Daz Originals given they are fundamentally derivative.
• richardandtracy Posts: 7,363

  March 2

  @omvendt, I have taken a fair bit of time to 'update' a Victoria 3 character. This was to convert to Iray and TriAx rigging along with adding some clothing clones. The rigging after the process was no better because I didn't update the joint correctives. Take a look at the process in the 68 page tutorial I wrote to allow others to do it for themselves: https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/655676/tutorial-making-triax-figures-from-old-parametric-characters/p1

  The tutorial covers probably under half of the total updating process you're asking for. If you read the tutorial, you'll see why it takes a long time. It's also error prone and easy enough to get wrong. It is possible, but you are really creating a new figure from scratch, only re-using the mesh and out of date textures. It's almost certainly easier to start again unless you have an emotional tie to the character you're updating.

  Regards,

  Richard
• lilweep Posts: 2,781

  March 2 edited March 2

  richardandtracy said:

  @omvendt, I have taken a fair bit of time to 'update' a Victoria 3 character. This was to convert to Iray and TriAx rigging along with adding some clothing clones. The rigging after the process was no better because I didn't update the joint correctives. Take a look at the process in the 68 page tutorial I wrote to allow others to do it for themselves: https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/655676/tutorial-making-triax-figures-from-old-parametric-characters/p1

  The tutorial covers probably under half of the total updating process you're asking for. If you read the tutorial, you'll see why it takes a long time. It's also error prone and easy enough to get wrong. It is possible, but you are really creating a new figure from scratch, only re-using the mesh and out of date textures. It's almost certainly easier to start again unless you have an emotional tie to the character you're updating.

  Regards,

  Richard

  I dont know about converting to various kinds of rigging, but the process for converting old shapes and textures to G9 is like only 1 page of instructions covering:
  1. Convert shape to new figure (i.e., us Faceform Wrap or use a Clone)

  • morph loader
  • adjust rigging to shape
  • ERC freeze

  2. Convert texture to new UVs (i.e., use Faceform Wrap texture transfer, or baking process)

  3. Export correctives

  4. Load correctives

  5. Set up correctives

  The real question is is there anything in older generations worth converting anyway?

  Usually it is only the shape that is worth converting, which means step 2 can be skipped.

  Most characters do not have 100s of correctives to fix. They only have like 5-20 max. Also they are symmetrical, so it's not like those are all "unique" and require much thought to set up after doing it for other side.

  The value in having Daz or Daz vendors do this is that they can bring over HD morphs from previous generations.

  Post edited by lilweep on March 2
• Richard Haseltine Posts: 109,102

  March 2

  Matt_Castle said:

  Cybersox said:

  Richard Haseltine said:

  Even when they reuse a name (e.g. Victoria or Michael) they do new characters with - at most - a similar vibe.

  They have done tried doing exact remakes on occasion, with releases like teen josie 7for teen josie8  and Michael 7 for Michael 8 , being good examples.

  Those are, to the best of my understanding, conversions done by Gravity Studios, but which have to be sold as Daz Originals given they are fundamentally derivative.

  and in any event Teen Josie/Michael 7 and Teen Josie/Michael 8 are different, hence the need for add-ons that modifiy them to match the older generation character with the same name.