As someone who was new to DAZ, those early Genesis 8 bundle sales were awesome. You buy a G8 pro bundle, you get 3 previous pro bundles (eg. Victoria 8 Pro give you V5,V6 and V7 pro bundles) and a high discount for new stuff. I don't know how marketing would make these new pro bundles more enticing.

Cybersox said:

Gator said:
One thing that has irked me for a while is that most of the skin textures for characters here use JPGs, and use overly aggressive compression at that.  I've bought a few Genesis 8 figures when sales have been good, but also with a closer eye towards ones with good textures like Babina 8 whom the forum sold me on.

It's hard to get around the fact that DS is really just an off shoot of Poser, and, IIRC, at one point jpeg was really the only practical solution, so it remains the default standard and, as the original post here made clear, may often be the best compromise for what is actually viable for the average user on the average system.  To be honest, I can't really say that I like the look I've seen for many of the newest PBR skins either, though I admit that's based completely on what I've seen in the promo images and from other users since I've found it surprisingly easy to just say "no" to 8.1.  And, in the end, no matter how good the image textures are, the truth is that it never, ever, going to look 100% perfectly real until the base figures actually duplicate ever single bit of every real object perfectly, and the rendering software perfectly duplicates the actual composition of light and the way it affects the human body and other objects, which not even the state of the art in CG tech has yet come close to achieving, let alone any of the systems that are openly available for purchase on the market.  Food for thought - For all their massive budgets and ridiculously large box office grosses, the effects work for Marvel Studios is still rendered at a "lowly" 2K (uprezzed, not re-rendered, to 4k for Imax and UHD,) and everything else is done with smoke and mirrors, so that image that you're seeing on the screen at the local multi-plex is lower in resolution than the image maps for the individual surfaces of DAZ figures back in the days of Victoria 4.  

The trouble IMO is that the compression often used is way too high. In Photoshop the compression scale is 1-12, with 1 being the most compressed. It's like they're using 4 or 5. The compression artifacts are awful. Speaking of the movies, I picked up the AI upscaling from Topaz Labs for both still images and video. Doing lots of stare and compare recently with the videos I noticed that you get away with a lot more with video compared to a still image. I've known this and you probably knew it as well, it's just taken for granted and forgotten. Video is typically at 24 fps with significantcompression, so small variations in the noise get filtered out over the course of a number of frames. Long story short a single frame typically looks meh compared to the video.

Gator said:
One thing that has irked me for a while is that most of the skin textures for characters here use JPGs, and use overly aggressive compression at that.  I've bought a few Genesis 8 figures when sales have been good, but also with a closer eye towards ones with good textures like Babina 8 whom the forum sold me on.

It's hard to get around the fact that DS is really just an off shoot of Poser, and, IIRC, at one point jpeg was really the only practical solution, so it remains the default standard and, as the original post here made clear, may often be the best compromise for what is actually viable for the average user on the average system.  To be honest, I can't really say that I like the look I've seen for many of the newest PBR skins either, though I admit that's based completely on what I've seen in the promo images and from other users since I've found it surprisingly easy to just say "no" to 8.1.  And, in the end, no matter how good the image textures are, the truth is that it never, ever, going to look 100% perfectly real until the base figures actually duplicate ever single bit of every real object perfectly, and the rendering software perfectly duplicates the actual composition of light and the way it affects the human body and other objects, which not even the state of the art in CG tech has yet come close to achieving, let alone any of the systems that are openly available for purchase on the market.  Food for thought - For all their massive budgets and ridiculously large box office grosses, the effects work for Marvel Studios is still rendered at a "lowly" 2K (uprezzed, not re-rendered, to 4k for Imax and UHD,) and everything else is done with smoke and mirrors, so that image that you're seeing on the screen at the local multi-plex is lower in resolution than the image maps for the individual surfaces of DAZ figures back in the days of Victoria 4.  

Victoria 7 Pro Bundle:
12 products
$134.95 without discounts
Avarage price per product: $11.25

Leanne 8.1 Mega Bundle:
17 products
$300.95 without discounts
Avarage price per product: $17.70

That's an increase of 123% for bundle pricing, and a 57% increase in price per bundled product.
Maybe not a problem to professional organisations, but it's a huge increase for hobbyists.
Sure, I could go for only the Retaliation bundle or only the Undercover Assassin bundle, but the two are both all over the place in content, meaning I actually have interest in only half of each. An interest in just about half the bundle used to be the breaking point for the old pro bundles for me, and yes, I did make it a habit back then to figure out where the price would end up buying seperate components or buying the bundle, taking additional discounts and freebees triggered by the bundles into consideration. And the results of these equations don't look good for bundles anymore.

Nice.

Below are some of the experiments from Unity with different settings.

Used:

https://www.daz3d.com/bd-cleo-for-victoria-7-hd
https://www.daz3d.com/audrey-hair-for-genesis-3-female-s
https://www.daz3d.com/cardio-gear-for-genesis-3-female-s

I'd say, Daz Genesis 3 figures are fine (instead of g8 or g8.1). For one thing, Daz works faster with g3 than g8.
If you focus on obtaining Genesis 3 -compatible poses, clothing, etc. well, those assets will often be cheaper, especially when you hunt through sales deals. And, a lot can even be found for free. Because they're older / legacy.
Genesis 3 is 3dDelight-compatible, but I would consider standardising on IRay, to be forward compatible.
Genesis 3 is more retro-looking, and, I think, that retro, stylised look is cute-looking / 3D-cartoon looking.
A side note on historical versioning...
Victoria-6 is equivalent to Genesis-2.
Victoria-7 is equivalent to Genesis-3.
There are various other xxx-7 character assets too, which will be g3 equivalent.
Daz then jumped from Genesis-3 to Genesis-8 to unify the versioning with Victoria et al.
Talking of the even-older Genesis 2 (g2) figures - they're clunky to pose, etc. but are low-resource, and you can populate a scene with g2 figures without much rendering overhead. I use that trick myself, sometimes, with some distant figures in the background sometimes being g2s.
I have started to flirt with incorporating some g3 characters into some of my art, inspired by that retro-look I love.
However, I'm mostly sticking with g8, though, and g8.1, as such figures are, in most ways, higher-quality, have betting posing, expressions, and other capabilities.

I'm not sure about the clothes, but the hair in your second picture is Matilda Hair, which was listed in one of the Victoria 8.1 bundles. It may be the hair used in the first picture as well, but I'm not certain. Out of Touch has a couple of really nice hairs that are in a similar style and might do as subsitutes: 2022-03 Hair, 2021-16 hair.

I'm interested in purchasing Victoria 8.1 but ham wondering where some of the clothes shown on the product page can be purchased. Specifically, the small leather top and bottom shown in the popups.

It would be super helpful to have a "Products Shown" section in the description somewhere. Does anyone have an idea who makes that top and bottom so I can purchase those as well?

Hello,

I have seen the model in pictures  below(attached) and I was trying to get to its proportions using custom morphs or any Daz tools, but without any success.

The initial model is a Victoria 4 with custom morphs as the owner is stating in his store.

I am very interested in the proportions of this model, especially the small foot, long wide and strong calf muscle on a relatively short tibia. Strong ankles, strong upper legs.

Small waist and huge butt I believe because of a very wide pelvis, but not sure.

for me it looks almost imposible to get to these proportions with the morphs and tools probided by Daz.

I tried to contact the author but without success because the store won't let me contact it directly.

Any help identifying how to recreate this body shape/proportions on a Genesis 3 or 8 or even on Victoria 4 is very welcomed. I appeciate a lot even pointing me to a specific tool or an existing character in Daz store.

Notes:

I have censored the images to not break any Daz rules

The author of this model and images is Merovingian.

Hi, I'm new to daz3d and running into some issues that have gotten me a bit bummed out. I bought some packs to start with, and I'm having some problems. When I try to import Victoria 8, I get a message that files or textures are missing. However, when I go to the runtime folder, the textures and files that do not load are there. The program simply does not see them. Am I doing something wrong? It happens to me with other models, such as a bedroom, the textures in the runtime folder always give me an error.

If can be usefull I released a freebie at Renderosity https://www.renderosity.com/freestuff/items/91460/victoria-4-skin-for-g8f

First, Victoria 8.1 is a character for Genesis 8.1 Female rather than a base figure like Victoria 4.

Genesis 8.1 can convert clothing (and other fitted items) from older versions of Genesis and the original Genesis can convert Victoria 4 fitted items, so you have a free route to get those trasnfered (although not perfectly - custom bones, such as skirt handles or taisl on hair, get lost and things that project away from the figure, such as high heels, can come a cropper).

There are routes for morphs and textures but theya re not free and can be fiddly.

Hello. I'm an old school user of Poser as well as Daz 3D. I've been using Victoria 4.2 Starter Bundle for sometime now. I'm interested in upgrading to Victoria 8.1. My concern is the accesories and clothing and morphs I've bought for V4.2. Will things that conform to V4.2 also conform to V8.1? Such as shoes and clothing and morph++? If they won't, then I'll just stay with Victoria 4.2 because it would be a waste of money and time to buy Victoria8.1. Thanks.

Genesis 1 can use V4 and M4 textures out of the box. There are many freebie textures available for those characters.

Genesis 1 can't use Genesis 2, 3 or 8 textures out of the box. There are products available to enable that though:

https://www.daz3d.com/genesis-2-male-and-female-base-uvs-for-genesis ==> enables you to use textures for Genesis 2 using G2F and G2M base UVs

https://www.daz3d.com/victoria-6-and-michael-6-uvs-for-genesis ==> enables you to use textures for Genesis 2 using the V6 and M6 UVs

https://www.daz3d.com/genesis-3-uvs-for-genesis ==> enables you to use textures for Genesis 3 using G3F or G3M base UVs.  It should also work with textures for Genesis 8 using G8F and G8M base UVs, but it won't work with textures using 8.1 UVs.

 

Richard Haseltine said:

The tear material was, I believe, updated for Daz Studio 4.20.0.2 to take account of the changes in the way ThinFilm behaved - are you using matched materials and application (4.20.0.2 with the updated Starter essentials, or an older DS with unupdated Starter Essentials)?

I updated to 4.20.0.2.

Then I updated to 4.20.0.11.  

I'm now using 4.20.0.11. 

I updated the Genesis 8 Female Starter Essentials, its package date shows 2/18/2022. I sorted DIM list by latest installed, and it's near the top of my list. I also updated the Genesis 8 Male starter essentials in the same way.  So both of these starter essentials are updated.

>4.20.0.2 with the updated Starter essentials

4.20.0.11 with the updated Starter Essentials. I loaded Victoria 8.1 HD, made sure her tear was visible, then rendered, but the tear looks broken. I tried applying the V8.1 tear mat, but still the same result. It doesn't look like a nice wet effect.

If anyone can figure out how to get the tear to look like it's actually a wet watery effect, please let me know.  Is it circumstanstial and only works outdoors?

That did the trick.  Thanks for all the help.  The only minor quibble now is the Anatomical elements for Michael/Victoria below version 8 do not show up in Daz Connect (version 8 does though).  Other than that it seems all is as it should be.

Buonasera
finalmente dopo tanto tempo lontano da DAZ, avendo un pomeriggio libero, ho approfittato per mettere sul sito R (concorrente di DAZ) il freebie che avevo postato qui un po' di tempo fa.

Link: https://www.renderosity.com/freestuff/items/91460/victoria-4-skin-for-g8f

E' la pelle che trasforma la G8F in V4.
Nel pacchetto troverete anche un file video che funge da tutorial a cosa si può fare.
Ci sono però 2 cose a cui stare attenti:

1. le ciglia della G8F sono oggetti staccati (Eyelashes) mentre quelle della V4 erano un tutt'uno con la figura. La pelle pertanto non contiene ciglia (ma ha unghie, lingua, denti, ecc..). Pertanto se provate ad applicare materiali ciglia della V4 non ottenete nulla
2. I morph HD non sono precisi, quelli non HD invece vanno benissimo.

PS file di installazione compatibile con DIM e oggetti già raggruppati come prodotto e con i meta giusti (Victoria 4 Skin for G8F), dunque va solo installato

This is the new tear that comes with 8.1

Image link source: https://www.daz3d.com/genesis-8-1

How do you actually get it to look like that?  In my renders, the tear just makes that area darker, there's no wetness effect like in the above image.

Thanks for the feedback. Changing the folder might have fixed the issue.  I see my icons for content now in the Smart Content tab. Most items seem to be loading ok.  The only funny things I see are that 1.)  Some items don't have that circle in the upper right (see third item in screen shot) and 2.) Victoria 7 Pro and Michael 7 Pro don't show up in Daz Central.  In fact none of the Pro Packs for any character are listing in Daz Central anymore, save for Michael 4 Pro Pack odly enough.  Everything else seems to be listed so I'm puzzled as to why those aren't.

Please look as for now.. as what i have when search meta (have victoria too...)

 

Also look at what appears when i use it in daz...