The modified mesh should be stored in the scene, but there can be issues over morphs that haven't been saved as assets (they work on the base but don't project into clothing - there was a note in the chnage log this week that may be related to that) - so I suppose it may also be that unsaved modifications to base mesh may have problems.

Richard, do you know if this will remain so or be changed in a later update?

I don't know what is happening, so I can't really offer any meaningful guess. The reference to the morph issue was just a very tentative "well, I suppose it could be related to this"

Are there any cloaks for G8 that have a face-covering morph like this one does?

https://www.daz3d.com/medieval-cloaks-for-genesis-3-females

Only reason why I don't buy this one is because I know it will get all crumpled up when conforming to G8, and parenting it will probably lead to a lot of posing issues. I'll try if there's no other way though.

DAZ has moved to a new paradigm for their characters. V4 was relatively high poly count and therefore amenable to morphing by almost anyone. Not so good for DAZ character/morph sales. The Genesis range seem to have less and less polygons on each successive generation; the characters rely on subdivision on the fly within DAZ Studio to achieve their high quality mesh appearence. The lower poly count of the Genesis series means making detailed mesh morphs is more difficult at best and impossible for some morphs, unless you are a DAZ PA, when you have access to DAZ propriety HD technology which enables making HD detailed morphs. This is better for DAZ sales of detailed morphs for their characters. Makes good business sense for DAZ. So DAZ upgrading the rigging of V4 is not very likely as V4++ would compete (rather well, IMO) with the Genesis series and risk losing character/morph sales to third parties.

That's not really correct - since the V4 mesh is used at its final esolution some of the extra is needed to smooth out those morphs, which on Genesises can be left to the SubD to smooth. Remember that Victoria 4 is roughly equivalent to one level of SubD on a Genesis. The idea that this is some kind of ply to boost sales is not really credible - most HD moprh need more resolution thanm the older figures ever offered.

Like with GenX will this allow us to transfer morphs between genders? 

Sorry cross posted with SB.

This is really remarkable work, Singular. I can't spot any differences.

Like with GenX will this allow us to transfer morphs between genders? 

(If not, I supposed I could use GenX to transfer to morph to G3 and then from G3 to G8 using your new tool)

Since I wasn't serious about the guess who game, I'll just answer. The first 4 are, as Divamakeup guessed, G1, G2F, G8F(the source), but not V4 for reasons as above. The last is G2M. She correctly identified not only who, but who was who for the 3 she got right.
Right to left in the all 7 image: Genesis, G2F, G3M, G8F, G8M, G3F, G2M.
Moreover, you don't have to make the figures look exactly like the source. This is the result of using an optional process. It should be noted that sending cross gender will likely require manual edits (Edit: IF and ONLY IF you don't use the option to make the result exactly match the source. Essentially baking the source figure shape into the FBM and FHM. If you do that, no other work is required), because man boobs and woman boobs just don't morph the same, which can result in very, very bad results. Everything else works fine, however. The down side of this method is that the odds of distortion when transfering big morphs have returned to normal. Unfortuantely trying to use the trick I used to prevent that distortion makes this method fail. I might be able to solve that, mind, but I don't mean to delay again looking for perfection. If I solve it, and Daz accepts it, it will go in an update.

Related, slightly: I am iffy as to whether the next Genesis will be an update or addon. It's probably for the best, since this is a decision I should only take after I've actually seen Daz's next figure. However, I am solid on Legacy figure support. If I have a product, and I figure out how to do it, it will be an addon.

This is really remarkable work, Singular. I can't spot any differences.

Like with GenX will this allow us to transfer morphs between genders? 

(If not, I supposed I could use GenX to transfer to morph to G3 and then from G3 to G8 using your new tool)

nonesuch00 said:

You can't know if a smile is real without context so you can't judge a person's smile without knowing for a long time their 'typical smile'. Now if you want to say DAZ 3D model's smiles are fake because they don't involve all the muscle, connective joint & tissue & skin changes needed then you'd be on to something.

 

At the risk of singling out the confirmation bias answer, I guess this is the reaity of the situation.
Lots of helpful suggestions, and thanks for posting them, but without some major tweaking, none of them feel quite right. Strange how many female smiles were suggested, but I'm actually after a male one, pretty much leaving only "20 unique..."
 

Masterstroke said:
step 1: load a default Daz smile or every other smile, that looks useful to you.
step 2: tweak some of the facial bones
step 3: make a final touch up morph with zbrush
step 4: create a new controll slider using the ERC freeze option.
...
Might be a plan, thanks. I'll look into that.
Gonna look like a crazy person if I reply to every reply, but thanks everyone who contributed - some really nice points made!
 

DAZ has moved to a new paradigm for their characters. V4 was relatively high poly count and therefore amenable to morphing by almost anyone. Not so good for DAZ character/morph sales. The Genesis range seem to have less and less polygons on each successive generation; the characters rely on subdivision on the fly within DAZ Studio to achieve their high quality mesh appearence. The lower poly count of the Genesis series means making detailed mesh morphs is more difficult at best and impossible for some morphs, unless you are a DAZ PA, when you have access to DAZ propriety HD technology which enables making HD detailed morphs. This is better for DAZ sales of detailed morphs for their characters. Makes good business sense for DAZ. So DAZ upgrading the rigging of V4 is not very likely as V4++ would compete (rather well, IMO) with the Genesis series and risk losing character/morph sales to third parties.

 

is this still true about skylight or does the 8.5  "sunlight" change anything?

dunno if is my imagination but seems the bulb light much better quality than distant light

 

Sun light is a light, so you have shadow and specularity.

Skylight, HDRI are environement lighting, so no shadow and no specularity. I'm not sure there is a difference in quality between bulb and distant. If you set no range limit on a bulb and put it far enough, it acts exactly like a distant light.

The plugin to create lightdome is in alpha stage (on my computer :-) ). I'll finish and release as soon as I'm done with the HD Morph plugin.

It's super hard to tell from the small image and viewing the arms bends from this angle but I'll try and guess, just for fun - I could be WAY off though: G2F, G8F, V4, G1

I PMed you if you want another beta tester. :)

That was a remarkably good guess. Only one wrong. :)

I wonder if this product offers a solution to get V4 / M4 morphs straight to G8?

https://www.daz3d.com/sy-victoria-4-and-michael-4-clones-for-genesis-8

For my understanding the autofit clones can be used as morph shapes. This will turn a G8 figure into V4 / M5 shape right?

It does not. I suspect it can, but I need to really study the format of the CR2 file, and generalized Poser-ness. I just don't know enough about it to be definitive. That said, The tools this product uses to work rely on Studio's internals, and I have noticed that there many cases where those tools do not like to work with legacy formats and post Genesis formats at the same time. So it might also not be possible. Thus:

GenX brings characters from V4 to G3

GenX is really the best solution for this issue. Yes, it makes it two step, but I can't begin to say if my methods can get near a single step solution. GenX is the only certain solution I am aware of. I wanted to prove this one way or the other, but I simply don't see taking anouther 2 years to figure that out, and learning the legacy format to my standards would mean that much additional trial and error, (given how my current life makes everything take longer). If I figure out how to do it, there will be an addon, but the basic product will be Genesis only. Because Studio does not really convert legacy figures to the same standard as Genesis at run time, I have to invent a new module to do transfers. It's not just getting the right shape.  If anyone know how to author Poser formats in Daz Studio 4, that would go a long way toward making this possible (not to say that I can't figure it out, if it can be done, just that it would save time). But it's definitely not as simple as getting the clone shapes. 

Here we have everyone. (View the attachment to embiggen.) All seven Genesis figures, all using the same morph as transfered by the tool. While getting the previous example done was good fun, I find that texture's make it too easy to figure out the differences AND it makes it look like there are differences that don't exist. So, this time, I just did them in stone. There remain solid clues as to who's who and there remains one mystery guest in the first image :P
I never got around to having G3 deactivate the navel and realism morphs before executing a transfer, so I'll  be doing that, then one more round of test transfers (so far, it's all been from G8, so I need to do some testing to make absolutely sure there remain no obvious issues. G8 to G8 was a thing that happened, otherwise there'd be six figures in the render, so I know it works for putting morphs on G8. I just need to make sure there are no gotchas). After that, I'll be releasing to beta. New tester hopefuls, if you PM'd, I will start contacting you as soon as it looks like I'm not getting enough feedback from existing testers. Or if I need specific tests run (I don't know that I will). 

@jeffam112368_9a28fbd572 Awesome. And others too! 

I'd like share couple of my renders in which I aimed for reality. First is Tasha 8. It's simple but I think it rendered well with a hdri (I don't remember which one it was). The other I don't remember who she was XD.

Those are both in that zone that's so close to something that passes as a photo, that I can't quite figure out what's keeping it from convincing me. This is where I often feel I'm stuck. With the first image, I think there's something not quite there with the skin. It needs more details—the little lines that somebody of that approximate age would have around the eyes, little folds around the armpits, etc. The texture is too smooth, as well. With the white dress image, the first thing that struck me is the texure on the corset is off. It's too metalic for a silk and probably needs a touch of SSS or translucency to capture the way light moves through fabric. Assuming they both use the same skin, it works better in this one, but when I study it, I still notice the lack of those details.

Another small thing is there aren't any fingerprints/smudges on the instruments. With such polished surfaces, there should be a little bit of surface grime and fingerprints even on a very clean surface, I'm not sure if that contributes to the uncanny valley effect, but it could be contributing in such well-light environments.

Aargh, having done that analysis, I can see how it would apply to my own work and how I don't have either the skill or the tools to fix it :(

 

This is about as close as I've gotten with a close up. Barring, of course, the sweater. That probably needs some  kind of hair system/fiber mesh to sell it. The glasses might help, since they hide the lack of detail around the nose.

Thanks for analysis! Very good points. I am lazy and I usually use characters and props straight from box without tweaking them or doing much postwork. I see the grime and imperfections would add a lot.
I like your render a lot, the overall composition and lighting looks really good. B&W always elevates the real feeling of a picture. Perhaps a little tighter DOF, so it slightly starts from the ears and back portion of the hair. Somehow I always find it adding reality while I think it comes from photos I've seen during my life. Well, the title of the thread says "photo"realism :)

I'll add one render I did with a trombone. It's a bit of an lighting accident how it came out but I liked it and took it as it came. It could use postwork and the guy on the background the same attention to detail than the main character. G8M base figure with Edward 8 skin, default age morph and George hair set, DarkEdge's glasses.

Tone mapping settings are what I'm going to dig into next.

Yeah I didn't mean this product is intended to do that morph transfer right out of the box. I just thought about to convert the clone shape it comes with back to a morph (that it originaly was - just saved as Clone Asset lateron) and see how close you can get the G8 figure to the V4/M4 shape. I think it should even work if it isn't aligned up perfectly. If its close enougth you could use the converted Clone Asset morph with the Transfer Utility to convert those figure morphs with this Reverse Source Shape from Target option checked - you know what I'm talking about right?

Using the actual skin mat from the person you are trying to model is usually pretty important to getting an accurate likeness. 
I picked up Headshop Oneclick a while back and was disappointed with the same issue. I see it here in some of the example characters posted too. The face looks "painted on", or you can tell the source image was strongly lighted from one direction. 
I later on picked up Facegen Pro - which actually creates an entire full body mat for characters and avoids this "clown-face" problem that Headshop seems to suffer. 
Usually I just use Facegen Pro and call it a day. I keep exploring the reviews on this product to see if it is improved in this regard, but it doesn't really sound like it. Occasionally - I'll use Headshop Oneclick to create the morph and then use a skin map generated by Facegen. A neutral expression image in neutral lighting like a passport photo is always where you are going to get your best results. 

Sorry for taking so long, but I didn't make it home last night. Anyway, the only way I could get the Tara 2 wings to work on the Behemoth was to parent them.

After loading the wings with nothing selected, a new null was created and positioned it in between the right/left bases of the wings. The wings were then parented to this null (effectively creating a new pivot point for the wings). After rotating/scaling the null to taste and positioning it so the base of the wings was buried a little bit in his dimples of Venus, it was parented to his lower abdomen.

Obviously, the morph that the Tara 2 figure has to accept the wings is not applied, but the pose controls are maintained doing it this way, and I think the wings are a great match after being scaled up:

- Greg

ETA: Thanks to @ANGELREAPER1972 for reminding me about these wings - I picked up Tara 2 when she came out but hadn't even considered using her wings on this guy until they brought it up!

A sliding drawer could be handled via a morph, since it's linear.

Spero che ti ascoltino, visto che non faranno Genesis9.

Davvero non mi riesce di capire perchè non riparino gli IK, da quel che ho potuto vedere una marea di utenti si lamenta di questo, se non la quasi totalità...

E' letteralmente impossibile lavorare con Genesis8... Ora che sta saltando fuori un nuovo strumento per trasferire i morph tra le figure, spero di poter utilizzare le ultime.

I couldn't figure out how to select morph vertices, however, there seems to be an issue with this one: MD_JCM_L ArmPit Fix01  it is part of the product in question. When I slid it, the eye moved back where it should be. But the shoulder bend looks awful without it. 

I do know it occurs when the shoulder morph product is applied so it is  hopefully is one in the upper body. I need to step away from the computer for Alf hour but will return shortly.

Ok, this looks to be the eye movement in a JCM. So select the root figure and look at the hidden JCMs that are on. Now you want to select the Geometry Editor tool, under Tool Settings make sure the Vertex Selection is active. Then right click on each JCM that's active and Select Morph Vertices. One of them should highlight the eyeball in question. It zooms to the selected verts. That should at least tell you which morph is causing the problem (but again, can be quite tedious). Hopefully it's not several morphs moving it a little and compounding to a large effect.

It is definitely a rogue side to side morph though. Because that is how I generally fix it. When I toggle the shoulder on and off the eyeball is fixed. Its very confusing. Especially since I don't see this with all poses.