Recently? No one, really. Used to love Rebelmommy's eyes before she retired. But you can't use Victoria 3 assets with modern figures.

 The missing maps for this character are detail weight maps for the new pbr shader tiled skin micro details. Otherwise the character only uses about 77 % Victoria 8.1 body morph. Skin detail you can simply disable in the surface setting so it won't matter much except for very close portraits.

As for how it looks without the Vic8.1 body morph:

On the left it`s with Victoria's body dialed in. On the right it's without it. Without the morph the body shape is less defined, more on the generic side and the breasts are larger.

I'd say it's usable, but I'd try to substitute some other character details to make up for the loss of body definition.

Hylas said:

She´s pretty and she looks well made, but not particularly distinctive. I can easily think of several characters just like her, such as V8.1, Aurore, or Sonja. Easy pass for me, but good for those who like this sort of thing. God knows I can´t stop buying square jawed hunks that don´t look all that different from one another :)

I think she’s much prettier than V8.1 but she does look pretty much like a Mousso girl and those come with HD. As I said in another thread, you can get 4 Mousso girls on sale for less than the price of this one at $22 and the deal on the bundle is awful. If this had been an old pro bundle style deal, I definitely would have gotten it, but this is just too low on content, too high in price with no decent freebie perks. $5.00 off old content I’ve picked through ages ago doesn’t cut it.  

She´s pretty and she looks well made, but not particularly distinctive. I can easily think of several characters just like her, such as V8.1, Aurore, or Sonja. Easy pass for me, but good for those who like this sort of thing. God knows I can´t stop buying square jawed hunks that don´t look all that different from one another :)

nonesuch00 said:

Novica said:

@fishtales  Yes, there definitely was a difference in the night renders!

Are you all looking at the sale and thinking, "Are they kidding?"   Get $5 off each category?  And for me, the categories have already been picked through so much I don't even look anymore. But $5 is a joke!  

And from comments in the forums, apparently quite a few of us got the invite to become a season pass holder. No thanks, again. 

I didn't get the invite and it might make it sound like I don't buy much here but I do. I think they must of went out to anyone that buys almost every new bundle.

I got the offer but I haven't seen much to make want to use it. So, still a pass for me.

While I bought all the G8 Pro bundles I've only bought one each of the Victoria 8.l, Micheal 8.1, Cleopatra 8.1 bundles. 

Since it says 0 clothing items it probably didn't recognize the clothes as such.

You probably need to use the "force convert items" option.

Also here's the official thread on that product, the PA often answers questions there: https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/304091/released-rssy-clothing-converter-from-victoria-4-to-genesis-8-female-commercial

I bought the "RSSY Clothing Converter from Victoria 4 to Genesis 8 Female", but I can't get it to work.

I want to convert the Cowgirl I outfit for V4 to G8. (https://www.renderosity.com/rr/mod/bcs/?ViewProduct=104204)

I load a clean G8F character.

Start the script.

Add an output directory

Choose the V4 clothes I want to convert, and click Execute...

The Manual says a popup dialog box will appear during execution, and that one has to choose "General Weight Mapping" from this dialog box.

The problem is that I get no dialog box.

The script runs and finishes, telling me "Execution compledet in 18 secs on 0 clothing items".

Any suggestions?

DARTANBECK.COM

Part 2

DAZ ZONE

DAZ ZONE - This is an exciting page full of my love for Daz 3D with a stroll back in time to when Genesis came out and then even further down is this wonderful video I posted years ago - Daz 3D as it was when I was an aspiring young PA here! (the face you see there (video's thumbnail) is Kevin, who was my boss! :) )

Daz Content

Daz 3D Content - Mainly just a container/landing page, but will eventually be really cool!

• Daz 3D Human History - A stroll through the Figure Generations

• Daz 3D Bundles - A look at the amazing wealth of content to be found in Bundles at Huge savings

• Genesis 1 ROCKS!!! - I really dig into what I love about this amazing figure generation

• Victoria 4 - A look at what is still (by far) the absolute Most Supported 3D articulate human figure on the planet

• Some Personal Favorites - Kind of the opposite of "Buy something that doesn't work", this is stuff that I love, and it does work! I'll be adding a LOT more to this one as I've only just begun

• Character Packs - a look at some of the cool Character Packs for our figures

• Introducing Genesis 8.1 - Daz 3d takes another leap in 3D human Excellence!!!

• Animal Kingdom

• Animal Kingdom - Domestic Animals

• Content Generations Conversion - Create library versions of items from any generation of Genesis to any other!

• Carrara 8.5 Pro Content - This page shows the massive bundle that comes with Carrara 8.5 Pro. The price of Pro includes all of this plus Carrara Pro? Very Cool!

Daz Studio

Daz Studio - I've started this page to help gather information towards learning this amazing suite called Daz Studio. As I learn I'll be expanding this whole section, but I like this page now already. I update it when I can - several times so far.

Daz Studio Page Quick Map

• What is Daz Studio?

• Master Daz Studio

• Daz Bridges - Maya, Blender, C4D, 3ds Max, Unreal and Unity

• Daz Bridges How To - Steph, from Daz 3D, shows you how to use them

• dForce and New Animation Tools Demos

• Content Creation Tools - Oh Yeah! This is what I mostly use DS for now - and even in that I've only been scratching the surface!

• Filament PBR Engine!!! - Near-Real Time PBR viewport and rendering!

• New Animation Features - DS 4.14 was designed with Animation in Mind!

• Free OctaneRender for Daz Studio

PC + Experience

Platinum Club + Experience - It's amazing how much value we can get from this service if we check in often! Even with little internet time I've been able to really fill up my library over the years - and the yearly membership cost is tiny comparatively

• PC+ Cloth Frenzy - I've only just started this page. Since I started using VWD and removing rigging from figures so that I can add/delete polygons, change domains, etc., stuff in the low-price range in the PC+ catalog looks great and is fun to model with! I am working on a tutorial on how I make the clothing into static prop objects and then model them to fit the morphed figure, then run them through VWD as if using them as conforming clothes. It's really neat!

Bridging Technology - A new leap in workflow design and implementation

• Mimic Lip Sync

• Rosie 5.5

Blender Zone

Blender Zone

• Royal Skies LLC

• Diffeomorphic

• Diffeomorphic DAZ Importer

DO IT IN POST

VFX Zone > Fusion - Movie Magic at its Finest! Hollywood-grade compositing software

Editing Zone > DaVinci Resolve - This page contains the Resolve Training materials I'm using to learn this Hollywood-grade Non-Linear Editor - and the free version also includes Fusion, built right in! (along with Fairlight Audio and Resolve's high-end color corrector)

• A Quick Look - This is my short demonstration of some of the techniques I used to create the "Introducing Rosie 5" video

GALLERY

Gallery - This landing page also has a carousel of some of my images you've all seen before. The Still Images and Video pages are very much incomplete still

• Videos

  • Artemis Knight

• Still Images

Inspiration

• STAR WARS

• The Witcher

• Alita Battle Angel - has some missing videos that have been taken down - must fix

  • Homage Corner

  • Industrial Light & Magic (ILM)

  • Inspirations - Weta Digital

​Downloads

• Starry Sky for Carrara

• Carrara EnvironKits

• Woodlands

• Underwater Realms

• Badlands

• dB Animation Kits

Base Scenes

• Base Scene

• dB's Character Template Scene

THE SOFTWARE

The Software - I've included most of what I'm currently using and more. I still have plenty of stuff to add though. HitFilm will be coming to this page, and getting its own but I haven't used in yet in my current workflow - but its coming! Some software is just linked to from this page, others have their own as well:

• Cyberlink Software - Great setups for video production and a lot more. Philip Staiger (PD Howler) uses this to make his awesome videos

• Autodesk - With as little time as I have to use software, this high-end stuff isn't the practical choice. But when you want to go pro....

• PD Howler - Oh yeah!!! My favorite image editor to date!

• Particle Illusion - amazing particle effects simulator/recorder, now from Boris

Whew! So that's the current list of pages. While a few of them are rather bare, currently just containers or landing pages, they have a lot of content in the works for them and the other pages are looking pretty cool, I think.

...and some of my Carrara forum friends have asked my to put up a "Donate" button of some sort, so I reluctantly made a Donate page. I don't really have a method for taking donations, as such, so I offer some examples there ;)

Hi all!

I wanted to share something I've been working on, to see if any one else is interested 

I'm trying to bring DAZ content to Houdini - but not as a FBX import. Rather, my goal is to have a full, native parser for a DAZ Studio content library, directly in Houdini, with many of the same features found in DAZ Studio.

The primary reason for tackling this is that DAZ Studio has a huge library of characters and supporting assets, all of which are based on a few core character definitions. Having a way to import these characters into Houdini agent simulations and FX projects seems like it would be super-useful for technical / FX artists. The use of a common base character mesh, with switchable variations, means that procedural adaptation of these characters in Houdini would be very tweakable and portable, and could become a great basis for procedural workflows that can be expanded simply by adding more characters to a library from the DAZ store.

In the current (VERY alpha) version, I have the following features working:

• Parse a DAZ Studio Library folder of DSON files
• Build a library of nodes, materials, geometries, UV sets, and modifiers from these DSON files
• Parse DSX files to discover available characters
• Select a character to load in Houdini as a Houdini Digital Asset (e.g. Victoria 8)
• Parse the DUF scene for that selected character
• Make connections between modifiers, channels, functions, and operators to populate the scene's properties for that selected character
• Create a KineFX skeleton for the selected character, natively in Houdini
• Create a bound, weighted Houdini skin geometry for that KineFX skeleton from the DAZ geometry definitions, natively in Houdini
• Create packed primitive geometries for head and body morphs, pose and joint correction morphs, and any other geometry modifiers
• Apply character shaping morphs and joint offsets to match each character's custom shape and skeleton
• Apply pose and joint correction morphs in response to changes in the character's pose
• Translate Iray materials into Mantra or Redshift materials via Houdini material stylesheets

Of course, there's a lot that isn't supported right now:

• Props
• Clothing
• Hair
• Lights
• Camera
• Multiple geometries in a scene
• Basically, anything that isn't a single skinned character

…and the material support is still a work in progress, with some notable gaps:

• Mantra's subsurface scattering (SSS) implementation leaves a lot to be desired
• DAZ's volume shading for skin is hard to translate into Houdini (or at least, I'm still working on how it might translate)…

…but nonetheless: it's a start!

The current project is a combination of Python (for the library parsing and scene construction), Houdini digital assets (for the library node and character node), and custom Mantra / Redshift shaders.

One thing I've been wondering is whether the "parse a library, build a scene, and resolve formulas and channels" code could be broken out into its own Python module, and possibly open-sourced for the greater good. It strikes me that this could be useful for other projects too, and I know folks on these forums have been working on bringing DAZ content to Blender via Python, as an alternative to the (already very nice) DAZ to Blender Bridge. If there's interest in making this part of the project more widely available, do let me know. Everything in that part of the code is based on a deep read of the DSON documentation, combined with a lot of trial and error, plus spelunking through a variety of real-life DSON files. (I'm immensely grateful to DAZ for making the DSON File Format Specification available - I would never have got this far without those docs as inspiration.)

Anyway: here are a few Redshift / Houdini renders of Victoria 8 to show where things are at. Thoughts, questions, and suggestions much appreciated!

– Dave

benniewoodell said:

Leticia said:

The Blurst of Times said:

Yay. More traditional fare/pretty girl in a bikini.

Nice.

She's not terrible, but she's so close to Vickie 8.1; I guess I'd really rather have her be a little more unique.  I'm thinking we're going to see some hippy themed bundles though, so I'm looking forward to that.  If only they weren't likely to follow recent exorbitant pricing.

When I first loaded her into the viewport, I did groan out loud thinking she looked just like Vickie 8.1, but then when I turned on Iray and started adding the details and changing up the lighting, that groan quickly went away for me as I could see she was different. I could see myself really utilizing this character a lot actually.

I have to agree — from a distance, she really seems super close to Victoria 8.1, but the HD details rendered in Iray add some really nice imperfection details.
Looking forward to seeing the supporting content tomorrow...
 

Has the "additional products used in promo images" been expanded/improved? I seem to remember there was a more restrictive limit. Here's an example.

https://www.daz3d.com/vyk-marty-for-victoria-81

Thanks to aprilshowers2065 & Luci45 for your comments
This looks like a real great comeback for the RRRRR!

vamok #2: Fun one, you can always navigate wrong, more or less.
prilshowers2065 #5: What can I say? As long as they do not both get mortally injured, great idea!
luci45 #6: Haha, great one! Almost like the year meeting for the clairvoyant association was cancel due to unforeseen events.
Daventaki #5: Timing is everything, great one!
katfeete #3: Anceient guardians, they are the worst, they have had so much time to practice, good one!
Daventaki #6: No IP96 classification on that tablet, poor Victoria, very good one!
aprilshowers2065 #6: This one is really funny, Honey I shrunk the kids but funnier!
katywhite #1: Welcome! And a great start. I know, no one believes you when you are s superhero!

I think this is her.. .https://www.daz3d.com/ry-elysa-for-victoria-8

And as a personal note, you don't go wrong with Raiya characters. They are always very well done.

Thanks, Phoenix1966.
You are right ... I did not pay attention to the fact that Victoria 8.1 is needed,and I do not have that character.
My bad.
Thanks for answering, and my apologies for this post!

I noticed the product does list Victoria 8.1 as a requirement. Those files you listed come with Victoria 8.1.

Your best bet is to file a support ticket to find out, I think.

Tackling the issues after they happen is not very fantastic for the customers who have to deal with them. In the long run this comes back to hurt Daz more than it is worth, as these frustrations can be what pushes the customer away. I don't know about you, but unhappy customers are usually not good for business. 

We also have the secondary issue of how installing lots of morphs causes load times to increase. I think this issue is even more serious, because it can effect everybody. And it effects the most loyal customers most, which kind of feels insulting when you think about it. That Genesis 8 has had a long run is not even a point. Victoria 4 STILL has new products being created for it, years after Daz stopped selling new content. You can still find new content for Genesis 3 as well. The damage is done and is on going. We can see the posts here in the forums, as numerous people have openly said they cut back on buying new characters because of the growing load times. No matter how you try to paint it, this issue effects Daz's bottom line, and even worse, it effects their most loyal customers. That is the worst part of all this, it is the loyal customer who is more likely to get burned. Besides, cycling a new Genesis every 2 years was not going to be sustanable, either. That is very likely why 8 has lasted so long. Many customers were growing tired of new generations and this is a direct result of Daz listening to that feedback. It also takes a lot of money to develop a new figure base, so developing a new base just for the sake of doing so isn't so great. So Daz put themselves in a bind either way.

The only other thing possible is for DS to check vendor names in duplicate ID situations, and use the vendor to seperate the morphs by automatically adding a vendor sig to the morph. This vendor sig would be hidden to the customer unless they select an option to unhide them. But this would probably be time consuming as well, and it may not even be possible with DS code. But the vendor is listed in every data file. The vendor name is listed at the top of the data file, so at least scanning this information might not take too long if needed. For the cherry on top this process is permenant, so that next time the customer loads the characters they do not get duplicate IDs at all. Why DS does not already check the vendor name is beyond me.

However this solution does not address the growing load times.

certaintree38 said:

xyer0 said:

I don't get it. The tester won't be twiddling his/her thumbs while the character loads; they'll be doing another task until it loads, like the rest of us do. Once it loads, they'll test it. No time or labour lost.

The Victoria / Michael 4 setup used the morph checklist idea. People hated it. What we have now is the solution for that. If Genesis 8 only had a 2-year run, then we (most of us) would not have discovered the long load times of having too many morphs.

Ok, yes, that's true. I just don't see it happening. There are new characters released every day, so each day the load times would be getting incrementally longer. At the very least, the total length of time to get those characters tested would be much longer. When before you could get things through the QA process in a few minutes, each item would now take maybe an hour or longer. If you only have one computer for this process, this would mean multiple hours added to the QA workflow. You can do things while you wait, but it's still going to be a lot longer before you can get all the products through the process each day. I just can't imagine Daz slowing down their process to that degree. I guess if you had more people doing QA, and more computers set up for it, it wouldn't be so bad. 

Not to forget, that DAZ store is not the only source of assets/products.

Even if DAZ had a computer with all of the (currently available) 38166 items installed, the conflicts would still be there due to all the freebies and other assets from 3rd party sources.

xyer0 said:

I don't get it. The tester won't be twiddling his/her thumbs while the character loads; they'll be doing another task until it loads, like the rest of us do. Once it loads, they'll test it. No time or labour lost.

The Victoria / Michael 4 setup used the morph checklist idea. People hated it. What we have now is the solution for that. If Genesis 8 only had a 2-year run, then we (most of us) would not have discovered the long load times of having too many morphs.

Ok, yes, that's true. I just don't see it happening. There are new characters released every day, so each day the load times would be getting incrementally longer. At the very least, the total length of time to get those characters tested would be much longer. When before you could get things through the QA process in a few minutes, each item would now take maybe an hour or longer. If you only have one computer for this process, this would mean multiple hours added to the QA workflow. You can do things while you wait, but it's still going to be a lot longer before you can get all the products through the process each day. I just can't imagine Daz slowing down their process to that degree. I guess if you had more people doing QA, and more computers set up for it, it wouldn't be so bad. 

I don't get it. The tester won't be twiddling his/her thumbs while the character loads; they'll be doing another task until it loads, like the rest of us do. Once it loads, they'll test it. No time or labour lost.

The Victoria / Michael 4 setup used the morph checklist idea. People hated it. What we have now is the solution for that. If Genesis 8 only had a 2-year run, then we (most of us) would not have discovered the long load times of having too many morphs.

I used to use NLA clips, but I prefer to just do it all by hand for each animation now - since each of my characters requires their own, individual treatment anyways.

I even animate the strenomastoids in the neck, so yeah... I agree with what you just said and more.

After observing folks, I also notice that people rarely 'stare' people down as they talk. The eyes come back and lock for at least a portion of a second, but then the eyes either roll to the side, up or down, depending on the individual. 

My sister always rolls her eyes to the side and up every single time she makes conversation. 

I tried performing eye-lock on someone while I was talking to them, just to prove to myself how much I never do that. It made the recipient feel a bit uncomforatble too - I could tell.

I like to move Rosie's nostrils, sink that lower center oart of the throat (whatever the hell that's called) and accentuate one of the sternomastoids that run up and down the throat on either side of that part. 

For breathing, I made my own Torso Scrunch controller morph that I use in conjunction with the Inhale morph from V4 Morphs ++ (now called Shapes ++? Not sure it's still the same). So I added Chest Bend, Abdomen Bend, Abdomen 2 Bend, Neck Bend and Arms Twist and made a freebie: Genesis 1 MorphForms +

It works great!

I do find that it's more difficult (less simple?) for me to animate the fingers on Genesis than what I've grown so accusomed to with generation 4. Probably because Rosie 5 is so vastly different in shape and size from the base, unlike Rosie 4. So I'm already planning some additions to that product.

Blinks I do by hand as well. With Rosie 4, I simply used the Blink and Blink Twice aniBlocks from Victoria Alive. I have just picked up Genesis Alive, but keep forgetting to try it. I actually enjoy just doing these things by hand. 

All I've been doing these days is animating and then running simulations on cloth and hair. What a freaking Blast!!!