Bit of a late starter compared to others here, first purchases were Victoria 4.2 Starter Bundle, GOM V4 Male Morphs, Michael 4 Base

FSMCDesigns said:

First product I purchased from DAZ was the https://www.daz3d.com/glamorous-vicki-set-for-victoria-3-0

on 2005-11-06 for Poser...

My first purchase too. 15 Dec 2004. Up 'til then I had only used Posette and the Dork from Poser 4. Most recent use of GV3 on a V3 base was last December, so I have probably got my money's worth. Now have the character on a G8F base.

Regards

Richard

Victoria 2.0 on May 10, 2001.

Victoria 1 Reduced Resolution Figure and Victoria Sample Maps are the first purchases listed in my product library, from 2002. 

First product I purchased from DAZ was the https://www.daz3d.com/glamorous-vicki-set-for-victoria-3-0

on 2005-11-06 for Poser since I was a Poser only user back then (didn't start using DS till 2011). Then a few days later I realized I needed the morphs for V3 to change any shapes, so I got those and the ones for M3.

My oldest purchase came on a CD : Victoria (aka Millennium Woman), Yup, I got it in the mail.

MerKhrys said:

UnifiedBrain said:

I disagree.  Ever since I started this journey in 2016, a few people here have posted, warning about the furure of Carrara.  Meanwhile, I have had the time of my life playing with this great software.

I wouldn't trade the last 5 years for any shiny new toy out there.

I continue to recommend Carrara.  The price is so low, there is literally nothing to lose.  And what you get is amazing.  I have explored maybe 10% of its capabilities.  Few people ever master it.

The simple fact is, Carrara will run forever if you want it to.  It just depends on how much you want to keep using it.

Carrara fills a niche.  If it doesn't meet your needs, move on.  But frankly, the "warnings" get tiresome.

 

There is something to loose. Time. It takes a lot time to learn to use a software like this. Spending time learning a software already old and with no future, I think it's wasting time. Granted, many  of the things you learn in Carrara would  work in other softwares, so it would not be a complete waste of time. But it would be simpler to learn directly these other softwares. Blender, or Daz Studio are free, so it's better in that aspect too. And you can find a lot more items, informations, tutorials etc. than for Carrara. And you can get amazing results with these too.

If you are already using Carrara, it suits your needs, you're comfortable with it, then by all means, please continue. I'm still using it myself (since 2009, less and less, though)

But to recommend it to someone new to 3D, without even warning him ?

The question regarding warning a new 3D user about the difficulty of using the newest characters, makes no logical sense.  A "new 3D user" would have no knowledge of Victoria 4, much less Genesis.  To a new user, there is no "lack of development."  Everything is new.  Development is always relative.  And further, to a lot of Carrara users, some who have already posted on this thread, G3 and G8 (which can certainly be loaded into Carrara) are not missed at all.  A lot of "development" is just marketing hype.

For sure, my art is not dependent on being able to use the latest Daz character.  It is logical to assume that many "new users" would eventually feel the same way, is it not?  So why project your "latest software bias" onto someone else?  Talk about wasting time.

Five years ago I read that Carrara would not be updated, and that I would be "wasting my time" in learning it.  Who actually determines that, anyway?

When are you going to die?  When is Carrara going to die?  You really don't know the answer to either question.  Live your life.  Enjoy Carrara.  Let the chips fall where they may.

I plan to continue enjoying Carrara into the forseeable future... and to continue recommending it to others.  To do otherwise is the real waste of time.

xyer0 said:

I think the mouth interior has new geometry, and Victoria 8.1 mouth materials (gums, tongue) look MUCH more realistic than any previous mouth materials. Although I don't do any renders where this really matters, if I needed a toothy smile, I no longer would need to be apprehensive.

No, the actual geometry is the same.

My first purchase 04-20-2007 victoria 3 & micheal 3  my second was A3 with a3 xin xin I can't believe how long ago that is ..dang

If you mean which of my products is oldest irregardless of when I purchased it then Victoria 2 sku 83 (although I also later got Victoria 1 as part of Mimic Lite 3.1)

but if you mean which product did I buy first then Bryce 5.5 which was free or the first non-free one was Bryce Landscaping kit.

January 21st, 2003. Purchased Victoria 3 Base, Head Morphs, Body Morphs, and Creature Creation Fantasy Maps Pack. All for $90.

I thought this was all I was going to need to get me going.

On the 22nd I was back and purchased V3 'Day Dreamer' Poses, Victoria 3 Character Pack 1, and Ultra Salon Hair. Surely that was all I was going to need. I had hair, poses, and a few alternate characters to work with. I was definitely, without a doubt, all set to go!

On the 23rd I was back and purchased Highpoly Grass And Morphing Terrain Combo Pack, Arthurian Style Bedroom, Victoria 3 Universal Texture Maps (High Res), Hollywood Hair, Koshini, Koshini Clothing Pack 1 - Street Star, Victoria3xprssnmagic, Victoria'S Changing Ponytail Collection.

Thus began my descent into madness.

I think the mouth interior has new geometry, and Victoria 8.1 mouth materials (gums, tongue) look MUCH more realistic than any previous mouth materials. Although I don't do any renders where this really matters, if I needed a toothy smile, I no longer would need to be apprehensive.

People: Michael 3, Victoria 3

Props: Tropical Elements

Environment: The Living Room

Software: DAZ|Studio PC Low-Bandwidth (whatever that is)

Clothing: Basic Wear for M4 shows up first, but my library lists items around the same time that were in the store much longer, like Vixen and Ravyness for V3 and A3, respectively.

I'm guessing a lot of these were freebies that I picked up when I first joined. From what I can gather my first money-down purchase at DAZ were the body morphs for the original Genesis, Michael 5 and Victoria 5, and the Leather Jacket for Genesis.

First: do you have any other Optitex clothing items you could try? If not, there used to be a bunch of freebies on their store page - maybe you could try one of those?

This is the link: http://www.optitex-dynamiccloth.com/FreebieDownload01.php

(If it doesn't work try the indirect route: http://www.optitex-dynamiccloth.com/ then click on Freebies - Daz Freebies.

ETA: Most of the clothes are for Victoria 4 and Michael 4, but if you go to page 14 there are a couple of Genesis items there.

I have tried, particularly those numbers, and they didn't work quite as well as the numbers I give below. The numbers above are the generally accepted and seem to work well. I have used them myself.

My method of getting the numbers was to load Victoria 7 in the zero pose. Then I loaded a version of G8F with the V7 morph applied to G8F via RiverSoftArt's G3F to G8F morph transfer. I left the right side alone, showing the zero pose for each and the left side I tried to match as well as possible. It is possible all I have found is the figures used in RSA's pose transfer script, but it's as good as I can get.

The images attached show the front and back views. G3F is in cream, G8F in green.

Left Thigh Bend: Side-Side = -6
Left Collar: Bend = 2.50
Left Shoulder Bend: Bend = 43.50
Left Forearm Bend: Bend = 0.20
Mirror these for the right side.

The differences in pose and final finger positions from the SY quoted numbers are small, but I think this set of numbers is very slightly closer. You may disagree, but if you do, it would be helpful for your argument if you could show the evidence supporting why you disagree. Force of personality, personal charm, being or quoting an authority, unfortunately doesn't affect numbers - which is just as well for me sometimes, lacking charm, forceful personality and any pretention to being an authority on anything.

Regards,

Richard.

Working on exactly that 

Yay really curious what you can do with the new tools.

I was surprised there was little 8.1 content so far. Now that I've played with it for a couple of hours, ok I get it, there's more to learn than I thought.

Revisited an older scene and applied the PBRSkin shader, and microtextures for the hand (old bump was bit coarse in closeup). It's not quite finished but I already like it better overall than the 8.0 version.

(Details details... with Misumi it was easy to get the color roughly where it should be, but then couldn't get it quite right, the original has a slightly more yellowish tone. The texturing.xyz micro normals resulted in brutal shadow artifacts, had to increase subdiv. I think the new skin gloss is nicer, but lots of dials to learn)

P.S. as a card carrying member of the Misumi Fan Club (I'm under the impression I'm not the only one), I hope one day there'll be a Misumi v2 with the new UV/shader/morphs, and possibly some upgrades like Ensley's feet. Looks like PAs never do this, might not make sense business wise unless it's Victoria? I imagine it's way less effort than doing a figure from scratch though. Well, let's see how far I can push her myself...

I saw that recently this artist has been quite active on Genesis 8 and I really loved her Anais product for Aiko / Victoria 4: both the texture and the morphs were great!

Would be really great to see it updated for G8F!

Thank you.

Hey guys. I have Genesis 8.0 characters that I've made textures for using SkinBuilder for G8F, and while trying to move them over to the new Victoria 8.1 shader, I realized pretty quick that the maps just look ... different.
The kind of map used for Dual Lobe Specularity looks radically different, and of course there's the new AO maps that SkinBuilder doesn't make anything for. I decided to go out and get new software, specifically Substance Painter, thinking I could maked my own maps with that. And while I can make my own normal maps, the "roughness" maps it makes are still pretty different ... almost opposites actually, and the AO maps Substaince Painter makes are almost all white with nearly no details, unlike the mostly black AO map with tons of little white details that Victoria 8.1 uses.
Does anyone have any experience making the kind of maps that the Victoria 8.1 shader uses? I could totally use some help in figuring out how to go about it.

Wiothout a picture it's hard to be sure, but I suspect you need to reapply the transparency map to the eyelashes - the lashes, before Victoria/Michael 8.1, are usually flat planes with a map to break them into hairs.

The issue with the hair may also be related to transparency maps.

I find it super hard to pose victoria in a temple with a sword while I am riding a bike!