Ptrope said:

The Victoria 8.1 Loving Life Bundle says it comes with both Genesis 8 male and female "anatomical elements" - are these textures or actual geometry?

These should be the included geometry :-) 

• Genesis 8 Female Anatomical Elements
• Genesis 8 Male Anatomical Elements
• Genesis 8.1 Female Vellus Hair

hjake said:

shadowhawk1 said:

The set I am thinking of was a character morph not a conversion 

It seems like you want the V4/M4 shape on a Genesis 3 figure. I could not find anything here or at Rendo. The only items I know of are UV map transfers, pose transfers, morph transfers, and clones. You could transfer V4 morph and dial in V4 shape.

I don't think Legacy Generation 4 Shapes were made for G3. Only G2:

https://www.daz3d.com/generation-4-legacy-shapes-for-genesis-2-male

https://www.daz3d.com/generation-4-legacy-shapes-for-genesis-2-female

 

FYIO for G8 figures:   https://www.daz3d.com/sy-victoria-4-and-michael-4-clones-for-genesis-8

And for Genesis !!! {IMHO, my fav}

And no, Sickleyield's clones do not make nice shaping morphs as I recall.

The Victoria 8.1 Loving Life Bundle says it comes with both Genesis 8 male and female "anatomical elements" - are these textures or actual geometry?

shadowhawk1 said:

The set I am thinking of was a character morph not a conversion 

It seems like you want the V4/M4 shape on a Genesis 3 figure. I could not find anything here or at Rendo. The only items I know of are UV map transfers, pose transfers, morph transfers, and clones. You could transfer V4 morph and dial in V4 shape.

I don't think Legacy Generation 4 Shapes were made for G3. Only G2:

https://www.daz3d.com/generation-4-legacy-shapes-for-genesis-2-male

https://www.daz3d.com/generation-4-legacy-shapes-for-genesis-2-female

FYIO for G8 figures:   https://www.daz3d.com/sy-victoria-4-and-michael-4-clones-for-genesis-8

This was actually my first attempt at using G8.1F, nearly forgot about this render. It was with Pretty 3D's Pretty Base character for G8F. I also decided to try the PBR Shader, but had even less of a clue about what was going on. I don't even know what's going on in this render either. She's...free-falling indoors. XD

Since those 8.1 one threads are super active and get buried quickly. I'll share my thoughts here. After all, I'm talking about my own personal rendering. I'll list it in bullets so it would be easier to read.

• G8.1F took a very long time to load the first time. But now she loads as quickly as the original G8F did, so I'm happy.
• I love this "update". One of the main reasons I finally left Genesis 1 was because I liked the expressions and bending on G8 so much more. Sure I lost a lot of the Zeddicuss expressions and some E&J ones, but this wasn't too much of a loss. I like the ones that 8.1 came with.
• With the exception of this pose set that was offered as a freebie last week, I have not purchased anything for G8.1. I don't feel I have to, for the moment, since I can use the same skins, shapes, poses, dress-up assets I've been using with G8. (It seems like most of the people complaining got really confused about the advertising. Or they're old-timers who think that once the number "has changed" they gotta throw out their past investments, when it's not really the case right now.)
• I really like Michael 8.1's Varsity Bundle. It's the first time, in a very long time, that all of the included products have interested me. However, it's too pricey as of this post, so I've wishlisted it. (During the Christmas Season, I managed to buy Twoset 8's Pharoah Bundle. At a price that was cheaper than its debut new release price. I will wait the same for Michael 8.1, since I like a lot of things from it. In other times, I just grabbed the base and nothing else.)
• I don't really like Victoria 8.1's shape. I think it's her nose or mouth. Tattoos aren't a selling point for me either. They rarely are. (I will never, ever get tattoos IRL, so I won't "subject" my characters to them either. Same with some of those piercings.) The only PA whose tattoos I like are from Darwin's Mishap(s). Though I'm not really into skulls or goth stuff, but they look so cool.
• I have not rendered G8.1M at all. I'm still trying to decide which character or shaping preset I should experiment with. Should I go for what I consider to be eye-candy, or something totally random? (I'll probably render something on Friday, assuming I don't get distracted again.)

EDIT: I was finally able to adjust the crop on the thumbnail, so I went ahead and finally posted this one to the DAZ Galleries [x].

Today, I tried a different HDRI and lights, to render my attempt at recreating Glamorous Vicki with G8F (G8.1F, specifically.) This particular shape used Mei Lin 8 as a base. I think she was a bit bustier than the V3 character, but it was close-enough. The outfit was originally supposed to be from dForce LavieByCk Summer Essentials, but I wasn't happy with how the bikini bottoms looked. So I used the ones from Twilight Sorceress. Then I used two random scarves (Rocabillly Outfit for G8F and dForce Salwar Kameez) and shoes from Slinky Dress for G8F, with the Summer Essentials "shader" which was just me copying materials and placing it on the other outfits so they'd match.

I don't like Penny 8's skin. It is my least favorite skin. So I mostly unistalled it with DIM by manually copy-pasted the head and body shapes elsewhere and then moving back to the correct folder after the unistallation was finished. (I got her because her Starter Bundle was free or deeply discounted once and I liked the items in it.) I like her shape a lot, so it wasn't much of a big loss. Here, I used Mousso's Chanel's skin. I think she looks a bit like Nicole Kidman here and that wasn't my intention. 

These were Chanel's skin + 4.15 PBR Iray skin shaders. I don't think I used them right but it's understandable, because I don't know what I'm doing. (I still don't understand Filament.) But it doesn't matter as long as the results look nice to me.

Hair is Fane Hair for G8F. I just decided to move it back so y'all could see her face better.

nonesuch00 said:

I quite like the Michael 8 .1 character although his skin material does look sort of Malibu Ken with a rub-on tan. LOL, it makes me wish Victoria 8.1 looked like Malibu Barbie, albiet, a more realistic one. Maybe I just need to get the right hair, sunglasses, and bathing suit on her.

I like Michael 8.1 but he's just not Michael. Michael has always been in his 24-40 age bracket and I see Michael 8.1 as sort of in the 18-25 age bracket. Sort of a different thing. That said. I like him a lot. His skin is generic, but there are times when I want that. I also LOVE his head. I didn't care for M8's John Travolta head.

I quite like the Michael 8 .1 character although his skin material does look sort of Malibu Ken with a rub-on tan. LOL, it makes me wish Victoria 8.1 looked like Malibu Barbie, albiet, a more realistic one. Maybe I just need to get the right hair, sunglasses, and bathing suit on her.

Simple Victoria 8.1, but I like it.

Mike 8.1 definitely looks like he's ~18-24 to me in the promos (and with some expressions), but messing with the actual model he seemed like he could be anywhere from 20 to a youngish 30. Maybe it's because me and a bunch of my friends had terminal babyface until our mid-thirties. 

The biggest issue I have with him is that with Victoria 8.1, the difference in expressions was immediately obvious to me. When I dial in a smile expression, she looks alive in a way I couldn't quite reach with basic 8, and I think it's because the expression seems to reach her eyes more. Michael 8.1 looks good to me with a neutral expression, but when he smiles it's kind of uncanny. I can't recall if I mentioned it earlier, but his overall mouth size is pretty small and it sits high on his face, while his chin, jaw, and nose are broad and fairly strong. I think it makes it hard for full smiles or other dynamic expressions to affect his entire face. A similar thing happens with some G8 characters, where smiles on a small mouth shape will pull it up into sort of a pout or look weird if stretched wide. What's interesting is that he looks most natural to me with a full-face smile in the promo pic where he has a beard, I think because it balances out those proportions and makes the size of his jaw less obvious. 

(I'm glad I got him and this isn't really an "augh he sucks" complaint, I just like to pick at what makes things work or not work for me in character design.)

Summerhorse said:

Could anyone who has tried Trance without M8.1 comment or post how he looks?

The images I posted of him on the first couple pages of the thread are without M8.1. :D He doesn't require him at all, he's a standalone (that seems to be the case with most characters in core bundles now?). 

Charlie Judge said:

drafter69_696b99e42b said:

Will products for Michael 8 still work with 8.1?    

 

Mostly yes; but some expressions may not work. 

Does M8.1 present the same issue as Victoria 8.1,  where you have to move a couple files out of the data folder in order for G8M expressions to work on the newer model?

Those are definitely better lit. The front and back full shots look very good. The shadows and rim light in Linius Promo 03 are really nice - there's a lot of good detail showing around the ribcage and arms and that shows off your body morph well. As Hylas said, it does look like your bump and/or normal maps are too strong. They're good details, but at that strength they look a bit rough and overly bumpy. You might want to dial the values down on those. It looks like there may be a seam where the face texture meets the torso, but it's hard to tell just from those shots - might want to double check that area. :)

I like the paleness of his skin, but think it's a little too dry/chalky looking. I haven't tried the new PBR Skin shader yet myself, but I expect there are settings in there that can help with that. Take a look at page 2 of this thread, where a user called melissastjames shows several images that show her shader settings for the comparison pictures she posted. That might give you ideas of what settings to play with to get a nice result with your textures. If you have Victoria or Michael 8.1, you could use their settings as a comparison as well. Human skin tends to be a bit oily, so striking a balance between dry and too much (where it starts to look greasy or like shiny plastic) is important. Sometimes it just takes a lot of tweaking the dials until you get what you like. Also, I would say that his eyes seem flat; there's no shine to them. That may be the lighting, of course, but make sure that the cornea and eye moisture materials pick up reflections to really show off the eyes. You could compare your settings to those of any Daz Original or other character you have and build from there. With a few tweaks to the textures, I think all those promos will end up looking very good. I think you're making good progress! Keep it up and don't be discouraged by critique. I think you've got a very promising character there, and would love to see you achieve your goal of becoming a PA.

PerttiA said:

Hylas said:

Like with all characters, only buy him if you like his morph and skin. He happens to get released at the same time as the new G8.1M base figure, but ultimately Michael 8.1 is just another character,

Except, many future characters will require M8.1 to look the way they were meant, the same way that's done with previous Victoria/Michael generations, in that sense Victoria and Michael are not "just another character"

 Base characters aren't as important as they used to be when V8/M8 first came out.  Some PA characters will probably be based on them, sure, but not even Trance, a character included in the M8.1 bundle requires M8.1.  You didn't see that with the M8 Pro Bundle.

PerttiA said:

Hylas said:

Like with all characters, only buy him if you like his morph and skin. He happens to get released at the same time as the new G8.1M base figure, but ultimately Michael 8.1 is just another character,

Except, many future characters will require M8.1 to look the way they were meant, the same way that's done with previous Victoria/Michael generations, in that sense Victoria and Michael are not "just another character"

Fair enough.

At least in the past there has been a significant amount of characters that require Michael or Victoria.

But both V8.1 and M8.1 were just introduced without a single add-on character. Who knows if they'll get as many add-on characters as previous Michaels and Victorias?

At the same time so many great characters are released that don't require anything other than the bare Genesis base figure.

In any case, you can still eventually buy M8.1 when a character based on him is published that you absolutely can't do without.

I wouldn't buy a character now just because at one point in the future he might be required for something else.

Buy him now if you want him now.

N_R Arts said:

$75?! You've got to be kidding. And no poses or expressions either? What a joke! Sometimes, it's like Daz doesn't want people to buy male content... >_>

Yes, it seems really pricey and even more so than Victoria 8.1 bundle was. The cheapest I could get the Varsity bundle and HD add-on is $89. I like the bundle but I'm not sure I can really afford to buy it

Hylas said:

Like with all characters, only buy him if you like his morph and skin. He happens to get released at the same time as the new G8.1M base figure, but ultimately Michael 8.1 is just another character,

Except, many future characters will require M8.1 to look the way they were meant, the same way that's done with previous Victoria/Michael generations, in that sense Victoria and Michael are not "just another character"

melissastjames said:

nonesuch00 said:

Mainly because using the FACS expressions is so much easier and improved

The new face rig should be included with the base G8.1 Male so you should get it just by updating your Genesis 8 Male Essentials.  

It is! My bad. So mainly to have a skin materials set basis that is functionally equivalent demonstration to Victoria 8.1 although your could set up very similar yourself with the new PBR Skin  Material preset. without buying either having a reference for both is convenient.

No 3DL = no sale. That said, I do like the sculpt, and I like the fact that this is a *young* character. DAZ hasn't done official teen males for a long time, and this is probably as close as we're going to get. 

I also like the fact that he and Victoria are not as overwhelmingly tall as their previous versions. A 6-foot male, and a 5-foot 8 female are a good deal closer to what architectural standards are built for. Vicky's still on the tall side, but not overwhelmingly so.

There are definitely things to like about the new characters. But neither is compelling, and demanding a program upgrade to use them is not a selling point.

Did buy the hair and the wheelchair, however. 

Mainly because using the FACS expressions is so much easier and improved and less so for the new IRay PBR Skin shader materials. And if you bought Victoria 8.1, Michael 8.1 is a given if you want Victoria 8.1 to have a technically quivalent  male, unless you buy only female models.

That the character itself it as good in uniqueness and modeled quality as prior 8.0 characters that people bought with no complaints is a good reason too, if you collect on that basis of being a DO featured Genesis character. Quite a few people do.

JOdel said:

vwrangler said:

A puzzling thing: according to his product page, Michael 8.1 includes 3Delight settings, and Victoria didn't. He also includes an add-on character in his first bundle, and Victoria didn't include a character in either of her bundles.

Beyond that, he's MUCH younger looking than Michael 8, and not nearly as lantern-jawed.

Mostly, I just kind of want Trance, though.

Where does it say there are 3DL settings. I looked and didn't see any. 

The product details list "03 Subsurface Level Presets (3Delight)", but that's the only mention of 3DL. Probably a copy/paste from M8 page not modified properly

For the record, there's the same line on V8.1 page.