Just trying to start an open discussion on people's journeys through this hobby.  Has anyone settled on just one Base Model group to use from this point forward?  Why or why not?

For me, I think I've settled on the Genesis 8 group.  Despite all of the opinions that we sometimes have (and some are quite justified and unfair at the same time) about the Genesis 8 models and bundles, I must commend Daz on how they have addressed diversity and uniqueness with their line.

There was nowhere near as much model diversity back in 2003 when I started with Victoria 3 and 4 like there is today.  And I use to complain about it a lot (which may have garnered a couple of my posts to be blocked or deleted here and there.  I promise I wasn't trying to start stuff...I think).

Fast forward 17 (yep, my son was barely 2 when I started doing this) years and I've been loyal to Daz ever since and have seen (like many of you) Daz change with more advances in technology and diversity in their line of base models.  That being said, I've settled on just using the Genesis 8 group from this point forward because I simply don't believe this could get any better than it is right now.

Genesis 9 or X (whenever it comes) may have some technological improvements but I'm not one for photo realistic images, just more stylized and I believe G8 will keep giving me that.  I took a break from this back in 2012 to focus on my Master's Degree, so I've been struggling to catch up and reconnect with this.  But now that I feel that I am in a place where I'm getting back into this grove with a better understanding of myself and my art, I think I can make this decision.

How about the rest of you?

If it's the Vader set by "EllPro" from VanishingPoint, then the texture IS meant to be applied directly to the base figure, in this case Michael 3.  Not the Genesis 3 male, but Michael 3, the "Millennium" series of models from the mid 2000s.  As such, that texture can also be used by the original Freak, Victoria 3, Aiko 3, shoot, even "Melody for A3". LittleFox's CatGirl figure from 2007.  I used it both upon Melody and F3 many pages ago in this thread.

Sincerely,

Bill

This "unable to connect with pixologic zbrush, check the installation" error, happened many times during the last few days. Never had issues before. After a bit of fiddling around, I managed to isolate the bug :

I work on a scene with two Gen8. A male and a female. Both have a geograft genitalia. XY by DB XXX for the male. New genitalia for Victoria 8 for the female. 

If I "send to zbrush" the female it's all good. But when I send the male I get the error.

When sending to Zbrush we have 2 options : "Export at current resolution" and/or "Export with deformations". If I tick any (or both) the options for the G8M, then I get the error message. 

But if I untick both options, then the G8M gets sent to ZBrush with its genitalia and genitalia shells... except not in the pose I need, but in the base Gen8 A-Pose...

(Solution) : I slowly deleted assets/accessories from the Gen8 Male that wouldn't be sent to Zbrush to hopefully isolate the one responsible. And the asset that, once delete, fixed the issue was XY Shell (XY by DB XXX)

XY geograft goes through the bridge just fine but not its shell (again, if the export options are unticked, the shell goes through...). Weird given that G8F genitalia's shell doesn't cause any issue, options ticked or not. 

So... when someone's facing that issue (and when it's not an installation mistake...), deleting an asset linked to the Genesis that for some reason won't go through the bridge : fixes the issue.

Glad I looked a bit deeper in the problem today. 

Morality : some assets won't go through the bridge Daz > Zbrush. No huge deal, but let's hope this will be fixed someday soon ;)

Victoria 4 and Michael 4 were the two main characters in the last generation of figures before DAZ introduced their Genesis products. Because Genesis used significantly new technologies that DAZ had developed, it was more than just 'the next generation', but was the beginning of a whole new sequence.

Thereafter, each generation had a base figure or pair of figures, which served as the basis for other characters created by DAZ.

Genesis had only a single base figure -- Genesis -- which was used for both male and female characters. The corresponding V/M pair was Victoria 5 and Michael 5.

With Genesis 2, DAZ abandoned the single base figure because trying to build both females and males off the same mesh had turned out to be too limiting. They introduced Genesis 2 Female and Genesis 2 Male, which served as the bases for Victoria 6 and Michael 6.

With Genesis 3, you had Genesis 3 Female and Genesis 3 Male, and Victoria 7 and Michael 7.

At this point, DAZ realized that the whole G3F=V7, G3M=M7 was getting confusing. Things weren't helped by the fact that Victoria 4/Michael 4 were sometimes referred to as Generation 4, which sounds a whole lot like Genesis 4.

So they switched the naming scheme and leapt straight to Genesis 8, giving us Genesis 8 Female and Genesis 8 Male, accompanied by Victoria 8 and Michael 8.

There are, of course, lots of other DAZ 'flagship' figures in addition to Victoria and Michael -- Lee, Hiro, The Girl, Aiko, Stephanie, etc. etc. each of which may or may not show up in each generation. The trailing number after each character name follows the same pattern as Victoria and Michael, i.e. Lee 6 belongs to the Genesis 2 generation, Stephanie 7 is a Genesis 3 figure and so on. The same applies to newly introduced characters. Lucian 7 isn't called that because there were 6 other Lucians before him; he's actually the first Lucian (Lucian 1?) but because he belongs to the Genesis 3 family he's named Lucian 7, alongside Michael 7 and Victoria 7.

If there's ever a Genesis 9, we can expect to see Victoria 9 and Michael 9, plus all their friends. Unless DAZ decide to do an Apple and call it Genesis X, at which point everyone's heads will finally explode.

Victoria 3, Aiko 3 and stephanie Petite 3 were based on the same mesh but were entirely independent

The GIRL-without-a-number was even further separated and didn't even use the same nesh

Victoria 4 is the main character. Aiko 4, Stephanie 4, and the girl 4 were all morphs

Victoria 5 & later are morph of whatever version of genesis they were made for.

Hi, I found a few more images/items that I have not been able to track down effectively.  If anyone has suggestions, they'd be appreciated. :)

Top used in Mckayla HD for V7 (First/Multiple Images) / https://www.daz3d.com/fw-mckayla-hd-for-victoria-7

Hula Costume used in Awi for G3F (First Image) / https://www.daz3d.com/awi-for-genesis-3-female

Jacket used in Friedrich HD for G8M (First Image) / https://www.daz3d.com/friedrich-hd-for-genesis-8-male

Tank Top used in Casual Action Poses for V4 (First Image) / https://www.daz3d.com/casual-actions-poses-for-v4

Thanks in advance to any of you content pro's!

I'm sorry, that seems to have run through the troubleshooting steps. I suppose it may be worth checking the modified date on the files in /Runtime/Libraries/!DAZ/Victoria 4/ to make sure the updater was able to write them (I think those are the ones that get changed anyway).

The expression files like "eCTRLWink_HD.dsf" can be found in "Genesis 8 Female Expressions"

http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/read_me/index/42077/file_list

Thank you!  That is the answer.  It seems crazy to me that this is not listed as a required for installation of Victoria 8 given that it will generated errors if not present.

Those are not errors, they're warnings. V8 works as intended without those morphs, so they're not required.

Did you check that there is only one /Runtime/Libraries/!DAZ/Victoria 4/ folder?

Yes. Only one.

Here we have Admiral McCarthy hitching a rode and getting ready to shower when she suddenly has the question "Lieutenant, whjy are you in my quarters?"

Just a little TNG pinup action with a custom character (Cross of Victoria 8 and Aubrey 8).

Did you check that there is only one /Runtime/Libraries/!DAZ/Victoria 4/ folder?

Yes, I ran the DAZDzCreateExPFiles-V4.bat file that supposedly fixes the linking. Didn't help.

Then I scoured the directory for ANY Victoria 4 Cr2 file (Duplicates) and there were none. I even made sure there were non ANYWHERE in the Poser, and only one in DAZ.

Then I de-installed and re-installed both Victoria 4  and AIko 4 in order using DAZ install manager.
Still get this.
Any ideas on a fix? Something I missed?

.

I think they just finished today with the big sales .. 

20 years of DAZ3D and nothing ? hmm... maybe they forgot . 

This mean Michael and Victoria can finally posing in a bar scenes , they become 21 

22 years ago there was not much of a choice to have a super rig , my first digital camera had resolution of 320 pixels .. that was WOW since you don't need a film but the quality was horrible 

This year DAZ celebrate 20 years since it was created as well by the original crew. 

Time flies like a stream, that never flows away ....as everything seems like yesterday

22 years ago, a rig that could handle any 3D program was beyond my reach. I loved what was happening with computer graphics and 3D, but it was only late 2014 when I realized my (then) latest computer was powerful enough to run Daz Studio. Barely. (It's been all downhill since! Savings? What's that?)

 

...hmm, wonder if they'll have a big anniversary sale.

 

My main question is how do I get some of the painted eyebrows on figures without changing the skin texture maps?

Sometimes I put them on and the face turns a different color.

You can't use painted eyebrows on other skins.

The exception are some charcters that have LIE or Diffuse Overlay eyebrows. They're not that common, but Victoria 8 has Diffuse Overlay brows (and also fibermesh brows).

I know this is a really old post but it helped me imensely with rigging clothing I created in Blender (version 2.82) for a Victoria 4 model in DAZ3D (Version 4.12). I ran into some issues even with this extremely useful thread and wanted to share the complete steps I used which are a slightly altered version of stwbcsuv_12364ebef4's steps mentioned earlier. The first issue I ran into was the clothing wouldn't fit to the figure properly (i.e. she'd be wearing the shirt on her face). The solution for this problem is detailed in step 7. The next issue I ran into was massive clipping even though the clothing mesh was custom made for this particular figure. The solution for this issue is detailed in steps 8-13. These settings worked for a relatively form fitted piece of clothing and may need adjusted per clothing article. I'd do more testing, but it's late. I'll update if I run into any more issues or discover more helpful tips.

1.   Zero the pose of your V4 Figure.
2.   Convert V4 to a TriAx-weight mapped figure [Right click Scene (Tab)->Edit->Rigging->Convert Figure to Weight Mapping->Check TriAx weight Mapping)
3.   Import the .obj file modelled for V4 in zero pose.
4.   Open the transfer utility (Scene (Tab)->Assets->Transfer Utility)
5.   As Source, select your V4 weight mapped figure and change "Item Shape" to "Current".
6.   As Target, select your .obj prop
7.   Click the "Show Options" button and check the following:
8.   Check "Reverse Source Shape From Target"
9.   Check "Add Smoothing Modifier"
10. Leave all other options as default and press accept....Wait for magic to happen...
11. Under Parameters Tab, Navigate to "Mesh Smoothing" subgroup and make the following adjustments:
12. Change "Smoothing Type" to "Generic"
13. Set "Smoothing Iterations" to "6"
14. Turn "Interactive Update" on
15. Set "Collision Iterations" to "2"

Ta Da!

https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/439142/i13-100-essential-expressions-for-victoria-7-gone-others-as-well#latest

This and another thread in the technical Help forum are covering the issue, I will close this thread - please keep an eye on the other two threads for updates.

It isn't anything you've done:

https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/439052/why-might-a-product-not-appear-at-all#latest
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/439142/i13-100-essential-expressions-for-victoria-7-gone-others-as-well#latest

I have a few of the products in your list and they are still there.

Painter's Lights

Victoria 8

Penny 8

Careless Braid for Genesis 3 Female(s)

Edward 8 HD Add-On

dForce Master - Cloth Simulation Presets

dForce Duchess Dress for Genesis 3 and 8 Female(s)

DG Iray 200 Hair Color Shaders and Merchant Resource

 

They disappeared on one computer, but not the other. Strange, huh?

We have flagged this up for Daz.

Thanks!!!

https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/439052/why-might-a-product-not-appear-at-all#latest
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/439142/i13-100-essential-expressions-for-victoria-7-gone-others-as-well#latest

https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/439052/why-might-a-product-not-appear-at-all#latest
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/439142/i13-100-essential-expressions-for-victoria-7-gone-others-as-well#latest