OOPS............hit the wrong button, didn't mean to post that so I'll finish the thaught.............

"OK, I have tried dialing all manner of combinations, and I cannot nail down the Daphne look. She seems to have a fairly simple face but getting her to look right in 3D just might be impossible. Tj I'm not having any luck replicating what you did either...........*sigh.

No worries!  I wasn't very happy with my 'stand in' so I took a more serious stab at Daphne.  What do you think of this one?

She's based on FWSA Finley for Victoria 7, with some additional morphs.  I was trying to keep the angled eyes without her looking Asian, if that makes sense...

If you like this version, let me know and I can post up my morph dial settings.  I have a number of different morph kits in my collection, so hopefully you have some/most of them...

Also, I used the mesh grabber tool to adjust the hair so some of it draped over the head band better, while pushing in other parts of the hair underneath the headband, in an attempt to clean up the headband area so that I wouldn't need to do a lot of post work/edit out a bunch of strands that were poking thru the headband.  I didn't do any post work to this image, other than to apply the gradient background behind the render after resizing the image and adding my sig.

Update for my Beginner's Challenge

Victoria the 1st

Shortened her hair on the right side to eliminate (I hope!) clipping... gonna be a busy week, so I suspect this is my "final" entry... but i'm still interested in advice, comments, and critiques.

~ Andy

Shortening the hair really changes her look.  It is softening and eliminating some of the shadows.  It isn't always easy to deal with hair clipping.

Thank you very much for your comments, Kismet2012...

Not that I'll have the time (or skill) to do anything about it, but do you have any suggestions on how do deal with the issue? I played around a bit trying to move her hair without shortening - but those still had clipping issues except moving the hair back, which totally changed the look and practically eliminated the shadows all together...

maybe move/mess/add/change the lighting? Right now there's just the HDRI (stock) and a single spot, coming from her right and above...

 

~ Andy

It is funny that this particular character is brought up so much. It is like clockwork with any new Goldtassel release. She certainly does stand out from everything else in Dazney Land, even among Sangriart's impressive stable she stands out with her rosy cheeks and bright smile. She is not another Victoria (ironic since the actress she is based on has played Victoria...the Queen.)

Man if Sangriart could ever post her in this store she'd make quite a mint, LOL. As it is I bet she drives quite a few to buy her.

Update for my Beginner's Challenge

Victoria the 1st

Shortened her hair on the right side to eliminate (I hope!) clipping... gonna be a busy week, so I suspect this is my "final" entry... but i'm still interested in advice, comments, and critiques.

~ Andy

Shortening the hair really changes her look.  It is softening and eliminating some of the shadows.  It isn't always easy to deal with hair clipping.

Other than the cybernetic implant over at Rendo which requires Victoria 4.2 Boydsuit Expansion, are there any sci-fi/android/Borg occular/cybernetic implant freebies? 

 

I might buy Jennica next Lyoness sale because her one looks great, but in case there's an alternative that can save me some pennies (I love pennies)

https://www.renderosity.com/mod/freestuff/borg-implant/77544

https://www.sharecg.com/v/37915/browse/11/Poser/M4-Eyepiece

Edit To Add: This is currently on sale  in Fast Grab: https://www.daz3d.com/borg-for-genesis-8-female-s

Other than the cybernetic implant over at Rendo which requires Victoria 4.2 Boydsuit Expansion, are there any sci-fi/android/Borg occular/cybernetic implant freebies? 

 

I might buy Jennica next Lyoness sale because her one looks great, but in case there's an alternative that can save me some pennies (I love pennies)

Please remember that the proper way to distribute a Victoria 4 morph is as an Inj file, using one of the existing Community Channels, or as a new ExP File to create its own channel rather than as an OBJ.

Update for my Beginner's Challenge

Victoria the 1st

Shortened her hair on the right side to eliminate (I hope!) clipping... gonna be a busy week, so I suspect this is my "final" entry... but i'm still interested in advice, comments, and critiques.

~ Andy

@andya There's definitely something odd in your blender settings then. I see a strange "black" skin in your render. I mean Victoria 8 is what we used for testing the volumetric skin together with other characters and they all look good with the default settings. You just have to let the plugin update for minimal requirements. It may be that we overlooked something though.

What blender version are you using ? The plugin is tested with the 2.83 stable release. Also can you please make a render with cycles and full global illumination settings ? This will check if the issue is in the render settings.

Another useful test would be if someone else can check Victoria 8 with diffeo. She works fine for me and the others at diffeomorphic.

https://bitbucket.org/Diffeomorphic/import_daz/issues/24/i-believe-i-nailed-v8-aka-true-iray-skins

More Simple!

Of course, you can just use the Poser 7 figures in Carrara if you have a version of Poser 7 or later.  

This image was done in Carrara using Poser 7 Simon and the Julius Caesar outfit in the leader pack cited above, and the Roman Centurian outfit.  Poser 7 Simon and Sydney load directly in Carrara and are used just like Michael 4 and Victoria 4.  Carthage Must be Destroyed!

This used to be able to be done with a utility by a Poser user named Phil Cooke, or PhilC.  The utility was called Wardrobe Wizard and was incorporated in Poser itself for a few versions.  PhilC (not to be confused with PhilW of the Carrara world) would release character packs for compatibility.  The key was being able to convert from a legacy Poser figure to Victoria 4 or Michael 4.  You could then convert the result from V4 / M4 to other Daz3D figures using various transfer utility type options.  The current versions of Poser do not have Wardrobe Wizard, I think.

So, for example, I had a set of historical leader outfits for the Poser 7 male.  It included a viking outfit for Erik the Red, Ramses II, Genghis Khan, etc.  Owning the compatibility pack for Michael 4 allowed conversion from clothing compatible with base Poser figures, like Poser 7 male (Simon) to M4, and then Daz's transfer utility could convert the result for use with Genesis, Genesis 2, etc.

Not perfect, but what is?

This nightmare from the twilight zone never seems to end.  I removed all the Beautiful Bends files from my computer. Then I opened Studio and loaded the base Genesis, the Michael and Victoria, and a 3rd party "actor" based on Genesis - and ALL of them still have the BBJCM problem.  As outrider42 somewhat suggested, I scanned the whole computer for BBJCM - and there are 566 files with  BBJCM in the name.  I have a LOT of custom characters based on Genesis1.  I'm afraid if I delete these 566 files I will forever screw-up my characters. 
 

What I am thinking of was sold by Arki.  They still have a lot of similar-sounding items in the store:

https://www.daz3d.com/dforce-dragon-empress-base-outfit-for-genesis-8-females-by-arki

https://www.daz3d.com/dforce-miellyn-outfit-for-genesis-3-and-8-female-s

https://www.daz3d.com/the-glacierqueen-outfit-for-victoria-4

 

@andya If you added the hdri yourself be sure to set the intensity to 2 the same as daz studio. Then Leisa should work fine with the volumetric skin if you render with cycles and the required minimum settings. If you have any doubt as for cycles settings then let the plugin update them for you or set them to full global illumination so you're sure you're good.

Does Victoria 8 work fine for you ? I can do a comparison with her if it may help.

 

     

The idea here was to compare the results of the two transfer methods against Daz Studio Iray with as little user intervention as possible.  People using these tools may know very little about Blender, so may judge only by what they get 'out of the box'.  The defaults are also I think the closest to an 'apples to apples' comparison.

So, I did a fresh install of both plugins and used the defaults provided.  Daz Importer was downloaded today.  As noted, DazToBlender sticks a Sun light in the scene (maybe because the only light is an HDRI?), so I deleted that.  The strength was set to 2 by the Daz Importer, which I used first, and I did not change it thereafter  The Daz Importer is set to Warn for the Lighting, and does not warn me, so I assume it is satisfied.  It is set to Update for Rennder Settings.

Victoria 8 gives similar results to Leisa 8 - not surprising really as they are both Daz models.  Again, neither gets very close to the Iray result, and both would need some work on materials. 

@andya If you added the hdri yourself be sure to set the intensity to 2 the same as daz studio. Then Leisa should work fine with the volumetric skin if you render with cycles and the required minimum settings. If you have any doubt as for cycles settings then let the plugin update them for you or set them to full global illumination so you're sure you're good.

Does Victoria 8 work fine for you ? I can do a comparison with her if it may help.

 

     

I purchased the Victoria 8 HD Addon 

 

https://www.daz3d.com/victoria-8-hd-add-on

 

but i see no difference between the normal maps and the HD maps...after rendering they both look excatly alike...not what i was expecting.

For those interested,

Here's an update on Z-Cycles progress - a custom Blender build that integrates Iray Uber Shader Nodes for Cycles rendering.

I have done a WIP render comparison between Victoria 8 in Iray vs Victoria 8 in Z-Cycles.

The eyes and eyelashes need work. But the rest is nearly there.

 

I've purchased DAZ Dragon 3 Fantasy Poses, and I plan on purchasing Dragon Dreams, Dragon Reign Poses for Dragon 3 & Genesis 8 Female, and Daz Dragon 3, Victoria 8 and Michael 8 Poses in the future. But I've searched through Daz's store several times for dragon rider poses for Genesis 3, and I'm surprised to see that no interacting poses have been made for Genesis 3 and Daz Dragon 3. If an artist here could make a set of dragon-riding poses, and other interacting poses for Genesis 3 and Daz Dragon 3, I would appreciate it. Would anyone else like to see a product like this?

For me, it's a trip to the genesis 8 starter, then figures, load up the genesis 8 female, go for a coffee, then find the character I wanted to load again, click on shapes then textures. If there's an easier way of doing it that I'm missing, I would love to hear it.

In Smart Content, click on Figures, type in the box the name of the character you want, eg Victoria 8, double click on the icon, and you are done.

Of course if the character has not been set up as a character in Smart Content, as appears to the case with Branca, that is not going to work.

Almost here!

I reached page 62; Excellent product, excellent thread, thanks to you all 

Now I know what masks are and how to use them as well as inverted height effects but all theoretically as my machine was finishing my first experiment

And here it is the final result

Sedor's Outdoor pool https://www.daz3d.com/outdoor-pool-and-poses-for-victoria-8-and-michael-8, 2 ultascenery one with the pond tweaked to have a swimming pool, other one in the background, sun and sky in July at 11:30 at 40ºN, 

6 GF8, lots of duplicated UltraTrees in pots or in a hedge (I don't know how to work creating instances, I duplicate nodes instead; can anybody point me where to learn the instances basics?) and bunchs of carnations scaled to big dhalias from Xfrog plants. A day and two nights rendering (I was afk) and a couple of partial renders to correct some things of the final render

And of course following the advice of this great Australian man from Carrara forums whose name I can't remember who always spoke about levels, levels, levels in postrender done in this case with The Gimp

Thanks again to you all for every tips and pieces of advice

 

 

Nice!  Although I think I'd add some staris or somthing so there's an obvious way to get down to the pond.  That or a sidewalk coming around the building - and stairs would be a lot si,pler.

I don't know of any tutorials for instances, but if you want to just play with it they're under Create -> New Node Instance.  The main difference between new nodes and instances is that a new node is a copletely independant iteration of whatever it is, whilst the instance will copy textures (and I think, but am not certain of, poses) applied to the main node.