Do i really need to buy 5 additional products for this product to work?

it makes sense that it requires "G8F body morphs" (which i've already got) but do i really need Monique 8, Victoria 8, Olympia 8 and Charlotte 8 specifically for it to work?

Thank you.

There are two schools of thought when people ask the qustion, "which figure do I start with?". Many people will tell you to start with one of the latest figures (Any of the Genesis 8 figures like Michael 8, Victoria 8 etc). From a purely technical viewpoint this makes sense as you get all the latest bells and whistles that come with these figures such as improved preformance, more realistic posing, better materials and so on. On the other hand you might not find as much content as you would for a slightly older generation model like Genesis 3 for example. If you have a look at the store you will see that there's a much wider range of content available for those figures than for Genesis 8.

Of course Genesis 8 has been out for quite a while now so that should not be too much of a concern regardles but going forward you always have to decide if you want the latest technology or the biggest wardrobe. Also keep in mind that whatever you go for will eventually become 'outdated' as DAZ has to keep pushing out new models to make money. Personally I would say go with Genesis 8 characters so that when we get the new series in a few monhs or so your library won't be too far outdated.

OMG! If you don't have Victoria 4 and Michael 4, head to the Freebies page NOW! Free Bundle complete with the base characters, the body and head  morphs, creature morphs, and muscle morphs. Best bundle for them I've ever seen.

When you download Daz Studio make sure you also download the Genesis Starter Essential packs, with generation 3 and 8 being the latest and most compatible with Iray rendering. That gives you the Genesis 3 and Genesis 8 bases.  There is also a slew of freebies included with the download.

Victoria 8 and Michael 8 are the flagship figures for each generation but other Offical Daz characters are constantly pushing the envelope for realism. character PRO bundles are always a good option, with the latest releases. 

Then you want to get the Daz Head and Body morphs packs. That allows you to dial spin your own unique character elements from the base character. 

Which character to recommend depends on the type of renders you plan to do. Some people think Floyd and Ollie and Mabel are awesoe,  others might say Babina and Alexandra.  That depends on your intended renders.

Agreed. Hard to recommend anything unless we know what kinds of renders you want to do. I would stick with the latest base figures (generation 8) though and focus on products for them until you are more comfortable.

List of Biweekly Freebies. Not much for me this time (just a couple things from the bundles), but it was a pleasant surprise to get a new freebie batch early. Note that the 2 Super bundles have a LOT of overlap on V4 items.

Generation 4
Dolly Outfit Textures
Harajuku Textures for Lily Dress
La Paz Textures
Super Physicality Bundle**
Super Physical Female Bundle*

Genesis
Dark Moon Textures
Sultry Halter Dress Textures
Wicked Wear Future Textures
Wicked Wear Lace Textures

G2F
AN's GirlfriendZ for Teen Josie (outfit add on)
Glider Hair

*Includes: Victoria 4.2 Base, Victoria 4.2 Morphs++, She Freak 4, V4 Elite Body Shapes, V4 Creature Wings, Victoria 4.2 Creature Creator Morphs, Victoria 4.2 Creature Creator Add Ons

**Includes: Victoria 4.2 Base, The FREAK 4 Base, Michael 4 Base, Michael 4 Morphs++, Victoria 4.2 Morphs++, Michael 4 Muscle Morphs, Victoria 4.2 Muscle Morphs, She Freak 4, M4 Elite Body Shapes, V4 Elite Body Shapes, V4 Creature Wings, M4/V4 Creature Creator Bundle

When you download Daz Studio make sure you also download the Genesis Starter Essential packs, with generation 3 and 8 being the latest and most compatible with Iray rendering. That gives you the Genesis 3 and Genesis 8 bases.  There is also a slew of freebies included with the download.

Victoria 8 and Michael 8 are the flagship figures for each generation but other Offical Daz characters are constantly pushing the envelope for realism. character PRO bundles are always a good option, with the latest releases. 

Then you want to get the Daz Head and Body morphs packs. That allows you to dial spin your own unique character elements from the base character. 

Which character to recommend depends on the type of renders you plan to do. Some people think Floyd and Ollie and Mabel are awesoe,  others might say Babina and Alexandra.  That depends on your intended renders.

There are 2 base figures you should focus your attention (and decision) on, to keep things managable:
Genesis 3 (in male and female variants) and Genesis 8 (also in male and female variants)

Genesis 3 comes with a bunch of side characters, which have have their names generally end with the number 7: Victoria 7, Aiko 7, Michael 7, etcetera. They're all derived from the Genesis 3 base figures, but these figures also have further figures derived from them.

Genesis 8 also comes with a bunch of side characters, and they (thankfully!) all have their name end with the number 8: Victoria 8, Aiko 8, Michael 8, etcetera. It's like Daz understood that the numbers were confusing, and decided to consolidate them.

Genesis 3 and 8 are very similar, but the small differences they have do mean that they're not entirely interchangable. Clothes for Genesis 8 won't perfectly fit Genesis 3 out of the box, and vice versa, for example. There are tools to make the two more interchangable, but that would require additional purchases. It's worth it in the long run, but for starters, I'd advice picking either Genesis 8 or Genesis 3(not both), and stick with it. Most new products are for Genesis 8, so that's probably the better choice, though the older Genesis 3 products tend to be slightly cheaper. The best choice for you might depend on your personal tastes, Genesis 3 models have a slightly bigger tendency to have "ideal proportions and supermodel aesthetics", while Genesis 8 models are a bit more realistic "every day people" models. There definitely are Genesis 8 supermodel figures, as well as Genesis 3 "avarage Joe" figures, but it is fairly noticable that both lean towards opposite sides of the scale.

In case you have both a nice Genesis 8 figure and a nice Genesis 3 figure: yes, you can put the two together in the same render without problem, they don't bite eachother, unless you pose them to do so.

I want a set of HDRIs to use as background for office scenes.  Like to have the same view with different lighting.  Most of the city backdrops HDRIs are from street level, and I would the perspective to be from a bit higher up as if you're looking out of a window in an office, or maybe an apartment.  There are a couple of them at Shutterstock, but it's hard to know what image format they're in, and they mostly look to be some kind of stylized archviz stuff.  I own  a couple of the cityscape backgrounds, and have used them, but they're not entirely what I want.

So I was wondering about making my own.  I own Urban Sprawl 3, which is nice, but I wondered how that would look if I set them up surrounding a camera set to spherical.  The set comes with Daylight and Nighttime presets, which I like.  I'm not fussed about what it looks like directly below, as I wouldn't have my camera pointing down.

I gave it a shot and thought I'd share my first results, because they're not awful.

I laid out the 5 blocks from Urban Sprawl 3 and then instanced 3 of them to give me 8 blocks arranged in a square around the world centre.   For lighting, I used Orestes Witches Twilight, because just look at it.  Then I took a camera, changed the Lens Distortion Type to spherical and elevated it to around 1500 whatsits and gave it a whirl, rendering to canvasses to get 32-bit EXR files, which I could then composite (not really necessary) and save as HDR files.  My first attempt was only at 1440x720 because it was just a test, and I was going to use it with depth of field anyway.  It rendered super fast.

This is a JPG of that HDRI.  Yeah.  That's all it is.  I didn't have a floor or anything in the centre of the scene.

Then I tried it out as an HDRI in a couple of test renders.  The renders are nothing fancy.  The empty office has nothing but the HDRI as lighting and no adjustments except to bring exposure down, while the image with the beautiful Kerry has a spot, as well and a relective plane behind her and I did minor post.  Normally I'd do more to make her hair look nicer, but I wanted to see how the HDRI worked mostly.

Anyway, this works with stuff like Ultrascenery sets, too.  If you want to have the scenery and lighting look nice, you'd render at a high resolution than I did here, like at least 4000x2000, but once you have that done, you can add more stuff than you could if you had all the scenery geometry and textures in the scene, as well.  If you want to set up a complex scene like with a hairy HD character with clothes and a couple of shaggy dogs or something, this is worth considering.  The possibilities are endless!

Novica, I believe what Cismic means is he uses the grey card for white balance in photography so thus it translates to 0.20 0.20 0.20 in studio.  Thus this is the starting point for his settings in Studio.  He can correct me if I am wrong but thats what I got out of the post.

Very True @daventaki. It seems to work well with Iray stuff quite well. 

Here is another image using the same settings. 

Description

I'd like to think that all things have sun at the end of a disaster. Lets hope that is the truth.

Made with...

• FWSA Gillian HD for Victoria 7 and LF Sorbet Swimwear
• Ultra Genesis Studio Vol 1 - Iray Box Lights
• Secret River
• IG Photographer's Toolbox: 35mm Cameras
• Classic Long Curly Hair with dForce for Genesis 8 Female(s)
• Eryn for Genesis 8 Female
• 

I think they help with the colors a lot along with lighting placements and some additional adjustments. 

Got some things off my wishlist with the 3 extra $6 coupon deal, so quite happy with that.

Skipping on the purple banner alternate deal for Victoria bases owners. Jusr not into any of today's Newly Mad items. If it lasts more than 1 day and there's something interesting in Newly Mad, I'll revist.

Try putting in the banana suit and the 70% off new item (resto shop) in your cart, then add a few select DO's and see what happens...

Also, were you able to use your April Plat club code 4 times, 3 times, or did you use a different code for the 'bonus' coupons?

I finally took the advice today! Got the Z G3/G8 Romantic Couple poses  from today's Newly Mad & re-bought the Banana suit to trigger the $20 of freebies. Freebies were Wolf for Dog 8 and the Puppy Love poses for Mil Puppy b/c I love puppers & doggos! Can't wait to try mixing the Wolf & Lab to see if I can do a portrait of our dog, a chocolate Lab mix who has thick & fluffy neck ruff & tail from whatever-the-heck he's mixed with. Final cost: under $7. 

PS: Did you mean the March PC code? If so, I used it 4 times, once early March (pre-Honorary PC promo) and then 3 times the last week of March. I believe I used the same code.

If you did mean the April code, I haven't used it yet. Am probably going to find out if I can use it 3 or 4 times this weekend. :) I have several things wishlisted that are currently on sale for under $10. (Yeah, budget woes. But that's as bad as it's gotten for my family so am grateful.)

I hope they will make G9 soon since G8 was a massive fail to me. I didn't like 90% of the pro bundles and Victoria 8 has never looked as bad.

I agree with that, and i don't think theer has been enough diversaty in the clothing products, they just seem to have been re vamp hash from pevious models and clothing. 

Because you own all the Victoria Base Characters, we're offering you $20 OFF* Select Daz Originals when you buy the Banana Suit for Genesis 8 and any Newly Mad Item

Shop Now

*Items must be in cart simultaneously for discount to apply.
Usable once per customer.
Discount excludes New Releases, PC+ Items, Gift Cards and Memberships.
Offer valid only for intended recipients.
Offer is only for a limited time

There are no longer any Newly Mad items to trigger this purple banner offer as they have all been moved to Still Mad.

Already used the $20 offer so can't check but I suspect today's releases will trigger the offer as they did trigger the Gift Card Discount.

By the way it is possible to get up to 35% off the Gift Cards, $200 plus gift card =20% off, add a Newly Mad Item +10% (including Bonus Madness items, it is cheaper to add both if you have the bonus discounts applied), +10% for being a PC+ Member (not Honorary),

Because you own all the Victoria Base Characters, we're offering you $20 OFF* Select Daz Originals when you buy the Banana Suit for Genesis 8 and any Newly Mad Item

Shop Now

*Items must be in cart simultaneously for discount to apply.
Usable once per customer.
Discount excludes New Releases, PC+ Items, Gift Cards and Memberships.
Offer valid only for intended recipients.
Offer is only for a limited time

There are no longer any Newly Mad items to trigger this purple banner offer as they have all been moved to Still Mad.

The page has an issue, but the Newly Mad items are the first thirteen items listed, (which includes the two Bonus Madness products further down the page.)

Because you own all the Victoria Base Characters, we're offering you $20 OFF* Select Daz Originals when you buy the Banana Suit for Genesis 8 and any Newly Mad Item

Shop Now

*Items must be in cart simultaneously for discount to apply.
Usable once per customer.
Discount excludes New Releases, PC+ Items, Gift Cards and Memberships.
Offer valid only for intended recipients.
Offer is only for a limited time

There are no longer any Newly Mad items to trigger this purple banner offer as they have all been moved to Still Mad.

I recommend still picking up the other Victorias even if you don't install/use them. That way you'll qualify for banners like the one today in the future. I believe that for Victoria's birthday (for example) if you own all the Victorias you often got another type of incentive.

Not to mention.. The skin textures. Especially the Genesis 3 version (Victoria 7) works perfectly fine on Victoria 8, and vice versa!

Genesis 8 really is more like Genesis 3.05 than a radical improvement. Even whether it is a noticable qualitive improvement is debatable. But, it's actually really nice that the skin textures are so interchangable. A change of skin can radically alter a characters' appearance, and there adding some Genesis 3 / Victoria 7 skins can exponentially increase your option for appearances.

I agree! V7 is top flight and earlier Vickies are useful, too.

I find that I personally often prefer the look and functionality of the G3 line to the G8Fs, as the end result of adding all those extra bones to the face often seems to be a lot of really unnatural facial expresions, and too many of the native G8 clothes tend to be a bit underdetailed due to the need to work well with dForce. Ultimately, though, it's best to have as many options as possible, with the best analogy being maintaining a well stocked tool box - you may go years using just your pliers and vise grips and never needing that 1/4" allen key, but when the time comes that you do have to use it, it's darn nice to have one on hand.

Hiya!
The Main Image is Victoria 6

"Because you own all the Victoria Base Characters,"  purple Banana option doesn't work.

G4-7 were skipped to avoid confusion (basically Victoria 7 was on Genesis 3 and the numbers were confusing some so they made Genesis 8 to match Victoria 8).

 

From Genesis 3 to Genesis 8, they reduced the base resolution polys even further but made more of the HD morphs for expressions. Expressions look a lot better in G8 than G3 IMO but otherwise you could use both generations in the same scene without a big disconnect. There were other under-the-hood improvements I think (like the base-pose was changed from a T-Pose to an A-Pose to help with the modelling and fitting of dforce clothing) but mostly I notice the expressions.

I see. It's clear that DAZ is doing better. But I guess I have to stick with poser. It's easier to use for amateurs. I can make figures with a text editor.

I don't understand the file system for DS. Files are not text-based. I expected to find huge files but found only small ones. And no obj!

The files are text-based, but they are usually saved compressed rather than plain ASCII. You can uncompress them with the Batch Convert pane in DS or with an archive tool (I usually use 7Zip if I need to inspect a file for some reason). The format is documented http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/dson_spec/start