She a new favorite DAZ Original core realistic female character to me. In my eyes, this is the 'California Model Beach Babe Digital Barbie' that Victoria the flagship female should be.

Some of the items in Pro bundle looks nice, but since I am loosing access to the older characters in Daz Studio like Victoria 8
and the other with names starting with letters T, U, V and so on, there is no point for me to buy new Genesis 8 Female characters.

By default there is a limit to how many product icons that are shown in a category, you can increase it by clicking the "+" button in the upper right corner of the window.
 

Oh, thanks. I did not know about that.

Actually it's per page I just realized - you can also just click to next page (arrow buttons in upper left corner).

She looks to me like Victoria 8's younger sister. I don't really have a use for her, but overall the clothing looks nice--a lot of contemporary stuff with kitbash potential.

This is super nitpicky, but I miss the collage-style main images for core character bundles. They made them easy to identify at a glance when browsing and set the characters apart a bit.

Some of the items in Pro bundle looks nice, but since I am loosing access to the older characters in Daz Studio like Victoria 8
and the other with names starting with letters T, U, V and so on, there is no point for me to buy new Genesis 8 Female characters.

By default there is a limit to how many product icons that are shown in a category, you can increase it by clicking the "+" button in the upper right corner of the window.
 

Oh, thanks. I did not know about that.

Some of the items in Pro bundle looks nice, but since I am loosing access to the older characters in Daz Studio like Victoria 8

and the other with names starting with letters T, U, V and so on, there is no point for me to buy new Genesis 8 Female characters.

By the way. Anybody knows, if it is possible to load Victoria 8 to the scene in Daz Studio

some other way, than by clicking on the icon (which I do not have any longer in Characters)?

 

Um should be able to just load A genesis 8 female and then look in the morps listed on the right side after you click on her, I know all of mine are, and why are you losing access to  items with later letters in the alpahabet?

 

 

That is a really good question. I am a Daz shop customer since 2004, so maybe I have just hit the limit.

I wonder if Daz has some kind of limit of how many characters could be installed in each category.

I have not noticed any missing characters in Genesis 8 Male category, so I will continue to purchase them instead.

Some of the items in Pro bundle looks nice, but since I am loosing access to the older characters in Daz Studio like Victoria 8
and the other with names starting with letters T, U, V and so on, there is no point for me to buy new Genesis 8 Female characters.

By default there is a limit to how many product icons that are shown in a category, you can increase it by clicking the "+" button in the upper right corner of the window.
 

Some of the items in Pro bundle looks nice, but since I am loosing access to the older characters in Daz Studio like Victoria 8

and the other with names starting with letters T, U, V and so on, there is no point for me to buy new Genesis 8 Female characters.

By the way. Anybody knows, if it is possible to load Victoria 8 to the scene in Daz Studio

some other way, than by clicking on the icon (which I do not have any longer in Characters)?

Um should be able to just load A genesis 8 female and then look in the morps listed on the right side after you click on her, I know all of mine are, and why are you losing access to  items with later letters in the alpahabet?

Some of the items in Pro bundle looks nice, but since I am loosing access to the older characters in Daz Studio like Victoria 8

and the other with names starting with letters T, U, V and so on, there is no point for me to buy new Genesis 8 Female characters.

By the way. Anybody knows, if it is possible to load Victoria 8 to the scene in Daz Studio

some other way, than by clicking on the icon (which I do not have any longer in Characters)?

I've not been purchasing much the past month or so and these are the last 3/4 :-) in order

Eryn for Genesis 8 Female https://www.daz3d.com/eryn-for-genesis-8-female (fiber mesh)

MRL Brienne for Victoria 8 https://www.daz3d.com/mrl-brienne-for-victoria-8 (fiber mesh)

Had a nice deal on this bundle for Tasha 8 https://www.daz3d.com/tasha-8-pro-bundle  (fiber mesh)

VYK Sophie for Genesis 8 Female https://www.daz3d.com/vyk-sophie-for-genesis-8-female I liked the masks. 

The figures look very realistic which is what I like. 

Image is with Eryn and Tasha

My last female purchases, over the span of about  9 months were not female models but products to use with female models:

Scandalous Makeup Set

Autoface Enhance for Genesis 8 Female

Skin Builder 8 for Genesis 8 Female

Toon Generations Mega-Bundle for Genesis 8 Male(s) and Female(s)

That's all since January 1st so not much as you see. It's why I'm not longer getting banners on the release of new Pro Bundle. I've also either bought or got free Victoria 6 and a few other prior generation female characters but since I favor toons and cleaned house with the Edie 8 & Girl 8 Pro Bundles last year it's slim pickens for me. I instead have interest in products that lend customizability, uniqueness, and realism to my existing realistic G8F characters like Autoface Enhancer for G8F from D.Master and Skin Builder 8 for G8F. 

Speaking of scandalous, I've actually spent about $100 on this PA sale but alas, I am spent out. I've bought (although I think technically the Roderick price is new product pricing not PA Sale pricing and the Crazy Chef Bundle pricing is Labor Day Sale pricing not PA Sale pricing):

Jepe's Roderick for Diego 8

New York Stores

New York Brownstones

New York Street Props

New York Street Lights

New York Hot Dog Cart

Sslyther

Crazy Chef Bundle

The Harpwood Trail - Mallard Pond

Finally, a heads up to a whole line of products I've been ignoring from Colm Jackson. Although I've spend a bit of money of lighting solutions in DAZ Studio for the iRay renderer those products are nice but still too limited. I was wanting atmospheric foggy and dusty lighting with many colors that is cinematic in appearance. That's what I was trying for in my renders of police at night with just average results instead of cinematic results. Anyway, I'll be buying these products in October if that's when the end of the PA Sale Catchup date falls. Check these out:

Entry #15

Title:  Immanence in Pearls

Artist:  UnifiedBrain

WIP link:  https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/4835691/#Comment_4835691

Comments/Credits: Victoria 1 in Carrara, Fotosketcher, and PSE.  I don't remember all the props, but there aren't many anyway.  The flowers were Travelers Naturals Jungle pack 2 (I think).  Other items are Crossover bikini and Xanadu hair.

https://www.daz3d.com/look-at-me-ii-pose-control

Look At Me II Pose Control is the next generation of the popular Look At Me Pose Control, providing a set of scripts for controlling your characters' head and eye movements, enhanced now also with chest and abdomen, for precise and natural posing! Easily pose your figures to look at the camera, to look into other character's eyes, or to look at an item in your scene! Look At Me II Pose Control has been designed to work with almost any character or figure... from Victoria 4 to Genesis 8, from Horse 2 to Dragon 3, male or female. Anything with a head and eyes!

Separately control how much characters' abdomen, chest, head/neck and eyes move to look at your target, whether it's to look into the camera, at an item, or at each other!

Of course they will eventually. Any prediction to the contrary isn't looking very closely at how technology of 3D graphics has changed radically. When I started in 3D graphics (35 years ago in 1984) we had to program all of our own tools. The idea of a "hobbiest" rendering tool like Poser or Daz Studio was almost laughable given how long even the simplest renders would take on our "blazing" 8Mhz Intel 286 CPUs with a whopping 4 MB of memory!

13 years ago, in 2006 when I started with Daz Studio, we were still mostly limited to biased rendering engines that required a great deal of dedication to get realistic approximations of real world lighting. Physically Based Rendering engines were mostly limited to some academics and industry leaders with access to high-end computing power. Nobody was ever going to be fooled by a 3Delight render of Victoria 3!

We're still on a pace where computing power is doubling every 2.5 - 3 years. To predict that technology will "never" be powerful enough to replace humans with virtual actors is likely to be proven false. There will certainly be a time when it is cheaper and faster to render an animation than to take an entire human film crew on location.

As for people not accepting CG replacements for "real" actors, I think that's innaccurate as well. Do you think kids (or adults for that matter) today care that Woody isn't "real"? Didn't we still tear up when Andy said goodbye to him? Did we really care that Gollum was a 3D generated character? If we can get past the "uncanny valley" stage of 3D animation and expression, I can easily see people becoming fans of specific CGI characters. I can forsee a time when the box office draw of "Victoria the 9th" is just as big as any human actress. Or, perhaps even more likely, when people don't care who the actor is anymore, they're going to movies to see the characters and the story, not the headliner.

I have re-watched "Alita Battle Angel" several times, mostly because the blending of CGI and live action is so good (to my eyes) that I'm amazed at the technology and skill of the movie making. I don't even know how many of the characters in that movie didn't have a real actor, just someone doing the voice. And, tbh, I don't really care. The characters and story are compelling enough for me to watch (and re-watch) the movie.

Characters and story.  #1 and #1.  And I liked Alita very much too.

The time will come, if not completely within my lifetime, certainly within my daughters. And I can see on the horizon a time when my grandkids don't even pay attention to "who" is playing the character anymore. The focus will shift completely to directors, writers, animation houses, and voice actors (until we can generate realistic, nuanced human speech then they'll be out of a job too).

But we're in an amazing time to be alive.  Just like how you can write, play, produce, publish, and distribute your own music album with just a laptop and a good audio/MIDI interface, we have the technology to make our own stories come to life.

There once was a day when EVERYBODY could tell stories around the campfire, or in the kitchen while peeling potatoes.  I for one am very happy to have the media industry cracked wide open for all.  Fresh minds, new ideas!

I have re-watched "Alita Battle Angel" several times, mostly because the blending of CGI and live action is so good (to my eyes) that I'm amazed at the technology and skill of the movie making

 

 

Every time I rewatch "Alita battleAngel" I get a little frustrated that this technology and style was not used for the "Ghost in the shell" remake.
 

I certainly would have preferred a stylized, CG Motoko Kusinaki over a real Scarlet Johansen any day.

For somebody like me who has zero knowledge of Motoko in the comics/anime/wherever, the Scarlet movie was fabulous.  It had interesting characters, a plot with twists, and overall told a GREAT story.  Putting Johansen in it was a stroke of genius.  And I say that not being a huge fan of her.

As for people not accepting CG replacements for "real" actors, I think that's innaccurate as well. Do you think kids (or adults for that matter) today care that Woody isn't "real"? Didn't we still tear up when Andy said goodbye to him? Did we really care that Gollum was a 3D generated character?

And although it's a bit of a trope, we all still cheered when Helen found a job and left Bob at home to take care of the kids and help with homework.  It was great moviemaking.  Bob, Helen, and the kids are ALL 3D based!

If we can get past the "uncanny valley" stage of 3D animation and expression, I can easily see people becoming fans of specific CGI characters. I can forsee a time when the box office draw of "Victoria the 9th" is just as big as any human actress. Or, perhaps even more likely, when people don't care who the actor is anymore, they're going to movies to see the characters and the story, not the headliner.

There still are real actors behind all these characters. If there was a regular human looking CG character with a real actor behind it doing the voice acting and motion capture, why not just use the real actor?

Because they introduce a huge amount of risk to an expensive project.  They get injured, they get sick.  They can die during production.  They can also quit on a whim which may require the reshooting of miles and miles of film (see what I did there?), they have schedule conflicts, they retire at 9 or at 39, suddenly and without warning. 

Also, human actors can and do let you down.  They get arrested for drug, sex, or violent crimes, they become alcoholic, get hooked on drugs.  Or they can make careless comments in social media, annoy a foreign government while on vacation, or just say something totally boneheaded, scaring off half of your audience even before opening day.  And then everybody has to apologize. 

Voice actors can be replaced, as evidenced by the voice of Po.  Jack Black in the movies, somebody else on TV.  In the original Avatar: The Last Airbender TV series, Mako, the voice of "Uncle Iroh" died.  Well damn.  But were they going to stop production because of the death of one of the central characters?  No, of course not.  They found a substitute that was more than passable.

Risk management.  That's why you might not want to hire "the real actors".

CG is great whenever there's a fantastical component or the actions of the character are impossible to do for a real actor (switching Keanu Reeves to CG when he's fighting 100 agents simultaneously), but using a CG character for your average character drama makes no sense and certainly won't save much money either.

It's not always about "saving money".  As I said above, managing risk may be even more important than being economical.

Unless that CG character is a completely autonomous AI that is essentially an actor in its own right. I could see that maybe be a novelty at some point in the future where such an AI could advance to stardom on its own. Even then I doubt this will lead to a complete replacement of real actors. Acting is an art and like other art forms I think these will be the last strongholds of humans even when most other jobs have been replaced by machines.

It is an art, yes indeed.  But actors are not God's gift to humanity and they certainly are not the only posessors of these art skills.

SIGGRAPH was in Los Angeles this year, so I went. I was quite surprised to note that what was cutting edge Virtual Reality type stuff is already considered soooo last year... "You say your company has a VR product? So what, buddy, who doesn't?"

The absolutely most mind-blownig thing I saw at SIGGRAPH was a presentation I attended on FACS. I thought it was going to be about how to construct better facial expressions using the Action Units defined by FACS. I was totally wrong.

Google "Mark Sagar Baby X", and I think you'll find a cut down version of the video he presented. Basically, researchers have modeled the physiological/chemical changes in the brain in certain scenarios, and discovered that they correspond to facial expressions. So they have a neural network that simulates this so when you talk to the baby, and say, it recognizes its own name, it makes a natural expression. If you say "spider" the baby acknowledges what you said but perhaps doesn't understand and the facial expression is what you would expect, a kind of "watchu talkin bout Willis?" but I you say "scary spider" the baby kind of freaks out, with appropriate expressions. It was not explicitly "programmed" to do any of that. Technological advances are not linear, they're exponential, and as such we can never act fast enough to predict the truly revolutionary ones.

I say it again, if you think this is not coming, and sooner rather than later, you are not paying attention.

Thank you for the reference.  I'll watch.

I have re-watched "Alita Battle Angel" several times, mostly because the blending of CGI and live action is so good (to my eyes) that I'm amazed at the technology and skill of the movie making

 

 

Every time I rewatch "Alita battleAngel" I get a little frustrated that this technology and style was not used for the "Ghost in the shell" remake.
 

I certainly would have preferred a stylized, CG Motoko Kusinaki over a real Scarlet Johansen any day.

Considering "Alita" was a 16 year old "passion project" for Cameron who has enough clout to "call the shots" as he wished resulted in the film we got (Which I ADORE!!!  I've craved this movie since Cameron first announced it in 2003.)  I suspect there was not the same kind of "drive" behind "Ghost in the Shell".

Sincerely,

Bill

Cameron also waited decades to do the first Avatar film.  He waited for the technology to get to a point where it would meet with his expectations for telling the story without pulling the viewer out of the story.

It's rather funny, but much of what's being debated in this thread was actually addressed in an old 1981 film--called "Looker", staring James Coburn and Albert Finney.

It's a really good thriller, but there was some really logical goofs that made it a rather laughable film with such a forward-looking premise where they correctly predicted the eventual technology that can replace a live actor with CGI, they utterly failed at conceiving the same thing can be done to replacing film stages with CGI, too...and even neglected a certain little used TV magic and were relying on LIVE BROADCASTING like they had to do in the early days of Dark Shadows and Doctor Who--check out the fantastic chase scene where Finney is trying to avoid being killed in the last 30min of the film! 

(or they may have intentionally tossed in those logical goofs, who knows?)

Good ideas... and inspired me to go check my backups - on an external drive - and found out I had excluded Poser Pro native content (I guess figuring I could always reinstall it).  Anyway, I now have a nice fresh backup and can nuke the main one.  I kind of figured I'd go thru the old content directory and see what I thought might be useful (nix Victoria 2, keep Victoria 3 - there are some characters I really like and have been unsuccessful at converting to newer generations).  And I didn't think about converting 3DL shaders to Iray. If nothing else, it can all get sorted out and put into the current runtimes.  I don't use the categories - just old-school Content Library.  It mirrors my hard-drive and I can (well, mostly, which is half the problem) find what I'm looking for.  Thanks y'all.

Oh, this stinks, I can't keep up with this conversation and I think I got lost somewhere....

But... to Outrider42, who said:

One can make an argument about using CG actors of the original Star Wars cast will come too late and nobody would care. I don't think so. Star Wars is different. The original actors are not just in the old movies.

I think we are already at the point they are trying to reboot the franchise and not keep the old around. They KILLED all the original characters and made a new movie with them in it - and gave them zero scenes to work through, terrible arcs for their lives and, to be honest, pretty much trampled on all that "fans still care about the old characters" stuff. You still care, I still care, but Hollywood does not. So instead of a digital Han Solo, they went with a different live actor. That is what they want to replace old actors with, not CGI.

Movies are now filmed in 6 months and spend a year and a half in post- adding all the CGI.

Replaced or in place of...?

If a house chooses to use CGI instead of actors, then that will be replace....

Has that already happened? Who knows.

Would I prefer one over the other?

Really depends on the CGI quality.

 

What else.

And look how well that plan went, Solo flopped so hard that Disney killed off most of their other projects. The film was not even that bad, but it was generally not what fans wanted. Maybe having some new guy who is nothing like Harrison Ford wasn't such a good idea? They can't do a full movie with a CG lead actor...yet.

And if Disney keeps going down this path, they will manage to utterly ruin one of the most profitable franchises of all time.

I wrote you were not impressed with Myazaki films. After all, you did write this: "I like the Miyazaki-films, but not for their charakter animation." That would seem to imply you were not impressed by the animation, am I correct? What other purpose does that sentence serve?

The animation in Miyazaki movies is technically at a very high level. The designs are complex and not easy to rotate/animate. Probably a lot of the scenes would be more difficult than I could handle. Special Effects animation in anime is incredible. That said, the acting is more bland than in Disney movies. I've never seen anything matching Hades, Scar, Aladdin's Genie, or Beast in Anime. It may have something to do with the fact that the Japanese are a lot more restrained in real life as well.

"Nevertheless, I think something got lost."  You continually repeat this over and over, again heavily implying a lack of personality or spirit is lost with CG. What else would this mean?

I do mean that. That is my opinion. There's a lot of bog-ugly 2D crap as well, of course, but the best of 2D as a higher emotional impact on me as the best of 3D. You don't have to agree, but that is how I feel. And I don't think that I'm less entitled to that opinion than 20-year olds claiming Bambi to be ugly.

I am making a prediction. You can hate that prediction, but that prediction will come to pass.

"I'm against 3D artists who believe that draftsmen and live actors should be put out of work and starve. And that 2D animation and live action films should cease to exist."

Not a single person here wrote that...only you did. I even wrote that I like practical effects just fine and even prefer them in many cases.

Here's a quote by you earlier in this thread: "How about a question for you, why didn't Disney use real animals for the Lion King with how realistic they took the art direction? Wouldn't that have been quite an interesting movie? No, they used CG for a reason, and one day that same reason is why they will work to replace real actors. They may not replace everybody, but a good many."

One thing that might shock some of you guys is that in my dealing with young people, I am finding that they actually prefer a lot of CG elements. In discussions around anime, you always find people who hate that so much anime is CG now. However, there are many in the younger crowd who favor it (when it is done well of course). Ask a young anime fan about shows from the 80s and 90s, and they might say they think they are ugly! And that goes for the old Disney movies. Bambi? UGLY! That is just how they feel.

That is why I keep talking about the younger crowd. They are all for the rise of CG. You guys are going to grow old and die, and your preferences for CG or not will die with you. The industry is going to be taken over by the 20 year olds of today. That is just how it is. Change is inevitable.

Bambi is dated from a story telling point of view. even if I absolutely love that movie. It was animated decades before I was even born, but I consider the animation superior to many of the contemporary animation of the 1970s, which was my decade. The same way I prefered the already ancient Tom & Jerry shorts to the drab limited animation TV garb in the 1970s. Newer isn't neccesarily better. Beethoven didn't become bad because someone invented techno.

I think, Hollywood is alienating the older audience at the moment. The new Lion King was panned by the critics. There's a lot of us hating the Star Wars and Star Trek reboots. A lot of us that stopped investing money in that stuff. We're not quite dead yet. And there's a lot of us baby-boomers left.

I'm 55; i'm probably one of the older Poser/Studio users. I'm not 20 and I do not share the taste of this generation. I have nothing with computer games. I have probably nothing in common with the millennials. Question is; why should I?

And at the end, I like what I like.

I love a well animated Drogon in Game of Thrones. Think CGI is a good solution for characters like Thanos. Or dangerous stunt work, to get back to the main topic of actor replacements.

But I do not need to have my human actors in CG, even if the technology permits it.I don't see the sense in a next generation Beowulf. And it's not going to get my money.

Welcome to being 55. This what every generation goes through, it is nothing new. Hollywood has ALWAYS treasured that 18-35 demographic, and you are simply not in that group anymore. People your age do not go to movies that often (see below for data proving this). They are starting to look at the 50+ crowd a little, that is partly why so many reboots of old franchises are happening.

And remember what I said about Hollywood stars not being as big as they used to be? Here is some information and data to look over.

"Another data point that strengthens the case for studios to sink hundreds of millions into just a few films a year is that, increasingly, Americans are only going to a few films a year. In the 1940s, nearly 80 percent of households went to the movies each week. Today, scarcely 5 percent do. Studios have to build a new audience each weekend for their releases with ad campaigns that can cost as much as $100 million. You can't do that more than a handful of times a year."

This chart demonstrates the sharp drop in movie attendance by age.

The quote and these 2 graphs come from here:  https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/07/the-6-graphs-you-need-to-see-to-understand-the-economics-of-awful-blockbuster-movies/277691/

So its kind of like when people ask the question of why the Daz store always sells female items and a lot of skimpy outfits. Because that is what sells. And young people are who go out to theaters, so it is only logical that movies are going to cater to them. That is why you see so many kids movies these days.

And the kids love the CG movies.

Another part of that article talks about the international market playing a huge role as well. Movies are often not made just for America, they are made for a global audience. The problem with that though is that foreign markets might not understand everything that goes on. But they do understand explosions. So that can play a role in dumbing down the plot or dialog.

Here is another article that argues that star power in Hollywood is largely a myth. https://www.worth.com/why-hollywoods-star-centric-revenue-model-doesnt-work/   There is a paper that this article is based on, but I do not have an account to access it (link ito the source paper is in the article if you guys wish to try it.) And I agree. What proof do we actually have that star power truly makes or breaks a movie? A movie with a huge star is just as capable of flopping as it would without a big star. Some movies are just plain bad.

And last, have you guys heard of ZAO? This a Chinese Apple app that allows the user to place their face onto any number of footage stock. It is deepfake technology, not CG, but you could use this to cast your face over a video game scene as well, or Daz. I imagine you could cast Victoria 8 over the footage as well. It is currently exclusive to the Chinese market (it even requires a Chinese phone number.) However, the results are crazy, especially when you consider these are being created by a mobile processor, not a super computer, and in only seconds. https://twitter.com/i/status/1168049059413643265

That's not correct, though.
I've installed both Carrara and Bryce through DIM many times in the past. It's only this most recent time that Bryce isn't showing up in the list. Carrara still does, and I've successfully installed it already in the last day or so. Removed it and moved over to Hexagon+DS since Carrara's giving me trouble with figures I want to use, hence why it's not installed in my screencap.
Bryce is still listed as an option in the Download Filter, so it *should* still be there. It just isn't showing up for some reason. I can similarly download and use various models/figures supported in Carrara (though Victoria 4's been giving me trouble this time).
If they dropped support for Bryce in DIM, it's recent enough that they haven't removed its entry from the Downloads filter.
Thanks
 

I just realized my content drive was running out of space, so I thought I would review some of the stuff I've got out there.  This includes what's left of my original content folder, as of a year and half before the last time my hard-drive crashed and I rebuilt the whole content structure into separate runtimes.  And a complete Poser Pro 2014 content library.  Most of what's left in the Daz/Studio/Content runtime is older stuff  (Victoria 3/ Michael 3, even Victoria 2) which I haven't used in years.  Lots of 3Delight stuff, which I hate.  Ever since Iray came out, I haven't used 3Delight for anything.  I don't even know most of what's in the Poser Pro 2014 content directory because I only used Poser after Victoria 4 came out.  The other duplication is all the Poser runtime content in my main DAZ content libraries - so many hair packs that came with both DAZ shader and Poser shaders, Genesis and Genesis 2 stuff that installed into both DAZ content and Poser content, 3Delight shaders and light sets, etc.  So I'm trying to convince myself to nuke all the stuff I don't think I'm ever going to use again. But the little voice inside my head whispers "But what if you need it for something?"

Thanks for your answers but let me clarify the question.

When you buy things there is a list of charecters it is designed to fit,for example Victoria,Aiko, ect.

I want to be able to add to that list. I can do that with clothes but shoes eludes me. I am doing something wrong but I don't know what.

Can someone explain how we're supposed to set up the specular and subsurface scattering maps included with DAZ figures in Blender?

I worked for some time on material conversion for the diffeomorphic plugin and I believe we got quite a good result with specularity. There are some equations involved that you may find useful. My advice though is to use the diffeomorphic plugin then adjust what you don't like. It is much easier this way instead of "reinventing the wheel".

https://bitbucket.org/Diffeomorphic/import-daz/issues/134/ultimate-specularity-matching-fresnel
https://bitbucket.org/Diffeomorphic/import-daz/issues/321/dual-lobe-specularity-implementation-and

https://bitbucket.org/Diffeomorphic/import-daz/issues/332/specular-fix-for-blender-28

And this is on translucency and sss, it works quite fine as far as the chromatic mode is not involved.

https://bitbucket.org/Diffeomorphic/import-daz/issues/111/better-translucency-also-helps-the-g8f
https://bitbucket.org/Diffeomorphic/import-daz/issues/112/better-translucency-part-2-also-mixing
https://bitbucket.org/Diffeomorphic/import-daz/issues/115/better-translucency-part-3-scatter-only

https://bitbucket.org/Diffeomorphic/import-daz/issues/316/no-eyebrows-on-victoria-8

When Victoria 4 was released years ago, the Daz genesis duf format did not exist.  Victoria 4 was released in Poser "cr2" format in the traditional Poser Runtime file structure.  I installed Daz Victoria 4 to my computer using DIM.  I did name my host folder a custom name (Stuff for Studio), but other than that I allowed DIM to install everything to its default location.  If you did also, than the relative locations should be the same (substitute "My Daz Library" for the places where I have "Stuff for Studio")

The V4.2 figure is found in the Runtime \ Figure \ Daz People    subfolder

The morphs for V4.2 have to be applied.  They can be found in the Runtime \ Poses \ Daz's Victoria 4    subfolder.

My Carrara came with some Carara-optimized shaders for V4.  Not sure that came with all editions of C8.5, but probably so.  My shaders were found under the shader tab in the Skin subfolder.