Names do not design abstract concepts in reality, but rather specific characters, which have several versions, which are recognizable as part of a series. Victoria 7 is similar to Victoria 6, in fact with a few adjustments Victoria 7 is almost identical to Victoria 6. That is for the morphs, for the skin does not apply. What I want to say is that DAZ in its eagerness to make the new characters more realistic does not leave them unrecognizable or in my opinion (my opinion is strong) ugly. For DAZ and for many artists more realistic is synonymous with more ugly details, which should not necessarily be so.

A question about realistic Skin Colours
My main character (using a MAT for Victoria 4) has medium-dark skin.  A strange thing happened after I followed a tutorial, a few weeks ago.  Her skin went from medium-dark to super dark.

Original settings
Diffuse colour: 119 78 58 (100 % strength)
Glossiness: 75 %
Specular: 0 0 0
Ambient: 0 0 0

New Settings with super dark skin
Diffuse colour: 119 78 58 (100 % strength)
Glossiness: 75 %
Specular: 51 72 77
Ambient: 0 0 0

I have a buffer of about 75 images of the woman's skin colour being medium dark (using original settings).  I really like the super dark too. I do not want to delete these 75 images.  

My question about realistic Skin Colours:  Can a person's skin change this much between a Canadian/Northern European winter and summer ?

Hair Colour
I have a strange problem all of the sudden, using Black hair MATs.  I typically have hair set to Matte.  Lately, most of my black hair is super glossy and grey.  I dont understand why.

Animating in Iray
I want to Animate in Iray, typically scenes are 5 to 15 seconds long at 30 frames/second.  So far, I cannot find the right settings that will complete the movie in a span of less than 24 to 36 hours.

"Ever since Genesis came out in an attempt to replace 
Victoria 4, I have felt that the models and 
textures just don't quite look human.>snip<
............................................................ 
>snip< Please just do it yourself, look at the product characters for G3F,
 G8 and compare them to real people.">snip<

Hi first of all  your post really has nothing to do with the
the proper defintion of "uncanny valley"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley

Second I tend to agree with your assessment of the current commercial
"Character "offerings in the store.
  
But I completely disagree with your implication that the genesis 
models(1,2,3 or 8) themselves are the problem.

Those formulaic& idealized Characters in the store,
(particularly the early 20's white girls),
are apparently the ones that sell the most and 
appeal to people's fantasies.

The genesis models have succesfully replaced V4& M4
and are an order of magnitude superior to those
12 year old Figures by every meassure.

"I think the test for this is to look at a 
render and ask yourself, if I saw that 
'person' walking down the street towards
 me would I think it was a normal human."

I shall perform your "test" here is a render of the genesis 2
male desiged to appear to be an early fifties aged ,light skinned,
Black American male.

Now attached  below is the real life person upon whom this "character" is based.
(Myself )

Everyone tells me we look quite similar

If you want Characters that look like "real people" I suggest  buy the face morph packs 
and put in the work yourself .
Trust me you will be better off than you wiil be waiting for Daz or the PA's to create exactly what you want to see .

Still has an extremely masculine face. Diversity is fine and all, but Victoria 8 and Olympia 8 are already masculine women.

Ditto. I loved that V8 had stronger features. It's the same look that I tend to dial on purpose. But S8 looks like her, O8 looks like her...they've all got that chin. So much sameface in the DAZ flagship line. I expect them to have distinctive looks.

Also in the first couple portraits she legitimately looks like a drag queen (yet the full body she does not). I have to wonder if the focal lengths on the camera aren't being adjusted for closeups, it can cause that same effect.

Yeah, I like the basic face shape of G8F and V8, but I don't think O8 and S8 are successful attempt to take the faces in a different direction. The earlier Olympias and Stephanies tended towards heart-shaped faces.

Okay..

Steph 8, default shape, no expression.
Base skin, makeup 06 with eyebrows, translucency medium (that's 0.75 - still high IMO)
Select skin-lips-nails in surface tab, change transmitted color to RGB 250/210/235 (very light magenta) - This one step makes her not orange, adjust hue to taste for your light setup, the effect is strong.  If you leave her translucency at default this transmitted color will make her look too pink.

FWSA Light FX 05, Eyelight Disk
Camera focal length 135, spectral rendering off
Shirt coming soon

Wow, that is a huge improvement on the promo images.

After trying out Genesis 8 and looking at the products available for her I am yet again astounded that Daz appears to be taking a sideways or even backward step in terms of human realism.

Ever since Genesis came out in an attempt to replace Victoria 4, I have felt that the models and textures just don't quite look human. I think the test for this is to look at a render and ask yourself, if I saw that 'person' walking down the street towards me would I think it was a normal human. In most renderers with very few highly professionally tweeked renderers with post processing the answer is I would freak out because something about the body and faces just arent' quite right. Please just do it yourself, look at the product characters for G3F, G8 and compare them to real people.

Most of the female Genesis models look dead or devoid of emotion, or where emotion is applied it is exagerated and freakish. The younger morphs don't look like teens or children but instead look like a cross between cartoon characters and stepford wives. For some reason, although Victoria 4 wasn't perfect it was slightly better at convincing me it wasn't a automaton maybe it is the higher polygon count that has been wittled away in each subsequent generation, but Daz really hasn't done much to improve this in recent years. The reliance on maps over geometry might be a factor here.

I guess we have to cross our fingers that Genesis 9 will be an improvement. I mean really comparing G3F and G8, other than the A-pose and removable eyebrows, what is the selling point?

- Get it together Daz

Most of the G8 series so far seem to be character actors rather than "Stars". Unless you only do pin-ups, this can be a good thing.

Count me as another who wasn't all that impressed with the Pro Bundle contents. The hair is nice enough, but none of the outfits are things that I think I'll ever find a use for. The poses are rather nice, at least, and the add-on characters.

I do agree that her head is too big for her body, but that's an easy fix. And the makeup is awful. But then, the makeup is usually awful. I was rather glad to see her, and having the earlier versions and their discount, it was an easy purchase.

Stephanie is one of the iconic characters, but since Genesis launched, a lot of the reason that she existed disappeared. I can't really speak for the first couple of iterations, since I never got into using gen3 or earlier. But unless you were a modeler, I don't remember there being anything like the variety of morphing packages that are available now. If you wanted anything shorter than the stock V3 you had to scale -- which was not always convincing -- so there really was a need for a smaller female who was *built* smaller. And younger. Trying to make the gen3 and gen4 characters older or younger than they came was a struggle.

Stephanie4 was pretty special. She came late in the series. V4 originally launched at the end of '06 and Stephinie4 didn't show until something like 2010. And she showcased a lot of the development which had gone on under the hood in the preceeding 3 years.

For that matter, she hit the store with enough morphs to almost count as a teaser for Genesis. She came with (or launched with) a whole group of additional subcharacter morphs which added something like half a dozen new girls to your potential runtime. And iirc, you could *mix* them. This stretched the capabilities of gen4's unimesh like very little had before. The original Stephanie's were separate figures which shared a UV with Victoria. But gen4 had collected all of the DAZ base characters into a single mesh, with only a gender split.

It was pretty revolutionary, but Genesis went back and started over from the ground up, and once it was on the ground, you didn't specifically *need* a Stephanie base to get a smaller younger female. You could morph your own, practically from day 1. Later morphing packages like the NPM morphs helped a lot, but the potential was already there.

..S4 with the NPMs finally let me create a viable Gen4 teen character.

Personally, I think that Stephanie 8 came away looking younger than Victoria 8.  I don't care so much about the facial structure, but I do care that they just seemed to have "aged" Victoria 8.  Olympia looks okay IMO.  It really is just V8 that was off putting to me when she came out and so I have not really used her, but rather characters based on her.

I'm the opposite. The more I use Vicky 8, the more she grows on me ;). She's got the best skin of the G8's so far...she doesn't suffer from that overall orange look (fixed really easy, really...lol).

Laurie

Personally, I think that Stephanie 8 came away looking younger than Victoria 8.  I don't care so much about the facial structure, but I do care that they just seemed to have "aged" Victoria 8.  Olympia looks okay IMO.  It really is just V8 that was off putting to me when she came out and so I have not really used her, but rather characters based on her.

What blue dress is she wearing in the promo images?

https://www.daz3d.com/fw-nadine-hd-for-victoria-7

Most of the G8 series so far seem to be character actors rather than "Stars". Unless you only do pin-ups, this can be a good thing.

Count me as another who wasn't all that impressed with the Pro Bundle contents. The hair is nice enough, but none of the outfits are things that I think I'll ever find a use for. The poses are rather nice, at least, and the add-on characters.

I do agree that her head is too big for her body, but that's an easy fix. And the makeup is awful. But then, the makeup is usually awful. I was rather glad to see her, and having the earlier versions and their discount, it was an easy purchase.

Stephanie is one of the iconic characters, but since Genesis launched, a lot of the reason that she existed disappeared. I can't really speak for the first couple of iterations, since I never got into using gen3 or earlier. But unless you were a modeler, I don't remember there being anything like the variety of morphing packages that are available now. If you wanted anything shorter than the stock V3 you had to scale -- which was not always convincing -- so there really was a need for a smaller female who was *built* smaller. And younger. Trying to make the gen3 and gen4 characters older or younger than they came was a struggle.

Stephanie4 was pretty special. She came late in the series. V4 originally launched at the end of '06 and Stephinie4 didn't show until something like 2010. And she showcased a lot of the development which had gone on under the hood in the preceeding 3 years.

For that matter, she hit the store with enough morphs to almost count as a teaser for Genesis. She came with (or launched with) a whole group of additional subcharacter morphs which added something like half a dozen new girls to your potential runtime. And iirc, you could *mix* them. This stretched the capabilities of gen4's unimesh like very little had before. The original Stephanie's were separate figures which shared a UV with Victoria. But gen4 had collected all of the DAZ base characters into a single mesh, with only a gender split.

It was pretty revolutionary, but Genesis went back and started over from the ground up, and once it was on the ground, you didn't specifically *need* a Stephanie base to get a smaller younger female. You could morph your own, practically from day 1. Later morphing packages like the NPM morphs helped a lot, but the potential was already there.

Greetings,

Funny...Josie 8's mouth was too small, IMO.  That said, my wife's instant reaction on seeing Stephanie 8 was, 'Her head's too big.'  I think she's right; I think some judicious head-shrinking, and the right lens (and none of that truly awful makeup) will make her a distinct character without looking awkward.  Or, no more awkward than you'd expect from the girl-next-door.

...it's the kind of thing that makes me wonder if someone built her head without taking into account that she's petite, and so the head ended up outsized.  But as a professional myself, I really find it aggravating when folks who don't know my field as well as I do make presumptions on whether I've done something right or not.

Stephanie has always had a very distinct face, and Steph 8 continues that trend.  The thing about distinct faces is that not everybody's going to find them appealing, and that's okay.

--  Morgan

 

+1.

I can't really understand what these complains are about, either. I mean, I see people with similar face forms every day on the street, or when I look into the mirror. Famous singer Björk has a mouth shaped similar to Steph 8.

I know that this are just polygons and maps, but reading such comments, as a female person who also has "squarish" features... um, yeah. I guess I'll just stay away from reading threads about new character releases in the future.

+1

I said it back when Victoria 8 was released and I'll repeat it as often as I have to; I actually had a female supervisor at a previous job that makes the G8 DO females look like beauty queens. They do not look male to me, when remembering mistaking her for a man the first time I saw her. Every woman is beautiful in her own unique way, even if most folks don't want to believe that.

English Bob, I am interested in getting the sweater with a shirt collar as depicted in this photo:

I heard it's compatible with Victoria 4.  Where can I get it to, and is it free?

Frankly, looking at Victoria, Olympia, Stephanie, & their Pro Bundles, I suspect that Daz has begun phoning it in (halfheartedly going through the motions), as though their attention is elsewhere. In the mostly defunct art of journalism, three examples were considered a trend. I hope they get their act together, because I really liked Ophelia 7, and I hoped she was a taste of things to come.

Extreme Closeup: High Fashion Makeup for Genesis 3 Females          FWSA Cadence for Victoria 7

Showing the default Cadence, then the makeups. I don't like the hairline of the hair, was wondering if the makeup LIE was doing it but as you can see from the original, it's not. Since I was testing the makeups for myself, I just left the hair alone. Then I thought you might like to see these, so just ignore the hairline.  I did change the lips on one of them, they were a bright pink. I'll note the color I used for you.

What I'm going to do- I will do Stephanie 8 in this EXACT SAME LIGHT SETUP and we'll see about the color of her skin. I'll be off and on the thread all day today, showing some things for you in between doing errands. I know there's concern about her skin color and level of detail, so we'll check that out using lighting that has been established on another character. I'll try some of the various Pro-Studio lights since that's my mainstay and you're used to see those lights/ what they can do.

The first is the default, the second is eyeshadow 17, blush 2, lips 4.

The third is FF01 and fourth is FF06 and put this color in Surfaces pane, in the base color  122  130  134

The fifth one is FF07 and last one is FF08

I'm looking at this G3F character in megafastgrab: https://www.daz3d.com/blanca-for-victoria-7 The promos look wonderful, but not sure whether that's due to the undoubted skill of the vendor or whether she really looks like that. Also, it's bugging me that she reminds me of an actress that I can't place. Anyone have her and can give some thoughts?

Still has an extremely masculine face. Diversity is fine and all, but Victoria 8 and Olympia 8 are already masculine women.

Ditto. I loved that V8 had stronger features. It's the same look that I tend to dial on purpose. But S8 looks like her, O8 looks like her...they've all got that chin. So much sameface in the DAZ flagship line. I expect them to have distinctive looks.

Also in the first couple portraits she legitimately looks like a drag queen (yet the full body she does not). I have to wonder if the focal lengths on the camera aren't being adjusted for closeups, it can cause that same effect.

Still has an extremely masculine face. Diversity is fine and all, but Victoria 8 and Olympia 8 are already masculine women.

I don't see it. 

I think y'all are just used to the super idealized femminine faces that borderline on looking cartoonish.

Anyhow, as much as I love the Stephanie line, ehhh... I think I might need to think a little bit before plunking down on her. I haven't really gotten into Genesis 8 as much as I'd hoped I would, but some of the items look really useful, at least.

Does anyone who has Steph 5 and Steph 6 and Steph 8 feel like doing a comparison render, particularly for the faces and skins? I've just been playing with Steph 6 and I can't for the life of me figure out why I ignored her for so long, she's fantastic. So I'm curious how they all look next to each other. 

(Or maybe a Victoria 8, Olympia 8 and Steph 8 comparison as a few peeps are saying they all look the same and I'm curious)

Ha! i had that with Olympia 8 - Olympia 7 is my favourite figure hands down ever. I adore her. So I got Olympia 8 and wanted to cry. Her shape is fine, but good gravy, her skin is dreadful.  

Does anybody else think that Olympia 8 and now Stephanie 8 look kinda unfinished? I quite liked Victoria 8, but then O8 looked as if they just changed V8s body, tinkered slightly with the face and said "good enough". Olympia 7 has a very distinct face, O8 (to me, at least) has not - and now Stephanie seems like the same thing: smaller body, but nearly the same kind of face. I sincerely hope it will be different for Gia 8 and Eva 8 - G7 is my favourite character by far.

Does anybody else think that Olympia 8 and now Stephanie 8 look kinda unfinished? I quite liked Victoria 8, but then O8 looked as if they just changed V8s body, tinkered slightly with the face and said "good enough". Olympia 7 has a very distinct face, O8 (to me, at least) has not - and now Stephanie seems like the same thing: smaller body, but nearly the same kind of face. I sincerely hope it will be different for Gia 8 and Eva 8 - G7 is my favourite character by far.