You have a good argument that if a base character is named after an earlier series base character, as in your request for Belle 8, that character should look substantially the same as the earlier series character. Belle 8 should look very similar to Belle 7 etc. Why else would you give them the same root name?

The named characters series are basically characters illustrating a given concept / style (anime for Aiko, stylized pinup for The Girl, and so on), so they can be quite different even if they share the same series name.

PAs will sometime use one of the named character as part of their characters as it's closer to what they intend to create than the default genesis base, so it saves them time.

Perhaps the notion of stereotypes was originally the idea. Certainly Victoria has remained somewhat similar, throughout the various generations. Aiko and The Girl are clearly different styles but now there are dozens of "6s" and "7s" (and "8s" to come) which actually don't look very similar to their coresponding predecessors. In many cases it is very UNclear what is "specific" concerning one "7" over another. Perhaps DAZ3d would care to clarify this?

Further, are you suggesting that PAs are so lazy or unskilled that they need to base their figures on a specific "6" or "7"; forcing their clients (us!) to have to buy a second character to get theirs? I doubt it. Consider Xanthe for Stephanie 8, are you seriously suggesting it was easier to get to her face from Stephanie 8 than it would have been to start from G8f base? Again, I doubt it.

 

Xanthe is not really using a lot Stephanie 8. It use only 5% of her.. Look the Stephanie 8 thread for more clarifications.

Thank you Atanacius, you make my point exactly. Xanthe is a character which does not really need to be based on Stephanie 8.

The original poster asked for Belle 8. I wonder if a character very much like Belle 7 were to be released, obviously using G8f as the base, but not as a new Base character in itself, just a separate character, would he not be happy? I suspect so. Me too.

You have a good argument that if a base character is named after an earlier series base character, as in your request for Belle 8, that character should look substantially the same as the earlier series character. Belle 8 should look very similar to Belle 7 etc. Why else would you give them the same root name?

The named characters series are basically characters illustrating a given concept / style (anime for Aiko, stylized pinup for The Girl, and so on), so they can be quite different even if they share the same series name.

PAs will sometime use one of the named character as part of their characters as it's closer to what they intend to create than the default genesis base, so it saves them time.

Perhaps the notion of stereotypes was originally the idea. Certainly Victoria has remained somewhat similar, throughout the various generations. Aiko and The Girl are clearly different styles but now there are dozens of "6s" and "7s" (and "8s" to come) which actually don't look very similar to their coresponding predecessors. In many cases it is very UNclear what is "specific" concerning one "7" over another. Perhaps DAZ3d would care to clarify this?

Further, are you suggesting that PAs are so lazy or unskilled that they need to base their figures on a specific "6" or "7"; forcing their clients (us!) to have to buy a second character to get theirs? I doubt it. Consider Xanthe for Stephanie 8, are you seriously suggesting it was easier to get to her face from Stephanie 8 than it would have been to start from G8f base? Again, I doubt it.

It looks like one or several of the dance pose sets from the shop, like

• https://www.daz3d.com/modern-dance-poses-for-genesis-8-female-and-victoria-8
• https://www.daz3d.com/classical-ballet-poses-for-genesis-2-female-s
• https://www.daz3d.com/60-ultimate-dance-poses-for-victoria-6

etc.

But your best bet is to ask the PA who created the set, as he did the renders himself, as far as I understood it. Here's the product thread: https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/189631/just-released-flying-fabric-artistic-flowing-cloth-pieces-commercial#latest

I know that things have moved on since the olden days when Vitoria was queen but I still find lots of things for her to do. It would really help however if I could use the content I have for G2F on Victoria. I think I remember a v4 to G2f conversion thing but cant find anything by searching the forums, so if anyone can help it would be a real help.

Thank you

Greetings,

If the Devil told you this thread was illegal he was acting ultra vires. Only the forum mods have that power, and the forum mods are jealous mods.

Aaaand, you left yourself wide open for speculation as to whether or not forum moderators are the Devil...

I heard that if you bury a 3D printed model of an improperly clad Victoria at a crossroads you can summon a moderator.

Yeah, but 10 years later a hellhound lightning strike will destroy all copies of all of your content and scenes.  And you.  Sorry...buried the lede there.

--  Morgan

You have a good argument that if a base character is named after an earlier series base character, as in your request for Belle 8, that character should look substantially the same as the earlier series character. Belle 8 should look very similar to Belle 7 etc. Why else would you give them the same root name?

The named characters series are basically characters illustrating a given concept / style (anime for Aiko, stylized pinup for The Girl, and so on), so they can be quite different even if they share the same series name.

PAs will sometime use one of the named character as part of their characters as it's closer to what they intend to create than the default genesis base, so it saves them time.

Perhaps the notion of stereotypes was originally the idea. Certainly Victoria has remained somewhat similar, throughout the various generations. Aiko and The Girl are clearly different styles but now there are dozens of "6s" and "7s" (and "8s" to come) which actually don't look very similar to their coresponding predecessors. In many cases it is very UNclear what is "specific" concerning one "7" over another. Perhaps DAZ3d would care to clarify this?

Further, are you suggesting that PAs are so lazy or unskilled that they need to base their figures on a specific "6" or "7"; forcing their clients (us!) to have to buy a second character to get theirs? I doubt it. Consider Xanthe for Stephanie 8, are you seriously suggesting it was easier to get to her face from Stephanie 8 than it would have been to start from G8f base? Again, I doubt it.

If the Devil told you this thread was illegal he was acting ultra vires. Only the forum mods have that power, and the forum mods are jealous mods.

Aaaand, you left yourself wide open for speculation as to whether or not forum moderators are the Devil...

I heard that if you bury a 3D printed model of an improperly clad Victoria at a crossroads you can summon a moderator.

@wolf359, your render is very good. But you can't seem much of the body. The eyes are completely covered, but you have done a good job with the beard and facial skin texture. I mentioned that there are instances where professional renders of the Genesis characters can look human but you also appear to have rendered that in cycles not Iray which by itself means you've done a lot of tweeking. I'm guessing you also did a cloth sim in blender.

Please allow this copypasta from wikipedia "In aesthetics, the uncanny valley is the hypothesis that human replicas which appear almost, but not exactly, like real human beings elicit feelings of eeriness and revulsion (or uncanniness) among some observers."

I hate to single out specific examples,because I don't really want to cause offense to the artists involved in making these products.. but look at these examples from the front page store selected for the feelings I get of ... not quite human and not quite right.

 

 

 

Just three examples among hundreds. Human faces just don't look like this. I've been rendering for over 10 years and I have examples of V4 from 10 years ago that look as good if not better in terms of realism.

I'm just surprised that despite improvements in rendering technology such a PBR the models don't appear to have improved much in 10 years, it took 3 years for the A pose and removable eyebrows... Is that the best DAZ can offer in terms of model quality.

The focus has been on Maps over geometry for genesis despite graphics cards being able to handle far more polys than ever before. I work with game engines 'unity', 'Unreal' and 'Godot' and I know they prefer to work with lower poly models for performance, but DAZ models shouldn't have that restriction because the focus tends to be single image renders. Besides V4 offered 4 lower poly levels of detail for multi character performance rendering at a distance where as the stock single level of detail on genesis has been lower poly than V4 and using subdivision to present a smooth geometry. I think the problem is that this loss of geometry means detail is shifted to the bump/normal maps and most artists find it hard to get this to work as well in renders. So facial features, body marks and details appear overly smoothed like shrink wrap has been applied to a human face.

 

 

I'll add my opinion to this, because I feel the same way about G8, although my opinion is not as sharp.

I think the 1st picture looks OK because of the nature of that particular character, IMO it's not intended to be overly realistic. In the 2nd picture, keep in mind that 3DUniverse's characters always have a bit of a cartoonish appearance, it's part of its style.

The 2nd and 3rd share a common (and quite common in general) problem with the lips: not many people have lips that big. Also, the G8 expressions are too much aimed at a specific age target (V8, as in the Daz character, not the engine) to look good on younger models.

IMO the younger character produced by the Daz company are the least convincing. Julie 5 was OK, and Belle 6 was an improvement, but I couldn't find use for Josie 7, Julie 7 or Josie 8. Julie 7 and Josie 8 don't feel like what a girl looks like to me, plain and simple. I'm talkin' heads (not the band, I mean I'm talking about the characters' heads). I'm not going to discuss what a minor body should look like, sorry.

Luckily Zev0 made the awesome Growing Up line of products, and those return way better results from the renders I see. Also there are products like Jojo, Princess Leila and others that are pretty convincing. Kyla is not a child character, but I bet she'd do for a very nice one.

IMO Daz characters come with very good and "special" bundled hair and clothes, but I'm beginning to feel like they are engineered to set a pace for the PA's releases and not as real standalone models. Josie 8 released = other teen characters appear. Victoria is a flagship of the company so she's not sold this way (this sounds like digital slavery).

Bottom line: either the Daz co. doesn't want to sell very well done children and teens (because they're family friendly so they won't participate in digital grilled underage slavery, only in digital adult slavery), or their anatomy knowledge and competence goes to 0 below 18. I can understand it may be difficult to explain to authorities that some of your employees need to study child anatomy. They should outsource this job to the PAs that are showing capable.

Please note that any reference to slavery is just a joke based on the fact that on the store you can buy characters. I'm not crazy enough to challenge Daz on their forum. Have a good day, and le'ts hope the next offer will be for a really realistic young slave (?). Let's also hope Django didn't hear me.

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

Agree... So far the only G8 Daz model I like is Josie when mixed into G8... If I'm missing enough items from previous pro models, I may get the bundle, but so far not enthralled at all with G8 and really appreciating the beauty of G3...

is there any way to get victoria 4 clothing to work with genesis 8 without having to meticulously pose everything by hand?

Autofit the clothing to Genesis, and then autofit that to Genesis 8 (since G8F has a Genesis clone)

is there any way to get victoria 4 clothing to work with genesis 8 without having to meticulously pose everything by hand?

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