Torquinox said:

miladyderyni_173d399f47 said:

I did pick up https://www.daz3d.com/solidgear-megabundle-for-victoria-4-and-michael-4 for $1.99 today. I know I can't use  the bodysuits for any figures other than V4/M4 as they are second skins but still a good deal. Separately V4 Outfit is $1.99, M4 Outfit $23.95, and V4/M4 Texture Add-on $1.99. I even have a 3DL to Iray converter if applying base Iray shader doesn't give good results.

Of course if anyone knows of an easy to use product that would let me use V4 & M4 UVs on G3 or G8, I'd be even happier with this set. The second skins have nice textures.

I'm waffling on that one. I think those textures will take a lot of effort to beat into shape so they look the way I want at render time. I spend a lot of time reworking and adjusting textures. You say the body suits are second skins? I think that's a pass for me. I hope they work well for you!

I only really wanted the 2 outfits, but to buy just them would have been almost $25 vs. $2 for the bundle. There's precious few G3/8 things I would consider  paying that much for, much less gen4, even from a PA I love. But I doubt I will ever use the second skins.

I don't know how to make or rework textures; I wish I did. I mostly just use shaders (hence my fondness for shader sets) or do very minor shader tweaks (change the diffuse color, make things glow). Is there a "Texturing & Shaders for the Clueless but Intelligent" type tutorial?

columbine said:

daveso said:

So does this new product overcome what a lot of people were complaining about as far as the masculine chest and nipples on G9?  I assume it can be used on any G9 base and overcome the chest making it more masculine looking?

See my comment just above. I don't have time to play with it a LOT right now, but I don't think you're going to be able to use it to masculinize a G9F chest convincingly. You'd do better mixing and matching other figure shapes to try to get there.

(Do NOT apply Victoria 9 Masculine onto a generic G9 with Base Masculine on, unless you are fond of body horror. Trust me on this.)

thanks. I guess I'll save my money

miladyderyni_173d399f47 said:

I did pick up https://www.daz3d.com/solidgear-megabundle-for-victoria-4-and-michael-4 for $1.99 today. I know I can't use  the bodysuits for any figures other than V4/M4 as they are second skins but still a good deal. Separately V4 Outfit is $1.99, M4 Outfit $23.95, and V4/M4 Texture Add-on $1.99. I even have a 3DL to Iray converter if applying base Iray shader doesn't give good results.

Of course if anyone knows of an easy to use product that would let me use V4 & M4 UVs on G3 or G8, I'd be even happier with this set. The second skins have nice textures.

I'm waffling on that one. I think those textures will take a lot of effort to beat into shape so they look the way I want at render time. I spend a lot of time reworking and adjusting textures. You say the body suits are second skins? I think that's a pass for me. I hope they work well for you!

Does anyone know what Hair and Beard has been used on this model from the promo of : "https://www.daz3d.com/victoria-9-hd-masculine-add-on" ?

daveso said:

So does this new product overcome what a lot of people were complaining about as far as the masculine chest and nipples on G9?  I assume it can be used on any G9 base and overcome the chest making it more masculine looking?

See my comment just above. I don't have time to play with it a LOT right now, but I don't think you're going to be able to use it to masculinize a G9F chest convincingly. You'd do better mixing and matching other figure shapes to try to get there.

(Do NOT apply Victoria 9 Masculine onto a generic G9 with Base Masculine on, unless you are fond of body horror. Trust me on this.)

columbine said:

OK, so, Vick ...

What you get in the "Victoria 9 HD Masculine Add-On" kit is two actor load icons, one HD and one not, four surface load icons, and three new shape sliders.

"Vick," loaded as an actor (HD version), has ALL of Victoria's normal sliders applied full-tilt. V9 Body, V9 Body HD Details, V9, V9 HD Details, V9 Proportions, V9 Head, V9 Head HD Details ... all remain at 100%. To these are added the three new sliders V9 Masculine Body, V9 Masculine, V9 Masculine Head ... all, again, applied at 100%.

Putting Victoria 9 next to Vick ... Vick has a slightly larger head, especially the forehead, top of cranium; a wider and more pronounced jaw; a slightly more pronounced chin; a male chest that actually does look like a male chest and not "we tried to shrink these breasts down to pectorals and failed"; and his eyebrows are level, not angled up to the outside corners like Victoria's. He is also considerably taller than Victoria, but wait for it ...

The fun bit (THIS IS WHAT'S SHOWN IN THE RENDER): We take Victoria and put on Base Masculine. No other changes, just apply Base Masculine 100%. We also adjust her Proportion Height to be the same as Vick's. Victoria's default Proportion height is a wee -4.5% (that's a minus sign in front, there); Vick's is 20.5%. NOW WE HAVE two figures who differ only in the angles of the eyebrows, the slight difference in head/jaw size, and the fact that Victoria still has definite breasts even with Base Masculine on. (And in the image, I have figleafed them with Vick's arm so the mods won't get mad, but take my word for it.)

So, bottom line, if you want a male version of Victoria this kit does provide a few things you can't get with just Base Masculine, notably the chest shape. But it doesn't provide much more than that.

Pax: Vick's nipples are actually in a different location. They're lower on the pectorals than they are if you try using Victoria's surfaces. You can see the change very clearly if you put Victoria's surface 1 on Vick instead of his own surface 1, then turn on his nipples so they stand up ... you get erect nipples where the areolae are NOT, and it looks very bizarre.

Thanks for that! It makes me wonder, since you say it loads with all of V9 at 100%, then applies Vick at 100% too... can you use the V9 Masculine Body on other feminine G9 models to effectively zero out their breasts, or does it only work for V9? (Considering what you said about the nipples?)

Vick vs. Victoria: I think you need to render them next to each other, scaled to the same size whatever way, not front/back. I might be too bad at discerning, though.

I also wasn't sure about the way this as marketed, as being able to combine characters with different features and not have the products artificially separated out by gender was one of the selling points of G9, so why make a "male" product tied into requiring Victoria rather than just a nwe character without the additional product needed.

That said, Vick's chest looks pretty good compared to a lot of other lean masculine bodies we have seen in the store!

mwokee said:

Vick is not a bad character but it's redundant for what's already out there.

Yeah ... I don't regret my thirteen dollars, but Vick is definitely going to end up being used in mixes only, especially since if you want a slightly-more-butch version of Victoria 9 and you already own Freja 9, you can just put Victoria's surfaces on Freja 9, who was always Victoria's tougher older sister anyway.

daveso said:

Now I can thank having DAZ+ membership a lot more. The current DAZ "sales" are out of my spend point. The new DAZ+ releases are at least affordabe overall. The only problem for me there is that quite a few of the new releases I don't really need. I'm not very into shaders, and the plants are getting to be a bit much as well. The sci-fi and military vehicles are becoming impractical. 

An argument in favor of rejoining, at last.

The more Iray shaders the merrier IMO, & I love collecting the plants & flowers even though I never seem to remember to add the flora to my outdoor scenes. But I agree on the vehicles. Even when I do SF or cyberpunk, those never seem to be what I want. Also getting tired of rooms.

*****

I did pick up https://www.daz3d.com/solidgear-megabundle-for-victoria-4-and-michael-4 for $1.99 today. I know I can't use  the bodysuits for any figures other than V4/M4 as they are second skins but still a good deal. Separately V4 Outfit is $1.99, M4 Outfit $23.95, and V4/M4 Texture Add-on $1.99. I even have a 3DL to Iray converter if applying base Iray shader doesn't give good results.

Of course if anyone knows of an easy to use product that would let me use V4 & M4 UVs on G3 or G8, I'd be even happier with this set. The second skins have nice textures.

Oh sorry, I misunterdood the 20.5% in your message, I thought you dialied in Vick at 20.5 and didn't realise it was about the height.

I looked at Core figures I own, and it seems Vick is just slightly smaller than Olympia 9 (Proportion Height: 21%), so almost 10cm bigger than Victoria 9.

Elor said:

columbine said:

He is also considerably taller than Victoria

Do you have a comparison ? Your render doesn't show that much different in size.

Sorry, that render is AFTER I have adjusted Victoria to have Base Masculine on and her Proportion Height set to the same as his. If the latter is not adjusted, Victoria's half a head shorter and can barely lift her chin high enough to rest it on his shoulder. I've edited my post to make it clearer what the render shows.

columbine said:

He is also considerably taller than Victoria

Do you have a comparison ? Your render doesn't show that much different in size.

OK, so, Vick ...

What you get in the "Victoria 9 HD Masculine Add-On" kit is two actor load icons, one HD and one not, four surface load icons, and three new shape sliders.

"Vick," loaded as an actor (HD version), has ALL of Victoria's normal sliders applied full-tilt. V9 Body, V9 Body HD Details, V9, V9 HD Details, V9 Proportions, V9 Head, V9 Head HD Details ... all remain at 100%. To these are added the three new sliders V9 Masculine Body, V9 Masculine, V9 Masculine Head ... all, again, applied at 100%.

Putting Victoria 9 next to Vick ... Vick has a slightly larger head, especially the forehead, top of cranium; a wider and more pronounced jaw; a slightly more pronounced chin; a male chest that actually does look like a male chest and not "we tried to shrink these breasts down to pectorals and failed"; and his eyebrows are level, not angled up to the outside corners like Victoria's. He is also considerably taller than Victoria, but wait for it ...

The fun bit (THIS IS WHAT'S SHOWN IN THE RENDER): We take Victoria and put on Base Masculine. No other changes, just apply Base Masculine 100%. We also adjust her Proportion Height to be the same as Vick's. Victoria's default Proportion height is a wee -4.5% (that's a minus sign in front, there); Vick's is 20.5%. NOW WE HAVE two figures who differ only in the angles of the eyebrows, the slight difference in head/jaw size, and the fact that Victoria still has definite breasts even with Base Masculine on. (And in the image, I have figleafed them with Vick's arm so the mods won't get mad, but take my word for it.)

So, bottom line, if you want a male version of Victoria this kit does provide a few things you can't get with just Base Masculine, notably the chest shape. But it doesn't provide much more than that.

Pax: Vick's nipples are actually in a different location. They're lower on the pectorals than they are if you try using Victoria's surfaces. You can see the change very clearly if you put Victoria's surface 1 on Vick instead of his own surface 1, then turn on his nipples so they stand up ... you get erect nipples where the areolae are NOT, and it looks very bizarre.

Hylas said:

Vick still reads as female to me, even with the scruffy beard.

Yeah, me too.

Field report on Vick vs Victoria coming in just a moment.

Diomede said:

The Victoria Flashback Sale is Carrara-compatible items for 1.99 each, USD.

Example - A bundle of PhilW Carrara dynamic hair for V4 for 1.99    https://www.daz3d.com/carrara-dynamic-hair-bundle

Well, I admit I'm curious to see how/where Victoria 9 HD Masculine (AKA Vick) improves upon just dialing Base Masculine onto Victoria and maybe tweaking a little. I AM buying the shape kit today, so maybe this afternoon I'll have some time to play around and do some comparisons.

I'm not buying the bundle because I'm tired of ridiculous bundle prices. I have an orange "because you own Victoria" banner and WITH that, the bundle in cart is $33.61. Might be acceptable if I liked everything in it, but I only like one of the hairs, the Wayfarer outfit is OK but meh, and I seldom use swords in my work (and my policy on buying weapon packs is that if they don't have hand poses they're useless). (There's an offer to give an extra 20% off if you throw in any other new release that's not in the bundle, but this is worthless; the cost of the extra item will offset the discount almost exactly--if I toss in the Wayfarer add-on just to see what happens, the cart is now $33.55. Feh.)

Far better, I think, to just buy the shape and then troll the Ancient Vicky sale to see if there's any old stuff worth grabbing for two dollars. (And as it happens, there are a couple of G3/G2/V4 cross-gen hairs in there which still have some use in them ...)

MallenLane said:

Timbales said:

MallenLane said:

zombietaggerung said:

I am a little confused by this Vick. Isn't the entire point of G9 to be able to swap genders of any character at any time? Shouldn't anyone who owns Victoria 9 be able to dial out the feminine and dial in the masculine and get this character without having to buy it? I am very confused by this. Or am I just missing something here?

The Masculine and Feminine dials on G9 are characters, not attributes. There is no way to make gender a true attribute, because people all look different and contours add up in strange ways on top of other contours. (it may work to various degrees to reverse dial out those characters, but no more or less so than any others) The gender archetype characters are there mostly because if you use only 50% of Michael, you need to fill the 50% void left with another masculine character. You should never simply leave it to the base shape, which is no proper character at all, as that creates odd results.

This is different from say G8M where dialing 50% of Michael 8 leaves 50% of the base, which by default is a full masculine character.

The G9 base shape is solely to make universal clothing easier to make, and shareable attribute morphs that are generically compatible with anything. Characters have to supply all the data needed to take the base to an identity. So in short, for best results on G9, true character data should always add up to 100%.

I disagree. Leaving the base shape is perfectly fine if that's how you want your character to look. It's also fine to leave the base shape as a jumping off point to dial in specific body part and facial feature shapes and morphs.

It is open to using that way, yes. And if you get what you are looking for that way, that's great. But the base shape wasn't built intending it to ever be used as a replacement for a realistic person, no.

Timbales said:

MallenLane said:

zombietaggerung said:

I am a little confused by this Vick. Isn't the entire point of G9 to be able to swap genders of any character at any time? Shouldn't anyone who owns Victoria 9 be able to dial out the feminine and dial in the masculine and get this character without having to buy it? I am very confused by this. Or am I just missing something here?

The Masculine and Feminine dials on G9 are characters, not attributes. There is no way to make gender a true attribute, because people all look different and contours add up in strange ways on top of other contours. (it may work to various degrees to reverse dial out those characters, but no more or less so than any others) The gender archetype characters are there mostly because if you use only 50% of Michael, you need to fill the 50% void left with another masculine character. You should never simply leave it to the base shape, which is no proper character at all, as that creates odd results.

This is different from say G8M where dialing 50% of Michael 8 leaves 50% of the base, which by default is a full masculine character.

The G9 base shape is solely to make universal clothing easier to make, and shareable attribute morphs that are generically compatible with anything. Characters have to supply all the data needed to take the base to an identity. So in short, for best results on G9, true character data should always add up to 100%.

I disagree. Leaving the base shape is perfectly fine if that's how you want your character to look. It's also fine to leave the base shape as a jumping off point to dial in specific body part and facial feature shapes and morphs.

It is open to using that way, yes. And if you get what you are looking for that way, that's great. But the base shape wasn't built intending it to ever be used as a replacement for a realistic person, no.

zombietaggerung said:

I am a little confused by this Vick. Isn't the entire point of G9 to be able to swap genders of any character at any time? Shouldn't anyone who owns Victoria 9 be able to dial out the feminine and dial in the masculine and get this character without having to buy it? I am very confused by this. Or am I just missing something here?

As far as I can tell (I didn't check with all the ones I own), no Genesis 9 Core Figure will dial in either the Base Masculine or the Base Feminine morph with their own morph and if you dial out Victoria 9's morphs, you get a base gender neutral Genesis 9, not a masculine Victoria 9. If you dial the Base Masculine morph, the resulting character will still retain Victoria's breasts and you'll have to find a way to remove them (the Breasts Gone morph is a start but there is still a bit of breasts left, even dialing it in at 100%).

What you can do is using Victoria 9's masculine skin, which is provided since the beginning, on a masculine morph. Here, with Michael 9 with the Masculine Chest texture from Victoria 9 (the nipples are in a difference place when using the Feminine Chest textures).

But not all Genesis 9 characters are provided with an opposite gender skin: all G9 Core Figures are (as far as I know), but only some PAs will include textures for the opposite genders (@ChangelingChick is the one that come to mind, but other do too): you can still use them on any Genesis 9 morph, but if you want to do a topless or fully nude render, nipples will be placed were they usually are on the gender the textures were designed for and there would be no Anatomical Elements textures for the opposite gender.

This new product is a new morph for Genesis 9, modelled to make Vick looks like Victoria's brother / father / son with a couple of textures. I suppose the dependency to Victoria 9 HD is because Vick needs other textures from Victoria 9 HD.