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After messing around a little with 8.1 I noticed they really didn't change anything about the model besides ramping up the displacement (or bump) map up really high giving the characters slightly more detail (made me feel like I was playing a newer Yakuza game with its over the top facial pores) and they did some very minor changes to the facial expressions (which could already be fine-tuned within Genesis 8 upper and lower face nodes).
Other than that I see they are making their 'CORE' figures the more every day person. I'm totally fine with that but they had already started to do that with the Gen 8 figures. So honestly, am I totally wrong and I missed something or is this just a side-step, rather than a step forward for Daz Genesis figures?
Just an addendum to LP's comprehensive & detailed reply.
My take on it is that I find the PBR textures finnicky to use & prefer good quality older textures.
Yes, if you are into close up renders, it is a realism improvement, but as I use aftermarket gens products, mostly I find it not worth the hassle.
Nice enough as a free 'upgrade' , but not for everybody.
🙂
@littlepleasures @ethiopia @eelgoo
Thank you all for your responses. I was truly curious as to what made Gn 8.1 special or could be considered an 'update'.
I just felt like it was another Gn 8 character with a .1 tacked at the end to use as a selling point. I have been away from the 3D rendering world for a few years so when I came back to Daz I was surprised that Gn 8 was still the best they had to offer. I was sure that when Daz did come out with the next installment of Gn 8 it would be something that fixed some of the minor rigging problems that Gn 8 has and facial expressions was not my biggest concern. I, myself, am always unhappy with the way the body looked when the armpit and knee area look during extreme bending.
So they instead create a Genesis iteration that not only doesn't address bending issues, has very minor updates at all, and totally debunks a lot of the Genesis 8 character add-ons.
It just leaves me with a sour taste in my mouth. I remember when Gn 2 switched to Gn 3 I was a little hesitant but I did learn to love Gn 3. When Gn 3 switched to Gn 8 I was immediately hooked though. I could see the immediate difference in the boning and how fluid and life like the poses looked.
I feel like I'm going to stand by my thought with 8.1 though. They have just released the new iteration early this year??? and they already have at least 6 different 'core' figure packs (with different iterations of the 'pro' bundle), so to me this just feels like a 'restart' for a new Gn character that really brings nothing new to the table and forbids the user from using its content for the Gn 8 character. (which i'm sure that riversoft or zevo will address at some point)
Again though, thank you for input, it is much appreciated.
In my opinion, the best and greatest improvement has been in the eyes of the characters. I really like that. The rest of the changes are not so important and noticeable for me.
The technical explanations are spot-on.
IMHO, I do like the 8.1 set, though I still find myself using the older 8.0 textures (I find the 8.1 textures out to be real flat color-wise... maybe it's my lighting? I optimized the lighting and render settings as a balance of speed and quality on a GTX 2070... until 8.1 it came out beautifully. Anyway, just explaining how that happened.)
The face is a massive improvement. I find that I don't have to spend as long tweaking on it to make it look human, and I can get a far wider range of emotions and moods out of it.
The engine in DS is old, no doubt. I wouldn't be surprised if they still had pre 1.0 portions still lurking in there just to keep the Qt-written UI portions intact and operable. But, it is modular enough that they can update most of it without undue disturbance of the rest of it. The render engine should've been separate enough to allow whatever they want in there. They might have dorked that up when they decided to add Filament and similar? Who knows?
Anyways, yes, 8.1 is something I do find pretty useful, though I still have quite a heavy stable of 8.0 chars, especially when it comes to toons (because I'm lazy and don't want to grind through even more morph export/import routines just for a point-upgrade where the facial features and custom toon morphs I built wouldn't see much of an advantage anyways.)
Rank:
The eyes have it---But that's about it for me.
As for G8.1 being a cash grab. I think a product only has a shelf life of x years before it becomes stale and looks outdated. The demand for realism is intense.
Thanks for everyone's insight. It sounds like Gen8.X is the last generation before Daz has to make a decision about Daz Studio. Given their track record with Hexagon and Carrara I am not hopeful. I wonder if Daz would try to license or co-op with Unity and create some weird Unity/Daz hybrid to eventually get out of the software business. Developing software is expensive and I just don't see them spending a ton of money on something new. Additionally, all the bridges that are made need to updated and if people have problems with them, they will just eventually buy content somewhere else.
I'd like to hear other's thoughts.
With how realistic a face can look, my first thought always comes to the eyes. Even if the face has no real detail, I'm always drawn to the eyes if they have a realistic look to them. A lot of the games I used to play in the GTA V era had pretty decent skin textures but the eyes really lacked in quality and it was sort of off-putting how realistic (at the time) I thought the characters looked except for their lifeless eyes.
Hmm.. maybe I'm just so used to meticulously going through the head nodes to fine tune the facial nodes to really see the difference and maybe it is easier for the creators to make facial expressions now but.. those nodes/bones were always there, creators were just too lazy to actually use them to create their content.
I will say this though. I remember when Genesis 8 first came out, the creators put a lot of their heart and souls into making some pretty good facial expressions. I would bet you money that they were actually going to the facial nodes, just like I do now, to make them look as realistic as possible.
@billyhill
Sadly this is very true. People are always happy to jump on board the hype train with the newest gizmos and gadgets when they have a perfectly good product already in their hands. There is still so much that COULD be done with Genesis 8 but why try making anything new when you can just buy a new shiner version, even if it is the exact same thing as before.. 😉
That was a very welcomed wall of text. Although I think you misunderstood me about Genesis 8 morphs to 8.1. I meant the exact opposite. I wish I could use some of the Genesis 8.1 characters for Genesis 8.
This is the exact reason I feel like Genesis 8.1 is a cash grab. They are basically starting the line-up all over again and forcing the consumer to either accept character line-up or be left behind.
Now truly, is there a good reason that 8.1 dolls couldn't be used on the base Genesis 8 model? As far as I can tell, no.
As for the other stuff about Daz Studio falling behind, I couldn't agree more.
You honestly have me pretty much convinced I should take my work to other platforms because I'm tired of dealing with the over night rendering for, what I feel, are very small rendering scenes.
I am what you could call a loyalist though. I've used Daz Studio for over 10 years and I'm so accustomed to the interface I'm a little afraid and, honestly lazy, to learn a completely new setup.
If I were to switch from one program to another, which would you recommend as the most intuitive, and perhaps, most similar to the Daz Studio set-up?
If nothing else, I feel like Daz Studio has a very accommodating UI.
"This is where Rendo could make a big splash by implementing Daz support natively."
They've already stated very openly that they will definitely not do that. You can get the Genesis figures working in Poser vis the outdated DSON Importer, but by all appearances the process is a hard drag that isn't guaranteed to fully work once you get it there - and then you have to convert each and every asset you want to use on it. Oh, and now you get a choice between Firefly and Superfly. Umm, okay. Poser is even worse-off technically, IMO. They just recently stopped using Flash (because they had to) if that says anything.
But, it gets even worse. The community there is insanely insular, inbred, and back-biting; many in it have been using Poser for 10-20 years (or more!) and will not stand anyone changing anything about it. Oh, and everyone is too busy rah-rah-inh the La Femme mesh.
I'm sorry, but I believe that Poser is pretty much dead - it's been neglected and half-starved for longer than DAZ Studio has, truth be told.
I'll likely stick with DS for awhile, mostly because I know where the controls are, and it makes for a quick and easy way to pose, point, and render. But, that won't stop me from using Blender and eevee (or Octane, or whatever) if push comes to shove. At least post-migration I can go full Linux and be happier about it. Only thing stopping me now is that Blender is a monster to mess with.
Rank:That's marketing hype for you.
DAZ never live up to their promises or shall I say never fix things that really need fixing even though people complain endlessly on their forums. From what I can see it's all about the money. Always has been, always will be.
Perhaps the kick up the rear will come when people get so fed up they go elsewhere or just give up completely. And locking poses across G8 to G8.1 is an under the belt tactic that people have seen through and raised concerns about. Times have changed, not everyone has an endless money suppy to throw at DAZ but they just don't seem to get it.
New players are in town and DAZ is increasingly looking like a dinosaur.Speaking of realism, if I wanted it, DS isn't the tool for the job.
Anyone is free to correct me if they think I'm wrong here.@Grouchy Old Fart
I'll admit it took me a long time to go from Poser to Daz Studio but that was to do with the hassle of importing Genesis as you pointed out. Still Poser was good and easy to learn for what it was back in the day.
Looks seriously outdated now though...
@billyhill
Well, in terms of bang for buck, for single frame renders I think it does a pretty good job.
Do you know of anything better for the hobbyist?
🙂
Rank:@elgoo
For the hobbyist I don't, and that's why I have a slight grumble over their lack of fixing issues that have been noted and discussed time and time again over the years.
There is a free DS bridge to Blender but I'm not going back to the days of export/import and fucking around with rebuilding shaders in another program. I did that for years exporting Poser stuff to Vue for the better lighting. It was a shitfight I have no wish to repeat, and now DS has Iray and I don't animate I see need to do that anymore.
Just to chime in on a semi-tangiential part-satirical note...
I use Daz purely because of the vast quantity of 'freely available' models. In particular human/creature/organic ones. The Daz tools are simply not made for actual modelling. They are OK-ish at a pinch for kitbashing and removing geometry in order to make kitbashed parts 'fit' oh and of course providing simple ground planes in YouTube tutorials.
In that light, for the occasional user Daz Studio is just hunky dory fine. Pose. Render. Wank. Very easy. In the same light, like the OP, I also feel that Genesis 8.1 rings a little hollow. Yet, as has been eloquently explained in the previous posts, there's little Daz can do to fix this fundamental problem in the realm of new code for Studio.
Therefore, I also feel the best thing for Daz would be to provide a plugin which would allow the direct import of Daz content into Blender.
That way Daz Studio can happily circle the drain and eventually die, while I'll still be able to use all my 'freely acquired' content in a vastly superior 3D modelling/animating/rendering environment. As a bunus I'd be free to use AMD hardware and also move back to Linux. The wins just keep on piling up.
So come on Daz, do the right thing for a change! Drop the bloody placenta called Studio, provide the shiney Blender direct import plugin and revel in having the happiest user-base in all of Christendom!
I think the purchase of the Poser software was a massive mistake.
If dedicated software developer company can't sort it out, a hobbyist / content vendor store certainly isn't going to.IMO the latest Poser native characters are woefully behind Genesis 3 in terms of realism, if that is what you are after.
It was Poser developer Smith Micro's refusal to natively support the first Genesis generation that sparked off the development of Daz Studio. Getting recent Daz content in to Poser is probably way too late & unlikely to happen, even if they choose to try.
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