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I know this is a very late response, but I also know you're on here a lot 🙂
Genesis 8 is the way to go IMO. It doesn't achieve the look of some of the G3F models that make me swoon, like Nancy for G3F, but a lot of the characters are awesome and it's fun to create new ones with the skins and sliders. I've only ever used G8F and the only reason I would use G9F is for a few of Addy's models (woah).
The main problem with G8F is the figure's bottom lip as well as the challenge of tinkering with facial expressions to make them less dead or contrived. I feel like the bottom lip problem is the main drawback. I mix in Amira smile morphs with flirt or one of Z's pleasure morphs to get my best version of a genuine and/or sensual smile.
The lips tend to be huge, and when you think they look pretty good with a neutral expression, as soon as she smiles the lower lip looks like a sausage, and it's hard to fix it with morphs. I've used lip depth, lip lower suck, lip lower in/out, etc, with limited success.
They're group photos for a slideshow on the main menu screen. Various groups of people in different circles, whether it be a circle of friends, peeps at a workplace, etc.
And yeah, there's always all kinds of adjusting to do. It is the single most tedious part of doing a render by far and away.
I had a look at that. Don't see a lot of multiples, or at least not more than three to the poses on here.
Figured it out. The problem is much simpler. It was the smoothing modifier. The new figure didn't have a smoothing modifier. The old one did.
There were only 2 smoothing iterations on the original, so it basically wasn't really doing anything. Didn't notice until I saw the fingernails popping back to normal length after I bumped them to 100%. As soon as I removed the smoothing modifier, all of the deformities were gone.
So there you have it. Part of the problem is any Xtransfer morph. Another dude had a problem with them. They're bad morphs. They affect one side of the body when you dial them up. One dude identified it as a problem, and I had limited success after uninstalling them.
But the major culprit was putting a smoothing modifier on a character. I did it accidentally trying to put it on some clothing but had the figure selected. As soon as I removed it, boom! Problem solved.
So that's my contribution to the Daz body of knowledge: If your character's fingernails look like wtf, check for a smoothing modifier on the character and remove it if it's there.
I know what you're talking about re: the rigging adjusting. It fixes it so the fingers aren't weird and the width of gummy worms. Saw a tutorial of it before I posted the question.
I wish the Blender thing was that simple. I would absolutely use it if I could get the morphs on the naughty bits to work, but sadly even diffeomorphic...I can't get that stuff to work, and I lose all of the good expression morphs and mixes that I like and am stuck with the garbage basic expressions that comes with the essentials. If the gens and the expressions worked, I would do it and learn how to put textures on the models that work in Blender. Everybody says Blender but I haven't found a way to get there with exporting models with accessories there.
That could come in handy for sure. I use the same HDRs all the time with a culling camera and stock photos for backgrounds over windows.
Yeah you're right. I don't see a lot of complex stuff for Daz across the tutorials though. A lot of it is just, "Here's how you use these aniblocks to go from the walking pose to the ballerina pose." They tell you very little about the nuances of animation and/or any complex interaction. I'm animating porn, as well as the occasional introductory meat market animation. (Model turning around and smiling, eg.) The only purpose is to make the models come alive for a second before doing the rest with stills. They just have to come alive for a second, but not long enough to tip my hand on the terrible animation program I'm working with. I'm using aniblocks for things like blinking. I'm using Puppeteer to set poses for facial expressions and body movements (Which bones do I pin, etc) naughty bits at angles, naughty bits opening up properly to accompany naughty bits at angles, breathing. I sometimes use key frames rather than the record feature with Puppeteer. I don't use canned animations aside from the blinking. They're all at 30 fps anyway, which I can't do. I still have to keep my stuff at 12 fps, notwithstanding my 3090 and the fact that I never move the camera and only background stuff once before putting that static background in PS.
A lot of this Daz stuff is, "You're on your own. We'll leave it to Youtubers to explain super simple things and to Daz forum people to endlessly speculate on possible solutions to your problem." That's basically it. It's a shame there isn't One Program to Rule Them All. No pipeline from this to that program and struggle with everything. No Blender screwing around trying to make your morphs work. No garbage bridge. Just do the characters, modify the environments, animate them well, write a story, make a game.
I guess if you're a Zonegfx person, you can't beat the price.
I would gladly pay at least $100 a month, maybe twice that, for Daz to have a good animation program and employ creators who make the good stuff as part of that subscription. Gladly, no more pirating. Integrate the whole shit.
But can I do that for just one animation subtrack? And, since the track is the head, I wonder how that would effect facial expressions...
I actually installed the latest version and it fixed the issue. I use Fit Control occasionally, but usually for other things.
Glad you asked. I hate the shrink wrap effect, and my characters are often well-endowed. I got my method down.
SY Products are the solution, and a good PC. Photoshop is also enormously helpful and can save you the tedium of Geometry Editor, but it is not essential. SY Breast Helper along with a morph called "Body Under Clothes Breasts in Bra" by same. For really large breasts, go with about 30 on "Breast Helper Super Fixer". Then about 15 on the 2 breast in bra morphs (unless it's not appropo for the outfit). Next, put 30-60 smoothing iterations on the clothes and switch it to base shape matching. If the outfit only works with generic iterations, you might be out of luck, but there's usually some tweaking that can be done.
No there will be some poke through spots. Save here. If you have PS, using the spot remover will eliminate this next step:
Using geometry editor.
Make sure you save BEFORE you do this, because you're going to disappear some polygons on the character and they'll come back white if you try to u hide them. Select the figure, switch to wired texture shaded view, and select the polygons that are poking through. Right click, create surface from selected, name it, go to Surfaces, and bring the cutout opacity to zero. You'll probably need to create surfaces a few times to get them all hidden.
If the top is opaque and there isn't cleavage, hiding the pectorals on the figure can also bypass the geometry editor step, which is tedious.
At this point, you're usually good. However, Breast Helper can leave you with things like straps and necklaces floating above the character's chest. Use Fit Control and morphs on the clothes and jewelry to bring them down where they need to be.
I've done a lot of experimenting, and the majority of the time just the first three things I mentioned (super fixer, breasts in bra, and base shape smoothing iterations) will get the job done.
PS: sometimes an outfit needs a smoothing modifier added. Go Edit, object, geometry, and add smoothing modifier and proceed with this method.
I can't stress enough how important it is to have a good rig for Daz. There is so much time wasted waiting around for Daz to lug along that it's worth it to upgrade. This is a time-consuming hobby.
Well, I pulled the trigger and the verdict is in:
It does speed up render times enormously, whether it's two characters and a prop with no background or a complete scene saturated with polygons.
Upgrading to 24gb of VRAM is the single best upgrade I've ever done.
I also upgraded my CPU from a 5900X to an Intel 265K for a reaaally reasonable price. I don't think it's the CPU though. My old CPU was great. I just had to graduate to DDR5.
Anyway, I would STRONGLY advise others to spend the money if you love doing renders. Two hour renders with my old rig are getting done in 10 minutes with this thing. And my old card was no slouch. It was a 3080 with 10gb of RAM (yeah that's a little low on the RAM). Just going from that to a 3090 with 24gb, which isn't even a generation upgrade, was like warp drive. It's ridiculous, and after I sell the 3080 for about $300, my net expense will be like $400. I used to do internet rounds, whatever else around the house, and go to the grocery store while I waited for renders. Any kind of creative energy I had was put on hold for a couple hours. Now, I run out of creative energy bc I can get so many renders done.
Yes, it has the same requirements regardless of where max samples is set. And large scenes with a lot of polygons require a lot of samples. If fully rendering a scene requires 8000 samples and your max is 5000, the render won't be completed. It will just stop at 5000, so I have to raise it to accommodate the 8000 samples. At least that's my understanding.
Okay. I'll give it a try. I do render some large scenes, ones where I have to bump max samples way up to get a full render. Usually, what happens is that things go blazing fast for a few, with my GPU running in the high 90s percentage wise according to HWMonitor. Then, the GPU drops to almost nothing and it's just the CPU at 100% the rest of the way, with the "Percent Completed" going at a snail's pace compared to the earlier stage.
Probably just my confirmation bias, but it almost sounds like my GPU is maxed out on the RAM and the CPU has to take over, which would indicate "yes".
