By CHRIS CREEK (HiveWireChris )

A 3D artist in this DAZ Studio/Poser community asked why HiveWire 3D is releasing another version of Dawn--essentially asking why we are still in the 3D space, and trying to win. Haven’t we learned by now that creating another female figure is a waste of time?

This is my reply to that artist and others wondering the same thing. But more importantly to those sincerely looking forward to the release of Dawn 2. I’m a 3D artist, painter, and sculptor. In other words, a creator. And as a creator, I love the process of thinking of an idea and allowing that to germinate into reality by applying effort. Dawn had gone through a few updates over the years, and my team and I wanted to create another version that had substantial improvements--improvements that our HiveWire 3D community was asking for. Now we aim to satisfy an even larger audience made available by Renderosity. As a creative team we decided together to improve our Dawn female figure, both for us and those that supported our content. We were then, and are now, hopeful that many more artists and customers will gravitate to our new Dawn 2 with all her wonderful improvements.

We're beginning a new era. We've had some great support of our Dawn, Dusk, Baby Luna, Sora, Horse, House Cat, Dog, Big Cats, and still many others. And we remain committed now, more than ever to serving this DS and Poser community. We're focused on producing high quality content, whether it's human figures, characters, or animals.

We originally brought forth our Dawn to a community that was fractured by the redirection of competing software, with the goal of creating figures and products for BOTH DAZ Studio and Poser users. It has been a huge challenge for us, and a lot of pushing uphill, more so than expected. Despite a heavy headwind, we're still here!!! Which is a surprise to many, even to us, after the passing of our dear friend, artist, and my business partner Lisa Buckalew in February of 2021. Our team dynamic has changed a lot over these past several years. Yet we find ourselves grounded, and united with what we want to achieve, and how to go about that with the talents we have together.

Here's why you should consider using and supporting Dawn 2:

Dawn 2 is created specifically for DAZ Studio and Poser with the goal of having her work equally as well in both programs, as much as the software will allow. Great care has been taken to make sure her head and body proportions are correct as well as appealing. Her new base shape is slimmer and smoother than Dawn S.E., with a gorgeous face and head shape. We have smoothed over areas of the body and features so that artists creating character shapes from Dawn 2 will have a beautiful template to work from, and not have to fight with overly unique default shapes. Her mesh topology has been reworked to be a pure quad mesh that can be subdivided as needed. There are some 3D software packages out there that don’t like to work with triangulated meshes, and it's a better practice to create a quad mesh. Dawn 2’s base mesh is still heavy enough to support a majority of face and body morphs without having to use Normal or displacement maps, although these types of maps will greatly enhance detail and realism. She has more morphs available in the base product, with additional morphs available in our supporting Head and Body Shapes, Expressions, and Faces of the World.

Additionally, existing HiveWire 3D morphs for Dawn S.E. are carried forward and optimized for Dawn 2. We have created a new UV layout to service supporting artists’ expectations. Several top 3D content artists have made valuable improvement suggestions, and we’ve done our best to listen and integrate those improvements.  For example:  Separate geometry for finger nails and toe nails as well as a new tear tube for the bottom eyelid for wet eyes if desired. Her geometry is now completely closed to work well with 3D scanners. Her extremely large set of extra eyelashes from the early Dawn have been discarded on the base. Her ears are placed closer to her head. A more natural body posture has been achieved. Her default T pose has been optimized. Added geometry has been provided to support some genital shaping morphs. Topology has been added to the torso of Dawn 2 in order to achieve better abdominals, obliques, and serratus muscle shapes in the base.

In addition, for Dawn 2, Paul Lessard of CG Cubed has created a brand new and improved rigging system for Poser and DAZ Studio with the inclusion of a complete facial rig in Poser, which can be used by itself, or coupled with the new facial morphs for greater enhancement. Paul has also added breast bones in the rigging to allow for more natural movement. I personally am indebted to Paul Lessard for his great talent and ability. Without his efforts and know-how, there is no way Dawn 2 would have ever seen the new light of day. He is a master at rigging and setting up content to work well in DS and Poser, not to mention his other artistic skills as a content creator.

Dawn 2 still has the much-needed JCMs, but not as extreme as seen with other competing figures. Also, her topology has been redirected to support a more sensible body grouping for rig support. She also has optimized materials for DS Iray and Poser Superfly.

The very talented Virtual World has created the face and body textures, including make-up options and fingernail options. We are making these maps available as a merchant resource to aid in the creation of additional maps for Dawn 2 by supporting artists.

We have a new bikini and bun hairstyle with several useful morphs to accompany the base Dawn 2. These items have been texture mapped and optimized by our very own Paul Lessard.

Gorgeous product imagery has been created by the very talented Cath Harders of MEC4D. Cath is another special talent. She has inspired me personally along the creation and modeling process with her input, ideas, characters, and clothing she is creating for Dawn 2. Cath also has several very useful surprises coming to support our new lady of 3D. 

Alisa Proctor is also a valuable part of Dawn 2. Alisa has managed the final packaging of the product, providing needed input and direction, nudging me when things need to get done and who to reach out to. She has also been an important liaison between our team and those at Renderosity in making sure all aspects of testing, packaging, and marketing are covered.

Renderosity has been a great new home for HiveWire 3D content since just before the passing of our Lisa.  And even before that with their support of our existing content, and in providing software and prizes for rendering contests we would run together as HiveWire 3D. We miss those that have moved on from Renderosity over the years, but are grateful that we still have a team there that is willing to work with us and usher things along. Cathy known as Kalypso is our main contact at Renderosity. She has been very helpful in moving Dawn 2 forward. She has set up the testing team and invited artists to create for Dawn 2. She has also set up a private special forum for these artists to work together for all things Dawn 2. We are appreciative of Cathy and many others behind the scenes working to support us and our HiveWire 3D content.

To wrap this up, Dawn 2 is YOUR community figure--we created her to work for your needs. Dawn 2 is the only female human figure, that I’m aware of, that is created from the start to work in DAZ Studio and Poser equally. Early signs and feedback by the first group of artists at Renderosity who are creating content for the upcoming release of Dawn 2 have been extremely positive. Artists are refitting clothing and hairstyles to Dawn 2 from existing figures with very little effort. They say Dawn 2 is easy to work with, and that new content, including clothing, poses, and more are being created for her release.

You should also know that our new Dusk 2 and Baby Luna 2 base figures are already modeled with base morphs ready to go, sharing the exact same mesh as Dawn 2. And our Sora, Ruckus, Creature heads, Gorillas, Alien, and other characters also exist in base form and share the same highly workable new mesh with Dawn 2.

Our new team consists of artists that love the world of 3D and this Poser/Studio market. Paul Lessard, Cath Harders, Alisa Proctor (retired now, but willing to help from time to time), myself, and Laurie Prindle/CWRW (for all things animals) have been creating high quality content for this market since the early days of Poser, even before the thought of a DAZ Studio was ever conceived by Dan Farr and me. We know what we're doing and can do it well. So, to circle back to those artists wondering why we are still trying to create human figures? To put it simply: Creators create. We create what we love, what challenges us, holds our interests, and what we're very good at.  We think our 3D community will agree.