Another new figure to spend on, TBH I'm getting a bit fed up of all these figures, there's way too many now.
I think I'll pass on this one, spend my cah on something else for a change, more beer maybe..LOL.

someone said it was S4 when they updated the v4 and m4 downloads earlier this week
i will download the free version then wait for their sales to get content but i have so many characters now i rarely use most of them

Lots of content already and very affordable if you belong to the Platinum Club and get one of the packs. But I probably won't be able to buy anything until just under the wire. I do like her height and the ability to work with the other V4 stuff already around.

Quote - Another new figure to spend on, TBH I'm getting a bit fed up of all these figures, there's way too many now.
I think I'll pass on this one, spend my cah on something else for a change, more beer maybe..LOL.

It looks like the Stephanie 4 elite shapes are free.  I don't see any very specific Stephanie 4 content, like extra morphs that have to be purchased.  Kinda strange?  There are some outfits and hair also offered but it looks like they could be for V4, regardless if you had S4 or not.

Well, expires 2019, so you have time :D

Is it me...

Or does she look even more fake in the face than V4 even? Yeah, the body is better, but it's only what V4 should have been... And still - the f'd up armpits...shakes head.

She's also got that somewhat "creepy" look that I saw in the Kids4 when I first saw them. I can't put my finger on it ;o).

Laurie

Before I install her, does anybody know if I need an updated to V4.2? There's nothing in my downloads.

Quote - Is it me...

Or does she look even more fake in the face than V4 even? Yeah, the body is better, but it's only what V4 should have been... And still - the f'd up armpits...shakes head.

She's also got that somewhat "creepy" look that I saw in the Kids4 when I first saw them. I can't put my finger on it ;o).

Laurie

i agree with this.

i dont know if this is supposed to be an expensive joke or what? S4 looks  fake.

I could be wrong, but the way I read it in the Members Forum, you could mix and match since it's all the same family now. Steve Kondris called S4 a "variety pack" for all the V4, A4, G4 and V4 Elite and V4++ morphs.

Use the Stephanie 4 Elite morphs with V4 character morphs if you like or the Aiko 4 morphs... the same goes for clothes and textures. They are all sisters. They probably had to keep the bad armpits so all the V4 stuff would work with it. There will probably be a fix for it here or maybe the V4 armpit fix morph sold here will work with S4E, too.

?

The model is free, ffs.  What's not to like about free stuff? 

Quote - ...There will probably be a fix for it here or maybe the V4 armpit fix morph sold here will work with S4E, too.

Well, my point kinda was that if the armpits still need fixed on a "finished" figure, then the figure "isn't finished"...lol.

Laurie

V4 was definitely not finished. :)

Quote - ?

The model is free, ffs.  What's not to like about free stuff? 

Yep, the model is free. I don't have a problem with free stuff at all ;o). But I knew the day the base models were all free that the quality would suffer. And I was right. All reworks of the same mesh...over and over and over and over...ad nauseum.

I didn't mind paying for them actually. I wanted a quality product for my money. So now, since they're free, it's okay that they suck? Well sure, cause they're free. ???

Laurie

Well holy crap, only took them what, 4 years?  And dead last behind every other flagship figure.  Wonder if they did it with bone scaling or with an adjusted mesh and rig, off to download.

Quote - > Quote - ?

The model is free, ffs.  What's not to like about free stuff? 

Yep, the model is free. I don't have a problem with free stuff at all ;o). But I knew the day the base models were all free that the quality would suffer. And I was right. All reworks of the same mesh...over and over and over and over...ad nauseum.

I didn't mind paying for them actually. I wanted a quality product for my money. So now, since they're free, it's okay that they suck? Well sure, cause they're free. ???

Laurie

DAZ have almost always reworked their old meshes...

Victoria 2 was a rework of Victoria 1, Steph was a rework of Mike 2, who was a rework of Mike 1, V3 was a rework of V2 and all the other gen 3 figures were reworks of V3.  At one time all these models were paid for.

In all probability, V1 is based on Posette, too.

bone scaling everywhere
i.e. useless in Poser

thanks DAZ

Quote - bone scaling everywhere
i.e. useless in Poser

thanks DAZ

LMAO!!!

Laurie

I take that back, it looks like they were careful to only scale the BODY (down to 90%) and the Thighs and Shins (95% each), on all three axes, so conformers actually pose correctly once they are scaled appropriately.  Even shoes and leggings, a bit surprised about that.  Tentative thumbs up.

Some of the morphs are pretty nice too.

I think S4's head is kinda big.

PS the HeadSize morphform is dialed to -0.1 (+10%) to offset the body scaling -10%.

Quote - I think S4's head is kinda big.

Her head is the same size as V4's head (which is pretty small, proportionally) so I don't mind this.  You can just mess with the HeadSize dial if it bugs you, that's all that is going on behind the scenes.

There are some nice faces in there, although the eyes are mostly very tilted.

Wow, she looks almost human. I like you're version much better than the promos at Daz ;o).

Laurie

Very nice pjz.

I'm going to wait a little bit myself. I would like to see what products will be made for her before I decide to download.  :)

Quote - Okay I am fairly pleased, as long as I can get conformers to fit on her.  I wish the default morph and proportions were a bit closer to this though (still a lot of work to get the breasts to look kinda-normal).  They added a morph for the front of the hip that makes it look a LOT closer to normal (rather than that very intense W shape the default has).

There are some nice faces in there, although the eyes are mostly very tilted.

Excellent! Yes I know I said something about her head but when you start adding some of the V4 morphs you can get her to look pretty good. Also like you as long as I can get most of the conforming clothes scaled down to fit her I like what I see. I am waiting for evilinnocence to update XD with a S4 setting.

P.S.
Pjz99, I absolutely LOVE that costume you showed in your demos!!!!!!

I'm impressed with your render, Paul... you've always favoured the Stephs, haven't you? Agreeing with Laurie: she does look quite human-ish... very nice work!

So, fitting V4 clothing will just be a matter of scaling down to what 94%? Sounds ideal!

Quote - However I had difficulty with the Stephany morph which seems to pull the face downward without bringing the eyes along with it.

Something is wrong then, for me the eyes behaved OK in all morphs (I actually looked at them all at 1).  Did you run the updater?

The face morphs are in general pretty intense, which is good and bad.  I wouldn't use any of them at 1.0 but I'd mix them up with other stuff.  Seems like the mouth usually has a bit of a smile in most of the head morphs though, that's a bit of a nuisance.

Quote - Pjz99, I absolutely LOVE that costume you showed in your demos!!!!!!

Thanks, that's an outfit of mine called Arcane Edge.  Glad you like it :)

I liked Stephanie 3's body a lot but wow, the head was terrible.  Very hard to un-Stephanie.  My main problem with V4 has always been the huge breasts and the super-tall proportions - not that they're necessarily wrong, just "really really unusual".  I really wish DAZ had taken the time to give you a different base OBJ for S4 instead of these very extreme morphs, you're still stuck with modeling around the original V4 shape and then trying to morph any conformers to fit the S4 body - so you won't be seeing much complex clothing that really fits those morphs all that well, because they're pretty extreme.

what Daz is doing is an insult to promotion.

Pjz99 and Latexluv made 100 times better renders for promotion. if Daz is smart they will use your renders. because your renders make it look like normal figures.

the lighting in DAZ is also a joke. its 2010 and they use the same style like 5 years ago.

come on.

I should point out that if you already own and use V4, the free S4 download is a great addition just for the morphs, even if you never use the scaling aspects.  Sadly DAZ didn't include any INJ/REM poses (so sloppy).

Quote - Pjz99 and Latexluv made 100 times better renders for promotion.

Flattering to hear, thanks :)

 I think she looks kind of nice.. :) I will get her just for the morphs..  All my dynamic clothes will still work out for her, as long as the calculation begins with v4's standard. :)   Most hairs will be easy to convert to with MorCloth..

Although I have to admit I didn't like the promo renders at Daz at all.. She looked... weird.  The images posted in this thread were waay better, like others already pointed out. :)

can someone clarify:  is she just a morph like the previous version 4 "figures'? so she's a V4 add-on?  i just spent a day or so loading up my V4 so i don't have to bog my poor main runtime down with tons and tons of content, so i'd like to know if that work is essentially shot if i want to incorporate S4 morphs.

 Yeah it's an addon. I just got it. :)

It's got some really nice morphs that work on parts that weren't adjustable before.. 

I love the new morphs for the shoulderblades, ribcage and chest shape. Got some really nice new morphs for the hips, legs and butttocks too

Also found a whole bunch of new base expressions along with the faces, which is really nice!
Also came with some new height morphs, but unfortutunately they aren't "regular" morphs, so they aren't available in morcloth and so on, which kind of sucks.. I've always wanted a good, solid height morph that can be applied on clothes too.. Oh well.

It's free, and definitely worth installing. 

ooooo.  i'm not sure it's compatible with Morphia anyway.  this is a big PITA.  maybe i can just make a new character file by hand.

 What's morphia?

It's a common disease contracted by Poser users.  Something like RSI, caused by spending too much time twiddling dials and rotating cameras ;p

John

Capsces' morph set for V4.  they're in a certain set of channels.  Alice, for instance, blasts everything out of all the built-in add-on channels.  if S4 is a morph, V4 needs an update for the additional channels.  but Morphia is it's own character with the Capsces morphs and the channels for the regular V4 morphs. 

i'm not sure quite how it worked when i got my other morphs, because i re-downloaded a lot of stuff, reinstalled a lot of stuff, edited a lot of files by hand, and generally made a whole bunch of changes to make my loaded V4 character.  she includes Morphia, the Elite morphs, Muscle, She-Freak, A4, G4, Creature Creator, Morphs++, corvas' shoulder fix, NGM, NGM Petite, and other assorted morphs i've acquired with characters.  for me, it's easier to dial what i want, then run svdl's morph stripper than to inject what i want to begin with. i always want the full palette anyway.  

i'd include Alice if i could figure out a way to add hidden channels to V4  for her.  it would be simple to rename the prefix on her injection poses, and her morphs are actually embedded in the poses.  if i could figure out how to hack V4, i'd be set.

hmmmmmmmmmmmm.  i might be able to integrate my loaded figure and S4 with Notepad++.  i'm pretty sure it can do a text file comparison. i might be able to merge differences sort of thing with it.

That can probably be done without too much trouble.  Unfortunately I don't own Alice (never was interested) so I can't help you with what steps to take, maybe someone who does can give you a hand.

You people editing large Poser files with flat text editors, holy shit you must have a lot of time on your hands/excess sanity you don't want.

In the next day or two I'll give out some "by groups" INJ/REM poses for the S4 morphs, since DAZ was too lazy to do them this round.

actually, text editors have a lot of power.  i can do stuff in CR2 Editor, but frankly that's only useful when i need to look up stuff and know what it's doing.  it's not nearly as powerful for serious global  changes.  for instance, once i knew what channels certain custom morphs were using, i replaced them for all the injection morphs in their little directories in the libraries folder.  for certain sets, that was a few hundred changes per file for 6 or more files.  even with global replace in a Poser file editor, it's much quicker to do a whole directory as a batch.

and i haven't even used regular expressions on any files yet.  if Poser file editors support them and batch editing files, then that's great, but, well, Notepad++ is free and really easy.  it saved each search, so i could go back and see all the changes i made and how many.  just really clean and easy.

the difficult part was actually keeping track of what presets changes which dials in what body part and in what underlying channels.  oh, and that the script i downloaded to zero morphs is broken, and breaks the figure.  that took me ages to figure out because i only found out the figure was broken when i went to move the neck. 

a good text editor or versioning app can merge changes automatically.  no thought involved.

you don't need to know Alice, actually.  the issue is how to add any blank, empty, hidden channels and a visible channel group  to any cr2.  sort of like how V4 base was updated for S4. i can automatically name the Alice channels anything i want.  that's pretty simple.  the issue is making a figure that has channels to accept the morphs.

Quote - ooooo.  i'm not sure it's compatible with Morphia anyway.  this is a big PITA.  maybe i can just make a new character file by hand.

I just tried and it is compatible with Morphia though I haven't tried Alice.

thanks for the info!  did you have to update Morphia?

It all depends on how you use the Daz mesh for how it looks. I usually do a LOT of re-working in ZB with custom sculpting to get the look I want. This works quite well for the Daz V4 mesh. I have not yet played with it in ZB but will at least take a look at the mesh design and post more opinions on it.

At first glance though, I must say it is really NOT impressive at all. In the face, it looks like it was done by a rank novice. I just don't like anything about the sculpt, it lacks much realism in my opinion. The head sculpt especially is just dreadful.

I sure hope this is not a trend for Daz as their recent figures just are not convincing at all for human realism. Anyone that has done sculpting in ZB can see the many flaws in them as well. You really have to work in ZB to get them to look good if you want something much better than just using the dials. All I can say is I hope V5 when it comes out is NOT based on anything remotely like the new Daz Kids or Stephanie 4.

Once I can work on the mesh some and see what they did I will post some more.

Huh, while I can understand if you don't like the aesthetics of the face morphs, they are not poorly crafted.  What's this "rank novice" stuff?  Practically nobody's Poser face morphs are at all realistic anyway, by themselves.

Quote - you don't need to know Alice, actually.  the issue is how to add any blank, empty, hidden channels and a visible channel group  to any cr2.

That's the excess sanity I guess you don't need - a good CR2 editor (I use Dimension3D's) makes this stuff trivial, and it does mass search/replace and batch editing.  Trying to keep track of crap like which channel name in a limb matches with which channel on the Body is just a lot of unnecessary mental stress.  Copying channels from one file to another is a visual drag/drop operation, stuff like that.  Ralf's editor has saved me hundreds of hours of work and immense amounts of frustration, it's the single most useful tool I've used for building Poser content outside of my modeler and Poser itself.

ps: all the scrolling, god how I don't miss that

no, i think you've misunderstood.  that wasn't a problem.  again, that sort of thing was really, really simple to do with search and replace.   like, literally 3 or so second's work each time.  i wasn't building, just editing.  much simpler.

what was a PITA to keep track of was what belonged to what.  Alice is a no brainer because she uses all the extra channels.  so without some sort of trick, she's won't play nice with others.  but NGM and NGM petite use a set that overlaps with the corvas shoulder fixes.  so i had to shift the shoulder fixes (iirc?  or was it the other way around?), and then keep everyone else off of all  those channels. 

it's not something that comes up if you either only use DAZ morphs or only use a couple of custom morphs. or even morphs that create their own channels on the fly.  but as soon as you use a lot of custom morphs at once, they start stepping on each other's toes.  and then the whole sets of files need editing.  which isn't a huge deal, but instead of the free-for-all created by the marketplace, i have to play traffic cop and create some order.  preferably an order that makes some kind of sense to me later.

as a for instance, i gave 10 community dials and 10 of the DAZ dials DAZ doesn't use to Rebelmommy morphs.  not all of them are filled, and maybe never will be, but i'm setting them aside just in case, because all of my Rebelmommy characters came with custom morphs.

it wasn't a technical problem.  not once i figured out what was happening, at least. it was a logistical one.

i did no scrolling whatsoever.  again, just search and replace batch edits.  really dead simple.  i don't think i needed to do anything remotely as complex as you do. 

that said, dealing with Alice is a technical issue.  without knowing some specifics, i can't really figure out a good way to do it.   oh!  that was the one time i did end up scrolling.  looking for the max number of community and daz channels.  frankly, i expected the information to be on her wiki, but no dice.   i couldn't find the information in the DAZ forums, either.  i was surprised, since it seemed like such a basic feature spec.

Yeah that was the idea behind ExP (whoever actually innovated that, I don't think it was DAZ).  If you understand that structure of how DAZ gets their "updater" utility to read in new *.pz2 files and inserts them into a target CR2 then you could conceivably convert that stuff, I haven't looked at it since I have no use for it.  I'd suggest you PM Ralf and ask him if his utility can make this task easier, if you're not utterly against even thinking about it.  There's a lot of information that I'm totally not interested in reading myself about ExP here:
http://artzone.daz3d.com/wiki/doku.php/wiki/user/rbtwhiz/technotes/content/exp/start

If you're asking about the generic/community channels (not sure):  There are 50 "data" channels (PBMDC) and 50 "control" channels (PBMCC) in each body part except head/neck, which has 70 of each.  What do you want to do exactly?  It's sounding like you want to convert your set of morphs that live in these channels to unique/reserved internal names so you don't have to worry about that kind of conflict in the future?