I agree about switching software for figures and I don't like DS but we don't really know the facts on if they gave the information to DAZ for the coding in advance of the release of any of the figures that use the capsule joints. We do know that DAZ gave the information to SM.

And, from what I have seen and from what I have used, the capsule joints don't seem to be much better than the old circle ones.

"Well, that's not ALL they're saying. DAZ Rand has stated that they, DAZ, wants to change the Poser community dynamic. meaning that they want Poser to have to follow their technological developments instead of the other way around...."

Well They have the right to pursue whatever technological
path they feel is in their interest Just as Apple inc. Did when they chose HTML5 over Flash for their portable devices  to the chagrin of many indie game developers,Whatever Changes that May occur in some groups "community Dynamic"  is just part of life in the Modern age

Daz is merely a 3D content company Making Choices for their product line.... thats the reality of  all this

A fully Functional "Vicky"  in Your Pet program/platform is
just a 3D model option....not a Moral obligation upon Daz or some Constitutionally Mandated Civil Right.

Cheers

Quote - "Well, that's not ALL they're saying. DAZ Rand has stated that they, DAZ, wants to change the Poser community dynamic. meaning that they want Poser to have to follow their technological developments instead of the other way around...."

Well They have the right to pursue whatever technological
path they feel is in their interest Just as Apple inc. Did when they chose HTML5 over Flash for their portable devices  to the chagrin of many indie game developers,Whatever Changes that May occur in some groups "community Dynamic"  is just part of life in the Modern age

Daz is merely a 3D content company Making Choices for their product line.... thats the reality of  all this

A fully Functional "Vicky"  in Your Pet program/platform is
just a 3D model option....not a Moral obligation upon Daz or some Constitutionally Mandated Civil Right.

Cheers

I never said it was.  What I am saying is that whether the next version of Poser contains weightmapping or not, unless DS has something spectacular under the hood (and so far I see no evidence of that) I'm sticking with Poser and the figures I already have.

Wow, so much speculation, so little actual knowledge (the thread as a whole, not any one post in particular). The worst part is that there have been statements made (as well as a couple of non-statements by people in the know) that point in the other direction (i.e: Poser will be getting weightmap rigging in upcoming versions), yet everyone wants to believe the most doomsday version of events possible.

Has anyone here even tried the DAZ|Studio 4 betas or release candidate? No? Well don't let a lack of facts get in your way; carry on whining. Also, Poser is not art, V4 is significantly more attractive than V3, who was marginally more attractive than V2.

Also, I much prefer Poser to DAZ|Studio, but the times, they are a changin'.

In conclusion: the world didn't end today, contrary to popular belief. Please remove your tinfoil hats and step away from the kitten!

Also, the new Genesis figure completely kills everything that has come before. The rigging is nearly perfect, and user add-ons will close that gap even more once D|S4 has been out for a while (and once Poser 9/Pro 2011/12 are out, the sky's the limit).

Yeah, I think it's best not to speculate before we know what's coming. All we can really do is wait until Poser 9 is here. Any speculation beforehand is not only probably going to be wrong, but it's really started some anger-mongering that's sorta silly when we know nothing. We don't need yet another excuse to perpetuate the Poser vs D|S thing, especially when those excuses are likely to be erroneous in this case.

Laurie

Quote - Also, the new Genesis figure completely kills everything that has come before. The rigging is nearly perfect, and user add-ons will close that gap even more once D|S4 has been out for a while (and once Poser 9/Pro 2011/12 are out, the sky's the limit).

But gee, aren't you speculating there? You don't know all that for a fact now, do ya?

I never said, anything was set in stone, and in fact, all of my posts were based on the supposition that Poser doesn't adopt weightmapping in the next version.

Bagginsbill never actually SAID that weightmapping would be in the next version of Poser. He also said that the developers were smart people. My take on this hasn't changed since DAZ first announced that they were developing Studio four versions of Poser ago. Why?

Pretending for a moment that I know nothing, I'm curious about WM in the general non-hobbyist CG world, versus what we will have.

Please correct me if I've misunderstood some points.

1. Daz trademarked the name "Triax" (TM) in conjunction with DS4. It refers to having 3 independent rotational weights for each joint, one per axis. This implies that the larger CG world has always used only one weight per joint. Is that the case? Is using a separate vertex weight per joint*axis a new idea? If the rest of CG apps in the world use only one weight per joint, then doesn't this ensure that the Genesis figure is not compatibly rigged for apps like Maya, etc.? If it isn't a new idea, then what's the point of crowing about playing me too - like me giving a proprietary name to "glass of water".

2. Is "Triax" (TM) actually useful? Does it make a meaningful improvement over "Monax" (TM I made that up). And if it doesn't really make a difference, is it worth tripling the memory requirements to hold all that vertex weight data in memory? How often do you really want the weight of each axis to be different? If it's rare, I would think that it would be better to use Poser's strategy of multiple influencers per joint. This way, you start with a single weight map, and for the few joints where you need unique values for a second or third axis, you would then stack a single-axis weight.

3. Genesis seems to be one big mesh - no groups. Does this mean that each weight map (per joint) must include data for every single vertex in the whole figure? Isn't that horribly wasteful? Is it sensible to have influence data for every joint * every axis * every vertex? Let see - approximately 45 joints in a figure, times 3 axes, gives us 135 numbers that must be kept per vertex. Even if all that is kept in single precision floats, not doubles, that's around 38 megabytes of data! I hope to see some amazingly realistic human shapes for that cost.

4. SM is notorious for not knowing how to use its own tech to best effect, and therefore creating a community perception that the tech is far less than adequate. As far as I can tell, Miki3 does not demonstrate at all what is possible with the new multi-zone sphere+capsule system introduced in P8+PP2010, the system that Daz has refused to embrace. Instead, they claim that Poser tech is holding them back. Meanwhile, I notice also that last year, Maya (an app that is over $3000) just introduced the same or similar multi-zone capsule shape rigging that Poser did, and they talk about it as a way to seriously avoid having to weight map for realistic joints - that it is a step beyond painted weight mapping. What's the truth here? Any rigging experts care to comment?

1)      Daz trademarked the name "Triax" (TM) in conjunction with DS4. It refers to having 3 independent rotational weights for each joint, one per axis. This implies that the larger CG world has always used only one weight per joint. Is that the case?

* *

The larger CG world creates custom weight maps to handle the bending requirement of a figure in a scene. You can trade out weight maps when needed. If a character is lifting his arms over his head to shoot a basket, chances are that the weight map that favors the ‘arms down’ pose isn’t going to work so well. You can use other methods to steer the geometry correctly when the figure needs to make a wide range of movement. These tools resemble magnets or morphs.

If you just had one weight map, I think the figure might be less flexible than a Poser figure, in the sense that you set separate falloff zones for each joint rotation in Poser. The one advantage is that you would be able to control the falloff more precisely with the weight map.

* *

Is using a separate vertex weight per jointaxis a new idea?*

* *

Doing this in an automated way for a generic figure designed to do anything the user intends is probably a new idea. The Maya 2011 manual doesn’t mention anything like this.

is it worth tripling the memory requirements to hold all that vertex weight data in memory?

It depends on how well it works. I’m not sure that the memory requirements would be any greater than the triple vertex data already defined by falloff spheres.

I would think that it would be better to use Poser's strategy of multiple influencers per joint. This way, you start with a single weight map, and for the few joints where you need unique values for a second or third axis, you would then stack a single-axis weight.

* *

I would be surprised if you couldn’t customize this sort of thing. Currently, rigging doesn’t even demand that you use a falloff zone. Of course, with the super-morphing version 5 figures, there may be special demands.

Genesis seems to be one big mesh - no groups. Does this mean that each weight map (per joint) must include data for every single vertex in the whole figure?

* *

Probably not. Standard weight mapping for a joint only affects the area it affects. There would be no need to hold the weights for the toes in a finger joint.  

I notice also that last year, Maya (an app that is over $3000) just introduced the same or similar multi-zone capsule shape rigging that Poser did, and they talk about it as a way to seriously avoid having to weight map for realistic joints.

* *

Yes. There are other uses to. You can use Maya’s capsules to set up a weight map. You can also use the capsules in combination with weight maps.

Personally, I’ve found the capsule zone solved an issue I was having that was almost impossible to do correctly with spheres. Of course, people have to consider that if they release a figure that uses capsule zones, Daz Studio users will not be able to use it at this time.

Genesis seems to be one big mesh - no groups. Does this mean that each weight map (per joint) must include data for every single vertex in the whole figure. ...

***Probably not. Standard weight mapping for a joint only affects the area it affects. There would be no need to hold the weights for the toes in a finger joint.  ***

Right but what I'm failing to understand is how is a vertex or polygon is distinguished as being a part of the toe versus the head or whatever if there are no body part groups? If it is all one group, how is the association of a subset of the geometry with a joint implemented?

In the absence of any grouping, all vertices are eligible for rotation by any joint and a weight must be recorded for all of them.

In Maya, the rigging's joints are the controllers. The weight map defines which vertices are affected by a joint's rotation and how much they are affected.

Is it worth tripling the memory requirements to hold all that vertex weight data in memory?

It depends on how well it works. I’m not sure that the memory requirements would be any greater than the triple vertex data already defined by falloff spheres.

If a joint has 3 maps, then it certainly will triple the data, versus a joint that has only one map. That's a certainty.

In your response, though you compared triple vertex data with falloff spheres, which is not the point I was asking about. I was comparing weight mapping, one per joint, versus three per joint.

But now that you mention it, I hope you do realize that the amount of data for a falloff sphere is a constant, and has nothing to do with how many vertices are affected, right? A falloff sphere is a huge data reduction in comparison to a weight map, even if the map only has a few hundred vertices in it. Which means that weight maps, even those defined per-polygon-group, are a huge memory chore compared to falloff zones.

Even capsule zones are only 40 bytes of data per zone. Whereas a 3-axis set of weight maps for a single group of vertices is 36 bytes per vertex, assuming only one joint affects the vertex. If 20 joints affect the vertex then that would be 60 maps, not 3 maps.

Quote - In Maya, the rigging's joints are the controllers. The weight map defines which vertices are affected by a joint's rotation and how much they are affected.

 

You're still not answering the question. Imagine you're a computer, not a human. Computers can't "see". You have a pile of 70,000 vertices. Which ones are affected by the neck, for example, if there are no groups?

You said the weight map defines which vertices are affected. That means it has a true-false for each vertex? In other words, every map has something to say about every vertex?

To elaborate, the joint at the elbow area of the rigging will call on a weight map that defines the degree of influence the rotation has. The area of the mesh specified is determined not by a part, but by the weight map.

Just to be clear, the area of the mesh that a joint's weight map affects is rational in that it doesn't include weight for every joint in the figure.

Quote - Just to be clear, the area of the mesh that a joint's weight map affects is rational in that it doesn't include weight for every joint in the figure.

Sorry - I'm not trying to be dense, or an ass. 

That statement isn't a clarification in response to any assertion I made. You said here that a joint's map doesn't include weight for every joint. Right - I never asked that. I'm asking, true or false:

A joint's map includes weight for every VERTEX.

Put another way:

Each vertex has a weight value for every joint map.

A joint's map includes weight for every VERTEX.

When you select a joint's map, you can display the area affected by it. These are shades of gray to white. Every other area of the mesh is black. The black areas are not affected by the selected joint's rotations, but now that you've confronted me on this, I suppose they are mapped, to 0. * *

I don't know how efficent this is for programmers.

Genesis does have groups, and regions - you can see the groups as selectable areas when using any of the joint-manipulation tools, regions show only when using the region selection tool and allow for targeting different areas (I'm not sure how much this shows in the Genesis in DS4 .321 but we ddi see it in the projectX preview, or in the videos on the new tools, so that you could for instance select just the upper face and see only those morphs that affect the upper face). I don't know how it is handled, but it's certainly possible that weight maps are defined only across certain groups with other groups simply marked as all 0 or all 1.

Probably a lot of intervening answers, since this is so long, sorry :-)

Quote -

Pretending for a moment that I know nothing, I'm curious about WM in the general non-hobbyist CG world, versus what we will have.

Please correct me if I've misunderstood some points.

1. Daz trademarked the name "Triax" (TM) in conjunction with DS4. It refers to having 3 independent rotational weights for each joint, one per axis. This implies that the larger CG world has always used only one weight per joint. Is that the case?

This is likely the case, but the reason for that might not be that obvious; The larger CG-world normally does not use Euler angles for posing, but rather quaternions or axis-angle representations. With these you normally cannot easily map your weights to static fixed axes. So the idea of using only a single weight suggests itself.

Quote -
Is using a separate vertex weight per joint*axis a new idea? If the rest of CG apps in the world use only one weight per joint, then doesn't this ensure that the Genesis figure is not compatibly rigged for apps like Maya, etc.? If it isn't a new idea, then what's the point of crowing about playing me too - like me giving a proprietary name to "glass of water".

In other systems, like Maya or blender (i do not know the others), you can usually define multiple weightmaps for each joint if you wish to and bind them to practically any parameter. So you could make a weight map for each joint axis, but why should one do so (unless you want to use euler angles, of course)? The three different weight maps would probably be the most straight-forward way to convert an euler-angle-axis-mapped skin for use in e.g. blender, but usually people do not want to have euler angles in the first place.

Quote -

1. Is "Triax" (TM) actually useful? Does it make a meaningful improvement over "Monax" (TM I made that up). And if it doesn't really make a difference, is it worth tripling the memory requirements to hold all that vertex weight data in memory? How often do you really want the weight of each axis to be different? If it's rare, I would think that it would be better to use Poser's strategy of multiple influencers per joint. This way, you start with a single weight map, and for the few joints where you need unique values for a second or third axis, you would then stack a single-axis weight.

I guess it could be useful from a technical standpoint, since you just have more parameters you can tweak. I do not see the memory issue, because the guys implementing the skinning algorithm should be smart enough not to store the full set of zero-weights (but here i could be mistaken, of course).

Quote -

1. Genesis seems to be one big mesh - no groups. Does this mean that each weight map (per joint) must include data for every single vertex in the whole figure? Isn't that horribly wasteful? Is it sensible to have influence data for every joint * every axis * every vertex? Let see - approximately 45 joints in a figure, times 3 axes, gives us 135 numbers that must be kept per vertex. Even if all that is kept in single precision floats, not doubles, that's around 38 megabytes of data! I hope to see some amazingly realistic human shapes for that cost.

The usage of groups for skinning (and morphs), at least partly stem from the desire to import wavefront OBJ files into poser/DAZ, i think. And with OBJ you cannot do much beyond creating groups for various sets of vertices (faces actually). Since DAZ can invent some new proprietary file format for their "triax" system, they do not have to bother with this limitation, so i guess the file size does not need necessarily to grow. Makes things more difficult to import in other applications, unfortunately. But comparing the mysterious binary undocumented DS file formats with the relatively easily understandable text-based poser file formats, i would guess, DAZ does not mind anyway.

Quote -

1. SM is notorious for not knowing how to use its own tech to best effect, and therefore creating a community perception that the tech is far less than adequate. As far as I can tell, Miki3 does not demonstrate at all what is possible with the new multi-zone sphere+capsule system introduced in P8+PP2010, the system that Daz has refused to embrace. Instead, they claim that Poser tech is holding them back. Meanwhile, I notice also that last year, Maya (an app that is over $3000) just introduced the same or similar multi-zone capsule shape rigging that Poser did, and they talk about it as a way to seriously avoid having to weight map for realistic joints - that it is a step beyond painted weight mapping. What's the truth here? Any rigging experts care to comment?

I am by no means an expert on the matter of subject, but before i even knew that poser and DS existed, i had a bit of experience of weightpainting in blender and a little maya. And before i actually tried poser i got this book "Secrets of Figure Creation in Poser 5" by B.L.Render (that one gave me the idea to actually try poser). The first thing i thought when learned about the falloff zones, was that these are actually an improvement over the older weight painting system, because the falloff zones essentially specify how your surface should bend when bending a joint, whereas with weightpainting, you specify how each vertex should bend. At first this may sound like the same thing, but with the falloff zones, one could use the same zones for different meshes. E.g. you could completely redesign the topology of a limb and still use the same falloff zones. With weightpainting you practically start over and have to redo the weightmap. So i think that Maya does the right thing by implementing those, since it makes it easier for the figure creators; function-wise it is the same, of course, i would even suspect that internally those applications that offer falloff zones use weightmapping internally by converting falloff zones to weights, when loading a figure (i guess even poser does that), since weightmaps are more natural for a machine to process (falloff zones are more on the human side of thinking).
In summary this so called "triax" system sounds a bit like the worst of two worlds: You have still have to use those nasty euler angles with the costly creation of weight maps. (Maya probably does it the other way around, at least i hope so :-)

Thanks Paloth, RHaseltine, and millighost.

I'm not sure anybody really should care if WM costs more RAM - but I'm very curious about it, even though I have 8 GB of it now! LOL

The Maya news I was looking at is here:

http://www.3dworldmag.com/2010/12/07/28683/

The part that caught my attention (emphasis added by me):

Quote - Skinning has received a lot of attention in this release. There are now three options for the actual skinning solver itself; the original linear smooth skinning remains, but there is now also a dual quaternion solver.

Dual Quaternion skinning helps to eliminate collapsing geometry around areas like the inside of elbows and the back of knees, and also what is referred to as the ‘candy wrapper’ twisting effect that the conventional linear method leads to.

There is also a mode which allows the two to be blended, and the influence of each painted (as a weightmap) into the areas that best suit one over the other. Weight painting has also been enhanced.

Firstly an Interactive smooth binding mode circumnavigates the initial stage of weighting by visually representing the influence of each joint as capsules.

These capsules can then be adjusted interactively to change the falloff for each joint which will get you a good way along the road before having to delve into the dirty business of actually painting weights. However, when you do start painting, fear not, as there are several nifty additions in 2011 to make the experience less arduous.

In other systems, like Maya or blender (i do not know the others), you can usually define multiple weightmaps for each joint if you wish to and bind them to practically any parameter.

I didn't know you could do this: My apologies for putting out incorrect information.

**
**

Just wanted to post a link to some of the videos that discuss creating weirght maps, etc. http://forum.daz3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=164169

Quote - But gee, aren't you speculating there? You don't know all that for a fact now, do ya?

Well, unless DAZ decides to shoot themselves in the foot by breaking Genesis in the final version of Studio 4, then there is no speculation involved, as I have used the figure quite a bit over the past few days, and it is very impressive.

Like I suggested before, give it a try, you just might like it. The only real gripe I have with DAZ|Studio 4 now is the rendering/material setup, which still sucks.

Quote - > Quote - But gee, aren't you speculating there? You don't know all that for a fact now, do ya?

Well, unless DAZ decides to shoot themselves in the foot by breaking Genesis in the final version of Studio 4, then there is no speculation involved, as I have used the figure quite a bit over the past few days, and it is very impressive.

Like I suggested before, give it a try, you just might like it. The only real gripe I have with DAZ|Studio 4 now is the rendering/material setup, which still sucks.

Can't. Studio 3 and 4 won't run on my Mac. I don't have Open GL1.3

Why should i give it a try?

Again unless D/S has changed to play well with Vue infinite and xstream I will not be using it.  I also dont want to have to pay for 8-9 different modules just to get to work like poser when I can get all I want from Poser out of the box. These are the only things that do not rush me into using D/S.

Quote - Why should i give it a try?

So you can have arguments when talking about how much DazStudio does or does not suck?

No offence patorak but your comment sounds quite trollish.

As muh as anyone wants to deny it, DS handles quite a few things better than poser. Check out the parameters tab filters, and the whole camera system. The new Genesis figure (which I DID try) is quite a step forward IMO.

Sorry Hioushi,  i pose that question to all salesmen and so far i'm not sold on a program that is a hack of Poser 3/4.

I tried to give it a go, honestly, as at one point I was a Daz user.  Unfortunately, DS4 will not run on my computer at all and 3 was terribly glitchy. 

Some of what I have seen coming out is impressive, but I admit, Daz's materials handling and rendering engine leave much to be desired.  Which is truly sad given that 3Delight is a wonderfully solid engine if they could be bothered to implement it to its full potential.

Am I concerned that Genesis will not work in Poser 8?  Not really, I have V4 who needs a convoy to move her wardrobe.  There have been concerns raised over how the auto fitting of V4's wardrobe effects the clothing, including that movement morphs etc may well be lost when using them on Genesis. 

Also, echoing what Bagginsbill said earlier, I don't think we have seen anywhere near the full potential of Poser's new rigging exploited.  Miki3 certainly didn't.

Heck, Antonia uses the old rigging to the best of my knowledge, and her joints are a thousand times better than V4s.  If we had a figure done to that sort of standard with the capsule system, who knows, maybe people would be less enthused with Genesis.

Though I do find it interesting that Maya is now integrating a system similar to Poser's capsules... Maybe it is that Daz isn't setting a path to the future, but instead hoping to embrace what other software has known for years while they, along with Poser are the ones moving forward?

Quote - Again unless D/S has changed to play well with Vue infinite and xstream I will not be using it.  I also dont want to have to pay for 8-9 different modules just to get to work like poser when I can get all I want from Poser out of the box. These are the only things that do not rush me into using D/S.

I think DAZ Studio is an ending point for modeled objects, rather than a starting point or a place to jump from.  At least that is how DAZ3D has marketed the thing.  They have not figured out how to market Carrara yet in comparison.

My biggest problem with DS is that there's no way (as far as I know) to model and use my own dynamic clothing with their cloth plugin. Most of the clothing I use and make is dynamic, so if they don't fix this, DS will remain an absolute no-no as far as I am concerned, Genesis or not.

I think I'm going to just have a headache and be done with it.

Quote - I think I'm going to just have a headache and be done with it.

Steve take two "Joint Capsules" for your headache. Works everytime.

To the rest of the posters that have taken the time to provide technical detials, thanks a ton. I appreciate the research and sharing of your findings here.

To the rest of the posters that have taken the time to provide technical detials, thanks a ton. I appreciate the research and sharing of your findings here.

As they say in my neighborhood,  "Forget about it."

Quote - Right but what I'm failing to understand is how is a vertex or polygon is distinguished as being a part of the toe versus the head or whatever if there are no body part groups? If it is all one group, how is the association of a subset of the geometry with a joint implemented? In the absence of any grouping, all vertices are eligible for rotation by any joint and a weight must be recorded for all of them.

Interesting question.  I'm a trepxe, the opposite of an expert, however with what little I know I could guess:

1.  Done by mat zones.  If something is in the foot zone, it follows whatever rules for a foot.

1. Some kind of weight map like you are talking about (this poly has the foot color or location, so it must be a foot).

2. You have a rig and it tries to guess how things work based on the rig and matches the rig to the mesh.  IE if you tell it a model is a human, it'll try to make guesses about what is what.  This scares me to no end because I know how smart features end up as nightmares.

3. I didn't play spore, but I did see how CC in it worked.  You plunked a llimb onto your beastie and the game tried to use it.  So maybe you select an area and label it as a limb or a hand or whatever.

Quote - Sorry Hioushi,  i pose that question to all salesmen ...

LOL. I think DAZ must owe me some back pay then, since I'm not sure exactly when I became a "salesman" for them, and I'm quite sure I've never been paid by them. I was trying to offer some common sense and reason to counteract the negativity, but I see that some are determined to blindly hate in the face of all dissenting opinion. Carry on as you were.

Quote - ... and so far i'm not sold on a program that is a hack of Poser 3/4.

So you have tried it, then? If so, why were you asking why you should try it?

Also, this thread is mainly focused on the Genesis figure itself, and not quite so much on DAZ|Studio as a whole. I still very much wish I could just use Genesis in Poser Pro 2010, since the DS ui is not quite there yet. As stated before, materials and rendering in DS pale next to Poser 8/2010. The Genesis figure itself is a masterpiece, however.

I see what I see.
The only religion (in Poser) I believe in, are my 2 own eyeballs.

The movie showed a well rigged figure.
But?
And that has been "the" biggest problem lately; close to no body muscle topology.

Before all this we had low poly figures, low on mem usage.
Then came the high poly models, very-very hard to rig, very mem hungry, but still close to no muscle topology.

Now poly count comes down again, oef, and other systems used to get the rigging.

All wel and very nice.

But when will they build a human figure??? That looks human?

Most of my Poser time , I seem to lower balloons to make some real breasts.
And change body shapes to include basic topology and muscles.

That's a very interesting question. How memory hungry is the new Gensis figure anyway. My guess is that DAZ will sell the figure it self as a base and morph packs for each successive model. such as V5, M5, A5  and so on. How much strain will this put on a computer's resources?

This reply/statement comes from SKondris and Richard Hasiltine from the Daz team. Hopefully it answers some questions regarding compatability with Poser.

"Genesis is the name for the whole new 5th generation of figures coming out in DAZ Studio 4. It's the name for the entire series of figures that will be created - by both DAZ 3D and 3rd party figure creators. V5 and M5 will be released as part of this series of figures. Currently, DAZ Studio 4 is shipping with a basic male, female, and child shape. We're working on up-converted clones of our popular 4th generation shapes (ie, Victoria 4, Michael 4, etc). Third party figure developers can also release their own shapes as part of this series, and we're actively encouraging them to do so. For example, we would love it if Aery Soul would release a version of their popular Alice character as a new figure shape in the Genesis series so that you all could use her shape together with all the rest that we'll be released. As for compatibility, the Genesis figures are only possible through new technological innovations we've made in DAZ Studio 4. However, the Genesis platform utilizes an open file format that we are hoping others will support. We're working on support for the Genesis series right now in Carrara. And the Bryce <-> DAZ Studio Bridge will work with these figures, too. We've had some discussions with Smith Micro, but ultimately, they'll need to make their own decisions as to what makes the most sense for their company, but we hope that they'll be able to support the Genesis platform without too much work."

"We'd be very happy if Smith Micro wanted to get their figures into the Genesis series. No reason they couldn't."

From Richard Hasiltine

"Current Poser-style rigging uses shapes to define how much or little the mesh is deformed by a bend, rather like the falloff sphere for a magnet though there are more shapes and no way to edit the graph as you have with magnets. A joint can also deform only its own mesh and that of its parent. With weight-mapping each vertex of the mesh is given a weight (how strongly it deforms, nothing to do with weight as measured by a set of scales) directly, and any joint can bend any part of the mesh. That allows better control, especially in tricky areas like the shoulders and hips, and also opens up more options for things like skirts and webbed fingers. So far it's DS4 only, though there's an expectation that Poser 9 will do it too - whether Poser 9 and DS4 will be able to share the same figures remains to be seen."

Thank you for the post V01f, finally an official statement. What's it's date though? I was hoping both parts had worked things out by now, or at least express a more strong position on the subject, but it seems otherwise.

V01f:

While weight mapping is being added as a feature for D/S 4, and maybe Poser 9 (they do not seem to be commenting, but they almost never do), one would assume that D/S 4 (and Poser 9) would be able to handle the legacy rigging of content already available?

Hee,hee,hee...those poor programmers. Their heads must be spinning.

lmk

I dunno dude. I'm reserving my judgement for now. Right now the genesis figure is more of a want than a need.

V01f:

Well, thanks for the quotes. It is watch and wait for me too. No use forming opinions before the applications and contents have been tortured to the max by the first few users. Sadly, it looks as if the version four line will not be completed with a David4 morph.

If all the legacy content is supported with weight mapping too, I wonder what hybrids will be possible?

lmk

LOL. I think DAZ must owe me some back pay then, since I'm not sure exactly when I became a "salesman" for them, and I'm quite sure I've never been paid by them. I was trying to offer some common sense and reason to counteract the negativity, but I see that some are determined to blindly hate in the face of all dissenting opinion. Carry on as you were.

It ain't blind hate,  just plain disgust.
* *

So you have tried it, then? If so, why were you asking why you should try it?

Why do you want to know,  you writin' a book?

Also, this thread is mainly focused on the Genesis figure itself, and not quite so much on DAZ|Studio as a whole. I still very much wish I could just use Genesis in Poser Pro 2010, since the DS ui is not quite there yet. As stated before, materials and rendering in DS pale next to Poser 8/2010. The Genesis figure itself is a masterpiece, however.

Ante up...let's see some pics.

Would be nice if someone at Smith Micro told us something one way or another about Poser 9 and DAZ compatibility. I really miss the old CP bulletin boards. They didn't say much, but at least they said something.

DAZ Rand dropped quite a bomb today stating that they were moving towards having all of their 3D software tied to the new CMS System Database. This would include D/S, Bryce, Carrara and Hexagon. I don't know about the rest of you but I don't want to see Bryce & Carrara bogged down by this move.

And I really don't wanna see Hex bogged down by it either. But since it's a modeler, I'm not quite seeing how they can ruin it. However, considering the source, I'm sure they'll do their darndest to try ;).

Laurie

I fail to understand why all the hate towards Daz, or why blaming them of every possible mischief the Poser comunity suffers. I've been a Poser user since Poser 4, and I still get excited over news either at Daz or SM(CuriousLabs, eFronteer, etc, etc).

It's like going to the Vue forums and reading a bunch of coments about how much Brice sucks and ruins every Vue user experience.

How exactly does reporting what they've publically stated in their forums equal out to hate exactly? They plan on tying all of their 3D software packages into a common suite according to DAZ Rand. One that uses their Content Management System software that will run constantly in the background on your system using system memory and CPU resources regardless of whether or not you're actually using any of their 3D software packages.

The last Crapware Suite I used that went the route of Windows Services to tie their suites together was Roxio and I now refuse to ever buy from them again!

I wasn't refering to that Steve. See, I don't use Daz Studio, I've never rendered anything at all in it, all of my image uploads here in the gallery and deviantart are Poser renders, I love Poser, and I'm very used to it, THAT is why I don't use Daz, it's not because I think it's evil, or because Daz is money hungry, or whatever else. Just because it does not suit my particular needs, doesn't mean I must act blind and deny the features that are certainly an improvement over Poser. I just don't agree with the stance of "DazStudio sucks because it's not Poser".