Yeah, I could have used a less dramatic title, but I really wanted to grab your attention.

Because I would like to try to explain what this "DAZ MESHES RULEZ!" buisiness is all about.

(And I'm fully aware that even this "totally scientific experiment with pictures" will leave several of the Poser-users unconvinced)

;-P

But enough talking, let's have some pictures:

First render shows three objects:

A cube with a cylinder on top in green and two simple cubes in red and blue.

The red cube has 6144 polygons, the green cube has 89 polygons.

(You can count them later. For the moment, just take my word for it)

The objective is to morph the red and blue cube into the shape of the green one.

The more exact the morph will be, the better.

There is no doubt who the winner will be, isn't it ?

I mean, 6144 polygons vs 89 polygons, right ?

So let's morph the red cube first.

Ok, that morph looks "Green cube-ish", but if you ask me, it's a little underwhelming for 6144 polygons, isn't it ?

But I'm sure the blue cube will be a complete disaster, after all it has only 89 polys.

So let's  morph the blue cube.

But that's this ? It morphs into an exact copy of the green cube !

How can that be ?

Well, it's because the blue cube is smart, while the red cube is stupid.

Or more exactly, it's mesh topology is.

So let's have a look at the mesh topology:

You can see the red cube has lots of polygons. But they are everywhere and scattered around without a real system.

The blue cube OTOH "knew" what shape it was supposed to morph into, so he has polygons and edges exactly where it needs them.

Now what is a Poser figure ?

Pretty much nothing but a very complicated cube. Lots of polygons and edges.

But some figures are "smart", and some are "stupid".

"Smart" figures "know" what shapes they are supposed to morph into, so their meshes have all the necessary details alread built in, even if you normally can't see it.

"Stupid" figures don't have that (Or at least much less) built in detail.

So they are much harder to morph. And look a lot less detailed. And need much more polygons. And no, SubD doesn't help creating better detail. At least not in Poser.

So, thats why Vicky 6 is currently "The smartest mesh around".

She's also the prettiest and best rigged and currently most supported, yes.

But that's not the reason why I use her.

I use her because beauty is nothing without brains.

:-)

<Edit made, Joe - basicwiz>

!*/&%4!# typos:

That should read of course:

"The BLUE cube OTOH "knew" what shape it was supposed to morph into, so he has polygons and edges exactly where it needs them."

We REALLY need more time to edit posts and a way to add more than ONE picture to a post !

<"Amen" - basicwiz>

Thanks Joe - I always enjoy reading your posts.
Certain aspects of Poser make more sense after you have explained them :-)

Seems like a lot of tris in that cube. I thought Poser didn't handle tris well. What am I not getting?

But Vicky 6 isn't a mesh; she's a morph of the Genesis 2 mesh...

Lo or Hi resolution mesh.

A good mesh is build by a creator who knows human anatomy and who puts the edgelines where they are needed.

The rest can be done with careful management of crease angle and SubD.

My current is as follows.
Knowing that:

• Smoothed meshes grow and expand.
• SubD meshes shrink in size.

I always set crease angle at 180° on all figure groups, render with Smoothing enabled in the render settings, and at SubD level 1.

No shrinking or expanding any more, and Smooth figures that maintain size.

I hate that the 3d community has repurposed the word topology. Topology is the mathematic study of forms that are unaffected by deformations (bends, twistes, morphs, but not breaks). In that sense, your cube+cylinder, both cubes, and Vicky 6 all have the same topology. The correct word for what we're talking about is morphology - it would make total sense to recognize that one mesh flow anticipates a specific morphology better than another. For example, you probably are aware that Vicky 6 forehead cannot be effectively morphed into a third eyeball in the same way that your generic cube cannot effectively morph into an extruded cylinder. To do a good job of this, you'd want to add some more vertices and make new polygons that simply aren't there at the moment. Simply repositioning the existing vertices will not generate an adequate representation of an eye, lid, and lashes. The morphology (underlying structure and organization of the polygons forming the forehead) is just wrong.

Having recognized that we're going to use the word topology instead, I would enjoy seeing some examples of V6 (or is it Gen 2) mesh flow that anticipates certain morphs better than some other, previous meshes do.

For example, like your extruded cylinder, does the Gen 2 mesh anticipate a tail extruded out from the lower back? Horns? Third eye? Eyeballs and lids and lashes in the palms of the hands? What is so great about the Gen 2 "topology", exactly?

This is over the edge : Purpose build, and misleading.

NO, Joepublic for Once I do not agree at all.

Change the first setup to a cube with a ball on top.

You could morph the red cube into "something similar".

No way you get something, anything alike out of your blue cube.

This is misleading and direction / result manipulated / controlled.

You "can" morph the red cube in almost any other shape, while the blue cube is VERY limited in its possibilities.

Na-na-,  to build a "human" mesh, you need anatomy knowledge to put the edgelines where they are supposed to be.

Quote -Seems like a lot of tris in that cube. I thought Poser didn't handle tris well. What am I not getting?

For flat surfaces that aren't intended to deform, it's fine to use tris. Artifacts can start happening when the surface becomes less than flat. 

The example is simplistic for demonstration purposes. It could just as easily been done with all quads but would have taken a bit longer to construct. It could also have been done with fewer polys in the center ring. 

Quote -Topology is the mathematic study of forms that are unaffected by deformations (bends, twistes, morphs, but not breaks). In that sense, your cube+cylinder, both cubes, and Vicky 6 all have the same topology.

Topology is a perfectly valid word to use. In 3D modeling its important to differentiate between topology and morphology as they both represent different aspects. Topology is the specific pattern that makes up the overall surface of a geometric shape, which loosely conforms to the traditional mathematic definition (which is very generic to begin with). Morphforms are pulled from and dependant on the underlying topology. Many things can influence morphs, but they're all dependant on the underlying topology of the model. The only other word or phrase that could best describe topology is edgeflow, which is techincally two words. 

Topology also has other uses based on the field of study. Biology, for example, or geography. 

Quote -
In topology and related branches of mathematics, a topological space is a set of points, along with a set of neighbourhoods for each point, that satisfy a set of axioms relating points and neighbourhoods. The definition of a topological space relies only upon set theory and is the most general notion of a mathematical "space" that allows for the definition of concepts such as continuity, connectedness, and convergence. Other spaces, such as manifolds and metric spaces, are specializations of topological spaces with extra structures or constraints. Being so general, topological spaces are a central unifying notion and appear in virtually every branch of modern mathematics. The branch of mathematics that studies topological spaces in their own right is called point-set topology or general topology.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topological_space

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topology_(disambiguation) (for other uses of the word topology)

~Shane

DAZ figures are usually meant to cover a wide range of more or less humanoid shapes.

That usually doesn't include horns, tails, hooves etc (Even though they can be easily "welded" to Genesis), but digitigrade feet, paws, four fingered hands, cyclope eyes, animal heads are all easily possible.

But the most important "smart feature" is a full set of anatomical detail built right into the mesh: Musculature, tendons, bone detail like kneecaps, shoulderblades, ellbows, etc. This is created the same way I built my blue cube: Anticipating the shape(s) the figure needs to morph into, and build the topology accordingly.

That's why Vicky-6 can be the exact same mesh as Mike-6 even though Mike has lots more musculature, and both can be children or bodybuilders or morbidely obese or Orks or Aegyptian gods or aliens.

That's the kind of detail that makes them easy to morph and realistic looking and that's the kind of "built in" detail created by a purpose built topology.

DAZ meshes have lots of this detail, and Genesis-2 simply is the latest (and most perfect) example.

Other human figures either have almost none of that or at least considerably less of that kind of detail. The result is that, try as you might, you never get as many different realistic shapes out of them than what you can get out of a DAZ mesh.

It simply is a fact that the more time and effort you put into building the topology, the more versatility and realism you can get out afterwards. Humans are complex shapes, so the more complex (Not dense !) the mesh is to represent their form, the better.

If Poser could use figures with 10 million polygons, we wouldn't have to worry about topology at all. With 10 million polygons, you can sculpt anything as detailed as you wish.

But Poser can't do that, so we have to use the smartest, the most complex meshes we can find if we want the best results possible.

And that, until someone builds an even "smarter" mesh, is currently Genesis-2.

With all of the Genesis advances, the problem remains... it is not fully functional or controllable in Poser like Vicki4.

Use-ability is really the first key obstacle in this arena. It's why there's 1 Genesis product for every 100 V4 products in the Renderosity marketplace.

Reality... despite the advances.

Make it useable in Poser... FULLY... then climb on the hill and sing its glory.

What do you mean by "fully functional" ?

Genesis loads with a single mouseclick, it poses by clicking on a pose file, you can apply textures by clicking on a mat pose.

Clothing "auto converts" in a few seconds to any bodyshape you dial.

You can add bodyparts like detailed genitals or a second pair of arms or a trunk or a tail.

You can use high resolution HD morphs that make displacement maps redundant.

You pretty much can create every remotely humanoid shape you can imagine. And all textures and clothing and poses still work.

I think that's a lot more functionality than V4 brings to the table. (And BTW, V4 also has some "Studio only" functionality)

WHAT DOES NOT WORK IN POSER:

If you install gazillions of morph packs, then, yes, Genesis slows down. Same as V3 or V4 if you load all the morphs that are out there for them.

And if you save Genesis in a .pz3 scene file with an UV set other than the default UV's, you have to re-apply that texture/UV set again once you load that scene again.

(But there are quite easy workarounds for both problems)

I will say, the latest DSON importer loads Genesis REALLY slow.  However, the morph transfer to clothing is much better, so it's a plus, overall..

I just tested and on my i5 laptop Vicky 6 with four "characters" installed takes 12 seconds to load via the DSON importer while she takes 8 seconds to load from a native Poser cr2.

I don't think that's too bad compared to how long it takes to inject morphs into V4 or V3.

Joe, what exactly do you mean when you say "realistic" because frankly, V5 doesn't look any more realistic than any other Daz mesh to me. I'm either not see what you're saying or paying attention to what you mean.

Genesis 2 Female base with the body and expression morphs takes me 29 seconds to load via DSON, and 15 seconds from a Poser Unimesh rigged saved CR2 on a 3.2GHz AMD PhenomII X6 (according to Task Manager I have about 12.5 GB free memory).  This is the 1.1.2.117 version of the importer, which seems quite a bit slower than the previous version...

Makes sense, I'm still on 1.1.1.33.

Well, I'm still going to try the new one and see if I get a similar slowdown.

Ever thought about making slimmed down cr2 copys just for the main characters ?

I have several Genesis, G2F and G2M's with "fixed" UV mapping and only one or two morph sets.

I've thought about slimming down some Genesis 1 copies, but haven't gotten around to it.  For Genesis 2, I only own the female face and body morphs bundle and Poke Away thus far, so she's not too bulky.

Great thread.

Stay tuned for the next philosophical speculation revealed: The Spherical Earth concept! :rolleyes::rolleyes:

It's not just V6 that is smart:) Give the men some credit as well:) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2laBiFJZvM

joe, I agree - you're one of our indispensable men!

"Stay tuned for the next philosophical speculation revealed: The Spherical Earth concept!"

Woe to you sir!!!
What manner of tomfoolery have you uttered???
technically the earth is an oblete Spheroid.. not a sphere,
this is due to it having bulged at the equator caused by the centrifugal force from eons of rotating.

yep this community has officially run out of things about which to debate.

I think most people missed the point of JoePublic's demonstration.  DAZ's figure meshes have been 'smart'ly modeled compared to a lot of the competing figures.  DAZ figures show an understanding of anatomy in their edge flow whereas others look they where pulled out of a high poly cube.  This is also the reason I have oftened said sculpting is not modeling as sculpted models tend to have horrible edge flow and unnecessary mesh density.

Quote -  JoePublic's Quote

You can use high resolution HD morphs that make displacement maps redundant.

So DAZ HD morphs ARE = to displacement maps ?
DAZ HD morphs ARE NOT = to vector maps ?

Thanks for the info

The SubD rule is 100% Quads.

Quote - EClark1894's quote
Seems like a lot of tris in that cube. I thought Poser didn't handle tris well. What am I not getting?

Quote - I think most people missed the point of JoePublic's demonstration.  DAZ's figure meshes have been 'smart'ly modeled compared to a lot of the competing figures.  DAZ figures show an understanding of anatomy in their edge flow whereas others look they where pulled out of a high poly cube.  This is also the reason I have oftened said sculpting is not modeling as sculpted models tend to have horrible edge flow and unnecessary mesh density.

Oh I get the point, and I agree 100%.  My bit of sarcasm was carried over from the other thread where the belief in good topology was challenged, seemingly as the belief in a flat earth.  Even though there's mountains of evidence to the contrary, such as this thread, and hundreds of others around the web.

Note how easily the Genesis-2 topology can be both male and female because the "muscle flow" is so well designed.

Yes, with some effort you can turn Roxy and Dawn into males, too, but the results will never be as detailed.

Okay, well, now I'm just confused. Not because of mesh differences but because of what I've heard about topolgy over the last two days. Roxie and Dawn's mesh seem designed to follow the musculature of the female body as I understand the point of topology. So they're doing what they're designed to do.

But V6 and M6 confuse me. From what I understand, the musculature was what tripped up V5 and M5 and why DAZ went back to the separate female and male meshes for Genesis. You're saying though that it's the same mesh. Now I watched this video from Johnathon Williamson from Blender explaining to me why males and females musculature is so different and has to be designed that way for them to look that way, and you show me meshes that seems to say he's wrong and topology doesn't matter as much as people say it does.

Attached Link: Torso Topology Overview

Edit: Well, that and the amount of body fat.

"Roxie and Dawn's mesh seem designed to follow the musculature of the female body as I understand the point of topology. So they're doing what they're designed to do."

They seem to. To your untrained eyes. But they aren't.

Noone ever said their topology is a complete mess. But why be content with 50% if you can have 95% ?

And even IF they were following female anatomy perfectly, that would still be "not good enough" because the more versatile a Poser mesh is, the better. There are women out there with more musculature than many men and also very feminine men. And then there are children and aliens and monsters and faeries and cartoon figures.

So a mesh that has all those possibilites built right in is simply so much more practical than one that focusses on a single shape. (But as I said, Dawn and Roxy might look "sufficient for an average female" to you at first glance, but they really aren't)

Rigging is another story. Splitting Genesis-2 again into a male and female figure allowed better rigging for each base shape. It solved also a psychological problem,as many vendors didn't like to work with a 100% androgynous mesh like Genesis 1.

Some people like to believe DAZ meshes are so popular because DAZ was at the right time at the right place. And that they pumped a lot of money in advertising. And that vendors then simply followed the herd. And once one Vicky was popular, the next Vicky was popular, too. And so on.

But that's only a fraction of the truth.

The DAZ figures are simply better designed. That's why they are popular.

And a big part of that better design is the better topology.

I can make any mesh look pretty or handsome. I can fix the rigging problems of any mesh, too. I can make any mesh look more realistic.

And I pretty much actually did that with every native Poser mesh.

But why spend my precious time with a poorly designed mesh if I can get better results faster from a mesh of better design ?

Is there any medal to be earned for supporting native Poser meshes ?

Let's be honest here:

If Vicky-6 would work natively in Poser one way or the other, 99% of the people now sticking with V4, Dawn or Roxy, would switch in a heartbeat.

Like they switched from V3 to V4 and never gave Jessi or Sydney or Alyson even so much as a second look.

That's what I wanted to explain:

There IS an actual, tangible difference between DAZ and all the other meshes.

NOT wanting to work with Dawn or any Poser figure is not a decision I made on a whim.

It's the result of 13 years of experience working with all kinds of figures.

Okay, look Joe, every time I mention Roxie's name is NOT an invitation to you to take a gratuitous swipe at her or Dawn.  I've never said Roxie was better designed than Dawn or or V6. I wouldn't any way because as you said my eye is untrained. I AM pointing out and asking WHY I seem to be hearing one thing about topology and seeing another.  Now if you can't answer that, fine, I'll ask someone else. Just say so.

I'm under no illusion that Roxie will take over as the number 1 mesh in the Poserverse. And I've said many times in the past that I would be using Genesis if it worked natively in Poser. It don't, though. The reason I champion Roxie, as I said in another thread is that she is a tool I use to learn how to create. Something I would probably NOT be doing if I was still using any DAZ mesh.

BTW, you can work with any mesh you want. I haven't passed any law that said you can't, so you don't need to explain anything to me in that regard.

@ JoePublic

Let me make something cristal clear here ; As white as snow, as deep as the ocean.

I am a Poser user, and Poser is my hobby and my passion.

I will NEVER - EVER use other then Posers native figures.

The more some here on the forum try to shovel Dawn or Genesis through my throat, the more I reject / disgust them.

And I fear I am not the only one being fed up with this forcefeeding some are trying to achieve.

Genesis is for DS. Period, Game over and closed, That is how DAZ wanted it, and that is how they will get it.

Dawn is just another Poserised DS attempt. Build in, and for DS, but "working", and let us leave it at that, in Poser.

Is this message clear enough ?

I'm going to suggest that no one reply to the above several messages. All parties have made their points. Further back and forth over philosophy of why we use figures will lead to a firefight and another locked thread.

Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the meshes all you like, and let it stop there.

This is the one and only warning I'm in the mood to give. Any further drama will end this.

(Dead horses are the bain of my existance.)

Quote - I'm going to suggest that no one reply to the above several messages. All parties have made their points. Further back and forth over philosophy of why we use figures will lead to a firefight and another locked thread.

Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the meshes all you like, and let it stop there.

This is the one and only warning I'm in the mood to give. Any further drama will end this.

(Dead horses are the bain of my existance.)

Fine, doesn't look like anyone was going to answer my topology question anyway. I'll go find somebody else to answer it.

Quote - Vicky 6 vs Mike 6. Both are the exact same mesh, so they have identical topology.

Actually the topology is slightly different between the models. They have the same poly counts, but the distribution of the polys are more concentrated in some places than others. For example the female has more polys and a different flow around the breast area than the male. I believe the hips and limbs may be different as well to account for more male muscularity.

Oh, great. Now I've got to write back to Mr. Williamson explaining why i just called him a liar.

"Actually the topology is slightly different between the models. They have the same poly counts, but the distribution of the polys are more concentrated in some places than others. For example the female has more polys and a different flow around the breast area than the male. I believe the hips and limbs may be different as well to account for more male muscularity."

"Oh, great. Now I've got to write back to Mr. Williamson explaining why i just called him a liar."

Sorry Male_M3dia, you're wrong.

And no need to apologize to Mr Willamson, EClark1894.

I just exported V6 as an object file and loaded her to M6 as a Full Body Morph.

She loaded fine as a morph without any error warning.

G2M and G2F are exactly the same mesh.

Just like M1/2 and Stephanie 1 are.

All 3rd Gen Daz meshes are.

All 4th Gen DAZ meshes are.

And of course Genesis-1.

The point of this thread was to explain that my preference has nothing to do with emotions or "politics", but is simply based on cold, hard logic.

And I want to counteract the misinformation that is spread around when it comes to Genesis.

Quote - "Actually the topology is slightly different between the models. They have the same poly counts, but the distribution of the polys are more concentrated in some places than others. For example the female has more polys and a different flow around the breast area than the male. I believe the hips and limbs may be different as well to account for more male muscularity."

"Oh, great. Now I've got to write back to Mr. Williamson explaining why i just called him a liar."

 

 

Sorry Male_M3dia, you're wrong.

And no need to apologize to Mr Willamson, EClark1894.

I just exported V6 as an object file and loaded her to M6 as a Full Body Morph.

She loaded fine as a morph without any error warning.

G2M and G2F are exactly the same mesh.

Just like M1/2 and Stephanie 1 are.

All 3rd Gen Daz meshes are.

All 4th Gen DAZ meshes are.

And of course Genesis-1.

:-)

Yes, they're the same mesh with the same poly counts, so you can import morphs from one to another. However,  how those polygons are distributed is different... female has more polys distributed in her breast area than the male. The male has more distributed elsewhere than the female.

The female and V6 was built first, then DAZ started over with the same mesh to make the male and M6.

"Yes, they're the same mesh with the same poly counts, so you can import morphs from one to another. However,  how those polygons are distributed is different... female has more polys distributed in her breast area than the male. The male has more distributed elsewhere than the female."

Well, "distribution" normally referes to different topology. Like removing vertices from the head and putting them in the feet. That would make any direct morph exchange impossible.

Of course when you morph a mesh, vertices will be morphed closer to each other or spread apart. But the actual structure of the mesh flow doesn't change as otherwise the mesh would overlap and there would be undercuts.

This of course happens with with any mesh that is morphed.

I think we're simply using the same term for two different things.

Just explaining how it was explained to me when I moaned about the split. ;) Those areas are where the distribution is different between the models to make them more gender-specfic.

Seriously, someone should add Vicky-6 to Mike-6's "genepool".

Default V6 looks too statuesque for my taste, but as a morph for M6 with a few other morphs here and there, she tones done just enough to look much more "average".

:-)

10 more minutes of dial-spinning. Started with 0.7 "Vicky-6". Love the result.

Now I really want such a crossover figure. Lol.

I know Studio can "auto-rig" morphs so you don't have to mess around with the animated joint centers by yourself. Anyone know a tutorial about that ? I think it's just one or two clicks.

And of course I have to learn how to do Poser companion files.

:-)

Hey, I'm sorta derailing my own thread. LOL.

Quote - I know Studio can "auto-rig" morphs so you don't have to mess around with the animated joint centers by yourself. Anyone know a tutorial about that ? I think it's just one or two clicks.

Colorcurvature has a script in the MP to create a K4 morph for M4 .  The resulting figure is weightmapped with animated centers; I wonder if it will work with figures that are already weightmapped?  I'd try it, but I don't have either M6 nor V6 yet...

EDIT: I recall him saying that it would work with Nerd's V4WM, so it should work with weightmapped figures...

One of the things about changing the size of the polygons while keeping the arrangement the same, as in V6 and M6 above, is that the UV map will get stretched and squeezed as the size of the polygons vary.. This is why V6 and M6 have different UV mappings which go on the same mesh.

It would be great if the 'skin' could be a dynamic cover over the underlying shape, so that it could adapt to minimise stretching, like real skin does. I guess it would need to be firmly attached to the underlying shape at strategic points to keep the nipples from sliding down to the hips, or up into the neck for example. lol.

Cheers

Ian

This should be even easier, JP; from Murgatroyd at DAZ...

***How To Transfer Morphs From G2F To G2M The Very Easy Way

You don’t even need to open Studio.

Copy the morph file from its subfolder of /data/DAZ 3D/Genesis 2/Female/Morphs/ to a corresponding subfolder of /data/DAZ 3D/Genesis 2/Male/Morphs/.
Open it in a text editor of your choice.
*If it’s gibberish, add .zip to the end of the filename, and unzip it.
Find Female.
Replace all with Male.
Save.

The same process will work, mutatis mutandis, to transfer from G2M to G2F.

http://www.daz3d.com/forums/viewthread/24093/P390/#484862