EldritchCellar posted at 6:47AM Fri, 08 May 2020 - #4388475

Jeez. I'm reading old forum posts over at daz about non PAs not being given access to the tools to create HD morphs for Genesis... not really sure that level of control over user customization or creativity is very appealing to me. Seems like the Genesis meshes are pretty low poly (although very nicely modeled), in particular in the face region. I personally don't mind sculpting morphs for medium res meshes but being locked out of the options by design and options being for only a select few is distasteful.

The biggest shift in using any low poly mesh is learning how to work with a ow poly mesh. You would start by creating your shape in it's base resolution then when you are done, you create your details. In Genesis 1 and 2 there was no such thing as an HD morphs so you would need to create a normal map for those details. But like a normal map, those details don't really exist in HD morphs; thus it's just different method of creating a detail pass, with some caveats added which is why the tool is in-house for PAs. So no you don't need that HD method to make details on your morphs, just subdvide, export and sculpt in your program of choice, then create the normal map. So even if you are a PA, you would still continue to make a normal map for your character, especially if you want it exported to another program.

So how many polys a figure has is not really that important as how you're able to sculpt a base form on it.

Also everything in DS or any other program revolves about the base mesh, not any subdivided version. So you would make clothing, and morphs against a unsubdivided mesh.

Then the version of genesis depend on what you want to do. I've been working with genesis since the first version and each version has different set of strengths. Really the only reason to use Genesis 1 if you're creating creatures that need both a male and female. Making female clothing was difficult as you had to build on the androgynous shape and try to model in the fit for the various characters with the breasts. Again, if you wanted clothing for both genders if may be easier than doing two sets of clothing, but you would definitely struggle through making fits for all the female characters. You'll notice that clothing for that generation wasn't very detailed because you basically had to make two sets of clothing (one with breasts and one without) then try to fit it to the female character shapes without warping things such as buttons. Also add in that the characters didn't end up truly male or female with dead eye expressions. So out of the generations, genesis 1 has the worst looking human characters including any that you tried to import. Those two reasons were why the genders were split for Genesis 2.

Genesis 3 and 8 changed the weight map method to an industry standard to it can be exported to other programs better. Also because of the changes, JCMs are used more for bending. (When you are making clothing there should be a button in the parameters to turn off the jcms). Also by then the tools have changed to make it easier to do jcms for bending and also revert parts of morphs and split them. Genesis 8 has a more diverse set of morphs including more than one black male character and hindu characters as well. That and the changing of the starting poses are the major changes between the generations.

The version you want to use is a matter of taste, but really the biggest reason I use genesis is that I'm able to make full body custom morphs and they're able to fit the clothing for that generation easily without the clothing maker making any fits for it. That means (especially since the majority of my characters are male) I can create, short tall, thin, fat and teen characters without contacting vendors to see if they can make a clothing fit for it, which only happen one time for a set that used to be on sale here. So I spend time playing with sculpting different shapes or adding modifications to existing one, creating any JCMs for bending with that shape and I'm ready to render.