Quote - And keeping the lights on is about DAZ's only expense. It's not like they have developers to pay.

Presumably, DAZ has contractors to pay. It makes little difference what the employment relationship is. What matters is the quality of the product.

Quote - Studio used to be great competition for Poser. I remember reading people running Poser down because of the way whom ever owned it at the time was running it. Bad releases, long waits on fixes, fixes that didn't. All those arguments are out the window now. DAZ is now worse then any company that ever owned Poser. Studio used to be superior to Poser, not now though. Studio's development has been stagnating for 3 years.

I get the impression you are a Carrara user and don't have much experience with DAZ Studio.  DAZ has made the following general (not beta) releases of DAZ Studio in a little over a year:

04 January 2013 - 4.5.1.56
15 May 2013 - 4.6.0.18
30 September 2013  - 4.6.1.17
11 November 2013 - 4.6.1.33
12 December 2013 - 4.6.1.39
10 February 2014 - 4.6.2.118

All of those releases contained bug fixes, and many containted UI enhancements and other new features.  This hardly looks like a product that has been "stagnating for 3 years".

The situation with Carrara is completely different. I have a friend that uses Carrara to make videos. He has told me the Genesis 1 finally works in Carrara 8.5 and clothing on Genese 1 in Carrara has far fewer issues with poke through than V4/M4.  He also says that Genesis 2 does not really work in Carrara 8.5.

Bryce and Hexagon are the DAZ tools that appear to be seriously neglected.

Quote - I'm not sure why people don't realize DAZ gives you studio to make you a customer. DAZ gives you the base figures to sell you the assesories for it. It's called a sales gimmick.

Why do you think people don't understand this? I completely understood it when I downloaded DAZ Studio.

Quote - > Quote - Lots of discussion here about Genesis and Genesis 2 M/F needing workarounds and fixes... Does that only apply to using older content, or does the new stuff that is specifically for these figs need workourounds too?

No, genesis is the figure with the most issues. G2F/M are basically the polished up version of Genesis. The boob tuck and poke through are issues that should be solved in autofit, but DAZ sells workarounds for them.

I do my own work around for poke through in carrara, displacement mapping in the textures, works like a charm most of the time and doesn't distort the figure. 

I think you need to keep this in perspective. From my experience in DAZ studio it is much easier to get clothes to fit on Genesis 1 than on V4/M4. With V4/M4 DAZ Studio does have morph transfer from the character to the clothes and you can add smoothing and push modifiers that help make it fit. Some V4/M4 clothes just never fits correctly on any figure than the one it is intended for.

Auto fit has been improved with Genesis 2. Now none of this means that Auto fit is perfect.  The boob sack effect is real. DAZ does sell products to help you deal with the effect.  I don't see anything evil in a PA selling products to fix this issue.

Genesis 2 is an enhancement on Genesis 1. It addressed some of criticisms of Genesis 1. Genesis 2 has slightly increased polygon counts in some regions like the face, to allow better expressions. By using separate male and female base characters, polygons could be added in the body where each sex needs more polygons. Most DAZ Studio users seem to see Genesis 2 as an improvement on Genesis 1, but some people are upset that there are now two base figures instead of one. In my opinion Gensesis 2 is a imcremental improvement on Genesis 1.

DAZ has also introduced HD morph technology. This apparently allows the subdivided polygons of the figure to be morphed. It is very useful for making monsters, but it can add detail in the hands and feet for characters like Victoria 6. I don't know if HD technology is suppose to work in tools other than DAZ Studio, but it seems pretty solid in DAZ Studio.

Quote - And what is the path to this mysterious place where metadata is backed up to? Is it to the same location as the database files?

The metadata files are in the runtime/support folder of your DAZ format libraries. DAZ Studo seems to save the user data in the first DAZ format library on the search path. The file is called "UserData_1.dsx"  Most of the files in these directories will be named "DAZ_3D_xxxx..." so just go to the end of the list to look for the user data file. 

To do this you go to Content Pane and on the context menu find "Content DB Maintenance ...". On the dialog box that comes up select "Export User Data" and click accept. 

How long this will take depends on how much content you have and how much user data. I have a lot of content and a lot of user caategories and it takes about 20 minutes on my system. 

This writes a file in the same directory as the meta data files with your user categories. This will protect you from the CMS data base getting corrupt and allow you to restore all your categories. To protect against disk failure or courruption, you need to have a backup of this someplace else.

Quote - > Quote - Edit...to use this You will need to purchase the V4 and M4 bodyshapes for G2 also

V4 and M4 bodyshapes for G2

I have already got all the other genx packages but can't find this one anywhere in the Daz store or here on Rendo. Can anyone point me to where I can purchase this item. Thanks.

V4 and M4 bodyshapes for G2

The products I have are called:

Victoria 4 for Genesis 2 Female by MallenLane
Michael 4 for Genesis 2 Male by Slosh

These each contain the body shape, UVs and auto fit clones. I think this is all you need.

I think GenX2 can also use the body shapes from:

Generation 4 Legacy Shapes for Genesis 2 Female(s) by Slosh
Generation 4 Legacy Shapes for Genesis 2 Male(s) by slosh

Those packages only contain shapes. They do not contain UVs or autofit clones, so you will not be able use Gen 4 skins or autofit Gen 4 clothes without the first two I mention.

I am now in the process of converting almost everything to use Genesis 2, and I have a lot of V4/Genesis content. The .dsa to .duf conversion is easy, but I am converting a lot of skins to use AoA SSS shader. That is a lot of work.

I just posted an image in my gallery using a V4 skin on Stephanie 6 HD:

Speak Low, If You Speak Love

Quote - Another item.

Displacement…

I noticed on some seems I was seeing the skin poking through so I changed the minimum displacement from -0.10 to 0

This eliminated all of those instances.

JD

What shader are you using?

The image you have shows no displacement map and the displacement strength set to zero. If there is no displacement map set, most shaders will ignore the displacement values. However, the AoA SSS shader seems to create displacement maps on its own. You need to always set all the displacement min/max values to zero with the AoA SSS shader. 

Quote - Thank you I will try that.

I have never used the push modifier before.

Can I ask, when is it better to use Smooth vs Push?

 

Thanks again!

 

JD

I usually add a push modifier when the smoothing modifier alone does not fix the poke through.  I use them together.

If the problem is the displacement map causing poke through, you can try using a push modifier. Select the clothing item. Go to Edit -> Figure -> Geometry -> Apply Push Modier. The push modier is called Mesh Offset in the Parameters panel. It will load in with the default offset of 1 cm, which is way too much and will mess up your clothes. Go to the Parameters pannel and change the Offset Distance to 0.1 (1 mm). You should not have to go above 0.2 (2 mm) to get rid of poke through caused by displacement maps. 

In few cases I have not been able to get rid of V4 cloths poke through even this way, but it helps many times.

Quote - of those 20 characters under Genesis 2/ V6...I was looking at them.. will they all work on the Genesis 2 ? or do I need V6?

 

 

thanks mark.

Some that say they are for V6 also claim to work without V6, although the appearence will be a little different. If you look at the promo images for "P3D Noa for Victoria 6", "Sabby-Lucy for Victoria 6" and "Sabby-Reagan for Victoria 6" they all have promo images of what the character looks like if you do not own V6. To my eye, it is not very different.  I assume you will also get an error saying the V6 morph was not not found when you inject the shape, but that error can be ignored.

If the PA is making the claim that you can use the character without V6, then the character must not be using the V6 UVs. The skin must be using either the default base female UVs or the V5 UVs that the free version of G2F supports.

Some the characters say you need the Genesis 2 Female Head/Body Morphs, which need to be purchased from the DAZ store.   Almost all G2F character will require this morph pack.

Quote - I am interested in getting a new character here and wondered who you think makes the best (most realisitic and sexy) female character that will work in Daz?

I like the V 4.2 based or Genesis 2 characters. By the way where are the Genesis 2 characters here. 

V4.2 is an older base character and has some obvious bending flaws. As 3doutlaw said, you need something like "Perfect V4 Complete" to fix those. Both Genesis 1 and 2 are much better at bending. There is a "Beautiful Bends for Genesis 2 Female" product in the DAZ store, but I do not have it. Perhaps this makes the bends even better in some way, but I don't see obvious bending problems with G2F the way I do with V4.2.

Genesis 2 is the new base character for DAZ, and most of the top PAs that sell in the DAZ store are concentrating on G2F characters now. A number of PAs here are starting to offer G2F characters. Go to Dept. -> Characters -> Genesis 2/V6. There are about 20 characters there. 

In the forums at DAZ several PAs have said they are concentrating on G2F/M products, because they just sell much better at DAZ than V4 or Genesis 1 products. Here and at other 3rd party stores I suspsect they still sell more V4 products, but I have been surprised at the number of PAs here that are turning out G2F/M products for sale here.

If you want to get characters that come with good skins setup to use the AoA subsurface shader in DAZ, that pretty much means G2F/M characters.  I don't know of any V4 characters that have been released with AoA SSS skins, even in the DAZ store. At this point, I suspect most PAs developing V4 products are concentrating on the Poser market. They will come with Poser SSS skin material that does not work well in DAZ (certainly doesn't give you any SSS). If you can learn how to create your own AoA SSS material for characters that only come with Poser materials, then sticking with V4 gives you access to a lot more characters now.

I use to use both V4 and Genesis 1 characters, but I am in the process of switching over to G2F/M for almost everything. I'm egarely awaiting the release of Gen X2, so I can transform body shapes from V4 to G2F. I already have transformed a number of V4 skins to G2F and AoA SSS shader.

Ther new HD moroph technology from DAZ also is mostly available for G2F/M. HD morphs apparently can work on Genesis 1 too, but not on V4/M4. For young men/women, the HD morph technology is not a big thing, unless you are making very large closeup renders.

If you are using DAZ Studio, it seems that G2F/M are where the latest and best technology are available, but there is no question there still are way more products available for V4.

What do you have the UVs set to?

Quote - There's a magnet set to fit V4 clothes to her that works pretty well, I hear.

I don't have Lyrra's GND4 magnet set. Magnet's can be made to work in DAZ Studio, but they do work differently than in Poser. DS transforms the magnets into DFormers. You load the magnets/DFormers onto each item of clothes. Then you use the DFormers to spawn a fitting morph for each item of clothes. Then you some how save a cr2 with your new fitting morph. 

This is pretty complicated, but the advantage is it can work for any V4 clothes, not just conforming clothes.

Conforming V4 clothes can be easily made to work on the V4 GND through "Transfer Active Morphs" and "Smoothing Modifiers", but the much better solution seems to be use Gen X to transform the GND body/head shape to Genesis. V4 clothes will work much more easily through autofit. You don't have the bending defects that V4 has.

According the developer of Gen X, the update for Genesis 2 should be released very soon, like next week maybe. He says it got delayed a bit because of the release of DS 4.6.2. 

When first fitted to GND, there is a lot of poke through with this dress. The first step is to right click on the dress and select "Transfer Active Morphs" at the bottom of the menu. This takes care of most of the poke though, but there is still a little left.

The next step is to add a smoothing modifier. With the dress selected go to Edit -> Figure -> Geometry -> Apply Smoothing Modifer. That takes care of the rest of the poke through in this case. 

If the default smoothing modifier does not fix the poke through completely, you can go to the Parameters tab with the dress selected, under General -> Mesh Smoothing you can adjust the "Smooting Iterations" and "Collsiion Iterations" to try to elminate the poke through.

This does not work with all V4 clothes. It should work with conforming V4 clothes, though it may not work in all cases.

On the right of the image is the Genesis GND wearing the same dress which was autofitted and with a smoothing modifier.

I have done just that. Used Gen X to create a Genesis version of GND. The rumor is that Gen X2 for Genesis 2 will be released shortly. 

One think to recognize useing GND next door in DAZ Studio is that she does not come with DAZ materials.  The description says "Works in D|S (with Classic GND4 MATs)." Many Non-SSS poser mats will "work" in DS, but they do not produce results like the promo renders.  To get better results you will need to know how to adjust materials in DS. The specular needs adjustment to use these materials in DS. As you can see from the STD render the skin looks rather flat in the STD material. Rather than try to fix the STD material, I changed to use the AoA SS shader and fixed the specular there.

Above I have a comparison showing the STD materials that come with GND, my setup of the materials with AoA SS Shader and 75% subsurface strength. This is basically Skin A mild preset from the subsurface tool box with alot of adjustments to the specular. The 3rd image combines the AoA SSS with some techniques using the layered image editor (LIE) to make the skin paler. Strong SSS usually makes the skin look darker, like it is tanned. Most Poser SSS material use skin tone adjustment in the procedural shaders to make the skin paler. I did someting similar in LIE. Added a new layer, set the color to white, opacity to 10% and the blend mode to additative. I did that on each skin zone. Lips I added a little red color this way.