Nia for Poser's Nova (Character). Something I've been working on. I think Nova is one of the best visual 3d Models that Poser has (or that I've seen).

So, I am (also) starting to make characters and morphs based around her. Nova base character used to be available here at renderosity but is now at:

renderhub

Nice work on Nova! Are you making these morphs available to others who have her in their runtimes? By the way, I added a nudity tag to your post since her buttocks are exposed~ 

Anim8dtoon, Renderosity Forum Moderator

I don't think I'd heard of Nova before. What do you like about her?

Thank you Anim8dtoon for the nudity protection. And yes, I would like to make all of the morphs and texture creations for Nova available to boost her more in the renderosity community (for Poser).

To randym77: Nova used to be sold here for a season maybe 1 year back. I got my copy of her. She is a Poser Character created (it appears) through Genesis 8 likeness or directly. I love her because it is almost like having Genesis 8 directly in Poser without Dson plugin. Which means not a lot of crashes of the program when you load her. I don't know how the renderosity community missed her or missed making an opportunity out of her. This is what I am attempting. I think she can give Poser more realistic characters for render. Trust me. I have more characters coming. The Base character to (Nova) is at renerhub. Here is the link:

Nova for Poser - 3D Model by Vyusur (renderhub.com)

By the way. I have never sold characters on Renderosity so bare with me. I am so new to creating the character files for release here. But I hope I spark a trend and a major re-push for Nova.

I really like Nova's looks but if I were a vendor I wouldn't touch her without some kind of endorsement from DAZ.

-- I'm not mad at you, just Westphalian.

Interesting. It does seem like there could be issues with DAZ, if she's a Genesis 8 clone. Can she use Genesis morphs, textures, or clothing?

randym77 posted at 7:18 PM Sat, 6 July 2024 - #4487111

Interesting. It does seem like there could be issues with DAZ, if she's a Genesis 8 clone. Can she use Genesis morphs, textures, or clothing?

No. There's been subtle, and not so subtle, changes to the UVs and mesh. Not to mention that many features of Nova are broken; specifically the dependencies related to cross talk with conforming lashes and brows and facial rigging. The figure is not compatible with Poser IK due to the rigging and body part naming conventions. There's also some weightmapping issues with the conformers.

A few years ago I created a bunch of fixes to address some of the issues, mostly fixing the cross talks and dependencies, and some morph packs and scaling features, and some V4 hair fits...

DForce Nun converted to dynamic fit for Nova...

Some of the custom eye scaling transforms and fixes to crosstalking conformers in action...

JCM/Conforming Pantie work...

Anyway, there's also a bunch of unfinished character, JCM morph files, fits that I was working on. Because the figure is so handicapped by no working IK, which is important to my particular Poser usage, and can't be fixed unless an overhaul of rigging and naming is done, I just shelved work with the figure. I've been actually working on my own peculiar sort of elaborate figure for the past year that's coming along nicely, tinkering being my main attraction to Poser, so I probably won't be working with anyone else's figures for a while. 

In terms of OPs work, he recently contacted me to share my smile fix work files, which I did share with him. Also a request to share the remainder of my various packs that I created as freebies for Nova. Considering that OP seems inclined to draw a profit and Kudos from his work on Nova (You'll need significant knowledge of Poser dependencies, value Ops, and minor weightmapping tasks if you really want to address the myriad of issues... Let alone the whole Genesis clone issue) I've decided to take a pass on sharing my packs.

Apologies and best of luck, the character you're creating looks interesting.

OK, so what you're saying is that this character doesn't really work in Poser? I am confused now.

It works. It doesn't have IK. It's expressions are broken. It's relative to what you consider broken I guess. My version has fixed expressions. Unless it gets re rigged there's no solution for the IK. And forget genital options unless you use subdivision morphs, which in itself is pretty non workable really. The mesh is really low detail as you would imagine a Genesis 8 base resolution to be. There's no content. There will never be any content. Still, the figure has it's charms. Its charming in the way an indy toon figure freebie has its charms. Which for someone like me as a Poser user is viable. If you like fixing stuff, creating morphs, custom textures all for your own personal use and amusement, yes viable.

It's no "contender" in other words. Although at this point the pool is so small it's moot I suppose.

If I were OP I'd release the character as a freebie and not invest too many pipe dreams in it. At least then perhaps someone would download and appreciate the work maybe. If it's even salable how many sales would it generate really? That is if it's even shareable as a full character due to merchant resource or IP considerations related to the textures. Alot of hoops and nonsense going along with commerce and working with/modifying premade assets. Compounded by the particular nature of this figure specifically. Phew. It's alot.

OP should have done himself a favor in this instance and designed the character with Antonia as a base. Figure is open source 100% (with attribution, and NOT the textures, a big one there). Just some rambling thoughts, since you asked.

One final note to OP. If you want to be a Rendo merchant designing characters, LF2 is your only realistic option. For the type of character you're designing LF2 would be a perfectly fine fit, and much easier besides in all aspects. The path of least resistance.

Just to clarify, are you saying that Nova began with an actual Genesis mesh but made mods to the geometry and UV mapping? Not sure that would be distributable, because it would be a derivative and against the DAZ TOS. 

So she really is based off DAZ's Genesis? That seems...risky.

And I don't get the appeal, if you can't use any of the Genesis clothing, textures, or morphs.

Oh wow.. We have a conversation. So gracious to here all of the responses.

primorge: Pretty please give those morphs. I was on your Nova page and clicked to try to receive your Nova fixes. But (Yes) it appears that you had stopped giving them and I could not respond on your page. So I created this page with some of my work of her. I believe your fixes will make the character better for use. 

And don't get me started on Antonia! I started with her first. I made some very realistic (Genesis 8 like) morphs and textures for her. I actually believe (like you) that she could be a strong asset for Poser's character future. But I have begged the community over and over to make her a Viseme Map Mouth Morph. I personally tried myself, met with failure every time. So, I gave up on Antonia and re-discovered Nova (even with all of her flaws). I believe Nova is a good enough character to create realistic morphs and textures on. No disrespect to the creators and endless hours of her creation but La Femme 2 still looks like a Manikin compared to even Genesis 3.

People want a visual realistic Poser character base. Especially after Genesis 9. I do think between Antonia or Nova there is a way for Poser! However, if (like you said) you have a new base you are working on, I am so open. Until then, Nova (for me) is the only character I've ran into where most things work to pull off very realistic visual morphs for her in Poser.

I still don't get it. She's pretty, but doesn't look very realistic to me. Which is fine, I personally don't like extreme realism in Poser figures. Too easy to fall into the uncanny valley.

You might take a look at Dawn 2, from Hivewire. She will be sold here, when she's finally ready. It's taking them awhile, but things seem to be moving again.

Why would someone render a derivative figure unable to utilize textures and content related with another companies proprietary asset? Especially if said derivative was created by a contracted artist who creates assets for said original product of competing software? Especially if it's just a one off cash grab project that in no way threatens the bottom line of said company and in light of a certain bridge software being rendered unusable by changes and a certain vocal demand amongst a certain community? 

Beats me.

How such a thing could slip through QA unnoticed is beyond me. Especially considering how certain features of the asset in question are undeniably broken?

Who knows?

Oddly enough figure is no longer available at Rendo. Shrug, quite a mystery.

In any case draw your own conclusions, it's merely opinion and speculation on my part.

I won't bother providing any elaborate illustrations, I've already voiced my opinion, and trust me when I say I've probably looked more deeply at the figure than maybe anybody... there's more extreme comparison to provide but... delete some edge loops, a bit of sculpting and scaling, some topology changes, move some shells around and some new cuts/unwrap passes, change from Udim to stacked, might produce something similar.

Anyway. Only because the question was forced, draw your own conclusions.

tchamberlain2 posted at 6:47 PM Sun, 7 July 2024 - #4487129

Oh wow.. We have a conversation. So gracious to here all of the responses.

primorge:

People want a visual realistic Poser character base. Especially after Genesis 9. I do think between Antonia or Nova there is a way for Poser! However, if (like you said) you have a new base you are working on, I am so open. Until then, Nova (for me) is the only character I've ran into where most things work to pull off very realistic visual morphs for her in Poser.

The thing I've been plodding away at wouldn't interest you. It's realistic and it's not, its female human but not. It can be pin up or sci fi/horror. It also doesn't compete in any way with the main conventional figures that everyone uses. What would that be? V4 and LF I guess. It's different but it can use V4 hairs out of the box. It's a one off. It's already done, including base textures and mats. I'm just faffing about with add ons and additional materials. I'll share it probably in the fall or when Rendo has their next freebie contest. Thanks for your interest though.

Sorry for the overly verbose hijack.

Hmmm .... it doesn't seem as though the Nova mesh is "totally original" as the product page claims. And that may be why it's no longer available at Rendo. 

I wouldn't touch it, tchamberlain2.  

And as a customer, I wouldn't touch it, either.

Aside from her provenance, I don't see what makes her more realistic than other Poser figures. She looks pretty low-res. Does she subdivide better than other figures or something?

I think Project Evolution looks a lot more realistic than Nova.

I don't know... Here's another character I've been creating out of NOVA. Like randym77 asked, it my be subdivided better. All I know is I like what I see. 

Now, if someone can help me create an Antonia's Viseme Map Mouth Morph, I will absolutely leave NOVA alone. 

Nice renders, but the only thing that reads "real" to me is the textures, which presumably could be done with any figure.

Which reminds me, Cath (Mec4D) is doing amazing stuff with PBR shaders for Dawn 2.

>>> I don't know... Here's another character I've been creating out of NOVA. Like randym77 asked, it my be subdivided better. All I know is I like what I see.  Now, if someone can help me create an Antonia's Viseme Map Mouth Morph, I will absolutely leave NOVA alone.

Realism or non-realism aside (I go with non-realistic) Nova is not a totally original mesh. It's obvious from the wireframes that primorge posted. Distributing a derivative of a DAZ mesh goes against their TOS, which Nova already does. So creating and distributing characters for a figure that already breaks DAZ TOS, whether FREE or PAID FOR product, is risky business because they would ALL be copyright violations.

You can do what you like for your own purposes, but giving away or selling the characters as products is really not wise.

Can't wait to see Dawn 2... The last Dawn was alright. However, I remember the Dawn site being shut down. I was disappointed being I bought a lot of stuff from that site (Hivewire). I guess I left her alone when that happened. My idea is to use or enhance a character from Poser that would be equivalent to G8. The only one that gave me play is Antonia and Nova (talking to the photo realism like a G8 or G9).

tchamberlain2 posted at 3:51 PM Mon, 8 July 2024 - #4487178

Can't wait to see Dawn 2... The last Dawn was alright. However, I remember the Dawn site being shut down. I was disappointed being I bought a lot of stuff from that site (Hivewire). I guess I left her alone when that happened. My idea is to use or enhance a character from Poser that would be equivalent to G8. The only one that gave me play is Antonia and Nova (talking to the photo realism like a G8 or G9).

Hivewire's store shut down, but their forums remain open. That's where they are posting renders of Dawn 2.

My purchases from Hivewire were transferred here. I think you had to request it. If you haven't done that, you should.

A bit OT but maybe not...

The Nova rabbithole goes a bit deeper than you'd think. I'm of the opinion that the creator had permission to use gen 8 as a source for standalone derivatives. Consider this; the creator of Nova, Vyuser, is a PA at Daz. A few years ago she was selling standalone figures very similar to Nova but only as Daz native figures. I purchased one of these standalone figures, Janna. It's basically a slightly modified gen8 figure mesh with slightly changed topology and UVs. It was being sold as an "original" standalone...

Here's the Janna mesh next to Nova in Poser. The mesh is a slightly less altered g8 clone than the Nova mesh, the texture base for both appears to be the same. Vyuser used to create texture MR for G8.

Being that these were originally being sold at Daz and are obviously G8 derivatives there's simply no way that such a thing would pass notice there. It's my opinion that Daz is totally aware of the nature of these "standalones", they sold them, for a while, in their own store. 

I wouldn't be so quick to think that Nova is an illegal figure in other words... the reasons why they were eventually pulled from Daz, and Nova was pulled from Renderosity, I wouldn't venture to guess. Maybe it just became inconvenient when people started noticing. Why would you pay standalone figure prices for a G8 morph/texture set maybe? 

Both Nova and the DS standalones, including Janna, are still available for purchase at another store. Daz doesn't seem very concerned about it.

As far as the realism thing goes? Yeah, none of these figures look real to me. Pretty or aesthetically appealing isn't the sole providence of "realism" 

Besides, if you're not interested in modeling, texturing, 3d animation, Shaders, etc side of Poser (and specifically Poser's way of doing such) and just want to make "realistic" depictions of aesthetically appealing women why are you bothering with Poser at all? AI is probably going to claim any potential new users that are interested in just that... I dont think this statement is a stretch of the imagination at all.

Interesting. It would be good to get some kind of official ruling.

I find her eyes in particular not realistic. Unnervingly so. They're too big, but not big enough to read as toon/anime. Just looks creepy to me. Though I assume that could be fixed.

primorge: Thank you for even more of the info. I've used Poser for a very long time. I would really not like to navigate away from it (being I absolute love it's platform). 

One of my short films got recognized for a film festival where I live (maybe 8 years back) and I was proud to have used Poser. Not Daz, Blender or 3d Max. I really want to prove that you can make near high end 3d animation specifically in Poser. I do not want Poser to die. I do have some of my complaints (as you have seen) but I am an absolute Poser Lover. Again, at least to it's platform and many features over Daz. Now don't get it twisted. I have not seen Poser (up to date) produce a better Model than G8. So Daz in my book is clear winner at 3d model, re-usable and morphable characters. I just want this on a Poser platform for my productions. It sucks using dson, bringing in G8 into Poser. I've got some nice render test in many different scenes. However, when you try to push her to her potential in Poser, the system will crash. For example try to put multiple G8 characters in a Poser scene. Just doesn't work. So I started playing back with the potential of characters made for Poser. Like I said, I'm loving Antonia and Nova is like having G8 inside of Poser with no crashes. I'm liking the geometry. I am always open to test other characters with my morph and texture creations . Don't write me off! I am just trying to hit it big with a Poser (already created) base. Maybe Dawn 2 will be good. We'll see..

randym77 If I am correct primorge corrected her eyes. He has to let us use his correction files for the fix. I've been rockin with or without them.

primorge is a pro at the study of Nova. He has a lot of fixes that he has made to her. I love them. I just wish I could use them.

tchamberlain2

You can sculpt/morph any model the way you want. It's nothing more than moving vertices. The problem is when you go outside the boundaries of the model, you have to make adjustments.

Antonia has a lot of potential. I created several morphs for her. I even fixed her upper eyelash bug when you close her eyes.

Solo24 posted at 1:03 PM Tue, 9 July 2024 - #4487206

tchamberlain2

You can sculpt/morph any model the way you want. It's nothing more than moving vertices. The problem is when you go outside the boundaries of the model, you have to make adjustments.

Antonia has a lot of potential. I created several morphs for her. I even fixed her upper eyelash bug when you close her eyes.

He said his issue with Antonia is she has no visemes, and he was unable to create them himself. I don't suppose you've done visemes for her?

Okay, this is way off topic, but could someone explain to me why this whole viseme business is such a challenge? Antonia's face morphs are based on one of Osipa's systems, so I'm assuming there shouldn't be much missing in order to create visemes. I tried, unsuccessfully, to find documentation on that famous morph map file or whatever it's called, so I can't say for sure. Is the problem here that no one who knows how to do it and has the skills to is in fact interested in doing it?

-- I'm not mad at you, just Westphalian.

odf posted at 6:29 PM Tue, 9 July 2024 - #4487221

Okay, this is way off topic, but could someone explain to me why this whole viseme business is such a challenge? Antonia's face morphs are based on one of Osipa's systems, so I'm assuming there shouldn't be much missing in order to create visemes. I tried, unsuccessfully, to find documentation on that famous morph map file or whatever it's called, so I can't say for sure. Is the problem here that no one who knows how to do it and has the skills to is in fact interested in doing it?

I think I can do it. Probably there's nobody left that would want too, or have the skill set to do so, other than you ODF. I'm actually percolating on that for my figure. How I'm doing it is creating viseme morphs that emulate V4's and naming them identically externally and internally likewise. Ditto with the Emotions face morphs, using the typical naming conventions. All in the head actor. But in a roundabout way. There's masters in the head AND body. The masters in the body are just drivers from that actor. So the main dependencies are in the head (which is mandatory for Talk Designer) but there's also a blank master that can drive that master if desired. Simply because everything other than the viseme stuff is actually primarily driven from the body actor... If that makes any sense.

Looking at the xml file for a V4 viseme map it should work. It's just I'm pretty busy with other things besides, but it's on my trajectory of things to finish. It should work just as V4's talk designer viseme map functions work. In theory. I'm not seeing anything that requires V4 other than like named morphs and facial emotions found in the head, the fc2 files accordingly, and naming like Blink and head turn/bend yada yada. So, in theory even if something has a different naming you could just change that required naming to match in the xml. We'll see. I think even if I run into snags I'll just elbow grease it into working, plus there's the animation idle blink timing stuff that would need to be probably adjusted. Just needs testing and trial and error I think. There's a V4 talk designer file(s) on share CG that can be referenced. Or even those that come with the Poser natives.

As far as doing it for Antonia. I'd rather get it ironed out with my own project honestly. I'm just too busy with that, and other features besides. Sorry.

As far as Antonia goes... and this is directed at OP. If your interested in some additional morphs for Antonia 1.3 I actually used to work quite a bit with that figure. I created a pretty elaborate eye morph set that turned out good and also some breast morphs/shapekey physics type morphs...

pr_BreastMorphs Download

pr_EyeMorphs Download

A preview gif of the eye scaling on Antonia, theres also copious other options such as translates and such transforms, lash, pupil, iris etc morphs and utilities...

As an aside I was also working on a very elaborate head/body shape, expression, JCM character set for Ant 1.3 called Svetlanka. Basically what it comprises is a new face and body shape and expression dials and JCMs (single, double, and some triple axis JCMs) built around that new base... it's still a WIP but I'll probably return to tinkering about with it sometime in the future. Believe it or not here's just SOME of the dials. (Epilepsy Warning)...

Here's a Firefly render and a couple of preview animations I did using Svetlanka...

Svetlanka is a default small breasted gal but she, for some reason, grows enormous boobs when denied a certain iron rich essential bodily fluid (it's a long story). Here she is chillaxin', follically challenged at the moment, and also demonstrating how to rig a simple helmet conformer from an old forum thread...

Anyway. Yeah, Antonia.

Thanks for the info, primorge! If you get it to work with your personal project and it doesn't look like a massive p.i.t.a., I might consider viseme support as an add-on or minor upgrade for Antonia.

-- I'm not mad at you, just Westphalian.

These are some of the characters I made for for Antonia. Because of no visemes, I stopped and went to Nova.

 

 

That last body shape seems too extreme to me.  I don't think I've ever seen hips that are that much wider than shoulders.

DeeceyArt posted at 5:24 PM Wed, 10 July 2024 - #4487277

That last body shape seems too extreme to me.  I don't think I've ever seen hips that are that much wider than shoulders.

Gracie bon...

https://youtube.com/shorts/FRAb440ugPk?si=UPA24RkejMciRFYX

Well, now I've seen one.  LOL

That can't be natural. I've been watching too much "Botched" ... people usually go in to fix issues like that. I can't imagine sitting on that "ba donka donk"  LOL

primorge posted at 7:52 PM Wed, 10 July 2024 - #4487284

DeeceyArt posted at 5:24 PM Wed, 10 July 2024 - #4487277

That last body shape seems too extreme to me.  I don't think I've ever seen hips that are that much wider than shoulders.

Gracie bon...

https://youtube.com/shorts/FRAb440ugPk?si=UPA24RkejMciRFYX

SERIOUSLY!  I really can't believe that.

Come to Atlanta.

Nova had one interesting feature: her 'A' pose zero. This is a major advantage when you work with dynamic clothing. After Ali's Angela and Ang2 this Nova and Neo were the only ready available figures in the Poserverse having this featuring this, and,  at the time, reason for me to jump on, buy, and fix things on my copy.  

Now there's LaFemme2. No reason to go back.

Niesha for Poser's Nova (Character). Something I've been working on. Nova base character used to be available here at renderosity but is now at:

renderhub

She's almost ready: