What is 'backward compatible' for G8 and what isn't?

Honzo

What is 'backward compatible' for G8 and what isn't? It seems that the expressions for V4 do not work with G8. I see that some autofit stuff will transfer if you know what figure it was for, but some won't (such as shoes for Michael- the fitter doesn't offer the choice 'shoes' so it just dumps them on the ground). 

While I can see how technical issues might prevent some kinds of backward compatibility, it's frustrating not to have a clear, up-front indication of the kinds of things that can work with different figures. Is there some documentation on this?

FSMCDesigns

In general poses don't really translate, but there are converters, some pay and some free.

Clothing/.hair, with the right clones or converters you can pretty much autofit any clothing/hair other than heels which have been problematic since genesis 1. When autofitting, if there isn't a specific clothing type, just use full body when applicable.

Textures, they tend to be more figure UV specific. There are some products that allow older skins to be used on G8 and vice versa with the use of geografts (look for Cayman Studios in the store).

Morphs, with the use of GenX you can transfer most morphs from V4 all the way up to G3. There are then a couple of converters to transfer morphs from G3 to G8.

 

In general the backwards compatibility is there, but minimal which makes sense since DAZ is a marketplace first and foremost and relies on users purchasing items to stay in business.

Keep in mind that many of the tools and products made to help with backwards compatibility are designed to work only in the target app, Daz Studio, so using them outside of the native app might be a problem.

Honzo

Thank you for the information. It's interesting what you say about Daz being a'marketplace first and foremost.'  Certainly users of the product think of it first as a tool to use, not a method to extract money from them. There really ought to be some kind of balance. I also have seen a fair amount of discussion in various places about how program devs are constrained from improving the product (the 'tool') by the installed asset base that users don't want to give up. I tend to think that it would actually be good for sales of a lot of things if there were more compatibality, not less, and I'm a new user with no investment in Daz assets at all. In fact, the headaches of compatibility and files systems makes me tend toward NOT investing in Daz assets, but spending my efforts in Blender, if I'm going to have to fix everything anyway. 

My attraction to Daz is very simple- a vision of convenience, for certain things, like fitting assets, using preset animations and expressions, and similar things. This lack of internal compatibility makes these things a lot less convenient. I still have hope for including Daz in my pipeline, but I keep running into issues that just require too much work to resolve, for what they are. This would be one thing if Daz could really function as my 'homebase' application, but it simply can't. I suspect that most of the 'convenience' functions of Daz will be coming to Blender pretty soon, and if history is any guide, they will work faster and smoother. The good news, if Daz really is a marketplace first and foremost, is that this will open a bigger market for many kinds of assets.

The Daz program being free, it would seem to be a good marketing strategy to, at the very least, create conversion applications to make Daz assets work reliably in other programs.

FSMCDesigns

Just for clarification, you have the DAZ mesh assets and then the app (Daz Studio) to use them in. While the users can think of DS as a tool, it's main purpose is more than likely a catalyst for sales from the store. I doubt DAZ would even exist if the store wasn't making money. The DAZ marketplace isn't like standard 3D stores like turbosquid, CGTrader or flatpyramid that only sell 3D assets in universal formats at prices high enough to cover most uses and licenses. I do personally think of DAZ and DS as a method of income for DAZ. Afterall, they have employees that have bills to pay and the money needs to come from somewhere.

I fail to see how more compatibiliy would equal more sales since users would have no reason to purchase new versions of anything when they can use existing versions. This is a small, niche market so every penny counts. There are many generations of figures and while each new one brings some new features to the table, it's becoming harder and harder to get users to buy into new generations when the old ones still work fine and without that buyin, sales stagnate and the company does as well. Based off my experience in 3d and the gaming community, I feel that if DAZ was only the store and no DS and the assets were in universal formats that could be used anywhere, they would be making less than half of what they do in catering to the hobbyists community that uses DS. I'd love to see a plan that allows the mesh assets to work in other apps AND have it be financially sound, but I honesly can't think of how that would even work, .

While the backwards compatibility is minimal without extra tools and plugins, the way things work together inside of DS is truly amazng when you think about how much of the functionality on how it all works is because of Daz Studio since these functions don't translate well in normal modeling apps like Blender and Maya. I can't imagine with all the work that DAZ has put into adding these types of functionalies into DS that they would abandon it or allow it to be less than another app like blender or maya..

Honzo

You may be right, clearly the Daz people agree with you. It does seem to me, though, that Daz prices are not cheap, especially when you factor in the various layers of add-ons that seem to be needed to make use of many things. I think the hobbyests are pretty much a captive market because, on the one hand, they don't want to go to the trouble of learning how to make their own assets- perfectly legit, I certainly don't want to make ALL my own assets- and on the other, they really don't want to buy the same thing multiple times to be able to use it on a somewhat improved figure, or whatever. So, they are unlikely to make the jump to a competing platform unless they have a really frustrating time with Daz. Assuming the average hobbyest does not have the kind of budget a game studio or movie studio has for assets, more compatibility makes buying assets a better investment for the hobbyest, and I think most of them will spend money they didn't have to spend on an updated version of something they already have, on more Daz assets.
The only way to know for sure, of course, is for Daz to radically change its business plan, which I don't expect, but it wouldn't surprise me if someone else didn't jump in with a more flexible, user-oriented approach.