Digging into 8.1, day 1. With pictures.
cajhin
Posts: 154
I was curious about 8.1, bought Mousso's Ginny because it comes in both an 8.0 and a 'real' 8.1 version.
For your convenience, I'll attach two images with my first impressions:
1. Side-by-Side Portraits for general appearance, and testing some expressions that exist for both 8.0 and 8.1
2. Eye area closeups
(left>right or top>bottom: BJ Amira / Ginny 8.1 / Ginny 8.0 / Victoria 8 )
This is not a better/worse figure comparo or a beauty contest (I think those are frowned upon here anyway), it's about the differences of 8.1.
This is not scientific and I'm not a pro. I post this at the end of the day, because nobody else did (?) and I was interested in this.
Various notes...
- Bog standard Sun-Sky light, I hope that's fair (every skin has it's favorite light)
- the lighting angle and shadows vary slightly, the figures actually stand side by side
- V8 looks a bit dated, but that's ok, I believe it's the first G8F ever made. I included her because a) it's Vic and b) I think many PAs studied the V8 shaders. It's generally quite translucent and tends to glow a bit too red (nose, corners of eyes and the mouth)
- Included a Bluejaunte, those are my go-to reference skins for 'looks real'
(DAZ, I know you're busy and all, but can you give the BJ 8.1 figure a fast-track treatment? Pretty please? I need it :)
Issues...
- Ginny 8.1 is a bit broken. Out of the box she has a yellowish tint (see portraits 2-5) and strangely dull eyes.
I found out late that you have to manually apply the 8.1 MATs after creating the figure. - with 8.1, expressions are not listed under 'Currently used', which is inconvenient. Only the sub-poses that were dialed in by the expression are listed.
- Gaah. This feeds one of my pet peeves. I actually hope that selling a figure with both 8.0 and 8.1 MATs will NOT become standard. Because nobody ever labels the icons, so you get "Eyes01" and "Eyes01". Now in the "genesis8" and the "genesis8" folders. Somewhere down in the filename or a subfolder there might be a hint if it's 8.0 or 8.1. This is a microannoyance 30 times a day with iray/3dl g3/g8 already...
Opinions... (those might change anytime)
- To my eyes, the new PBRSkin shaders look a bit more subdued, less intense gloss, less red
- for a Mousso figure I might prefer 8.0 shaders (IMO these ladies aim for max pretty, not ultimate realism, so a slightly more 'flashy' skin suits well)
- I don't really notice the better resulution on the neck, resulting from the new UVs (Vampires with a neck fetish might disagree here)
- For expressions, overall, no contest; 8.1 is a big improvement
Daz 3D is part of 
Connect
DAZ Productions, Inc.
7533 S Center View Ct #4664
West Jordan, UT 84084
Licensing Agreement | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | EULA
© 2025 Daz Productions Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Comments
I'm really looking forward to this, but I am not sure which character is which in the first image. It's not obvious to me maybe because I am still not that familiar with G8s. Any chance you could include a label or description to clear that up?
*why won't it read??* (southpark)
left>right or top>bottom: BJ Amira / Ginny 8.1 / Ginny 8.0 / Victoria 8
The PBR skins I've seen remind me of nothing so much as the skin of embalmed corpses. That's with me being of an age where one has been to a bunch of funerals of family, friends and acquaintances. The Uber skins may have their flaws, but they don't look as flat and bloodless.
Thanks!
Uber is killing it so far. Although the topmost example of PBR is pretty nice. BJ still wins by a mile.
This is my take on 8.1 so far:
At first I was very excited about 8.1, then I failed to see the improvements the new UV has. I figured it would help with texture stretching but I don't see any difference.
Then I realized the new PBRSkin shader is not really tied to using 8.1 so, again, not sure why should I use 8.1 instead of 8.
I also noticed the face control prop is the same thing I already bought for genesis 3/8 so another reason to not care about 8.1
If you really like the new eyelash/tear thing, you can just delete the old one and load them on a genesis 8 figure, as far as I know.
On the other hand, considering almost everything from g8 works on g8.1, I don't see many reasons to not use 8.1. But then I get deeper into the "almost" and get conflicted whether to use it or not. Here is why:
I rarely use premade expressions so I don't mind not being able to use g8 expression packs, the only reason I even have some is because they came with bundles. Personally I love the new pose controls for the face too.... BUT.... and this is the conflicting part.... it really annoys me they didn't keep the old controls too.. I use a lot of those and if I want to get the same results in 8.1 I pretty much have to use PowerPose which is slower. I understand they are going for more natural and realistic stuff and I assume they removed those because "a normal face wouldn't be able to do this anyway" in most cases, but in my case I like to exaggerate expressions so it hurts my workflow most of the time.
I know it might seem like something minor but for me it is pretty much the only real difference and until I do some more workflow testing for expressions I rather not buy 8.1 only characters because I'm not sure if I'll be able to use the textures anyway (which is like 83% of the reason I get a character).
I got Vicky 8.1 due to hype and got a 8.1 only Mousso character because I didn't realize it wasn't for genesis 8 until it was too late but that's it until I can find a reason to switch. Heck... even if I end using 8.1, stuff like Cleopatra 8.1...really?.... when Twosret 8 and the other one (can't remember the name right now) were released back to back not that long ago... not really picking up my interest. Torment 8.1 seems cool though. Genesis 8 skipped the "demon stuff" so I thought we were getting also an "Anneka 8.1" (Torment being pretty much Damien 8.1)
Getting expressions to work on 8.1 isn't that hard. There's a thread floating around about how to do it. (You just hide two folders). Additionally, I didn't buy the face control thing because I couldn't find it cheap enough, so the free face rig is nice. So my biggest complaint is the shader: the new PBR shader doesn't look that good a lot of times. Lighting it can be hard and it often looks dull and lifeless. It might not render properly in 4.12 either, which is what I'm using ever since I realized that 4.15 takes a whopping 2GB VRAM extra just for the software. My GPU is pretty old and I need to get all the mileage I can out of it.
However: Torment is gorgeous in my opinion. I got the character for a great price and am really happy I did. I like the horns, the tail, and the skins. Since Torment uses the PBR shader, I have to use 4.15 when I want to use the skin. I have both 4.12 and 4.15 installed on my computer, so it's pretty easy to switch between them. I just have to be careful about doing large scenes with those particular skins.
I will probably avoid PBR skin shaders for now, just so I can maximize the flexibility of my characters.
But like I said, that doesn't really have anything to do with G8.1 so it isn't really a pro or a con for that figure. Unless the new UV actually makes the new shader better, I can't think of that a reason why they keep acting like the shader is part of the 8.1 combo. I have yet to test that but I don't think it will matter and PAs should be able to sell G8 characters with both shaders if they want. I got the latest Mousso character that has textures for G8 and G8.1, and iirc, both shader settings. Going to do some testing with that soon.
Good to know you can get G8 expressions to work for G8.1 but my issue isn't the expressions, it's the face pose controls. I like the new stuff but I wish they also kept a lot of the controls G8 has. I'm thinking there should be a way to import those to G8.1, even easy to do most likely, but haven't had the time to mess with it.
@Sevrin: now that you mention it, the ginny 8.1 skin does indeed look a bit bloodless.
That's realistic though. I mean, do you never wonder why most DAZ ladies look 23 eternally, after all that hard life in countless renders?
I tried to revive the Ginny PBRSkin. Ingestion of blood didn't help. Fiddling with the shaders did, slightly. I could tune in more, but then I was back in candle town. Not excited about my results.
UberShader Ensley, in that pale spectral render light, is still way ahead (though that says nothing about Uber vs. PBRS - Michelangelo's stuff doesn't look better than mine because the older marble was better). I'll wait and see what the upper echelons of members and PAs come up with.