Why call something HD if it's clearly SD
nickalaman
Posts: 196
I was looking at a recent release that has HD posted all over it's renders.. I looked at the rendered and I don't see anything HD about them. There's a close up of the face, the lips don't even have a bump map...
I don't get it..
It would be nice if there was a certain level of detail required before you could post HD all over a charector.
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It would be usefull if you'd provide us with what Item you are talking about. :-)
I don't want to target an individual artists, because I see this happening often. But if you look at the last HD releases you will see what I mean.
Any time the technology is used, it gets the HD designation as it provides more polygons for the PA to work with in their products. It does not have to be high poly 3 subdivisions as sometimes that brings some user's machines to a crawl.
Maybe it is time that the HD morph tool is made available to everyone.
For more than a year DAZ 3D artists have had exclusive use of the HD morph tool.
They had a head start but what have they achieved so far?
Where are all the detailed character faces with
- scars
- moles
- fine lines around the eyes
- fine lines around the mouth when people laugh
- fine lines between the brows when people frown
Where are the 8000x8000 textures that should come along with high detail?
In some cases some artists made truely impressive use of the HD morph tool and included some of those features.
But compared to any 3d characters of current generation games or the computer graphics in feature lenght movies the vast majority of characters looks like flat toon figures with no remarkable facial features at all.
All you can find is extremes like aging morphs but you can not find all the fine details found in the faces of average people.
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There was not much point to argue about this much as long as the majority of people was using 3Delight.
But now with the realistic light options of Iray I guess everyone can see how flat characters look without any modeled detail.
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It does not seem like many of the current artists represented by DAZ are willing to learn how to work with software like Zbrush or Mudbox if they have not done that allready.
Maybe when some artists could see what some of the normal users or the much needed competition are creating they would finally be motivated to learn new techniques.
Maybe it is also time DAZ would welcome some new artists that allready have the skills to create high detail characters many people would like to purchase licenses to use.
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Creating displacement maps for characters is unnecessariliy time consuming and just leads to poke trough with clothing without extreme care and further adjustment of the clothing as well.
The ability to create high resolution morphs for subdivision levels is more practical and a quicker solution.
Witholding the HD morph tool wasted countless hours of all users who own Zbrush or Mudbox.
I hope DAZ finally releases the HD morph tool for everyone as soon as possible.
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so, you can't export a subdivided obj and do your morph work on it?
what's special about the HD Tool?
we want HD other stuff too!!!
HD houses, furniture etc
I have Zbrush am slowly painfully learning to use it,
would be nice if could do HD details on stuff myself instead of just importing the highpoly meshes which I end up with.
Anyone can export a subdivided G2 mesh and work on it, but what we can't do without this HD morph loader (or whatever it is) is import that mesh back in again and load it as a morph on Genesis or whatever.
The standard Morph Loader will only load meshes at base resolution—well it will load them, but you will get an error that the vertices don't match.
Any artist can create "HD" architecture and props though, and I'd say that someone like Stonemason is already doing that. I'm all for it—low rez props usually stick out like a sore thumb in renders with HD figures (unless they are distant, I suppose).
DAZ welcomes new artists all the time. They are pretty much always on the look out for new high quality content creators so perhaps you should suggest to who ever your talking about that they submit some products.
Anyone can export a subdivided G2 mesh and work on it, but what we can't do without this HD morph loader (or whatever it is) is import that mesh back in again and load it as a morph on Genesis or whatever.
The standard Morph Loader will only load meshes at base resolution—well it will load them, but you will get an error that the vertices don't match.
Any artist can create "HD" architecture and props though, and I'd say that someone like Stonemason is already doing that. I'm all for it—low rez props usually stick out like a sore thumb in renders with HD figures (unless they are distant, I suppose).
aww. import is important :lol:
i wanted to make dimples and nose morph for my Gianni's HD head. bummers
aww. import is important :lol:
i wanted to make dimples and nose morph for my Gianni's HD head. bummers
There's always displacement - if it's for a specific character the fact that the maps will work with only one UV set isn't going to be an issue, which is one of the benefits of HD over displacement in general use.
I though the "certain level of detail" was 720p - 1080p which is the standard requirement to HD.
If were talking 3D maybe they need to change the name to something that does not already have a standard definition for something else like SUPER-SUB-3D (tm)
DAZ welcomes new artists all the time. They are pretty much always on the look out for new high quality content creators so perhaps you should suggest to who ever your talking about that they submit some products.
Absolutely. The second someone comes up with a character with every mole and pore sculpted over the entire body and a matching 8000x8000 texture, DAZ will snap that right up.
HD Gens!
(Hey, someone had to bring it up. :snake: )
Standard workflow:
- Export .obj at default resolution to modeling application
example of a default resolution: 100'000 vertices
Option A Displacement
- subdivide the model
the example model has now 1'000'000 or even 10'000'000 vertices
- rearange the imported mesh so the original surfaces are recreated
- import allready existing displacement maps
- bake displacement
- combine the different surfaces / subtools to one mesh / surface
- model additional detail at highest subdivision level
- recreate the original surfaces
- create new displacement maps
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Option B "standard" morph
- use tools that do not alter the original geometry to create a new shape
examples: move, pinch etc.
- export new shape as .obj and create morph
Example: The amount of detail you can capture stays at 100'000 vertices
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Option C "HD" morph
- subdivide the model
the example model has now 1'000'000 or even 10'000'000 vertices
- use tools that do not alter the original geometry to create a new shape
examples: move, pinch etc.
- export new shape as .obj and create HD morph
Example: The amount of detail you can capture covers to full 1'000'000 or 10'000'000 vertices
You can dial in the addtional details by rasing the subdivision level to 3 in DAZ Studio.
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Comparison:
- Both displacement and HD morphs offer a lot more detail than standard morphs
- creating standard and HD morphs is the quicker workflow than creating displacement maps
creating a HD morph may take 5 minutes, the whole displacement workflow may take up to an hour
Especially if there are a lot of different surfaces that first need to be combined and then separated again.
- Both standard and HD morphs can be dialed in with other shapes
- Displacment maps are a great way to capture detail for all surfaces
- HD morphs are a great way to quickly add detail in a specific area
If you are creating a character from scratch both HD morphs and displacement are a viable option
If you want to add detail to an existing character creating a HD morph would be the faster and more versatile option.
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Consequences:
Currently the user does not have a choice.
- Users are forced to use the much longer and more complicated displacement workflow.
- Without access to the HD morph tool many users will not even try out creating morphs.
What is the point of spending time creating high resolution detail if you cannot import the morph at the highest quality resolution you can model?
- In the past artists who sold content at other stores gained experience creating high quality 3d models and then switched to DAZ.
Without access to the HD morph tool they cannot improve their technique either.
The whole community is stuck in a state without competition and improvement.
- Artists working at DAZ have an unfair advantage over all the customers who actually payed for licenses to use the content.
If a 3rd party offers a commision to create artworks the DAZ artists can use the HD morph tool to quickly in a time efficient way add some detail to the model the client provided.
But all the normal customers of DAZ have no access to that tool and have to work with a more time consuming workflow.
Customers are put in a postion were they cannot compete with the partner artists of DAZ.
The ultimate consequence is that even those customers who actually want to improve and learn new techniques are hindered in reaching their full potential because someone deceided not to share the HD morph tool with all customers.
This isn't a true statement as the tool is only for use for products in the DAZ3D Store. Separate commissions still have to be done in the traditional sculpting/normal map/displacement technique that everyone else does. So no advantage there and artists working on commissions should already know how to do this if they are working with low poly figures. If using zbrush, you can always sculpt at a higher resolution, add the low poly model as a subtool and project the details to the lower poly morph and create the necessary normal or displacement maps.
As I mentioned, learning and growing isn't dependent on a tool that adds more detail, it depends on that person's skill to manipulate a mesh using available tools and methodologies. Artists in other parts of the 3D spectrum haven't even heard of HD and yet they're using their tools and experience to create works of art not reliant upon it.
Also: HD is not a magic bullet. It demands system resources in a way that displacement and normal maps don't. Sometimes it is not the right tool for the job if you need to add detail but still optimize for time.
The HD morph loader is a tool that simply tells DS how to use the higher res mesh of the same model as a morph that they end user can access in DAZ Studio.
Thanks for clearing up points that at least to me were unknown.
I did not know that the artists at DAZ have some restrictions to consider and cannnot freely use the HD morph tool for all purposes but only when creating for the DAZ store.
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What is the real reason why DAZ does not want to share the HD morph tool with all customers?
Do they want to prevent that other companies or artists use the tool to create HD content for other figures?
Are they worried that content for DAZ figures is sold in other stores at higher qualites?
There would be a simple solution for that:
Give DAZ customers a license to use the HD morph tool with the restriction that the tool cannot be used to create 3d figures and addon products to be sold in other stores that sell content that is considered as direct competition to DAZ 3D content.
This is allready covered in the EULA:
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Source: http://www.daz3d.com/eula
DAZ has all legal options in place to prevent that artists sell derived products based on their content or software.
I want to be able to use the HD morph tool to create better looking 2d images, games or 3d prints as far as they are allready covered by the existing license.
I do NOT want to use the HD morph tool to create 3d content sold in other stores.
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Why is there a need to hold something back that would make the life of customers easier and better and give them a chance to create high quality art in a more reasonable time?
I think this quote within itself is a good reason not to let the tool out in the wild. Some of the more elaborate morphs like the ones from Rawart and Antfarm took **hours** to do at the highest subdivision level that the tool will accept without bringing down user's systems. The only thing that really got replaced was instead of generating normal maps against that sculpt, the HD tool was used. If people do not understand that the tool is not replacement for the effort to make the product and to learn the basics, then they honestly have a lot to learn about the process first. It's not a golden bullet or a make art button.
Is it so difficult to understand that this makes me angry every single day?
This will not replace the effort to actually create the morph. You create the morph, create the map, you use that result once. The tool will not replace this effort. The tool is just another way to display your result, but the work has to be learned and created to get to the point of creating either a high resolution normal map, displacement map, or a sculpt to feed to the tool. That's really the thing you need to understand. How well that output looks is dependent on what you learn and your experience in creating sculpts before you get to the point of using this tool.
Displacement is a little broken in iray at this time.
I think this quote within itself is a good reason not to let the tool out in the wild. Some of the more elaborate morphs like the ones from Rawart and Antfarm took **hours** to do at the highest subdivision level that the tool will accept without bringing down user's systems. The only thing that really got replaced was instead of generating normal maps against that sculpt, the HD tool was used. If people do not understand that the tool is not replacement for the effort to make the product and to learn the basics, then they honestly have a lot to learn about the process first. It's not a golden bullet or a make art button..
The criteria of what an average "user's systems" can handle is only something DAZ artists have to care about.
Customers only have to worry about what their own system can handle.
As I explained I do NOT want to create content to compete with DAZ artists.
I simply want to create an image at the highest possible quality in the fastest possible time.
If the customer feels that he only wants to invest 5 minutes to create a quick morph for the eye wrinkles then that is his choice.
If the customer feels that he wants to invest multiple hours or several days to create a truely detailed character that should be his choice as well.
Point is the customer should be able to CHOOSE whatever workflow HE or SHE thinks is best for HIS or HER needs.
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Maybe I did not focus on that part enough:
The customer may also want to be able to reuse the work for several characters!
- If a DAZ artist made the extra effort to create a HD morph he can save it and use it with all other Genesis shapes by dialing it in.
Example: You can dial in multiple morphs and combine them with more or less success.
- A customer only has the option to create displacement maps and has to do all the detail work again for another character.
As far as I know the current render engines for DAZ Studio do not have an option to blend together different displacement maps.
And even if there was such an option it probably would not work as well as blending morphs.
So far I never saw a displacment map in the DAZ store that offers detail only for certain areas like the eye wrinkles.
But you can find morphs that offer detail for only some areas.
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Mixing morphs is the core selling argument of the Genesis generation.
And now you do not want to grant customers the ability to create their own HD morphs so they can mix and match them with all the licensed content they purchased?
I'd like to purchase the HD Tool module/plugin as well...
The criteria of what an average "user's systems" can handle is only something DAZ artists have to care about.
Customers only have to worry about what their own system can handle.
As I explained I do NOT want to create content to compete with DAZ artists.
I simply want to create an image at the highest possible quality in the fastest possible time.
If the customer feels that he only wants to invest 5 minutes to create a quick morph for the eye wrinkles then that is his choice.
If the customer feels that he wants to invest multiple hours or several days to create a truely detailed character that should be his choice as well.
Point is the customer should be able to CHOOSE whatever workflow HE or SHE thinks is best for HIS or HER needs.
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Maybe I did not focus on that part enough:
The customer may also want to be able to reuse the work for several characters!
- If a DAZ artist made the extra effort to create a HD morph he can save it and use it with all other Genesis shapes by dialing it in.
Example: You can dial in multiple morphs and combine them with more or less success.
- A customer only has the option to create displacement maps and has to do all the detail work again for another character.
As far as I know the current render engines for DAZ Studio do not have an option to blend together different displacement maps.
And even if there was such an option it probably would not work as well as blending morphs.
So far I never saw a displacment map in the DAZ store that offers detail only for certain areas like the eye wrinkles.
But you can find morphs that offer detail for only some areas.
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Mixing morphs is the core selling argument of the Genesis generation.
And now you do not want to grant customers the ability to create their own HD morphs so they can mix and match them with all the licensed content they purchased?
I think you're missing the point, and until you get it it's no need to go round around about it, so I'm going to bow out. HD is not a replacement for learning how to make morphs and the methodology associated with it. It will not save you any time on making the morphs. As the other tools are available for no cost to you, HD will probably be something unique to the DAZ3D and only available to those that are selling through this store. If DAZ feels this tech is something that they want to keep for their own store brand and not for the masses, they are well within their right to do so. If others feel that they can do a better job with the technology, they are most certainly welcome to apply to be a PA apply to get access to the tools.
With all due respect, MaleMedia, I don't understand where you are getting the idea that anybody else in this thread has been suggesting that access to the tool is some kind of shortcut to any particular skill. As an impartial observer (I am not a content creator and will probably never be one, and I am not particularly interested in "HD" at this point, nor am I bemoaning the lack of access to the tool) I didn't get any of what you are suggesting in reading the thread. Here is what I did get:
1. There is a tool referred to as the HD Tool that DAZ PAs have access to that others do not. True?
2. The HD Tool allows subdivided meshes for current generation figures to be imported into DAZ Studio. True?
3. Without the HD Tool subdivided meshes for current generation figures cannot be imported into DAZ Studio. True?
4. If someone wishes to access the HD Tool, they can do so by submitting content to DAZ for consideration for sale and having it accepted, thus becoming PAs. True?
5. Anyone not wishing to become a Published Artist or whose content is not accepted is out of luck if they wish to create HD content for DAZ figures for their own use in DAZ Studio. True?
Finally, I believe that it is the latter point that is being decried by most of the posts that I have read, and that has nothing to do with shortcuts to content creation as far as I can tell.
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It does not seem like many of the current artists represented by DAZ are willing to learn how to work with software like Zbrush or Mudbox if they have not done that allready.
Maybe when some artists could see what some of the normal users or the much needed competition are creating they would finally be motivated to learn new techniques.
Maybe it is also time DAZ would welcome some new artists that allready have the skills to create high detail characters many people would like to purchase licenses to use.
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Creating displacement maps for characters is unnecessariliy time consuming and just leads to poke trough with clothing without extreme care and further adjustment of the clothing as well.
The ability to create high resolution morphs for subdivision levels is more practical and a quicker solution.
Witholding the HD morph tool wasted countless hours of all users who own Zbrush or Mudbox.
I hope DAZ finally releases the HD morph tool for everyone as soon as possible.
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What are there tools only for PA's? The mystery PA hidden daz forum excist?
A golden place full of written detailed manuals for daz PA's..
(it can't be all try or error and wasting time in testing how daz software works).
Isn't the only program you need for all this HD stuff, just called Zbrush?
With all due respect, MaleMedia, I don't understand where you are getting the idea that anybody else in this thread has been suggesting that access to the tool is some kind of shortcut to any particular skill. As an impartial observer (I am not a content creator and will probably never be one, and I am not particularly interested in "HD" at this point, nor am I bemoaning the lack of access to the tool) I didn't get any of what you are suggesting in reading the thread. Here is what I did get:
1. There is a tool referred to as the HD Tool that DAZ PAs have access to that others do not. True?
2. The HD Tool allows subdivided meshes for current generation figures to be imported into DAZ Studio. True?
3. Without the HD Tool subdivided meshes for current generation figures cannot be imported into DAZ Studio. True?
4. If someone wishes to access the HD Tool, they can do so by submitting content to DAZ for consideration for sale and having it accepted, thus becoming PAs. True?
5. Anyone not wishing to become a Published Artist or whose content is not accepted is out of luck if they wish to create HD content for DAZ figures for their own use in DAZ Studio. True?
Finally, I believe that it is the latter point that is being decried by most of the posts that I have read, and that has nothing to do with shortcuts to content creation as far as I can tell.
1. All PAs can have access to it, but only if they sign an additional contract.
2. True, that is pretty much the only thing it does (if you drop the current generation part, it works for any mesh i think)
3. They can be imported, just not as morphs for the original figure.
4. Dunno
5. True
DAZ makes money from selling content in their store. I don't see anything wrong with them utilizing technology they developed to lure more PAs to the store. It makes a whole lot of sense really.
With all due respect, MaleMedia, I don't understand where you are getting the idea that anybody else in this thread has been suggesting that access to the tool is some kind of shortcut to any particular skill. As an impartial observer (I am not a content creator and will probably never be one, and I am not particularly interested in "HD" at this point, nor am I bemoaning the lack of access to the tool) I didn't get any of what you are suggesting in reading the thread. Here is what I did get:
1. There is a tool referred to as the HD Tool that DAZ PAs have access to that others do not. True?
2. The HD Tool allows subdivided meshes for current generation figures to be imported into DAZ Studio. True?
3. Without the HD Tool subdivided meshes for current generation figures cannot be imported into DAZ Studio. True?
4. If someone wishes to access the HD Tool, they can do so by submitting content to DAZ for consideration for sale and having it accepted, thus becoming PAs. True?
5. Anyone not wishing to become a Published Artist or whose content is not accepted is out of luck if they wish to create HD content for DAZ figures for their own use in DAZ Studio. True?
Finally, I believe that it is the latter point that is being decried by most of the posts that I have read, and that has nothing to do with shortcuts to content creation as far as I can tell.
I think what MaleMedia was trying to explain was that not having the HD tool does not prevent anyone from learning how to create HD morphs. Customers wanting to use the details from the HD work would have to utilize things such as displacement rather than as morphs. As elele points out, this is a tool that draws artists into a working relationship with DAZ.
Many companies have internal tools or software that are not available outside of the company. It is common practice.
Wendy when are you going to be a DAZ Vendor I have been waiting waiting and waiting. Come on girl get with it, you have a huge fan base !
I gathered that, too, Chris. Missed it on my list. :)
As I mentioned, I'm not on one side or the other of the issue as it is not something that plays a role in what I want to do. Personally, if fine details are what are required, I think displacement is a more logical solution anyway since that is exactly the thing it is designed for as I understand it. Or bump maps for that matter. But under the circumstances, that's easy for me to say, I guess.
Thanks for the response.
Update/Edit:
Removed information about what may or may not be possible with Hexagon.
Based on the reply by Khory I was under the wrong impression that Hexagon also offers functionality that could be used in combination with the HD morph tool.
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In business schools they teach that a successful company should not in any case compete with their own customers creating an end product but instead should support the customer in every possible way to achieve the end product.
I supported the Genesis generation of DAZ and even voted for it in 3D world magazine as a revolutionary technology.
The core reason for me was that I can mix morphs of licensed content with morphs I create on my own.
Do you remember that until 2011 with DAZ studio pro some users actually PAID to use software with all the advanced tools to transfer morphs?
With the introduction of the HD morphs that core promise has not anymore been kept.
There was an update to the transfer technology but it was not shared with everyone.
Only DAZ artists can now mix their own morphs at the highest quality.
Customers are not in the postion to do that because the needed tool was not shared with everyone.
The only reason why there is not a public outrage about this is because it is a minority that uses software like zbrush and mudbox.
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I really hope that DAZ comes to the understanding that even if customers with access to zbrush and mudbox are only a minority they still spend money in the store in order to use the content fully without any restrictions that hinders their workflow.
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So far noone was able to explain how anyone would get hurt if motivated customers were able to create and save their own HD morphs with the purpose to mix them with licensed content they purchased in the DAZ store so they can create more detailed images or animations.
What is your motivation to prevent that loyal customers are able to create and save their own HD morphs?
This would make the life of customers with advanced needs so much easier on every single project they create with DAZ Studio.
How exactly would that put you in a less favorable position?
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