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Do you mix figures from various generations in your renders or do you avoid it?

FedermannFedermann Posts: 111
in New Users

Do you mix figures from various generations in your renders or do you avoid it?

The only way I can temporarily halt my excessive spending at the DAZ3D shop is taking stock of the items that I already bought and taking them for a spin (and a render). After thinking I absolutely wasted my money on one of my earliest (impulsive/uninformed) purchases in 2021 of “Victoria 4 3D Model Pro Suite” given the sophistication of the Gen 8/8.1 generation, I have now reached the conclusion that there is some incredible beauty to be discovered in the V4 series.  In the Gen 3 and Gen 2 series I similarly found some delightful specimen of figures. Since I am still not more than a DAZ enthusiast, I was wondering is it at all wise to invest in what was developed before Gen 8/8.1 like V4 etc.?  I ask this because the “older stuff” can be surprisngly alluring but they also tend to look (sometimes more than) a tad bit different from the Gen 8/8.1 figures (texture/details/skin/hair/wardrobe etc.).

Do you mix all the figure types (like V4, Gen2, Gen3, Gen8) in your ‘compositions’ (renders) or do you find it tricky to avoid disparity/incongruity in (let’s call it) aesthetics?

Comments

  • WendyLuvsCatzWendyLuvsCatz Posts: 38,202

    I do but I am not going for realism, as someone who does animated videos the legacy figures are far easier to use, BVH imports work on them out of the box, I recently used Plask.Ai video mocap with Aiko3 for example, Genesis 3 and 8 have twist bones the DAZ studio BVH importer has not been updated for.

  • rosselianirosseliani Posts: 374

    I do mix mainly G8 and G3 in my renders, and use sometimes older stuff for secondary / background scenes. But I never use G or G2 as the main characters anymore.

  • GordigGordig Posts: 10,049

    I rarely use anything but G8/8.1 because I never got attached to earlier generations, and have very little content for them that I would find the need to use.

  • PerttiAPerttiA Posts: 10,024

    The problem with mixing generations is the change in base pose (T/A-pose) when the characters are interacting - One should have the same couples poses for both generations if mixing generations.

  • ChezjuanChezjuan Posts: 514

    I will use G3 and G8 characters as main characters in renders interchangably. 

    In some cases I need to use one or the other generation, such as using G8.1 for a specific expression pack, or use a G3 version of a custom character if I use one of the G3 outfits I have that doesn't autofit properly to G8 (due to using the height slider in the Head and Body morph kits).

    I will use older generations (mostly G2) as background characters, especially when adding some Depth of Field or when they are far from the action.

    I do use a lot of older items such as clothing, some hair, accessories, and props in renders. In some cases they look good as-is, but in others I need to find the right Iray shaders

  • HylasHylas Posts: 4,982

    I only ever use G8.1, but I spend quite a bit of time making older content work for G8.1. Sometimes I'm even successful :)

  • FSMCDesignsFSMCDesigns Posts: 12,754

    If I absolutely need to use an older figure in a scene I will, but prefer not to. Now clothing and hair, I mix and match all the time

  • FedermannFedermann Posts: 111

    Do you mix figures from various generations in your renders or do you avoid it?

    RECAP

    smiley Great answers, thanks ALL for your feedback!!

    The points I take from this discussion:

    1. Stick to Gen8/8.1 but try to get wardrobe, hair, poses etc. from older generations to work for you (results may vary, some [serious] tweaking could be necessary including using particular Iray shaders);
    2. Make Gen8/8.1 the core of your scenes, but previous gen characters may come in handy as background characters etc.
    3. Use the older generations for imports in game dev platforms, they tend to have less compatibility issues in current bridges;
    4. To some extent G8 and G3 can be mixed in primary scenes; Gen1 and Gen2 are probably (very) difficult to integrate
  • FirstBastionFirstBastion Posts: 7,760

    Certainly will use all the 4 generations of Genesis up.  And since Gen1 will accept V4 and M4 skins and clothing,  once saved as a daz side asset,  can stay out of the Poser side of the content library.

    I don't mind using what has already been purchased in the past,  but at this point I wouldn't buy content that old even if its practically free.

  • Matt_BrownMatt_Brown Posts: 176

    I freely mix Genisis 8 & 8.1 as I consider those to be efectivly the same and use them for almost everything.

    I ocasionally use a Genisis 3 figure if there is something about the caracter that I particularly like.

  • HylasHylas Posts: 4,982

    Federmann said:

     
    1. Make Gen8/8.1 the core of your scenes, but previous gen characters may come in handy as background characters etc.

    It's worth mentioning that G3/8/8.1 have fewer polygons than previous generations. So if your goal is to have some low-poly characters in the background it's better to stick with those newer generations rather than go back to G2/Genesis/Generation 4.

    Just the textures of those newer generations are bigger, so maybe consider deleting SSS/specular/bump/normal/displacement maps for your background characters and stick with diffuse maps only. You could also consider scaling down the maps you do use. And make sure to keep the SubD as low as you can get away with.

  • PetercatPetercat Posts: 2,321

    I use all of them, as I have a long-running webcomic and many of my main characters
    are G1 and G2. As I create new characters, I usually use G3. I'm not at all interested in
    spending for G8, as I don't need them except for unique characters I can't find in
    earlier generations, such as dog people. I do have a few human G8, I use G3 clothing
    on them.

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