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Also on a positive note it would also save me from getting a new gift card. I mean I certainly have enough left in the form of store credit as I went a bit crazy in preparation of the anniversary sale with the last one and only used about a half of it but I'd most likely have to get a new one for M9 stuff. Like you said, there's always a sale in a year and I just screenshotted the chart (it's actually 64% off) so I won't pay more than that later in case I decide to skip Genesis 9. Hmm and I could get some of that credit back if I returned the character essentials and fantasy shaping, too.
I can see myself experimenting later on but I can honestly say I'm not buying into the bundles this time around or the distant future. I've invested waaaaay too much into 8/8.1 and would like to get the mileage out of that stuff before jumping ship.
I know I may be in the minority on that but I don't know. Seems like HD morphs should've been built in the 8 series but I digress. Looking forward to seeing what is on the horizon though. :)
Not jumping on now, probably never because:
I can't see it offers anything I can't already do just as well with G8, so why would I buy a heap of products that bring nothing new? 8k maps are almost always overkill. No geometry for nipples is just wilfully weird - both sexes have them. To much splitting up of products - even 'essential' now needs to have an expansion, which is oxymoronic. Some off-putting launch issues, I'm not ready to do beta testing at my expense. And I don't have the cash to splash on better hardware so it isn't a pain to work with.
Man,
I'd love to get on the train. Unfortunately, somehow I've gotten the version of Genesis 9 with the old uv's, so the seams are all wonkey. I've got a ticket in, but obviously until that is sorted I'm not spending another dime on the figure. I mean it all looks great and today I'd have been all over that Medieval bundle like white on rice, but.....I can't make a decent render with what's installed presently so...... :(
I bought the shapes bundle, seemed like a reasonable deal.
So I'm on the platform idly kicking litter at pigeons.
I jumped on the train immediately. Then I got nervous with expense and stuff not working as I expected and jumped off. Then I saw some of Jay's tutorial vids on how to use stuff and I got back on. Then some support assets failed to materialize and other avoidable issues and I got back off. Then I played with customizing stuff myself and had some success, including in Carrara believe it or not, and I jumped back on. I even bought RawArt's skin resource pack to customize my figures for my own use. Then I was having trouble doing basic poses in Studio (and Carrara froze up), and I jumped back off. Then I discovered the posing issue was my mistake (including in Carrara) and easily avoidable and I jumped back on.
How many days has G9 been out? I expect I will jump on and off several more times before the end of the year.
No!
Reasons:
-It's not compatible with anything I own, and I cant transfer face morphs of my existing characters to it.
-The body, expressions, and face morphs are in separate purchases.
-This feels like a money grab.
-Most of this stuff was included in older genesis versions, and the prices were better.
-load times for Gen 8 characters sucked...so I can only imagine what 9 is like.
-Daz doesn't dedicate to character versions as long as they used to...8.1 to 9 was really short, and 8.1 was a huge flop for me...I own it but never use it...I find it worthless...feel a bit ripped off on that one.
JD
For the first part: Well there's a reason why Mr. Thornton transformed declining sales to 250% growth without an increase to the company headcount and improved EBITDA performance from -50% to 15%...
As for the load times. They are actually not that bad. They are significantly faster than for G8 because there aren't yet that many characters released. One of the reasons for slow load times (at least for me) is the massive gen8 character library. Besides I'm sure there will be an update to Turbo Loader eventually.
That pretty much sums it up. For story telling, continuity is important.
First line: Wrong. It's possible. Takes a little work for morphs, but it can be done and it looks great. I'm sure in time converters will be released. Most clothes fit fine, even back to Genesis 2.
Second line: to my recollection, they always have been separate purchases. Nothing new there.
Third line: Daz is a business. Of course it's a money grab.
Fourth line: inflation is being felt everywhere.
Fifth line: Right now load times are pretty quick, because there's not much for it. That will change and we'll have G8-like load times.
Sixth line: there weren't many changes and I was miffed too, but there were changes for the better in some areas. But, after all, it was 8 POINT 1. That suggests the changes are quite small. On the plus side, it was compatible with almost everything 8.0. Subsequent figure versions are usually NOT, so we got a little break there.
Server lag? Overlooked your post and those are some robust numbers. May I ask the source? Not singling out or trying to start a debate. Retired, I'm just curious to read something research & math related. Need to exercise that part of the ol' noggin. : )
Kind regards,
--Bruce
Nah, I was out when G8 showed up. I have 158 pages of items already.
I've spent enough, the things I already have fill my needs (V4-G8). The
only reason I have some G8 figures is that they were either free or a
part of a bundle that had other stuff that I wanted.
I've been spending very little on DAZ lately, things are getting too
expensive to justify more. The cost/benefit ratio just isn't there.
If I were just getting started with 3D, it might be a different story. But I'm not.
Unfortunately nothing as exciting as math. The information is on his linked-in page. I was bored out of my mind (sick and I can't literally stomach sitting next to computer) so I searched what I could find about Daz3D and Tafi. There's interesting information about venture capital companies (i.e. names of the companies and their members have unsurprisingly representatives in the board). You can also get some idea about who are running the company and about different positions within the company structure. Unsurprisingly they have a quite a few digital marketing people but they seem to have more technical background rather than direct sales relations. Might explain why Daz marketing is... well, not getting there.
It seems that Daz actually *does* have in house product testing... I know, shocking!
This topic must be quite busy right now!
That's good news since I was under the impression a customized G8/G8.1 actor won't convert because rigging is different. You've always been very helpful in the past & much sppreciated.
Link to a 'how to'? I do have to keep 'starring' toons in my renders 'current' or probably can;t take advantage of occasional contemporary wardrobe items-- esp. for guys.
best wishes
Thanks for reply & more info. Unfortunately, don't have linked-in and a search doesn't provide links to very much information. (or DDG has really gone downhill.)
At risk of pointing out obvious, DAZ does need to stay in business or we all lose. : )
best
Hrm. I have the plat club/Daz+ expiring next year end of September so I thought might as well hop on the Genesis 9 train and see where it goes... hopefully not off tracks, though I fully expect it to go through many dark tunnels and confusingly twisty paths, and to have numerous stops that each require their own ticket if you plan to continue the journey. Now if only the conductor showed their face from time to time... and not just to punch our tickets.
I turned in one of the earlier orders (Luthbel's Dwarf Bundle) which I had purchased during the anniversary sale, but hadn't yet used, so it ended up costing me only extra $3.81 (in credit). No big loss if the train ends up hitting a roadblock... or, uh, a track... block...?
Same here.
Disappointed with today's morph packages as well.
This is a tutorial for getting shapes over to G9 from previous versions. WP Guru also has a video tutorial on it on YouTube. As a bonus, richardandtracy have released a pose converter from G8 to G9. It's not the most elegant thing, but it works a treat :).
Attached is an image of Christian 8 on G9, wearing clothes from Genesis 2 (and this was the first I'd ever tried anything like this). Of course, you can't bring over high def morphs, but that's nothing new ;).
Oh no, that's not what I want to hear.
It's all in my cart right now, I'm going to buy it to try it out now.
I want to update to Genesis 9.
There's some nice pros drawing me to upgrade to Genesis 9. The facial details including the expressions looking better and more natural.
But dang. So far I'm not impressed with the rest of the figure. Hoping the morphs change my mind. The hands are lacking detail like metatarsals and veins. Which is a shame. You look at some of these close ups, and wow the face as getting so much closer to photoreal... then the hands and it's not even a question if it's a render.
Working mostly with females, it still looks like the unimesh simply doesn't have good topology for females. As some have mentioned, I still have some concern on the pics of some bends that aren't good. Please tell me it's just custom morphs that haven't been ERC baked. If not, this is a HUGE disappointment. This is 2022, the ninth gen figure, and better bends aren't part of the base figure? I'm really gonna be disappointed if there's a morph pack sold to fix poor joint bends. THIS SHOULD REALLY BE PART OF THE BASE FIGURE!
Here's a morph I made to give Victoria a more fit figure. Still need more time to play around.
I still haven't seen any morph packages. I did see "shapes" packages, A shape package gives you a selection of shapes that someone else has made. Morph packages allow you to create your own character or shapes.
I grabbed some of the Victoria 9 bundles, but I made sure to define my use cases:
To control my spending in the Daz store, I always set a target percentage for store discounts before I'll bite. Luckily I got 20% off a gift card before the sales which (barely) pushed Victoria 9 assets into my buy range. Since they're bleeding edge tech, a bunch of stuff doesn't work as expected and the asset library is limited. You can expect to pay and keep paying to bring Victoria up to speed - and Daz hasn't even started introducing assets for Michael either, which is a whole other budget.
Grab Genesis 9 Starter Essentials now since those are free, and see what you think. I wouldn't recommend Victoria 9 yet unless you have a use case or a lot of cash. Daz will surely push Genesis 9 content pretty hard during holiday sales so you can probably get better prices if you wait a couple months.
Eh... I doubt it. Certainly not any time soon. I have hedged my bets enough to download the Starter Essentials, and I have picked up various other base components like the Starter Essentials Expansion, and the base morph and character packs. I even picked up Joe Quick's Toon bundle and Zev0's Growing Up pack. But I'll probably leave it at that for now.
The fact is that I do illustrations, not pinups, and those are rarely close ups, so the whole whoop-de-do about Photorealism is moot for my purposes, plus, I have too many characters in my library already. I also for the past 2-4 years have generally dialed in a bit of Cartoonized into just about all of my cast memebers and that isn't available for G9 yet.
Historically speaking; I *really* liked G1. I liked G1 *SO* much more than gen4. It didn't hurt that G1 could use any gen4 skin, either. I built my whole character library from G1 and used it through the entire G2 and G3 periods, pretty much without change, all the way until, I think, the first year of G8.
I never really comitted to either G2 or G3, although I did purchase a fair number of their components. I also used a handful of specific characters from those generations. G3 had a lot of 'Toons that I made use of, G2 had a couple of monsters. But my main character library, with only a couple of exceptions remained solidly G1.
Until Ollie 8 was released.
I knew at a glance that I could definitely *use* Ollie. After that point, I rebuilt my continuing cast of characters in G8, and those are now my main cast of characters. Yes, I've built a couple of new ones based on characters from the G8.1 series, but I'm not in any hurry to undertake the kind of a prject that rebuilding the whole cast over again in G9 represents, nor do I see any need to.
On the other hand, there's every possibility that eventually a G9 character will come out that will prompt me to drag the whole cast into G9. But that kind of thing is impossible to predict.
Now, what I would *definitely* like to see are some utilities for converting G9 content back for use with G8. Because with this last set of bundles, i am beginning to see clothing that I would like to be able to use with my current cast, and at present my impression is that those do not have the back-compatibility to work out of the box.
Honestly, it's been a long time since anything out of DAZ itself (corporate, not the PAs) has felt like much more than a money grab to me. They're a company that's out to make money, after all, so that's not surprising, but while there are still a lot of relatively inexpensive products, the value for dollar spent ratio is far less than what it once was. Meanwhile, the general drop in quality control, the lack of attention to basic customer support items like updating the user manual (which STILL doesn't even mention iray, which became the default rener engine way back with DS 4.9, let alone DAZ Connect D-Force, Filament, any figures later than Genesis 2, and dozens of other features in the current version of DS,) increasingly less substantial product upgrades, constant diversions into completely unrelated markets like NFTs and failed spinoffs to enter markets that DAZ quickly proves to have been completely unprepared to enter, and the one/two negative whammy of increasingly overcomplicated sales promotions that consistantly prove to have not been been properly tested combined with a lack of 24 hour support in a store that is supposed to be a world-wide operation yet releases new products at a time when store staff are eight hours away from being available, all increasingly give me the vibe of a company that's lost touch with its roots and is now focused on squeezing the most out of short range profits and new users.
Yeah, I found 8.1 to be pretty disappointing as well, with the only real redeeming quality being that at least a lot of the hair and clothes would fit G8. The new UVs and the PBR skins on the other hand... :/
From what I've seen so far G9 looks like it will eventually be pretty useful. I love that they went back to a single mesh, the original Genesis was (and still is) one of my favorites. Generally I make toon or stylized characters for my renders, so a single mesh helps me keep a cohesive look to my project. I love not having to hope that a vender makes a matching character of the opposite gender so I can have people who all look like they belong in the same world.
I'm certain I'll use G9 at some point, but probably not until there's a lot more for it. I'm in no hurry, and even after I start using G9 I won't abandon using the others. I love G8 so I'm pretty happy with that as well as earlier generations. I'm one of those rare creatures that uses all the generations they've bought. Each generation is another tool, another resource. I don't replace a character I'm working with unless I really hated working with that generation, which almost never happens. I have so many characters for earlier generations, plus making my own morphs in Blender, that I can't imagine there being a character I need for a project that I can't make with what I already have...
That being said, I will almost certainly see a G9 character that I just fall in love with and have to have (I'm looking at you Michael9, lol).
So, getting on the train? Absolutely
Getting on the train now? No, not yet.
Getting off the G9/V9 train if my issue is not resolved:
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/599686/g9-v9-g8-strand-based-hair-save-load-issue#latest
...according to the latest thread on 4.21.0.5, 421.41 is still listed as the current game ready diver that works foir Iray GPU rendering.
I have the final available driver from Nvidia that supports W7 (473.62, which is five revisions after 471.41) and have no issue rendering on the GPU. 510.xx i the Studio Driver which only works on W10 and beyond.
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/7755976/#Comment_7755976.
ETA: I just installed 4.21.0.5 and ran a render test using driver 473.62 in W7 and everything worked fine (the process was significantly faster as well) My system is over 10 years old with an X58 MB, "Nehalem" era 6 core Xeon, 24 GB DDR3 1333 memory, and Nvidia Titan X (Maxwell - which is one generation older than Pascal) in a PCIe 2.0 x16 slot. My custom setups, including render settings, were all intact
The navel and nipples are a downgrade from G8, maybe due to missing topology.
The anatomical elements pieces got wider, but don't bend, as a result they poke into the thighs in some delivered poses.
Even with max fitness G9 looks less fit than G8.
The shoulders of the females are too square for my taste.
Victoria 9 has a great face and the expressions are much better, but that's it.
I have too much invested in 8.x to think about it. What would help me with the transition and make it less of a big bang is it new products for G9 also worked on G8.x. That happened with G8 / G3. I've only looked at the things that interest me, but so far, all are G9 exclusives, so I have no use for them.
It was frustrating today to see things I might have bought which I can't use. If only the new OOT hair could have been G8 / G9, so I could use it now and start building a G9 collection. That hair is Daz Original. I hope the other PAs will realise that they severely limit their market by making G9 excusives.
If there are widespread concerns about navels & nipples, I suspect it won't be long before geografts start to appear for them, giving alternatives.
Regards,
Richard.