Perception check on G9 form definition
ZauberMac
Posts: 6
Greetings!
I'm just getting my new system set up; I have not played with G9 yet, so I do not have first hand information.
However, I keep seeing in the content listings the renders that vendors and Daz have done with G9 and I keep thinking that she/he? has lost a lot of definition in the body mesh since g3/g8. The joint bends look awkward and the form in general seems to be almost completely without definition. The 8k paint is pretty, but at least from what I've seen so far; I think that G8 with 8k textures would look better than G9. Face is nice on G9, but the rest is unfinished looking? I'm thinking it might be that G8 was around long enough that it was developed more fully and that G9 will ge there?
Or I'm completely up a tree? Anyone else notice this? I'm hoping to get some renders in over the holiday, check it out myself. I would be open to constructive thought on the matter though?
Thanks
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Comments
I agree. I think G9 is best for portraits. I'm only going to use it for portraits or non-realistic renders with postwork and use G8/7 for full body images.
I think, it is all up to the personal taste.
I have started with Daz 3D a long time ago, have purchased many of the previous generations items.
I still find Genesis 9 interesting for me.
There is a lot of items in the free pack:
https://www.daz3d.com/genesis-9-starter-essentials
so you can evaluate Genesis 9 without additional cost.
Check also:
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/597396/tutorial-how-to-fit-poseable-hair-to-genesis-9#latest
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/597726/genesis-9-clothing-questions-answers#latest
https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/600236/head-games#latest
In my opinion Genesis 9 is a failure, especially the shoulders seem too big and the pectorals neither fitting for males nor females. Artists going for nudity have issues with navel and nipples not included in the base mesh.
I did my compare here
https://www.deviantart.com/alien-area/journal/Genesis-9-The-Lost-Generation-935834672
and got some intersting replies.
Also my favorite body definition morphs for G8 come from Emma & Jordy who no longer sell here. Maybe they will create morphs for G9 in their personal store or maybe a PA here could reproduce it for G9.
No definition in the base shape is kinda the point. That shouldn't keep PA's from creating all that definition on their own. Raw G9 is just a base shape after all. So I don't know if you're looking at this the right way. Although of course if you somehow felt that the G9 characters that came out so far had less definition than before then I guess you could say the new base has negatively influenced creators. But nothing more than that though. There is no technical reason for less definition in characters.
I agree. I can see where some are coming from on detail and mesh definition, but G9 hasn't been out that long, so there is plenty of time for more detailed characters to come out and with the more dense mesh, hopefully users will see some amazing detail in the future. There are already 3rd party options for using older skins, better nipples, and gens and there will probably more and better ones as time goes on. I haven't spent much on G9 yet, but other than being able to easily transfer my older characters to G9, I have found everything else I need to start creating with G9.
I agree with what you said, bluejaunte, and I respect your opinion, but the part I boldened is some of the issue. This is true for PAs, but not for everyone else. There are more technical restrictions which creates dependancies on DAZ PAs with G9 than there were with G8.
I agree the limitation shouldn't affect PAs, but it certainly does affect the rest of us, unfortunately :(
I would really like to know your opinion on this:
https://www.deviantart.com/alien-area/journal/Genesis-9-The-Lost-Generation-935834672
Anything specific? About the proportions in general I can say that Daz has apparently done pretty extensive research to get as close to possible to a world average of female and male proportions. G8F was way too tall. 5' 8" (172.8 cm) is mentioned here as being normal, I cannot imagine that's true even in western Europe. If you take the world average you're most certainly going to end up with substantiailly less than that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Average_human_height_by_country
And what does it matter anyway, there's so many proportion sliders for free, just do whatever you like. PA's can continue to make their characters 180cm super models if they want to. Again it's just a base mesh that was made as average and general as possible for both genders.
Also the G8 default pose was more like a military attention pose than natural standing. So they fixed that too.
The navel and nipple (male and female) morphs are included with Genesis 9 Starter Essentials.
Can you elaborate how this effects none-PA's? Do you want to use raw G9 out of the box or something? Isn't that a weird use case to begin with? I mean, I would assume that the usual way, for both G8 and G9, was to buy a few characters you like and then maybe dial spin some, mix them, use other morphs etc. to come up with your own character? G8 vanilla wasn't really detailed enough to use raw either.
Or are you maybe now talking about nipples and navel specifically?
I mentioned that last. The pectorals are the worst. The shoulders to massive. Arms too long.
It's not about the height but the bad pectorals, too massive shoulders and too long arms.
G8 is a great starting body base. I often use it with only a few morphs and a whole bunch of hd detail morphs (which I use for any character anyway) and end up with a body I'm happy with, that also ensure excellent compatability with any outfit. G9 is not fit for this in any way.
It does matter for many reasons actually. Here's some that come to mind right now:
- Items and poses are done on base figures. There's going to be a lot of adjustemnts needed for anything interactive now, if you plan on using them with tall characters.
- Older items are made with tall bases in mind, making tables, chairs and so on too tall for G9 characters. And not all characters look good if you just bump up the height.
- Having several height and propagation sliders in a characters makes mix and matching a mess. DO chars seem to love using them; luckily PA characters I have so far don't.
There are some addons I considered indispensable for making G8's body look good. One of them (Ultimate Natural Bend Morphs) is by a vendor who appears to release products every few years at most, and another (Auto Shape Enhancer) is from a vendor who I haven't seen in some time, so I have no idea if they'll ever be available for G9. I'm hoping Zev0 creates a version of Skin Folds & Creases for G9, but all of these came out a few years after the figure was released, IIRC. I don't think G9's body bends look fantastic, but without extra morphs or fixes in post I'm not really happy with G8's, either. And it's much easier for me to fix some weird bends on my own than to fix the entire face shape or expression of a character, which I've had to do way more on G8 than on G9.
I say this with zero judgement, as someone who has done plenty of similar work: if your renders mostly look like this, there is probably nothing G9 does that G8 doesn't do better at this point in time, given the tools available.
I will say I have a bit more trouble with the shoulder. But with that also one of the biggest G8 issues got fixed: the dreadful upper arm twist effect is pretty much gone.
Case in point about pectorals: the comparison of Michael 8.1 and 9 show you the way that the respective creators thought they should look like. The G9 base geometry doesn't have anything to do with that. Or shouldn't, at least. I for one find Michael 9 way more realistic by the way. Sure he doesn't have built pectorals and maybe you could make an argument that his arms are too muscular for that. Is this anatomically incorrect thought? I don't see it. It's just a subjective taste thing. Lots of men, if not the majority, have flat chests like that.
Arm length I'm not even gonna say much on. Nobody will ever see 1cm more or less in arm length once the guy is posed. Not every guy is going to have the exact same arm length compared to their body, how can we use this as an honest critisism of G9 I don't know, on top of that I don't even feel their too long at all but that's just me. I would defer also to Daz extensive research on body proportion averages and expect they didn't get it all wrong. But in any case it is so very inconsequential, there's literally a slider you can use to make them a bit shorter if you honestly think they're too long.
If anything, the renders there are showing that either the upper arm is shorter than average, or the belly button is lower than average (I strongly suspect the latter, the more I look at it. The torso is shifted a bit low). Looking at the wrist compared to the crotch that looks pretty much spot on to what people remember from figure drawing 101 or the most basic online tutorials about proportions...
The flat pecs with bottom crease can be an issue, but as long as there aren't shadows baked into the texture I've got a couple smoothing morphs (some free I believe?) to help counter that.
You stated in that that it takes you computer hours to render a single G9 despite having a 3060. You may want to open a thread in the tech support forum here and start trouble shooting with people as to what may be the cause. I realize everyone has different critieria for rendering but its worth a shot. I have a dual 980TI setup and can render up close and at a distance, one or multiple G9s in 30min to an hour depending on the scene. I am limited by vram so i try to skirt around texture issues and I dont have textures compressed by Iray at all, not even the 8K ones
Props should, in my view, be modelled to the size of the real prop (or type of prop), not eyeballed from the figure. I know this is a counsel of perfection, but still...
G9 renders just fine on my system. I know a 3090 is bigger than a 3060 in terms of VRAM, but speed-wise it should be similar so yeah...I'd say there is something else going on.
I know a lot of folks are vocally upset that G9 is shorter...that G9 doesn't have different heights depending on male/female...that G9 is a unimesh. Well..I'm happy about these things. I think having a universal mesh and universal height is wonderful...because it will make things much easier to customize and move between male/female. When figures are all the same height by default, it makes fitting objects much, much easier. I'm also super stoked that it will be easier to get armor made for male figures working on my female characters...whereas with G8, it was almost always an exercise in futility.
I'm only on a 3050, and have no problems rendering G9. A single G9 with clothes, hair & beard on an HDRI background just rendered in about 5 minutes for me.
@alienarea Thanks for the link. Informative. I don't do nudes; so, I have less of an issue than you. However, the photographic look of Victoria's and Michael's faces has not been matched by Minerva and Nikolai. And that was the main thing that had me excited about Genesis 9. Daz's past rollercoaster Core Figure quality is the issue.
I don't know, I think it's far more important to have props modelled based on the "world" you're using them in. Let's say the average of g8 is 1.75 and the real world is 1.6 (random numbers); that would make all the props on the small side for the g8 world you're using them in. And the base figure matters, since most PAs will alter the shape (more or less), but without straying too far (or at all) from the base, height-wise. Maybe this will change for G9, maybe not. But while diversity can be very nice, it can also be a problem here, where compatibility and kitbashing is the most important thing as far as I'm concerned.
Besides, there aren't really specific guidelines for this when it comes to real world. I don't have a single chair in my house that's the same height unless they're from the same set. If you order custom furniture, you'll do it based on your needs and the room you need it for, not based on standards.
In my view it is essential, that it is modelled to a scale, so it the item was in your house it doesn't look weird.
There are many items, that if you measure it, it turns out to have a size you would never find in real life.
If you model it to a random character that is either too tall or small, then it means you can't mix and match items together, because that looks off.
I never said they should be based on a random character, I said they should be based on the average of the chracaters you're using (which so far was the base). Since the average of G8 doesn't match the average of real life, it makes no sense to use real world scales. Just like some items would look weird in your house, many items from your house would look weird in most digital enviroments. If you suddenly change this, you're completely altering the comparibility with previous items.
If everything is modelled at real scale, the items can be re-used. If modelled to make an odd size person look right, those items will forever forward have to be adjusted. There's more time wasted in that than correcting the odd size figure once.
As for G8F being too large at 5ft8in, hmm. There are three ladies in my household. The smallest is 5ft7in, the oldest is 5ft11in, and the tallest is 6ft2in. So from my lived experience, 5ft8in is a bit on the short side of average.. And V9 is positively tiny. Just shows how different people's real life experiences play out and affect their digital expectations too..
Regards,
Richard
But what then now that G9 is smaller, i.e. closer to real average?
Then everthing modelled from previous generations will be too big.
And if you get something from outside Daz Studio, I would expect it to be real world scale.
I would say that you end in a mess.
Like all those school classrooms with chairs & desks too high for kids. I bought a collection of western firearms a while ago, with revolvers so big that no character would be able to reach the trigger while holding one.
No big deal to rescale, but it would be nice if it wasn't necessary.
Well, this is what changing the height of G9 so much brought as far as I'm concerned: a mess.
As for items and how they're modelled, I have no clue. I would guess some are measured, some are eyeballed after characters and most eyeballed after the reference used. But I have no idea what everyone's workflow is. I would expect the last one to be more common, but that's just what seems easier to me... and what I see 99% of the tutorials doing.