V4 or V4 for G2F
brown.pauljames
Posts: 0
Sorry, last question honest ;)
I'm in twos mind at the moment, and to be honest I don't understand the benefits I would be grateful if someone could explain.
After much thought, I'm looking to get started in DAZ3D by purchasing http://www.daz3d.com/new-releases/deviant-bundle
However, after reading a thread on here there was talk of http://www.daz3d.com/victoria-4-for-genesis-2-female, which is the best way to go?
Thanks in advance.
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This is really one of those 'your mileage may vary' questions! In some ways it's akin to comparing apples to oranges, with the only commonality being they are both fruits!
With the Bundle you mention you get the base Victoria 4.2 figure. That, for ages, was the number one female figure in the DS/Poser world - and many people will tell you that it still is! For a while it was free, so pretty much every one had a copy.
Now, with DS4+ (DS4, DS4.5, DS4.6, etc.,) the free figures are Genesis and the Genesis 2 Male and Female figures.
Items (such as clothing, hair and textures) for Generation 4 figures (Victoria 4, Michael 4) will work on the Genesis figure natively, via 'Fitting Clones'. Some issues may arise with certain items such as long skirts and heeled shoes, but auto-fit handles a lot of things very well.
The same items (for Generation 4) require additional products (such as the V4 for G2F product you mention) to work on/with the appropriate Genesis 2 figure. Genesis items tend to work directly with.on Genesis 2 figures - with the over-riding caveat that skin textures HAVE to be applied via duf format files and that a lot of skin textures for Genesis make use of Genesis's native ability to take Generation 4 UV mapped textures.
The upshot of this is that Generation 4 stuff can be made to work on.with Genesis and Genesis 2 figures, but not the other way around.
If you are just starting out I'd be inclined to go the Genesis and Genesis 2 route, bearing in ind that you CAN use a lot of the really great Generation 4 items on them - in fact a few of the freebies you can get at various places such as ShareCG actually tend to work better on Genesis with auto-fit than they did on V4!
To make full use of V4 stuff on G2F you'll need, at the least, the V4 for G2F product, which supplies both the UV mapping for the figure (allowing V4 skin textures to be used) and the auto-fit Clone so that clothing, hair, etc., can be made to fit. There is also a product that aids the applying of V4 skin textures to G2F so you don't have to go through all the hoops of re-saving them as duf files.
I assume you have made the free purchase of DAZ Studio. That comes with the free Genesis Starter Essentials and Genesis 2 Starter Essentials. That will give both female and male figures for both Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 along with a few items of clothes, hair and some sets. This will allow you to start creating some simple scenes.
There is also a lot of free content available for Genesis on ShareCG and some sites. If you look in the Freepozitory forum here you will find links to lots of free content.
I would recommend starting with the free content. See where your interests lead you, before you start spending money on content.
That particular Deviant bundle includes some very old product that come with Poser materials but no DAZ Studio materials. They may work fine in DAZ Studio or the materials may need some adjustment to get good renders. It all depends. Trying to figure out how to adjust Poser materials to work in DAZ Studio is not a good place to start. I don't have those products, other than Victoria 4. The Victoria 4 version included in that bundle is the Base version that only includes the sample resolution skins. The free skins that come with Genesis and Genesis 2 are higher resolution and better quality than the V4 sample resolution skin.
Thank you both very much! Extremely useful
This is a very good point. Before you decide what genre actually suits you best, get a look at what's available for no fee. For example, you can save a lot on contemporary Genesis clothing if you follow Wilmap's ShareCG account. She makes outstanding content that works with each other and it's totally free. Eblank creates cool textures for those sets (and more). Clothes and poses are the easiest freebies to find, so I'd refrain from buying at first. DieTrying's Morphs are available for V4, Genesis and Gen2F (Gen2M - I'm not sure). Some vendors at Renderosity offer free shapes for Genesis of their purchasable V4 sets (you don't get any materials, but as it's pointed out above, the skins you get with Starter Essentials are very good - in fact, Genesis includes two Elite Textures, Lana and Jeremy, Gen2F - V5 Elite Texture Bree and Gen2M - M5 Elite Texture Phillip). One has do go through a lot of hassle to get a variety of hairdos, but this can be done as well (especially if you're familiar with Wayback Machine). Frankly, I don't buy poses as a rule of thumb for they can be made on your own and I enjoy doing this. Plus a lot of poses can be found on the Web. You should also be able to find quite a bunch of props and lights.
The fact about auto-fitting features of Genesis and the newer figures is a good hook for me at least. And - with Genesis - you only need to buy an universal morph set (like Genesis Evolution Morph Bundle or Creature Creator Morph Bundle) once as it works with both males and females.