Confused about Genesis and Freak 5, M4/Freak 4, and Genesis Abominable and Genesis 2 figures
I am looking at Freak 4, Freak 5, and Abominable to buy for a project I am working on and am trying to determine what my options are. It can get very confusing when DAZ ads are not specific about requirements.
I have M4 base and can purchase Freak 4 which requires the M4 base. If I want Freak 5, which is a Genesis character, do I need a Genesis Starter Bundle which includes Genesis Evolution Head Morphs and Body Morphs or is Freak 5 a standalone product?
Also, am I better of just buying Freak 4? Why would I want the Genesis (M5/Freak5 combination) character over the M4/Freak4 character? I read somewhere that the Genesis generation is an interim product between V4/M4 and the Genesis 2 (V6/M6) characters that did not sell that well and has less vendor products for? Is that true?
If I want something similar to a Freak 4 or 5 character, in an M6 character (Genesis 2) do I need to buy M6 and using morphs in the basic M6 figure to create a Freak-like character. Or, because V6 is new, there is not a Freak 6 and I would need to wait until DAZ comes out with one? Would that be significantly better than the Genesis/Freak5 or Genesis/Freak 4 combinations.
Also, if I am interested in the Genesis Abominable character, what do I need? The Genesis starter bundle? It does not say in the DAZ ad that there is a requirement. It just says that it is for the Genesis figure which says to me it requires the Genesis starter bundle.
As I understand it, the evolution of the DAZ characters beginning with V4/M4 goes next to the Genesis generation of characters (V5 and M5) then next to the Genesis 2 generation with V6 and M6. Do I have that correct?
As I understand it, are my choices to stick with M4 and buy Freak 4 OR buy the Genesis character bundle with Genesis Evolution Head and Body Morphs and buy Freak 5 OR buy M6 and create my own Freak character using the available morphs with the starter bundle OR buy M6 and wait for DAZ to offer the Freak 6 character?
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Comments
Abominable also requires just the free Genesis Starter Essentials, although again the Evolution morphs are useful for customizing.
Yes, that's correct.
If you were me, would you choose the Genesis product (Freak 5) and get any morphs that are available as an enhancement to give me more flexibility with the character or just buy the Freak 4 product?
It seems that my prejudice against Genesis is not very well-founded. I want the most evolved character. And there are a lot of Freak 5 products. I guess it was more about being confused about what requirements there are for Freak 5. If I did decide to go with Freak 5 and Genesis, then I assume I would need the Genesis Starter Essentials and optionally should purchase the Evolution Morphs.
There is a Genesis Starter bundle which includes the Head and Boidy Evolution Morph packages. But I could not find a Genesis Starter Essentials. Do I just need Freak 5 and the Genesis Starter bundle? I could not find any base figure. There is an M5 Starter Bundle, but that does not appear to be required for Freak 5.
Going to M6 would be a risk because I have no idea about the existing morphing capabilities. I suppose by looking at V6, which I already have, I would get a sense of whether I would be satisfied trying to create a Freak 6 type character on my own.
My sense is that more morphing was included by DAZ because it is a more evolved figure, but I could be wrong and that I might easily be able to create my own Freak 6 without much trouble. That may explain why DAZ has not released a Freak 6.
Genesis starter Essentials and Genesis 2 starter essentials come free with DS 4.6
You need to install the Genesis starter essentials in order to use Genesis and any gen5 charater, and the Genesis 2 starter essentials, which is in 2 parts for G2F and G2M, in order to use Genesis 2 and gen 6 characters.
Freak 6 is not available at the moment, because Gen2M is a very young figure (plus females sell better).
I would go for F5, because Genesis allows better mixing of morphs that Generation 4 figures (Genesis is not gender-split, so you can mix different shapes). F4 also requires M4 Morphs++ (just like H4). You could even start by fiddling with the dials provided with a free pack, DieTrying's Morphs (there are different versions). Maybe you will not need to buy anything, although Genesis Evolution Bundle will always come in handy. As Chohole said, all starter essentials are listed under your DAZ Studio files. Some basic content will also get shipped with them (clothes, textures, hair, props, light presets).
What type of project you are aiming for? Specify please, this will help.
Oh, now I get it! I just checked my Content and I do have Genesis starter essentials. So all I need is Freak 5 and optionally the Evolution package which I will definitely get.
Thanks! for clearing this up. I was so confused.
Every time I think that I have a complete picture of something related to DAZ Studio, I find that I run into a stonewall.
Today I opened up the V6 figure to check out the morphing capabilities which are pretty amazing right out of the box. You can create a Female Freak pretty easily which suggests that M6 would also be a good way to go.
When I opened it up, played around with the morphs, and rendered, the figure rendered almost completely white. I tried to set up a a spotlight and I still got the white figure. I only had the V6 figure, the default camera, and the spotlight and I cannot figure out why the figure is white. I turned down the intensity of the light and moved it back and still white. I opened up a scene file which had four lights that I had created and added a new V6 figure and it worked fine. It rendered as expected. I still cannot figure out why the other scene rendered so badly.
That is one of the reasons I prefer to get canned products that allow me to save time and not have to play around with lighting, poses, morphs etc. even though morphing and posing are relatively easy once you really spend the time. But lighting has been a bear for me. I thought I had it nailed that last time I spend hours trying to understand it and then I have this experience with the V6 character which makes no sense. It is probably some parameter checkbox that is checked somewhere. But I cannot figure it out.
Did you install "Default DAZ Studio Lights and Cameras"?
From where? I have presets: UberAreaLight Base, Light Disc, dzDistantLight, dzPointLight,Set Quality 0XLo, UberAReaLightDisk, UberAreaLightNeon, UberAreaLightPane, and so on. is that what you mean?
They are a package like the Genesis starter essentials. So three packages to install at first start of using DS.
Found them. I will play around with them and see if I can get them to be applied correctly.
Like you've been told Genesis 2 Male and Michael 6 is a very young figure so all its morphs are not available yet. Even though Freak 5 is a very good option there are morphs now in the store to make Michael 6 look very close to a Freak 6 . You might want to check Michael 6 Swole http://www.daz3d.com/michael-6-swole .
Many of my catalog products cater to the DAZ Freak in all of its generations. I've done a series of Swole products that either make smaller build male figures like Genesis 1 Male or Michael 6 look Freak like or give shape variations to the Freak 5 and help to fit Dynamic clothes originally created for the Freak 4: Freak 5 Swole: http://www.daz3d.com/freak-5-swole