Am I bad at Daz Studio, or am I expecting too much of Genesis 2?
I'm new to 3D. I was testing to see how Genesis 2 moved and looked.
I tried adjusting her collar and shoulder to lift her arm up from her side, to lift her arm straight out in front of her and then up to pointing up to the sky, to see what would happen to her shoulder blades & breasts. Things like that will be critical to my 2D painting. I need a real-looking reference render.
Once her arm is pointing up, she doesn't look good. When you look at her from behind, Gen2 looks deformed. Her shoulder blade is gone, and there's weird stretching under her arm. And a strange crease from her shoulder to the top of her bicep. I had to turn off limits to even get her to put her arm high, near her face, well within the normal range of human movement, which seemed odd. See here:
http://jasondf2.deviantart.com/art/Posing-test-arm-high-Gen2-Daz-Studio-510221601
The pose is simple, elbow points forward, bicep points backward, like you were going to chop something with a hand-axe.
I also tried this by using IK and dragging her hand. Even with limits off, it seemed like it was going to be tricky to get her arm up high, and I could see the results weren't going to be that different from what I did manually.
How would I fix this? Did I do something wrong? Do I need to buy a morph pack to fix this? If morph packs can fix lots of problems easily, I'd rather spend the money then do a lot of manual fiddling. I was hoping I could test drive things for free, to see if it will work as a solution for me. But maybe that's not possible if I need morph packs just to get an undeformed render.
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Ok, I'm not that great at this but from what I see, you kinda "grabbed a limb and pulled". It does not quite work that way. What you need to do is consider each involved joint when you pose a figure. You also need to consider the natural range of motion of each joint. When I am not using a premade pose, or when I am altering a pose, i find that getting out of my chair and assuming the pose myself helps me figure out what joint bends where and how much. A mirror is sometimes helpful as well. You don't really need any "special" or "extra" morph packs to get decent results. However you should purchase the basic gen2 male and female morphs. Also, when it comes to facial expressions, subtle and careful use of the facial posing parameters gives the best results.
I never grab a limb and pull. I always use the parameters to bend, twist, and set the front-back on each part of the limb (e.g., collar, shoulder, forearm). I always get much better results doing that, than trying to pull on the limbs.
No, I assumed the pose myself, and then dialed Collar and Shoulder settings. I did also try it by grabbing and pulling, that worked no better nor worse.
It seems like Gen2 just can't do this pose (elbow points forward, bicep points back...like you were going to chop something with a hand-axe)...unless perhaps with repair? By morph pack? Manually? Not at all? I'm finding the exact same problem with Dawn in Poser.
>you should purchase the basic gen2 male and female morphs
Do you mean something like this
http://www.daz3d.com/genesis-2-female-morphs-bundle
But that is just if I want to adjust her look easily, not to repair problems like I'm seeing, correct?
No, I assumed the pose myself, and then dialed Collar and Shoulder settings. I did also try it by grabbing and pulling, that worked no better nor worse.
It seems like Gen2 just can't do this pose (elbow points forward, bicep points back...like you were going to chop something with a hand-axe)...unless perhaps with repair? By morph pack? Manually? Not at all? I'm finding the exact same problem with Dawn in Poser.
>you should purchase the basic gen2 male and female morphs
Do you mean something like this
http://www.daz3d.com/genesis-2-female-morphs-bundle
But that is just if I want to adjust her look easily, not to repair problems like I'm seeing, correct?
Ok. I don't use the Dawn figure so I can't address that. But, there is something "off" in what you are doing with the shoulder and/or collar area. See if tweaking the forward/backward parameters and the twist parameters for those joints.
Also, those are the morphs I was referencing
I've tried that. It seems Genesis 2 just can't handle this simple pose. So now I'm wondering if it's repairable with a morph pack or manual work.
>I don't use the Dawn figure so I can't address that.
Yeah, that was just an aside. My pic, and 99% of my writing here, is about Genesis 2.
You can raise the arm using the sliders under Pose control then select the shoulder and forearm individually and use the twist slider to get the arm positioned.
Jasonk... can you go into your DAZ for that pose, and tell us what the parameters are for the collar, arm, shoulder, etc? E.g., what are the % values for bend, twist, front-back, and the like? If you can do that, then I can try it using your numbers and see what happens.
Otherwise we are just speculating on what is wrong... because I have not ever seen that happen to a DAZ figure in a render (note: I have seen it happen briefly in the editing window, although it usually fixes itself in that window, but never in a render).
That looks "off", but way better than what I got. I can't find those Pose controls. Can you tell me what Workspace Layout you're in (Hollywood Blvd, Self Serve, City Limits Lite, City Limits). Maybe that's why I can't find them?
*EDIT: Never mind, I changed to Self Serve Layout and found the Pose controls.
It looks the same in the editing window as it does in the render. Here are the values (all right side of body). You'll have to turn off Limits:
Collar: Twist -25 Front-Back 3.68 Bend 15
Shoulder: Twist 18.66 Front-Back 117.96 Bend 93.28
I've tried different combinations of doing it more through Collar, or more through Shoulder. They all look bad, just bad in different ways.
Or do something completely different than me. As long as it looks like someone about to chop with a hand-axe.
I was going to point you to this thread which discusses some products that could help with this issue...but it appears that you're already aware of it! ;-)
Genesis 2, in general, does have more natural bends and movement than earlier DAZ figures (I'm less familiar with Dawn and other competitors' figures), but it does have some limitations. The products discussed in that other thread are intended to improve on some of those areas.
Edited to add: but yes, the results you had are definitely odd...Gone's image looks like a more normal Genesis 2 bend.
These are the transforms I used for collar, shoulder and forearm. (Selected them in the viewport then fine tuned them in 'Parameters'.)
Here's what I get using your values:
Here, I started from scratch and tried for a more natural result...
I wound up with these values:
Pose Controls:
Arms Front-Back Right: 0.31
Arms Up-Down Right: 1.00
Collar:
Twist -14.47
Front-Back 9.03
Bend -34.61
Shoulder:
Twist: -95
Front-Back 23.95
Bend: -35
Forearm:
Twist: -45.13
Progress! I tried both prixat's and Scott's values, got similar results. Thanks!
So the answers are:
1) Yes, I'm not good at posing yet (it's pretty finicky of moving just the right joints just the right way to get a not-super-horrible result)
2) Base Genesis 2 still isn't good enough.
The result is better, but not good, at least with base Genesis 2 with no add-ons, morphs, or anything. She looks all right from the front (though her breast needs a morph), she looks all right from the side, from behind...not horrible, but not like a real human. There's a lack of proper shoulder blade. I'm guessing I need some kind of add-on or morph. Which I haven't learned much about yet.
prixat seems to have more of a shoulder blade at least. Is that because of some FBM you've used? Are you using base Genesis 2, what have you applied to her to "finish" her?
In your first example it looks as though the collar hasn't been moved, indicated by how the shoulder still slopes downwards before the awkward bend. I'm guessing you forced limits off and pushed the 'shoulder' bone up high to compensate. The 'collar' is essentially the shoulder blade and should be one of the first to move for natural looking bends. Similar results can be achieved with Dawn if you bend the figure in unexpected ways.
As for a shoulder blade, that will largely depend on the figure you're using. Genesis 2 has a very simple shoulder blade by default, but it's more pronounced in the figure packs such as Victoria 6 and so forth. Genesis 2 in her default shape is intended to be a blank slate rather than a character in her own right. Good examples of shoulder blade visibility include Stephanie 6, Gia, Olympia and Mei Lin. It's less visible on the teen figures, Josie and Belle, and practically non-existent on the toon figures including the newer Keiko 6.
It was the first thing I moved. I believe I only moved it within limits, and then the Shoulder I moved with limits off. At least I finally have some non-terrible settings for Collar/Shoulder.
>Similar results can be achieved with Dawn if you bend the figure in unexpected ways.
Yes, I tested there too (with the Poser version of Dawn).
>As for a shoulder blade, that will largely depend on the figure you're using.
Ahhh, I wondered. Thanks for the guide. I guess I can't fully "test drive" Gen2 for free then...I won't really get a feel for how satisfactory it will be until I buy some figure.
I used the basic G2f with the Bree texture.
Limits were left on.
The lighting and texture help the shoulder blade to appear more prominent. :-)
Look closely at Scott's image and you can just about see the same shoulder blade details.
The details have just been filled in by the 'straight ahead' default 'headlamp'.
Yeah, I didn't put any lights in, so that could explain the difference.
Do you know, what about in something like:
https://www.daz3d.com/genesis-2-female-body-morphs
Would that alone allow me to make a body that had appropriate definition everywhere, similar to the kind of overall definition you'd get in a pre-created character like Victoria, Stephanie, etc?
Do you know, what about in something like:
https://www.daz3d.com/genesis-2-female-body-morphs
Would that alone allow me to make a body that had appropriate definition everywhere, similar to the kind of overall definition you'd get in a pre-created character like Victoria, Stephanie, etc?
It can help to an extent, but it's more about changing shapes, not adding definition...it won't give the same amount of detail as Victoria 6 or Stephanie 6, let alone the HD versions of those characters:
http://www.daz3d.com/victoria-6-hd-add-on
http://www.daz3d.com/stephanie-6-hd-add-on
HD add-ons especially are incredible for adding levels of detail... though, do expect render times to be much higher due to the added polygons.