Very Confused about the transition Gen2 to Gen3

ghortagg

Hi,
i m a begginer at DAZ, and i have many questoins about the transition from Gen2 to Gen3
And yes i have read 30+ pages of the thread about Victoria 7, ididn't help much

1° I have purchased some character (Victoria 6, Ysabeau, or the lizardman) can i still use them without trouble ?

2) These characters give me acces to morphs (body & head), can i apply them to gen3 ?

3) i have some utilities like "creature creator" or "skin builder" are those still usable ?

4) Can i still reopen my former scenes and work with them?

5) (the newbie question) what is an UV map ?

thank you for answering

Deke

I'll give this a shot:
--I don't see why you can't use older characters. I open old Genesis characters all the time.
--The body morphs are designed for that particular figure's geometry. Since the geometry or mesh is changed from G to G2 and G3, the older morphs won't work. I feel you pain. Have older morphs for G and I wish would work with G2.
--I'm not familiar with creature creator or skin building.
--You should be able to open older scenes.
--UV does not stand for Ultra-Violent…I'm not really sure what it stands for. But the UV map is essentially directions that tell a 2d texture or image how to align itself onto a 3d geometric mesh. The UV Map assigned various points on the 2d image and these are married to specific points on the geometry. At least I think I have that right.

Leana

ghortagg said:

1° I have purchased some character (Victoria 6, Ysabeau, or the lizardman) can i still use them without trouble ?Your older content didn't stop working because Genesis 3 was released ;) Genesis 2 hasn't disappeared, you just got an additional figure to play with.
Content made for Genesis 2 still works perfectly well on the figure it was made for. It won't be directly compatible with Genesis 3 though.

ghortagg said:

2) These characters give me acces to morphs (body & head), can i apply them to gen3 ?No, not without converting them to Genesis 3 first, as it's a totally different figure. There are tutorials in the forums on how to convert morphs manually, or you could wait till an utility is released to do it (I wouldn't be surprised if D3D released a GenX2 add-on for that, or a new version of GenX), or just go on using them as is with G2.

ghortagg said:

3) i have some utilities like "creature creator" or "skin builder" are those still usable ?

Again, they'll still work perfectly with the figure they were intended for, but won't work with G3. Skin builder especially can't be used for G3, as the textures are very different.
4) Can i still reopen my former scenes and work with them?

Yes, there's no reason they wouldn't work anymore.
5) (the newbie question) what is an UV map ?Basically, UV-mapping a 3d model is creating a "mapping" which will tell which pixel on your texture map(s) goes where on the 3d model. From memory, "u" and "v" are the coordinates on the texture map

Chohole

1) Yes, no problems, there are people here who are still using the old Gen3 figures, by which I mean Aiko 3, Victoria 3 and such
2) normally morphs will only apply to the character they were made for, With Genesis and Genesis 2 they could be transferred using a 3rd part utility. This will probably not work with Genesis 2 to Gensis 3 as they are radicalyy different in the base mesh.
3) See 2 above.
4) There is no reason why your older scenes shouldn't work that I know of.
5) The UV map is the map of the mesh of the figure or clothing article, Every figure or prop that has UV coordinates can have a dedicated UV map. It is used as the base on which to prepare the texture map. With the Genesis figures some characters have their own UVmaps. However if you want to use an alternate skin you can change the UV mapping of the figure so (for example) you can use a V4 skin on a Genesis 1 female figure by making sure you have changed the UV map for the genesis figure to V4.

ghortagg

Thank you very much for these answers

BlueSirius

There is a lot of scope to play around...

Don't let the version stuff get in the way of creating though - I'm going to focus on G2 for a WHILE but watch G3 on forums and play with things here and there - BUT I still have targets to do with my G2 cast.

Decide what you want to work across figures by experimenting, some of it can be done, sometimes with effort, knowledge or a plug-in. Plug-In's and converters will appear with time. Play around and put that effort in - it is a good way to learn.

Learn about compatibility bases: I've been doing a big TIDY of my content to see which V4 stuff I can use on Genesis 2... which Genesis 1 stuff I want to bother converting to Genesis 2 etc.

Took me a while but I got a cast of characters I either purchased or dialed up assembled into scenes with V4, G1 and G2 - all that look identical. I have a tool kit of scenes and props taken from many sources now linked into my Smart Content - some converted from Maya, many from poser.

For now G3 is just like a new car in the show room, its not in my garage though I had a quick drive. If I see a character I love come out... I will put some effort into making her into a G2 :) This is where one learns stuff - the skin might be too hard to convert - If so then raid one off another character that is close. The morph might be too hard or impossible to convert without a plug-in. BUT learn to dial a shape using a couple of reference views, it might not be 100%, but you will learn and grow in comfort.. Later you will always improve it - or get it 100% then .... well you decide!