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I've decided no longer to participate in this thread. I said what I felt about it. I am moving on now as this thread is becoming broken-record-like.
I didn't reply to RawArt's post, because it wasn't addressed to me.
I made an effort to use wording to make it clear my opinion was just that, an opinion, and tried to describe to the best of my ability where I couldn't get past the appearance of part of the model with the tools available.
I don't think G9 "should" be anything, and it's offensive to have that pinned on me when I clearly have stated otherwise.
I'm just trying to describe what I want to be able to achieve, and haven't been able despite the numerous products and characters for G9 I have purchased. There's nothing else for me to buy to do what I am trying to do.
If someone doesn't get that or understand, that's fine. But don't dismiss me, tell I shouldn't want it to begin with or that I'm being too picky. It's my money and my art. I'm not settling for something just because other people don't care.
I've been working in this stuff since Michael 3. I've always bought the various morph sets and characters, putting money in PA's pockets, dial spinning until I hit on something I like. Maybe that time is done for me. Maybe it's time for me to either walk away or learn how to sculpt and model on my own. And if I do that, that less reason for me to spend money here, too. I doubt that's something Daz wants to encourage in their customer base.
Actually, they all have some odd shaping in the armpit area; it's a remnant of the original character that I keep forgetting to fix. (I actually originally did the scene with another character of mine that I have on G3, G8 and G9, before concluding that actually G3 and G8 are sufficiently similar and I should swap in Nicky and her G2 version for a more meaningful comparison, but she still has some quirks of her original shape).
Still, people have correctly identified G9 in the centre. But this is the point where I have to admit I'm not staggeringly surprised. (Amongst other things, I'll accept the different generations have quite different looks to their emoting, which is part of why I haven't pulled most of my characters forwards - changing how they smile heavily impacts how they look to me).
The reason I wanted answers was more about why they thought it was G9. Which is important, because the initial question was about G9 being genderless and its ability to be morphed into male or female shapes - yet that particular logic didn't feature in anyone's reasoning.
Moreover, we have the Nicky on the right...
... and no-one managed to call me out on that particular loophole in my phrasing. (Hey, I promised G2, I never said G2F).
It would seem then that in practice what many people are criticising about G9 then is not so much about whether the unisex mesh can look masculine or feminine, but instead more with how it bends. (And as no-one criticised the bends on G2M Nicky, it's fair to say that starting from a mesh of the wrong or an ambiguous gender does not seem to be an overwhelming factor in any issue with bends).
That would be fundamentally good news.
Joint bends, while annoying to fix, are fixable without breaking the entire figure. (In much the same way as G8.1 changed all its facial controls, but retained compatibility with most G8 assets). Having to change the base topology or shaping of the mesh would not be, and I think the last thing we really want right now is a load of threads complaining that they have to rebuy everything for G10 - fundamentally, being able to fix G9 (either with an expansion or a G9.1 update) would be a way better solution than introducing another generational step, and with it new incompatibilities.
My comment wasnt to anyone in particular. It was a simple statement that there really should be no issue to having a persons own personal preference as to how a figure should look, as it is easy to achieve pretty well any desired look through the use of morphs.
There really are no "errors" that need correcting with the figure. There are enough tools that make the figure easily customizable to any look.
That looks right. Now, hopefully there are no projected artifacts of the phantom under-moobs when clothed with a man's shirt.
Those are great! Nicely done!
I'm of the camp that G9 skews female, so using female shapes as a test wouldn't have had me personally shouting from the rooftops that the center figure just couldn't pull off looking feminine and was clearly G9. I understand your choice since you mention having these three figures ready to go. I'm simply saying why I personally wouldn't have mentioned gender fail as a fingerprint on that shape.
This train has obviously derailed. Perhaps we should consider riding the 9 bus.
What changed in 8.1 were the pose controls, the actual face bones are still the same (so expressions that are baked down to transforms would, to thee xtent that they use bones, work on both).
Projecting morphs into clothes is always going to be tricky as it is based on how much the underlying mesh has changed - this is one of the reasons that the breast morphs may project badly, if there is no specific projection morph to address the issue, as the sternum area doesn't geenrally change so that part of the clothing gets left behind when an enlarge/shrink morph pushes the breasts in/out. The issue you see with clothes is probably the same thing - some areas chnage more than others and so the clothing shows oddities.
I've heard it strongly proclaimed both ways, sometimes from people in immediately adjacent posts.
Which to me suggests that the shape itself isn't a terrible compromise - it could possibly benefit from being pushed further each way to satisfy some people, but if people are split about which way it leans, then it at least implies you're somewhere in the right ballpark.
Sure, but this is potentially within the scope of an alternate set of bend correctives, and as G8.1 was set up to hide/disable one set of controllers/morphs/links and replace them with a different set, a theoretical G9.1 could use similar methods to load an entirely different set of correctives to G9.0.
In practice a better solution would probably be a supplementary set of correctives that can layer over the existing ones and have their strength adjusted (in fact, much like a product released yesterday, although it doesn't address all of these bends) as required to work with existing vendor made correctives rather than breaking everything that layers on top of the existing CBS... but still, it would still be technically possible for a G9.1 to replace elements of how G9.0 poses.
Thank you, Richard, for the nuts and bolts. The lack of adequate projection morphs may be another reason the design choice of a dedicated underboob crease has been problematic for some users and is consequently blamed for their issues. Some G8 issues (twisty forearms) were never solved, while several others were addressed with 8.1. There don't appear to be as many PAs working on G9 morphs as worked on G8, but perhaps that will change.
Mm. I don't think most of the voiced complaints about what's wrong with G9's base male shape catch the whole of the problem. It isn't limited to an under-the-paps w.
The end result is that G9M lands in the Uncanny Valley of Unlikely Human Individuals, at least to certain eyes. He both must be a muscular man, based on some parts, seen from some angles, and cannot be a muscular man, based on other parts, or seen from other angles. -- Not everyone is going to be able to describe this in detail, even if something hits them as off about it.
Sure, it's quite possible for a skilled artist to shift any of this. How not? The points move. The texture is repaintable.
The questions are:
The answers for me:
It's still not obvious to me that it's impossible to start with an epicene base figure, publish it, and get sufficiently convincing male and female models from it. (Harry the Hivewire Horse, after all, is sculpted from Dawn 1.) That is not my problem. My problem is that I am not convinced by this model from the neck to the diaphragm, particularly not the male version; and that I am not confident in my ability to correct that in a reasonable time; and that when I am so confident, I might not be in the market for somebody else's base figure.
So ... I have bought a couple of Genesis 9 female models whose faces I particularly like. I won't swear not to pick up a couple more -- even G9 men, if someone else produces a male face I really want to render. But I don't want to spend a lot of money to start with a base model I might have to adjust quite as much as this. Nor am I fond of the absurd combination of graphically expensive high resolution and the reported inability of mere mortals to make a nipple morph, in the unlikely event I decided to render a novel G9 male model in swimming trunks. That's ... just not incentive for a large collection of model purchases.
The published artists' creations diverge from the base models to varying degrees. With some, the base model is usually guessable. With others, I usually recognize the artist's individual style, rather than the underlying model. Naturally, it helps more if I like the base model in the former case.
Duh, what he said.