HD morph plug in
I know, at current daz only offer tool to make HD morph for PA of DAZ.
but why DAZ do not sell it as plug in? please think hobby user and why I buy daz products.
it is because I do not have skill to make product as same as DAZ vendors. or I can say I have no time to learn many things and training myself as same as 3D Artist.
it is my hobby, and not my work to earn money.
but hope to make render easy along to my skill (though I do not need to make professional render, mostly just use them for planing or pic which can offer situation as visual,,)
. then use DAZ studio and Contents which offered as free or sold from vendors.
but if DAZ do not offer tool about hobby user (and who do not plan to be DAZ PA) , I never make HD morphs as I like.
I think it is reasonalbe, when the vnedor show skill and make good product which I need, and I can not (because of skill and time) to buy those .
but when the tool is offered for PA only,,, then I can not make more detail (eg smooth dimple) as HD morphs, etc,, then need to struggle with it, I can not approve to get those product.
because of it is no matter about vendor skill.. just about tool problem which DAZ offer..
It is OK,, daz offer them as free for DAZ PA, but why DAZ need to limit to offer tool, and do not sell tool for customer, then only sell HD morphs for customer?
Comments
I doubt you will see the HD morph tool offered unless serious professionals begin pressuring DAZ to do so. Since DAZ makes it only available to to PAs under a specific agreement, the DAZ store becomes the only place on Earth to buy HD morphs and therefore DAZ can charge as they please for them. If they let people buy the tool the users could make HD freebies or sell them at other stores.
Also since users can't make the HD morphs it locks them into the upgrade cycle since you can't GenX transfer them, allowing DAZ to resell HD morphs for future generations of figures.
Unfortunately, RobotHeadArt is probably right. Let's get this clear though, the HD technology for DAZ figures belongs to DAZ3d and they can do with it whatever they want. However, I personally think their business decision on this matter is a wrong one. By limiting access to HD to PAs only, DAZ3d does ensure they get a slice of the pie for every HD item sold. However, they also antagonise many of their clients (such as kitakoredaz) who want to use the HD technology for their own non-commercial projects.
There are many people who would be happy to pay for plugins which gave the user access to high end features such as the abilty to make HD morphs for one and the use of morph brushes within DS for another. Surely the revenue brought in by such plugins licenced for non-commercial use only would out-weigh any lost revenue by those few individuals who might try to break the licence agreements. Plus there is always the opportunity to sue such individuals.
It seems to me that the current DAZ3d attitude to its HD technology is in opposition to it's attitude towards it's 3d figures. You can buy a licence to use a figure, such as the Genesis 3 series and you can do what you want with it. You can make morphs, clothing, expression, poses etc, if you want to put the effort in. However DAZ3d knows that most of us, even if we make some stuff ourselves, will still buy such things from the DAZ3d Store, either because it's quicker or what is available is better than what the average user can make. As kitakoredaz pointed out most of us are hobbyists, we do not have a lot of time to spend, though we are willing to spend some of our free cash to have fun!
I don't know what can be done to persuade DAZ3d that they have adopted the wrong business model with respect to their HD technology, but it won't hurt to have lots of clients complaining about it!
What exactely does the HD morph plugin do?
I have no problem creating morphs in ZBrush and use them on G3.
I'm really interested in this. Can anybody tell me what I can not do without the HD morph plug-in?
I mean we have a certain UV which outlays the geometry, right? Does the HD morph plugin raise the polygon / tris count so that we can have more geometry?
Otherwise I could not imagine how we could have more detail.
Regular morphs need to be created from the mesh exported at base resolution.
HD morph plugin enables you to sculpt your morph from a subdivided mesh and import it back as a morph in DS.
I don't think anyone other than the PAs that use it actually know what it does; anything we say is likely a WAG (wild a** guess).
The goal of that plugin is perfectly known, it has been explained several times since HD morphs have been introduced...
For personal use, normal maps the most efficient method to add detail to your characters. The HD tool is not a shortcut to not learning how to sculpt on low poly meshes, so if you aren't able to sculpt on a low poly mesh, the tool is ultimately useless to you as it requires the same skill set. This thread discusses the differences between normal maps and HD morphs. Making a normal map and importing it is much quicker.
If you have zbrush and you feel you don't have enough polys to sculpt with, turn on dynamic subdivision. It will give the illusion that you are working with more polys without actually subdividing the mesh. All the zbrush tools will perform the operations on the low poly mesh, then create another copy of that morph and subdivide to make the details and generate your normal map from there. Sickleyield has a tutorial on how to create the maps with genesis 3.
Making maps is not necessarily the most efficient method of adding detail to your characters, that would depend on your skill set. However for non-PA's making maps is the ONLY way to make HD morphs on Genesis 3.
Sculpting in Zbrush at high subD and then allowing Z brush to paint some maps for you can work but I have experienced problems when morphs span UV zones. Moreover, maps (in my experience) do not represent a useful means of correcting distortions introduced by "extreme" joint positions in figures, or distortions introduced into clothing by autofit. Where as sculpting tools work really well for that.
So, maps are not the solution to all your morphing needs with Genesis3 in DS, but they ARE the ONLY HD option you have if you are not a PA.
For Johan, just to clarify: you can MAKE HD morphs for Genesis 3 in Zbrush, but you can't USE them in DS. If you use GoZ (the simplest bridge between DS and Zbrush), after you make a HD morph on a Genesis 3 figure in high subdivision mode and then hit GoZ to send that morph back to DS, all that is sent back to DS is a base resolution version of your HD morph, unless you happen to be a PA, of course.
GoZ doesn't send back an HD morph for PAs either. And you still need to learn a low poly workflow either way, you don't simply start with an subdivided mesh and work from there; that's now how the tool works.
Also, most of your joint distortions are fixed with the low poly mesh via JCMs, not the HD as that is your complete mesh, not the details. Also you make sure your important details stay way from your bends, like you do clothing.
Funny that this topic comes up again and again...
Daz has the right to reserve their technology for the artists that produce for them.
There are general rules that apply to sculpture, whether it be digital or practical.
For one, form and silhouette must come first. This is accomplished at low subdivision levels when we're talking about digital sculpture. Therefore, most of your "character" will be captured at your lowest subdivision level.
Beyond that you start getting into secondary forms. This is muscle definition and major wrinkles and such. Most of which captured in a normal or displacement map.
Beyond that you get into tertiary details, all of which can be captured in a bump, or normal map.
I have visual examples here in this thread: http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/1985321/#Comment_1985321
Now, granted, it is nice to be able to transfer more secondary form into a morph through HD, but ultimately, it is not necessary or even fundamental to creating content.
well as I asked in another thread, could those PA's please provide those equally good displacement maps as an alternative for those who want them for say in my case FBX export to iClone.
I include normal maps with most of my models, I don't know about other PAs. Not sure if normal maps are compatible with IClone or not, but there are many different ways to bake your own, it just take a little research. That being said, most PAs are producing their products to be used in Daz Studio and some include Poser files as well. But being as this is Daz3d, you probably won't see many PAs producing content to be used outside of those formats.
Please not mix up with, what I can try without HD morph tool which daz vendor can play , and sell product with tool as specail naming.
I am simple hobby 3d user, then just hope to get tool as plug in product which we can buy, then simply request as hobbyist and
DAZ prioduct customer which have bought many products from DAZ shop and DAZ vendors.
or you say , you may need not to get 3d high expensive aprication, untilll you get perfect skill with other tools, because you can do samething withou those tool?
or when Vendor sell simple sciript, or simple manuall, you say, you need not to buy it, you can do it almost samething by just editing or you may better serch you tube,, there are many free document etc?
If I need to ask , How to make good normal map, or make detail, how to sculpt and bake well for each aprication, I ask so in another forum topic, as techinical quesiton.
I simply use this Product suggestion topic as one of product request for DAZ
BTW, I hope Vendor offer HD morphs product, with option which include displacement map,(or normal, bump etc), which can use it easy in another apricaiton, as subsitutte of DAZ super HD morph technolozy which can show same effect without HD morph etcif vendors say, You can do samething without HD morphs,
but HD morphs can tweak parameter as moprh, and can set ERC with anotehr parameter, it is clear different from texture maps, HD morph have more flexibliity even though if it show same effect by texture map.