The All About Aiko 5 Thread
RCDeschene
Posts: 2,800
Okay, I have NO idea why this is NOW happening, especially everything we got already for this Generation between Hitomi and Hiro, but somehow, AIKO 5 IS COMING!!!
http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/read_me/index/15624/start
http://docs.daz3d.com/doku.php/public/read_me/index/15711/start
This is awesome! I don't know if it was because of Hitomi's successful reception, if someone at DAZ finally convinced MallenLane to make her, or if this is DAZ's way of simply shutting me up! This definitely, with out a single doubt, surprises me with joyous excitement to no ends! :cheese:
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Comments
That is awesome news indeed!
That’s nice.
But I’m not surprised, Aiko’s always been very popular and we even got Hiro 5. Hitomi was just another character by a PA. Aiko 5 was just a matter of time.
Aiko 4 was very different than Aiko 3, and I think she was a big improvement and offered something new.
That’s why I didn’t bought Hiro 5. Looks just like Hiro 4 and I already have him. I’m not that much into anime characters so whatever, but all kind of characters are useful to mix if they add something new, and there are way too many manga/anime styles so I hope they don’t follow the Gen 4 cloning trend with this one too. She’s a female character and a popular one, so I still have hopes for her.
Absolutely, I can't believe it's finally happening! :cheese:
Seriously, I can't. I mean, how is she going to turn out? We already got Hitomi from MallenLane, which DAZ advertised and supported like any other Iconic Character, then they release Hiro 5, which MallenLane explained directly is the male counterpart for Hitomi. So now is Aiko going to fit into this picture?
Is it going to be like how Stephanie is the third wheel for the Victoria & Michael duo? Is Aiko going to be marketed as something else within the anime genre? After all, as I often point out regarding the Stylized couple, Aiko & Hiro in Gen 3 were very traditionally anime in the actual toony aspect which Hitomi brought a homecoming to. Then in Gen 4 Aiko & Hiro took on a more modernized J-pop and Fantasy/Game style. Perhaps DAZ is finally categorizing the two genres separately and Aiko, Hiro & Hitomi (and maybe another male counterpart somewhere down the lines).
Either way, I really want to see what DAZ has instore with this! :)
I know we've have a very similar debate as this in the Freak 5 Promo thread, but trust me when I say Hiro 5 does NOT look like Hiro 4!
As for Aiko 5, of course! That's why I'm really excited about this, not just because I'm finally getting the "DAZ Brand 3D Anime Girl", but because where we already have the anime genre already filled for this generation with Hitomi & Hiro, one can only guess what plans they have for Aiko.
Image removed, please do not post skin coloured Nude figures. The clay render is OK
I have to ask, is there a group of individuals who scour the documentation area for hints on new releases? It always seemed odd to me that people happened upon such things in there, so I can only assume someone's eagerly checking to see when they're added. I'm guessing no sign of K5 yet then.
No offense, but those comparisons just confirm how extremely similar they are. I don’t even know which one is H4 and which one is H5 even standing next to each other! Whichever is Hiro 5 looks just like Hiro 4 Iconic shape, a pair of Evolution morphs and of it goes on sale for another $40!
It worries me when people think minor tweaks on the previous generation is cool enough. Gives DAZ the idea the clones are enough to keep us happy and we miss potentially new and fresh shapes. This unfortunately, seems like its whats just happening lately. With the unlimited manga/anime styles they could have offered something different to what’s already available, the same happened with F5 unfortunately, even with the new scaling and rigging options Genesis offers. I hope at least Aiko 5 and/or Girl 5 don’t follow the same path.
Now look at Aiko 4 and Hitomi. They are pretty different, makes them both useful and they both add something unique to the mix. There’s a reason to get both. Now imagine Hitomi looked like Aiko 4 with a few tweaks. What would be the point?
Considering MallenLane himself said that he designed Hiro 5 to be the male counterpart to Hitomi, I wouldn't get your hopes up for Aiko 5 looking radically different. In fact, I'm not really sure why they're making Aiko 5 at all (aside from the $$$$ obviously).
Sorry, but it's clear to me that Hiro 5 is the one on the right. the eyes are different, the face shape is different, the body shape is different... They're not the same shape to me.
And it looks to me like more than just "Hiro 4 with a pair of evolution morphs" Especially the eyes, since that's one area I'm always trying to fight whenever I use Aiko or Hiro 4. (I prefer the narrower "worldly" type of Anime eyes.) The only way I've ever managed is using 3rd party morphs.
I'll admit, I'm not especially excited for Aiko 5 (since I don't really do Anime much) or Freak 5 (not my preferred body type for guys), but that doesn't mean I think they're just more of the same.
Aiko 5 will be what we decide her to be through what we support and ask for. Our renders and how we use her will carry some influence I think. Remember Aiko 3 became wildly popular and I think more so than DAZ expected. I think part of that of course was the anime aspect, but more than that was how easy she was to use. Out of the box she was useful without injections and she had that 'Real' morph built in.
Aiko 5 will have the same benefits (and drawbacks if you think that way) of all other Genesis characters unless there's something we would be surprised about so that aspect of A3's popularity won't be there. So it will be more how she inspires us, what she feels like to us, rather than any technical issues.
Or I could be all dripping wet.
Looking through the various marketplaces that I hang out in, A3 was an extrordnarily distinct character. There were all kinds of morphs and add-on characters for her, but you never would have mistaken her for Victoria or Stephanie, even in her most realistic modes. A4, on the other hardly ever rarely seemed to be used alone. Yes there were any number of characters for her, but she seemed to be used most typically as a blend morph for Victoria -- which she was built as from the beginning. You couldn't use Aiko 4 unless you had Victoria to inject her morphs. She wasn't a separate figure, and she was rarely used as such (except probably in anime-centric circles).
It's going to be interesting to see where A5 fits in. The thing is that there ARE enough different styles of 'toons, and related non-realistic art styles that there is plenty of room for adding more somewhat different ones. People will be mixing her with Hintomi or Mavka or the 3DUniverse people, regardless.
And she comes with a bundle of *new gear* what's not to like?
No wonder DAZ stopped innovating.
Wow, yeah, exactly. :wow:
They are really different and they add interesting results to the mix. One of the best things of Genesis is the mixing of characters, with all the different possible styles, when they just look like clones of the previous version its just wasted potential.
If only more vendors did innovative Genesis characters like smay or 3DUniverse do, I wouldn't bother with what DAZ is doing anymore. If Aiko turns out to be another clone, there's Hitomi. If someone came with a good anime guy and a muscle freak, those holes would be filled too.
Sorry, but it's clear to me that Hiro 5 is the one on the right. the eyes are different, the face shape is different, the body shape is different... They're not the same shape to me.
And it looks to me like more than just "Hiro 4 with a pair of evolution morphs" Especially the eyes, since that's one area I'm always trying to fight whenever I use Aiko or Hiro 4. (I prefer the narrower "worldly" type of Anime eyes.) The only way I've ever managed is using 3rd party morphs.
I'll admit, I'm not especially excited for Aiko 5 (since I don't really do Anime much) or Freak 5 (not my preferred body type for guys), but that doesn't mean I think they're just more of the same.
Exactly. Hiro 4 was made to compliment Aiko 4 while Hiro 5 on the other hand was made to compliment Hitomi. And yes, even Hitomi has noticeable similarities to Aiko 4 in physique. But it puzzles me why you'd say that H4 and H5 look like each other when the do vary so significantly different from each other. As a matter of fact, ever since I got Hiro 5 and Hitomi, I've stopped using the A4 & H4 shapes almost all together. Though, I still use bits of their head morphs to add more uniqueness to my anime style characters. Even then, I actually use A3 & H3 more! :)
I think you may have misunderstood what I meant. Yes, granted from an artistic perspective she will ultimately be what we morph her into, but the thing is, from WHAT starting point? Aiko is the "Iconic 3D Anime Girl" with Hiro as her male counterpart. But for this 5th Generation, we got Hitomi whom for a while DAZ released as the "3D Anime Girl" with Hiro 5 as her male counterpart aesthetically. If we already have the 3D Anime Duo already in place for this generational run, then how will an actual Aiko 5 serve at this point?
That's why I suggest DAZ may be planing on broadening on the spectrum that the genre of anime is contemporarily involved in, like video games and J-pop. Or it may be something simple as being the third female wheel in the genre as how Stephanie is with Victoria & Michael in theirs.
*Throws you a towel*
Because, if you search anime guys you’ll see there are a lot of different styles. But the comparison show the same Hiro 4 with minor tweaks, so I can’t tell if H5 is on the right or left. All I can see is one of them has slightly smaller eyes, rounder face and stuff like that, but not enough to say wich is the newer version.
Just scroll up and down your comparisons and tell me that’s a whole new character worth $40.
I showed the Hiro 5 page to an otaku friend, she thought he was horrible (me too, since I always hated H4), then I showed her Hiro 4 and she asked what’s the difference between them. All it came to my mind was, “well, this one seems to have bigger eyes maybe”.
The Hiro 5 Render Thread is 2 pages long and I really never heard of him again, actually, I never heard of him outside DAZ and the initial release. I’m sure we would have seem more of him if he was more than a H4 variant.
Whatever they have planned Aiko to be, I just hope its something new.
The differences between H4 and H5 are, in my opinion, greater than the differences between H3 and H4. Both of the older Hiros look like Gray alien/Human hybrids to me (in clay render).
Well, I used to be an otaku and I can say, from both in and out of the culture, and the simple fact that I actually have and used both of them, that they look different. And no offense, because not only as a former otaku do I know this first hand, but because I know many other otakus to this day: many of us don't have very keen tastes or senses of good artistic judgement for that matter. In fact, its a big stereotypical criticism that we get. %-P
Here's a little something that helps reflect this:
(Warning: Crude Language)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJbnUoeFywo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpdElySRAoA
But all teasing aside. Yes, there are many various ways to articulate something in an "anime" style, but really, every character has signature features that gives it commonality with others, whether it the big head with the big eyes or something else. That's why it's a genre, because it has standardized vision. And like I told you before in the Freak 5 Promo thread, as much as we do expect DAZ to sell us something we don't already have, the objective of the Iconic Characters is simply to provide us with a base to work off of.
Trust me when I say, I know what you mean. I actually thought that H4 looked a lot like H3 at first, but boy was I wrong. It wasn't when I tried modeling H4 in the same way as I did H3 was when I immediately noticed how different of a character I was working with. H3, in my opinion, like A3, was cute, warm and toony like an actual anime boy, while H4, on the other hand, felt more posh, cold and princely and just looked, as DaWaterRat put it, like an androgynous alien hybrid. A4 was even worse! As even I explained, DAZ was only trying to blend anime style with a modern J-pop appeal, but the way it just turned out in the form of 3D male and female base figures were just cringe-inducing. And the thought of the two of them with realistic V4 & M4 skins? *Shivers* But Hitomi & Hiro 5? Nothing but positive feedback from this happy customer, which goes to show that both MallenLane and DAZ learned from this "figure faux pas".
Still, this is why I think this may the reason why we're getting both Hitomi AND Aiko in the same generational run, one explores each of the two aspects in it's proper respect instead of just abominating them into one hybrid.
With how disappointed I am with Hiro 5 I am not sure if I am looking for to Aiko 5.
When I compare the bases alone, Hiro 5 seems unfinished
I got the teen morphs and even Stephanie 5 and was thrilled to have them. Hiro 5 I got because it was on sale fore like 10 dollars with my pc discount
Regardless if Aiko 5 brings something significantly new to the Genesis gene pool or not, you know there will be a ton of extra content released along with her. That's more what I'm curious to see than Aiko 5 herself. I like Aiko and Hitomi, but I don't really do straight-up anime renders. I've mostly just used them for small mix amounts with V5.
I can't help wondering if Hiro5 had been given a different name, like Hitomi had, would there have been a demand for Aiko5?
Quite probably. Even after Hitomi came out, before there was a Hiro 5, people were hoping for Aiko 5, and Hitomi is a PA Product, while Hiro and Aiko have always been Daz Originals.
EXACTLY! Even if I don't like and never use the base character itself, the rest of the Pro Bundle always finds a way into my renders and characters concepts. ;)
I get your point re third wheel possibility, but honestly, not everyone enamored with Aiko 3 who added to her popularity used her in conjunction with Hiro 3, nor even as an anime figure per se. I don't think the same will happen with Hitomi whose anime-ness is quite obvious (and adorable).
It's possible that it may be the folks who didn't concentrate on anime with A3 who will be the ones who will determine the 'fate' of A5. But I, of course, don't know the size of the various markets for A3. I do know that in the U.S. anyway, stuff for A3 tended to be more on the non-anime end after the initial push.
Maybe we'll finally get a true Genesis version of '0009' when she's released. I want that jacket on Genesis, but the transfer utility smears the buttons into these oval shapes and its unusable.
Rigidity maps should help you with that, but I have not used that feature myself.
I get your point re third wheel possibility, but honestly, not everyone enamored with Aiko 3 who added to her popularity used her in conjunction with Hiro 3, nor even as an anime figure per se. I don't think the same will happen with Hitomi whose anime-ness is quite obvious (and adorable).
It's possible that it may be the folks who didn't concentrate on anime with A3 who will be the ones who will determine the 'fate' of A5. But I, of course, don't know the size of the various markets for A3. I do know that in the U.S. anyway, stuff for A3 tended to be more on the non-anime end after the initial push.
Maybe among the professional artists she's used in non-amine-oriented ways, but trust me when I say that the Aiko & Hiro groups on places like DeviantART are FLOODED with pure A3/H3 faces, A3 more so than H3. Even so, I think that was always a general idea with Aiko, that she was built in a way that one could use her more psudo-realistically for an anime-esque style character. This is probably why we're getting both. Those of us like myself and RKane_1, to reference, still demanded an actual Aiko 5 after Hitomi's release because we knew that she was, in fact, the more realistic alternative, which is good for fantasy and game-inspired characters.
Still, we all can agree that, even if none of these facts turns out to be the case for her this round, if she does go on to follow Hitomi & Hiro 5's style, she will still sell simply because she's Aiko and the "third wheel female figure" is very much a safe marketing action for DAZ as proven by Stephanie.
you know the Hiro 5 product line was kind of blahhh as well
I usually get the start or pro bundles
this time around there was nothing I really wanted to get in either
I came into this hobby shortly after A4 came out, and she never really grabbed me. I always had an appreciation for some of the outfits and characters for A3, but I rationalized that I shouldn't spend my limited budget on "outdated" products, which I regret now, I think I really missed out. So, I'm hoping for more of a A3 feel than A4.
I wandered in a bit later than that, and ended up picking up some really cool A3 stuff which I turned out to never use, because I never used Aiko. Well, 3 years later I'm getting to use quite a bit of it. Not everything, since long dresses are still fairly hopeless. It always helps if the skirts are separate, since you can often scale and parent them
Actually, the reason I never used AIko was because of the way the Gen3 characters show up in my content lists. It seems like just about every tiny morph is a separate item in the list and it's all just thoroughly unapealing.
I have an .RSS feed of the "Recent changes" page from DAZ product wiki; every couple of hours my system automatically goes to check if new pages are added, and if so, it tells me about them. This is perfectly ordinary standard for many web pages and wikis. There are days when I can't be bothered to check the full web site (this usually involves staying in bed and working through my RL issues), but quick text stuff is more than enough to convince me that the world still exists and oh hey, freakin' cool, man, I wonder what that is about.
Nothing stranger than that.
I have an .RSS feed of the "Recent changes" page from DAZ product wiki; every couple of hours my system automatically goes to check if new pages are added, and if so, it tells me about them. This is perfectly ordinary standard for many web pages and wikis. There are days when I can't be bothered to check the full web site (this usually involves staying in bed and working through my RL issues), but quick text stuff is more than enough to convince me that the world still exists and oh hey, freakin' cool, man, I wonder what that is about.
Nothing stranger than that.
Ooh! How can I do that? :)
But yeah, I actually went into the 15000 - 15999 section of the ReadMe page and new tab-clicked like a motherf**ker! :-)