Garibaldi vs. Look At My Hair - which is better overall/better for an amateur?

Kendall Sears

I tend to avoid these types of threads because I don't want to be a "salesman" but I will answer the questions in a technical fashion.

opal42987 said:

If you are using a machine with Intel Graphics, make sure that you have drivers newer than Dec 2012 installed.
Aw, dammit! So it's not usable if we have a computer model from before 2012? :(
Does this apply to the Garibaldi hair system as well?

We test LAMH on a single core Windows XP machine with 1.5G of RAM.
Wait, so which statement is true, then?

On Intel GPU systems, the device drivers need to be recent as Intel's OpenGL implementation is more incomplete than most.

opal42987 said:

I decided to go with Taozen’s suggestion, so I bought both LAMH and Garibaldi - on a trial basis, mind you! Whichever one I like better before the 30-day period runs out, I’ll keep; the other goes back for a refund. So I’m going to put them both to the acid test and see how well they do on a Gibson-girl hairstyle.
They both have free trial versions?

As fixmypcmike said, there's no "trial" just DAZ's return policy. LAMH does have the free player that allows you to use the large library of published presets.

opal42987 said:

I have a feeling that LAMH would crash my DAZ-- I use 4.5 and I have found it impossible to convert the Chaos Seed gloves using Transfer Utility. (it freezes at 17%)
Seems like one or two other gloves do this as well (they work fine with autofit, though)

As for the differences, while both can do hair/fur, LAMH can be used for much more than just hair/fur. The 1.0 version can be used for grass, vegetation, condensation, sweat, and much more. The 1.06 version of the full plugin is imminent (now everyone knows one of the reasons for the delay) and as soon as we can get an “OK” from our testers, LAMH will do even more.
Awesome. Can it make spanish moss? What about moss fronds? (think something similar to fern fronds-- if you live in the Pacific Northwest or in some boggy area then go outside, pick a single front off of some lush moss, ands look closely. BTW, the main stem of a moss frond is woody.)
I'd really love to make curtains of spanish moss!

If you have a moss prop, then yes. LAMH can add sweat droplets to figures for instance. It can also be used to populate a pasture with flowers (or weeds). We're adding even more as time goes along.

I'd like to request though-- I'd... kinda like your honest (non-sales rep, like I've been seeing in pages 1-3) opinion on the comparison between the two though (pros and cons), if that's possible/okay. I mean, I'm sure you've played with the Garibaldi hair system half to death. And, as a word of encouragement (that you not just speak exclusively of the LAMH pros) I definitely consider the free LAMH player as a major pro (I consider freebies of any kind other than "you need my product-add ons" like free textures to be generous semi-advertising service to customers, and try to make a note of it and give stronger consideration towards purchasing the products of said PAs. Far more importantly, the LAMH team offers generous amounts of forum support.)

Oh, one final and very important question-- how do the two programs work with each other-- what I mean is, if someone had both installed, would they interfere with each other/mess up DAZ Studio at all?
Also, am I correct in assuming that both cannot be loaded into the same scene? (like, let's say you want a Garbibaldi express head of hair for M4, and a LAMH moustache)

LAMH will cooperate with most plugins. There is a known conflict with Octane Plugin, but we're in contact with the developer to fix that.

It should be noted that the Garibaldi author has said - several times - that his only interest is to make a ri-curves hair system for DS. Period. That could always change - but that’s the way I understand the situation at this time.

The LAMH team have made it clear that they intend to push the technology as far as they can. Even version 1 has the ability to replace rendered hair with instanced objects. That, alone, makes the 2 products very different beasts.

Ah. Well, I think that solidifies my decision on which one to buy/favor. I hope the Garibaldi team do change their minds-- I very much want to see and experience the full potential of both programs. I still hope that Allesandro and Kendall will answer my above questions, though.

We are pushing the LAMH technology constantly.

Against Lamh: there is an extra activation on Alessandros server, the serial number you get from Daz is not enough. (Which is why I will never get Lamh).
So, are you saying that if the server ever goes down, I won't be able to register on a new computer after my old ones die? That sucks, and I hope the LAMH team will change this if ever they retire their server.

I have paid for the domains for a very long time. We're not going to disappear.

Kendall

IceEmpress

On Intel GPU systems, the device drivers need to be recent as Intel’s OpenGL implementation is more incomplete than most.

Are all Windows PCs Intel GPUs? (I'm assuming so) Sucks that LAMH requires drivers THAT recent (I believe mine are from '08). Man, what a letdown...

Kendall Sears

opal42987 said:

On Intel GPU systems, the device drivers need to be recent as Intel’s OpenGL implementation is more incomplete than most.

Are all Windows PCs Intel GPUs? (I'm assuming so) Sucks that LAMH requires drivers THAT recent (I believe mine are from '08). Man, what a letdown...

No, actually relatively few PC's use Intel GPU's. The vast majority are nVidia and AMD/ATI.

Kendall

IceEmpress

Oh, good. Yeah, my PC has a Vision AMD sticker on it. I'm a dumbass when it comes to sound/graphics cards :/