Daz Originals Elite, Genesis, Genesis 2 Core Iray Updates/Addons
All these excellent skin textures for Core (numbered)---and Raiya's---that badly need Iray love could be given new life by the people who (generally) make the best-looking skins in Daztopia. I've tried the converters and other Iray utilities for specific Core characters, but none of them have placed the skins on a par with Genesis 3/8. The best conversion method I've seen is AllenArt's handmade recreations/edits of SSS maps plugged into Genesis 8 shader settings in order to convert David 5 and Michael 6. How cool it would be to have this available for all those great Elite and earlier Genesis models!
Of course, since Daz3D is in the business of selling NEW material, this may not be viable. However, if @Divamakeup decided to put her talents to work on it, it might be possible (because Altern8 tests take me as much time as Laurie's SSS edits). On the other hand, since Laurie was nice enough to give us a step-by-step explanation, I'd probably better get to work doing them for myself because I'd really like to have the extra excellence available NOW.
Comments
I know this is not exactly what you're asking for but InaneGlory has Iray materials for a good number of generation 6 figures available for free at deviantArt (they were Xmas freebies years ago), have you tried them?
https://www.deviantart.com/inaneglory
Thank you, @Leana, and yes, I got them all and tried a couple upon release, but I was unimpressed at the time. I ssshould probably revisit them to see if they will help get me to Nix/Babina/Zelara levels of radiance. Thanks again for helping.
Thank you for the shout-out, xyer0 - and the vote of confidence! lol That's sweet of you! :)
I have worked a little on some shaders for the older generation figures, but I'm not sure how many people still use the older figures. I'm not sure that enough people still use the older figures to make it worth the many weeks of work it would take to test and create an Altern8 type product for the older figures.
@Divamakeup, well, consider this: People don't use the older generations because their Iray implementation makes them look weak next to Gen3/8. I have them all, and after spending weeks (two years ago) trying to get Darius 6 and Gianni 6 fit to stand next to Michael 7 and Kimo 7, I threw in the towel. But since Daz gave away heaps of Genesis & Genesis 2 Pro Bundles, lots of people DO OWN them and would probably possibly love to have these old unusable skins made new and vital through a one-click shader &/or one-click SSS map applicator. The less options the better, but I've found that the SSS map is the lynchpin of the whole look; so, there may be no way around creating those. I'd pre-purchase Altern8 for Genesis 2 Core Male(s) and Altern8 for Genesis 2 Core Female(s), and Altern8 for Genesis Core Figures.
If you build it, they will come.
It would take a ton of work and time, but you've given me a lot to think about. :) Thanks, xyer0.
Actually, in my corner it is sort of the opposite - I don't use iray because I do use older generations, and they don't look good in iray, so why use iray? Just an alternate POV. :-)
They don't look good in Iray with Iray materials or they don't look good in Iray with their original materials?
Yes. :-)
With fussing they might look less terrible... iray looks about as complicated as the Luxrender settings, which I used to beat my head against with mixed success. However, if I didn't have to fuss with them, I'd think about running iray now and again. Probably not preferentially - I like 3DL for what I do. I did look at the various skin-converters available for Genesis when the whole iray thing first hit... meh. Skin and eyes are the first two big give-aways if you are trying to achieve realism, and they looked wretched... if the effect is lacklustre in a promo, where people who know what they are doing can't make it shine, well... there's no hope for me. For people who actually lust after iray and use earlier generations, though... it could be significant. I am not sure about the proportionate intersectionality of the users of earlier generations and the desire for iray. NPR people won't want it, people whose machines balk at iray... that's the kind of survey I'd like to see the results of :-)