Popularity of G2F
PulpArtst
Posts: 88
At the risk of trying to open a path through landmines I got thinking about V6 and G2F and popularity after the “Friends of Victoria” promotion. Let me state my purpose of this discussion isn’t to compare or complain about V6 to previous versions, but rather to discuss the popularity of the figure. Since we don’t know the sales data it is speculation.
The Daz store has a nice amount of content as I just glanced and Genesis has 685 pieces listed under Clothing & Accessories and G2F lists 531. So obviously the artists here are embracing the figure and rapidly turning out content. I’ve noticed that other content providers are also supplying G2F content slowly even if V4 remains the most popular. Given the incredible amount of content available and popularity of V4 the transition might be slow, but hopefully going well as I like the G2F.
So just how popular is G2Fif one had to guess? And do you use it more or less than the older Vickys?
To answer my own question I think G2F is getting some traction and I use it about 25% of the time as I like it a great deal, but I have a great many V4 and Gen1 characters.
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Gen2 is incredibly popular just based upon my own sales data.. if Gen1 was more so I would be making content for it despite it being more time consuming but it's faaaar from it. I won't make V4 clothing because Poser legacy rigging is teh suck. I assume V4 is still the most popular with the Rendo crowd being that there are still a lot of Poser users that refuse to use Gen2 because they're afraid of the dson importer and/or a lot of new Gen2 things the artists aren't bothering to make Poser companion files for. Gen2 is the clear winner here.
Fisty - Since you create content I have a question. I've noticed the texture resolution of G2F and almost all Gen clothes and accessories is higher than V4 content. Is there a technical reason for that beyond more powerful hardware makes it easier to work with large textures?
I've noticed that some of my old V4 content looks out of place in high resolution renders on G2F as the texture starts to show it's limitations.
V4 is really old.. it's technical improvements and skill improvements on the part of the creators. Though I will say I don't always use the max size that I could. Some people will go up to 8000x8000, I only go up to 4000x4000 'cause going higher can sometimes cause problems with Poser and making my products work in both programs is important to me. I will go that high for dresses, full skirts, or other large items.. for smaller items I will use less. I generally make the largest item of clothing use the 4000x4000 and then size the others based upon that so if you fill that size square with a tiling texture it will be basically the same scale.. it means consistent texture resolution across all the pieces in the set and also makes it much easier to do the texturing for myself or anyone that makes add-on textures for it.
I use to be an avid Aiko 3 user but completely switched over to G2F as my primary figure ealier this year and spend a ton on her which is the most I have spent here in a long time.
I should note one primary reason why I will not make anything for V4 ever again:
Magnets. My god, the MAGNETS!!!
I admit I really love GF2 and with genX and the clones and other options i have the best of V4, the gen 3 figures and clothing, all genesis 1 and genesis 2 all rolled into one, so really there is no reason for me not to use the genesis 2 figures.
I started with V3 and poser and it is so easy to create a unique character now with all that is available these days, it staggers my mind. I have characters that are part V3 GND, SP3 Irina, Aiko 4 with even a little custom V4 on top of GF2, gotta love it.
The G2F figures are clearly picking up steam. However, while the figures are doing well, it looks like the Gen 6 UV sets seem to be getting about the same attention on other sites that the Gen 5 UVs did... which is say, not much. I understand the IDEA behind the concept of a different UV for most new figures, but I can't see it doing a whole lot of good when most creators are ignoring them after the initial figure release.
It's in a PA's best interest to make their characters usable by as many people as possible.. that means using V5 or Basic G2F UV maps so their skins can be used by everyone that downloads DS and gets G2F for free... and even if the custom morph doesn't look exactly the same without the base "named" character, >most< of the time it's usable to some degree or the other. My partner has even taken to adding a promo image with the morph and skin applied to just the base G2 so people can see what it will look like without the cover charge.
In short.. the differences in the UV maps from base to, say, Lilith, are so small that it makes no real difference, but making a character for sale that uses the Lilith UVs effectively cuts your possible customer base a ton.
This is why sometimes the fear crosses my mind that we may not be so lucky with someone making backward-compatible UV support for Genesis 3 once it comes around. As of Mei Lin's release, we'll be at a whopping 10 G2F bases. This isn't even factoring in the 4 G2M bases that are still in the process of catching-up...
Not to mention that there are tools in DS that allow you to adjust the textures to particular UV sets.
I think Gen2F and Gen2M are popular. Certainly the pattern of PAs making stuff for females is like that: firstly, all kinds of Gen2F items; then V4 (often, V4 and Gen2F are covered in the same product); Genesis comes far behind (I don't get it, because it is my primary figure for children and fantasy creatures).
I don't like the UV multitude. If Gen2F was to use Gen2F and V5 UVs, many more people would buy stuff. I hear them saying they'd like Rhia's skin, let's say, but they can't because of Lilith's UVs, which they lack.
That's basically the point I was leading to: the G2F/Ms would probably be doing even better if it weren't for the excessive UV set proliferation... I think it's probably hurting the sales of the new figure format far more than the small improvements they bring actually help. As it is, I'm finding myself with only one or two new UV skins per figure, usually because they came in a pro bundle, while an increasingly large percentage of the skins I'm buying/using are either V4s or V5 based. And, at the same time, there are many sets that I don't even bother to look at because I haven't been interested enough in the figure they're specifically made for to pick it up yet.
i need them all a3, h3, d3, v4, m4, k4, gn to g2 for my nefarious plots. muwahahah - nemo music
:)
I do like G2F the best ofthe female generations and will use the morph and figure over any previous generation. I think G2F is a success story and looks great.
M6 has figure flaws which can frustrate me. He seems a second stringer to G2f.
I agree - including the menacing laugh.
I would also agree with the point that there are some folks who use Poser who try to avoid using the DSON transfer utility. Similarly, there are some Carrara users who avoid Genesis and Genesis 2 because some advanced features of Carrara work on V4/M4 and earlier figures, but not on Genesis or Genesis 2 (such as editing the vertex mesh in animation mode). In both cases, Poser and Carrara, the G2F is used very successfully by people who put the time in to learn the ropes. But for some people, the older figures work fine, so why go through the trouble of learning a few new procedures and installations?
For myself, I have just started to learn what can be done with Genesis and Genesis 2 outside of Daz Studio and am very pleased so far. My purchases of products related to these newer figures will rise accordingly, I am sure.
I was slow to adopt Gen2 because I had so much invested in Genesis but once I did I loved it. I primarily use Genesis for custom figures (and Freak 5) while using V4/M4 only if I want a very specific morph in a scene that I haven't transferred over to Genesis 2. (For whatever reason I haven't upgraded GenX for Genesis 2 yet. If memory serves I didn't have the money when it was first released and so haven't had a chance to snag it.)
The only thing holding Genesis 2 back as opposed to Genesis 1 is that it has access to much less clothing as Genesis 1 could use pretty much anything from generations 3-5 which let me get really creative in my clothing choices.
Not to mention that there are tools in DS that allow you to adjust the textures to particular UV sets.
What are those tools?
And are there any improvements to the UV maps for figures like Lilith instead of the 'Base Female' of G2F? Likewise with regards Lee or Michael as opposed to 'Base Male' of G2M? What's the rationale for these custom UVs even existing?
Any reason I would ever want to use those UV maps, other than when specifically using the texture for say... Lee?
I have pretty much gone all the way with Genesis and Genesis 2, hardly ever use Vicky 4 now tho only to port over characters to Genesis and Genesis 2 Female.. I have pretty much all the G2F bases except Gia 6 and Lilith 6, would love to see some more for Teen Josie 6 and Stephanie 6 though..
As for clothing I have converted a load of Victoria 3 and Victoria 4 clothing over to Genesis and Genesis 2 without too many problems (you do need the Gen 3 and Gen 4 clone products though) in fact a lot of them have worked out very well.. The only hurdle I have come across is being unable to convert Victoria 3 footwear to Genesis or Genesis 2 they just refuse to work properly..
On the other hand Victoria 4 footwear converts pretty well especially with the help from this tutorial http://sickleyield.deviantart.com/art/A-Reminder-on-Autofitting-Shoes-to-Genesis-2-412985230
Interesting.. I thought V3 shoes converted to genesis better than V4 ones did.. then again I haven't really tried, I just make new shoes if I need some cause I really like making shoes.
I have pretty much gone all the way with Genesis and Genesis 2, hardly ever use Vicky 4 now tho only to port over characters to Genesis and Genesis 2 Female.. I have pretty much all the G2F bases except Gia 6 and Lilith 6, would love to see some more for Teen Josie 6 and Stephanie 6 though..
As for clothing I have converted a load of Victoria 3 and Victoria 4 clothing over to Genesis and Genesis 2 without too many problems (you do need the Gen 3 and Gen 4 clone products though) in fact a lot of them have worked out very well.. The only hurdle I have come across is being unable to convert Victoria 3 footwear to Genesis or Genesis 2 they just refuse to work properly..
On the other hand Victoria 4 footwear converts pretty well especially with the help from this tutorial http://sickleyield.deviantart.com/art/A-Reminder-on-Autofitting-Shoes-to-Genesis-2-412985230
I've never really experimented with the clone. I need to find some good tutorials I guess!
Just had another go and ran into the same problem with converting Vicky 3 footwear to Genesis that being a lot of distortion to the mesh once I go through the process and then to fit them back to the figure..
Greetings,
Just had another go and ran into the same problem with converting Vicky 3 footwear to Genesis that being a lot of distortion to the mesh once I go through the process and then to fit them back to the figure..Have you tried the Sickleyield/Gilikshe approach? I've had great luck with it.
-- Morgan
I never liked Genesis, but I quickly embraced Genesis 2 and am almost exclusively using it for most my renders for now. On occasion I do go back to V4 or Genesis for very specific characters, but that's about it.
What surprises me quite a bit is that of all the other content sites out there, it seems to me Renderotica of all things most readily embraces Genesis 2.
Not surprising at all when you consider the wide range of... er... unusual body type configurations that the Genesis formats make possible. :gulp:
That said, I'd say that Renerosity is really the place with the widest assortment of G2 product outside of DAZ right now. Tones of character sets, more clothing all the time and a lot of great pose sets. It's gotten to the point that I'm mainly buying the base figures, morph sets and hairs here at DAZ while the majority of of my character sets seem to be coming from Rendo.
For me personally I'm still using Genesis 1 (a major theme of my novels is that the major races have far less sexual dimorphism than humans do, so those improvements in Genesis 2 are working against me), but it's obvious even to non-visual me that G2F/G2M do facial expressions better than any earlier generation figures. They're clearly preferred to Genesis 1 at other sites.
I like Genesis 2 Female for it's flexibility and more natural female look, but I still use Genesis for kids and more fantasy shapes, and I sometimes still go to Genesis 1 for the male figures as well, even though I do have Genesis 2 Male and some products for it.
However, I have a major issue with the multitude of the UV sets and that is not that there are so many of them, oddly enough, it's that the character sets DO NOT list the actual UV set they are created for in the description. It's such a small and easy thing to fix and such an easy problem to avoid, yet I cannot tell you how many characters I wanted to buy, and then didn't, because the UV set was not specified. Moreover, there are UV sets, where I clearly see an improvement over other UV sets, for example, David 5 and Freak 5 have very useful specific UV sets, BUT, since the products do not list the UV set they were created for, I don't know whether there are actually characters created for them aside from the base ones, and maybe some of the ones they came bundled up with.
If you are a vendor - LIST UV INFO for all your products, if you want to sell more of them! This lack of UV specifications is my main frustration with Genesis 2 (and Genesis) lines, and the reason why I now spend more of my 3D budget on sites other than DAZ, and if I do spend here, it's often on props and UV-issue-free items like clothes and hair.
It's gotten to the point that I don't even look at the characters that come out in the new bundles. If there aren't enough clothes and hairs that I like in any given bundle to add up to the bundle price with same discount as the bundle, I don't buy the bundle, because I know that without the vendors specifying the UV set info, the characters WILL be USELESS to me anyway.
In case people need data, here is something to consider:
In the last 6 months here at DAZ store I bought 8 character products, which were not part of 3 base-character bundles which I bought strictly for clothes, poses and hairs sake.
Out of those 8 character products, 6 were for Generation 4 figures, because I knew what UVs I was getting, and that I can transfer those textures to both Genesis and Genesis 2 figures with the utilities I have and I can make those textures compatible for mixing and matching with a large character textures library I already have for Generation 4 figures.
The remaining 2 character sets were for Genesis 2 Female. BOTH of them came bundled up with the clothes item I wanted, at a price that was too good to pass up, while the clothes item alone was on a less steep sale at the time.
This means that I bought ZERO Genesis and Genesis2 character sets in the last 6 month for their own sake.
Now, this is not due to the fact that I didn't like the characters that came out. On the contrary, I just double checked, and there are 87 character sets released in last couple of years for Genesis and Genesis2 (and which were on sale last month), which I wanted to buy, and didn't, because the UV information was not available. If at some point that information does become available, then, if the UV's are the match to the characters I wanted to have in that specific UV set, I'd still buy them in the future.
Think about it: Most characters are $16-$20 each, let's say $8-$10 at 50% discount, and let's say that out of the ones I mentioned, only about half would be of the UV type I want, so that's ~40 character sets. That's $320-$400 revenue EVEN at 50% off! (and, to add more evidence that these numbers are actually valid and right: if you divide that amount by 6 month, it's only about ~$10 more than what I usually spent here monthly on characters for Generation 4 a few years back when Generation 4 was getting the same hype - and vendor support - as Genesis 2 is getting now.) But the vendors are willing to miss out on it, just because they are too lazy to add a single 5-word sentence to their product descriptions: "Made for ____ UV set."
If I could start a campaign to reach all DAZ PAs and product makers, this is the campaign I would start: Add "Made for ____ UV set." to ALL your Genesis and Genesis2 character products.
FWArt always lists it.. I guess you didn't like any of his characters for some reason?
On the contrary - just not in the last 6 months. I have a few of FWArt's characters and love them. But it is also the case that FWArt mostly works with V5 and M5 UV sets and most recently I was looking to expand my options for S6, V6, D5, F5 and M6 UV sets, because these base characters and base textures for them come with very useful high quality Normal and Displacement maps, not available for M5 and V5 UV sets.
...as I have worked with G2F over the months, I've noticed a few issues.
One is that I experience more autofit errors than with Genesis "classic".
Short skirts tend to get a "V" deformation in the front panel and there is distorting (stretching) of the texture map. I won't even attempt to autofit a long dress.
With V4 slacks/pants, I get a crimped vertical seam in the centre of the glute region and pokethrough in the crotch. Applying smoothing only makes both situations worse. Just for the record, I do have the V4 clone for G2F.
Both the above issues occur even in the default "T" pose.
I rarely encountered such errors with the original Genesis.
The second is breast sizing.
When try to reduce G2F's beast size to create a more petite character, the mesh begins to distort both at the nipple/aureola and pectoral regions as it used to with V4. Because of the "cling fit" of most Genesis/G2F clothing, these distortions can translate to the blouse/top/shirt as well as the texture map.
While I like the improvements to posing and facial expression morphing, I'm becoming more and more frustrated with the autofit and chest shaping issues.
G2F is most definitely outdoing Dawn on Renderosity by leaps and bounds. She had a huge debut but has since lost steam there, and much of the exclusively Dawn clothing and accessories have been thrown into the clearance bin. The only new products you see for her there are ones that are also compatible for V4 and/or G2F. In other words, Dawn is not selling on Renderosity, while G2F is.
The G2F vs Dawn support is the opposite on RDNA though support for Dawn has likewise cooled down there (Genesis 1 & 2 have never enjoyed much exclusive support there)
Content Paradise I'm sure also has better Dawn than G2F support.