Too many UV maps!!!!

araneldon

Male-M3dia said:

Mei Lin is the character, the character set is the accessory for that character. Most every product available in different hobbies you have to buy the main part to have the accessory. The main character is the investment, not the accessory.

You might have a point, except...

How often do you see people rendering just the Mei Lin shape at 100%? Not very; instead what usually happens is that many shapes are mixed together, and that makes the shape specific UVs far less meaningful in many (if not in fact most) cases. Come to think of it, many (most?) character sets also include some custom shaping.

So I'd say practically speaking your argument has no legs... or something. I'm too tired to make sense :P

Herald of Fire

Nadino said:

:(
What about those of us that:
A.) Invested in the Add-on characters for their specialized UVs/Textures, morphs, poses, clothing and expressions whether through the Starter or Pro Bundles and
B.) Are not on THAT tight of a budget to afford this type of luxury hobby

While I do see and agree that a few/several female characters could have used the base/V5 UV map, I still prefer drastic shape-changing characters to have their own UV map like others on this thread.

Just adding my thoughts - don't bite me... ;)

I think the issue many people have is that many of the UV's are essentially thrown away after the initial character release. It's rare to see new skins added for older figures, so many of the UV's only have a handful of skins associated with them.

Now many PA's use a base UV so that they can encourage as many purchases as possible. After all, if you're using the V5 UV set then anyone with either Genesis' Victoria 5 or Genesis 2 can use the skins without issue, which means you can reach a larger audience, and many of the morphs can add flavour to a character even without the base figure it was designed for.

It's impossible to lay blame anywhere, really. Daz are making the best of their figures by ensuring the textures fit well, and the PA's are giving the customers what they want by making it as compatible as possible. It is, however, a little odd to have a wealth of UV sets, several of which only have 2 skins associated with them.

Sadly, for a wide variety of reasons there aren't many ethnic choices either and those that do exist also tend to use the earlier V5 UV or similar widely-used base. This essentially means that if you want to create a non-white character you're either stuck with one body type, or you suffer the pains of stretched and squashed textures.

I'm one of those types which isn't on quite as strict a budget, and I tend to just buy the items I want when I want them. For that reason alone I own just about all the major base figures for Genesis 2. Figures like Girl 6, and Giselle 6 where many features are exaggerated are where additional UV's really shine and, I dare say, are an absolute necessity. When you compare Victoria 6 with Stephanie, on the other hand, their bodies and basic shape are close to identical when S6 is given the same scale.

In all this though, it's worth noting that regardless of the base skin all clothing worn by Genesis figures uses a single UV. And since all clothing follows the base figure, it all stretches to match. I've yet to see a single PA release multiple UV's for their outfits to match different figure shapes, despite it being very possible to do. Food for thought, at least.

Herald of Fire

araneldon said:

Male-M3dia said:

Mei Lin is the character, the character set is the accessory for that character. Most every product available in different hobbies you have to buy the main part to have the accessory. The main character is the investment, not the accessory.

You might have a point, except...

How often do you see people rendering just the Mei Lin shape at 100%? Not very; instead what usually happens is that many shapes are mixed together, and that makes the shape specific UVs far less meaningful in many (if not in fact most) cases. Come to think of it, many (most?) character sets also include some custom shaping.

So I'd say practically speaking your argument has no legs... or something. I'm too tired to make sense :PTo be fair, I use them standalone quite a fair bit, and I know many others do likewise. I think it harks back to the days when morphs weren't nearly as freeform as Genesis allows us to be, so we're used to working with these sorts of restrictions. Victoria 4 had a few morphs you could adjust for minor changes, but it wasn't anything over-dramatic as the rigging couldn't support anything too extreme.

With Genesis, the morphs can be very different indeed, and comparing things like Olympia against Victoria 6 shows just how big those changes can be. With Olympia's much more muscular frame and wide hips, it's not hard to see why a new UV was an absolute necessity to avoid ugly stretch marks.

Nadino

araneldon said:

How often do you see people rendering just the Mei Lin shape at 100%? Not very; instead what usually happens is that many shapes are mixed together, and that makes the shape specific UVs far less meaningful in many (if not in fact most) cases. Come to think of it, many (most?) character sets also include some custom shaping.

I don't agree, there are many images across the web of users using what appears to be only the base shapes (G2M/G2F/M6/V6/A6 etc)

HeraldOfFire said:

I think the issue many people have is that many of the UV's are essentially thrown away after the initial character release. It's rare to see new skins added for older figures, so many of the UV's only have a handful of skins associated with them. Now many PA's use a base UV so that they can encourage as many purchases as possible. After all, if you're using the V5 UV set then anyone with either Genesis' Victoria 5 or Genesis 2 can use the skins without issue, which means you can reach a larger audience, and many of the morphs can add flavour to a character even without the base figure it was designed for. It's impossible to lay blame anywhere, really. Daz are making the best of their figures by ensuring the textures fit well, and the PA's are giving the customers what they want by making it as compatible as possible. It is, however, a little odd to have a wealth of UV sets, several of which only have 2 skins associated with them.

There's no need to explain again, I read this complete thread and I understand. My reply was shortened to be more to the point, which I believe is in line (at least partially) with what most are wanting.

HeraldOfFire said:

Sadly, for a wide variety of reasons there aren't many ethnic choices either and those that do exist also tend to use the earlier V5 UV or similar widely-used base. This essentially means that if you want to create a non-white character you're either stuck with one body type, or you suffer the pains of stretched and squashed textures.

This is taking the topic into another direction with an issue that has already been discussed in other threads. We (you and I aka the artist) are not stuck with one body type or skin – there are other resources out there for us to make what we want. Whether it be morphing the figure ourselves with the available morph packs / character packs, d-forms, or using one of the various 3D modeling programs out there. Yes, even free Blender can be used to create morphs and textures. And if we don't have the time to learn how to do it then we have to come up with the funds instead. I know what you mean by the lack of ethnic characters – I just don't like to hear we're stuck. We are artists! To me, if we were stuck only with what they sell us then we wouldn't be able to make our own morphs or skins for the figures outside of DS.

I'm one of those types which isn't on quite as strict a budget, and I tend to just buy the items I want when I want them. For that reason alone I own just about all the major base figures for Genesis 2. Figures like Girl 6, and Giselle 6 where many features are exaggerated are where additional UV's really shine and, I dare say, are an absolute necessity. When you compare Victoria 6 with Stephanie, on the other hand, their bodies and basic shape are close to identical when S6 is given the same scale.

Great, glad I'm not alone – though I didn't buy into Giselle 6 or Aiko 6 but I got all the rest too. The common tone that's painted in a lot of these threads is that a lot of us customers have strict budgets.

In all this though, it's worth noting that regardless of the base skin all clothing worn by Genesis figures uses a single UV. And since all clothing follows the base figure, it all stretches to match. I've yet to see a single PA release multiple UV's for their outfits to match different figure shapes, despite it being very possible to do. Food for thought, at least.

No one really talks about it now but yes it is an issue. For loose fitting stuff it's not so bad, but try texturing the basic supersuit then slap it on Lee 6 and instantly your eyes will bleed.

Male-M3dia

araneldon said:

Male-M3dia said:

Mei Lin is the character, the character set is the accessory for that character. Most every product available in different hobbies you have to buy the main part to have the accessory. The main character is the investment, not the accessory.

You might have a point, except...

How often do you see people rendering just the Mei Lin shape at 100%? Not very; instead what usually happens is that many shapes are mixed together, and that makes the shape specific UVs far less meaningful in many (if not in fact most) cases. Come to think of it, many (most?) character sets also include some custom shaping.

So I'd say practically speaking your argument has no legs... or something. I'm too tired to make sense :P

I don't think you have to look any farther than DAZ galleries to see those shapes used at 100%. What I did see is a few renders of PA morphs mixed together; for instance I just saw an image today with potions of Nigel M5 mixed in (not that I got credited for it, but I know my style when I see it ;) ) and my body morphs are used in those images as well.

Also I agree with Nadino about the common theme of budgets. Everyone has one more or less, and this hobby isn't cheap. I have to pay for the character bundles as well so this makes me a customer as well. I don't have all of the character bundles as well (I skipped over giselle and just got lilith with a coupon from last months' sale), but if I don't have the budget for something, then I have to save for it. I don't know how you could be fair to those that actually invested in the base character by suggesting you would get the UV for or a reduced cost. Just not having the budget or can't affording something isn't a good enough reason to get something for free that other customers have willingly invested in. If someone collects Disney items and there was a limited edition item in a Cracker Jax box and we don't like cracker jax; we have the choice to either not buy it or not get the item. We don't go to the manager and ask him to dump out the contents just to get the prize when other people have willingly bought it.

Antara

Male-M3dia said:

I don't think you have to look any farther than DAZ galleries to see those shapes used at 100%. What I did see is a few renders of PA morphs mixed together; for instance I just saw an image today with potions of Nigel M5 mixed in (not that I got credited for it, but I know my style when I see it ;) ) and my body morphs are used in those images as well.

Also I agree with Nadino about the common theme of budgets. Everyone has one more or less, and this hobby isn't cheap. I have to pay for the character bundles as well so this makes me a customer as well. I don't have all of the character bundles as well (I skipped over giselle and just got lilith with a coupon from last months' sale), but if I don't have the budget for something, then I have to save for it. I don't know how you could be fair to those that actually invested in the base character by suggesting you would get the UV for or a reduced cost. Just not having the budget or can't affording something isn't a good enough reason to get something for free that other customers have willingly invested in. If someone collects Disney items and there was a limited edition item in a Cracker Jax box and we don't like cracker jax; we have the choice to either not buy it or not get the item. We don't go to the manager and ask him to dump out the contents just to get the prize when other people have willingly bought it.

Um, may I point out that your analogy of base characters to Disney items is not just invalid, but also insulting to the inherent usefulness with which those characters are created, and to the users of those characters. The base characters are marketed as bases intended for further development, alteration, etc. NOT as memorabilia items - a very different customer and marketing mentality.
(But IF your attitude is shared by DAZ, then it might actually explain some things we are seeing here, including so much customer dissatisfaction.)

First of all: We are not here to collect dolls, at least a good portion of us here, I would not presume to speak for you. We (artists whose work I know, some of whom have spoken here, too, and myself) are not collectors, we are USERS. Which means that the items we get need to be USABLE, not just put on a shelf for display. Yes, some people use the characters without change, if the character happens to fit their needs exactly, but based on what I see in the galleries, most people DO use them as elements for a modified versions of the original (as you have also noted).

Now second: The UV-for-free issue has nothing to do with wanting to unfairly get something valuable for free. I have all base characters except for Girl 6 and Lilith, and having all base UVs available for free would neither extend my own library by much, nor make me feel like I unfairly paid more than I should have, because I was not getting the bases for the UV sets, I was getting them for custom morphs/rigs and for the base textures well-fitted for those morphs.

Giving the UVs to more users means that vendors (not you, maybe, but definitely the vendors who so widely still use V5/M5 and G2Base UVs in their work - because those ARE free) will know they have a wider customer base and will be more confident and willing to create their derivative characters for custom UV sets and not just V5 and G2Fbase UVs. To me, who bought those custom UV sets, it will mean more value added to the base characters I bought, not the other way around!

Those who just get the UV sets have really no use for it without the base character at all (not even to the extend of your highly objectionable character box analogy, which might have its own decorations which are the reason why it's desirable) - no maps and no morph optimized for that UV really does not give one access to anything useful.
The ONLY thing it does is increase customer pool for derivative content creators.

I really don't understand what makes this simple point so difficult for people to get...

And third: Even if we accept the framework of your analogy, I have known companies who manufacture memorabilia figures to give away display stands (sometimes customized to their latest line of products) for free at conventions and events, because they know that those who have the free stand will be much more likely to get the figure to display on it. So even there your analogy doesn't really hold water.

Male-M3dia

Antara said:

Um, may I point out that your analogy of base characters to Disney items is not just invalid, but also insulting to the inherent usefulness with which those characters are created, and to the users of those characters. The base characters are marketed as bases intended for further development, alteration, etc. NOT as memorabilia items - a very different customer and marketing mentality.
(But IF your attitude is shared by DAZ, then it might actually explain some things we are seeing here, including so much customer dissatisfaction.)

It's very valid. I can substitute any brand instead of Disney, and it still comes down to wanting something separately that the majority of people have willingly paid for. If it's offered as a complete product, it has to make sense financially to the company to split it up. People not wanting to pay or not having the budget is not a business reason. Also there is not much customer dissatisfaction, the forum is always a smaller part of the buying public. Dissatisfaction would come in decreased sales, not increased forum posts.

First of all: We are not here to collect dolls, at least a good portion of us here, I would not presume to speak for you. We (artists whose work I know, some of whom have spoken here, too, and myself) are not collectors, we are USERS. Which means that the items we get need to be USABLE, not just put on a shelf for display. Yes, some people use the characters without change, if the character happens to fit their needs exactly, but based on what I see in the galleries, most people DO use them as elements for a modified versions of the original (as you have also noted).

Most are here to buy content. If I substituted my "Disney" with a coupon for buying content at DAZ3D and you didn't want to buy the cracker jax product to get it, my example would make more sense. Most people have no issue buying the packages as the total product is their investment and products based on it are of benefit to those that have invested. It's not fair to those that have invested to see someone that wants to use things that they have not made the same investment get the same thing. That brings ill will towards those customers.

Now second: The UV-for-free issue has nothing to do with wanting to unfairly get something valuable for free. I have all base characters except for Girl 6 and Lilith, and having all base UVs available for free would neither extend my own library by much, nor make me feel like I unfairly paid more than I should have, because I was not getting the bases for the UV sets, I was getting them for custom morphs/rigs and for the base textures well-fitted for those morphs.

Giving the UVs to more users means that vendors (not you, maybe, but definitely the vendors who so widely still use V5/M5 and G2Base UVs in their work - because those ARE free) will know they have a wider customer base and will be more confident and willing to create their derivative characters for custom UV sets and not just V5 and G2Fbase UVs. To me, who bought those custom UV sets, it will mean more value added to the base characters I bought, not the other way around!

There is no real evidence for this, you are trying to speak for vendors when you aren't one. Vendors can create products for these base UVs because they are free if people are willing to accept the trade offs of using a UV that's not optimized for that character or for an older generation. However if it's a quality issue, then using the UV for the character that it was made for has its benefts for those wanting reduced stretching and rewards for investing in that figure. However it's not going to increase sales simply because a particular UV is used. People buy items on how they look, otherwise you would see vendor use "For x UV" in their product names.. which they don't. People buy on what it looks like and the quality of the promos.

icprncss

Male-M3dia said:

araneldon said:

Male-M3dia said:

Mei Lin is the character, the character set is the accessory for that character. Most every product available in different hobbies you have to buy the main part to have the accessory. The main character is the investment, not the accessory.

You might have a point, except...

How often do you see people rendering just the Mei Lin shape at 100%? Not very; instead what usually happens is that many shapes are mixed together, and that makes the shape specific UVs far less meaningful in many (if not in fact most) cases. Come to think of it, many (most?) character sets also include some custom shaping.

So I'd say practically speaking your argument has no legs... or something. I'm too tired to make sense :P

I don't think you have to look any farther than DAZ galleries to see those shapes used at 100%. What I did see is a few renders of PA morphs mixed together; for instance I just saw an image today with potions of Nigel M5 mixed in (not that I got credited for it, but I know my style when I see it ;) ) and my body morphs are used in those images as well.

Also I agree with Nadino about the common theme of budgets. Everyone has one more or less, and this hobby isn't cheap. I have to pay for the character bundles as well so this makes me a customer as well. I don't have all of the character bundles as well (I skipped over giselle and just got lilith with a coupon from last months' sale), but if I don't have the budget for something, then I have to save for it. I don't know how you could be fair to those that actually invested in the base character by suggesting you would get the UV for or a reduced cost. Just not having the budget or can't affording something isn't a good enough reason to get something for free that other customers have willingly invested in. If someone collects Disney items and there was a limited edition item in a Cracker Jax box and we don't like cracker jax; we have the choice to either not buy it or not get the item. We don't go to the manager and ask him to dump out the contents just to get the prize when other people have willingly bought it.

Not to put too fine a point on things but what about the DS4 Pro giveaway? At release DS4 Standard was free. It was originally only to be free until they got the Lite version done. Then the price was to go the $49.95. Autofit was not included. Advanced and Pro were not free and far from cheap even with upgrade and sidegrade pricing. Add to that the "this is the lowest price you will ever see it at" campaign and DAZ had people forking out no small amount of cash to get what they were told was the lowest price they would ever see.

Less than a year after that little campaign we suddenly have DAZ giving DS4 Pro, Bryce 7 Pro (which was cheap when released and then DAZ tried upping the price because they felt a higher price tag would cause people to take it seriously), and Hexagon. The free giveaway benefits those who have limited budgets and would never have been able to afford the Pro price tag. Was it fair to those who paid? No. But then again, life isn't fair.

If DAZ were to turn around and give away all the base models for free, those who invested would have reason to grumble. What is a uv set exactly? Does it really have any value all by itself? Back when V3 was released, DAZ gave away an alternate uv set. I can't remember off the top of my head what it was for but it allowed users to create a figure with alternate mapping if they wanted. No extra cost. No extra fuss.

Male-M3dia

icprncss said:

Male-M3dia said:

araneldon said:

Male-M3dia said:

Mei Lin is the character, the character set is the accessory for that character. Most every product available in different hobbies you have to buy the main part to have the accessory. The main character is the investment, not the accessory.

You might have a point, except...

How often do you see people rendering just the Mei Lin shape at 100%? Not very; instead what usually happens is that many shapes are mixed together, and that makes the shape specific UVs far less meaningful in many (if not in fact most) cases. Come to think of it, many (most?) character sets also include some custom shaping.

So I'd say practically speaking your argument has no legs... or something. I'm too tired to make sense :P

I don't think you have to look any farther than DAZ galleries to see those shapes used at 100%. What I did see is a few renders of PA morphs mixed together; for instance I just saw an image today with potions of Nigel M5 mixed in (not that I got credited for it, but I know my style when I see it ;) ) and my body morphs are used in those images as well.

Also I agree with Nadino about the common theme of budgets. Everyone has one more or less, and this hobby isn't cheap. I have to pay for the character bundles as well so this makes me a customer as well. I don't have all of the character bundles as well (I skipped over giselle and just got lilith with a coupon from last months' sale), but if I don't have the budget for something, then I have to save for it. I don't know how you could be fair to those that actually invested in the base character by suggesting you would get the UV for or a reduced cost. Just not having the budget or can't affording something isn't a good enough reason to get something for free that other customers have willingly invested in. If someone collects Disney items and there was a limited edition item in a Cracker Jax box and we don't like cracker jax; we have the choice to either not buy it or not get the item. We don't go to the manager and ask him to dump out the contents just to get the prize when other people have willingly bought it.

Not to put too fine a point on things but what about the DS4 Pro giveaway? At release DS4 Standard was free. It was originally only to be free until they got the Lite version done. Then the price was to go the $49.95. Autofit was not included. Advanced and Pro were not free and far from cheap even with upgrade and sidegrade pricing. Add to that the "this is the lowest price you will ever see it at" campaign and DAZ had people forking out no small amount of cash to get what they were told was the lowest price they would ever see.

Less than a year after that little campaign we suddenly have DAZ giving DS4 Pro, Bryce 7 Pro (which was cheap when released and then DAZ tried upping the price because they felt a higher price tag would cause people to take it seriously), and Hexagon. The free giveaway benefits those who have limited budgets and would never have been able to afford the Pro price tag. Was it fair to those who paid? No. But then again, life isn't fair.

If DAZ were to turn around and give away all the base models for free, those who invested would have reason to grumble. What is a uv set exactly? Does it really have any value all by itself? Back when V3 was released, DAZ gave away an alternate uv set. I can't remember off the top of my head what it was for but it allowed users to create a figure with alternate mapping if they wanted. No extra cost. No extra fuss.

It think it's the same thing being applied. In order to make something freely available it has to make business sense. The value in the company was content, so giving away the app to spur more content creation was a viable financial decision. Risky, but it paid off. And as a person that paid for the Pro version I grumbled too, though I have access to Decimator when the free version doesn't has some consolation.

Eustace Scrubb

Antara said:

Giving the UVs to more users means that vendors (not you, maybe, but definitely the vendors who so widely still use V5/M5 and G2Base UVs in their work - because those ARE free) will know they have a wider customer base and will be more confident and willing to create their derivative characters for custom UV sets and not just V5 and G2Fbase UVs. To me, who bought those custom UV sets, it will mean more value added to the base characters I bought, not the other way around!

On the other hand, as a vendor who has taken advantage of the Advance Releases of a couple of figures to PAs (they do this so that those who make skins, poses, et c. can have them ready by launch or shortly thereafter), I'll tell you that an extra set of UVs may just as easily be an extra set of hassle to support in a given project. Do I want to do maps just for G2M, or M6 and Gianni and Lee as well? Should my "Michaelangelo" (a hypothetical project) include an Italian-looking skin for the Italian character Gianni as well as one for the Gallo-Saxonoid Mike 6? Even with the Map Transfer Tool, it's not perfectly easy.

scorpio

Forget it.

Antara

Male-M3dia said:

There is no real evidence for this, you are trying to speak for vendors when you aren't one. Vendors can create products for these base UVs because they are free if people are willing to accept the trade offs of using a UV that's not optimized for that character or for an older generation. However if it's a quality issue, then using the UV for the character that it was made for has its benefts for those wanting reduced stretching and rewards for investing in that figure. However it's not going to increase sales simply because a particular UV is used. People buy items on how they look, otherwise you would see vendor use "For x UV" in their product names.. which they don't. People buy on what it looks like and the quality of the promos.

People buy for a whole variety of reasons. I always check the "for x UV" in the product description and if it's not there - go and ask the vendor, or don't buy the product if I cannot get an answer on this issue, and I know people who do the same. People here have told you as much - those who actually buy have tried to explain their reasons for buying to you, although you, apparently, don't want to recognize the validity of their testimony, perhaps because you don't consider them the target audience of your own products. Which is your choice, and therefore fine for your particular case as a vendor. Maybe the way you create your characters is especially geared towards promo-only-driven buyers. And that's wonderful as long as it gives you the sales figures you wish to see.

But there are other vendors who just as openly *state* and have stated before in forums and in private customer feedback that their choice is based on the customer access to the UVs they use. Some have tried releasing 1 or 2 characters for a custom UV not freely available to all and have seen the difference in sales that custom UV character had compared to their free-UV-based characters. After which they have stopped supporting custom UVs. Valid, market-research-based decision. There is no arguing with that. But in the end, I, as a customer, have a base character form, which gets no support from my favorite vendors, and I am faced with the choice of either using textures made for sub-optimal UVs on that form, or going through a much more difficult and time-consuming process of creating my own textures for the better-fitting UVs.

P.S. And the only reason I am not responding to your other statements is because I see it as futile. We see things so differently that there doesn't seem to be any way to reconcile our views. I don't want to waste both your and my time trying.

Male-M3dia

Antara said:

Male-M3dia said:

There is no real evidence for this, you are trying to speak for vendors when you aren't one. Vendors can create products for these base UVs because they are free if people are willing to accept the trade offs of using a UV that's not optimized for that character or for an older generation. However if it's a quality issue, then using the UV for the character that it was made for has its benefts for those wanting reduced stretching and rewards for investing in that figure. However it's not going to increase sales simply because a particular UV is used. People buy items on how they look, otherwise you would see vendor use "For x UV" in their product names.. which they don't. People buy on what it looks like and the quality of the promos.

People buy for a whole variety of reasons. I always check the "for x UV" in the product description and if it's not there - go and ask the vendor, or don't buy the product if I cannot get an answer on this issue, and I know people who do the same. People here have told you as much - those who actually buy have tried to explain their reasons for buying to you, although you, apparently, don't want to recognize the validity of their testimony, perhaps because you don't consider them the target audience of your own products. Which is your choice, and therefore fine for your particular case as a vendor. Maybe the way you create your characters is especially geared towards promo-only-driven buyers. And that's wonderful as long as it gives you the sales figures you wish to see.

But there are other vendors who just as openly *state* and have stated before in forums and in private customer feedback that their choice is based on the customer access to the UVs they use. Some have tried releasing 1 or 2 characters for a custom UV not freely available to all and have seen the difference in sales that custom UV character had compared to their free-UV-based characters. After which they have stopped supporting custom UVs. Valid, market-research-based decision. There is no arguing with that. But in the end, I, as a customer, have a base character form, which gets no support from my favorite vendors, and I am faced with the choice of either using textures made for sub-optimal UVs on that form, or going through a much more difficult and time-consuming process of creating my own textures for the better-fitting UVs.

Other vendors that I've talked to have a different view on the UVs, and the difference in revenue isn't that much to use a particular UV, the product has to look good. There are also other reasons for not using a particular UV including there not being a merchant resource for it, which there are a lot of characters using one particular UV. Some PAs use resources, other create textures by hand, others use programs that projection paint directly on the model. Generally the ones that use the UV that comes with a model are the ones creating the items by hand or projection painting, which means increased quality for the customers.

kyoto kid

icprncss said:

Kyoto Kid said:

..all right, picked up the Geisha bundle while it was on sale (using my PC coupon and the remainder of a GC) as it was still a bargain Everything including the poses work (see attached pic) except for the Geisha Makeup textures. When I try to load them on a G2F figure I get an error that Daz cannot find the Mei Lin geometry so therefore the maps wouldn't even load. As it is part of a bundle purchase that I used my PC coupon and a GC on I am not sure I can return just the Geisha makeup. Not about to drop 23$ on a character figure just to use the makeups.

Seems DragonStorm's Geisha Builder would be the better option as it works on both Genesis and G2F and thus would see more use (and is one 40% off if you have one of today's new items in the cart which I already do).

Yeah this multiple UV map issue is really going to make this more expensive.and hard on us who have extremely tight budgets.

KK

I doubt you can return only the make up product if it was part of a bundle. Especially since most bundles are priced lower than if you purchased the items separately. You'd likely have to return the whole order and rebuy the items you want (clothing and poses).

You could try apply the make up manually to a G2F and saving as new preset.
...in this case that doesn't work as it does for other skin maps. Either they apply but don't match up properly, or simply will not apply at all (eg. trying to apply an Aiko3 skin to Vicky 4). As I mentioned, with the Geisha Makeup I get an error dialogue that pops up saying it cannot find the Mei Lin character's geometry. I have never seen this before. I could maybe understand this if I were trying to apply the textures to say Aiko 5 (Genesis "classic") but the base G2F which Mei Lin is effectively a full body/head shape of?

There are people far more experienced than I who have mentioned that manually converting a skin map from one UV to a different one is an extremely difficult task, even from their perspective. This is why 3DU developed the Texture Converter for the Gen3/4 figures. Nothing like that exists for Genesis/G2.

Granted I still saved on the four items that do work by purchasing the bundle instead of each item separately. I had thought the makeup skin map may have, at worst, not match up perfectly, but to invoke an error message and not apply at all was an unexpected situation. I wouldn't care if I only received couple $ credit.

Basically, I would be willing to pay a nominal fee for a set (doesn't even have to be all) of the "custom" character UVs so I can apply them to the base G2 figure in the Surfaces tab to use textures specifically created for them.

It's also sad that Daz has also stopped providing figure autofit/UV shape clones like they did for the original Genesis. PAs are going to create what they feel and hope will sell the best (no argument there as I know this is not a very lucrative business) so basic items like additional legacy (and now "custom figure") clones for G2 will most likely never be offered.

Oh, and the aforementioned Geisha Builder is out as it also requires the Skin Builder Pro as well (36$). Also looked at the Lotus Flower update, however it is apparently optimised for the Aiko6 UV so once again, have to wait until (and hope) someone makes something compatible for the base G2F.

Again, I and others see this multiple UV issue as severely limiting the versatility which the Genesis concept was designed around, and as I mentioned before, makes it seem we have retreated back to the Mil3 days (at least with Gen4 we had the "unimesh" concept for each gender and the for the kids).

FSMCDesigns

Fire Angel said:

Male-M3dia said:

scorpio64dragon said:

As a Customer and the one spending the money I see it differently.

I would suggest then looking at the technology page as it explains what Genesis is. The premise of what is Genesis hasn't really changed in over four years. As a customer you should know what tech you have been buying.

You're the one who should stop what you're doing; playing with semantics. If someone buys a character for the Genesis 2 female figure they should get everything they need to use that in the package, except the base figure. Uvs are different? Put them in the package.

If you disagree fine, but pretending that others don't know what they are on about when it is quite clear that they do is ridiculous.

Agreed. i also view genesis 2 as the base and will only purchase a 'character set" if it uses a UV map that is included with the set or comes with genesis 2. Purchasing an addon character that I will only use for the UV set is a purchase I can't justify and ridiculous IMO.

icprncss

KK

How far off are the brows and lips if you load the G2F base and then apply the Geisha maps by selecting the various mat zones? Way back in the old days before the mat pose hack, you selected the mat zone, selected the various surface parameters (diffuse, spec, bump, ect) and manually navigated to the correct map and applied it.

Is there really that big a difference? You might have to spend some time doing the search and replace but once it's done, you should be able to save as a preset.

Male-M3dia

FSMCDesigns said:

Fire Angel said:

Male-M3dia said:

scorpio64dragon said:

As a Customer and the one spending the money I see it differently.

I would suggest then looking at the technology page as it explains what Genesis is. The premise of what is Genesis hasn't really changed in over four years. As a customer you should know what tech you have been buying.

You're the one who should stop what you're doing; playing with semantics. If someone buys a character for the Genesis 2 female figure they should get everything they need to use that in the package, except the base figure. Uvs are different? Put them in the package.

If you disagree fine, but pretending that others don't know what they are on about when it is quite clear that they do is ridiculous.

Agreed. i also view genesis 2 as the base and will only purchase a 'character set" if it uses a UV map that is included with the set or comes with genesis 2. Purchasing an addon character that I will only use for the UV set is a purchase I can't justify and ridiculous IMO.

Yes and that's how it's characters are set up, V6, Olympia and Mei Lin have their own UVs. If you don't want a character addon that uses those UVs you are not obligated to buy them.

But I'm going to bow out as we're going round and round and I've still haven't really heard any good reasons for offering UVs beyond customer hardship reasons.

kyoto kid

icprncss said:

KK

How far off are the brows and lips if you load the G2F base and then apply the Geisha maps by selecting the various mat zones? Way back in the old days before the mat pose hack, you selected the mat zone, selected the various surface parameters (diffuse, spec, bump, ect) and manually navigated to the correct map and applied it.

Is there really that big a difference? You might have to spend some time doing the search and replace but once it's done, you should be able to save as a preset.

..it won't load. When I click on the "stop asking" button it aborts the operation. What it is is coughing up on is that it cannot find the Mei Lin6 textures for the torso, head, and face (which of course are not there as I do not have the ML6 figure).

I've resigned myself to just keep watching for something that uses the base G2F UV or continue using the old V4 Lotus Flower maps, which have issues with the skin surface texture as they are Poser only with no Daz CF component, which means shelving the G2F version of my KK character. The version I have was purchased at Rendo before the vendor came here to Daz so I'd have to re-purchase the Daz V4 version at full price to get the correct mats (I inquired about an update discount, but was told it wasn't possible).

icprncss

Kyoto Kid said:

icprncss said:

KK

How far off are the brows and lips if you load the G2F base and then apply the Geisha maps by selecting the various mat zones? Way back in the old days before the mat pose hack, you selected the mat zone, selected the various surface parameters (diffuse, spec, bump, ect) and manually navigated to the correct map and applied it.

Is there really that big a difference? You might have to spend some time doing the search and replace but once it's done, you should be able to save as a preset.

..it won't load. When I click on the "stop asking" button it aborts the operation. What it is is coughing up on is that it cannot find the Mei Lin6 textures for the torso, head, and face (which of course are not there as I do not have the ML6 figure).

I've resigned myself to just keep watching for something that uses the base G2F UV or continue using the old V4 Lotus Flower maps, which have issues with the skin surface texture as they are Poser only with no Daz CF component, which means shelving the G2F version of my KK character. The version I have was purchased at Rendo before the vendor came here to Daz so I'd have to re-purchase the Daz V4 version at full price to get the correct mats (I inquired about an update discount, but was told it wasn't possible).

Don't try loading from the smart content or content tab. I meant literally manually apply the maps. As in load the figure, apply a texture. Go the the surfaces tab. Select the appropriate mat zone. Go down to the surfaces where it will list the various maps for the various parts like diffuse, spec, bump. Clicking on it should give you the list with browse at the bottom. Browse for the texture and replace the applied map with the one your are browsing for. The face map is still the face map. Are there any significant differences?

Didn't Aiko5 have Geisha make up as well? Have you looked at those?

FSMCDesigns

Male-M3dia said:

Yes and that's how it's characters are set up, V6, Olympia and Mei Lin have their own UVs. If you don't want a character addon that uses those UVs you are not obligated to buy them.

But I'm going to bow out as we're going round and round and I've still haven't really heard any good reasons for offering UVs beyond customer hardship reasons.

That may be how they are set up and how you see it, but no where on the DAZ tech page, genesis 2 section does it state that the base is different from the base genesis 2 which is another reason why customers think of the genesis 2 base as the starting point and that UVs should be included (or eliminated altogether) with any character based off the genesis 2 base mesh.

If customer hardship isn't enough of a reason, maybe you shouldn't be a vendor since that is a big reason. I don't ever use the body morphs that come with any character package, which is why none of the addon DAZ characters such as Olympia, Gianna, Lilith, etc are in my runtime, but i am always interested in the addons that come out with them and have had to pass on some of them since it wasn't clear if they worked with just the base mesh.

DestinysGarden

icprncss said:

Browse for the texture and replace the applied map with the one your are browsing for. The face map is still the face map. Are there any significant differences?

For the record, yeah, I just tried it. The lips line up pretty well. The eyes are nowhere close.

kyoto kid

icprncss said:

Kyoto Kid said:

icprncss said:

KK

How far off are the brows and lips if you load the G2F base and then apply the Geisha maps by selecting the various mat zones? Way back in the old days before the mat pose hack, you selected the mat zone, selected the various surface parameters (diffuse, spec, bump, ect) and manually navigated to the correct map and applied it.

Is there really that big a difference? You might have to spend some time doing the search and replace but once it's done, you should be able to save as a preset.

..it won't load. When I click on the "stop asking" button it aborts the operation. What it is is coughing up on is that it cannot find the Mei Lin6 textures for the torso, head, and face (which of course are not there as I do not have the ML6 figure).

I've resigned myself to just keep watching for something that uses the base G2F UV or continue using the old V4 Lotus Flower maps, which have issues with the skin surface texture as they are Poser only with no Daz CF component, which means shelving the G2F version of my KK character. The version I have was purchased at Rendo before the vendor came here to Daz so I'd have to re-purchase the Daz V4 version at full price to get the correct mats (I inquired about an update discount, but was told it wasn't possible).

Don't try loading from the smart content or content tab. I meant literally manually apply the maps. As in load the figure, apply a texture. Go the the surfaces tab. Select the appropriate mat zone. Go down to the surfaces where it will list the various maps for the various parts like diffuse, spec, bump. Clicking on it should give you the list with browse at the bottom. Browse for the texture and replace the applied map with the one your are browsing for. The face map is still the face map. Are there any significant differences?

Didn't Aiko5 have Geisha make up as well? Have you looked at those?
...yes, but they didn't cover the entire face completely like the Mei Lin or Lotus Flower ones do. I guess I would have less an issue if Mei Lin were a character based on Aiko6 as I find AIko more useful overall.

I'll give it a try in the Surfaces tab.

icprncss

Kyoto Kid said:

icprncss said:

Kyoto Kid said:

icprncss said:

KK

How far off are the brows and lips if you load the G2F base and then apply the Geisha maps by selecting the various mat zones? Way back in the old days before the mat pose hack, you selected the mat zone, selected the various surface parameters (diffuse, spec, bump, ect) and manually navigated to the correct map and applied it.

Is there really that big a difference? You might have to spend some time doing the search and replace but once it's done, you should be able to save as a preset.

..it won't load. When I click on the "stop asking" button it aborts the operation. What it is is coughing up on is that it cannot find the Mei Lin6 textures for the torso, head, and face (which of course are not there as I do not have the ML6 figure).

I've resigned myself to just keep watching for something that uses the base G2F UV or continue using the old V4 Lotus Flower maps, which have issues with the skin surface texture as they are Poser only with no Daz CF component, which means shelving the G2F version of my KK character. The version I have was purchased at Rendo before the vendor came here to Daz so I'd have to re-purchase the Daz V4 version at full price to get the correct mats (I inquired about an update discount, but was told it wasn't possible).

Don't try loading from the smart content or content tab. I meant literally manually apply the maps. As in load the figure, apply a texture. Go the the surfaces tab. Select the appropriate mat zone. Go down to the surfaces where it will list the various maps for the various parts like diffuse, spec, bump. Clicking on it should give you the list with browse at the bottom. Browse for the texture and replace the applied map with the one your are browsing for. The face map is still the face map. Are there any significant differences?

Didn't Aiko5 have Geisha make up as well? Have you looked at those?
...yes, but they didn't cover the entire face completely like the Mei Lin or Lotus Flower ones do. I guess I would have less an issue if Mei Lin were a character based on Aiko6 as I find AIko more useful overall.

I'll give it a try in the Surfaces tab.

Ok, I took another look at the A5 Geisha product. It comes with a base texture and geisha make up that use the A5 UV set. It also had LIE elements. If you have the A5 base, you have the A5 UV. I don't so I don't know how well it works on G2F. The LIE elements part should work on the G2F base as well.

Nadino

FSMCDesigns said:

Male-M3dia said:

Yes and that's how it's characters are set up, V6, Olympia and Mei Lin have their own UVs. If you don't want a character addon that uses those UVs you are not obligated to buy them.

But I'm going to bow out as we're going round and round and I've still haven't really heard any good reasons for offering UVs beyond customer hardship reasons.

That may be how they are set up and how you see it, but no where on the DAZ tech page, genesis 2 section does it state that the base is different from the base genesis 2 which is another reason why customers think of the genesis 2 base as the starting point and that UVs should be included (or eliminated altogether) with any character based off the genesis 2 base mesh.

If customer hardship isn't enough of a reason, maybe you shouldn't be a vendor since that is a big reason. I don't ever use the body morphs that come with any character package, which is why none of the addon DAZ characters such as Olympia, Gianna, Lilith, etc are in my runtime, but i am always interested in the addons that come out with them and have had to pass on some of them since it wasn't clear if they worked with just the base mesh.

If he threw in the towel on this convo why do u keep addressing him? This attitude is what keeps getting this thread threatened with closure. We have a vendor that is giving us an insight into what is actually paying their bills, but some on here jump on them because it's not the answer they want to hear. Reality might not always agree with us but still it is what it is. I can now understand why most PAs don't address on these forums, some customers are just flat out rude.

Obviously if there was indeed a customer hardship and things were not selling then items available and certain things would be different. That should signal to us that it is not as it appears. We are not vendors, we are customers. We don't know what is actually selling, we may have an idea but we don't really know. We are all assuming certain points. Just because there aren't more of us chiming in the convo to counter or agree does not mean that you speak for all of us (customers).

WendyLuvsCatz

obviously as said it must pay to make a texture for one unique UV or a PA would either not do it or INSIST the UV is distributed with their skin for those wishing to use it on another character.
The purse speaks.
not questioning need for unique UV layouts just availability for use with a skin product.
the texture artist apparently gains more profit buy you buying the character too or the UV would simply be included with the skin.

Barubary

Nadino said:

We are not vendors, we are customers. We don't know what is actually selling, we may have an idea but we don't really know.

Neither do vendors, though.
They just have a fraction of the relevant information, which can be useful, but should taken as just what it is - a limited insight into a single case out of a lot of cases.

Cybersox

Given that the vast majority of characters are made for the bases or the V/Ms, I think it's safe to say that there is little financial incentive to make a character for one of the non-prime UV sets if DAZ isn't specifically promoting it. And seeing as how almost every female Genesis and G2F character on Renderosity continue to be V4 based rather than even V5, it's also safe to say that the practical sales value of even the base gen 5/gen 6 UVs are less telling than one might think.

The end result is pretty simple: products made with the secondary UVs are going to have a smaller market. If a PA wants to cater to that subset market, that's their own business. However, given that the new store doesn't even make it possible to filter-search for Gen5/6 products by character base or UV set, it seems that DAZ isn't even trying to distinguish between them anymore. Which suggests to me that perhaps even they have realized that it has all gotten way too complicated.

Cybersox

And, unless I'm missing something, it looks like the only characters that use the new UV maps for Belle and Brodie are Belle and Brodie themselves. When even the other characters sets in their bundles are using the base G2F and G2M UV maps, I think that shows how little desire there is to keep supporting an infinite number of UVs.

SimonJM

I think these may be the first bundles I am not going to get, I've been UV-ed into submission ;)