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They have a free demo at their website, you can always try it out for yourself. The demo has all the features available, it just stamps a watermark on the forehead. The demo still allows you to save .FG files. So if you decide to buy the full version you can load any .FG files you saved before and the watermark will be gone.
Additionally, past buyers can get a discount on version 4. How much the discount is depends on when you bought it. I am not making a sales pitch, this is important upgrade information for current owners of Facegen, like myself. I urge anyone looking at upgrading to try the demo first. Unfortunately you cannot get the demo from the Daz store, but the demo will answer all questions.
Note that Facegen no longer has different tiers (Home and Pro). There is only one version, and that version supports all Genesis models 1-9. It costs $130. Here are the upgrade rates.
Upgrading to v4
Honestly, I think this is fair. If you bought the software years ago, you got plenty of use out of it. We can't expect free updates forever, that just isn't logical. I do wish the discounts were better, but it is what it is. I haven't tried it yet, but I expect it to perform similar to how Facegen has in the past.
I got to play around with the demo a bit, and it looks pretty good for G9.
For long time Facegen users, there are several quality of life improvements that make things easier. These things also lower the bar of entry for FG quite a bit as well, because now you don't need to do so many steps manually like before.
The last version had auto dots, but if you missed the final version of FG3, this will be new to you. The dots are automatic now, but you still have freedom to move them. This helps prevent confusion over what goes where.
V4 also creates a material preset. You still need to apply the base material preset first, then apply the preset created in FG. It even has a little icon of your character in the Daz list. A nice touch indeed. So you no longer have to dig into your folders to apply every texture. A very appreciated improvement.
Additionally, you can now create a mesh and textures separately! This is a great addition, and one I personally asked the devs for years ago. So now you can create a bunch of textures without any new head morphs, which is something I do. You can also just create head morphs and skip making textures. Really nice addition. Just remember to give your variants unique names, or you will overwrite previous ones. This might sound elementary, but it is easy to get carried with playing with the options because of the next improvement.
FG also asks which G9 base texture to use for your face. You can pick any of the 8 base sets with just a click. This is fantastic for a couple reasons. Choosing from a preset base lets FG better tone its color to your photo. You can create a much better ethnic character with these option in Facegen than you could before. But it is good to try all 4 base texture sets and see what the best one is. You may be surprised. Like I mentioned above, make sure to give each a different name to not overwrite them. The option still exists to use any texture you want. In past versions this was risky because the color matching was not optimized for just any texture, it was optimized for the base(s). But you have the freedom to try it.
The app also does a much better job of toning the color of the body textures to match your face. I mentioned 3.12 doing this, I think 4 may have improved it more. You can still get some mismatches on certain skins, it depends on your photo. So even if you choose a texture that is wildly different, you might still get a surprisingly good result.
Eye textures. This is something completely new. If you used GF before, the eye textures it creates are pretty bad. Eyes are not even round, lol. However this new FG has made a big change in how it makes eye textures. It is attempting to blend in the color of the eye into an existing base eye texture. Results will vary, but the eye textures FG creates are actually useable now.
HOWEVER, there is a big caveat to several of these new features. Many of them are exclusive to the Genesis 9. If you are still using G8 or older, those appear unchanged since FG 3.12.
That means you do not get a nice material preset for older Genesis. So it is up to you to apply a preset that works with different textures. They don't even offer the fun option to create separate morphs or skins. The option exists to make only head morphs, but I want the option to only make skins. It is maddening that only G9 gets this. The awesome new eye texture feature is only for G9. Though you can get away with using G9 eye textures on a G8.1 UV map, that is beside the point. I am actually stunned that the dev didn't bother making these new features work with G8 or 8.1 at all. 8.1 have multiple base skins just like 9 does, but no dice.
So in closing, if you are using G9, then the FG upgrade might be worth checking out. If you are still mostly on previous Genesis models, however, then there is basically nothing new here. Stick with 3.12, as that version does offer some improvements like auto dots and improved blending.
Since we are still kind of in the early days of G9, you could use Facegen to build an army of G9 characters for your runtime. But since I don't use Genesis 9 much at all, I don't see a need for me personally.
Here is a quick test shot. The Genesis 9 model on the RIGHT is straight "out of the box", no changes what so ever. The Genesis 8 on the left is using a skin preset I made, but the base textures are straight out of Facegen. I cheated the eyes, I copied the G9 eyes to G8 (using a 8.1 UV) so the eyes look the same between them.
BTW, this is something that Face Transfer cannot do. The head is cut off. If you try to run this photo in Face Transfer, it will fail and not complete the model. But Facegen can handle these images fine. Though they may not be good for depth of field if the face is too close to the camera.
The color difference is down to the original skin, the base G8 is rather pink. You can see that Facegen struggles with the lip corners on this person, which is due to how her mouth is practically frowning. However the shape is surprisingly decent. You can easily fix the mouth texture, I've done that with this same photo in the past. The eyes are not too far off her distinct eye shape. But you may notice the G9 has a bit of a dip in the upper eyelid. I can only guess this is because of how G9 handles eyes, and it is an artifact of the process. So I think the G8 one handled the eyes better than the G9 here. I can't say which texture I like more. The G9 is using the first preset, the caucasian. You can see that face blends in better with both of these compared to past Facegen efforts. Again, these textures are straight out of Facegen with no edits.
Thank you for all this information.
For the time being this is on my "maybe one day" list. I don't get a fantastic reduction as my original purchase is from way back when so there's no rush atm.
I did some more testing and found a something I think is not intended. With Genesis 9 (and only G9) Facegen has a new check box option to "optimize textures for Iray". So I kept this box checked at first.
Over time I started noticing my textures were kind of yellow and light. You can see that my Asian girl is much more yellow above. For G9 (and again, only G9) FG now creates 2 textures for every surface. It creates a base color and a SSS trans map. However I noticed the textures are always the same! So there is no point...but I found out the issue. When you uncheck the box, it will create textures tinted just like they look with the old Genesis models.
So what I think is happening is that Facegen has goofed this up. The Iray textures should be creating the base color like normal, and the SSS map is this new yellowish texture. I created a set with both options, and placed the textures like I just described. The results are very nice. You can compare this to the pic above.
The left side has the 2 different textures, while the right side is the same base and trans map when selecting "Iray Optimization". Turning Iray Optimization off and using both textures as a base and trans result in the same tone as my G8 pic in the previous post.
So I believe Facegen has a bug to fix.
Additionally, I am seeing a consistent issue with the upper eyelids not following the arc like they do with Genesis 8. I have tested more faces, and this issue pops in a lot of them. In some cases it is fine because the person has eyelids like that, but for others it is not accurate.
Of course Facegen is rarely 100% accurate anyway, how can it be with just 1 or 2 photos. But it works amazingly well sometimes, and even if you don't get a perfect likeness, you can still get a unique face to add to your runtime. I have been surprised at good Facegen can be at times.
Anyone who is able to should at least upgrade to version 3.12. You can get to this version for free. After more testing, I found that when it comes to Genesis 8/8.1 and older, Facegen 4 works exactly the same with these models as it does in 3.12. And version 3.12 has a lot of small improvements that are not immediately noticeable, but they are there. Having used FG for ages, I can tell that some upgrades have been done.
If you know what models the 8 G9 base textures are, you can use the Genesis 8/8.1 originals and get the same results. 3.12 will create textures that look exactly like 4.2 does with Iray Optimization turned off. If you want to create the same effect that FG 4.2 can with G9, all you need to do is some color correction on the textures in your favorite editor and save the new textures as trans maps. Try out the free 4.2 demo, make a texture set with Iray Optimization on, and then use texture as a guide to color correct the textures for your G8 creations in FG 3.12.
Since I have 3.12, I can make the Asian girl for G8.1 without any watermark on her head. I was using the "East Asian" female skin as FG calls it, which is Clara 8.1 skin converted to G9. I'll sub in Victoria 8.1 for this 8.1 test.
So this is all I did: I fixed her lips in the texture. I created trans maps by using Hue Saturation in GIMP. I added in exactly 2 lip morphs to replicate the pout. 1 gave more inner lip curve, the 2nd lowered the corners (like her frown.) I applied Victoria 8.1 materials first, and replaced color and trans maps. I also changed the tear materials because it looks too black in Daz 4.21. The last thing I did was use the Genesis 9 eye texture that I got from the Facegen 4 demo, they work on the 8.1 UV just fine. That's all I did, it was very quick.
You can pretty much replicate this with Genesis 9 in the Facegen 4.2 by creating 2 textures sets, 1 with Iray Optimization and 1 without. Use the Iray texture as trans map. You might want to create or find a morph that can correct the upper eyelid shape. All you really have to do is lift the middle part of the crease up a little.
Here is a side view. This pic is to show how much better Facegen is at blending the texture in. I did NOT do anything to blend the texture in better. The only texture edit I did was on the lips. I created a new trans map, but that is based directly off the original (with new lips).
Try replicating this in Face Transfer or other. I seriously doubt you can. All I did was fix her lips, this looks pretty darn good. You can take a peek at Victoria 8.1's textures and see just how much the color has changed. This one thing is Facegen's biggest improvement. It is not perfect, there are some cases where I can still get a bit of that clown face. But these are not as common, they are not as extreme as they used to be. You don't have to battle Photoshop trying to blend the face in so much anymore. Hooray! This is from Facegen 3.12, so you don't need the latest version to get this perk. FG does a great job blending and toning almost any set of textures now. To my shock, even the African textures can be used! You will get more artifacts going from one extreme to another, but it is possible. I do not know how they managed to make that work at all, but it makes using Facegen much more enjoyable.
You also don't get as many neon textures anymore. The colors are just better in general. I am sure it is possible, but it happens way less.
So at this point, I do not see any reason to use Face Transfer ever again. First of all, FT cannot even use the photo I had. So you'd be screwed immediately. I actually used GIMP to add a scalp to her photo, and used the resulting image in Face Transfer. This worked, but the face still stood out from the rest of the images it creates. The new eyes you get from G9 in Facegen 4.2 are also worlds better than anything Face Transfer does. The eyes are not far off the color in the photo. You can use these eye textures on 8.1 as well (and even 8.0 if you made the UV for it.) I believe it is worth downloading the demo just for this one texture you can make.
Plus Facegen is still getting updates, obviously. I imagine they will update to fix the texture glitch, and possibly work out the eyelids. Face Transfer is almost certainly a dead product.
Well I'm not burying FT anytime soon. For me, it the fastest way to transfer a face to a texture with a lot more accuracy in that second of time than I could ever manage manually using an image editor. Going by its name, it does that task fine [esp. for the price involved].
As for morphing heads FaceGen covers more figures all from one set of actions. I'm glad enough to see that it now handles G9, and that was a great catch concerning the textures. If it's brought to their attention am pretty sure it would be fixed in a future update.
My issue with FaceGen is that it creates face shapes that I prefer less than the alternatives, and as of this spring, I have tried all of the products that I know of. Perhaps it's a matter of taste, but I just simply do not like the nose or the wide, squirrel-cheeked face that FaceGen creates. The reason I left FaceGen in late 2021, after using it literally from the first day I installed Daz a few months earlier, was that some characters in my story just could not be reasonably recreated from source images with FaceGen.
Face Transfer faces (modified to taste with Face Transfer Shapes) are hardly perfect. They are by nature long, top to bottom, and can have too-pronounced jawlines (especially in G8F-based figures). But having done both, I would rather try to fine-tune FT faces with morphs than fix FG faces.
I will note that on retrying FaceGen this spring for the first time in a year and a half, I do find that it generally handles shadows on source images more gracefully than does Face Transfer. I have done some experimentation with using FG-sourced mat files on FT faces to see if that is a more viable tactic for some source images than fixing the source image itself in Photoshop.
Even though it's not, and won't be, my primary character creator, I did buy FG Pro recently enough to merit $60 off and may consider buying the upgrade.
Well that's the thing, Face Transfer morphs are practically useless without purchasing the add on morph pack, because of how flat the faces are coming out of it. There is not a morph product for Facegen like that. On that basis alone, FT is not actually doing anything better than FG. When using the morph fixers, it is relying on the work of PhilW more than the Face Transfer morph itself. If any PA created a morph pack aimed at Facegen, that could change everything. But I think there are plenty of morphs out there than can do this already. Rarestone's Miya character comes with a variety of really good face morphs for cheek bones, with 2 or 3 different morphs that can slim the cheek bone down quite nicely. Rarestone also made great 200 face morph packs for G8 male and female, which have all sorts of nose morphs.
Don't forget you can morph a face inside Facegen itself, too, and try to tackle the cheeks that way. Though I wish FG had an "undo" button. You have to really pay attention to what the number on the dial is before you hit the dial.
Another trick can also be placing the auto dots on the cheeks further inward. Where you place dots can have a big effect on the result. The new versions place dots automatically, but you can fine tune them.
At any rate, I don't often use 100% of the morph FG creates, though I did for my example pics in the last few posts. You can also whip out the smoothing tool on the cheek bones in Hexagon or Blender.
The thing that Facegen does best is texture. It is unmatched in that area now. A couple years ago it could be argued for one software or another being better in specific cases, but now Facegen has a clear lead on creating the texture. I have noticed the FG does a lot better with fringe hair and other things, on top of blending in so well with the textures you pick. Face Transfer does not give the user any choice in texture, you only get the base texture for G8M or G8F and that's it. Facegen can use literally any texture you want, even it it makes no sense.
I even tried a set of pure white texture boxes that were 4K in size to see what would happen. It colored them all to match the head texture as best it could, though this doesn't work so well with a photo. However, this could work with a toon style character! It is a wild possibility, and that is something that only Facegen can do currently. This freedom lets you use any texture set you want, so if you like a certain character's texture set, you can totally use that. Of course you cannot distribute a character model made from commercial set (unless it is a merchant resource), but the option is there for users to render them as they wish. So you could use skin builder textures with Facegen. Or you can do like I did above and use Victoria 8.1. The choice is yours.
So is there any technique to sculpt daz genesis 9 face with photo / image that I have or we have to manually create morphs editing each and every part?? I tried to tweak genesis 9 developer character face manually with all options and tweak provided in essential tools...i was nowhere near to my original image ..if there is any parameter or tool where we can actually compare image to face of genesis character, that would be really helpful.
The upshot of this and some related threads is that you can get Face Transfer to Genesis 9 via either manually converting or by using a commercial solution. I started off doing it manually, based on instructions I found from a thread here on the Daz forum but have switched to the ManFriday product ( Figure Converter for Genesis 9 | Daz 3D ) . The newest FaceGen and HeadShop versions both can directly create G9 figures from a photo source.
You can also try dFace Character Generator for Genesis 8 Female (https://madskills.studio/online-resources/dface/) and then use the Figure Converter that paulaawp mentioned to get it to Genesis 9.