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Sigh another day and no FAQ
Oh look: a navel. G8 doesn't have nipples until you dial them in, either.
HD included rather than an add-on is a feature of Victoria 9.
The concern is that there are no additional loops of edges defining the nipples, so creating plausible looking new shapes, beyond whatever the morph packs offer, without the HD feature would not be possible - that will be limiting for character creators not selling through Daz, for example.
I understand the concern; I just think we should be cautious about which things we state as facts until G9 has been released.
I don't know for sure, but there are several clues that make me feel fairly confident in my guess. The first clue is that so far all of the renders leave the same dry skin impression that the PBR shader renders have. V9 does seem a little less "dry" so maybe (hopefully) I'm wrong. However higher resolution detail/normal/bump/HD maps would help reduce the sharp edged "crackled" skin many complain about with the PBR shader. Additionally, the fine details in the skin are very crisp and clear. SSS/translucency in Iray tends to mute the details quite a bit, even with a good map to improve the details for SSS there is still a bit of detail "bleed" that gives it away. 8K textures may help with that, but the renders I've seen resemble images from the PBR shader more than images from the Uber shader. Maybe DAZ has a new shader for G9? I hope so, but the renders still lack the look/feel of SSS to me.
I guess we will know fairly soon sometime next month (I almost blew it and used the 'soon" word).
One thing I've noticed with very specific edge loops like your mentioning is it makes morphing it in to something else is often difficult. For example flatter chests you're more likely to see stretching on. I have a top that I was working with that has used that sort of edge loops and it is almost impossible to remove the stretching from the textures. The vendor had made a custom child morph which looked fine until you apply textures to it.
While there is something that looks like a navel in the image, it would appear that it is simply a single vertex that has been moved to create a depression that gives the illusion of a navel. without HD navel geometry, a navel geograf, or a detailed displacement map, the "navel" shown here would not look the least bit realistic in a close up. The same would be true for nipples as well, a single raised vertex on the G9 breast(s) will not look like a normal human nipple without additional geometry. For comparison, below is the wireframe from the male form of Genesis 1, note the vastly different and more detailed "human" topology compared to G9.
Agreed! That was one of the main complaints about G1 - the textures for female clothing were often quite noticeably stretched. I'm hoping that DAZ has implemented a way for vendors to create clothing items on the base male of female shape to reduce the issues with texture strech/compression.
It's like the knives that advertise that they "never need sharpening", which actually means that they're so hard and brittle they cannot be sharpened.
There's also the alignment issue, as there are no clear location on the mesh for the nipples, there are bound to be issues with some textures not aligning correctly to the HD ones.
who's to say there are not HDmorphs to relocate nipples and navels to where you wish
In DAZ Shop?...
Genesis 9 isn't released yet so who's to say anything
@Noah Of course not, HD is used in G8 G81 too. The difference is that now with G9 you are forced to use HD because in the unimesh there's no topology for details. While with G8 G81 you can use HD or not, depending on the final quality you wish.
@Gordig That is not a navel, it's just a hole in the mesh. It doesn't have the anatomical features for a navel, because there are no edge loops for that. With the same principle you can do something that resemble nipples, but are just bumps in the mesh, there are not the edge loops so you can't do it. Again you're forced to use HD for that.
@Wendy I doubt that G9 will provide HD morphs to relocate the nipples and navel, usually HD morphs don't "relocate". Also, it's not mentioned that G9 will have HD morphs, only Victoria 9 will. That's a easy way to limit the G9 usabilty unless you get a HD figure.
edit. Also third parties will not be able to do HD for G9, unless daz opens up the HD tools to non-PAs. So forget G9 figures to be functional outside the daz store, that's also another "smart" way to limit the G9 functionality.
Displacement maps?
That much we can say based on past and present policy. There is no way, they are going to present anything but the very basic form, very static and as small/unnoticeable as possible.
Anything else would be like a married couple that have never seen even each others naked during their 40 year marriage, would suddenly start break-dancing in the nude on the town square during lunch time.
I'm sure a PA (Zevo or Hellboy?) Will provide the needed HD morphs if DAZ doesn't. But my point is that no one but DAZ or a DAZ PA can make HD morphs. That means we can no longer send the mesh to our favorite modeling app to make the morph we want that isn't supported with the new topology (or lack of). We have to rely on others to do it for us (and pay for it).
I'm actually glad this discussion carried on a bit. I was almost ready to get the V9 bundle. But it looks like making G9 functional might get rather expensive. So no early purchases for me now. I really need to wait and see what morph packages will be available, and what comes with the bundle on release. Darn, I do really like V9, but there are just too many questions for me with the new "improved" mesh and how well it will really work, and how well previous generation outfits and hair will work on it.
a lot of Questions for a FAQ
And so another day without considering a pre-order.
but no nipples is better than nipples in the wrong place surely
you couldn't move them up until now so if there are HDmorphs with nipples in different spots and matching UVs and textures that could suit some
and or LIE or geometry shell nipple textures to use on nipless textures for the shape you want without stretching
@Kerya Yes of course displacement maps are an alternative to HD. But they only work for the basic figure shape, you can't do "morphs" with displacement maps, as HD morphs for example. So with G9 you can only do morphs for the unimesh, with limited details, unless you're a PA and go with HD. Also consider that HD is seriuosly stressing the hardware, does not fit to mid cards, you need a powerful rig for HD to work.
Would a special geograft work for the nipples / breasts? Like they did for the mouth?
Bigger chested figures have always been a bit of a problem with stretching (not even talking nude, just think bikini or something with a low cutout) and getting close up. For detailed work it's a bit of problem in any case. This only seems to make that worse if I understand the discussion.
The new approach is more inclusive for those born without nipples or belly buttons or other embarrassing anatomy.
You can bet your last obol there will be third party geografts for nipples and other anatomical details. You can bet on it.
Sure, but what's different, is that previously the geografts were only 'needed' by those that had special interests on those areas
So a figure without all the geographs (navel, genetals and nipples) would be lighter weight and render faster?
That depends on the level, but HD has been around as long as Genesis so I am not sure that it would be that overwhelming an issue at acceptable levels for most purposes.
Correct, unless DAZ has implemented an easy way for creators (everywhere, not just PA's here) to create textures on the female morph form, every texture for the skin and for cloths will be stretched in the breast area. The form they have given the base G9 will cause less stretching than G1 had, but without specialized ceation procedures, the textures will be stretched even on the base G8F figure.
So we'll just have to wait and see if DAZ has done something beyond the base mesh design to reduce texture stretching, or if the small breast shape on the base G9 will make stretching less perceptible and acceptable for most designs.
Here's the thing... if the capability to produce the HD morphs continues to be restricted just to DAZ PAs as it has in the past, won't that make it hard or impossible for any non-DAZ PA to produce characters for G9, making them a product that can only be sold by and through DAZ? If that's true, and I emphasize that I'm just guessing though it seems like a pretty logical extrapolation, then I suspect that this probably going to go about as well as the dumpsterfire that occured when DAZ essentially kicked V4 to the corner and went full bore on the first Genesis, ie: with a huge portion of current DAZ's buyers moving to the other stores that will continue to support the G8s since that's all they'll be able to do... assuming that they don't just switch to Metahuman or some other new base. ;/