Generation 4 assets in DAZ Studio 4.22

contedesfees

I'm curious what others might think of using Micheal and Victoria 4 assets in DAZ Studion 4.22. I wouldn't call it a waste of time, but it is hardly without its problems. What do you think? What is your experience? Do you have more trouble than success? Are those troubles enough to make you sacrifice your generation 4 assets? Do the various conversion utilities persuade you to keep on trying? I'm not criticizing, I really want a round-up of experiences and considered opinions. Thanks to one and all.

fixmypcmike

I use old assets all the time -- just used Michael 4 and Michael 2 yesterday.  It's a lot easier to load old clothes, hair, etc on Genesis figures, but sometimes I need to use the actual pre-Genesis figures.

crosswind

I don't know the problems or troubles you've encountered but I'm still keeping Generation 4's assets of which mostly are wearables I that I bought from rendo. I rarely use V4/M4 characters nowadays, but from time to time, I convert high quality garments and footwear from Gen 4 to G3 ~ G9, and I haven't experienced big trouble so far...

contedesfees

Fixmypcmike and crosswind. Thanks for your replys. I do appreciate it. May I ask, crosswind, what means you use to convert Gen 4 garments and footwear to G3 or G9? I presume you include G8 characters as well. Thanks again.

PerttiA

I do use some clothing and hair from older figures, but not the figures themselves because they were made primarily for Poser and even if one doesn't care about the differences and problems in posing the figure, the materials are still 3DL which makes them look artificial, which is the reason I stopped using Poser and left the scene for six years.
Many do not realise that older generation figures have heavier meshes than Genesis 1-9 figures have, older is not lighter on the hardware.

crosswind

contedesfees said:

Fixmypcmike and crosswind. Thanks for your replys. I do appreciate it. May I ask, crosswind, what means you use to convert Gen 4 garments and footwear to G3 or G9? I presume you include G8 characters as well. Thanks again.

Yeah, I meant G3 to G9 including G8 as well. There're quite a few vendors on Rendo used to make pretty good V4 garments and shoes. So I convert them so as to make good use of them on Genesis figures...like this pair of V4 Ankle Boots, I converted them to G8F.

Dartanbeck

Fixmypcmike said:

I use old assets all the time -- just used Michael 4 and Michael 2 yesterday.  It's a lot easier to load old clothes, hair, etc on Genesis figures, but sometimes I need to use the actual pre-Genesis figures.

Me too. Generations 2-4 are part of my regular practice, even though I'm mostly using Genesis 3 and 8. I never stop using the cool assets from those periods. But Michael 4 is actually still being animated on a fairly regular basis in my world.

contedesfees

I'm guessing, crosswind, that you misunderstood me. You wrote in your reply: "So I convert them so as to make good use of them on Genesis figures...like this pair of V4 Ankle Boots, I converted them to G8F." I am asking how you convert them. Is there a third-party product you use? Is the conversion done entirely in DAZ Studio with DAZ Studio features? In a word: How do you do it please?

crosswind

contedesfees said:

I'm guessing, crosswind, that you misunderstood me. You wrote in your reply: "So I convert them so as to make good use of them on Genesis figures...like this pair of V4 Ankle Boots, I converted them to G8F." I am asking how you convert them. Is there a third-party product you use? Is the conversion done entirely in DAZ Studio with DAZ Studio features? In a word: How do you do it please?

Ah, sorry, I got it. I made the conversion manually with DS  + Blender because high heel shoes are a bit complex... If you do need to know the way, I can make a tutorial after I'm back home, as I'm now with my parents for the holiday.

contedesfees

Thanks for your reply, crosswind. There's no need for a tutorial. At the moment, I'm a neophyte with DAZ Studio. It is presently enough just to make a successful render. I just wanted to register what's possible within the program and what's possible with the many and confusing add-ons. Thanks again, and have a wonderful weekend.

crosswind

Okay, thanks! Have a pleasant weekend!

contedesfees

PerttiA and Dartanbeck, thanks for your replies. I appreciate them.

Dartanbeck

My pleasure! I've been collecting aniBlock and animated pose collections since the Generation 4 days - so I have a whole lot of them for V4 and M4. 

With Bone Minion being a thing, I don't have to use them on V4/M4, but I love it when I get a chance to. They still work great! I also have the RSSY 3Delight to Iray convertor. Some things from that era need to be converted, some things look great without conversion.

When it comes to conversion, I try RSSY and/or the Iray Uber and use whichever looks best - I usually get different result from both.

 

My Genesis 8 Female main hero uses clothing items and props from all generations except the older 1 and 2 Millennium stuff. I would, but I don't have anything she needs right now. But I use my Daz + membership to collect things from across all eras of figure, simply because the stuff is too cool not to.

Example from Vicky 3:

Liquid Knight On Sky 16 is freaking Cool!!! 

So is the Liquid Halo On Sky 16

...and let's not forget the Ton of amazing artwork created for Aiko 3!!!

And that's a whole generation before Michael 4 and Victoria 4

The assets are great for current figures, but as we can see from the above promo, the figures themselves can look Fantastic as well!

 

So I just use whatever strikes my mood at the time.

I just bought the new one for Genesis 8 Male yesterday, but that still won't retire my use of DzFire's Cyborg Model 4 (Model 4 being a play on the initials: M4), which I use quite a bit. I have an Iray optimized version of him in my custom folder so I can load him in a heatbeat, and he's already holding a sword from Nightshift3D's awesome weapons bundle from that era

The point being, this stuff works great in our modern world! Especially since I also love to collect Iray Shader collections! :)

 

In the following video, I've replaced the swords with some really cool new lightsabers I got from here... but the cyborg she's fighting (toward the end of the video) is the one we see above.

Her guns are from Complicated Eve for V4 (by Uzilite - same vendor as the "On Sky 16" stuff above) as are her pants and boots. I enhanced them with added gloss and then also added some of JGreenlees Cybertronic Iray Shaders by making Geometry Shells, so I could use the 2 different colors, and the actual pants are glass from the Daz Iray shaders that come with Studio. The goggles are from Brazen for V4.

The robotic spider is Arachnoid, by Elele, which comes with aniBlock to put it in motion - a nice set of them! :)

contedesfees

Sorry for the very tardy reply, Dartanbeck. I'm beginning to see the light. A few additional resources, application, and a lively imagination can result in dynamite renders with what are I call the baby-boomer editions of 3D assets and figures. As you make clear, there is plenty of life left in M4 and V4. Cheers, and thanks again.