Getting on the 9 train, or not

Oso3D

There's two challenges with stylized stuff:

First, a lot of the stylized look comes from rendering, not the figure. Personally, it kind of squicks me out when I see a photorealistically rendered very toon-like figure, unless the artist works very hard with postwork or lighting to get it to look, well, illustrated.

Second, when someone says something like 'I want anime!' there's a huge chance anything that's offered will get a response of 'not like that.' The problem, obviously, is that 'anime' covers a WILDLY varied range of looks. I mean, are we talking Lupin III, Cyberpunk 2077, One Piece, Ghibli...

So we could get a dozen anime products coming out and a fair number of folks still wouldn't be satisfied.

 

I mean, personally, there's a few stylized things I have in mind. When I do anthros, though, I tend to lean toward photorealistic because that's my preference ... and I think some other PAs do stylized furries better than me.

 

Canary3d

For my Genesis 8 "Markers" set I used LIE to do hard lines pretty successfully. With the new "atlas" guide maps that are in the starter product, it's not difficult to create overlay maps. But if you want a truly separate lip surface you can create it in the geometry tool pretty easily - Genesis 9's mesh follows the lip shape well, and it only takes a few clicks to do.  

Oso3D

Padone said:

Richard Haseltine said:

People are worried about the greater system demands, but mostly that is based on mis-understanding - it's only the detail maps thata re 8K, not the bulk of the textures, and the mesh resolution is comparable to the fourth generation figures (and is equivalent to about one level of SubD baked onto the base mesh for previous Genesis versions, all of which loaded with at least three levels of SubD).

Richard no, G9 is HD based in that the base mesh is simple quads and all the details are done in HD. If you want the HD details to be decently defined you need a high level of subdivision, apart the 8K maps. With G3 G8 you can avoid HD since you have detailed topology, with G9 you can't. Also, as for HD itself, with G3 G8 you need a lower level of subdivision since you already have detailed topology.

I suggest you go look at how objects are designed in many other arenas. 

Details do not, in fact, have to be done in HD or reflected in the mesh at all. Here's an example from ArtStation:

Look at the mesh on the right. Notice how the grooves and fiddly details only loosely follow the mesh, and in some cases don't follow edge flow at ALL. And it looks great.

G9 does not require HD more than any previous generation.

Unless you have prehensile graboid nipples, that detail can easily be handled with Normals. Or, if you really need wildly detailed nipples in super ultra zoomed in view, displacement maps.

G8 topology is just circles around a nipple. That's not 'detailed topology', it's just... round.

 

vrba79

Mada said:

vrba79 said:

They can afford to ignore us, because there's no serious competition. This entire ecosystem runs on Daz3D figures. So even outside shops are dependant on them. Poser is a mere shell of itself, so they run unopposed.

I tried to answer a bit higher above - in case it got missed :) Surely its possible to set up masks or a new UV map to accomplish what you want - you're not after photo realistic materials so it won't matter if there's a lips material with a hard line?

Are you talking about Layered Image Editor? As for making a new UV map, I'd have to export the figure into a program I don't know how to use, and manually paint a new UV map, correct?

(deleted double post)

Mada

You can use DS to set up the material zones with the geometry editor. No need for external programs.
And yes for LIE, you would need an image editor to make maps that fits with your needs - it will give you a lot more control over your images - sounds like it could be useful to you right? Then you don't have to rely on PAs to make what you want.

Padone

@Oso3D Your example is perfect, thank you. The main object features are defined with topology, then normal maps are used for the surface details. You shouldn't use sculpting to define the volumes or the silhouette or the main body features, there's topology for that. Indeed retopology is a good part of sculpting, you first sculpt then retopology. The basic idea is that you should use geometry + normal maps. If you need HD displacement maps to define the figure volumes and silhouette then it means you failed at topology, that's what G9 does.

edit. note. Then may be they did it on purpose because only PAs can do HD morphs, that's marketing strategy but harms normal users. Again one possible solution for G9 would be if DAZ makes the HD toolkit available to anyone.

vrba79

It looks like LIE will have to be the way to go, I just can't seem to get the knack of the geometry selection tool, are there templates for this thing, or do I need to draw over one of the preexisting maps?

Mada

I do think that LIE will give you great results - you'll be able to control the zones exactly the way you want instead of being limited by the zones in the figure. If you look in the developer tools for G9 there's a set of overlays called G9 Feminine Landmarks Overlay, same for the masculine shapes. Its for sculpting but I think its also a good overlay for maps to show where the lips are etc. Apply it to your figure, look under surfaces where the texture map is located on your drive and then open that with your image editor. You can then overlay it over images or use it to draw your own lines.

I have to leave for babysitting duties but I'll be back later today.

almahiedra

vrba79 said:

Yeah, I mean tell us the product just isn't for us, but don't gaslight us.

 The product must be displayed and advertised for customers who have interest, even if other customers pass the product.

marble

Padone said:

@Oso3D Your example is perfect, thank you. The main object features are defined with topology, then normal maps are used for the surface details. You shouldn't use sculpting to define the volumes or the silhouette or the main body features, there's topology for that. Indeed retopology is a good part of sculpting, you first sculpt then retopology. The basic idea is that you should use geometry + normal maps. If you need HD displacement maps to define the figure volumes and silhouette then it means you failed at topology, that's what G9 does.

 

I'm no modeller but what you say makes a lot of sense to me. The fact that HD is proprietary (unlike Normal Maps) seems to make G9 a gift to PAs in that it forces customers to buy the nicely sculpted characters rather than make their own. For a lot of us, that's the way it has always been - as I said, I am not a modeller - but I can understand how people who like to be more creative might wish that HD tools were available to all. I guess they could work with Normal maps - I just don't know the technicalities.

For myself, G8 had a long innings with a great variety of characters, clothing, morphs and skins which amounted to a heavy investment. I just can't afford to start over with a new figure so I will skip this one and wait to see what happens when DS5 is released - maybe that will open the doors to models we have not yet dreamed of (or have, but they have been denied us).

CHWT

GiGi_7 said:

sueya said:

I have a lot of G8 content I haven't fully utilised so I'm not jumping on the G9 train at the moment.

Waiting for a script/tool that allows me to use G8 skins with G9. Also pose converter would be useful.

Cayman Studios is working in a product related to legacy skins from G8 to G9 

I hope it transfers the anatomical element textures too

vrba79

Mada said:

I do think that LIE will give you great results - you'll be able to control the zones exactly the way you want instead of being limited by the zones in the figure. If you look in the developer tools for G9 there's a set of overlays called G9 Feminine Landmarks Overlay, same for the masculine shapes. Its for sculpting but I think its also a good overlay for maps to show where the lips are etc. Apply it to your figure, look under surfaces where the texture map is located on your drive and then open that with your image editor. You can then overlay it over images or use it to draw your own lines.

I have to leave for babysitting duties but I'll be back later today.

Thank you! This is actually helpful. The "atlas" actually looks like a good cheat sheet, moreso than the usual UV templates I'm used to seeing. My first go looks promising. I'll need to play around with it some more.

CHWT

marble said:

Padone said:

@Oso3D Your example is perfect, thank you. The main object features are defined with topology, then normal maps are used for the surface details. You shouldn't use sculpting to define the volumes or the silhouette or the main body features, there's topology for that. Indeed retopology is a good part of sculpting, you first sculpt then retopology. The basic idea is that you should use geometry + normal maps. If you need HD displacement maps to define the figure volumes and silhouette then it means you failed at topology, that's what G9 does.

 

I'm no modeller but what you say makes a lot of sense to me. The fact that HD is proprietary (unlike Normal Maps) seems to make G9 a gift to PAs in that it forces customers to buy the nicely sculpted characters rather than make their own. For a lot of us, that's the way it has always been - as I said, I am not a modeller - but I can understand how people who like to be more creative might wish that HD tools were available to all. I guess they could work with Normal maps - I just don't know the technicalities.

For myself, G8 had a long innings with a great variety of characters, clothing, morphs and skins which amounted to a heavy investment. I just can't afford to start over with a new figure so I will skip this one and wait to see what happens when DS5 is released - maybe that will open the doors to models we have not yet dreamed of (or have, but they have been denied us).

I think I probably will just convert my favourite G8 characters into G9 for closeups, once I can successfully transfer the G8 skin to G9.

vrba79

With a little oversaturated lighting and some light postwork, the "atlas cheat sheet" method Mada tuned me into feels like it could be a viable solution. Custom eyeballs were easy enough to figure out. Black circle in  a gradient colored against a solid color. Just needed one of the existing eye maps for the sake of proper positioning.

Thank you again, Mada.

 

 

 

 

 

almahiedra

vrba79 said:

AllenArt, Some of us work almost exclusively in NPR. On that front G9 is a big ole wet fart. Daz3D chose this. The potential customers don't get a say. The PAs will cheer for literally anything Daz3D makes, so I give zero Fs what they have to say on the matter.

If the shoe was on the other foot, I wouldn't be telling the people who rely on photorealistic options for their work to eat dirt and sit out entire product generation. Kinda like how while I no longer use 3Delight, I still champion supporting it, or something comperable, for people with a less than ideal GPU, but that's a different discussion.

 

In fact, I think that NPR shaders that I had never managed to work properly in other figures probably with G9 will actually work (I’m still in testing stage, but the first ones are promising). The NPR is wide enough so it cannot be assured that it is ruined for all of us with this figure.

Of course, I do not doubt that for other people it is not an ideal figure, but it is not a reality for 100% of NPR possibilities.

 

Mada

vrba79 said:

With a little oversaturated lighting and some light postwork, the "atlas cheat sheet" method Mada tuned me into feels like it could be a viable solution. Custom eyeballs were easy enough to figure out. Black circle in  a gradient colored against a solid color. Just needed one of the existing eye maps for the sake of proper positioning.

Thank you again, Mada.

Awesome - that is great news :) I'm glad there was a solution!

Canary3d

I understand how daunting it can be to have to learn a bunch of new stuff when you just want to focus on your imagery! So I made a little freebie kit to get you started on creating things without having to struggle to line up your landmarks too much.

Here's the link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yLCXDcQfB6fsLYHUw7g75eN8GfgJEjL9/view?usp=sharing

Here's what's in it: 

1. A mask with lips, thick eyeliner, and toony brows, plus a very basic color map that works with the mask in the makeup layer of the PBR shader. You can also use this mask with LIE if you prefer. 
2. A toon eyeball map - a very basic one, with no iris detailing. To make it more interesting, you can add colored lines from the pupil to the outer ring.
3. The UV template for G9's head. I recommend overlaying the atlas head map on this for a complete guide to paint over. (The atlas isn't included in my zip because it's a proprietary daz file, but it's there in your library for you to use)
4. Instructions for using the makeup maps with the G9 default material presets to get a result like this example
5. Permission to use the maps however you want. 

First example - with normal map

Second example - without normal map and run through a denoiser post rendering, for a toonier look

davidtriune

Padone said:

Richard Haseltine said:

People are worried about the greater system demands, but mostly that is based on mis-understanding - it's only the detail maps thata re 8K, not the bulk of the textures, and the mesh resolution is comparable to the fourth generation figures (and is equivalent to about one level of SubD baked onto the base mesh for previous Genesis versions, all of which loaded with at least three levels of SubD).

Richard no, G9 is HD based in that the base mesh is simple quads and all the details are done in HD. If you want the HD details to be decently defined you need a high level of subdivision, apart the 8K maps. With G3 G8 you can avoid HD since you have detailed topology, with G9 you can't. Also, as for HD itself, with G3 G8 you need a lower level of subdivision since you already have detailed topology.

Again it's not the mesh density that matters, it's the topology, how the geometry flow is used to define the body features. A good topology can use a low mesh density and provide great details. A bad topology, as in the G9 case, doesn't provide details even with a higher mesh density, simply because there's not the geometry flow for that, so you need HD sculpting.

yea so it basically cancels itself out. higher mesh density but bad topology = same overall detail as G8 (?). either way, we're damned without the HD morph creation tool.

 

normal maps can't always replace HD. I need to sculpt animatable morphs like custom FACS wrinkles for example. Another use for HD is when you are 3d printing high detail miniatures.

 

I guess i gotta turn PA!

vrba79

Mada said:

vrba79 said:

With a little oversaturated lighting and some light postwork, the "atlas cheat sheet" method Mada tuned me into feels like it could be a viable solution. Custom eyeballs were easy enough to figure out. Black circle in  a gradient colored against a solid color. Just needed one of the existing eye maps for the sake of proper positioning.

Thank you again, Mada.

Awesome - that is great news :) I'm glad there was a solution!

Thanks again. Sometimes all you need is that one piece of information to go on. Rather then feeling super frustrated like I was earlier, I actually feel like this is a figure I could use in the future, given the right character morphs are released for it!

@Canary3d That's awesome!

 

AllenArt

Canary3d said:

I understand how daunting it can be to have to learn a bunch of new stuff when you just want to focus on your imagery! So I made a little freebie kit to get you started on creating things without having to struggle to line up your landmarks too much.

Here's the link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yLCXDcQfB6fsLYHUw7g75eN8GfgJEjL9/view?usp=sharing

Here's what's in it: 

1. A mask with lips, thick eyeliner, and toony brows, plus a very basic color map that works with the mask in the makeup layer of the PBR shader. You can also use this mask with LIE if you prefer. 
2. A toon eyeball map - a very basic one, with no iris detailing. To make it more interesting, you can add colored lines from the pupil to the outer ring.
3. The UV template for G9's head. I recommend overlaying the atlas head map on this for a complete guide to paint over. (The atlas isn't included in my zip because it's a proprietary daz file, but it's there in your library for you to use)
4. Instructions for using the makeup maps with the G9 default material presets to get a result like this example
5. Permission to use the maps however you want. 

Not my thing, but VERY cool for you to make for the people that need it :). 

SolitarySandpiper

i hope someone with a YouTube channel can do some tutorials about how to use the layered image editor and how to create useful masks like lip masks in Photoshop... i want to learn and I've tried to get my head around it all this past couple of weekends but I'm in need of instruction.

Psyckosama

AllenArt said:

vrba79 said:

I'm looking over the material zones on the base figure right now, and they've almost regressed to Poser 4 levels of simplified. Yeah, the inner mouth and eyes have their own zones, but where's the lips? Why can I have individually mapped eyes, but not seperately mapped lips? Who thought that was progress? Even the eye maps are oversimplified! Oh, but each eye MOISTURE has a map zone? This ranks right up there with on-disc DLC in ideas that should have gotten someone fired.

Know what was nice about older meshes, like Genesis 1 and 2? You had material zones for stuff like lips, nipples, the different parts of the eyes, etc. This could be used to great effect for NPR work, to achieve these very nice and clean results.

Was this oversimplification was done to make us more dependent on certain vendors? Who can say, but it sure feels like it.

Needless to say, this was one of the few times I actually used DIM to uninstall something.

They did away with lip zones because colorizing it looked horrible. There was a crisp line around the outside if you didn't use a mask and since you had to if you wanted a nice transition anyway, they just went went the complete mask route. Any material zone on a human with a distinct outline looks unrealistic - including lips, nipples, irises, etc. Now, I won't disagree that for NPR work they're probably an advantage, but I think the majority of DS users are leaning realistic or they wouldn't have designed G9 like they did. I'm sure they didn't design it just to piss off 3DL users or NPR users. It's just that they have to draw the line somewhere and, since they're a business, they're going to do it on the side that makes them the most money. There's nothing personal about it, really. They're not trying to make you dependent on more vendors. In fact you don't even have to USE G9 and you can go on your merry way using something earlier and that is more suited to your needs. Believe it or not, I'm not thrilled with the idea of buying stuff all over again, especially in this economic climate (and neither is the hubby..lol), but I like to try and keep up with the tech if I can and since I actually like G9, it's not difficult. I just need to be more choosy than I used to be. But, if G9 doesn't suit your needs, then don't use it. They certainly aren't going to change anything about it at this point, no matter how much complaining goes on.

I used the lip zone all the time. Yes, they look utterly terrible if you don't use them right, but putting gloss on the lips and then using a diffuse overlay to add color with a mask that breaks up the line like some makeup products do, worked perfectly. Same for nipples on the body and makeup on the face. Now you can't use eyeshadow and lipstick at the same time without going to either a single color or LIE, and LIE is a bad option because you don't have fine control. Only real option now are geoshells.

CHWT

Canary3d said:

I understand how daunting it can be to have to learn a bunch of new stuff when you just want to focus on your imagery! So I made a little freebie kit to get you started on creating things without having to struggle to line up your landmarks too much.

Here's the link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yLCXDcQfB6fsLYHUw7g75eN8GfgJEjL9/view?usp=sharing

Here's what's in it: 

1. A mask with lips, thick eyeliner, and toony brows, plus a very basic color map that works with the mask in the makeup layer of the PBR shader. You can also use this mask with LIE if you prefer. 
2. A toon eyeball map - a very basic one, with no iris detailing. To make it more interesting, you can add colored lines from the pupil to the outer ring.
3. The UV template for G9's head. I recommend overlaying the atlas head map on this for a complete guide to paint over. (The atlas isn't included in my zip because it's a proprietary daz file, but it's there in your library for you to use)
4. Instructions for using the makeup maps with the G9 default material presets to get a result like this example
5. Permission to use the maps however you want. 

First example - with normal map

Second example - without normal map and run through a denoiser post rendering, for a toonier look

Thank you so much @Canary3d

Psyckosama

Oso3D said:

There's two challenges with stylized stuff:

First, a lot of the stylized look comes from rendering, not the figure. Personally, it kind of squicks me out when I see a photorealistically rendered very toon-like figure, unless the artist works very hard with postwork or lighting to get it to look, well, illustrated.

Second, when someone says something like 'I want anime!' there's a huge chance anything that's offered will get a response of 'not like that.' The problem, obviously, is that 'anime' covers a WILDLY varied range of looks. I mean, are we talking Lupin III, Cyberpunk 2077, One Piece, Ghibli...

So we could get a dozen anime products coming out and a fair number of folks still wouldn't be satisfied.

 

I mean, personally, there's a few stylized things I have in mind. When I do anthros, though, I tend to lean toward photorealistic because that's my preference ... and I think some other PAs do stylized furries better than me.

 

I find the biggest problems with stytlized are the choice of materials and the style itself. You need a basic style that has a clear personality and I find that one of the fastest ways to get around the uncanny valley is to make the character look a little doll like. I normally manage that by making the skin look intentionally either like a painted porcelain doll or a latex display figure and make the hair look little plastic and doll-like (there are a couple shaders on the market that are perfect for this). They're very subtle touches but they toss up just enough sense of unreality to make them NOT squick people out.

One of my biggest bug-bears with G3+ is there were no really solid "toon skin" resources like DG's pack for G2F or the old Subsurface Toon Shader for G1 which sadly was 3DS only but had a really nice effect.

alienarea

Mada said:

alienarea said:

I'm still missing a simple mouth open / close slider.

In case you didn't find it - ​it’s Jaw Open now because that’s what Apple calls it in ARKIT.

Thank you.

Never thought of that. That explains the navel and nipples desaster, too.

 

Ghosty12

marble said:

Padone said:

@Oso3D Your example is perfect, thank you. The main object features are defined with topology, then normal maps are used for the surface details. You shouldn't use sculpting to define the volumes or the silhouette or the main body features, there's topology for that. Indeed retopology is a good part of sculpting, you first sculpt then retopology. The basic idea is that you should use geometry + normal maps. If you need HD displacement maps to define the figure volumes and silhouette then it means you failed at topology, that's what G9 does.

 

I'm no modeller but what you say makes a lot of sense to me. The fact that HD is proprietary (unlike Normal Maps) seems to make G9 a gift to PAs in that it forces customers to buy the nicely sculpted characters rather than make their own. For a lot of us, that's the way it has always been - as I said, I am not a modeller - but I can understand how people who like to be more creative might wish that HD tools were available to all. I guess they could work with Normal maps - I just don't know the technicalities.

For myself, G8 had a long innings with a great variety of characters, clothing, morphs and skins which amounted to a heavy investment. I just can't afford to start over with a new figure so I will skip this one and wait to see what happens when DS5 is released - maybe that will open the doors to models we have not yet dreamed of (or have, but they have been denied us).

Can understand completely, and I am somewhat in the same boat in that regards. I would have about 15 years worth of 3D collected content both free and bought, a lot of which I have not used yet. Not sure what it is about the release of G9, that is making me think long and hard about my content buying patterns.

But whatever it is I don't see myself going hammer and tong into a new base character product line right now, and will probably just wait it out, and as you said it will be interesting to see what DS5 is like whenever it decides to drop.

Mada

alienarea said:

Mada said:

alienarea said:

I'm still missing a simple mouth open / close slider.

In case you didn't find it - ​it’s Jaw Open now because that’s what Apple calls it in ARKIT.

Thank you.

Never thought of that. That explains the navel and nipples desaster, too.

I must be missing something - what does navel and nipples have to do with ARKIT? :)

kyoto kid

daveso said:

They are not, in fact. :)

The frustration is, we've been working with G9 and have seen all the improvements and how much easier and better it is as a whole than previous generations. While the forums are indeed a very small percentage of the user base, it's hard to see something you're excited about get bashed completely-- especially when a lot of the complaints are unrelated to the actual product (like a sale being shortened), or simply wrong because people don't know how it works yet. But the phrase "calling time of death" was used by a user here in the forums who used it about G9, so I'm not sure how it's unfriendly. It is dishearteneing to see so many people unwilling to give something new a chance. A real chance that is. If you go into something expecting to hate it, you'll find a reason to. 

I think the overall vibe is somewhat generated by the way G9 wqas released, imo haphazrdly. Different than previous releases, and the fact many of us are overwhelmed with products and by the increasing prices. There were really no introduction sales  that contained the necessities. Why not a package of the morphs, at minimum, upon release? there were not even morphs at release. V9 is very nice looking, but no makeup? then you have to buy a separete makeup package?  A lot of us not into unimesh. Yes, it is easy enough to create a feamle and male and save those as your starting characters. I'm not sure about all those brows .. and the cards .. maybe a product without cards? what the heck are cards anyway? Genitals in a separate product of brows .. it appears as an afterthought, with no materials. OVerall the entire release just seems off. 

Will I use G9? Its in my content so probably, and I will probably buy the morphs. Products are, at this moment, slowly rolling out. I'm not technically knowledgable enough to worry about the mesh, quads, triangles, and all that stuff, or why there are no nipples built into the mesh, or why bends, joints, bones, and all that work or not. I just use the stuff and strike a pose. I like simplicity and not having to learn Blender or Zbrush to obtain a morph or whatever. Overall though, having to buy a zillion products to fill out the G9 requirements isn;t happening anymore. As a hobbyist, my budget has shrunk. If I can port over clothing and hair, I'm good. You might see me flying in the breeze holding on to the caboose, not quite on the train.  I need to learn to do my own skin textures too. 

...spot on.

The bottom line for me is the "bottom line", which is basically the cost of adopting a brand new generation as I tend to custom design characters of my own (I rarely use a character straight out of the box save for ones like Aiko 3 and toon characters). In order to do that, it requires purchasing a large library of resource and utility content which seriously adds up. Being on a fixed pension I don't jump at every new shiny that comes down the pike unless I actually have a need or use for it.

One of the other "gripes" people have is once a new gneration appears, the past one is pretty much abandoned.G3 and G8 have probably the mot commonality in UV and mesh betwenethe two and there are conversion scripts that go in both directions.  The interesting part is for G3 I also have the Wear them All clones which allows me to autofit ffrom G8 all the way back to gen3.  This keeps a good segment of my library viable.when using G3.  This is the type of versatility I need.   

ETA:

Reading through posts about mesh density, texture size, LIE masks and such being involved only reinforces my decision to stay at the station and let this one go by. Particularly so when it comes to the resolution of the textures themselves.  I am working on an over a decade old system (talking DDR3 memory and PCIe 2.0 here) which grumbles at even having to deal with 4K textures, let alone 8K. The seemingly greater complexity and load on system resources is another reason I let the train leave without me as it will take a reasonable windfall to afford a system upgrade capable of dealing with all this, which further impacts that bottom line mentioned above.  

maikdecker

ChangelingChick said:

1) Criticism is fine if it's constructive. We don't mind constructive criticism or discussion at all. But that would include suggestions for improvement as well. I appreciate that you haven't seen a lot of the bashing because the mods have been fairly diligent in trimming the threads (this one included) to be more constructive in nature, but there's been a lot already deleted. And criticism should also be open to dialogue, but it doesn't seem to be. The vendors have been accused of being shills that will endorse anything Daz releases. There's no discussion to be had there.

2) This was a user, not Oso3D, and it was the day after G9 was released. I believe the phrase was "I'm calling it! Time of death on G9, 24 hours" or something similar. It may have been trimmed out since then, but it was certainly burned in my mind. 

3) Not bothering with G9 isn't disheartening. And your car comparison doesn't really hold since it's one of the more expensive ones and G9 is free. It's more like people not wanting the free samples at the grocery store. Which is also fine. But when you don't take a sample at the store, you don't tell the person that offered it to you all the ways the sample is awful without having tried it. Don't want is fine, but anyone using current DS assets is capable of using G9. Not wanting to, fine. No quarrel with that at all. But I'd point out that it's been 2 years since people were speculating/expecting and asking for G9 in these very forums, so it's definitely something that was indeed wanted. Not by everyone, of course. There are still people happily using Aiko 3. If that's what you want to use, there's nothing wrong with that, and we're happy for you to continue doing so. This is a new figure for people who are interested in keeping up with current technologies and industry standards, and if that doesn't appeal to certain folks, that's fine, but I just don't see the benefit in bashing the products. I say bashing because a lot of the complaints are based on incorrect information and assumptions. And again, hats off to the mod crew because they're trimming that sort of stuff fairly quickly, but it still gets seen. But there have been a lot of threads that have outright insulted the mods and the vendors. Richard has been remarkably patient with outright personal attacks against himself (and I mean very personal and very nasty) and has shown me why I could never be a forum mod.

1#: Constructive critic is only possible if someone intends to use a product. If one would rather use the products they already own, but see them updated, while being able to going on to use their own content without having to buy all the "tools" to adapt old stuff to "new and improved" stuff the only constructive critic would be "don't do a new figure, but adjust the old one" which, as obvious, isn't an option here, with a figure that is built to not to be compatible to old content without having to jump through loops. Yes, I know that some stuff CAN be adapted by objectifying, exporting, importing etc. etc. but that fullfils the "jumping through hoops" criterium for me.
And from one POV some PAs are indeed "shilling" for G9, as it's in their personal and financial best interest to have this new, non-compatible figure. There ARE PAs whose main income comes from producing copies of their products with small adaptation for new Generation. There are also those, who do the products needed to do the adaptation of stuff for new Generations. Don't tell me that at least these PAs have any reason to shill for a new generation to secure their jobs Others see the advantages THEY have when producing new and cool stuff, due to the new figure being easier on their workflow... but on the other side they miss that every new figure needs the average user to adjust their workflow too and compared to PAs probably with a lot less information and guidance, because of the lack of a real manual...

2#: Didn't see that post you mention, so, sorry to Oso3D...

3#: But G9 IS more costly... we will have to buy a lot of stuff we have for previous Generations again to continue using the stuff we already have paid for. And that example with "free samples" is although a bit weird... because it's not really free samples, but more "Here is a free steak. To really enjoy it, you have of course to buy the adjusted plate, knife and fork to eat it. The plate, fork and knife you already own won't work for that. And of course you also need a bigger table to put the new plate on, because we made the plate a lot bigger..."
And we have a number of reasons for not being too fond of the new Generation... there's "I don't need". "I can't afford..", "I don't like certain aspects.." and "I basically like it, but not the way it is done.." which get all thrown into one pot here, though. But that's okay, because for nearly all of the people complaining about G9 there is the one and only easy solution: Don't use, don't buy...
And again: "bashing" is depending a lot on the personal standpoint. And I will not comment moderation on this forum in any way.

CHWT

Well maybe I have some kind of OCD lol, if it's a take it or leave it situation, I will see it from a positive perspective that it's in fact a cure or a blessing in disguise. It miraculously stopped my impulsive buying behavior lol.