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Dawn 2.0 Underway
- Thread starter Chris
- Start date
carmen indorato
Extraordinary
Unable to access my poser computer to check myself, can wire framed art be rendered in Poser now in newer versions?
Ah, so the thread is active.
After reading through the first page and the suggestions..
mine are:
1) Is it possible to soften up the chin and jaw line a little bit more? These are very masculine aspects of the Dawn default shape that's always had my eye going "something not quite right here"
2) In my experiences with both Dusk and Dawn when the wrist was bent in extremes of up or down there was an unnatural bulge in the top of the hands. Since the hands don't have allot of fat on the tops this bulge was always troubling for me when I created artistic poses for either figure as the top of the hand regardless of it's position should always remain flat!
3) One of the things about the newer figures out there is that there are more movement facial points for the mouth, brows and eyes. This also makes conforming bits (like for Dusk) follow along without extra work from the content provider such as beards and what not follow along nicely without all that extra work (jcm's or mcm's). So perhaps Paul could investigate that a little bit and add that sort of extra rigging into the 2.0 set of figures!
After reading through the first page and the suggestions..
mine are:
1) Is it possible to soften up the chin and jaw line a little bit more? These are very masculine aspects of the Dawn default shape that's always had my eye going "something not quite right here"
2) In my experiences with both Dusk and Dawn when the wrist was bent in extremes of up or down there was an unnatural bulge in the top of the hands. Since the hands don't have allot of fat on the tops this bulge was always troubling for me when I created artistic poses for either figure as the top of the hand regardless of it's position should always remain flat!
3) One of the things about the newer figures out there is that there are more movement facial points for the mouth, brows and eyes. This also makes conforming bits (like for Dusk) follow along without extra work from the content provider such as beards and what not follow along nicely without all that extra work (jcm's or mcm's). So perhaps Paul could investigate that a little bit and add that sort of extra rigging into the 2.0 set of figures!
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YES PLEASE!
Yes, there were instances when I used either figure that I had boulder shoulder issues but also rubbery areas that reminded me of Victoria and Michael 3 (sorry to say). As humans, regardless of whether we realize it or not, our eyes tell our brains or vice versa (LOL), that something isn't quite right or way off. I know that shoulders and the backs of arms and other joints have always been the bane of this little industry. So my feedback is that (and I know you and Paul want to avoid JCM's as much as possible but lets be realistic here) what ever it takes to make very realistic movement and bends should be top of the list.
Yea but try moving your neck around, it's really not as malleable as the figures with the extra bone. Often times when I was making poses for either the Hivewire figures or the Genesis 8 figures those two bones just made things look "odd" to me when I used both. Just my input.
Another suggestion, one that I really want you to "borrow" from Genesis 8... please please please make the eyelash's a separate conforming figure! Making face morphs for the figures was such a pain in the tuckus, hiding 4 or more eyelash layers EVERY time I imported Dusk or Dawn into ZBrush was very off putting. The nice thing with having them separate is that they conform to what ever shape you have the eyes set too so you don't get any of that issue with having to incorporate JCM's to fix things when the shape of the eye isn't exactly what was set up in for the original shape. I'm speaking from a DAZ Studio side to this discussion. Not sure how Poser uses an auto correction for conformers when the shape is differing from the original shape...
So, I thought about leaving this until it was closer to sending the figure up for rigging. Buuuut... as I'm fighting with posing issues on a WIP package right now - as in tonight - I thought I'd take the opportunity to put a bug in your ear.
Please please please please PLEASE (did I say PLEASE?) can we have some better joint smoothing/joint fix/correction on the new figure? Her joints make me so crazy that I've all but stopped making poses for her in her current form. I've come back to it again recently, but I'm finding myself struggling with the same issues.
Underarms, groins, thighs, knees, ankles/feet, elbows, wrists, neck/torso joint, neck/head joint, the crease between the thigh and buttocks gets all weird if you bend their legs backwards at all, such as for a running pose... all of it.
This is one screenshot example. I know it looks extreme, but if you zoom in on the screenshot, and look at the values, you'll see that I don't actually have any of the dials spun outside of the 0-100 range. This makes building poses SO frustrating. Dawn and Dusk both do this.
If we could get some better joint movement on the next figure, I would really appreciate it. As a pose builder, the joints are extremely off-putting at present, and I'm sincerely hoping for better movement and bends on the next figure.
Thanks!
Please please please please PLEASE (did I say PLEASE?) can we have some better joint smoothing/joint fix/correction on the new figure? Her joints make me so crazy that I've all but stopped making poses for her in her current form. I've come back to it again recently, but I'm finding myself struggling with the same issues.
Underarms, groins, thighs, knees, ankles/feet, elbows, wrists, neck/torso joint, neck/head joint, the crease between the thigh and buttocks gets all weird if you bend their legs backwards at all, such as for a running pose... all of it.
This is one screenshot example. I know it looks extreme, but if you zoom in on the screenshot, and look at the values, you'll see that I don't actually have any of the dials spun outside of the 0-100 range. This makes building poses SO frustrating. Dawn and Dusk both do this.
If we could get some better joint movement on the next figure, I would really appreciate it. As a pose builder, the joints are extremely off-putting at present, and I'm sincerely hoping for better movement and bends on the next figure.
Thanks!
Mythocentric
Extraordinary
As one of the 'great unwashed' (i.e. I'm a user, not a modeller) I'm not all that interested in many of the suggestions made in this thread, not that that is intended to detract from those suggestions, all of which are of value, as I'm sure Chris can attest to. All I mean to say is that, for me they are minutae which have little relevence to me as an end user. The point is that all together they add up to a big step forwards to what is already a great figure. Now that is something to really look forward to and I look forward eagerly to adding Dawn 2 to my runtime. Thanks for all your great artistry and devotion Chris!
Dawn 2.0 will surely have to improve on the posing department, and I think topology is a major factor to help that to happen. Not only the posing, but topology is also important for quality morphing. This is what Chris is working on at this stage, and it is already a an improvement over the original figure. It has much cleaner loops than before. This should make Paul's work easier later on, and also, the figure should pose better when morphed. That's how important topology is.
However, posing quality can come at a rather steep price depending on how the rigging is done. We have some pretty good examples of different ways to do it with Dawn, PE, and LaFemme, where each has their own pros and cons. We can divide this into 2 major categories:
* JCM-Heavy: This is where PE stands in the lineup. She poses well and realistically, at the cost of making conforming clothing nearly impossible to rig. She wears mostly dynamic cloth, which is not for everyone. Before you can render, you have to sit down and wait for cloth to simulate, and hopefully settle as you want. In addition, not all clothing can be used as dynamic. I believe most are not.
* Fewer JCMs: This is where Dawn stands. The posing is not as great, but conforming clothing creation is much simpler and faster to rig. It's easier to rig conforming clothing for Dawn.
Therefore, we have to be weary about how many JCMs Dawn 2.0 will have, because realistic posing like PE has doesn't come for free. Coming from that, I believe Dawn's shoulders pose amazingly well considering they don't use any JCMs. Of course, you will find some flaws in some poses because of that, but it's still pretty good for regular, everyday posing.
But wait - wasn't LaFemme in my list above? Well, LaFemme sits more or less in the middle between Dawn and PE. She is JCM-heavy, but by far not as much as PE. I have converted and rigged a complete V4 outfit for her, and the main difference from PE was that I managed to make the initial rig work pretty well, as opposed to what happened when I tried the same with PE. Besides having less JCMs, the main difference is that her "developer rig" is a better starting point to be used as a "clone" in the sense of how those are used to project weights from figure to clothing in DS, but in this case, in Poser. Dawn also has a developer rig, but I don't need it as much since she has very few JCMs to start with, so it's much less of an issue.
Having that said, the current rigging technology is certainly better than legacy rigging, but still, it imposes some limitations on posing quality. JCMs are the way to correct those posing issues, but the more of them we add, the more difficult it becomes to make conforming clothing to work with the figure. Consider that content prices are dropping nowadays, as the rigging difficulties keep rising due to JCMs being added in larger numbers to the figures, and we have a scenario that doesn't favor content creators. A "successful" figure is one that has a lot of contents created for it, so the figure has to be friendly to content creators. In this aspect, PE is not friendly at all, LaFemme is more or less, and Dawn is VERY friendly - and also the ONLY one from this bunch to exist natively in both Poser and DS. As an example, DAZ has replaced JCMs with magnets in V4, completely removing this difficult part from content creation. She still doesn't pose well due to limitations of legacy rigging, but she has become (as still is) the most supported figure ever. That's how important it is to keep JCMs to a minimum.
When it comes to topology, PE has a rather heavy mesh that slows down my computer, LaFemme has some poor grid-like topology that relies on subdivision to work and sculpt, and Dawn has a pretty good topology, which allows for a lightweight mesh that can be sculpted nicely at base resolution (as seen in my "Body Type" series). I think Dawn is the best figure in these aspects, and Dawn 2.0 should improve on the deficiencies, where my main issue with the original Dawn is certainly the thigh bending quality.
Sorry for the long post, but I think it's important that people understand the balance between posing quality and the number of JCMs on a figure. In a nutshell, the more JCMs, the better the posing, but the more content creator unfriendly the figure becomes. I know it may sound like a paradox, but that's how things work nowadays. That's why old V4 still has more clothing than all other figures together, even when she poses poorly. The art here will be for Paul to manage the best possible posing with the fewest possible JCMs. This is why Chris is cleaning up the Dawn mesh, removing triangles, and making cleaner edge loops. All this contributes to what Paul will have to accomplish in the later stage. One step at a time, and Chris has been doing a wonderful job here.
eclark1894
Visionary
I haven't moved on to La Femme yet. I wanted to, but I also wanted to move on to PE. Lost interest in them both. Dawn 2.0 scares me. I'm probably going to stick with dynamic clothing for a while.
How come?
eclark1894
Visionary
Change and I honestly don't know what the changes will affect. Rigging? Poses? Morphs? Clothes? Items already in the store?
Looks fantastic so far Chris!
First, some feedback - the side of the chest ... I've been back and forth in my head, but I've decided to ask you to consider reverting to the original version as in my opinion the muscles in that area have forms too subtle to be carried in the base mesh without increasing resolution. The original mesh topology (as on p12) would make it easier to find those shapes in a sculpt that could be baked down to either high-res morphs or maps, while the current topology looks ... well, scrappy. It looks like that area has a much higher density of poles and a compromised edge flow compared to the rest of the mesh - which is looking very clean.
Second, a request - could you post an orthographic (i.e. no perspective camera) front, back and sides view? I'm interested in seeing overall proportion (I assume Dawn 2 will still be using the 8 head canon) and the centre line.
Third: UV's - anything to show? I'm weird, I like UV mapping so I'm itching to see
First, some feedback - the side of the chest ... I've been back and forth in my head, but I've decided to ask you to consider reverting to the original version as in my opinion the muscles in that area have forms too subtle to be carried in the base mesh without increasing resolution. The original mesh topology (as on p12) would make it easier to find those shapes in a sculpt that could be baked down to either high-res morphs or maps, while the current topology looks ... well, scrappy. It looks like that area has a much higher density of poles and a compromised edge flow compared to the rest of the mesh - which is looking very clean.
Second, a request - could you post an orthographic (i.e. no perspective camera) front, back and sides view? I'm interested in seeing overall proportion (I assume Dawn 2 will still be using the 8 head canon) and the centre line.
Third: UV's - anything to show? I'm weird, I like UV mapping so I'm itching to see
That's understandable, because I doubt some one has invested more time and effort on the original Dawn than I did. However, the issues on her thighs rigging can only be fixed on a new figure. Once the rigging is done, it becomes cast on stone and can never be changed, because that would break all the conforming items created for her. My "Perfect Pelvis" for Dawn only addresses some of the thigh JCMs shaping issues, but it cannot make up for the incorrect bone origin positions, and the large vertexes deltas moved by the original JCMs that try to compensate for that. If we really want to correct that, it has to be on a new figure, and that's what I have been waiting for: Dawn 2.0.
I've also had issues with Dawn's lower torso groups because of the way they were designed. Here again, that cannot be helped once the figure was released, so I am proposing a new grouping setup for Dawn 2.0 that keeps the 2 abdomen groups, but use only 1 chest, 1 neck, and adds 2 new pectoral groups. On the material zones, I have suggested reducing the skin zones from 9 to only 4.
At this stage, Chris is improving the topology and defining the new default shape. On this last one, the arms and neck are thinner, and the shoulders and buttocks are smaller. The new default face has removed most of Dawn's original strong features, making her more suitable for character creation. She also has a new tear line geometry that was missing on the original Dawn, which is awesome. All of these changes will greatly improve over what we have learned from using the original Dawn, making the new version a better one. None of these things can be changed on the original Dawn, so a new version is required. Dawn was released in 2013, so 6 years later sounds like a perfect time for a revision.
Some here have asked about compatibility. Dawn 2.0 will not be a mere morph for the original Dawn - she will be a whole new figure. Even if, by total coincidence, she ends up with the exact same number of vertices, none of the existing morphs for the original Dawn will work with her. New ones will have to be created. Clothing can be converted, even when the default shape is not the same. However, the original shape will be included as a morph. As for the UVs, I have heard rumors that they will be compatible with the current one, so textures can be reused with Dawn 2.0.