So let me ask this question. Is G3 or G8 a better figure than the most popular figure of all time, V4? Better rigged, higher poly count which I think equates to better morphs and especially better expressions. I won't include Dawn (though you certainly may) because of the home field advantage.
Before we can answer that, remember V4 was introduced to replace the JCM-riddled Mil3 figures. Now Genesis introduced vertex-precision TriAx rigging with 3 maps per joints (plus bulge and scaling maps), so posing have improved drastically with less need for pesky JCMs. However, G3 and G8 have discarded TriAx in favor of Dual Quaternions, which use only a single map per joint, which is sufficient for video game models, but sucks for the the kind of posing required in Poser/DS. This results in posing quality that is WORSE than V4, so they had to go back to how it used to be with Mil3 figures by bloating the use of JCMs.
In addition, V4 has MORE polys than G3/8, so even V4 morphs better than these two. Not only that, but they have ALSO simplified the topology, making morphs less effective than it was with G2. This is why G3/8 require levels of subdivision before they can be sculpted, which makes both these figures inferior to G2 in morphing quality.
So which is better?
Do you suppose the low poly count of G3 and the supposed difficulty of morphing a low-poly figure might explain something about why we suddenly started getting a new DAZ "base" morph just about every two weeks for the last 2/3 of the development cycle for G3? And why they've kept it up with G8?
It has been years they have been advertising their figures as "video game-ready", trying to appeal to the gaming industry. This is most likely why they have ditched quality TriAx rigging in favor of simplistic Dual Quats with low poly, simplified topology. They want those figures to be used in commercial video games, which to this date has never happened. They want to compete with the likes of Mixamo, which means they had to sacrifice rigging quality, topology and poly count. Those figures are no longer catering for the DS public. G2 was the last one that did.
That isn't so surprising, considering the Poser public has been also unceremoniously discarded not long ago. Gaming companies have much bigger budgets than mere hobbyists such as ourselves, so it's understandable that they are more appealing than us to the board of directors. This is perfectly FINE for as long as people cope with it, and even think G3/8 are better than what they had before. It's completely up to the people.
