Beautiful Bends vs Ultimate Natural vs Soft Body vs Ideal Beauty
jasonk
Posts: 42
Are any of these worth it? Are there other products I should be considering? If they save me time, and give good results, then they're worth it to me. Or am I better off duplicating their effects with manual tweaks? Are they only worthwhile for V6, or worthwhile for any G2 female?
Has anyone tried more than 1 of these products and decided they prefer one for some reason? Does anyone use several of these products at the same time?
Here are their links:
http://www.daz3d.com/ultimate-natural-for-victoria-6-body
http://www.daz3d.com/i13-squish-soft-body-effect-morphs
http://www.daz3d.com/beautiful-bends-for-genesis-2-female-s
http://www.daz3d.com/ideal-beauty-for-genesis-2-and-v6
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Personally, Ideal Beauty is my choice and I only use that one. I don't know how it will react when combined with others who do the same thing. Combination wise, with products that require manual dialling you are fine (such as the squish product), but with the products that use automation, you might get conflicts. These products aren't really meant to be stacked as they do not complement each other, but instead compete since they all aim to resolve the same thing. But if somebody can post renders of more than one used at the same time then that would be useful.
So, what? These make things like this (in my screenshot) akward look to the bended knee work better?
I also would like to see such a comparison. I believe there was another thread discussing the same subject, but there wasn't any follow up.
I'm biased though..
From description, the Ideal Beauty base set only works on G2F and Victoria 6. For Girl 6 and Gia 6 support, you will need to purchase the respective separate addons. Ultimate Natural supports only Victoria 6. SQUISH Soft Body is actually a different kind of product, which I think is closer to Zev0's Breast Control. Closer in terms that it can be used to simulate contact of the breasts with hard surfaces.
Beautiful Bends for G2F currently supports G2F, Victoria 4 for G2F, Victoria 6, Gia 6, Girl 6, Stephanie 6, Olympia 6, Aiko 6, Teen Josie and Giselle 6. I will be adding support for new shapes as well in the next update (Belle 6, Meilin 6, Lilith 6). Plus there will be some additional tweaks and tuning to allow greater limb rotations.
Zev0 is correct in stating that the corrective morph sets are generally not compatible with each other, when they are applied full strength. As I understand it, all these sets have options to dial down the strength, per each joint. So technically, you can mix all of them together for one joint with say a ratio of 25%/25%/50%, or have one set correct some joints while the others used for other joints. I know some have and are using Beautiful Bends with Ideal Beauty combined, though I haven;t heard much about Ultimate Natural.
Well, it's clearly optimized for V6, but the description says it's compatible with Genesis 2 Female, and this thread
http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/46862/
The user says it works with any Genesis 2 Female. Which is what I'd expect of any Genesis 2-based pack like this...it'll work with any Genesis 2 Female, though it may only look good/best with one or a few of them.
Yeah, that guy in that one thread never came back with his comparison. I tried PMing him, never heard back. Was he paid hush money?!? ;)
This is with the current developer build. So it's not released yet. V6 with no additional morphs.
Looking back at that thread, I think he has to dial down the strength for G2F. Beautiful Bends is build on G2F first and foremost, taking into account how the corrective morphs look with other shapes. I try to avoid making FBM specific correctives whenever possible. Victoria 6 and Girl 6 didn't have FBM specific correctives. For Gia, I think the only FBM specific correctives were for the knee bend. There are corrective morphs for the feet, but those are not JCMs.
You make a good case for your Beautiful Bends.
SQUISH appears to also try to handle the body pressing against itself...leg against leg, arm against breast. It isn't just breasts against hard surfaces.
I do like that Ultimate Natural apparently takes care of some side effects of movement...automatically adjusting shoulder blades, breast shape, butt shape, etc.
I want it all, and I want it to all work automatically! Since I am a 2D artist, the faster I can setup a proper looking pose, the faster I can get on to the painting I want to do. Twiddling morph dials and such isn't my idea of fun, nor is it the kind of artistic work I'm going to enjoy spending lots of time on. Certainly sometimes I'll want a specific height, weight, muscularity, etc, but tweaking just to make a human look properly human isn't part of my desired work time.
Anyone selling add-ons like this could get more sales by either adding competitors' functionality (of course), OR, work with your competitors, try all your products in combination with each other, verify which ones play well together, and give users advice like "if you're using add-on A and add-on B with figure X, to get the best looking figure X and have what my add-on gives you + these things that are only available via the other add-on, dial down these morphs to the following strength.... And then for figure Y...."
More info on how things perform and what gives the most ideal end result = buy, and buy sooner, and do so with confidence.
I understand the sentiment. Although I can't speak for the others, from experience there will always be some limits to any of these sets, since most are made with the default figure or specific FBMs. Dialing morphs that significantly add/remove volume like Heavy or Emaciated will cause problems unless the vendor made specific morphs to deal with those shapes. Height isn't much of a problem though.
I don't have the other sets, but Beautiful Bends works well with various character shapes (ones I have made FBM specific correctives) and most of Genesis 2 Female Body Morphs. Some other extra morphs that work quite well are Zev0's Breast/Glute morphs set (except the bend correction morphs) and the newly released Muscularity Morphs. There are some problems around the deltoid when you move the arm all the way up though. I haven't played around with it much to see if there are other problems.
My advice is to try them for yourselves. DAZ has a 30 day return policy, so you could always return products that doesn't suit your needs. If you feel the current prices are a bit high, I suggest waiting for March, when DAZ has its regular March Madness promo. Specific to Beautiful Bends I'd recommend using no more than half strength for morphs such as Heavy and Pear Figure. Weight is generally problematic pass 1/3 strength.
Thanks for the tips. Hmmm, March madness, good to know.
Yeah, I realize no automated solution is going to be able to take care of every variation of every figure in every pose. Why can't we just digitize actual people? ;)
I still haven't decided which route I'm going to play with first (DS or Poser), but I'm researching to see what products I might want, and if any products or figures are compelling enough to pull me one way vs the other. If it's DS, I need to learn more basic things to even know what I might want to buy. Like I'm confused about basic things, like some of these morph packages...take Zev's Shape Shift...so the base figure doesn't out-of-the-box let you morph all her parts (which sounds odd to me), yet Zev's package apparently adds the ability to morph parts (his product changes the abilities that Daz's product has?)? All seems a little strange & confusing to me.
Research is good. For starters, I suggest getting DAZ Studio and G2F/G2M Essentials first. They're free and you can quickly see what they offer and what they lack. The base figures comes with some textures and morphs (if I'm not mistaken, some expressions and phonemes)..There's also some free video tutorial in the store that you might help you get oriented with basic things.
I use both Ideal Beauty and Beautiful Bends at the same time. Usually a 50/50 ratio works very well for most characters, but you will have to tweak it a bit for knee and thigh bends and juggle around with the strength of each. Some shapes add a big ugly crease on knee bends, or too much spacing, which can sometimes mess with both fix packages when combined. So you will have to experiment a bit until you found the sweet spot.
But from then on you will have nice bending without having to apply many corrections. Just dont expect miracles. Both packages are really good, but there are always poses that simply wont look great no matter what fixes you apply.
Also, when youre posing character with shoes on, make sure to dial out all the foot correction morphs from Ideal Beauty, since those WILL distort your shoes. Beautiful Bends will do that too but more subtle. So best keep those two dials in your favourites tab ;)
The ugly spots, are they something that can ONLY be fixed with products like this, or can you fix them manually? You wrote "there are always poses that simply wont look great no matter what fixes you apply"...sounds like in some cases you're just stuck, and there's no solution at all, not even manual?
There is always a way to fix things, but with just DS tools you will have to put in alot of work by creating morph targets with the clumsy magnet tool for example. If you are not rendering within DS, you can just use better options in the next 3d application that you use for this. C4D,Max,Maya etc, basically all these applications have really good ways to sculpt and manipulate polygons in a quick and easy way, but that is something that DS sadly does not have - yet.
I'm interested in these products, especially for G2M. Will they improve animated figures or do they only enhance static poses?
It's perhaps worth pointing out that the Beautiful Bends Bundle has just gone into Fast Grab at 70% off. Could be worth a punt at $14.99 instead of $49.95.
Dangit. I DON'T HAVE THE BUDGET.
Heh
Thanks I just bought this! It was too good an offer to hold back. If it really makes little difference to animation I can return it.
They will work in both static shots and animation. The JCMs are fully automatic. The only thing you need to do is toggle them once you've loaded G2F/G2M into your scene.
They will work in both static shots and animation. The JCMs are fully automatic. The only thing you need to do is toggle them once you've loaded G2F/G2M into your scene.
That's good to know but what does "toggle" mean?
Once you've loaded G2F/G2M (or characters based on those figures) into the scene, you need to enable the JCMs by making sure the 'Disable All' slider is set to 0. The default value is -100%. The dial is found under 'Actor/Full Body/People/Real World/Beautiful Bends'
If all goes well, this month there will be updates to support Lilith, Mei Lin, Belle, Keiko, Monique for the G2F version and Gianni and Darius for the G2M version. Brodie and Lee didn't require additional JCMs, so those two are supported as well.
Once you've loaded G2F/G2M (or characters based on those figures) into the scene, you need to enable the JCMs by making sure the 'Disable All' slider is set to 0. The default value is -100%. The dial is found under 'Actor/Full Body/People/Real World/Beautiful Bends'
If all goes well, this month there will be updates to support Lilith, Mei Lin, Belle, Keiko, Monique for the G2F version and Gianni and Darius for the G2M version. Brodie and Lee didn't require additional JCMs, so those two are supported as well.
Thanks! I'll follow your advice. Great to know that more figures will soon be supported.
Once you've loaded G2F/G2M (or characters based on those figures) into the scene, you need to enable the JCMs by making sure the 'Disable All' slider is set to 0. The default value is -100%. The dial is found under 'Actor/Full Body/People/Real World/Beautiful Bends'
If all goes well, this month there will be updates to support Lilith, Mei Lin, Belle, Keiko, Monique for the G2F version and Gianni and Darius for the G2M version. Brodie and Lee didn't require additional JCMs, so those two are supported as well.
I purchased and installed this product. I do not have a dial under this path...
Actor/Full Body/People/Real World/Beautiful Bends
There is no Beautiful Bends under...
Actor/Full Body/People/Real World/
Check if you have 'Show Sub Items' checked. If you have it checked and they still don't show up, try this.
Open your morphs folder to check if the files used by the morphs are there.
For the G2F version, the files location will be something like
...\My DAZ 3D Library\data\DAZ 3D\Genesis 2\Female\Morphs\wowie\Beautiful Bends G2F
For the G2M version:
...\My DAZ 3D Library\data\DAZ 3D\Genesis 2\Male\Morphs\wowie\Beautiful Bends G2M
If they're not there, then it's likely they're not installed yet.
Check if you have 'Show Sub Items' checked. If you have it checked and they still don't show up, try this.
Open your morphs folder to check if the files used by the morphs are there.
For the G2F version, the files location will be something like
...\My DAZ 3D Library\data\DAZ 3D\Genesis 2\Female\Morphs\wowie\Beautiful Bends G2F
For the G2M version:
...\My DAZ 3D Library\data\DAZ 3D\Genesis 2\Male\Morphs\wowie\Beautiful Bends G2M
If they're not there, then it's likely they're not installed yet.
I installed the product with DIM. I checked that the files were located in the morph folder. "Show Sub Items" is checked. There is no dial here...
Actor/Full Body/People/Real World/Beautiful Bends
Oh, I see it now. It's here...
Wow, what a difference. Great product, thanks for your help.
Glad to help. Hope you found it useful.
Yes Beautiful Bends is good morphs. thanks. ;-) (I like ideal shape too, then I mix and tweak both)
Then, I have one request,, (if you up-date this corrective morph sets for pozing,,)
I think, your debugging controller morphs use "add" formula then set minus value to remove effects.
then you needed to set default value as "minus 100" to remove your corrective morph effect .
and need to set as zero to active your corrective morps effect.
yes it work, but I think it is not naturall way.:roll:
eg if I use zero figure, or zero shape, I expect it can remove all your morph effect as same as other morphs.
but your debugging controller values change active. though it may not work untill I poze figures,,
then I poze figure, your jcms will deforms each part.
And if I tweak limits of actual jcms (eg min -100 to max 100) ,it may cause problem easy.
I think,, you may prefer to use "multipe" formula controllers, to switch your jcm effect ( remove or active)
and adjust each morph value for tweaking.
then as default , (when load figure, or zero shape, ) it value should be zero.
to active, simple change the value to 1 (as same as your current product)
the value will be multiple each jcms. (so that I do not need to keep limits for each jcms, I can set minus value for some jcms,if I need.
then use reset value easy)
I believe it is more reliable and naturall way.
You shouldn't use zero figure. Best workflow is to clear the pose. Clear shape and clear figure will disable the JCMs.
As to your other notes, I believe you want the dials to be more in line with the others (0 disables, 1 enables the JCMs). The actual morphs are arranged this way. Only the JCM control dials and the master JCM control dials are set to -100 and 0.
Though I may miss udnerstanding.
Sorry but I do not think, your Disalbe (or Active) BB controllers work as you desigend.
because
1 I load default gen2female without tweaking BBDisableAll, (-100).
that means your jcms is not active. is it right?
2 Other BB jcm controllers as (-100) too.
3 just bend gen2female Left thigs
I suppose it should not change any actual jcm morphs (which change vertex positons)
value of your products.
but actually , many hidden BBjcms value have already changed. that means your jcm morphs are not disabled.
then I think you may better make BB controllers without empty morphs.
because when edit mode, many of your controllers are shown as morph. (M mark)
but "BBcontrollers" under Fullbody/people/beautifulbends/Jcmcontrolls not include any morphs as you know.
I think you create these controllelrs with empty morph opthons.(or you manually write code? I do not know)
though daz seems not offer strict dsicription, about how to make controller ,
usually most of controlelrs which not include actuall morphs are shown as "P"
and actuall jcm or mcms FBMs which include morph defomation are shown as "m"
so that user can easy check which morph(controller) actually deform figures mesh in edit mode.
then they can remove or acjust the effect. or set auto follow etc.
but if you add controller as "empty morph"
it should be shown as morph"M" not controller "P"
about your product controllers (they have only erc for other controller) not keep these rule I think.
Check again. I think only the helper dials (needed for conditional JCMs) are active. If you're seeing an actual JCMs triggering (active), it's probably because I didn't enter the right value in the ERC code. I believe there's one or two in the current build, but that's already fixed in the dev build.
Most of the ERC code were manually created (not using ERC Freeze), since there's a lot of conditional JCMs used.