Generations

With the release of DAZ Darius 6, I decided, just for the hell of it, to do a lineup of the principal realistic African-textured males of the past three DAZ generations. (Not pictured: Derek for Freak 5; in part because if you really want to see him, he's all over the Pour Homme gallery set, and in part because to some extent he's not meant to be realistic. Also, my computer was weeping copious computery tears at that point and probably would have melted down if I'd put another figure in.) While Rob Elite was transferred to G2M, the head morph, texture and shape are all his own. As a side note, I tried to transfer Benjamin M5 to G2M; that ... did not go even vaguely well.

The rather notable absence of a DAZ Originals African-textured male from the Michael 6 line is apparently explained by Darius, I guess. (There is an African textured male for Michael 6, but Tyler is a published artist product, and not a DAZ Original.)

Image above has no postwork except captions and logo. Hands of Benjamin and Darius 6 are blown out because the principal lighting for the image was two linear point lights, and they happened to be located quite literally right under their hands.

The physical builds really dominate the first impressions. Ryze is HUGE, and Neo is a scrawny little thing. That aside, I put the lineup together to look at the textures. It's worth noting that Ryze and Neo clearly both use the DAZ M4 African Merchant Resource; I think, but will not swear, that Cayman does as well. He's so dark that lighting him well enough to see detail couldn't be done without blowing out everyone else.

I will also admit to being somewhat disappointed by Cayman, and also feeling a mite misled by the promo images. (Though to be absolutely fair, if you look at them closely, you can see what's going on. But you have to look very closely indeed.) The artists did the work to lighten his palms and then just ... stopped. From the look of him, I think they might have used a mask to try to grade out to his fingers, but if that's the case, it starts and ends much too soon. It's fixable, I think -- but it's not an easy fix, and it's going to take ages.

Here's the thing. Published Artist products are what they are. I get that doing the fix for the hands, when you've darkened the diffuse as was done with Cayman, takes FOREVER. I know because I've done it, more than once. And the return of the investment of time and work versus the number of people who will purchase the item and who actually care may not be enough to bother. I really and truly get that analysis ... when it comes to published artist products.

When it comes to DAZ Originals, however ... I don't care who makes the thing, DAZ has a reputation for quality for the products that bear their name. I understand that some things in the bundle are purchased/contracted products. Nonetheless, if they're not willing to hand it back to the persons who made it and say, "Look, this needs to be fixed if it's going to be called a realistic texture," if it's going to bear their name, then they should fix it themselves.

Given ... other issues that have presented themselves from time to time, let's say, I'm also painfully aware that this is the sort of thing that DAZ really doesn't care that much about. Which is a pity. But their calculation is almost certainly the same as an individual artist's might be; there's a limit to how much time and effort they'll invest for something that isn't going to be a huge seller -- and despite Darius 6 being a separate figure (and I have one or two quite unprintable thoughts about THAT, even though I still purchased him), he's still male, and he's still African-based, so he's not going to sell gangbusters. He will, one hopes, do well; I suspect the link between him and Monique will help that somewhat.