New Genus heads are out - what do you think?

[Gabriele Graves]

1 hour ago, Marianne Little said:

In Naria Panthar's video, she says something I am not sure I understand. She says the new skins are "4K" and I got the impression that skin creators must work with 4 parts. "They will need four parts". And put them together so they meet.

I've taken a look at the UV map PSD and there are 4x2K textures with the idea that each one will have its resolution reduced to 1Kx1K by SL (as SL cannot do anything higher)  upon importing.

The claim is that this resolution down-scaling retains higher quality than bringing in a 1K texture.

Of course there is nothing stopping anyone doing this resolution down-scaling completely outside of SL and just bringing in a 1K of the same or better quality (due to superior down-scaling software).

There is also nothing stopping any other heads from using this down-scaling technique either to get a "2K" texture.

So bottom line the actual textures are 4x1K textures and not 4x2K textures.
 

Edited August 22, 2023 by Gabriele Graves

[AmeliaJ08]

1 hour ago, Marianne Little said:

In Naria Panthar's video, she says something I am not sure I understand. She says the new skins are "4K" and I got the impression that skin creators must work with 4 parts. "They will need four parts". And put them together so they meet.

She mention it from 40:00 and before that she toggles 4K on and off several times and say the difference is not that noticeable. You who got 4K skins, do you see a difference? It is a free group gift skin in the Genus store, I assume it is a 4K skin. I have to wait until my free heads is updated.

Isn't that going to make more work for the creators? LeLutka EvoX is using one texture, and has only moved out the ears on a separate layer. But who knows what creators do, maybe we will see a ton of 4K skins and makeups as it went with LeLutka.

There are very few hairbases included, only in dark brown? And as appliers, so it is alpha clashing. The hairbases should be on a tattoo layer too. Since BoM is what most are wearing these days.

My alts does not have much makeups and skins for EvoX, so it is no big problem to go back to Genus for them.

 

 

I would guess it's not exactly a huge amount extra work but it is an extra step for creators, you'd split your work out into individual 1024px textures and make a special universal layer for Genus.

It should absolutely offer more detail, the question is if that is necessary. I suppose more of anything is good but I believe this will also fill every available aux slot in a universal layer? I'm not sure how they're doing it exactly but I would guess that is it. Not a huge deal but if you're using body mods etc you might want those aux slots for something else which might limit its compatibility for everyone.

There's also render cost to consider here. We rightly moan about creators using 1024x textures for fingernails and stuff like that and it is a problem, I have no hard numbers (or the technical chops) to say exactly but I do know more textures (4x more in this case) means this comes with a rendering cost.

 

Edited August 22, 2023 by AmeliaJ08

[Dorientje Woller]

24 minutes ago, Lysistrata Szapira said:

From the chatter I've heard about the updates, the eyes are still wonky and apparently the store's idea of a solution is to wear unrigged eyes.

Nope!  Fix your eyes. Why would I pay money to have eyes that don't work properly? that's like buying a brand new 2024 car and the manufacturer tells you to just buy aftermarket headlights because the original headlines are facing at the wrong angle. 

No excuses. They've had years (before COVID and the war) to fix the eyes. They promised they were working on the eyes. Then they just told us to buy that eye override and disappeared.  They lied.  I don't do business with companies that outright lie, either in SL or in RL. 

What wonky eyes? Wearing the Classic Face W002 V2 at the moment and I still haven't spot those wonky eyes, even with the previous version of the head. What do you mean with wonky eyes anyway?

[AmeliaJ08]

29 minutes ago, Lysistrata Szapira said:

From the chatter I've heard about the updates, the eyes are still wonky and apparently the store's idea of a solution is to wear unrigged eyes.

No way. Their promotion for this update specifically mentioned they have fixed all of that!

 

[Jenna Huntsman]

35 minutes ago, Gabriele Graves said:

I've taken a look at the UV map PSD and there are 4x2K textures

That's genuinely nightmarish if true. There's no need for that resolution - you'd need to be using an 8K+ display to even be able to tell the difference at an average viewing distance.

Not to mention, there's no guarantee that the viewer will load all 4 textures at the same mip level (resolution), so your avatar's face could end up looking like a patchwork mess.

28 minutes ago, AmeliaJ08 said:

I would guess it's not exactly a huge amount extra work

Depends. They'd need to distribute a dev kit with accurate UV mapping in order for skins not to have seams, or have a loss of detail at texture joints.

[Dorientje Woller]

17 minutes ago, Jenna Huntsman said:

Depends. They'd need to distribute a dev kit with accurate UV mapping in order for skins not to have seams, or have a loss of detail at texture joints.

Metthinks there are 3 dev kits available in the store: One called Texture Lite Version (uv textures psd, scripts, mesh head template + hd layers (unrigged)), 2nd is called Texture Pro Version (Advanced PSD (3d head + hd layers), mesh head template + hd layers (unrigged), uv textures PSD)) and 3rd is called Rigged Pro Version (Rigged Parts of the Head (ears, scalp, face), available in Blender version 2.79 & 3.6))

Lite version is one linden, for the 2 others I think you need to file a request.

Edited August 22, 2023 by Dorientje Woller

[Marianne Little]

Maybe it was a mistake, to bring in as much textures and 4K, and think it will make the heads sound superior to LeLutka.

We'll see. I did not know that the EvoX HD would be so popular and take over the market as it did. Perhaps it will be the same with 4K.

It can be interesting times, a war between EvoX and Genus 4K.

We, as customers, will benefit. It will be more sales and offers. I wonder if LeLutka will lower their price. Maybe LeLutka will put out a permanent freebie. So they fight the Strong head with their own freebie.

I am sure the Genus Strong freebie is the only reason the brand has survived. People who took the freebie head would still buy some makeup, eyelashes and skins. Especially in sales. I see more Genus than Catwa when I shop in the weekends.

And soon LaraX too. I think I will spend more money, pamper myself a bit.

[Dorientje Woller]

2 minutes ago, Marianne Little said:

We, as customers, will benefit. It will be more sales and offers. I wonder if LeLutka will lower their price. Maybe LeLutka will put out a permanent freebie. So they fight the Strong head with their own freebie.

Geezes, I hope they don't. It's already a hell with the 2 Genus VIP groups why they can't get the free head W003 atm. Not in the mood to have a 3rd VIP group whining and b****** about a free head.

[steeljane42]

13 minutes ago, Marianne Little said:

I wonder if LeLutka will lower their price. Maybe LeLutka will put out a permanent freebie. So they fight the Strong head with their own freebie.

They won't. Genus is not just "a little too late", they are very late. And from what I saw it's almost the same thing as before, apparently still with bugs. Also: see Catwa's price cut for their "amazing" old and new heads. Well, it happened, no one cared really, general stats on all possible stats lists still show them as declining.

To have any chance at all to compete vs Lelutka they'd need entire new line of really amazing heads, bugs free and actually very different from the existing line that they couldn't/can't fix properly forever. Something like Lelutka did when they did launch Evo line (except the bugs, Origins line wasn't a buggy mess like Genus).

I expect some people who even remember what Genus is to toy with those updated heads for a bit and forget they exist again, because it's really nothing new aside of new UV.

[AmeliaJ08]

31 minutes ago, Marianne Little said:

I did not know that the EvoX HD would be so popular and take over the market as it did.

Same, it was a surprise. I assume to Lelutka as well given they didn't go all-in and made sure to include SLUV compatibility... and then very quickly found there was nothing to worry about and watched their product take a giant chunk of the market and basically dominate the skin market too.

You are right, if Genus do make a comeback (and despite my anger with them for what I consider bad treatment of their customers I do genuinely like how their heads look, I did buy one on that after all) we could all benefit, we need something to start driving prices back down in SL in general, it feels like Lelutka have just steamrolled the competition lately with no real fightback.

 

 

[Ceka Cianci]

4 hours ago, AmeliaJ08 said:

After. Their release versions were just as buggy as the betas and up until this update contained significant, product-breaking bugs that required you to disable features and use third party tools to fix.

Myself I never had the wonky eyes, which is really about all I remember people complaining about..

I've been on Lelutka since Lilly came out, so a lot of what went on back then, I only remember some of it..

I know the last update I got was in 2020 which I think was after the store reopened, but I'm not sure.. I don't keep real track of a lot of that stuff anymore..

I loved the heads back then when it was beta, even though they didn't have any animations yet..

All I can really remember having a problem with was, once in awhile my eyes would fall out of animation after the head animation being overridden by another animation.. but they never rolled back in my head.. it did look a little silly at times when I would log on, like my avatar had been up to something evil while I was away.. Almost like a, you just got busted look.. hehehehe

[steeljane42]

21 minutes ago, AmeliaJ08 said:

we need something to start driving prices back down in SL in general,

If anything head prices went down over the years, not up. Non bento heads in 2015-2016 did cost more than bento heads do now, and Lelutka dropped their prices ages ago from 5k to 4k during the "stay safe at home" campaign or whatever it was called. Even Catwa did not too long ago, but for entirely different reasons (but hey, good for those 3 people who still like their heads).

4k or 16$ is a fair price for a complex product like that. There's only very few quality heads/bodies creators in SL and I do believe they should be compensated for their work accordingly. Not to mention Black Friday sales (50%) and free Xmas giveaways for 3 years in a row (that's 6 top quality mesh heads now). So if one really doesn't want to spend more or anything at all - waiting is always an option.

21 minutes ago, AmeliaJ08 said:

it feels like Lelutka have just steamrolled the competition lately with no real fightback.

They did it in 2021 already shortly after original 3 EvoX heads release. It's very visible when you check popular skin creators releases/flickr and check what was made for SLUV/other brands, and what was made for EvoX. There's a small pause between March (EvoX release at Skin Fair 2021) and some remaining SLUV skins being released, because those were made by many creators in advance. But Summer 2021 onwards, especially after they've announced all other Evo heads getting a EvoX update, it's 95% to 100% EvoX content as far as new releases/events are concerned, with older stuff for Evo/SLUV/Genus/Catwa being pushed to weekend sales until eventually even those became more rare (as there's not much demand for it).

Edited August 22, 2023 by steeljane42

[Ceka Cianci]

52 minutes ago, Marianne Little said:

Maybe it was a mistake, to bring in as much textures and 4K, and think it will make the heads sound superior to LeLutka.

We'll see. I did not know that the EvoX HD would be so popular and take over the market as it did. Perhaps it will be the same with 4K.

It can be interesting times, a war between EvoX and Genus 4K.

We, as customers, will benefit. It will be more sales and offers. I wonder if LeLutka will lower their price. Maybe LeLutka will put out a permanent freebie. So they fight the Strong head with their own freebie.

I am sure the Genus Strong freebie is the only reason the brand has survived. People who took the freebie head would still buy some makeup, eyelashes and skins. Especially in sales. I see more Genus than Catwa when I shop in the weekends.

And soon LaraX too. I think I will spend more money, pamper myself a bit.

Honestly, I think any heads coming out that aren't Evo x compatible, are gonna have a real hard time these days..

I really think Genus  should have tried to move in that direction instead of trying to start a new one..

I just have a feeling it's too late for the other heads and Strong gift head really being, like you said in so many words, the reason they are still around.

Myself, I always wondered if Genus was reaching for the stars or  just bit off more than they could chew not realizing their heads would take off like they did..

[Dorientje Woller]

40 minutes ago, Ceka Cianci said:

Honestly, I think any heads coming out that aren't Evo x compatible, are gonna have a real hard time these days..

We can only wait and see. As far as I have toyed with the head, huds are still, although redesigned, complicated but the head in itself is good and I think there is possibilities with those 4k skins if they already follow the velours tones scheme atm. Prices of it, well they are in the same ball park as LeLUTKA & Akeruka, 3700 Linden if you need to buy it. And, as always, taste differs from person to person.

[Janet Voxel]

It’s really going to come down to how much support Genus gets. It’s really that simple. There are a lot of people that adored the look Genus gave, but gave it up because creator support just wasn’t there anymore. The updates are going out, people are going to at least play around with them.
 

The support creators give is going to come down to how easy it is to create 4K skins. If it’s relatively easy, you can expect more creators to get back onboard. Some creators have flat out said, they won’t be back. A quick glance at Flickr today, says that there are creators coming back. Will it be a couple times, then done? Too early to tell.

It’s going to be an interesting fall season. 

[Stephanie Misfit]

Revoul has released some skins at the Genus store. Going to demo them.

 

[Trinity Blakewell]

Alexandrite just released one as well.  This picture is a bit distorted because I took a screen capture from their attached picture in their SL notice.

 

Considering that Tres Beau, Revoul and Alexandrite have all released skins already, I think it's likely the prominent skin designers were pre-seeded with the developer kits.

Edited August 23, 2023 by Trinity Blakewell

[Stephanie Misfit]

Recreated my old Genus Classic W001 look. I will definitely be on the lookout for a new higher-resolution skin if some of my favourite pale skin creators like Deetalez and Nar Mattaru make some. Nothing that has been released by anyone so far is suitable. Not noticing any issues with the eyes bugging out, and there is no visible neck seam, so this is a great improvement.

 

[Ayashe Ninetails]

So much shine on the new skins. 😩

If that's what the new 4K style is about, I won't have to worry about adding Genus into my rotation.

[Stephanie Misfit]

22 minutes ago, Ayashe Ninetails said:

So much shine on the new skins. 😩

If that's what the new 4K style is about, I won't have to worry about adding Genus into my rotation.

No, it just happens to be the style of these few creators who have released for Genus so far. Once others start releasing we will see a bit more variety.

[Ayashe Ninetails]

16 minutes ago, Stephanie Misfit said:

No, it just happens to be the style of these few creators who have released for Genus so far. Once others start releasing we will see a bit more variety.

I hope so, because it took me absolute ages to find a human Evo X skin I could live with.

[Dorientje Woller]

3 hours ago, Ayashe Ninetails said:

I hope so, because it took me absolute ages to find a human Evo X skin I could live with.

Do like me, check if any gloss, materials, shine are activated on the head first and switch those off. I mean of course there are tons of skins that have a shine baked into them, but all head lately are delivered with certain aspects activated out of the box.

[Stephanie Misfit]

Simple Bloom has put some 4k skins out, I can say that they look better in world than in this ad picture, I just wish there was a paler tone.

 

[EmmaAsht0n]

10 hours ago, Dorientje Woller said:

Geezes, I hope they don't. It's already a hell with the 2 Genus VIP groups why they can't get the free head W003 atm. Not in the mood to have a 3rd VIP group whining and b****** about a free head.

You can delete the GenusProject (one word) group. The newer one being written as two words (i.e. space between Genus and Project). But I hear you. I can't put up with ppl whining about the free head when there's a schedule right above it stating it won't be updated until August 27 and it's been said countless of times in any groups.

[Dorientje Woller]

1 hour ago, Stephanie Misfit said:

Simple Bloom has put some 4k skins out, I can say that they look better in world than in this ad picture, I just wish there was a paler tone.

 

Kwanta Kost Da? As they say in my local dialect aka how much do they as for a tone?