Thanks to DAZ 3D for supplying Jayden

Genesis 2 Female has Teen Josie, and now DAZ have released Teen Jayden for G2M. Jayden is the first major character for Genesis 2 Male (after M6 of course). He comes with two texture sets (based on G2M UV’s), a full body and head morph, and a set of poses. He does not have unique UV mapping. But the base G2M and Michael 6 textures fit so closely that this is not an issue. As Jayden is crafted from the G2M base he is compatible with all the currently released morphs, so for those already invested in G2 there is a lot of versatility to be had. Jayden also comes with Poser companion files, so he is fully DSON compatible, but he does not have full Poser materials. For many users that prefer to customise, this is doubtlessly a non-issue.

Michale 6 UVs applied to Teen Jayden comparison.

I had hoped to have this review up before the product’s release, but I got caught up with rendering and playing around with materials. Before I knew it Tuesday 21^st (Jan 2014) was dawning and I had barely scrawled more than a few notes. First up I should point out that at this point I only have the basic Jayden package and not either of the bundles, which were not yet complete at the time DAZ contacted me. Hopefully I will have the pro bundle soon and will amend the review where necessary.

However, the Jaden package comes with plenty of meat. The Morph is solid. Jayden is an attractive and fit youth, though not overly so, which in my books is a good thing as this lends itself to greater versatility. The base texture set and the “bonus” Lance are both high quality. Lance has the look of a tough kid, perhaps street smart when loaded with the base material settings, but with tweaking there is a greater versatility there. In this way the set can be used for a great diversity of characters. Jayden’s default texture set is much more the usual fair one expects to see with a major DAZ character release – detailed, but crafted from someone that has very nice skin. Where’s pimples kid? I don’t know about you, but highschool was full of pimply days. Maybe this is a niche one of our adventurous content creators could tackle?

Light customisation of the base Jayden shaders. Minor postwork.

Jayden’s base texture set loads with materials configured with Age of Armour’s Sub Surface Shader Base. I’ve seen so many great renders done with this shader, but I just can’t get there. This is not to say the default configuration is bad, no, it is very good and many users will be happy to use it as is, but being a chronic tinkerer by nature it wasn’t long before I started to play around. Eventually I called it quits and got something rendered, but this wasn’t until I’d delved right into the Lance texture set, which I found much more interesting.

The Lance texture set loads with UberSurface settings. US is something I have a much better grasp of, though I found these textures themselves much more interesting than the base Jayden. Lance’s default SSS settings had me scratching my head. In all the lighting situation I set up there was little or no discernible difference between rendering with them on or off. Again, the settings here are perfect for many uses, but at default settings it is probably best to turn SSS off and save yourself some render time. SSS is one of those things I’ve been playing around with a lot in recent times so I spent a good deal of time getting this the way I wanted.

Heavily customised Lance textures and shaders. Minor Post work.

Though I don’t currently have either the Starter or Pro bundle Teen Jayden I will remark that all the content that these bundles comes with appears very practical (and contemporary), and given the criticism previous DAZ releases have come under for including a lot of fantasy and/or sci-fi content, this seems like a positive move, but perhaps that depends on where you’re standing. For me, having a strong sci-fi bent, I prefer to see contemporary items than fantasy ones as they are often more easily incorporated into a sci-fi setting. Whatever product you select it will be a great addition to your Genesis 2 tool set.

Heavily customised Lance textures and shaders.