My first version of
Poser was
Poser 2, then I moved on to
Poser 4 and now
Poser 5. as a result, I have the
Poser stock models Posettes and friends for P1 to P4 and Judy and her friends.
I have a number of free base models, MDP, and from Sixus, Project Human, StudioMaya, 3D Universe and a couple that I don't recall right now. (I am not considering the modifed base models the I have that were derived from others like Nea, Eve and
Posette 2003.)
I also have a number of DAZ base models, V2, V3, M2, M3, A3, The GIRL, The TROLL, The Freak, Luke and Laura, Laura PT, SP3, D3; all free or almost free.
I have worked with each one, with some a little others much more. Some I tried in a render and then replaced them with others.
From I have learned one thing, out of the box, they are all mostly useless without a lot of work being done on them by someone. Some are nicer looking or have more morphs included. They all need someone to create additional morphs for them. They all need someone to create nice textures for them. They all need someone to care enough to combine the textures, morphs, and models the make really nice characters based on them.
In general: When P4
Posette was new, she was treated like a queen and the P3
Posette was treated like trash. When Zygote released the model we now call V1 she became the queen and all Posettes became trash. For a short while after teh release of S1, V1 became trash, then S1 was almost forgotten. Judy didn't replace the Vikis but she was treated as a nice model for a few months then she became trash. When V2 was released she became the queen and V1 became trash. Now with V3 being the current generation, V2 is called trash.
Jessie was the model of the day a few months ago. At that time, I mentioned in several sites that she would soon be seen a trash compared to V3, it is already happened. When V4 is released, V3 will become trash.
The statement that V3 is nicer to create character from is both true and false.
It is true because there are many textures, morphs, and other items easily available. For a merchant developer, it take much less effort and skills to create the characters for sale or give away for V3 than any of the older models. Why, merchanet resources packs that are available for sale. Purchae a base texture kit, a makeup textures kit, and teeth, eyebrows, eyelash, and pubic hair kit. Combine them along with a few dial settings using the standard injection morphs for V3 and you have a character that you can give away or sell.
It is also false, becuase without those available kits, guess what? It is just as difficult to create a new character for V3 as it is for any
Posette. It really does require just as much work, skill, and talent, to create a good character with V3 as it is for
Posette. The difference is, who has to have those skills and talent and who has to expend the effort to do the work.
I am developing a character who I have named Margo, you may have seen some early renders of her in the album. As has been mentioned, she looks similar to Virgina, could be her sister. That is true, although I did not realize it until after it was mentioned. So I will reflect on the effort I used to create both Margo for V3 and Virgina.
Margo for V3 has been easier to create the was Virgina. For two reasons: First I had the experience of having learnd from working on Betty, Regina, Virgina, and Jezebel. Second, for Virgina, I had to create and locate morphs for Virgina while for Margo I used her head and morph packs. Difficuly of creating the texture is about the same, but has went quicker for Margo only becasue of my experience with the other ladies.
Margo's lashes, eyebrows, and pubic hair look buch better than Virgina's; not because of the base model that was used. Those hair items have been the most difficult part for me to learn to paint; but I have been improving. I have searched for tutorials for creating those items and asked others posting in texturing forums, how they do it. Only a a couple of months ago did I learn how they did it; those who I was asking were not doing it, they were using merchant resource kits to provide those items.
Without those kits, it still take as much talent and skill. I would like to think that I have the talent, but m skills are still devloping and I don't feel they are there yet.
That is just like the skin shader networks for
Poser 5 and
Poser 6. All the character packs and textures that I have seen, do not use anything more advanced than what is available in
Poser 4. That is because the merchants selling the kits maximize their potiential market base by selling
Poser 4 technology kits. The merchants who use the kits then maximize their customer base by catering to the
Poser 4 level technology, that way they can sell to users of
Poser 4, 5, 6, and Studio. Poor
Poser 1, 2, 3 have been forgotten.
In the case of Margo, I am working on a
Poser 4 texture, that can also be used with
bryce and POV-Ray; a
Poser 5 texture that takes advantage of the
Poser 5 texturing engine; and a Studio texture that takes advantage of the Studio texturing engine. As a result, I am working on the bleeding edge, and I have been bleeding for it. I may have discoverd a major bug in the skin node of
Poser 5. Considering how long
Poser 5 has been in sue, that bug should already be well known, but as it is I have not seen a word mentioned about it. Then there is a bad side effect with some light setting when using that node, once again I have not seen a word about it. I take that as evidence that few people have to really use and even abuse the
Poser 5 texturing engine to its limits.
By using Posettes and friends, we have to develop more skills to make these models look state of the art. Something that I have heard quite a few times about my works with Posettes has been, "That is a
Posette?" Today, some one said that on another site about the picture of
Posy that Tormie posted today. They would not be so suprised, if they ever gave her a chance. If enough did, then there would be resource kits available for Posettes, which would mean that people would be talking about how easy she is for creating new characters.
Pangor