From the DAZ Weekly Newsletter: What's going on @ DAZ3D? Tony Bradt, Project Coordinator for Michael 3.0, knows. Ryan, our intrepid webmaster, got an exclusive interview with him. You can read about it here! Alright Tony, so what's done so far? TB: The base mesh/figure, joints, and JCM's. The base mesh is complete eh? What type of guy does he look like? TB: Handsome, statuesque, fashion-model like, without being too muscular... unless he wants to be. Did you use any live models? TB: Yes, much of Michael 3.0's body was modeled directly from a digital body scan of a real person. Really? Would you be interested in using me as a model for one of the morphs? TB: No. Are you sure? You could call it PBM_SkinnyWebmaster... TB: I'll think about it. Sweet. So is it cooler than Michael 2.0? How? TB: Much cooler than Michael 2, and on par with or equal to Victoria 3.0. Michael 3.0 has a mesh 100% different from Michael 1 and 2, and will also have muscularity and body/face shaping morphs in greater number than Michael 2. His joints have been reworked from the ground up to function properly with his new geometry. Michael 3.0 also has a higher resolution mesh, so detailed renders can be made at close proximity without faceting. He will also take advantage of morph injection technology just as Victoria 3.0 does. Why will we need Michael 3.0 when we have the V3 Male Morphs? TB: Michael 3.0 will have a plethora of morph targets specifically created to work best when applied to his body/head. His joints have been reworked completely to accommodate his body structure and frame. The V3 male morphs only change Victoria 3.0 to the shape of a man. Her joints do not change and her male morphs are not fully compatible with most of her other morphs. This is all completely different with Michael 3.0.

Am I the only one that doesn't think M3 looks like a MAN on that pic? Looks more like a V3 morph to me :o/

Yeah.. does look like V3 to me too!

More like androgynous - which is fine - the finer details of one person's view of manliness can be worked out w/the morphs :)

If he looks less burly than M2, I'm all for it. I find it very difficult to make Mike into a slim guy with his built-in morphs.

All that I have to say is that it looks like they are getting down to the nitty-gritty finishing M3. I have been waiting impatiently for this since the V3's release. YAY! Kuroyume.

"He will also take advantage of morph injection technology just as Victoria 3.0 does. " ------------------------------------------------------------------------- OH well .. then count me out :-/

I will wait to see a bigger image, maybe textured, but it looks that his hands are still too small, like with Michael 2... I hope it is not too late to correct that.

Handsome, statuesque, fashion-model like And on that basis alone, I bet he comes with female morphs... :)

"Alright Tony, so what's done so far? TB: The base mesh/figure, joints, and JCM's. " What's missing in this picture? ....MORPHS I'm not sure this really gives much hope of any 'real soon now' time-frame, so I wouldn't start getting too excited ;).

small as the pic is looks to me like he still has manboobs.

So.. so far, it looks lik we'll be getting a fem-faced, small-handed, man-boobed, unmorphable glam-guy with no textures yet... hmmmm. ;)

ummmm I dont have a problem with morph injection system, though my runtime is hitting that limit really quickly with just V3 and addons, M3 WILL send me over the limit, and that I'm concerned about. If this is addressed and V3 and M3 work side by side and give me room to breath, I can't wait to get him in my runtime. oh well, I'm just happy they put out an announcement.

He doesn't have man-boobs. It's just the lighting of that image. He has actual pecs. And for anyone having limit troubles with your libraries, move all your MAT folders to the camera library, then go grab a freely available format changer and mass change the pz2's to cm2's. It works a treat. I don't have a single MAT file in my Pose library (but I change my format by hand - just fussy that way LOL)

His wrists don't look as slim and girly to me as the V3 male and M2. I wonder when he'll be here, and if he'll be cold and naked like the V3 male for months and months with only tight fitting sci fi gear to warm him up. Love esther

Well, it looks that this time that they're trying to get the base figure as far from looking like Dan Farr as possible...

Xena, great idea! I've heard people have done that, but I keep forgetting about it. My Pose library is so stretched, I can't even read the labels anymore. I don't think it'll hold Mike's injection morphs. It's just about maxed out now as it is. What format changers are available? Will P3dO do it? I have that, but I've never figured out how to do batches of files at once. Melanie

Attached Link: http://www.1-4a.com/rename/

No offense to Dan, but is that a bad thing? LOL It's so hard to get rid of the 'Mike' look on Mike 1/2 (although I ADORE the Bishonen pack). It looks like getting rid of the Mike3 look won't be so hard :) Melanie, I have no idea if P3dO will do it. Probably will. It's a damned nifty program :D There are a couple of threads in here that discuss doing it and link to batch file proggies. Ohhh, just searched and found this ... http://www.1-4a.com/rename/ It does names, extensions (which we need) and whole name. Hope that helps :)

poppi the only male around here with man boobs is victor/victoria, looks like he/she had a bad masectomy.. a mans "boob" area is called pectorals

And give thanks to Arcady, who found the link :)

Is it actually just a matter of changing .pz2 to .cm2? or does something in the file itself have to be changed too? Love esther

Just that Esther :) I open the file in EditPad, use the Save As function and save it as xxx.cm2. Takes awhile to do an entire folder that way, which is why I suggested a batch proggie for the less patient :)

i got v3, but not the male morphs. it seemed like i could fix up everything about michael....his face, lol...but his ta tas defeated me, everytime.

Poppi: His ta? What's a ta? Is it what I think it is? He does have a definite V3 face look, but that may not be a bad thing. He's less stocky than the base Mike 2 too. It'll give a nice range of figure types in a render (if P5 can handle the overhead). Injection posing is the way things have to go, but I don't like it much. On the other hand, the thing that really bothers me the most about the V3 male is the female joint parameters, and Mike 3 will have different and better ones. The real question as to how much we can get out of him is how long it'll take capsces to make a Boris set for him. When that happens, he's made it. Had everyone seen what she's doing for Koshini? Too cool. Now, when? Any idea of a timeline? Should we start a pool? I'm betting August 23rd. That's because it's the date I leave on a cruise with my father to Alaska for 7 days. It'll go on sale two seconds before I have to leave.

If you move all your MATS to your camera folder, then the Camera Folder will get full. Then what? Morph Injection makes perfect sense. Who needs a character carrying a bunch of morphs they're not using at the time?! Just select what you want, and travel a lot lighter.

So, just typing .cm2 in place of .pz2 isn't enough? It has to be opened up in a text editor? I keep threatening to move my MATs, then I back down because I'm afraid I screw up :P

Patricia, all you have to do is change the file extensions from pz2 to cm2's it's really easy :)

If your file extensions are showing in the folder, then yes you can simple change it from pz2 to cm2. But, if like me, you don't have extensions showing, you can do it in a text editor like I said above :)

When I got poser five I thought cool, now I can have a nice neat runtime. The pose directory won't be a dogs breafast of clothes morpths, poses, etc... then I got Vic 3... can't even stuff all the vic 3 stuff in it's own directory or it won't work (least for me) I don't think I'll rush out and get m3. I also didn't like that when I bought her, she's useless without the injection stuff which I find a real pain at times. I admit she's nice when you get everything worked right, but I spend all my time looking for stuff. Okay, nobody asked, but that rant been building. I'm fine now...

pdxjims your bet is Aug 27? the newsletter said expect soeming for platinum members next week, sort of the same sales pitch they said for V3. My bet is Aug 2 for M3, then the mimic vouchers wont work and I'll have to pay more hahaha. xena, thanks for the info on the camera folder, I'm gunna have to start doing that, my files are all over the place quite messy even with Poser 5.

You can use the Face folder for your MATs as well :)

What i do to stop my pose library getting bogged down is have several pose libaries, I put all the stuff I want to use at the time or use frequently in the main pose folder and move the stuff i don't use that much to a folder called Pose2, and so on... and if i'm working on a project i move only the stuff I will need to the main pose folder, then its just a simple case of when i want something moving to the main pose folder or renaming one of the other folders back to just 'Pose' ... That works for me and its fairly easy and less time consuming, also makes poser load faster!! You could do the same to any of the library folders that are getting too full, or so full that t takes you ages to scroll through to what u want!! Hope that helps -SimderZ- xXx

You can use the command prompt (Win XP) or DOS prompt (Win 9x) to rename. Open it, if Poser is not on your C: drive type the letter for the drive it is on followed by a colon (eg d:) and hit return Type cd ", open your Pose folder or Camera folder (depending on whether or not you've already moved the MAT files) and drag the folder whose contents you wish to rename to the prompt window - the full path will appear - type another " and hit return again. Type REN *.PZ2 *.CM2, hit return, and the folder is done. Repeat.

Oh and so far I like the look of M3, I rarely use M2, because he's very uninspiring, and takes to long, if i can do it at all to make him look un-mike like.. hehe I would much prefere i less beefy mike, and a prettier mike.. grin Although at the mo' I think V3 male is very very good... But it can never shake the feeling that its just Vicky in a 'man-suit' LOL.. it would be kewl to have an actual kewl male! And yes, I agree I hope he comes out with some decent clothes, along the lines of the Uzilite stuff!!... cuz endless reems of sci-fi/fantasy clothes and of course undies, is ok for a start, but when that all you get, I;d rather keep him nude than put a poor guy in lon cloth or a spandex catsuit, thats one step away from giving him a sword, and sorry folks, just can't go there... hehehe wink

I like what is shown so far in the image, I love M2, but the pecs and the general beefiness aren't ideal. Looking forwards sto seeing more M3 images.

Thanks, Xena, I'll check it out. pdxjims, that's called Murphy's Law! My whole life is governed by that law, it seems. LOL Patricia, that's what I'm a little hesitant about too, but I suppose if you make a copy of it first, do the changes and see if it works, then don't delete the originals until the cm2's pan out first. Or keep the originals on a CD as backups so they can be plugged back in, just in case. I think that's what I'll do. Melanie

You know, I just noticed something here. When we were given a sneak preview of Vicki 3, it was in a screen shot of DAZ Studio and she was fully textured. Why do we get an untextured render of Mike 3 as our first preview? That's nto fair to Mike. Let's see what a real picture of him looks like. Everyone thinks this looks like a V3 male just because of that. I'd like to see him fully textured with hair, like they did with V3, so we can get a better idea of what he really looks like. Oh, and as for the beefiness of Mike 2, that's the reason I often use the P4 version of him, becuase he's slimmer and less pumped up with excess muscle. I'm a gal who doesn't really care for the muscle-bound hulks. I like my guys slimmer. And Poser World has a lot of clothes that fit him. Melanie

I'm wondering about M3's genitals. M1 and M2 are both rather, uhm... generously endowed. I've seen a lot of naked men in my lifetime and I've never seen any that are proportioned like that in a relaxed state (maybe there are a few out there, but it's NOT the norm by any means). Anyone remember that Seinfeld episode where George goes on about having been in cold water and the 'shrinkage' factor? Uhm, yeah. I also have always been a bit annoyed that if you try to pose an unclothed Michael on his side, his genitals look quite unnatural and you can't easily pose them/him so that he looks like, well, a normal nude male lying on his side. And just why is he circumcised by default? The majority of men in the world are NOT circumcised. Shouldn't there be a morph for that instead of having surgically altered by default? Reading back over this, it looks like I'm obsessed with Michael's genitals, hehehe. I don't actually think about it all that much, but when you do try to do a nice nude Michael render you find out this stuff pretty quickly, and it's annoying. DAZ, I hope you're listening... ;-)

morph injection technology <<< That's the crosstalk thingie, right?

Well, I got V3 and found her to be totally unusable because of that stupid injection crap. Sooo...I'm not even going to bother with Mike 3. Learned my lesson the first time. Spending all your time wading through folders looking for morphs just takes all the fun out of poser completely. At least it does for me. Especially when all I want to do is make her smile or maybe wink. With V3 poser use becomes a chore instead of a joy. No thanks. Mike 3 will NOT be on my "must have" list. Kate

In the beginning, the morph injection business threw me for a loop, but now it's just routine...a way to keep file size down, while still using a hi-res model. Without it, Mike3 would be so huge that you would need far more computer than I have to do a lot of morphing on him and still be able to build a complex scene around him. What about it don't you like, Kate?

What I don't like about it is that it's just work, work, work. By the time I find all the morphs I need/want, I'm too frustrated to even want to do any posing so I go read a book or something instead. The whole injection system just sucks all the fun right out of poser. Trying to create a character with V3 is, for me, the equivalent of scrubbing toilets or giving my car a tune-up. Just another chore that has to get done and something I would happily live my life without ever doing if I could. So, I've gone back to V2 where everything isn't so complicated and energy draining. I can actually create a new character in minutes instead of days and that frees up more time to actually DO something with the character. V3 just makes me want to delete Poser from my computer, shut the whole system down and go watch a movie or read a book and forget about rendering anything at all. She's WORK instead of play/creativity.

The thumbnails for each pose injection are pretty clear. You can save a V3 in your library that has your favorite morphs already injected in. It actually saves a lot of time- you spend less time scrolling down this huge lists of morphs you'll never use...

I have a Vicki3 in my Characters Library that has all the head morphs injected, so that I can dive right in and sculpt the face that I have in mind without searching and waiting. The body, I always do last and seem to use fewer morphs on, so I do take the time to pick and choose which ones I want. But I can understand that you'd find it irritating--the most annoying thing to me about V3 is the lag time between when I click and when Poser responds. I tell myself that it's good for me to practice patience and try to think of it as my Zen moments for the day...all zillion of them ;)

When we were given a sneak preview of Vicki 3, it was in a screen shot of DAZ Studio and she was fully textured. Why do we get an untextured render of Mike 3 as our first preview? I can think of a few reasons off hand, mostly having to do with the way M2 was released.

***"More like androgynous - which is fine"*** Pardon me But ...**NO** for those who prefer some cross gender anomoly that looks like a sex change operation gone horribly **WRONG** , Go Buy Vicky3 and help yourselves to those frankly unconvincing "male" morphs DAZ, Some of use Do Scifi Comic Book ,LORTR style art etc. and We really Need a Rugged Male figure who can have massive hulking hands and feet and can be made to look excessively Ultra masculine in the same way Vicky can be made excessively ultra feminine for poster pin up art. No more of this "androgeny Bullshit ,please!

errr I think that they HAVE listened to the community as much of a change as V3 was, M3 is going to be from the looks of it. I'm sure there as there is Massive Mike for M2, there will be Hulky M3. gunna be fun to play with.

Attached Link: http://www.psychology.nottingham.ac.uk/staff/cr1/ezxtn.html

http://www.psychology.nottingham.ac.uk/staff/cr1/ezxtn.html

Here's a link to a really simple and good batch renamer. I use it all the time.

Gotta say, I don't mind the Michael-look too much! I always thought Dan was rather cute... ;-) This Mike3 doesn't even look like a man!

I think Dan's cute too, but I'm also willing to bet that M3 will come with a ton of manly hulky morphs. ;)

thank you for that comment wolf359, I want that model !!!!