As there is no Try-Before-You-Buy with models, Id like to know what you people, who bought Mike 3 think about him so far. Is it as much of an improvement over M2 as V3 was over V2? I took a brief look at the morphs at Daz and was not all that impressed... V2 and V3 are different people... M2 and M3 seem to look a lot like each other! What do you think?

M@ and M3 really look nothing like each other. They are completely different models.

Good to know... must have had the wrong impression due to the lack of time ive been in lately.

Well I just got M3 .. am putting him through his paces. For those of us that like the option of thinner younger men M3 is great. For bigger burlier guys, the body morphs are excellent, but I haven't found a good face yet. But I'm a trying :) Much finer bone structure in the face, and for my money he looks a lot like V3's brother. Which I guess is okay if you think about it. As for body bending, posing and mapping? oh yeah .. the same light year leap as V3 was from V1/2. Plus the mesh is as 'plastic' to work with as V3, which means morphing him is a snap. The drawback? again the annoying injection system, and the weight of the fully loaded model is kind of annoying. If you use a male model in more than 1 out of 5 renders, get M3. You'll be happy. Plus with care towards posing (collars cut differently) he can wear V3M's clothing. Other V3 crossovers: textures, face settings for original morphs, bodysettings for original morphs, poses, tone setting MAT poses, clothing for V3M or with the V3M morph. Almost all footwear, and hair. Not too shabby for a new guy.

Well, it took me a couple of days to get used to his appearance, but I'm really starting to fall in love with him. But then, I always have a few days "break-in" time with every new figure I buy, so that doesn't say much for me. He has great potential. Still trying to work with the face, but I kind of like the stock face he comes with, too. If you want a different male to add to the previous ones, he's a great new look. To put it in a thumbnail, I'm really pleased with him. And the V3 male textures work great on him, too. Melanie

I disagree. Aesthetically, M3 appears to be the link between the "dork" and M2. There are problems with the arm, shoulder, and armpit meshes (some of which DAZ has promised to correct). Body-bending, posing and mapping notwithstanding, his biceps, traps, and triceps and upper back muscles appear unnatural, even lumpy and distorted. And his body morphs--especially the muscle bodies--exacerbate all of those problems. Considering the progress DAZ made with M2--an wonderful evolutionary step forward for the male Poser figure--I find this offering disappointing, even a little primative-looking.

In my opninion M3 is very well worth the price. The higher poly count is very evident at render time. As an example, compare close-up renders of M2's and M3's ears. Huge improvement. On the other hand, I'm finding the facial morphs to be more limiting than I'd like. To be fair, I haven't had enough time to really figure out all the tricks and workarounds that might help. I was trying to approximate the face of Vitor Belfort this afternoon (a champion fighter,) and had a really hard time getting M3's face to look as pugnacious as Belfort's does in profile. I ended up using almost every morph. I got a good face, but not quite the one I wanted. M3 wants to be "prettier" and smoother looking that the character I'm working towards. It's possible that I'd get a better approximation with M2, although at the expense of all those helpful extra polygons. However, if I wanted to create more of an Oscar de la Hoya, Justin Timberlake, or Brad Pitt sort of face, yeah, Mike 3 would be perfect. Know what I mean?

For the longest time, we were complaining that it was real tough to morph M2 beyond certain parameters. We wanted a slimmer, less muscular and leaner Mike. And a face that didn't make it almost impossible not to look like the default. That's exactly what we got in M3. He's everything M2 isn't. Muscles don't look the same way, don't morph the same way. The face is more easily morphable away from the default, although he is tough to make into a tough and rugged guy. We got pretty much what we were asking for. The examples you've seen with M3 looking like M2 are probably deliberate attempts to get him to look that way. Add to that the UTC converter for textures (converting old M2 textures to new M3 textures), and you can get some look-alikes. There are some problems. Tone drives me crazy. I expected it not to increase the muscle size, but add more definition. It's actually more of a muscle morph than a cut-muscle morph. To me that's not a real tone. The muscles of the neck and shoulder (traps) tend to be overdone, and don't look quite human. The traps small morph doesn't correct it correctly, leaving some squarish look to them. These are a few problems with the mesh itself that Daz has identified and will be fixing in the next 7 or 8 days (their time table, not mine). The worst of these is the increadable collapsing armpit and the accordian chest/abs. His private parts are a seperate conforming figure that are much better than what comes with M2, but they still fall way short of the free Ulf genitals at GPA or Digiport's genitals at BBay. We ned a good morph package for them. I know of at least 2 master morphers who are doing packages for him. If the new packages compare at the ones they've done for other characters, it'll be amazing. There's also a lot of new stuff being developed for him right now. Not as much as V3 when she came out, but then he's a male character, and male characters always get the shaft. I'm VERY happy I got him. ...and I apoligize for all the bad puns. They just sort of happened (grin).

Mark pretty well said it all, thanks Mark

"We wanted a slimmer, less muscular and leaner Mike" Not me!

With all due respect, I have so far only seen one or two M3 figures that are not disturbingly unnatural and unaesthetic to my eye. I am holding off on spending the money unless I start seeing more appealing renders and can start to figure out what the trick is. I wonder now if there is a basic problem with the mesh or the available textures? Perhaps it takes some knack to deal with the mesh or available textures? So I guess I agree with Mark so far. pdxjims seems to see a lot of the problems that I do, but still is happy with M3. It is not clear why. Is M3 technically neat to you, or do you like most of the renders that you see aesthetically, or do you see hope in the morphs that you know are in the pipeline? I am trying to figure out if I want to invest the time and money to play with this new figure and will be interested in how this discussion goes. It would help me if some of you who are enthusiastic could point me to some renders that you think are pretty good, and maybe suggest what was done to make M3 look more natural than mostly he seems to.

pjbear, Some people can see past the "WOW", tend to look a little deeper and closer and say...hum..something isn't quit right with this part or that part and then point it out hoping someone will be able to correct it to make the product more useful to everyone, not just a few. Other people only look at the "WOW, the is new and so neat", are satisfued with it, problems and all, and constantly belittle those that try to get something corrected. M3 is a good mesh but has some problems. Certain poses do throw some joints out, whether slim or muscular altho muscular morphs make those joint problems more pronounced even if they shouldn't. Not every guy is built the same so M3 would be more useful to everyone if, when you try to add even a little defination or muscle to it, the joint wouldn't get deformed. Mention that and you get "you have to use the dials". Well, I've used ever dial M3 has and some areas just don't work right. One thing you have to remember around here..the majority rules whether they are right, wrong, in between, or whatever. If most people like their M3 to be slim, have essentially the same body shape, same looking eyes (even with a different color)...so be it. No 2 people are alike, look alike, or even similar unless they have a twin. There are people working on M3 and I'm hopeing those problems areas can be correct and M3 can be more useful to everyone, not just the people that like it the way it is.

I am not dissapointed with M3. I kinda like it and even more like it since Daz3d announced that they're working on SR1 update to fix some errors and hope that FyreSpyrit is willing to help us by adjusting the joint parameter pose file to fit M2 clothes on M3. :) It's just good to have a new guy on a scene. :)

I have a confession to make. When I started with Poser, I liked P4 Nude Male just fine. I got defensive when people called him Dork. "What's so bad about him?" I thought. I was able to morph and texture a pretty respectable looking 3D guy. But that was before I saw what was being done with M2. The texture maps and basic mesh shape was sooooo much better. At first I didn't like M2. I thought he was too bulky, his chin was too wide, his jaw too angled, his traps too tiny, and what's up with that horizontal collar bone? But after I discovered M2's body morphs, P4NM became a "Dork" to me too, because he really was dork compared to M2. M2 is infinitely better. And so I had finally created a respectable M2 guy, when M3 came along. I wasn't too sure about this new model. I didn't like how he was the same mesh as V3. But after experimenting with him, and working on texture maps, I'm like, "Michael who? M3 Rulez!!!!!!" LOL! But I'm just goofy that way. ;p Seriously, once the SR1 for M3 comes out, I think it would be a good idea to get M3 if you need male figures for your renders. He is a leap forward. M2 seems "dated" to me already. I can't believe how much time I wasted on M2's texture maps, M3's UV's are so much better! And I can't believe how good M3 looks! Wow! Have you seen the ProjectZ promo pictures? The Rogue Fantasy Warrior? The Pirate Pack pictures? Wow! Double Wow, Wow!!! M3 is built like a movie star! This version of Mike is much more to Basty's liking. He's default shape needs very few dial spins to get to a "respectable looking guy." And I really like all the face and teeth morphs too. :D bB

Yummy M3, Daio. :) His face is so! fine, love those cheekbones. M3 is definitely worth having.

Thanks all for your comments... Think ill take the chance. I do use male models in more than 1 out of 5 renders, as I am producing digital comics, so I guess he is going to be in a darker version of our reality real soon. Liam

i wish there were more head morphs like the ethnicity that v3 can have. thats all.

One thing that is very obvious, even in this render at the top is that his forearms seem unnaturally long, that's because the biceps are modeled too high.

I'm not sure if the biceps are too high or the triceps are too low or both are misshaped. But the net effect is that something about the arms looks lumpy even in this render, which is better than most. In many the lumpyness makes the arms look somewhat bent like the guy is basically deformed. In too many renders the guys overall look to me like they should be rubber men in freak shows. There is something really strange about the traps seem really strange and abnormal. I think that usually the eyes or eyesockets look kind of strange. Etc. So I get back to my original problem, how much of this has to do with my personal tastes that bodies should start out looking anatomically correct, even if one wants to change that later. Or is there a basic problem with the mesh etc.? How difficult would it be for a non-expert like myself to fix him up without having to use magnets and make a lot of morphs? For example, I would want to raise the triceps and flatten them a bit and for most models that I have seen change the shape of the traps, make the eye sockets look more natural, do something or other in the shoulder arm pit area, etc. Could I do all this, such things, simply by playing with the standard dials, or would I have to get into making morphs or buying a lot of extras? From what I have seen so far, he is just not worth much trouble of the second sort. I have to confess that I like to play around with new stuff and see how it works. So I am tempted to dive in and experiment if only out of technical curiosity, but certainly not because I have seen anything yet that blows me away aesthically. In fact, just the opposite, I am trying to figure out what all the fuss is about, because so far the figures that Ihave seen look more deformed than any other recent DAZ figures. Can I be so off base? Do I need to drink more coffee? My life is just too busy right now to start down this path for purely experimental reasons and so I have to try to use sober judgment and not go off on a tangent. M2 and V2 mostly work fine aesthetically as Poser figures go and I still have some experimenting to do with V3. So I guess that the basic question for me right now is how far can one go in making m3 look more anatomically correct just by playing with dials? Are there some good and revealing renders out there that have been accomplished just by playing with dials?

pjbear, Your not off base at all and playing with the dials doesn't fix the problems, those are in the mesh itself and the joints.

changing your dials will basically not change anything you mentioned..his musculature is all wrong and all the pics that have been posted of him, look basically the same (unless of course you make him butt ugly) and his joints look like play-doh. Then of course you have all these people saying , there are packs coming out, that will make him more manly, sorry, he is supposed to be usable "out of the box", so now you are supposed to spend 30 bucks on this pack, 25 bucks on another pack, just to make him semi-usable. All I can say is buy stock in Daz, because even if they royally screw up, all these people still flock there and rave how wonderful they are and they can do no wrong.

Just look at the list of "fixes" that DAZ has to perform in the upcoming SR1 plus the conveniently timed free "mystery model" to distract us from the fact that the they released a poorly constructed body mesh as their premium Male figure. No Thanks

Every time DAZ releases a new figure, there's a plethora of complaints about it, which eventually die down until the next new figure comes out, and then the previous one is suddenly the best one they ever made. shrug I'm happy with Mike 3 and I have no complaints about him. Melanie

"there's a plethora of complaints about it" Why is it that everytime people show concerns about problems with something, it's always considered a complaint?

cherokee ... Because a lot of concerns were expressed in ways that were purely complaints "M3 sucks!!!!" etc ... Some were brought up in manners that were concerns but a lot weren't. Some were purely aestetic in the "I want it to look just just like how I want it right off the bat" mode ... But there were some legitimate concerns and I think those are being addressed.

LOL yea right

"But there were some legitimate concerns and I think those are being addressed" I sure hope so. That armpit problems where the mesh doesn't bend when the arms are lowered, the strange looking elbows, there are strange pointed areas of muscle when using any of the muscular morphs (altho not many people will be using those). Those are some of the concerns I had. And what gets me is alot of people simply say M3 is perfect even with those obvious areas not looking right. AS for the armpit area, if the arms aren't raised or over his head, it doesn't show up.

That is what the SR-1 is for dirk .. If you have issues there is a thread that is asking for legitmate concerns etc. And the armpit area is number one on the list and I hope so as well. I don't think M3 is perfect. The armpit is proof of that. But I do think that a lot of peopel werent giving him any chance because they didn' see the perfect model that THEY wanted from the start. I have seen a lot of people that are really quick to attack the mesh when they don't even own it and point out features that they don't like but don't know there is a morph to change it.

Ghost -- it would be helpful if you would let us know where the thread is. It would be helpful if you explained what you mean by the fact that there are morphs to change --- what? Otherwise you are just throwing fuel on the fire of people's confusion and frustration -- not helping. And what is the SR-1?

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?Form.ShowMessage=1447987

Dials, dials, dials....we all know what they are and what they do, so why do we have to keep talking about dials as if they are the magic cure all. In every message thread about M3, when someone had a problem with something, everyone was saying "use the dials". Unfortuniately, some dials don't correct problems. That's what that service pack from DAZ is supposed to do and by the way, isn't it about time for that. Will be interesting to see exactly what DAZ address in that service release. I know, the message thread DAZ posted on 9/22 about it listed what they were "correcting".

cherokee, A lot of people don't know what they do and don't know how to use them. I think the problems people had can be mostly adressed by the dials except the ones that the service pack is addressing. Sometimes it isn't as easy as a one dial turn which is what a lot of people do. I have read a bunch of posts with people that were delighted with the corrections that I mentioned above since they didn't know how to turn the dials. And it should't be time yet since it was posted on the 22nd and it said 10 days or so.