I currently use P4. Have downloaded quite a few freebies in the way of textures and characters and props and so on. I've noticed that virtually all of the best images do NOT use the P3 or P4 characters, but use a market figure like Vicky or Mike, etc. I've avoided them for ONE reason... economy (which I'm sure many of you understand). I've also heard that if you purchase one of them you often get yourself into a situation where you can't really use them unless you also buy other needed add-ons. Are the V3 Head Morph Pack and V3 Body Morph Pack and Poser Pro Pack such needed items? Other advice I am looking for is this: What would you recommend as a better character base to work with than the Posette? Do ALL of the better characters require a Vicky model of some sort (seems like they do); like do you have to have a Vicky to use Stephanie? and if I must get a Vicky, which one? And then, which follow-up characters do you recommend? Like "Evolution Eve" is a texture map, correct? and doesn't include morphs or such to change the "shape" of Vicky? But then, Wyrmmaster's Voluptuous Vicky is more than that and DOES include morphs, correct? I guess what I am looking for is your suggestions on 1) Most of all, what would minimally necessary? 2) What is easy to learn to use? 3) What looks great? and 4) What would give me the best value for my dollar? and finally 5) what is YOUR favorite character/texture/morph and why?

Minimally necessary: I would recomend getting V2 at least. There is still a lot of items out there for her both in freestuff and in the marketplace. 

Just my $.02

Stephanie (all versions) is a standalone figure; you don't need to purchase Victoria to use her. She can wear Victoria's clothing, however. Wyrmmaster's products are essentially magnet collections which can reshape the Victoria or Stephanie figures. 1) I'd recommend Victoria 2, also. 4) Buy the Victoria 2.0 CD if you can afford it; this'll give you the figure, a texture set, one hairstyle, and her first clothing pack (with the clothing morphs). DAZ has opened up the Platinum Club to everyone for the next month, so if you sign up at DAZ, you'll get 30% off the current price of the disc (which is on sale at the moment).

Thanx for the suggestions. I am already signed up with DAZ (but I've never bought anything, just got the freebies and looked at the public gallery), and the announcement about the Platinum Club is what prompted me to try to find out where would be a good place to start. Does anyone else have any other advice?

V2 is good, and the CD set is a good start. V3 is a more advanced model, but you need to get the Base model as well as the Head Morph and Body Morph pack to make her usable. Add a texture and some clothes. However, there are several Platinum Club clothing items for V3 to grab for $1.99. Most new stuff will without doubt be created for V3, that fact speaks for her. Both V2 and V3 will be a huge improvement over Posette. Look around at DAZ and do the math. It all depends on how much you want to spend.

BTW, you can get all the hair you'll ever need for all Victoria models from Kozaburo (www.digitalbabes2.com), so you don't have to count in any DAZ hair in your calculations...

Everybody and their cousin will tell you to get some flavor of Vicki. As a DAZ model, she has lots of first class support from the company, and a lot of extra stuff made for her by third parties. However, she will always look like Vicki (her eyes stare out at me from the Milkids, from Michael3, from.... it's VERY hard to not get a Vicki-derived character to not look like her!), and maybe you don't want the same face that everybody and their cousin is using. You may wish to look at Natalia, Nadya, Dina, Mayadoll, TenTen, the other non-Vicki characters to see which has a face and body you'd like to work with. Some of the cartoony characters such as Koshini and LaRoo have almost the same amount of clothing as do the main characters. The other thing to remember is that if you step up to Vicki and Michael, their clothing, skin textures, and such are not usually compatible between versions without a lot of extra work and or expense. You will not only have to buy a wardrobe, but to replenish it each time they come up with a new version. The plus side of this is that you will have neat new stuff to play with, and it will be of generally high quality, so that you should have an easier time creating the images you have in your head. Because it is an investment, and will be a continuous expense over the years, I encourage you to look at the various figures and your options, determine what sort of models have the qualities you need, and then go shopping with credit card in hand. Carolly

Upgrade to Poser 5, that's the best place to spend your dough.

Attached Link: http://http://www.3digitalcrafts.net/studiomaya/1download/mdb/index.html

Thanx again everyone for the great tips. I've found some other useful information elsewhere in this forum as well. Quite a bummer to me that Wyrmmaster is closing shop at the end of this month. That is TOO SOON! And Becco, I did NOT know that Maya doll was free. That is great news and especially thanks for the link. I went there and downloaded and will soon try her out.

Pleased to have helped - there is much more to 3D than DAZ Productions - at the Maya site there are also some free clothes for the doll. Best wishes. If I remember right a link from either digital babes or the Maya site exists where you can download a character for Posers Judy (also free).