Can some one explain to me what makes vicky so great? I mean whats wrong with the model that poser comes with. I'm just wondering what makes her special.

Victoria 3 has more polygons, apart from that it is not so great.

So... which of the downloadable models it the best and why?

Vicky 3 has more polygons, so one supposedly can make more precise morphs and have smoother curves in rendering... however Poser 5 has a way to do more subdividing at render time which makes the mere polygon count moot. That said... she STILL looks like Vicky, even with all the morphs people don't change the basic facial proportions. She is a hog. How many folders????? And I thought googleplex was an arcane mathematical term! She takes over the library management. Why in hell should ANY vendor put their stuff first, hardcode the positions, set up their own primary folders, or lock down our Runtimes so that we can't move files where we want them? She is expensive. DAZ has set it up so that the basic figure looks cheap, but it can't even talk or smile (the expression morphs which were included with the basic figures up until the gen 3 figures)... and the products are set up so that you need to buy all 3 morphs add-on packs to do anything. Worst of all, the Gen 3 figures typically have round shoulders and rag-doll arms with cracks up to the too-high pits. If she was a real improvement in modeling rather than a mere improvement in marketing, I'd be more impressed. But, then, I'm fairly impervious to hype and don't need to show off the latest purchase to earn bragging rights. Carolly the Opinionated

I don't think she's great, I don't use her at all.

What about Michael, then? It seems he's as big as she is--EVERYthing seems to have either Michael or Victoria stamped on it. Is Michael all that? ----Bonnie

Alrighty cause thats what I thought. I thought it looked ridiculous to buy such a thing as vicky. So thats why I was wondering if there was something special about her that I was not seeing. Is there another model that you would recomend getting?

We need a figure better than Vic3 and away from DAZ. Since using P5, I now have a bad attitude against DAZ. geesh...I better shape up. Need new model.

I suppose your model needs will depend on what you want to do. I use the P5 models, mostly Judy. I think they're easy to work with, versitile, the face room gives me tons of options. Other people can't stand the P5 characters. It'll just boil down to what sort of images you want to make.

The only problem with Judy is. You have to do a lot of postwork on her on close up shots. Her face, ears, nose, mouth suffers from polygonitis. (angular lines).

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=725160

http://www.renderosity.com/viewed.ez?galleryid=739390

and this one isn't as close up, but no postwork.

Message edited on: 08/26/2004 02:32

Yes, on the first one, I see them on the shoulders, and both sides of the jaw. The second one isn't a close-up shot.

Ok well, I guess it's time for me to get new contacts then ;o) because I don't see obvious polygons on her jaw. and no more on her shoulders than I've seen on several vicky renders.

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?Form.ShowMessage=1826788

I've seen EJ, a few times actually. So far, in the pictures I've seen she's looked pretty much the same, is she a fairly versitile character?

I can't stand V3. I can't stand M3 even more. I refused to buy either of them simply for two reasons. One is that they are overly used. V3 is in most of the renders here at 'Rosity. M3 seems to show up in most of the ones that have a male character in them. My second reason is that I know of no 5'10" women. I simply don't know one. I also don't know a single woman that could immediately be hired as a supermodel. V3 fits that profile perfectly. I chose Stephanie and David from DAZ when I chose my models. I love both and they work well for me. They are more "average" in both size and beauty to me. I use P5 and personally don't mind some extra work to make the DAZ stuff work for me. After all, it would be way too easy if all I had to do was put the clothes on, choose a pose and throw a background in. Kristta

As with any answer, It Depends... Having been around long enough and owning just about every variant of figure both male and female here's the things I like and and not about each, maybe this might help you out. Possette and Dork- Easy on poser(You can load a lot of them) and a texture map that is rather easy to generate your own modifications or original textures. Best used for standing poses and near seated ones. Their joint parameters are close to the body so over head arm poses look wonky. Belive it or not there are still a great deal of site that have free clothes and the like for the basic poser people. So in truth the majority of free stuff is still for possette and dork. EVE- She is a variant of the posette. She is the first type of figure cut with a more realistic joint structure. Also the first figure to be able to sit and look right. there are several versions of the eve model the last true version is by Eric VanDyke (travler). Eve has a prop version of eyes that look great and pose well. Eve is also the first figure that employs multiple texture maps since some areas of her were remaped. Eve also was the first to have a set of fucntional genitals. Also Travler greated a donor cr2 that would allow the obj for just about any possette and some vicky clothes fit eve (her joint parameters are greatly different for posette) Victoria 1&2- I group these two together since in a great deal of ways they work the same. They have a higher poly count and both are jointed out the same way EVE is. The biggest difference between these two is that version one doesn't have alot of full body morphs where V2 does. I tend to look at V2 as a very morphed V1 with the slioght exception is that V2 JP is tweaked a little and poses just a hair better that V1. These mil people are also multi texture mapped figures. Since they have this Poser's memory mapping gets taxed very hard and tends to cause slower systems also in the reach for more realistic looks texture makers started makeing huge maps making poser's memory issue more glaring. As posing goes these figures are able to perform most if not all types of poses and look much like their human counterparts. V1/2 also arrived as modelers were really getting good at making clothing meshes and thus a wider range of items, both free and for sale became more available and easier to use. The downside was that alot of the people that were content making MT for possette moved on to modeling and or didn't want to start all over again making appearance changing mt for victoria. So with the arrival of the mil people a good deal of the original artists effectivly stopped making. Dina- Also based on the high poly mesh, even greater than V1/2 her major issue has been her linebacker looks. As posing goes she is one on par with the Milfigures but never gained alot of suport. Dcort, her inventor made a variant using a structure like V1 that is actually rather good and is able to use existing V1/2 clothes well. Her mapping is also very much like EVE and posette. V3- Even higher poly count. This does allow for a more subtle MT creation but there are few now that do it, and even fewer that do it for free. Her JP are very solid and in many ways does pose better that all earlier types. In the hope to slim down the cr2 and make her easier to work with the idea of MT injection became something. This does allow a user to use only the MT they need and keep the cr2 low. However the deltas(the MT)and there respective folders and ther structure are a hinderance to any realistic folder management. Coupled with the owership of all the other gen 3 figures most of the pose folder is now INJ/REM folders. So... With all that said, what does it mean? As I started it does depend on what you are looking for in you images. the more realistic, and human like, or figure that look close to human or very close. Also It depends on the types of poses you have in mind. The more complex and dymamic need higher polys. What I do is use them all in one way or the other. Posette and dork for growd since they are low poly relativly speaking and V1/2 and M1/2 and stephanie1 for medium shots and more active poses. And Gen 3 types for hight detail and few figures. Hope this helps, if not ignore me.

The reason most people use Mike and Vicky is the same reason most people use Windows and not Linux. It's what everyone else uses, and that's very convenient.

I never had much use for Don and Judy. It takes a lot of work to get them looking decent. I do like the way their morph dials are set up, organized so that you don't have a whole long list at the same time. But other than that, they have no appeal to me. Maybe if the Face Room worked as advertised...but it doesn't.

I actually prefer Stephanie Petite and David to V3 and M3, but there's so much more stuff available for V3 and M3 that I use them more. And that's probably what it comes down to: there's tons of stuff available for DAZ's figures, and almost nothing for Don and Judy.

If you want to try a different figure, there are free ones. Mayadoll is free, and has a fair amount of stuff. Sixus1 also offers several free figures: Lilin, Adam, the Behemoth.

Actually, I think that's the only way you can even make a dent in DAZ's monopoly: give the figure away free, and hope people like it and start making stuff for it.

And the reason M3, V3, David, and SP are better is because they are used (and abused) by so many of us. The usage creates demand for more variation, and that's what vendors provide for us. More morphs, more textures, more clothing. They are the standard becuase we make them the standard. They have more stuff because we buy it. They have better support because there are more users wanting it. It all goes back to how much you can do with a model, and you can do more, more easily with cash and the Daz figures.

"She takes over the library management. Why in hell should ANY vendor put their stuff first, hardcode the positions, set up their own primary folders, or lock down our Runtimes so that we can't move files where we want them?" This is flat untrue, unless you are stubbornly using the initial release of V3 and not the SP1 update. True, the Libraries!DAZ folder must stay in place, as must the LibrariesMicro folder for RDNA's MicroCosm, but it is invisible to the user. The library folders that are visible to the user can be rearranged and recombined at will, at least within the Poser folder - I have seen mixed reports from people putting the INJ/REM poses in subfolders with Poser 5.

If you don't like her 5'10", make her shorter.
I use Roxanne (V2)99% of the time.

They are the standard becuase we make them the standard. They have more stuff because we buy it. They have better support because there are more users wanting it.

But not necessarily because they are better than competing figures out there. Any more than VHS was better than Beta, or Wintel better than Apple. There are a lot of reasons people choose to buy, and quality of the product is only one of them.

Wow, thank you all for the responses. I have 1 more question though. Couldn't you take an exsisting model and import it into a program like Rhino and increase the polygon count, then put it back in poser? Would that work? I mean what does it take to make a model?

If you're skilled at modeling, you can do a lot to customize figures.

But IMO, it's more than just polygon count. DAZ's figures aren't necessarily the biggest. Rather, it's the textures, and the hair, and the clothes, etc. There's tons of those for DAZ's figures, free and for sale, and that makes a big difference in usability. Most artists don't render a lot of images of naked, bald women. (And hair and clothing are probably the most difficult and time-consuming things to model, so even people who can do it themselves may prefer to use pre-made items sometimes.)

(If you do render mostly naked women...well, there are models out there that are, more, ah, "anatomically correct" than Vicky.... ;-)

Two questions. First, you could take a figure and increase the polys, giving a higher density mesh. This would add more potential to the figure. Someone was doing a higher poly version of M2, but I don't remember seeing it ever released anywhere. What does it take to make a model? A lot. Modeling isn't easy. I do clothing and props, but a human figure is beyond me. It takes a lot of patience and skill to do one right. Then you have to UV Map it so it can be textured. Then if you want it to succeed, you'd better do a lot of morphs so each person can add their own variations. I'd love for Anton to finish his Max figure, and then have Capices do morphs for him. Catherina or SteffyZZ for textures. Dodger and Anton for clothing (I'd do his leathers and fetish wear - grin). That does come down to one of the reasons the Daz figures succeed though. Manpower. A Daz figure is a joint effort between Daz employees and their numerous vendors. They keep the vendors in the loop with beta copies, so there's a good chunk of things ready for it when it's released. The GIRL had more things ready within 2 weeks of release than any other figure I've seen. Pretty good for 'toon with limited appeal (to people who like 'toons, that is).

"But not necessarily because they are better than competing figures out there." Really? Exactly what competing figures are better?

As I said, I prefer David and SP to M3 and V3. I think they pose better. But I use M3 and V3 more, because there's more stuff for them.

As for non-DAZ figures...depends on what you want, of course. I think some of Dacort's figures are as good as Vicky, or better. Some even have more polygons. I like Sixus1's, too. But they just don't have the necessary support. Similarly, Neftoon Gal could give the Girl a run for her money...but she won't, because she doesn't have the support DAZ's products get. Support counts for a lot. It's not just the figure that has the most polygons, or is the most beautiful or realistic or morphable that wins out. It's the one that's supported the best.

I'm not dissing DAZ. Obviously, I'm a frequent customer. Indeed, I'm recommending that anyone who wants to buy a figure buy V3 or M3. But not because they are necessarily the best, but because they have the most support.

"This is flat untrue," The fact that DAZ makes a !DAZ folder and puts it in the Library before Character, Poses, Faces, Hair, etc, means that DAZ has indeed taken over the library. You can not move that folder if you want to use the Gen 3 figures. I want hair under hair and poses under poses and characters under characters... I don't want a !DAZ folder at the top level of the Runtime. It is not needed. It is the height of arrogance. As for being unvisible to the user? If that were true, why all the headaches and reports of x not working because someone dared to meddle with the arrangement that DAZ imposes upon the user? BTW, file structure is very visible to MAC users. As for Poser 5, DAZ may not want to admit it, but the reports are that many, many people are using it... like more than half the customer base. By creating conflicts with Poser 5, DAZ is excluding itself. They can mess with their own software. They can do whatever they want with the library of DAZ|Studio, insisting that their own products come first, work better, whatever. They can keep their micro-managing fingers out of my Poser setup. I do not own any Gen 3 figures. I have so far avoided anything with INJ/REM technology. I keep my Pose folder manageable... golly, it has real poses in it! The last female I rendered was Natalia, experimenting with a bas-relief look. The last male I morphed was Don, giving him a properly ferocious Aztec profile. These are great models. When looking at model/cost, I consider more than the out-of-pockets. There is customer support (4 weeks and no response to my email yet!!!!!) There is frustration (my stress levels have to stay within tolerances). There is ability to do what it is advertised to do (without buying 16 other packages). There is user friendliness (taking over my libraries is NOT friendly). There is tidiness (I wouldn't want a houseguest who came with 80 suitcases... and another 80 in which to put stuff not wanted). :pfffft!: Carolly

Comparing V3 to "other" figures is like comparing a Volkswagen to a Ferrari. Er...so you're saying V3 is the Volkswagen? ;-)

"Maybe if the Face Room worked as advertised...but it doesn't." In what way? For Poser 4, right now, the most realistic human models, in joint set up, flexibility, and broad support, are the DAZ Gen 3 Mil figures. Absolutely no competition there. Be it Victoria, Michael, Stephanie, David, Freak, She Freak, or whatever unnamed fomr is coming down the pike, they are the way to go. This is, to a great extent, really helped by the AEON folks sold by Dodger, who are very nice. I have all of the above. I use V3 exceedingly rarely on a personal basis, and most of my paid work is done with Judy and Don (judy being more anatomically correct than V3 and damn near most others). Any model available today can be made to look drastically different -- but it does take effort, and, in some cases, additional morphs. I've managed to get Koshini, Stephanie, V2, Judy, V3, and I'm working on Alexa to all look like me -- I'm terribly vain, you see -- but all of them required work on my part that was not quickly done (and I did give up more than a few times).

*"Maybe if the Face Room worked as advertised...but it doesn't."

In what way?*

Well, they give you the impression that all you need is two photos, a front view and a profile, and you can use the Face Room to easily make a digital clone. If that were true, it would give Don and Judy a big advantage over other figures. Even people who shelled out the big bucks for Facegen have trouble grafting the Facegen head onto Vicky's body.

Attached Link: http://aprilsvanity.com/dlpage.html

Carolly, For most users, since the !Daz folder doesn't show within Poser, it's effectively invisable. It's when you try to move the !Daz folder that problems occur. Of course, if you want to organize your character, pose, prop, etc. libraries, you have to move outside of Poser, so I guess... "Better" and "worse" are subjective terms. Everyone has their own opinion. Right now, the Daz Unimesh reigns supreme. It has the most morphs (since that's what the various characters really are), the most clothing and props, the most textures and options. Is it "better"? No, but for the time being, it's the most versatile. I definitly agree on library management. There should be a standard on naming. However, since P4 doesn't allow for nesting of libraries, it'd be tough. P5 still relies on specific naming within the library structure to find items. I'd like the ability to create a folder for an item, then nest all the things for that item underneath. That way I could keep all my stuff in catagories: M3 figures, cloths, props, textures, etc all together. Another for V3. One for scenes.. etc. Ah well... opinions are like... you know the rest.

Carolly The !DAZ folder does not appear as an extra category beside Figures/Poses/Hair etc. in the library structure within Poser, and since that is the only way of loading CR2s, PP2s, HR2s etc. into Poser it is indeed invisible to the user in Poser - it is visble to your file manager software, but no more intrusive or limiting than the rest of the Library folders which Poser itself imposes. The !V3 xxx INJ and so on folders within the Pose library have been movable since the first service release (before which moving them broke the "All" collective INJ/REM poses, but not the individual morph INJ/REMs): you seem not to see the difference. The main snag with P5 and injection (I'm not touching the broader DAZ and P5 issue here) is that you have to have a copy of the !DAZ folder in your default Runtime if you put the figures into a secondary Runtime and to keep it current when adding new morphs, and as I said some people have reported problems putting the INJ/REM poses in nested subfolders but others seem able to do it with impunity.

"Well, they give you the impression that all you need is two photos, a front view and a profile, and you can use the Face Room to easily make a digital clone. If that were true, it would give Don and Judy a big advantage over other figures." Um, that's actually pretty much what it does. Granted, it does take some time and tweaking, so I, personally, wouldn't say it's easily done, but it is decidedly somewhat quicker than doing it with victoria's facial morphs. Adding in morph putty (a seriously underutilized addition, as well) you can really achieve some pretty impressive results very rapidly. My reason for using Judy predominantly in my pay for work is because of the face room and morph putty -- combined with the morphs on the content CD, I can achieve a huge variety of realistic folks pretty darn quick. Hmmm... Perhaps folks do the same thing in the face room they do in the hair room, and more or less use it wrong. Will have to add that in to my list of notes on the face room...

I love the Hair Room, Material Room, and Cloth Room. I played with the Face Room when I first got P5, but wasn't happy with the results. I guess the learning curve is too steep for me. I'd rather fiddle with the morph dials.

I know ya do ;) I don't think it's a learning curve thing, though - I think it's a fiddle with it a lot curve -- I have, so it's become easier for me, but as for learning anything "new", well, not really. Just gotta be persnickety. It's like hunting down seams in a texture...

I like the face room, sometimes faces don`t work but that is probably a problem with the pictures more than with the actual face room.

Daio-Amazing work!

Daio-Amazing work!

Ynsaen, can you post some examples? Like those Facegen people did. Maybe of a celebrity or political figure, if you don't want to post comparison photos of ordinary folk.

If I could get decent results out of the Face Room, I'd be thrilled. In the non-digital world, my forte is portraits. Rather idealized portraits, that flatter the subjects. With the Face Room, the best I can manage is something more appropriate to a political caricature. :-/

For my Poser 4/ProPack Pose library, I put ALL of V3's INJ poses into one folder, named something like !V2 INJ. (My choice to use the exclamation point, I wanted it near the top of the list.) Same thing with REM poses. I've done the same thing for M2, SP, and D3. This has never caused any problem at all. Grand total of eight folders, not too much to ask for four outstanding figures IMO. Yes, it takes some time to scroll through everything within those folders, but I'd rather be doing that from within those folders when I need access to them, rather than allow DAZ' default INJ&REM folders to bloat the entire directory and make it take longer to find anything else. In P5, I nested along similar lines. Everything specifically for V3, for example, is within a folder named !V3. Within that are subdirectories for Hair, Poses, Textures, and the REM and INJ folders. Again, this has never caused any functionality problems. I tend to re-organize everything for Poser for ease of use within the app. The fact that you can't move the !DAZ folders which as Richard clarified aren't visible from within the app is a non-issue ... it doesn't interfere with anything in terms of access time. I also prefer David to M3 by a long shot, and love both V3 and SP. Maybe I misunderstood you randym77, sorry 'bout that. I was reacting to the general contention by some here that the Millennium figures somehow aren't that good. In fact they're very high quality, especially considering the price. While I'm very fond of other human meshes, they don't compare in terms of overall quality. Don better than M3? Look, I like Don, but give me a break.

It seems that there are some people who like daz whatever they do and others who don`t particularly.

It IS arrogance. Why call it !DAZ instead of DAZ? To get it appearing first in the file list? That is utterly childish. No wonder Daz loses friends.

You know....I am always amazed by threads like this one.

Mentioning "V3" appears to amount to waving the red cape for some.

I use M3, V3 and SP. I don't have David -- as I don't need another male model.

Why all the fuss?

I like chocolate ice cream, too......although I rarely eat any of it these days. Do some lovers of vanilla want to fight about it?

Jim Burton knows how to get the point across.

So does Daio.

I like V3. Whether or not anyone else wants to use V3 matters to me about as much as whether or not they enjoy windsurfing.

I put all my inj folders in a folder of their own and just point to them when I need them. You don't have to put your stuffage where Daz or anyone else has them, you can change the order by installing them to a folder and choosing where in the runtime (and how) you want them to go. Why are there so many folks slamming Daz lately? They don't force you to buy their stuff, they give you a refund if you request it within 30 days, and they didn't create Poser they just creat items for it. If you don't like Daz don't shop there, it's that simple. I think they're pretty great myself, and as for V3 I rarely use V2 anymore, although all of the mil folks are installed in case I need a different look. If you have been around for very long you will know that Daz was the first company to take a real chance on creating new items for Poser, they deserve a lot of credit for that alone. Marque