Sounds like a meaty question--huh! No, quite simple. I see all the morphs, poses & characters that people have created for sale on all the 3D sites. I've never bought any but have always wondered if they are any different from what comes with the character. Or are you paying for the time it took someone to sit in front of their screen and fiidle with the morphs to create this variety?

Depends on the item. Poses can only ever be purely from within the program. Many people buy Pose sets because it's easier and quicker than doing the work themselves. It's a timesaver, it saves them having to spend up to an hour getting a character into position. Character textures are always unique and usually made with photo references from a real person, or sometimes handpainted for the fantasy-type ones. Character morphs come either as custom-created morphs - where the merchant has taken the model into a modelling application and changed the mesh. Or some sets simply use the existing morphs available. Some folks feel that unless the morph is custom, they're paying for something they could do themselves. On the other hand, with a custom body morph, fitting clothing can be a pain. Swings and roundabouts...

Some character are created by custom morphs created in ZBrush or another modelling application. Some are created by tweaking the dials. Generally, a "dial spun" character won't just be the character alone, there will be a texture - often with a lot of variations for make up, in the case of a female character - and possibly several poses included, too. Pose packs are created solely by the artist selling them, or created specifically for the pack. They have to be, since anything else would be a copyright violation. In any case, poses made for Posette, Dork, or any of the other default Poser models won't work properly with DAZ figures. True, they can be adjusted, but things like hands won't be correct without a lot of tweaking.

The best example of morphs that are NOT dial twistings are those done by Capsces. Her morph sets for M2, Koshini, Ichiro, and most recently M3 are well worth the money. There are also morph sets/characters that are combinations of texture and pose. The Bishohen set is a good example. Then there are the combination dial twist and some custom morphing. The Barbarian set from Daz adds some chest and arm morphing, and the character uses these in combination with dial twisting to get a full character. Sometimes it's neat to combine different morph sets. I like to use the Brom morphs from Capsces in combination with the Bishophen morphs and poses. You get some great styalized effects. Pose sets (scenes) are often nice to have as a starting point for a scene. I seldom ever use a canned pose in a final product, but I do start with one that may be close to my artistic vision.

What pdxjims said is very true, especially when attempting to pose animals. Try to get the mil horse to rear correcty and you are in for a wee amount of work, unless you use one of the 'canned ' poses.

Most of the "free or buying poses" are not good for my work, because they have active morph channels, so applying a pose like e.g. sitting effects the face-expression (that's make me angry, if i'd worked out an expression before). I mostly (about 90%) work out my poses by myself from the zero-basis of a figure. Rarely i'm using a poseset - if it is not correctly done, it is impossible to fix. From zerobasis it is faster and more secure for me, to get the results, i've wanted.

"Most of the "free or buying poses" are not good for my work, because they have active morph channels, so applying a pose like e.g. sitting effects the face-expression" That shouldn't be the case with bought poses. All the ones I have ever bought have no morph data saved. Schlabber and Ilona's don't, for sure.

ok, SamTherapy, you're right: I should have to say: Some buying poses... but most of the freebies are not suitable to me, truly.

A tip for you... save the character and the face before you apply a pose. That way, even if the pose screws up your character, you can re-apply it immediately.

Thanks all, you've pretty much confirmed what I thought. I admit that I like spending the time posing. I like getting it just right.