Here's some pictures showing the problems of Vicki (and Millie's) hip and shoulder joints that could stand improvement to make them more realistic. I don't know if they are fixable using JCM, but here goes. This pic depicts the left thigh flexed forward at 90 degrees. (1) Note that the thigh appears to bury itself into the hip. (2) There is this unnatural groove that forms, which should be filled by the inner thigh muscles and tendons to form a smooth surface. (3) the groove persists at the back portion of the thigh and buttock. As you raise your thigh, the definition between the buttock and the back thigh smoothens out because of stretching of the buttocks over the joint. All of this is easily demonstrable by standing in front of a mirror and raising your thigh.

i know this has bothered me since day one. Alas, i don't have the chops to mess with it. Perhaps Jaager can comment?

In this picture, you can see this abnormal groove form under her buttocks when the thigh is raised to 90 degrees or more. Again, this should normally form one smooth surface as the mucles are stretched over the joint. The groove between the buttocks and the thigh actually disappears as you do this and increase forward flexion.

Here, the thigh is extended sideways by 30 degrees as well as the left buttock for a total of 60 degrees. (1) Note that the lower margin of the buttock actually goes lower than the right side, which should not be the case. (2) As the inner thigh muscles are stretched by this position, they become taut and form a straight line to the groin, which is not the case here.

This is the front view of above. Again, this curve should form a straight line to the groove,and you should actually start to see the tendon of the thigh muscle close to the groin.

While I'm not at all against solutions for the various problems...I think the bottom line is you can't expect Poser to be the last step in a piece of art. You need to fix some of these things in PhotoX software, pure and simple. Or, wait about 6 years when desktop computers for the hobbyist will have enough memory to have a virtual human that is structured exactly like a Human Body..with skeleton, logical muscle action and the like. -Darth

I can only look at it and see if I can do anything. As complex as this is, if a solution is possible, even a partial one, it will involve a lot of editing/versions. Bye the way, The big muscle at the front of the thigh flattens as the knee is bend? Not much , but an effect there may be interesting. What do you think?

Yes it does. The quadriceps (the muscles in front of your thigh) are the equivalent of your triceps in your upper arm, whereas the muscles in the back of your thigh (biceps femoris) correspond to the biceps in your upper arm. Therefore, when you flex your knee, the quadriceps flatten out over the thigh bone while the biceps femoris thickens the same way when you flex your arm. The quadriceps thicken and become more well defined when you actually extend your knee.

Darth, you don't need tons of memory to accomplish this, only a software solution for character animation. Animation Master, for example, does this sort of thing very well with their muscle motion and bones features, although their models are not compatible with Poser's. :-(

Quads - I forsee no problem there. But the biceps femoris - is the muscle movement there visible? Is it too encased in the fat layer? I feel a move there but do not see much and I am thin.

The movement of the biceps femoris is actually seen best when the thigh is flexed forward at 90 degrees and you bend the knee joint. The muscle movement occurs midthigh close to the knee joint. You will see the curve of the biceps muscle appear to move backwards as you bend the knee back and forwards to flatten out as you straighten the knee. The upper half of the back portion of the thigh is more covered with fat and should form a smooth curve with the buttocks when the thigh is flexed at 90 degrees as in the sitting position. When standing up, the curve of the border between the buttocks and back portion of the thigh becomes prominent because the buttock muscle is not stretched.

Here is a picture showing the smooth continuous curve between the buttocks and the back of the thigh when the thigh is flexed to a sitting position. In Vicki and P4, there is an unnatural distinction between the border of the lower buttocks and thigh at this position.

Thank you for the information. If you think of anything else, let me know. Biceps femoris - I do not know how to include a conditional restriction on these morphs . Thigh bent and then show the effect upon bending the knee. Maybe make it and let the user turn it on and off?

Biceps femoris- It probably isn't that worth doing since the effect is subtle and easily missed. As for the quadriceps when the knee is bent, the visual effect is to just to reduce muscle definition. If there's just one single JCM with the hip-thigh joint I'd like to see, it's the effect on the buttocks in the picture above when the thigh is bent to 90 degrees or more.