There has been recent discussion amoungst merchants here about what should and should not be included in character packs and so I  (being a merchant) am curious as to what YOU, the customer wants and doesn't want in a package.  For example do you want second skin clothes?  Nail colors, eye colors ect?  If so how many.. when does it stop being a nice selection and become overwhealming?  Your feedback is important as it helps us create what you want, so give it to us!

What do I want in a package? Decent P5/P6 material support, using displacement mapping and good shader node setups.

Second skins? Pretty useless, unless equipped with good displacement maps. And those second skins should not be painted onto the base skin texture; they should be added using color math/blender nodes, which increases their versatility. They could be applied to a second character with the same morph sets + spandex, as a transmap, and then you would have beaten the almost inevitable "painted on" look of second skins.

Second skin type of clothing: underwear is OK, stockings are fine. but jeans and tops do not look natural as second skins.Unless used with transmaps on a second figure.

Makeup? A few options are enough. I prefer a natural look to the character.

Eyes? A few are enough, and those eye colors should match the skin tone.

Props? Some jewelry for female characters never hurts. Daggers, swords and guns are OK, if scabbards/holsters are included. Think of poor Vicki running arould all day and night in that temple  with a big sword and not much else - her arms must be incredibly tired by now!

Maybe an idea for morphed characters: provide a clothing MOR pose that will set the correct morph settings in conforming clothes that have the appropriate morphs.

And a good set of poses never hurts

Quote -   Props? Some jewelry for female characters never hurts. Daggers, swords and guns are OK, if scabbards/holsters are included. Think of poor Vicki running arould all day and night in that temple  with a big sword and not much else - her arms must be incredibly tired by now!

LOL  Very true. 

Thank you for your input, I think if more customers are precise on what they would like to have then by nature the marketplace would contain more of what people are looking for and would like to buy as opposed to stuff they have to sort through to find that one "gem"

Oh, and another thing: multiple resolution texture maps. A 6000x6000 texture is only useful when rendering extreme closeups while not using the procedural shaders of P5 and P6. Even a normal portrait renders perfectly with a 2000x2000 texture map. 1000x1000 is good enough for midrange.

So texture maps, MAT poses, P5 materials and P6 material collections using 2 or 3 resolutions would be a great asset. I'd suggest 1024x1024,2048x2048 and optionally 4096x4096 pixels.

Jotting that down as well:)

I always ask character packages to include something they hardly include:
MALE CHARACTERS
What about a fantasy Thorne and Sarsa-like pretty babies but...MALE?. I mean plain and normal males and fantasy beings, not those gay hunks. Let's say ninjas, faeries, thin elves... enough V3 running nude on a temple!, let's have males to have a place too!.

I did this same question and request to Thorne and Sharsa. They didn't even answer...

Let's put some decent clothes, specially meant for males, with natural male shapes on pants instead of cardboard pants with perhaps a mannequin morph to set a primitive bulge. See the gorgeous work As Shanim does with clothes and hair for his female characters. Why not the same superquality for males?

Let's put some male hair and let's put traveler props for a perfect warrior, cleric, peasant, lost boy...

David, Luke, Hiro, are on desperate need of one of these quality packages.

Example of this wonderful work (not exactly a package) are:

Dragon Ink - Ardeth for David & Hiro (Daz3d)

and

Beautiful Boy Rebirth from Samildanach

Give them hair and some fantasy QUALITY clothing and props and then you have that "gem" you told about.

Second skin clothing, as svdl told, is OK for underwear (but stupid on males if this has not a right  "something under this" shape), but rest of clothing looks dull and useless just painted over the skin!. :-(

Taking note on that as well.. My husband was just saying the same thing:)  Thank you for your input!

poser 5/6 layered options.  please don't bog my computer down with an entire new texture for a butterfly tattoo or a different color of eyeliner.  any 2nd skin clothes, make-up options, tattoos, body hair options, etc. should be added to the base layer in poser, not photoshop for greater versatility and to take up less space.    i can do tons with these features as nodes.  i can do just about nada with them as whole new textures, and therefore never factor them into my choices.

transmapped eyebrows.  right now i have to limit my hair choices to whatever eyebrow color merchants decided to go with (see the above for the permutation problems eyebrow color would give in the traditional method).  i'm not really sure why this practice is eschewed, but i know i would appreciate it. 

real makeup.  just about every make-up option i've ever seen is really obviously painted.  it's unimportant for distance shots, but for portraits it kind of makes all those photoreal skin textures useless.

use of poser 6 shader nodes.  there are lots of real skin shader formulas out there.  it's not my highest priority (i can play in the material room myself), but a poser 6 optimized shader beats out a plain texture in my book.

custom morphs are an obvious bonus.  areas where daz figures and their morphs always frustrate me: hip (pelvic cradle is basically non-existant), eyes, nose, and breast (different shapes).

Thank you for your input.  I have to agree that sometime the eye brow thing gets me as well as if I want to make a blonde character and her eyebrows are painted on in black.. well you know

Gosh.... where would I start... The one thing I would love to see is makeup that looks real - or natural. Everyday women dont go to the grocery store wearing enough eyeshadow and lipgloss to blind a person. When creating something that I want to look "run of the mill" I don't need 7 layers of black and purple makeup and freakish looking lip gloss (though I have to say... is pretty, just not what I would consider realistic in a normal setting) Don't get me wrong, I love fantasy makeup and those cool eye gems and tatoos (designing a character now using just that) however, sometimes a nice skin texture with some light brown eyeshadow and a tint of eyeliner, and about the same for lipstick/gloss would work just wonderful for me. Also, freackles and that "not so smooth skin" look. I love characters that have freckles, or different skin tones in places, this adds to the realistic look. Not everyone uses Oil of Olay... and certainly not MY V3 lol Nails? Absolutely I love pretty nails, especially for those shots where I am rendering her face close up with her hands in the scene... good nails bring out the picture for me. Eyes? Well, I guess for some this is a must, however when I first started using Poser Angel1 linked me to the Visions Eye Pack, and so for me - extra eyes in a pack are a waste because I hardly ever use them, I use the eyes from Visions nearly 95% of the time, or my own eye textures. However, I know that most people dont have extra, or dont know how to apply them if they are new to Poser - so this point is obsolete... just my personal preference I guess. Second skins? An absolute wonder and nerve saver for newbies that have a hard time getting their clothing to conform, or bend where they need it too. However, that being said... there are few packs that offer 2nd skin clothing that looks real to me. I have purchased a few, and was very picky before I clicked that "pay now" button. I have been playing around with a 2nd skin merchant resource that I bought and trying different things has taught me alot. SHADOWS are a must when creating second skin clothing....something that most people forget. Other wise it looks like they jumped off their house to get into their jeans :) For me, as a customer that probably owns stock in Renderosity by now... quality is always best over quantity. Another words, give me a skin texture, some good makeup and some really thought out morphs as apposed to 5 crappy texture maps, 17 makeup options that make her look like the gals on the corner - and 10 choices of nails that don't even match the skin tone, or the makeup. And morphs... create a look for V3 or whomever you are designing the packs for that took more than one turn of the dial. I am learning this as well... its hard to make a character morph that is unlike any that I have seen. However, being the compulsive frayed nerve that I am, I WILL do my absolute best to make her look unlike a V3 character that has already hit the runway. It is very hard to do, however that for me is what makes me want to buy a package. I want something different to work with. As far as characters go. I love all of my figures in Poser, and have used them all atleast once. I love V3 because she is versatile, I absolutely adore Michael and think that so much can be done with him. Aiko stole my heart long ago, and that baby... oh my goodness - I could create with it for hours and never get bored. The Preteen and Preschool girls have their own fan club with me and recently I have made the other models slide over and make room for Laroo and The Gilr, not too mention the The Freak !! Being a creator of items to sale is a love hate relationship, I have been working on the same package for V3 and Michael for about 4 months - I get irritated, and it goes back into it's hiding place here on the PC until I have a brain spasm and want to change or add something new to him or her. Turning out 10 items in 3 weeks as apposed to 1 item every few months is often what makes the difference between well spent money and a waste.

LOL What!?! Come on.. you mean you dont wear gobs and gobs of make up to the corner store..LOL I comletely understand what your saying.  Thank you for your input.  I cant wait to see your new V3 character!

More morphs and textures for the male figures such as M3 and David. 

Original Mil Baby morphs and textures to make him/her cute.

More morphs and textures for SP3.

Yes I agree..especially poor Stephanie.. no to much for her at all:(

Maybe something nice for the Freak would be fine, too. I cannot convince my fiancée to do one. gg And to be honest, i don´t know if it would be a commercial success.

All great ideas - good to get the point of view from merchants and buyers alike!

Thanks rebelmommy for posting this.

I recently released a character pack for sp3 (dacey for sp3), i agree - not much of her out there and she looks gorgeous (big feet aside rofl) she is fast becoming my own favourite!!!

i'd like to see more complete packages. be it clothes or morphs etc. not 101 different packages just complete a dress for example. it's veery trying to find the right pieces to complete an outfit if the .obj file is in some other package. 

great question Amy..taking these things into consideration as a merchant..:)

HUGS

Neesa

I agree with josema8 about the male characters.... we need a lot more of them, (particularly for David :) ).

hmm.. This was a great idea mum! TY for this tread ;o)

i'd like to see; more *ordinary * looking faces for example:P

 more clothes  etc for david and stephanie, and the mill. teens plus the freak and sp3

 i do however think that there is enough(for me anyways) plain skins for the mil. figures:) especially all the merchant resources:)ok, so maybe a little more  second skins:P

 and yep, complete packages  with morphs, textures, and some clothes and hair ,alltho ive seen a few:)

more height morphs for all the figures:)for example:)

and hmmmm..lemme think.  im sure  no matter what, there will always be new things for all the figures popping up at the mp:D and ill buy thins  when i see something nice:D for my vicky w a sword in a temple:P hehe yess i love fantasy  so that d be cool to see more of too and maybe a morph or more of, hayden (ani skywalker) paul walker,  keanu reeves:P yummie.hehee.   etc etc.

 have a good day/evening etc all:) p. s .overall ,im happy w all the things:P

Please, please, please, PLEASE let me see more male clothes!! And hair! I have like what... 4 different clothes for M3?! That, to me, is pathetic, compared to the dozens I have for V3 and Aiko. I would especially like to see some nice hair. But just some clothes! For YT Luke, M3, Hiro, David... Any of them! Just make some good clothes, characters, and hair. Anyone?

Um, what they said up there... Also... when you include a bonus texture for someone else's freebie, please tell me where to find it. Your bonus texture is useless as an incentive to me if I don't have the freebie & can't find it. Also make sure the freebie is still available. That's been frustrating for me. I want more ordinary, everyday faces, mostly for women, but especially for men. I like beautiful models, love Barbie & Ken, but SOMEBODY in the kingdom needs to be ordinary, ya know. So many ladies out there with bee-stung lips & overly made-up cat eyes. I've already got the stuff I need to turn V3 into a tramp-- give me a plain skin & a few normal makeup options. And ordinary doesn't necessarily mean ugly, but a few uglies here & there wouldn't hurt. Also some decent older face textures for both male & female characters, hair with grey streaks-- not just an all-platinum hair texture. Gotta have the wise elders in the clan. I don't use second skins for the most part. Thy don't look right, and only in a few cases have they been useful to me-- on School Babe Katie, she has a second skin bra & panty that peek out from her shirt & skirt. In this case the second skin clothing was perfect. In my gallery, I have a picture called Throne of the Fallen, where the shirt would have been better as a second skin since it's so hard to get sheer clothing to look right. I'm only on DAZ studio so I couldn't comment on displacement maps, etc. I use M3 the most simply because there is more available for him. I don't know how easy it is to do, but making packages for men that will work for both M3 and D3 would encourage me to use D3 a lot more than I do. There is enough stuff to turn male models into one of the Village People at this point too. Not that there's anything wrong with gay or homoerotic, but I'm tired of it & I want some good manly men to cuddle with my girls. I want masculine looks for the clothes, refined, manly, with options to turn off the darn ruffles if I don't want them. At this point, however, any male products would be welcome. I would also like to see more quality facial expressions. Whether included in a character pack, or a pack of expressions on its own, a good facial expression can really help set the mood in a compostion. I want more jewelry too, lots more... maybe packs of jewelry by itself.. (can't get enough of that wonderful shiny stuff...) and not just LOTR looking things. I would love to see some tiaras in the 19th century style, tiaras like Princess Diana wore that sit on top of the head, with a morph or two for a perfect fit. (Geoffrey Munn has a great book on tiaras called Tiaras: A History of Splendour that has a lot of great, high-quality pictures of what I'm talking about.) I don't just want a wire that wraps around the neck or head; I want sparkling stones on which I can reset the colors to anything I need. Ironically the closest thing I have been able to find is a $1.99 jewelry set for V1 at DAZ that I twist & resize to get something close to what I need. (I have a picture in my gallery called Winter Walk that illustrates this.) Many times a tiara is just a necklace turned upside down with the separate elements re-positioned so it will look right. Don't know how hard it would be, or what the market is for it, but you DID ask what we want in a pack... I'd better quit whil I'm ahead here... :-)

Excellent ideas!  I know for me this thread has been a huge help as I dont use male chartacters that much and  was encouraged to create one from teh responses in this thread.  He isnt a glamour puss.. just an regular ol' guy..LOL

:D  id love to see someone maybe make more retro like clothes! from the 80s :P lol. i asked someone ages ago. but i havent heard from him:( so heres hopin someone else will thnx

Well, I'm damn glad that Daz is releasing some very cool clothes for the guys in their new sale! ^_^ Why not make some clothes like thoses? Maybe a ninja or kunoichi? :) Or how about just some cool fantasy clothes like they wear in LOTR?

I did not know how to make cloths, but here is great ideas, if your up for the challange or if is the right thread to tell this. I or we (hehe) sure can use a Leather Jacket for any character that has fringe. Leather jacket with Fringe. Driving gloves....how about that for hot poser vehicles, or even for the bikers? Or any dress, outfit that can do with fringe. I feel the eyes really need work for the characters. Homeless outfits? You know what I mean what they wear. Hair curlers? That morning look with that stuff (blue past) on V3's face. Slippers? Bunnies slippers? Even for the guys..lol. Really could do good with Mechanical outfits, like coveralls. Pilot outfits (todays). Women do fly Jets to you know, not only us guys. Umm...Bio suits?

EXCELLENT IDEAS!

maybe sum more baby clothes? :) like shoes, socks, gloves , like winterr clothes etc:)

Rebel is doing something I think all good vendors should do every now and again "ask the customer what THEY would like", and I for one appreciate it.  Thank you!!

SO, I want it ALL!!!! (j/k)

Seriously though...

I would like a character where you can change the eye lash color, brow colors, pubic hair colors.  For example, If I was creating a red head, I would like to have the ability to change the pubic hair to match the colorof the head of hair.

I don't know if this could even be done, but I would also like more characters to have a "wet" overlay, so it looks like someone got out of the pool, shower, etc.

More M3 Characters???  There's a plethora(sp?) of V3 characters, but not a whole heck of a lot of M3

Great idea.. some of which I actually have in the works:D  SO keep an eye out!

oh, oh, oh, oh...me, me, me, me.

I had another idea...more characters of other races for both V3 and M3

I would also like to see more African americans, Spanish, some more indians (such as aztecs, incans, etc), arabic characters.

I would also like to see more morphs where you could convert a Victoria 3 character from an adult to a pre-teen (12ish) to someone who just turned 21 (especially in the face)

As for M3 characters - more rugged charaacters.  The M3 characters I have all look like late teens to early 20s...kind of limited.

More males... and more and more and more guys ^_^ Not old ones. They just don't go for me. But handsome guys, maybe a few fantasy rugged ones, or maybe some pretty-boy elves? And I agree that there should be a wet texture option... And more eyebrow and lash colours! Even if they are painted on. And an option to turn pubic hair completely off, as in none at all. And an option for no makeup at all, just bare skin.

These things would be great please :)

More M3 Characters?...
Luke and David are in more urgent need of stuff than Barbie V3 and Melon-shoulders M3!!!. Both of them are inmenselly more suitable for creating thin and "normal" non muscular big-guy characters than M3. Soon or later I will create a gallery and I will show the 18 elfic characters I created using only Luke and David!!!!. Poor characters are still nude because I can only find zillions of busty sexy high-heeled last fashion clothing for V3 and almost nothing for Luke or for David.

Houses, fields, complements, tools, clothing are needed more than characters. What about a decent detailed blacksmith stuff, for instance, or a peasant equipment with clothing and tools for the farm?.

Some decent textures for Luke and David, yes, for instance, a pair of decent textures one could use as a base for other changes and adaptations (at last a texture without 25 glossy lips, 36 prostitute make-ups and 26 nail colors I beg !!!!).

Some normal hair for Luke. And please, hair designers, don't forget to add a "HAT" morph. It's frustrating when one tries to put a turbant or a cap or a helm on his character just to see the hair under can't be fit.

The "wet" one is a GOOD IDEA, not only for a guy out of bath, but for a guy under the rain or a guy sweated after work or a run. This remembers me...where is a "wet hair" object or morph?...it's idiot a wet character whose hair is perfectly dry... (!!!???)

I would resume, EVERYTHING is welcome except another V3 character or another last fashion V3 new dress. When I visit Marketplace section every morning I can do this in few seconds: "...for V3...for V3...for V3...for (urgh!...)Clark...for V3".

Put your imagination to work and forget Poser as a Barbie-dresser and begin using this as a fantasy creator!!!!

I agree with the above! I just got David and go to get some nice clothes and characters... And there's none?! I mean, c'mon people! More Luke and David clothes would be nice! Wet textures, especially for guys would be handy too. Yeah, I've been wanting to make a rainy scene for a while, but how to do that without making your character look wet?! I can't paint very well, so it's out of the question for wet clothes and hair to be painted on. So please, wet clothes, wet hair.... And wet textures for the guys! Poor little boys feel like they're abandoned in all the Barbie wanna-be V3 things.

Oh! And I know! More environment things. Like big trees, whole groups of them to make forests without using Bryce or Vue. And more water things and islands are nice too! Or how about some decent forest grounds instead of paved paths and roads?

And more hair would be nice. Hear me! More hair for the guys in that style of anime/game type stuff that they have in anime and games!

Thanks ^_^
Ilenora

Realism. Tired of characters looking all the same. Makeup is fine if it goes with the character. Also getting tired of the skimpy outfits. I personally prefer second skins, that way you don't have to postwork outfits to death that don't cover THOSE areas which shouldn't be showing.

That's all I'm saying for now...

Oh yeah! No more skimpy outfits!!! The thing I hate most about all the outfits on this site are the "hardly cover anything" tops and bottoms. All those g-string panties and bikini tops. And all those morphs to open, pull up, pull off, pull down... I mean how can you even like those?! Please, more nice outfits would be great :) If you're a merchant thinking of making another tiny micro bikini, please don't.

Second skins are okay, if there's not skimpy. And they have really good bump/displacement maps to make them look like real clothes. And maybe a built in morph to add spandex across things like breasts so that they don't look skintight.

I personally like skin textures with maybe just one or 2 makeup option and a texture with no (or very little) eyeliner and maybe just a hint of lip color...especially for Aiko.  3 or 4 eye colors are good too, but I really don't care about the nails.  I love well done second skins!

a terrific package:

always a natural, normal version.

always head AND body morph INJ/REM instead of all-in-one

I don't like the bonus clothing package . . . seems backwards to me . . . if plugging a specific clothing product with bonus' . . . would prefer that they were for 'FREE and available for download' instead of something that will cost you more money to schieve the entire look of the package; I think painted on clothing is ok, though I haven't seen any I would seriously contemplate using.

(young girls at home:  if it's ok for grandma to use, then it's okay to wear . . . so grandma don't touch it!)

in clothing packages I would REALLY, REALLY appreciate somekind of panties with short skirts so I dare bending the characters!

Character packages . . . no nipple + shadow colors + BROW and lash colors + blush colors + dark and light skins would be a PLUS (though they would require doubles of all the extra color) + nail colors (finger AND toe)

the thing that frost's me more than anything else is developer's who support everyone EXCEPT SP3!!--especially in shoes...

nothing frustrates me more than seeing a great outfit, and knowing there'll be a version for every other millinium figure except my favorite!!

what's the deal?--has she got cooties or something?

I would like one no-make-up option.

 And a few really good realistic eyes. If your character is Asian or N.A., or African-American, give her at least one set of brown or black eyes.