Okay, let's try this again, as we play Follow the Bouncing Forum... I had a brainwave yesterday and realized that the biggest problem with P4 Dorkboy is that his face is ugly. Just plain un-aesthetic and unrealistic. And even though some great morph targets have been made which improve him tremendously, maybe the answer is to scrap his face entirely (his body is fine) and just start over. Voila, my attempt at it. It's a very early beta (as you can tell... there are visible gaps and seams in the head mesh, and the texture map is in the early stages), but this gives you an idea of what I'm after. I think this new version of the Head mesh could be successful, but there are some significant difficulties with it -- continued in the next message.

- Much higher polygon count in the new Head than the old. Not everyone's system will be able to handle the new Head mesh.

• Poser's existing facial morphs (all of the expressions, etc) don't work on the new head, because of the differing poly count. (But I am working on a new set of expression morph targets for this head.)
• Right now I am using the New Head as a replacement for the old (Replace Body Part with Prop function.) I need to integrate it as part of a completely new Poser figure for the best results.
• Biggest of all (and this is a very significant problem), the model I based this new head on is a Cyberware scan of someone's real head. I need to find out who the copyright owner of the mesh is, and if I can't get permission to distribute it, I won't be able to make the New Head generally available to Forum members.

So there you have it. It's nice to at least see a Poser man who can hold his own in aesthetics next to the many Poser babes. Any suggestions on the above problems and issues from heads wiser than mine will be welcome. I have now tried posting this message three times, and if it doesn't go through this time, I'm going to give up and wait until the Forum message board is more stable. Time to go back to pushing polygons. -Nemo

Aside from the copyright issues you mention, I see no problem! It's about time someone tried to give the P-guy a better mug. I guess Zygote spent so much time creating the perfect woman they didn't have time to make a comparable man, but just threw one together. Good work, Nemo. Newc (Ring around the Poser forum again?)

YAHHHHHH!!! Go for it!!! If you can't get permission I will sculpt a head out of clay, mark out a grid for the polygons and MAIL it to you!!! FINALLY!!!! (subtle note to Metacreations and Zygote - what good is having all these perfect women around if the guys are all uglier than the south end of a diaretic mandrill? The Poser world will rapidly de-populate!0

Nemo, this (HE) is wonderful. I hope MY machine is capable of handling it if you can make it available. Just great work (and totally beyond my capabilities so really glad someone decided to take the plunge). Diane

All I can say is WOW! That is SOOOO much better, who knows, even I might start adding more males to my pictures if I had that to work with! };]

it's about time someone did this. -Gabe-

That's amazing! Hope you can work out the copyright. Great job! Coldrake

Maybe some of the Amphorium guys can recreate that head using MTs (like Traveller)...

Maybe you should apply for a job at Zygote and help them out a little bit. This is great. Thank goodness we're finally seeing some interest in the Poser man. The Beauty and the Beast theme was getting a little stale. Wonderful work! Melanie

I agree with the above!!! Great job! You definitely need to go for it! You should make some more while you're at it! The women are way too beautiful and the men way too boring. There will need to be lots of morph targets though, so that it can be animated and be as changeable as ugly boy. If you modify the head a little from the scan/pic so that it is still attractive, but looks like a different person, will u still be infringing on copyrights? I think that may be a solution to your problem, but I am not a lawyer, so perhaps a better head can comment on that idea... While you're at it, can you please make some old heads too? Trying to make accurate old people with poser seems like it would be very difficult. On any morph targets that I've seen so far, the wrinkles and aging does not look real, and I don't even think I've seen any extremely old poser characters anywhere. People are way too obsessed with the young and beautiful!!!

Some people have tried a few elderly faces, but they look sort of cartoonish. We need something more ralistic. Melanie