Mathman - thanks and yeah, I've found displacement is a neat way of adding all kinds of detail. Only wish I had access to Z-Brush.
Thanks for other kind words about renders and morphs etc. If I get a chance I'll try and put together a detailed rendering tutorial when I get some time (working very hard ATM) - although I'd really recommend searching these and other forums for tips and studying them at length. Knowing what you want to achieve is a good start, and accept that it will take hours, days.

I won't profess to knowing anything about making a living from 3d (since I don't). I think there will always be a market for high quality clothing, textures, morphs, figures or whatever for 3d. However, IMO the real dynamic that people have to get their heads around is how the markets are working - who pulls the strings, carries the real weight etc? That might bear more consideration than what one individual might do, especially in the case of figure design and marketing. Look at how may people bought V4 and how many products hit the arena in a relatively short space of time.
If Apollo wasn't considered a threat to content creators or marketplaces while he was for sale (there’s a double meaning in there somewhere), why now that he's going to be free? If people really like him and use him (and there's nothing to say that they will) then it could inspire all kinds of ideas (for figure creators to really push the envelope) and potential products for the future. Be inspired, cash in. What have you got to lose?
I think that, as one poster here pointed out (and Anton has publically stated on his website) Apollo was retired for other reasons than purely financial ones. I'm pretty sure he's smart enough to assume that if people get on well with Apollo and demand stuff making for him, he wouldn't begrudge that support (whether free or commercial).

 I don’t think that arguments like “when people offer stuff up for free it hurts the commercial market” really represent the situation in all fairness.  I do know that people’s interests can get hurt by business strategies that companies (rather than individuals) make, so I think that there is much more to ponder on here. 

 

Incidentally, I think even if Anton were about to release just the 2006 version of Apollo (with the equivalent of hundreds of morphs, multiple textures, clothing items, hair, character add-ons) it’d still be without doubt the most complete “Free”  figure I’ve ever seen.

 

 

PoserPro2014(Sr4), Win7 x64, display units set to inches.

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