What I’m looking for is the best looking male counter part for V3 or V4.

Which one is the easiest to work with, as well as having the most available outfits and accessories?

Also, needs to have a good verity of figure skin textures to choose from.

“I don't want to spend money on a figure that just doesn't work well; can you help me?”

My vote goes for Michael 2 from DAZ3D (I think he's free), or Apollo Maximus (who I know for a fact is free!). Michael 2 is a great figure "right out of the box" so to speak. Michael 3 is also good, but you need to purchase additional morphs just to get him to do things as simple as open his mouth. The overall figure quality of Michael 2 is just as good, and you won't need a bunch of extra stuff just to work with him.
Apollo Maximus, from Anton Kisiel, is completely free, as are an awful lot of clothes and textures. And the quality of the figure, and the clothing sets, is fantastic! Out of the two, I'd have to say Apollo is probably better, but not by much. Michael 2 is also a great figure!
If you look in my gallery, you'll see "American Muscle" and "American Muscle 2". The men in those is Apollo. In my other piece, "Rotten Beefcake" the vampire is Michael 2. I'm working on some others right now with him, having recently "redsicovered" what a joy it is to work with him.
If you choose either of these guys, or both, you can't lose!

And that's my 2 cents worth. Whatever your final decision, drop me a line and let me know what you think,

Arrowhead42

Unfortunately, with males at this time, it's a case of can't have your cake and eat it too. 

As far as best working model, I'd have to say Apollo. Anton has made considerable clothing available as well, but some items just aren't covered, ie. business clothing. With Bagginsbill's shading system, texturing is pretty much taken care of for use within Poser 5+. Hair is beginning to be fitted automatically to AM by vendors such as AprilYSH, Ali, and lastly FK Designs with her first unisex hairstyle, Paris 65. Using Apollo with V3, it always struck me that V3 was way outclassed. However, the V4 / AM combination looks pretty good to me.

Michael 2, is still very well loved, but I don't know that he has all that much in the way of textures, clothing... and certainly no new items are being made. He's at DAZ, far as I know, he is not free.

David has his fans, can wear all of M3's textures, not much in the way of support for clothing.

M3. Yeah, he has his detractors, but I just love his face. Huge support (for a male figure). Probably has 90% of the male clothing market tied up. And with the advent of a free AM it seemed DAZ stepped up a bit on the support angle. There have been derivatives that claim to work better, joint wise. PDXJims created M3 Revisited, grouped like David, takes all D3/V3 morphs, can wear M3 Clothes and use unimesh textures...  (And, he's on sale 50% off on 7/4/07) poserpros.daz3d.com/store/viewitem.php

I also like the G2 males, but, there's little to no support for them.

Edited to add...
With Apollo Max being free, maybe you should download him and Bagginbill's Shader system and get a feel for whether he'll work for you.  No money spent...

Thanks Kalon, I think i'll do just that.

I will add my vote for Apollo here.  Soon enough he will have alot more clothing.  I work with him and V4 together all the time and I love it.  The way his textures work has something to be desired but Bagginsbill solved that for us all.

Although I will agree with the general consensus that Apollo Max is the "best", Mike 2 is still my "go to" make figure because there is - despite popular rumour - a lot of stuff available for him.  You just have to hunt around sometimes.  For example, PoserWorld has tons of outfits for Mike 2.  And for just about every other figure, for that matter. 

I'm also used to working with Mike 2 and he's a lot more versatile than people would have you believe.

IMO, Mike 3 is a waste of time and I wouldn't have him if it wasn't for the fact that I'm a vendor.

But I sure love AM. Here's another test render, showing a few of my shader presets. I twisted a couple dials on each head and loaded some of the alternate faces.

I'd love to get your presets but the server keeps giving me a database error. Anywhere else to download them?
Thanks,
Marque

Divshare keeps going up and down - grrr.

Semidieu is hosting them on his ShaderWorks site, temporarily. Try once more to get them from divshare, because I like to keep the download count up to date. But if that fails on you again, go here:

poser.rois-sorciers.com/ShaderWorks/AMUCS.html

Also, Apollo has a growing suppot of some talented content creators, which I think will only grow bigger.
In the meantime, if you want, you can use Phil C's Wardrobe Wizard to convert clothing from other Poser Males to Apollo.
IMNVHO, Apollo is head and shoulders above other male characters :)

Apollo. Followed by the G2 males, but with a distance. Clothing support is best for M3, though.

Sounds like this guy Apollo seems to be the number one figure.

If you are looking for a great character for M3 then look here:
http://market.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/index.php?ViewProduct=57196

I have also posted my first render using Andre and his brother Pierre in my gallery

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1473118

Changing your post to make the links clickable.

If you are looking for a great character for M3 then look here:

http://market.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/index.php?ViewProduct=57196
I have also posted my first render using Andre and his brother Pierre in my gallery

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1473118

many thanks

Apollo is too fat-faced for me to appeal to me. (Sorry Anton)
I like it when I can make them look gaunt, and I can't seem to do it with AM. Probably my limitation, not that of the figure, but his face just never appealed to me.

I like M3 and I've grown slightly fond of David too.

I have to agree with Silke, though to me its not just his face.

Technically I have to admit AM is very impressive (though I haven't got my head round the "don't conform the clothing" thing), but  to me he always looks plump.

I would be impressed if someone could produce a morph for a skinny/angular person from him -David Tennant (the current Dr Who) maybe?

A quick scan of my recent renders shows that I have overwhelmingly been using M3, followed by David (mostly for elves etc). I find M3 quite versatile, and the amount of clothing available for means I have more chance of getting the look I'm after with him rather than any other figure.

My vote goes to M2(The angels above):  

Click on my signature, for my gallery of him. 

Else, the attached image(biege background) is a D3 WIP I'm working on.  You may lean toward him a little, becasue he is a Unimesh Figure like V3.  Which means they share Textures easy enough; and even morphs, or so I've heard, with a little tweaking from Lightwave.

Also, I've recently purchased Ultimate Body morphs, for the G2 Males.  I'll tell you I'm pleasantly surprised by my first poke at them.  I still need to sit and hammer out a WIP, but when I do I'll be back.  For now, here is the default MOR for JamesG2(the animated GIF:)

Just do'nt forget the Face Room would come with JamesG2!

 1 Apollo
 2 David
 3 Mike 2
 4 G2
 5 Hiro
 6 Dork
 7
 8
 9
 10 
 and the very bottom  Mike3 ... the only good thing about M3 is David can use his textures.

Support Apollo !!!!

it really matters what you want.  it helps to keep in mind that these are all excellent figures, and it's possible to do great things with any one of them.

apollo is very versatile, poseable, free and very, very well supported.  apollo is a rock solid quality figure.  he's got great bending, good skin shader made cutting edge by bagginsbill, immense support and he's free.   you can use him for anything from a baby to an elderly man (see carodan's work).    i cannot say enough about his quality, or the generosity and talent of those supporting him.  he's incredibly versatile, and can pull-off everything from baby to youth to dwarf to superhero to sumo wrestler.incredible range, great flexibility, and by far the most technically advanced poser figure out there.

on the other hand, he's low definition compared to most figures. he's got incredible joints, but they're round instead of pointed (elbows)  or square/rectangular (knees).  there are displacement maps to help, but i still see people saying they couldn't eliminate his "puffiness," and to be honest i haven't seen anything that did to my eyes.

so if you're wed to either bony (as in bones showing, not  just thin) or really defined musculature, he might be a problem.   people who like very muscluar male characters, or even just craggy and lean ones, seem to have some complaints about not getting him to fit their style. so, just to clarify to the many apollo devotees, i'm just saying that he does have a style and that it doesn't necessarily suit everyone, and the people he doesn't suit seem to want more definition.    i'd bet he makes  great bishounen elf types, and i've seen him make all different sorts and ages of "every-men."  but if you want to recreate your favorite rob liefeld cover, he's not the easiest starting point.  in that case, you probably want the freak (who is so limited, i didn't include him in the critiques).

m3 is middle of the pack on all fronts.  not the greatest bending, but about on par with v3.  not the greatest musculature, but again about on par with v3.  other than a few stupendous custom characters for him, he doesn't really stand out in any area but support.  because he's michael, most male products are made for him.  this is really, really important when, for instance, one builds a scene with a great aery soul sci-fi outfit on a figure in a stonemason scene, and then one needs the female to have a male counterpart that doesn't look underdressed (or overdressed, depending on how you look at it).  the only outfits i know of that might work with 2035 girl or skorpio rising are for m3.  same goes for outfits to match  white rose and moondancer.  david (discussed below) has some possibilities, but only a few, imho.

david is better in terms of bending, morphing and even, imho, more masculine and realistic face.  and while he's more petite at default, like all the unimesh crew (and most figures, for that matter), his legs and arms scale just fine, and you can play with proportions.  he's unimesh, so he can take m3's textures.  but of course not his clothes, and while david has a decent wardrobe, he could use some help. 

and at all that, he's still only marginally better than m3.  while i really notice a difference, i'm not sure anyone who didn't use poser, i.e., your average generic gallery visitor,  would notice anything at all.  he's still unimesh, and prone to some basic unimesh flaws (joints!).  basically, he's an improvement (as a later model, this makes sense), but he's not a leap forward.

david is  good if what you want is a better answer than m3 to the sure bet of support for a daz figure. 

all of the above have morphs by capsces. capsces' morphs can truly make a difference between a figure being frustratingly limited and amazingly versatile.  and yes, the already incredibly versatile apollo has capsces morphs.  they look amazing.

then we have the eF generation 2 males.  i'm assuming you don't have poser 6 or any of the original males (james 1, koji).  the three share the same body which has bending problems i'm sure people can tell you about.  what the g2 males (koji, james, kelvin and simon) all have are bodies which are fairly defined and faces that are very individual and full of character.  personally, i haven't found figures with faces that have amazed me the way my first glimpse of miki1 and koji1 did.  and even james 1 i've made into some pretty interesting characters in the face room.  the g2 males still impress me facially.  but i personally wish their heads were attached to david's body (not apollo only because of the style and detail differential).  and while support of the G2 figures seems to be steady on the part of eF and eF affiliates, it's still tiny compared to unimesh support.

basically, if you're looking for figures with lots of individuality and character, and you're willing to work for your pose, check out the eF guys.   but don't if you want a blank slate to develop your characters on.

m2 is a version back, but still has some uses.  he was given away free as a bonus to platinum club members, iirc.  he also has one of the earliest capsces' morph sets (boris).  many (including myself) have a hard time morphing away his gi-normous default pecs (called man-boobs by some), but others have had no problem at all.  he becomes massive pretty easily, where the unimesh crew needed the freak to fill that role.  that said, his hands and feet stay tiny.  in terms of bending he's 2 generations behind v4 and probably 6 or more behind apollo. 

if you can get him cheap or free, he's probably worth a try (hard for  me to say only because i collected his freebies when he was current, not recently).  or if you really want,  to do defined superhero type physiques.   many people more knowledgable than i regarding musculature and anatomy put him at the top for that.  but his flaws make him comparatively limited unless you're willing to put time in.  he has some great characters, and people have done some wonderful stuff with him.  just as is true with v2.  and with that comes the codicil that they don't have any of the improvements to figures that have been discovered in the past several years.

then there are the p4 based guys who are also free. domus with his scaling and remapping, dphoadley's duke (remapped to take m3 textures), and i think there are few others floating out there.  to me, the interesting thing about these are they're low poly and have new techniques applied to them.  people aren't afraid to experiment with the old figures, and it's great to see what's possible.  it would probably be a good idea to look at p4 male morphs and such if you're looking to do all animation and are rendering with smoothing.   especially considering that modern dynamic clothes can be fit to practically anyone.

so, yes, apollo wins the all-around (hands down), but m3 wins best supported, david is a runner up on support and surpasses m3 on technical, g2 males win most personality (out of the box), m2 wins the body-building award, and p4 male solutions win the lightweight and indie award.   

that's my synopsis.  i'm sure others will have other opinions.

I've used just about every 'modern' Poser male figure, and without fail I return to Apollo again and again.

If you want a character you can call your own, it's got to be Apollo. He's flexible enough to become practically anyone (and in some cases any-thing!).

With BagginsBill's shader you've got the whole gamut of nationalities covered, and with Carodan's ADS character packs you've got just about every concievable shape and size covered to. Plus there are three volumes of clothing packs from Anton that are also free, and can be combined and adapted into dozens of outfits. What's best about him is he, and the shader/character/clothing packs I mentioned are all free!

Just a thought, but M3 is no longer free at DAZ, so this may be a indication of a new release.

And Apollo is much cuter!
Sorry, I don't like gaunt emaciated men. And Michael is sort of, um, horse faced. Maybe him and Stephanie are related ;)

Kitty... retract claws.

Here's another render of him.  DukeM3 is neither puffy nor emaciated, and while maybe not quite as flexible as Apollo, he's very easy on the resources.  With BastBlack's new Duke face morph for the P4 male, and now that he can be textured with some really decent skin textures, I think that some really good artwork can be achieved with both him and PosetteV3.
DPH
DPH

I'm always impressed by the results you manage to squeeze out of these aging models DPH, but ultimately it's not completley appropriate to put these in the same company as Apollo and V4.

Sure, decent artwork COULD be made, but you'd have a much harder time of it.

They may be light on resources, but even on my pig of a secondary machine (512MB RAM, I kid you not) I've managed to simultaneously render five fully clothed and texured Apollos at production quality (reduced bucket size of course). Although I'd never dream of doing this with V4.

I simply do not understand why people say Apollo has a fat face - his face can be sculpted using the on-board morphs that come with his head.

Thanks for the support and kind words.

Apollo is free and was good enough for Daz to emulate much of his design from leg joints to mapping, scaling to mouth parts, brows to materials directly for V4 two years later. :) Obviously they think he is the best too.

And did I say he is free? Don't let the free thing fool you though. He is the top level of Poser Character quality. And he bends the best without gimmicks. He can look anyway you want if you take the time to morph or scale him. And he is lots of fun to use.

DiveShare was doing maintenance and is back up. Just go download him and save your self a few hundred bucks.

Be sure to grab the free face room module. Have fun and be sure to enjoy.

Cheers.

Quote - Kitty... retract claws.

Ooops, I start playing, and then shread things... by accident :(
[runs and hides under the bed] :blink:

"Just a thought, but M3 is no longer free at DAZ, so this may be a indication of a new release."
Two things:

I doubt they would have left his name the same, like V4 - V4.1 has changed.

Go to Download.com, and search for DAZ..  Among the things you will find is a Figure Pack with the Bases for; V3, M3, Aiko, and Hiro.

All of which are practically useless without morphs...which will cost you.

Trust me, you wont be dissapointed with Apollo.

Quote - "Just a thought, but M3 is no longer free at DAZ, so this may be a indication of a new release."
Two things:

I doubt they would have left his name the same, like V4 - V4.1 has changed.

Go to Download.com, and search for DAZ..  Among the things you will find is a Figure Pack with the Bases for; V3, M3, Aiko, and Hiro.

Angel-

Anniebel pointed out that M3 is no longer free, because remember V3 was free also at DAZ3d, until the release of V4.

But both V3 and M3 are free, if you know where to look.
Sit file: http://www.download.com/3001-2180_4-10581780.html
Zip file: http://www.download.com/3001-6677_4-10581779.html
DPH

Hiro has some interesting surprises: he has a "realistic" morph that makes the face... well... realistic, and he ahs a body morph that allows him to use David's clothing.

Quote - Here's my latest render using both him and PosetteV3.
DPH

Aww... Duke is so cute. ^^
But I am biased.    ;)

Duke (p4male)
Duke has the most free clothing, hair, and textures. He is low res and fast to work with. Great for a newbie to Poser.  I would have LOVED to have Duke back when I first started. The new UVmap is great! ^^

M2
The best Muscles in Poserdom go to M2. If you want a body builder, go to M2. There is no equal when it comes to muscle. ;)

Apollo
Apollo is a must have. He is now free. He poses well and has many marvelious innovations. He is a great morphing character too. He comes with many  quality goodies.

Hiro
Hiro is Daz's unimesh Anime male. He is Daz's best morphing and posing male. I love it! And he has great expressions too. So cute! ^^

David
David is an inbetween figure, an improvement on M3 and precursor to Hiro. David is smaller than M3 but poses better.

G2 Males
Koji is the best Asian male, and he has the most expressive face of the males too! James also has also very realisic face. The trade-off to this is that's harder to get way from their default look (much the same problem with M2). The G2 versions are an improvement in posing, but their meshes tend to look lower res when compaired to the Big Daddy of the males... M3.

M3
M3 is the moviestar of Poserdom and the most widely supported with clothing, textures, hair, and poses. He does have his flaws (shoulders cough). But, imho, M3 has a perfect default shape, I don't need to mess with his body shape. He is my figure of choice because I do mostly closeups, and his excellent uvmaps and high res mesh allow for amazing morphs and characters! See image above. ^^

bB

Finally... A little M3 love!

****DISCLAIMER - these are just my opinions

**
APOLLO:**
By far, my favorite figure.  Not only is he free, but he bends well and with little effort, you can make really diverse characters.  He's not so polygon heavy that renders begin to drag as well.  Plus, he has free faceroom support.

**M3:M3's default mesh isn't much to look at.  Being built from V3 gives him a rather feminine look.  But with textures and some morphs injected, he can make some decent characters.  He's definitely a figure that doesn't look as good shirtless because of his awkward shoulders.
**
DAVID:
David is certainly better rigged than M3.  His face morphs are more intuitive in terms of characters.  He does seem to have less morphs though than M3.

M2:
I like M2's face better than the other DAZ figures.  His morphs were very intuitive, but he had some odd issues with his pecs and shoulders.

G2 MALES:
The G2 males are sort of redundant - they should have been only one figure with more diverse options (being able to blend between characters would have been great too).  The shoulders are very odd.

RIKISHI:
I like this guy - he doesn't have a whole lot out there for him, but he's a very different figure from everything else out there.

FREAK:
Not a bad figure, but it's very difficult to come up with reasons to actually use him.

PROJECT HUMAN MALE:
Sixus1 figure - his rigging is pretty on par with P6 James.  I like his face and character options.  The only real issue is that his chest seems (to me) to be a little too wide.

BEHEMOTH:
Sixus1 figure on par with the FREAK. 

ADAM2:
Precursor to the Project Human Male.

DON:
Don had very little built-in advanced shaping morphs as there was the idea that the face room would catch on more.  I think I have only made one character that I liked with Don.

DORK:
From the beginning, I really had a hard time working with the Dork.  The dork is really dependent upon free morphs and content to make him usable.

**HECTOR:**A low poly figure from poserworld designed to be a scene filler.

 oh, and that reminds me.  if you're interested in japanese freebie support, p4 male, hiro and m3 are your best bets.  the p4 male (i think) has the most custom morphs, but  KTG made a custom head for m3 that's absolutely amazing:

his picture here in the gallery
the download page

Quote - Finally... A little M3 love!

Key word  "little"...

That's a great freebie cobalt. I don't know how I missed it.

My vote goes to M2, James & Don. 

M2 is the main DAZ male I do use. He's posing well, you can turn him into lot's of different persons. Content for him is reasonable priced, since he's an older figure and he takes M1 stuff also. Best of all, no hassle with injections and so on.

I do like Don & James also and with the help of faceroom you can turn them into many persons also. Best of all is the price.... basically free if you own Poser 6. They're very underestimated figures and you can turn them into somehing really good. They do have the advantage of looking more real then the others around.

I'm creating mainly comics with the figures and it seems that grown-ups do relate more to James & Don, then they do to the Millenium figures.

I never got into using Apollo and M3, I don't like the way they look. M3 is simply to expensive if you really want o make good use of him and with every Apollo variation I see, it always feels like they all look a like somehow. M3 is too 'computerish' for me and Apollo for some reason, always looks a bit 'gayish' to me. Don't mean to offend anyone, but that's they he comes accross to me.

If you've never used Apollo I strongly urge you to give him a go. If you want to see just how flexible he can be, head over to Carodan's gallery.

Incidentally, what does 'gay' look like exactly. Offensive (or in this case ignorant) statements can't be qualified with "No offense intended".

aeilkema,
First off, calling something "gayish" isn;t an insult to anyone unless you feel being gay or perceived as gay is negative or something to be considered an insult.

While your comment is borderline "asinine", it is relatively harmless. However, you might want to consider your choice of words if you rather not offend anyone, which has never seemed a concern of yours in the past.

Your usage of the term "gayish" is offensive though. You clearly are using "gayish" as something negative/distasteful or undesirable as a quality or perception.

Might want to browse over that TOS a few times and consider your choice of words before posting such garbage. Even if such a comment comes from a gay person, it is still self-defeating garbage.

Considering the massive chunk of the poser community that is gay or transgender, I am shocked at this one; something not easy to do these days. Perhaps shock and reaction was the point.

It will be interesting to see if a moderator lets that one slide. I think you crossed a line.

I would like to take out the word "borderline" from my statement about.

aelkima, I'll suggest you retract and reword your phrasing. I find it offensive, as does Anton, and I'm sure many more.

If you meant that you find Apollo's (default) face "too feminine" then fine, but say that, you know?

One really can't say that something "looks gay[ish]"... (well not unless it's a publicity still from "Queer Eye", heheh.) Might as well say that V3 looks "too het" or M3 looks "totally vanilla"... or Steph looks "like she works in an office". It's such a huge generalisation as to be meaningless. 

============

Back on topic --

My personal choice is David - his rigging, as someone already mentioned, is great - much better than M3. However, there isn't as much clothing available for him.

Mike 2 I hate with a passion, I'm sorry. I've never seen a M2 morph that managed to significantly "un-mike" him enough for my tastes. Maybe I've just seen him in too many renders. (Anyone remember our old friend "Hairy Man-Boobz"? Those renders still give me nightmares...)

The edit button already is gone.....

Well just make a new post and we'll all read it :o)
Or send me a site mail and I'll be happy to edit your post for you.

Apollo IMHO is by far the most versatile and advanced figure. It takes some time to get a feeling for all that morphs, though. I suspect that to be the reason for the people who thinks he is limited in his looks. 

Of course, every figure has good and bad sides. At the moment I need WW if I want to put Apollo in a business suit, and while WW still is a great program, the result can never be as good as a handmade wardrobe. Hopefully some Vendor will maka a Suit for him.....

ooooooo-kay.  didn't see that brouhaha coming.

ClawShrimp - yeah, i'd say that pic shows a lot of apollos looking pretty much the same.  yeah, different proportions, and different weights, but they all look very apollo.  i've seen great characters from apollo, but not a single one that broke out of the apollo look.

can i say that about any other figure?  ummmmmm, i think i've seen some z-brushed characters for p4 and m2 that were completely different, but i think that's because p4 is free and m2 is either free  or typically people's libraries.  i've seen some very custom m3's and v3's, but vicky and michael are considered the default figures by many.   maybe now that apollo's free, people will begin to treat him similarly.  it's hard to say when most of his users are also fans.  the usage i'm talking about primarily treats the base mesh as a generic male base and imposes a totally new vision on that base.   you just don't do that if you love the base figure.

basically, i don't think it has a thing to do with the quality or versatility of base figures or their included morphs.  trying to argue that you can make a figure look not like the figure is kind of useless.  figures have styles, and really, i've only seen extensive custom morphing by someone other than the original creator move  past that style.  which makes sense, right?  i mean, most artists have a particular style, and anything they do is going to be in that style.  i'd even say it matters more than base mesh.  the new sixus1 lycan pack looks more like each other than any of their base figures.  alice and kielo look more like each other than their base figures. 

if someone doesn't like an artist's style, they shouldn't purchase or download from that artist, simple as that.  is apollo incredibly versatile?  you betcha.  but trying to argue that you can make him look not like apollo with built-in morphs to people who don't like his look is a losing battle.

m2 isn't a bad base, and he has a good deal of versatility.  boris is typically excellent capsces work.  but many still found him too "mike," as karen1573 mentioned.   that's not an insult to his creator or capsces' work, or a reason to try to prove her wrong.    and other characters' strong points aren't reasons to try to convince those who do love m2 that they should switch.

edited to add:  i do think it's relevant to mention if a figure takes to custom morphing well.  frankly, that kind of technical assessment is way beyond my own capabilities, so i'd have to take others' words on that.  that said, since apollo's morphs are highly variable in scale and still render without distortion, i'd bet that his mapping and joints make him easier to morph.  but that's pure speculation on my part.