Quote - Well, I don't know that apologies are warranted. I think we all saw exactly what DAZ wanted us to see. And, no, this is not a slam against DAZ. If nothing else, DAZ demonstrates consistently that they are aware of marketing concepts-- and that they're pretty damned good at them.

They're about to release their new flagship male figure... They look around at the competition, (competition being any male figure with any significant marketshare that was not made by DAZ) far ahead of the pack is Apollo, mid way are the G2 figures and then pulling up the rear are Rikishi, Clarke and Vincent Parker. Well, they can't compete with Vincent Parker, because his strength is low polygons, not an area DAZ has a strong interest in... The promo pictures released in the preview thread had the now detached Apolloish image, an image that had a Clarkish feel (young, soft male) and a large rotund figure -- clearly Rikishish. Earlier images I've heard described as looking like James.

The message is clear. If you like those looks, M4 can capture them. The more subtle message is that you can have your "Apollo (Clark, Rikishi, James) Look" with DAZ "support". With the preponderance of clothing converters on the market one of the greatest deterrents to the success of all the other male models has been the lack of good or great texture maps. Right out of the gate, preceding the figure's release, you know that you can use TC2 to convert all of your favorite M3/D3/H3 or Freak textures to M4. You know that the clothing converters will produce plugins for M4. You know that DAZ will produce clothing for him. Not as much as for V4, but certainly more than any of the competition, with the possible exception of the G2 men.

So, yeah, I agree with Esther. The image was removed, but it served DAZ's purpose. It increased chatter, which leads to interest, anticipation, speculation... All things that DAZ  wants to precede the release.

My guess as to the release date is October 9... Steal whatever thunder Content Paradise /Smith-Micro can muster for the long awaited release of Olivia.

I'm not sure about Apollo leading the pack, I have allways perfered David 3. This is cause you can buff him up a lot better than Apollo. For example David's abs. Apollo does have some advantages.... different rigging, foot and toes adj. I hope that Mike 4 combines the best of both
David 3, and Apollo, or the new Apollo 2008 combines the best of the old Apollo, and David 3.

What we need now most of all is a texture converter to convert textures back, and forth between
the different characters out there, and Apollo. It strikes me very discrimatory, that you can transfer textures between all the different characters out there, using the old universal texture converter, and soon (prob) with the new texture converter. But, NOT apollo.