I've just begun using Michael 4 and the first problem I saw right away is the number of maps subdivisions its body has. I use Apollo Max a lot and very quickly after starting using it I went on 3D Studio and merged his entire UV's for the body into "Skin Body" and the UV's for the head into "Skin Head", since its only 1 image map for each. It's perfect... If I want to change something in the body, I just edit 1 map, and same for the head skin. No side effects. It just helps so much...

Now, Michael M4 is a problem because it has several different image maps, so I cannot merge its UVs as they'll overlap. I can still merge a number of them, shrinking the number of different maps, but my question is: How do you guys deal with it? Suppose you want to change the Diffuse Color for example. Do you just go about editing all his 32 different maps?? What if you render and see that it should be just a bit darker for example? And finally, what about parameters on nodes (not on the main PoserSurface window)? For example, you want to change the "Roughness" on all Specular nodes of all body parts.

I love M4 so far but this little detail is being such a big annoyance...

I Use Baginsbill VSS, I sugest the same for you ;-)

 There are python scripts available that will change all body part colours in one go. At least to white, and I think there must be some where you can select the colours yourself.

Other than that, there's ShaderSpider, which works wonders for something like this :)

The advantage of having several maps is AFAIK that you can get a higher overall resolution of the skin - but except for extreme closeups (and how many extreme closeups of an arm do you really need? L it isn't of much use really...

(someone is bound to pop in and prove me wrong, no doubt L)

Yes, that could be one rea.... HOLY CRAP YOU HAVE 12k POSTS!

I think you may be confused between maps and material zones. I believe that there is one map for the  face, one map for the body and one map for the limbs. Each map covers multiple material zones, so each map gets allocated to multiple materials. You can have 3 maps that cover all materials on the figure. .  

I suppose you could have one map for each material zone but its not needed.

There are scripts that will copy the settings from one material to the others. They tend to be custom written for a specific figure though, at least mine are. :)   If you have a requirement then please post what you want to accomplish and someone is likely to point you to or write you a script to do it.

Well I just merged all the skin into 3 maps: 2 for body, 1 for face. So it's not that bad anymore. Just 1 more than apollo.  Except for the genital that would be another map but I'm not using it anyways...

I just don't get why they break the maps into so many subdivisions. I know I asked this here before but I believe the final word on the issue was: It's not clear why.

Quote - I just don't get why they break the maps into so many subdivisions. I know I asked this here before but I believe the final word on the issue was: It's not clear why.

Though it's been a while since I've last used M4, I can say with confidence (excluding male genitals) that the Mil4 figures use only 5 or 6 maps:

Body and face maps (for diffuse color),
Body and face bumps,
Body and face specular (which is a very welcome addition, IMHO)

However, Mil 4(and Mil 3 for that matter) figures use about 36 material zones (that will appear as copies, not instances in your preferred non-Poser program of choice) which use the same combination of the above mentioned maps. For instance, when you load a default Michael 3, you'll notice he's wearing boxer briefs but otherwise is nude. That's the material zones at work.

Though I don't know the exact reason why they are broken up this way, I can say that it's relatively easy within Poser to apply pants and a t-shirt to a Mil 3 figure with the material zones laid out the way they are, without actually purchasing pants and shirt.

Quote - Though I don't know the exact reason why they are broken up this way, I can say that it's relatively easy within Poser to apply pants and a t-shirt to a Mil 3 figure with the material zones laid out the way they are, without actually purchasing pants and shirt.

I thought clothing didn't interact with the UV's or the materials of a figure. I was under the impresison they only interact with the mesh, even if they didn't have mapping coordinates at all.

the multiple mat zones are for second skin materials, basically so that if you want to apply materials directly to the figure to mimic clothing rather than actually apply conforming or dynamic clothing you can do so easily while still using character materials as well. You might want to do this if say you wanted to apply stockings to the figure, or other tight fitting clothing, or perhaps you are doing a crowd scene and dont want the added polys of actual clothing on background figures, second skin clothing would be fine.
With the advent of newer node based materials, with layering maps, and the ability to mask specular, reflection, and other maps the necessity for all these extra zones is not as great, though they are still very useful for certain things, particularly transparency which you wouldn't want to apply to the whole head just to add it for the eyelashes or eyes, as transparency really adversely effects raytraced rendering effects.

Just to clarify, replicand is talking about "second skins." (Simply painting cloth textures directly onto the model as opposed to conforming clothes which are separate meshes)
The "3 map" approach to M4 and V4 is to facilitate massive texture detail. Given Poser's limits; you'll get much more detail out of 3 4096x4096 maps than you'd get out of one, like Apollo.

Quote - Yes, that could be one rea.... HOLY CRAP YOU HAVE 12k POSTS!

Heh what can I say? I talk a lot LOL

(see, there goes another post...)

Wdupre's explanation sums up the benefits of multi-zones within the character.  However, you are correct that switching between zones for node modifications is very tedious and time consuming.  Ima70 has eluded to Bagginsbill's free VSSPro which makes overall body changes simply and time efficient.  It is python script based and relies heavily on material room nodes; the beauty of it is you can make one-time changes and then synchronize these changes to your character and chosen skin texture.  Below is the link to get you started and keep in mind, you can apply this to any CR2 character:

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2737823&page=1

D3D's Material Utilities are pretty good for modifying multiple zones.

I just bought second skins and am completely at a loss as how to use it.  I can make a second skin and get a cr2 file...Now what?  I'd like to paint materials on the second skin but the material room isn't working.  Nothing happens when I add a material...Do you have to have special jpgs?  There are no instructions with the program and I thought I would be able to create interesting clothing, face make up and on and on.  Right now I'm extremely disapointed with the program.  Any Help would be appreciated.