I am new to Poser 4. Right out of the box. Yikes! I feel so overwhelmed with it all. Where do I get Vickie (same as Victoria?) and Michael characters? I want to purchase Sharkey's angel wings and the Heaven Sent I and II collection and I assume I need Vickie (Victoria?) and Michael to use them. Also, which is the "best" hair package?

Attached Link: http://www.daz3d.com

You can get Vicki and Michael at DAZ3D (link included here), just click on Store. Vicki and Mike have their own pages. You won't be sorry for buying them; they're definitely the best characters. The best hair is from Kozaburo and best of all, ist's free. If you want to purchase good hair, get hmann's Total Hair and Anton Kisiel's Vicki's Changing Ponytail, both at DAZ also. Oh, Kozaburo is at Digital Babes, but I don't have the URL at the moment. Maybe someone else here can help with that, but I think it's in the side bar over to the right. I hope this helps some. Melanie

PS: DAZ 3D also has a freebie every week, usually about Thursday, so be sure to grab them because they become purchase items after one week. Melanie

Vickie, aka Victoria, and Michael are available from DAZ (www.daz3d.com). There are two versions of Vicky -- the original Vicky (Vicky 1) and the newer version (Vicky 2). Both have the same mesh, but Vicky 2 comes with a zillion morph targets that make her very easy to alter to almost any likeness you wish. The downside is that you cannot give/sell any of your creations you come up with. Vicky 1 lacks these restrictions, but also has fewer morph targets built in and is thus less flexible (you can, however, make your own morph targets for her and re-distribute them). Hair? There are lots of packages out there and they can be used on either the P4 Poser figures or Vicky (even Michael, if you want!). All that's required is to make slight adjustments to their size. The choice is mostly a matter of your individual preferrences, but the best I've seen, so far, are also free and can be had at Kozaburo's site: http://www.vowel.or.jp/~kozaburo/ Hope this helps you :o) Jim

Wow! Didn't expect such a quick response Melanie and Jim. Thank you. I just visited Daz ... ouch! I can see where this could get very expensive! $89 for Michael and $60 for Vickie? Is that what I need? One more question and most importantly ... you mentioned a downside. Will I be able to use the images I create with Michael, Vickie, and the angel wings in my web site designs and graphics for my clients? This would be for resale of course. I would not be selling them straight off the CD of course, but using them in way that incorporate them into my own digital art.

All images you make with the models from Daz are yours to do with as you please. This is true of eveything I've seen for sale, you can't redistribute the actual models themselves though. You can get gift certificates for Daz stuff by entering one of their contests (I believe you get a $10 one just for entering), this will help take some of the bite out of the purchase price. Currently there is a contest going on and if you think you can't enter if you don't have a Daz model think again, some of the models that come standard with Poser 4 are for sale at Daz. (the lion is one of them I believe) not to mention the ones they give for free every week. Michael is $60, the CD for Michael is $89 (this will include his clothes pack 1, hair, and textures) There is also a CD for Vicky for $89, this is Vicky 1 though and you'll probably want Vicky 2.

Bear in mind that Mike and Vick will make far more demands on your RAM allocation. I really recommend you stick with the default figures till you get a better understanding of the program, then make the investment.

This is a good point, but then all I have is 192MB and I have no problem using mike & vicky. As far as waiting to buy Mike & Vicky that is also a good point, not only can you familarize yourself with the program, but you might catch a sale. But if you want to buy the kids, buy them now because they are on sale now.

Well I know that it takes about 3 minutes for vicky 2 to load on my computer only 128 mb of ram

Loading is only one thing, Alan. Working with the figure beyond that is something else entirely. Vickie2 is, what, 45,000 polygons? It might be less, but let's use that for the moment. Add hair and now you're dealing with not only the polys for the hair object but also transparency issues, which are memory intensive as all hell. Add clothing objects and the number of polygons can easily double. And this isn't even including posing work. Poser works like Photoshop in terms of keeping all of your previous work stored in memory for a certain number of back steps, and each of those steps require more memory to be used. It's no wonder they recommend 100 megs of free memory when using Poser, and that's just to get the program started. That's why I'm amazed and amused by these people who demand hi-rez testure wraps: a 25-meg texture adds another 25 megs to the project, and the memory to support that has to come from somewhere. I'm running Poser with 128 megs of allocated memory, and I still get crashes because I've run out of available RAM. To be frank, I've never seen a program chew up RAM like this one.

Here are my Poppi....Must haves...they may cost a little more than the stock vicki and mike...but...Get V2...she comes with alot of morphs, and actually has a v2p4 who can wear all the p4 clothing. Get Kane...there is a package where michael is included...you must have michael to use kane. Kane has alot of morphs, as well. For the hair...Get Anton's changing ponytail with expansion pack. THEN....and, this is most important...DON't VISIT DAZ for a while, so as not to get addicted...Save your money for Michael 2 and Anton's changing hair for mike. ;)

I have 128 megs of RAM and I've never had problems with Poser. It only takes a moment to bring in Vicki or Mike. I've used Vicki and Mike together in one scene, with hair and clothes, and even props, and never had a crash. I don't know why. Maybe I just hold my mouth right, but things run fine for me. I have an HP Pavillion with 40 gigs hard drive and 128 megs RAM, that's all. Weird. I keep hearing people say they have problems with the high-res objects, but I never have. Yes, the plus with Vicki 2 is that there are 2 of her in the package: one that wears Vicki 1 clothes and one that wears the P4NudeWoman ("Posette") clothes. It really expands her wardrobe tremendously. She's well worth the money, believe me! But, like atthisstage said, you might want to get acquainted with Posette and P4Man and the ins and outs of posing, dressing, texturing, lighting, etc., before putting out the bucks for Vicki and Mike. But eventualy, you WILL want these two characters. They're a must-have. If I were you, though, I'd wait until Michael 2 comes out, then you'll save some money by not having bought both versions. Enjoy, and by the way, welcome to Poser and the forums. You'll find lots of help and advice here. Melanie

The nice thing about Vickie 2.0 is that you also get Vickie2P4, and you can use all of your Poser4 female (more commonly known as Posette) clothes on her. Marque

Welcome, DefragMentID :-) As you can see already, there are tons of great and helpful people here to help you figure all of the Poser intricacies out. Your life might never be the same again :-)

I bought Vic 2 and I almost always use V2P4 because there is TONS of free cloths that will fit her :). Kosaburo hair is a must have. If you get Vic 2 and plan on using the full blown victoria 2 might be a good idea to buy the clothing pack as well. To me the FACE is everything. That is where beauty resides in a caracter. Victoria has soooo many face morphs that the possibilities are endless!