Quote - With no documentation for DS4, and an entirely different system, basic program, method of use, that makes DS the better choice?  I think not. The learning curve for DS is nearly as steep and long as that for Blender.  Poser at least has fairly decent documentation included, a huge improvement from the "manual" they sent with P5 which was more confusion than use.  Infinitely better than DS, which is, "Figure it out yourself". 

I'm not a fan of "V-things" or "M-things", I may use them when I'm forced to, but that's getting to be less and less.  DS4 has a free version, but V5 is far too expensive for me to look at, considering there isn't any way to use her beyond DS conveniently.  And DS does very little without the infusion of large amounts of money for the myriad plugins, that may not work with the next version.  Third party solutions to deficiency in the basic program is not a viable solution.  It's one that DAZ has no control over, and no guarantee it will continue.  Anastasia and Antonia are indications of what might come next, I'm just waiting to see if SM will pick up the ball and run with it.

But once again, we're not talking about program features... we're talking about characters. If you don't know enough about either program to render decently, but one has figures that I want to use over another, then I'll make the effort to learn the program that has what I want. You have no incentive to render if what you want to use isn't in it. Also, when you give examples, like there are no men mentioned. I don't render women... what are my options going forward? I have M4 and that pretty much works in everything. Ryan isn't viable, and Brad isn't finished.  If I don't have men to render in my program, then the manual really means nothing. And for DS4 advanced (which is around the same price as P9), doesn't need any plugins to render. I have the HSS (which has SSS in it) and uberlighting which is included as well.  If I want to buy plugins for Reality/Luxrender or Animate (which is a animation addon from what's included) I could get that and extends the program but aren't required. If i want to do landscapes, I can buy Infinito and add that in as well. But it's not a required purchase to do renders, so when people say I gotta buy addons I not sure what you mean.

And V5 isn't required either. If you want to use it, you have to buy it, like any other generation. And even if V5 was a standalone character for poser, you'd still have to buy it to use it, with any addons that came with it. I'm sure the same argument was made when V4 came out, where people said it's too expensive and I have enough investment in V3 so I don't need it.

Even with the females, there are issues to chose them over V4. Weightmapping, not a huge deal because the girl has to look good enough and look good when posed well enough to generate interest before we get to bending. Anastasia has a good start in that department, but she needs a complete morphing and expression replacement to supercede alyson's dials... and if SM was smart, they'd buy her out and do just that.... then contract out someone to fix Ryan in the same manner. V4 has that over the others, because you can use dials to make her into different looks and body types easily and there was a push behind her from a large company that invested in her. A online community that will easily be at each other's throats won't have that same effect to get things accomplished.

Quote - There isn't much choice for the genesis male either. I counted 8 items in the DAZ store (meshes, not texture sets). The M4, D3, M3 can be added if you buy the autofit addon.

Well that's a good argument why there isn't a flood of genesis items. I'm waiting on some male athletic shoes. Luckily I can autofit stuff, and I've found some freebies for D3 that I've brought in. However, that's probably much more stuff than in previous generations when figures like D3 or Luke 3 was introduced. Untill wardrobe wizard or crossdresser was released, how many outfits was available for those items?

Quote - > Quote - There isn't much choice for the genesis male either. I counted 8 items in the DAZ store (meshes, not texture sets). The M4, D3, M3 can be added if you buy the autofit addon.

Well that's a good argument why there isn't a flood of genesis items. I'm waiting on some male athletic shoes. Luckily I can autofit stuff, and I've found some freebies for D3 that I've brought in. However, that's probably much more stuff than in previous generations when figures like D3 or Luke 3 was introduced. Untill wardrobe wizard or crossdresser was released, how many outfits was available for those items?

You said there were more clothing options for male genesis as for male figures which can be used in Poser. That is not true

Quote - were more clothing options for male genesis as for male figures which can be used in Poser. That is not true

What i said that there were more options for genesis at it's release than for other figures at theirs. Autofit isn't perfect, but I can still pull in clothing from Gen4 and D3 than I could at M4. And I've always had issues with Gen3 clothing and the tear in the thigh region that needed manual fixing.

Quote - Even with the females, there are issues to chose them over V4. Weightmapping, not a huge deal because the girl has to look good enough and look good when posed well enough to generate interest before we get to bending. Anastasia has a good start in that department, but she needs a complete morphing and expression replacement to supercede alyson's dials... and if SM was smart, they'd buy her out and do just that.... then contract out someone to fix Ryan in the same manner. V4 has that over the others, because you can use dials to make her into different looks and body types easily and there was a push behind her from a large company that invested in her. A online community that will easily be at each other's throats won't have that same effect to get things accomplished.

Okay, so with DS4pro, you don't have to buy addons or plugins, because you already have.  You have already also spent about $10 less than for a retail version of PP2012 and still no dynamic hair.  I don't know what it comes with for content, but PP2012 comes with a ton.  Not much of that of interest to me, but if I need a different setting, it's probably hiding in the content, or close enough that I can use it.

Females, maybe you didn't catch it, but I thought it sounded like I clothed my women, in something I wouldn't be ashamed to see my daughter wearing. Weird joints or awkward bends, I don't see once the clothing is on them. 

V4, even with third party morphs to her, no matter what you do, she looks like V4, ditto for V3.  Always what I call a "New York fashion model", portraying all the warmth of a continent sized iceberg.  When I bought V4, it was part of a pack, I think around $50, which was reasonable.  Bought a few characters for her, so much for impulse, haven't used any of them.  I don't think Genesis or V5 would be any different, terrific for a month, then the realization setting in that they do not fit what I want for characters.  If getting a morph to look like what I want is a DIY project, then I might as well work with what I already have. 

Quote - > Quote - were more clothing options for male genesis as for male figures which can be used in Poser. That is not true

What i said that there were more options for genesis at it's release than for other figures at theirs. Autofit isn't perfect, but I can still pull in clothing from Gen4 and D3 than I could at M4. And I've always had issues with Gen3 clothing and the tear in the thigh region that needed manual fixing.

You did not say the "at its release" part. And even then I doubt it

Quote -   You did not say the "at its release" part. And even then I doubt it

Quote - Well that's a good argument why there isn't a flood of genesis items. I'm waiting on some male athletic shoes. Luckily I can autofit stuff, and I've found some freebies for D3 that I've brought in. However, that's probably much more stuff than in previous generations when figures like D3 or Luke 3 was introduced. Untill wardrobe wizard or crossdresser was released, how many outfits was available for those items?

Bolded in case you missed it.

Quote - > Quote -   You did not say the "at its release" part. And even then I doubt it

Quote - Well that's a good argument why there isn't a flood of genesis items. I'm waiting on some male athletic shoes. Luckily I can autofit stuff, and I've found some freebies for D3 that I've brought in. However, that's probably much more stuff than in previous generations when figures like D3 or Luke 3 was introduced. Untill wardrobe wizard or crossdresser was released, how many outfits was available for those items?

Bolded in case you missed it.

 

You said that AFTER I made my post.

It is a total waste of time to argue with someone like you

I'm out

Quote - Okay, so with DS4pro, you don't have to buy addons or plugins, because you already have.  You have already also spent about $10 less than for a retail version of PP2012 and still no dynamic hair.  I don't know what it comes with for content, but PP2012 comes with a ton.  Not much of that of interest to me, but if I need a different setting, it's probably hiding in the content, or close enough that I can use it.

People keep trying to throw people off the tracks with DS4 pro, when DS4 advanced is what i'm talking about. Pro has the content development tools, which is on par with Poser 2012; you don't need those plugins with Advanced either, which is on par pricewise with Poser 9. When you mention that, you make it seem like you're intentionally leading people to believe that it's several a few hundred more to do the exact thing when it simply isn't true. If I'm trying to keep it accurate, you should too. ;)

And as far as dynamic hair, I don't see that as a feature. There's not one piece of poser dynamic hair that doesn't look like frizzy fly-away stuff. If it was such a big advantage, I'd see more people actually using it. Now if we're talking about carrara hair... I'm actually updating my carrara to try that out. But still, we're talking characters, not program features.

Quote - Females, maybe you didn't catch it, but I thought it sounded like I clothed my women, in something I wouldn't be ashamed to see my daughter wearing. Weird joints or awkward bends, I don't see once the clothing is on them. 

That's not what I said; I wasn't referring to clothing.

Quote - V4, even with third party morphs to her, no matter what you do, she looks like V4, ditto for V3.  Always what I call a "New York fashion model", portraying all the warmth of a continent sized iceberg.  When I bought V4, it was part of a pack, I think around $50, which was reasonable.  Bought a few characters for her, so much for impulse, haven't used any of them.  I don't think Genesis or V5 would be any different, terrific for a month, then the realization setting in that they do not fit what I want for characters.  If getting a morph to look like what I want is a DIY project, then I might as well work with what I already have. 

With any morph, if you don't work all the morph dials, then you are going to end up with the same character. However, V4 is harder to make individual morphs than M4... which is understandable since m4 took what was learned from V4 and improved on it. The same thing will occur with M5 or any other character that's made.

I've bought a few V4 outfits for renders for my characters, but not really a lot of female characters. I buy a lot of M4 outfits and things that work for him, less M4 characters since we create our own and I tend to morph men over martinis ;). However, I can do a lot more on the morph of genesis than with gen4 since I can change all aspects of the appearance from head to toe. But getting back to what the OP was talking about, he is making his characters, so he/she would be doing a lot of DIY. So although you may not want to do that, making characters is the OP's intention, so any information we give has to be geared toward that.

Quote - You said that AFTER I made my post.

It is a total waste of time to argue with someone like you

I'm out

LOL! You know if you actually looked up, you would have actually saw it. I just copied it from that previous post and bolded it for you.

Why you're mad, because you missed it... i don't know.

Quote - V4, even with third party morphs to her, no matter what you do, she looks like V4, ditto for V3.

NOT true.  Do the morphs here look like V3?

http://www.daz3d.com/i/3d-models/-/sci-fi-fantasy?item=3435

No, they don't.

If a figure is well-made to start with, it can be morphed into something that looks nothing like the base figure.  If the morphs you're talking about "looked like V3" or "looked like V4," then I'd say that was the fault of the person creating the morphs, and not of the figure itself.

And while we're at it, do any of these morphs look like M3?

http://www.daz3d.com/i/shop/itemdetails/?item=4252

No, they don't.  And do any of these look like V3?

http://www.daz3d.com/i/shop/itemdetails/?item=4260

No, they don't.

There are a lot of "character" makers out there who do nothing but spin a couple of dials and call the result a "character."  Result?  It pretty much looks like the base figure.  Well, surprise, surprise!  But that's a far cry from doing a truly original, sculpted morph.  And if the result "looks like" the base figure, well, guess what?-- that's not the fault of the figure, but of the person creating the morph.

Going back and reading the original post, he was asking if he'd be better off to go with the morphs++ for M4/V4 or genesis, halfway into a project.  He has morphs he likes.  now, most up until you replied said stick with what he has and get the morphs++, I believe I responded with the majority. 

However, here and in the daz forums, one of the biggest supporters of "dump poser, get DS4" is you.  And one of the biggest insisters that DS4 can do anything better, even lacking decent dynamics in any area.  One supplier, one designer, and IT WILL NEVER CHANGE. Optitex has had at least two years to show ANYTHING being done on a creation software, it hasn't happened, it should be evident it never will.

I have Antonia, the Advanced Morphs, now I have Poppy.  The difference is this figure has REAL faces, the kind I see every day. She has a real body, the kind I see every day.

Clothing, how difficult is it to understand that if a bad looking joint is UNDER A DRESS, it makes no difference at all? The clothing is not the issue, the issue is that a bad looking bend or joint that can't be seen isn't a worry. 

Enjoy your martini.  I'm not into consuming the toxic byproducts of a fungal organism of decay.  I like my food before it rots.

The Op said he had D3 and M4 but didn't have the Morph++ sets, there was no talk of any other morphs. To be blunt I can't see how he has developed any characters with no morphs. Given that information then my recommendation would be Studio and Genesis. The expense would be about the same but with far greater character versatility. Does Poser have more, and in some cases better, features then Studio? To be honest I would have to answer yes, but will the OP need or use them? Only he can answer that after a fair comparison of the two programs.

Quote - Going back and reading the original post, he was asking if he'd be better off to go with the morphs++ for M4/V4 or genesis, halfway into a project.  He has morphs he likes.  now, most up until you replied said stick with what he has and get the morphs++, I believe I responded with the majority. 

However, here and in the daz forums, one of the biggest supporters of "dump poser, get DS4" is you. 

Exactly what post have I said to dump poser? There's been far more posts that have done the same things you have, where instead of talking about the characters, have veered into things such as dynamic clothes, hair and random functionality and said erroneous things such as you have to buy plugins for the same functionality to render in DS4.

What I have said is that for females going forward, you have lots of choices. But for men, there is fewer choices... and at this point, there's only fewer choices and if you want to use the latest male figure and you're going to invest into another program then you may want to look at DS4. That's isn't saying dump poser, but advocating something that's not going to do what he wants isnt' going to serve his purposes either.

Quote - And one of the biggest insisters that DS4 can do anything better, even lacking decent dynamics in any area.  One supplier, one designer, and IT WILL NEVER CHANGE. Optitex has had at least two years to show ANYTHING being done on a creation software, it hasn't happened, it should be evident it never will.

Once again, I've talked about characters, not about application functionality. That's what you have been doing, and you do this again. Optitex being a supplier for DS affects what part of character creation?

Quote - I have Antonia, the Advanced Morphs, now I have Poppy.  The difference is this figure has REAL faces, the kind I see every day. She has a real body, the kind I see every day.

You can create realistic bodies with any character. Getting support for those characters outside of simple dynamics is another matter. Unfortunately the difference between Antonia and Anastasia is night and day. You hear more major vendors lining up behind Anastasia. Unfortunately, to be honest, antonia has a PLAIN face at best. Her body shape is awkward, there isn't enough polys on her hands and arms so when she bends, it doesn't look realistic, and her feet... well i've yet to see a pose there where she can pose it on the floor as well as Anastasia or V4, and that's without weightmapping.

And that translates very visibly into what's available, how it looks, and what is being charged for her clothing. It's real early for Anastasia, but right now, she's got mostly tight, short, clingy outfits from what's she has available... but the clothes are more in cost than what's being offered for Antonia.

Quote - Enjoy your martini.  I'm not into consuming the toxic byproducts of a fungal organism of decay.  I like my food before it rots.

Classy. I guess you threw in the towel on this conversation as well if you have to resort to flinging insults. ;)

Quote - The Op said he had D3 and M4 but didn't have the Morph++ sets ...

Just to clarify the OP said:

I have Poser 2008.

He then said:

Yes, sorry. I have Poser 8.

*He then gave the impression he was in the middle of a project when he said:

I'm not anything close to a master in it, but have created a few characters I like for my project in David 3 and Michael 4.

Even after all the sqabbling I still think he should finish his project in what he has started it in and then think about alternatives once all the hype has died down. This is a win win for him. His project will be finished much quicker and he will be in a better position to judge the realities of the situation as we are currently undergoing a period of transition and what is available for Poser today may not be the same tomorrow.

I think perhaps some people would do well to actually think of the person asking the question rather than concentrating on their own agendas as vendors of the other site.

Quote - > Quote - The Op said he had D3 and M4 but didn't have the Morph++ sets ...

 

Just to clarify the OP said:

I have Poser 2008.

He then said:

Yes, sorry. I have Poser 8.

*He then gave the impression he was in the middle of a project when he said:

I'm not anything close to a master in it, but have created a few characters I like for my project in David 3 and Michael 4.

Even after all the sqabbling I still think he should finish his project in what he has started it in and then think about alternatives once all the hype has died down. This is a win win for him. His project will be finished much quicker and he will be in a better position to judge the realities of the situation as we are currently undergoing a period of transition and what is available for Poser today may not be the same tomorrow.

I think perhaps some people would do well to actually think of the person asking the question rather than concentrating on their own agendas as vendors of the other site.

Right, and that goes for the same that have an axe to grind against other companies as well.

Blondie, if they do or don't, the only way I'd know is to buy them and try them.  Before I go further, I have no bias against people of color at all, I worked side by side with a lot of them for some 40 years, doing exactly the same thing I was, with the same degree of competence.  But faces and figures that I have no interest in are not going to get a single dime from me, and that includes africans.  SciFi fantasy, less interest,  yes, they're different, but to me, also useless.  Someone else must have liked them or they  wouldn't have been created, but that they exist doesn't mean I have to have any interest in them.  I don't know any men or women that have the perfection in either their faces or bodies as the morphs have, I can relate better with the poser figures, and use them more.  I don't want an idealized figure, and they all are, I want real people, probably not that good looking, some that hurt your eyes to look at.  I don't have the freak, no use for it.  And yeah, that's a morph for whichever mike you have it for that looks different, grotesquely so.  I like real people, far more interesting.

Quote - Right, and that goes for the same that have an axe to grind against other companies as well.

 

Well, I'm not aware of anyone having an axe to grind against any companies in this thread but if what you say is true then it makes me think that perhaps they are not such great companies afterall. :mellow:

Quote - Blondie, if they do or don't, the only way I'd know is to buy them and try them.  Before I go further, I have no bias against people of color at all, I worked side by side with a lot of them for some 40 years, doing exactly the same thing I was, with the same degree of competence.  But faces and figures that I have no interest in are not going to get a single dime from me, and that includes africans.  SciFi fantasy, less interest,  yes, they're different, but to me, also useless.  Someone else must have liked them or they  wouldn't have been created, but that they exist doesn't mean I have to have any interest in them.  I don't know any men or women that have the perfection in either their faces or bodies as the morphs have, I can relate better with the poser figures, and use them more.  I don't want an idealized figure, and they all are, I want real people, probably not that good looking, some that hurt your eyes to look at.  I don't have the freak, no use for it.  And yeah, that's a morph for whichever mike you have it for that looks different, grotesquely so.  I like real people, far more interesting.

Wow.

As a person of color, I have no words for this response. What does what you said have anything to do with what Blondie was trying to point out, which was if you bothered to properly morph a character, it won't look like the base?

And to be honest, I've heard this type of response many times growing up and in my 40+ years of living:

"I worked side by side with a lot of them for some 40 years, doing exactly the same thing I was, with the same degree of competence."

This is the same as "I don't hate black people, some of them are my friends." But you've made it worse by saying "I have nothing against africans, I've worked with them and they got the same level of competence." Really?

If they are your friends, you don't make the distinction at all.

Please get back to topic.

Quote - Unfortunately, to be honest, antonia has a PLAIN face at best. Her body shape is awkward,

And that is bad,why?  Or do you live in a perfect world where every woman is extremely beautiful with an absolutely perfect body?  Every man is Charles Atlas?  if so, kindly wall it in to keep it from poluting reality.  I won't discourage anyone from trying ds or genesis, if they want to, that's their decision.  However, my opinion, genesis may ride a wave for a while, but if it can't get total acceptance quickly, history tells what happens to radical ideas. 

And I see you don't like accurate descriptions of the by products of biological processes of decay.  However, going back some fifty years to the last time I tasted any of the rancid crap, I only had the dry heaves for an hour after my stomach had nothing left, and I only had a terrible headache for the next three days.  Anyone that thinks I should try it again, I'm more than willing to let them do it and put up with the suffering.  My old man may have tried to raise a fool, but he didn't.

Oh,  yes.  That I react so badly to it, Praise be unto the Lord!

If you all want to discuss more about Daz studio please do so in the daz forum. This went way off of what the question for the member was.