Let's just talk about figures that are meant to be realistic humans.

(Although a well made figure can be turned into practically anything)

The difference between figures is the topology, the UV-mapping, the rigging, and most important the proportions.

Because Poser had problems with properly scaling bodyparts, it was neigh impossible to really make a figure look completely different from it's default state.

You could morph the head and to a certain extent the body, but you couldn't really make Posette look like V3 or MIKI look like V4 without extensive re-rigging.

Now with the scaling problem solved, a figure making use of this new features can have any proportions you want.

Polygons are just polygons. Like LEGO bricks, they don't care what final shape they are in.

 

I admit I really, absolutely, totally dislike V4, M4 and K4 for various reasons.

So with V4 being such a dissapointment, I rather decided to rework the 3rd gen meshes to a level that would satisfy me.

(See attached pic) :-)

 

One of the most important points to me was that I wanted all my figures based on the same mesh. I knew that both I and Poser couldn't create 100% photorealistic humans, so at least the flaws any figure invariably would show would be similar, and thus more easily acceptable.

And even though each figure had to be extensively re-rigged and re-sculpted, they still could share textures, share clothing more easily and also could share morphs.

If, for example, I created a custom expression morph for one figure, all of my figures could use it.

I'm not talking about a few dial spins here and there to get "store bought diversity", I talk about custom morphs and rigs that were all shaped after actual humans as realistically as I could.

But all made using the exact same mesh.

 

I think I succeeded in making them realistic yet diverse enough that I could put them into the same render without looking boring.

Because mesh topology doesn't matter as long as you start with a figure that has a well thought out, versatile one.

Because final shape doesn't matter, as long as the figure has enough polygons zomove around.

The only thing that mattered were the default proportions dictated by the old Poser 4 to Poser 8 rigging because re-rigging a figure is hard and tedious work so noone wants to do it.

But in this case I had lots of different rigs to start with and it's of course easier to modify a rig that "almost" fits than to rework one that is totally out of whack for what you want.

 

But those were the "dark" pre Poser 9/PP 2012 days.

Now we can rig a figure in a way that the scaling and thus its ever so important proportions can be completely changed with the turn of a dial.

What took weeks and months of hard work can now be achieved in minutes. And most importantly, you don't need to know how to rig to do it.

Now that's what I call progress.

So no, there is absolutely no reason anymore to support different figures because you like the general shape of one figure better than the other.

Because a single figure now can be truly anything you want.

 

So instead of dividing our forces with figures only a few people will ever use anyway, it would be much better to rather support a single figure that actually can be anything.

Genesis is not just V5 or M5.

Genesis could be just as well Antonia or Anastasia if you like their shapes better !

Or Posette or Terai Yuki !

Or V3 or David or Maddie or Luke or whatever.

Or anything else you can imagine.

With geografting, you aren't even restricted to human shapes.

Four arms ? Six legs ? A tail ? Real genitals that are part of the mesh ?

Whatever you want, Genesis can do it.

Because polygons don't care what shape they are in.

 

 

Genesis took two years to create, a lot of professional talent and I'm sure a lot of money.

Could a Non-DAZ-Genesis figure be created ?

Well, not really.

Technically yes, of course, but it, too, would cost quite a bit of time and money.

And then you still wouldn't have top-vendor support.

 

The situation for Poser users right now is simply like this:

1. Ignore Genesis and make do with an inferior mesh.

2. Switch over to Studio 4.

3. Lobby for SmithMicro to build the necessary plugins so that Genesis can be run in Poser 9/PP 2012 natively with all the features it has in Studio 4.

 

Sorry folks, this is not about "liking" a certain figure anymore.

The barbarian hordes are knocking at the gates of Ankh-Morprk.

You could fight them, but you could just as well open the gates, welcome them, and then start to sell them stuff.

 

Don't get me wrong. I have no dog in this race. I already HAVE my own range of figures I'm quite happy with. I really don't care what figures you use in your renders.

And I'm certainly no DAZ fanboy. V4 and their entourage were a steaming pile of horse manure compared to what DAZ technically could have done to improve the 3rd Gen meshes.

There are figures out there with worse rigging and scaling than V4. But not many.

 

And even Genesis is not perfect. Far from it.

But what is already there is miles above anything else in the Poserverse.