When I looked through this week's clearance sale, I saw my all-time favorite character, Out Of Touch's Ultra Sensual Milena. The kicker is that she is for Victoria 3. I remember when the community moved to Victoria 4, I tried to keep her relevant. But, she didn't bend well, didn't have great morphs liked Vic 4, and her clothing was limited, especially compared to Vic 4. I was like a painter finding out that his favorite brush is too old. Eventually, I let her go.

As my gallery here and on Deviantart will confirm, I use Vic 4 for the vast majority of my work. Recently, I grew board of her. The morphs, textures, poses, clothing, and hair are predictable. No matter how many morphs and scaling poses I piled on, she still was Victoria 4. I was a one-brush painter and wore her out.

When the DSON Importer came out, we now had Genesis and Genesis 2. They came with weight mapping, a ton of morphs, and and large closet of clothing. But, she comes at a cost. All those morphs take up memory and then there is DSON's background processes running. As any one here will tell you, a couple Genesis figures will drag you machine down to a crawl. This brush is too heavy.

We have Hivewire3D's Dawn. She has weight mapping, so she bends very well. She has a Poser version so no extra processes. Alas, she is new. She has a few morphs and fewer clothing. This brush is too small.

So am I back to the Victoria 4 brush? Not necessarily. The main issue is seen in this very popular post "Scarlet - Is it time to jump the V4 ship?". Maybe the post should be, "Is Scarlett the One-Size-Fits-All everything brush I am looking for?"  Many people point why I should and shouldn't trade in trade in my Victoria 4 brush for the Scarlett brush. I now wonder if I should even be looking for an everything figure.

Logisticly, it make sense. Vendors only have to rig one set of clothes, paint one set of textures, and mold one set of morphs. They can get most sales by doing that for the most popular character. If I am rendering single character only, one brush will do. What if add more brushes? I could use Victoria 4 with Genesis or even Stephanie Petite 3 with Genesis 2. This opens up a new world of possibilities; frighting, I know.

Right now your saying, "Those old figures don't bend well, few clothes, handful of morphs, and low res textures."  You are right, but they make excellent background characters. They don't use a lot of memory or processing. What really helps if you have them in your runtime. If you have Poser, you have a half dozen figures complete with clothing and hair. That's not counting the stuff you already have.

The clothing could be inappropriate for your scene. The old figures would look blocky next to the new ones. Worst, the old figures had that hated poke-through. Now we have a bunch of new tools. For example, I created a scene with Dawn, Stephanie Petite 3, and Victoria 2 jogging in a park. Victoria did not have the appropriate clothes. I used PhilC's Wardrobe Wizard to convert some Victoria 4's clothes and Poser to copy morphs into the new clothes. The morph brush was used to smooth over rough areas and remove poke through. Poser SubDivison improved her mesh.

It was a bit of work. But, I got what I wanted. With two other tools, I brought Milena into the modern age. I used Dimension3D's Genesis Generation X2 to copy her morph into Genesis and Genesis 2. I used 3D Universe's Universal Texture Convertor to convert her textures to Victoria 4 maps. My favorite brush is back.

Shown below is an example of what you can do on a five year old computer with these principles. (If you are a Star Wars fan, you're welcome.) I didn't skimp on the render quality. I used SubSurface Scattering, Indirect lighting, and Ambient Occlusion.

(Left to Right) Victoria 3, Stephanie 1 (remember her?), Alyson 2 with the Anastasia morph, Genesis 2 Female, Poser 7's Sydney, and Victoria 2.

I am reminded of Bob Ross on PBS's Joy of Painting. He took a few paints and mixed them on his palette before painting his happy little masterpieces. He also used many brushes.

Thanks for letting me ramble.

Nice. I enjoyed your ramble...wish more people would ramble like that here. 

Amen.

This is the reality; mesh doesn't spoil. The new can be applied to update the old. The latest and greatest isn't necessarily the best. And that is still just a handful of the available figure resources.

I love the analogy and the story, thanks for positing such a positive approach.  I have said more than once that digital figures don't age to the point they are too old.  For me using Poser is all about being creative and getting the best from what is available, you clearly have been very creative with it.  I look forward to seeing where you go with the approach.

Thanks for letting me ramble.

A very nice ramble and very true!
Oh, and please kill Jar-Jar again! Please! I'm begging ya. Kill him again, deader than Adam's house-cat, so he can never, ever, infect the franchise again...