I like that idea a lot.  I think many users want to have a play with a figure, if only to see the potential, before they start paying for extras.  I certainly favour that way as I am happy to spend for a new figure but only if it has the potential to go past where V4WM is today.  I am not saying that Genesis was not an improvement, particularly if you use DS but, so far, it has never been enough to warrant the outlay. From the renders I have seen, PE would be my figure of choice, she is not only beautiful she appears to have the ability to smile that is reflected in the eyes and I have not seen that before.  If that is the base the potential must be massive.

Also, if you go down the this route I hope users would be a bit more forgiving than they were with 'Scarlet' but I have to say something tells me it is a forlorn hope.

I know right haha! Yeah I'll be honest and say that that prospect does make me helluva nervous. But I think it might not be so bad because of my approach.

It took me a while to formulate the idea, and I'm just not approaching this as some 'V4 killer' like some people have done. I'm not going to make the mistake of promising the world to everyone, only for them to be disappointed. In fact, Project E is a result of that exact frustration when Dawn came out. I wanted to be free of this figure circus and just have a figure that did exactly what I wanted it to do: look real, look good, work in poser, has biology!, is not dependent on a big corporate organization, and work with all the content I had (which is mostly V4).

The consequence of this is that it might not be an option for everyone. She's meant for artwork, this means detail (not for games or trolls). She's (slightly) higher res than V4, has loads of JCMs, and some people are sufficiently irked by integrated genitals that they'd skip an entire figure for it. But if it works for me, then it should work for at least a few other artists, that's my reasoning. 

All that rests now is that I need to make her user-friendly. There is a bug in Poser (and DS) that prevents me from making accurate JCMs. I can handle them but I cannot expect others to be able to. This is getting fixed now... but might take a while. If I can find another way I might be able to speed things up, but don't count on it.

As you might deduce from this, my motivation is not necessarily money (besides needing to pay the bills), so that should hopefully put some minds at ease lol (off course some of my contributors might think differently haha).

I just hope I can get something done by the end of this year. I really do wanna help out. But we'll see!

I do like your approach and I hope users respect that.  While I would like the figure soon, like yesterday, I am thankful that you are prepared to share your hard work at some point.  Clearly the project has it origins firmly in providing a figure that met your needs, which nobody should fault, but of course a lot of people will have similar needs, me included. I understand your disappointment with Dawn, which I still think could be a good figure but it did not live up to the hype on day one.  I was even more disappointed because I wanted the Hivewire team to be successful, and I still do.  Good news is they appear to be here for the long haul.

I have never used any figure for what you could call pornography, although every persons opinion of what is pornography is very different.  On the other hand I have purchased from Rendererotica so clearly such things do not bother me so the fact she is complete is not an issue for me.

As to the way she is built, well to be honest I am not that bothered or skillful enough to know what is good or bad.  What I want is a figure that look right and is good enough to use for art and portrait work.  I am not saying I do not appreciate the hard work you are putting in, more making the point I will adopt a figure because it gives me the renders I want not because someone says it has the latest technology.

I really do respect your view of not having money as the prime motivation but I am still happy to pay for this figure and I am also happy to wait until you are satisfied she is ready to meet her public.

 

 

I use Poser 13 on Windows 11 - For Scene set up I use a Geekcom A5 -  Ryzen 9 5900HX, with 64 gig ram and 3 TB  storage, mini PC with final rendering done on normal sized desktop using an AMD Ryzen Threadipper 1950X CPU, Corsair Hydro H100i CPU cooler, 3XS EVGA GTX 1080i SC with 11g Ram, 4 X 16gig Corsair DDR4 Ram and a Corsair RM 100 PSU .   The desktop is in a remote location with rendering done via Queue Manager which gives me a clearer desktop and quieter computer room.