prixat posted at 1:46AM Mon, 27 November 2017 - [#4318711](#msg4318711

Isn't that the different workflow in the programs that MartinX is pointing out?

As you say, in Poser, the program has become flexible to be able to handle multiple characters, while DS has made the figure flexible to be able handle multiple characters.

Each approach has it advantages and disadvantages

Is the poser approach really offering you more figures, or are you forced to use more figures because Poser can't morph them too far from their original shapes?

More figures, More features. If the new tech is in the figure, it can't be backported to earlier figures. With Poser, I can take the Poser 2 Low Res figure, weight map it, subdivide it. In this example, the Poser2 LoRes Female in all of it's glory - stock on the left, updated on the right.

Why does this matter? Because in my Star Trek Universe, if a ship has 430 people, I shouldn't have empty corridors. I use these for filling empty spaces.

More Figures: If I load every morph set I have for Sydney (and I have about 100 characters for them), she has as many morphs (and is just as heavy, memory wise) as a fully loaded V4. Both approach 350Mb. The real difference between DAZ figures and other figures is that the DAZ figures have a cottage industry built around fixing the shortcomings of the figure. The others don't have that.

Do you know what the percentage of DAZ figures are Caucasian? It's over 92% (I've actually counted - that number has gone up since g3 dropped). In the stuff I do, I have people ranging in age from 5 to 90+. In addition, my cast of characters may not be up to David Weber proportions, but I still have lots of folks running around - all ages, all ethnicities. That is damned near impossible to using just 1 male and 1 female mesh.

The thing is - Vendors COULD do so much more with the g figures than they actually do. They were quite creative during the g1 era. Now everything is just a repeat of what they have done before.

More characters: Daz is the only platform with kids outside of the Hivewire baby, Luna. DAZ vendors are making little girls, but they aren't making little boys. What is being made is mostly dial-spins with no skin textures - It's kinda hard to use the g series skin textures on little boys, what with the facial stubble and all. Again, another reason I use many characters - back during the V3 era, we had this Bishi nonsense for H3 - I can move those textures over to my g male kids and I don't have to worry about excess body hair.

Back to using different base meshes. Consider the following:

Each figure has a completely different set of morphs, so I am more likely different looking figures. Especially when they use different texture maps. Too many Poser/DS vendors Caucasianize their ethnic characters - it went from being annoying to creepy a long time ago.

The most realistic black characters I have ever seen are those made by Reciecup. Reciecup is a black woman, so she gets all of the little details right. Most vendors simply slap a dark skin texture on their Caucasians and consider them done (and proceed to give them blue eyes, but no black ones).

If I need an Asian female, which makes more sense, loading one of the Miki series (a realistically sized, realistically proportioned Asian woman. I have 100+ of them) or an Asian Daz figure, that I have to wrestle with to get her to the right height, and correct eye colors. In fact, the main reason that the SM figures are my go-tos is because they ARE realistically sized. Victoria is 5'10" in DS and around 6' in Poser - that is less than 3% of the female population. The numbers for males are similar. I have to wrestle down every DAZ figure to ensure that they are around average (5' 5" female, 5'10 male.) V4/M4 have a quick fix - Lyrra's height scales. With other characters, I can use ColorCurvatures M4/K4 mixer - it works on any 2 characters based on the same mesh (I have the following mixes - V3/Sp3, V3/L3, Sp3/L3, V2/Mk, M3/D3, M3/L3, and D3/L3.) It's a bit harder to do in DS, with the way the dials/Layout is structured. Too much stuff to scroll through when you have either a large runtime, or make the mistake of letting DIM install everything, IMO.

In addition, vendors have a tendency to repeat features in every single character they make. It doesn't take long to go through a storefront and start to recognize tendencies that the vendors go back to repeatedly. I'll use Anagord as an example (because it starts with an A and I own a number of their products across several base meshes). Go look at their figures - they all have the exact same mouth structure. I like the characters, but I end up having to dial out the mouth. Thorne Sarsa (back when they made characters) same anime eyes, same small high breasts, same thin body structure. It follows through with all of the DAZ figures because the morphs are pretty much the same across all of the base meshes. Some vendors even use the exact same texture set across every single character they make (to include makeup). Which is annoying when paying the inflated prices of the g figures.

It is harder to do when the morph sets aren't the same (Which doesn't stop vendors from trying to replicate the exact same look across different meshes.).

More Features:

I don't feel the DS figures are more flexible. Consider the following:

To get new features, you have to purchase new characters. DS users can't add facial bones to g2 or earlier figures - but I can add control surfaces to any figure. If I want to use the Superfly render engine - I don't have to purchase Iray shaders. I load up EZSkin 3 and it converts them (at no cost to me.) It is much cheaper for me to move skin textures from 1 figure to another via Texture Transformer or Texture Converter (or both) than it is within DS.

Now let me combine the two. Over in the Star Trek thread, a couple of DS folks have been desperately looking for a g version of TNG's Borg Chick (Seven of Nine, aka Jerri Ryan).

So far, no joy (for them).

I have the V3 version made by Orion 1167. With a lot of work with Gen2x, DS users could get that into a g figure (if they have a copy of the V3 version AND are willing to do the work - most aren't - they want 1-click solutions).

I simply load the character into my WM version of V3, and run the skin through EZSkin 3. Easier, Faster. She is the Andoran on the far right side of the image I posted earlier. That isn't all I have done with it, however. I took that dial spin and converted it (2-clicks) into a single FBM. Now with the "Copy Morphs" command, I can copy that FBM into a blank, WM V3. It now only takes 50 or so Mb of memory instead of 200Mb. Memory becomes an issue when an artist moves outside of single image stills (On OSX, Poser starts to get sluggish over 7Gb). Now, if I don't like the results of that EZSkin 3 conversion, I can put almost any female skin I own onto the mesh (bounce from Texture Transformer and then final conversion via Texture Converter.

With Poser, it's all about the TCO (total cost of ownership).