(So I posted this the other day at the SM forum but figured I would run a thread here as well, for those that maybe don't visit over there as often).

It's been a few years now since I first started developing a male figure for Poser. Over that time he's seen countless revisions and modifications as I've worked on perfecting the geometry and overall anatomical shape along with working out what sort of rigging and morphing features he should have. My goal has always been to make him as easy as possible to rig clothing and add-on content for while still being versatile enough to incorporate as many body shapes as possible and retain a lightweight mesh. I never really intended this project to take nearly as long as it has, but I didn't want to rush the development and release something I wasn't fully satisfied with or that was less than what I thought it could be in terms of quality and appeal. I also took some breaks along the way to reassess what I wanted to do with it. I'd imagine for those who had shown interest before, this equated to me having abandoned the project. So apologies to anyone who might have thought that. So now that I've finally reached a point where I'm confident enough with him and his development is near completion I think its safe to start showing images of Orion in order to rebuild that interest.

So this is Orion for Poser 11:

And one of his Athletic morphs I've been working on:

He comes in at roughly 31K polys (medium resolution), and his geometry is designed to be easily morphable at its base level or pushed to 3 subdivisions higher for HD detailing. He has full facial rigging as well as additional bones in his pecs and a couple other places. He is also fully anatomically male, (with rigging and morph adjustments). No snap-on bits. Instead there is a morph to flatten everything to a ken doll lump, or tuck it away when clothed.

He also comes with some starter clothing - such as the boxer briefs shown in the image, as well as a few other basic items and a body suit which I will give more details on later. I'm also working on a way to get Orion and his starter content to everyone that wants to support his development as soon as possible (within the next several days), and I'll be posting more images of him, the body morphs he currently has, and a bunch of other Orion content I'm working on. Time always runs short on me and I have to head to work here, so more to follow soon. Comments and questions welcome. Thanks for reading.

And here are some wireframes:

Of course some have already seen all this but I'm posting here for those who haven't yet. I will be following up soon on his bodypart groupings and facial rigging with more renders and posing demonstrations. I'll also be starting a separate thread on his female counterpart Venus, who is based on Orion's mesh (with some minor gender-specific differences). Just give me some time - I'm an one-man team (with a full time job) and one machine and rendering preview images that don't completely suck takes a while.

Such an interesting concept. I absolutely love it. Thanks for sharing AmbiantShade and I look forward to updates.

Ooh, a male! Very interested in this.

Holy sh*t Shane...he looks absolutely great! :). Fantastic job.

Laurie

very nice :) congrats I wish I could model that well

As I've said, you are doing some amazing work. I love Orion.

I love the way he looks! The shoulders look so much more natural that M4 shoulders.. I look forward to seeing more of this guy!

Twenty thumbs up...(hey where did those extra arms come from??) Looking good!

Wow, really impressive work!

Said it before, will say it again. looks good. need more guys for my books. new figures are always welcome

Nice work. Respect.

Excellent work, and looking forward to seeing what else you come up with for him.

[i've] been using Poser since 2K1, think i've done less than a literal handful of male images as i've never really cared for M4... i can't pinpoint specifically what about him that i don't care for as i never really took the time to study him - he was only ever on my system for a hot minute in comparison to all the incarnations of Vicki i've had since V1...

Orion looks beautifully crafted, and far more natural, to my eyes, than M4.

as you're trying to kickstart interest again, consider me sufficiently kicked [heh]

Very nice work. Looking forward to this.

Thanks for all the positive comments folks. They're all very much appreciated and encouraging.

(I wish we had a thumbs up feature here like we did at the SM page. Ah well).

More to come soon, promise.

his proportions and body morphs are outstandingly realistic. thumbs up!

AmbientShade posted at 1:53PM Fri, 21 June 2019 - #4353933

(I wish we had a thumbs up feature here like we did at the SM page. Ah well).

You mean something like this? -->

Well yeah there's that but I meant the upvote arrow on each post. Kind'a like the like button on FB.

I said in the past, and I repeat now. That is a great looking mesh, and finally one with muscle topology.

Reminder for the rigging. Did you try to morph with the weight and bulge map? That is what I do a lot of times. Adapt the mesh, not with morphs or JCM's but by repainting the weight and bulge maps depending on the direction of movement.

Second reminder : Collars and arms are ONE unit, they always move together. That is where most rigs lack realism. (That and most muscle movements can go in the bulge maps anyway). With a good rigging there is no need for JCM's. => But I already said that a few times in the past. LOL. None of my low or High res figures have JCM's. None.

AmbientShade posted at 3:46PM Fri, 21 June 2019 - #4353949

Well yeah there's that but I meant the upvote arrow on each post. Kind'a like the like button on FB.

Yes, we have it at HiveWire as well. I'm always looking for it here, but if it was available years ago when I first joined this forum, it's been gone from here for a long time.

tonyvilters posted at 9:53PM Fri, 21 June 2019 - #4353956

I said in the past, and I repeat now. That is a great looking mesh, and finally one with muscle topology.

Reminder for the rigging. Did you try to morph with the weight and bulge map? That is what I do a lot of times. Adapt the mesh, not with morphs or JCM's but by repainting the weight and bulge maps depending on the direction of movement.

Second reminder : Collars and arms are ONE unit, they always move together. That is where most rigs lack realism. (That and most muscle movements can go in the bulge maps anyway). With a good rigging there is no need for JCM's. => But I already said that a few times in the past. LOL. None of my low or High res figures have JCM's. None.

I do belive that Shane knows what he's doing by now and will present a good and solid figure when that time comes.

Orion is looking great. Looking forward to working with Orion when he's released. Awesome job, Shane!

I'm superexcited about Orion. He looks amazing! Can't wait. Love esther

I was sure you come up with somethings amazing, But this is just freaking awesome. Cant wait to see more.

"(So I posted this the other day at the SM forum but figured I would run a thread here as well, for those that maybe don't visit over there as often)." you were right - we won't be able to visit there ever again as it's closing down. How prophetic were your words!

Awesome work! He looks great!

Kinda Bruce Willis out of the box!

Congrats on the progress Shane!! I am curious about his rigging for animation:

Would it be possible for you to Put him in a "t-pose" in a poser scene with ONE frame in the timeline and export one single frame BVH file to share?

That is all I would need to test his bare bone rig for compatibility with iclone and other animation systems.

tonyvilters posted at 5:35AM Sun, 23 June 2019 - #4353956

I said in the past, and I repeat now. That is a great looking mesh, and finally one with muscle topology.

Reminder for the rigging. Did you try to morph with the weight and bulge map? That is what I do a lot of times. Adapt the mesh, not with morphs or JCM's but by repainting the weight and bulge maps depending on the direction of movement.

Second reminder : Collars and arms are ONE unit, they always move together. That is where most rigs lack realism. (That and most muscle movements can go in the bulge maps anyway). With a good rigging there is no need for JCM's. => But I already said that a few times in the past. LOL. None of my low or High res figures have JCM's. None.

Thanks for the compliments on the mesh Tony.

In regards to rigging, poser's weight maps are pretty powerful, especially when combined with a properly organized mesh that follows human anatomy, which is what I've tried to do with Orion. I could clean it up and reduce it further, but there are some details that I prefer to have even though they're not necessarily required for proper rigging. But still, weight maps reduce the need for jcms considerably but they don't negate them entirely. Poser's current rigging system is very linear and most human body parts do not follow a linear path when bending. So weight maps and anatomically correct geometry can get you pretty close, but jcms are still going to be required for extreme poses. They just aren't as much of a requirement as they used to be in older figures. In order to completely remove the dependency on jcms you would have to replace them with helper/ghost bones, which can be just as problematic when rigging clothing, sometimes moreso. Orion does not rely on many jcms. Most of his rigging is pure weight mapping, and I've tried to push those weights as far as they can go in every area, before resorting to jcms. That's really how I look at jcms - use them as a touch-up tool in areas where the weights and bulges just can't quite make it. Hopefully we'll see improvements to Poser's rigging and the way it handles jcms, but as it is, Orion is still pretty easy to build clothing for. I would say easier than building clothing for any of the previous figures that I've worked with over the years. Plus he'll have some accessories that make clothing creation as simple as possible.

waiting patiently for his release - (checks forum constantly) - yea waiting patiently lol

Kinda beefy, ain't he? And I apologize if I make that sound like a criticism. It's not meant to be.

EClark1894 posted at 10:44PM Thu, 27 June 2019 - #4355017

Kinda beefy, ain't he? And I apologize if I make that sound like a criticism. It's not meant to be.

Only if you're looking at the 'muclemorph' body. The default body looks pretty normal to me.

DreaminGirl posted at 8:18PM Thu, 27 June 2019 - #4355020

EClark1894 posted at 10:44PM Thu, 27 June 2019 - #4355017

Kinda beefy, ain't he? And I apologize if I make that sound like a criticism. It's not meant to be.

Only if you're looking at the 'muclemorph' body. The default body looks pretty normal to me.

I've only seen the two renders of him and honestly, I thought both of them were pretty much the same. Still, hope there's a lankier morph available.

Let me get his rigging finalized and you will see he will morph from child to gnomes to adults to brutes and giants, with body types ranging from lanky to obese and everything in between. His geometry is easy to morph and has a lot of versatility.

What kind of facial morphs will he start off with? Currently, he's got almost a babyface. I'm not being critical. He looks good, but it only works with some character types.

I intend for him to have a full range of facial morphs. I think that's an expected feature of any figure.

EClark1894 posted at 3:33AM Sat, 29 June 2019 - #4355047

DreaminGirl posted at 8:18PM Thu, 27 June 2019 - #4355020

EClark1894 posted at 10:44PM Thu, 27 June 2019 - #4355017

Kinda beefy, ain't he? And I apologize if I make that sound like a criticism. It's not meant to be.

Only if you're looking at the 'muclemorph' body. The default body looks pretty normal to me.

I've only seen the two renders of him and honestly, I thought both of them were pretty much the same. Still, hope there's a lankier morph available.

For comparisons he's actually significantly smaller than Dusk, and slimmer than M4 and even M3 slightly.

I had intended on having a lot more renders posted by now but it's been a hectic week. I would post a side-by-side of all the key Poser males but I'm not sure that would come across very well. Maybe I will a bit later on.

ETA: He's actually closest to P6 James in build. And that wasn't even intentional, just worked out that way. James' hips might be a smidge wider.

ETA2: But again, you'll be able to adjust his shape and proportions to most anything you'd want within the realm of humanoid.

Hey Shane, I hope you've lined up a texture artist who can do him justice for release.

I don't know many modelers or riggers who are very good at textures (me included) and can show off that model and rigging from release day like an artist who works magic on your model.

Have not had any offers and haven't actively pursued it. The skin he has right now isn't bad and is still a wip. I have not started detailing it yet or done any bump or displacement. Mostly just a place holder so that I'm not looking at solid colors. Also haven't taken time to really tackle it as I've been working on finalizing other more important aspects like shape and rigging. Also considering taking the whole project to patreon or some other avenue at least until he's completed, as there hasn't been much interest shown lately due in large part to this community being so gynocentric. Of course I'm sure part of it too is folks are waiting to see more.

AmbientShade posted at 6:45PM Mon, 01 July 2019 - #4355555

there hasn't been much interest shown lately due in large part to this community being so gynocentric..

I am VERY interested.

AmbientShade posted at 2:27PM Mon, 01 July 2019 - #4355555

.... as there hasn't been much interest shown lately due in large part to this community being so gynocentric.

I'm interested also

think i said already, but apart from the androgynous looks one could achieve with Hiro, there's not been a Poser male model i've felt i could comfortably work with. i've seen images from Poser with all sorts of lovely lovely steamy sexy men, sometimes hulky & bulky, sometimes more swimmer-esque in physique, but M4 just didn't feel natural enough to me [my opinion]. i'm extremely interested, Shane.

and yes. i think most, not all, people who play with 3D are visual creatures, so the more previews you can share when time permits, the better. also keep in mind folks are still soaking the Poser's transition into Rendo's hands, so there's some distraction in the background timing-wise for your post...

Thanks guys (and ladies). I've been trying to follow the other thread on skin shaders where BB's been posting tips on superfly skin. If I get some time tonight after work I'll do some tests on Orion and see how it turns out. If I like the results I'll post some here.

How did it work out? Have you got any renders you can show us? Love esther

Hey Shane, that is an excellent, and much needed male figure. I Have not seen anything to compare against to be frank. M3/M4 never really made an impact IMHO, and the rest were simply not for use in everyday images. ( think the fream, behemoth ) Apollo was ok. I think - again, my opinion that David3 was probably the best male model to work with. Orion not only looks good, but he seems to have a very natural stance too. Nice work there.

Your previews on Tumblr are cool.

nice work shades! Much respect from me!

AmbientShade posted at 12:09PM Fri, 05 July 2019 - #4355555

Also considering taking the whole project to patreon or some other avenue at least until he's completed, as there hasn't been much interest shown lately due in large part to this community being so gynocentric.

End quote

• Trying out Patreon is a good idea for all creators, there are many ways to use Patreon, the beauty of it is you get closer to the fans and supporters who really have heart for your passion in creation.

I am happy that I made a Patreon page to distribute all my goodies that way and no longer through freestuff...it’s so much more loving/rewarding this way and you can actually ask people for feedback.

• About the gynocentric part, yes I always yelled I’m not gonna do male content, it doesn’t interest me....however.....your orion and venus are the best modelled figures in the DS and Poserverse....and as I have a deep love for excellent topology.....it’s not unthinkable anymore.....:P

Any more previews yet?

Thanks all. Yes there will be starter content and lots of facial and body morphs to turn him into what you want, available at release. I've been on vacation this week and not near my pc (posting this from my phone) but I'll be posting more images soon as I get home.