RedPhantom posted at 7:01PM Tue, 05 November 2019 - #4369284

I don't really see the point in having figures have the same name unless they are just updates. But if you want to add new features, then you need to start a new figure. A problem with the Mikis, Vickys, and Genesises is that you have 4 or 5 of them that can't share each other's assets without conversion.

Well, sorta... but I can't just cram a 2003 Dodge Ram V-10 engine into the engine bay of my 2017 Ram 1500, either - yet they both bear the same name, and even have the same Ram's-Head badging and general crosshair grille design.

The point is that, given the timescales involved (especially here in the software world), companies will keep the name, but evolution demands that stuff changes. That's the way it is...

For giggles, I recently converted a 2002-era Vicky 3 skin and put it on Genesis 8. I had to run it through a couple of texture converters (one of those converters - originally sold by 3D Universe, aka Dark Whisper - I had to dig up from its CD-bound grave and install it in Windows in compatibility mode so that it would work... I know, right?), convert it for iRay use, and I had to concoct a subsurface map myself so it would render nicely in iRay. I'm willing to bet a similar process would await me if I wanted to use a Jessie skin (Poser 5) on La Femme or Dawn.

Now here's the good news on both fronts: In Genesis-land, G8 can use nearly all of G3 stuff w/o issue (they also share the same UV Maps, IIRC), with only the poses and geografted stuff being different (the pose difference is basically joint-shifting, and geografting was pretty much brand new right before G8 came out). In Poser-land, I strongly suspect that Rendo wants to do something similar in order to maximize their catalog inventory over time. Betting that Hivewire will likely want to do the same if they can.

Overall, I think that future updates are gonna be incremental, unless some new uber-wow new tech comes out of nowhere that will require a radical difference in mesh or rigging or etc.