I'm curious if people still buy character/texture sets for V4/M4, maybe asking forum regulars isn't the right demographic to ask this question of. I imagine there are a lot of lurkers who do not post. Also, are there many vendors making stuff, again character sets, specifically for those figures? I know people still probably buy clothing items and such for those figures, I do, but maybe the character set market has dried up? Just curious.

I don't have any statistics to look at to give you any definitive answers. I know there are people who still use V4. I don't know if they're older members who already have most of the products or if they'll buy new. But, once this becomes available, there may be more who'll want stuff for her.

I still buy a lot of stuff for V4 and M4, but I won't pay a lot. Because I already have a lot of stuff for them, and because it's often on sale for really cheap. When a character or clothing set is on sale for $3.50, I'll probably buy it, even if I'm not sure I need it.

I don't think vendors make stuff for V4 and M4 any more. Maybe stuff like hair or dynamic clothing will have V4/M4 fits, but usually it's aimed at newer figures like Dawn or La Femme.

I still use and buy for V4/M4 and K4 whenever I get a chance. There is still a bunch of stuff available for them..mostly for V4 tho. I get a lot of good use out of them.

Yes there are still creators around that make M4 V4 products. They are just not selling at renderosity one of them is "Xurge3d Corporation" just having Anniversary Sales making really cool stuff, well one of the old ones that is still capable of making good looking outfits. Most good Creators jumped to DS, A hand full Artists make outfits for La femme but for my taste not what the old ones were capable of creating when V4 was on top!

So if you are looking for V4 M4 new releases then you might have to google a little around with some luck you will find these, the few in here are mostly concentrating on La femme releases :)

Oh, yeah, there's still no real substitute for K4. Baby Luna is too much of a baby, and the various child morphs for Dawn, LF, etc. have a preteen look. K4 covers the gap.

I still use mostly V4 and M4. There's just not enough support for newer figures yet.

There is a bunch of V4 and M4 stuff that's no longer available, that I would buy if I could. Pulled from the RMP back when they used to cull items that didn't sell enough, I assume. Sometimes there's add-ons for them still for sale, but the item you need to use them is no longer available.

I love Xurge, not least because he makes so much stuff for males. Beautifully made, with great textures.

But I don't think he's making stuff for V4 or M4 any more. It's been a long time since I've seen any new releases there.

I was thinking from a content creator perspective. As in would it be worthwhile to make stuff for either figure. As much as I like La Femme and LHomme, and I have stuff created for La Femme specifically which I've resumed finishing, there's a couple of ideas I have, especially one in particular, that would best be served by the gen 4 topology out of the box from a sculpting perspective. I'm getting old and have had a couple of recent injuries that make it more difficult to work as many hours. I was thinking maybe even a very modest supplemental income making 3d content would be an option, as I enjoy art making and over the past couple of years have gotten more sophisticated with my poser content creation abilities in terms of realization of projects; morphs, jcms, file specifics, and modeling in general. I like those gen 4 meshes. I was thinking "hey, I've done the freebie thing, I do this stuff alot, maybe I could get a sandwich" lol. Maybe it sounds weird but my aches and pains are becoming a concern, and a sandwich would be nice doing something I enjoy. Was just curious if it would be completely foolish to utilize those models in such a context at this time.

Much as I, personally, would love to see more stuff being made for V4 and M4, I think you're probably better off making stuff for different figures if you actually want to make money.

Maybe Dawn 2 and Dusk 2 would be options? It sounds like Dawn 2, at least, is fairly close to release.

Along the same lines of thought, regardless of whatever is considered the latest thing, do people feel there is a viable place in the market for products that revisit older content in a considered and quality way. If someone were to, say, create something nice for the Terai Yuki figure (and this only a for instance) do you think there's a subculture, no matter how small, of people who would be interested in products like that?

The money thing isn't really that major of a concern. Wherever the muse happens to take you. I think set creation would probably be the most lucrative in that case.

Also, artists like Nursoda and Dinoraul (RIP) seem to have a Poser following and they operate completely outside of the "Popular Figure" flavor spectrum.

It would be nice to see a kind of resurgence of 'stand alones' happening with Poser too. And this might seem off topic but it's really not. It's Poser figures. Stand alones are uniquely "characters" that don't require a bunch of extra content to be specifically what they are successfully.

Anyway. Further thoughts on these topics are appreciated.

"Stand Alone" would be a good thing believing that such would be the most secure way of creations. A "Summoner's" thing atm and seems to work quiet well ! forender 3d used also to make quiet allot with success but stopped and making them for Daz now. Sure allot more work making standalones as you have to do the rigging from scratch and not just copy paste from a existing doll, the one needs great experience to make stand alone figures of good quality and creators in here that are left for poser do not have that experience jet ! Most of the capable ones from witch others could of learned left or gotten bugged out of the communities.

In the poser galleries you can see quiet allot of standalone figures used in Poser ! So it seems that some might be quiet popular.

I think Terai Yuki would be particularly tough, because she's not only a really old figure, she's no longer available, unless you want to try to buy from a Japanese web site. Perhaps there would be some interest in Japan, where there could be some nostalgia value, but marketing would be an issue if you don't speak Japanese.

I fear the Poser market in general has shrunk so much, it's already a niche. Poser standalone products can typically be used in DS as well, and it would probably be smart to offer DS support if you can.

That said, there would be some older products I spend money on. More textures for K4. The few available are really old, and look it. The mapping isn't quite the same as for V4/M4, so even if you can find adult textures without makeup or beard stubble, they don't look right.

Stuff for DAZ's chibi figure, Nana, which is pretty unique in Poserdom. Maybe some stuff for other toon figures, like Sam and Sadie.

Oh, and if you're doing standalone figures, I would love a cute cat figure, like in Secret Cat Forest. Definitely toony, but not anthropomorphic. A few cat-like poses, and a million different coat/eye colors (all sold separately, of course ;-).

My hairstyles come with fits for V4 and mostly for M4 too (except for a few ones that I make only for the women).

Personally I don't use V4 and M4 anymore and won't buy stuff for them, but hey, some people use them so I offer the fits for my hair.

I appreciate vendors who provide fits for multiple figures.

I've actually grown pretty handy myself at making hair refits, For personal use I just do morph refits and parenting. I don't bother with the transfer to specific conformer. Plus I've accumulated some rather nifty tools over the years. Easypose Underground, Spawn and most of Netherworks utilities, PML, most of D3d's things. I've gotten really good with the dependency editor and am pretty good at creating JCMs now too. The newer built in Poser tools are a real help for content creation, less file editing. Though there's still quite s bit of that really.

I'm pretty handy at texture painting in Mudbox and Blender, in a stylized way. I love photoshop.

I'd say my weaknesses now would be PBR workflow and Superfly which I'm working to get get up to snuff with. Blender cycles is also something I need to work on, primarily because most of my time spent in Blender is strictly modeling and sculpting/retopo. Poser is my rendering destination. Although Eevee and some of the NPR aspects of Blender are very very interesting.

I'm very handy with IDL Firefly materials from endless studying of old BB threads and just from using Poser for quite a while. Superfly kind of blindsided me actually, especially since it's another thing that I have to come to terms with, I spend so much time concentrating on other content aspects that there's the temptation to keep working on the "fun" aspects of creation. I don't consider rendering particularly fun itself, setting up the things for the render is more interesting. I like a sort of comic/graphic novel/illustration style personally but I understand where the desire for photorealism comes from and also it's aims. There's room for all things in art really, except perhaps, and a very skeptical perhaps, evil.

I'm pretty decent at rigging too. In particular robots and insects. Non human figures. I'm also getting pretty good at retopology using Blender and retopoflow. Clothing creation I've done very little of, never really interested me, but I certainly appreciate the skill involved. I've made a few conformers. I want to make some more actually, my toolset is more conducive to it now. Plus there's the Fitting Room and Morphing Clothes which are both huge incentives in that direction.

Summoner.

I certainly think your models and Poser rigs are quite incredible. I have a hard time telling what's actually yours and what's appropriation from game assets though. In any case I mean no disrespect but you can see where it would be confusing. The rigs are obviously very involved.

Here's some images of some of my things that I have on my tablet (where I'm writing this), it's morphs, textures, straight models, poser figures, sculpts, and 2d imagery/ drawings. All mine. I also have quite a bit of paintings and ceramic sculptures in the traditional mediums, I did that for years and years in California. I just mostly faff about with 3d stuff now, and some drawing, and play Dungeons and Dragons (I DM)... and work.

Most of my custom figures were made when V4/M4 reigned supreme. I bought and still buy content for them because there is so much still. Sasha-16/19 helps with most issues with bending V4. Mortemvetus still makes amazing M4 morphs and textures and I'd dearly love to have more textures for males on the market. And more non-skin armor sets/ clothing made for both of those guys , based on historical examples like to old Historical Armor was for V4, or some (not all) of Xurge3D's products. So I'd say thee is still a market for those (and yes, a lot of people who spend money on the marketplace here don't post. I didn't until last year).

Currently working on...

Character set for La Femme and retopoing, texturing, and eventually rigging some open source insect models (completely open license, commercial and modification)... The La Femme project is nearing completion...

I plan on making some toon figures too. I have a lot of plans. Not much time though. And yes Rhia the M4 will include some rather nasty robotic feet that are sorta armor like I guess. In any case it's going to be a Poser version of an old comic book character of mine called Rake. Sort of a tragic Frankenstein post apocalyptic toxic avenger type. So maybe not quite up most people's alley for male figures lol. I used to draw comics too... sadly no Rake imagery handy at the moment.

La Femme's shins and thighs sort of bum me out about the figure though... The only way I can see to effectively change them is through altering her rig a bit to compensate morphs and then that would make clothing compatibilty an issue. I'm on the fence about what to do about that and have been concentrating on textures, morphs, and expressions. I can see just doing a custom body morph for nudes with match centers, which would also allow me to include some custom JCMs and then perhaps also including a dial spinner for the body using Deecey's Body kit resource for clothing compatibilty. I think that would be the best course of action with most versatility. I also need to work on the Superfly mats, right now she has a scatter/blinn variation Firefly mat. The Superfly mats will take some time. The textures are just about done, including some fantasy makeup options and quite a few custom eye textures.

If anyone has any advice about La Femme regarding my above statements please chime in. Especially since AO popped in to comment, I've been looking a bit at her stuff some to see what a viable marketplace La Femme package should look like, or thereabouts.

I like your La Femme character. IMO, La Femme is lacking in the idealized beauty department. Most of the textures available for her are more realistic than I prefer. Ditto La Homme. I don't want to see moles and pores. Just my taste. I prefer that pretty, airbrushed look.

I'd also like to see non-white and older characters, but again...attractive and somewhat idealized. Most of the older characters out there look like they could be a fairy tale wicked witch. Not many attractive 40-year-olds, let alone nonwhite attractive 40-year-olds.

There's not many merchant resources available for La Femme, compared to what was once available for V4. I purchased this...

https://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/sofia-high-res-human-photo-reference---extended-license/118225

by Blackhearted. A general photo resource, not specific to UVs, with plans to create my own resource via projection painting. For the characters I'm doing now I'm using the Gail resource

https://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/gail---la-femme-precious-merchant-resource/135938

and a lot of general resources. The Gail resource is pretty good in a more V4 type resource sense. Not so much the cracked lip, large pores look like some of the ones available for La Femme. The push for greater realism with Superfly unfortunately has made a sort of at odds situation in the textures department. Things that fashion photographers strive to eliminate in glamour photography are seemingly being emphasized and it's at odds also with the fundamentally unreal appearance of Poser figures in general. The Gail resource is pretty good but it required a bit of work to eliminate some baked in specular and shadows, and just the slightest bit of clone stamp seams showing. Especially on the buttocks and upper thighs, around the collars and shoulders. Not a lot really. I think it's a good resource. Baked in stuff is unavoidable really. It's fixable but it will make things look a bit more "painted".

Time will tell how the situation improves in the resource department for La Femme, let alone LHomme. I'm curious how long La Femme's life cycle will be before there's a new version. Or if there even is going to be a version 2. Though I'm not crazy about La Femme's base shape, and certain things are only really possible to change via subdivision morphs, there's a pretty decent amount of content available considering the figure's lifespan and some other factors.

I still buy stuff for V4 and M4 - and A3, V3 occasionally - they are sufficient for what I do.

Yes I would still look at V4, M4, even M3, especially if they fill gaps in terms of fantasy, sci-fi and historical content, and helpers. But I guess the market has dried up for generic and everyday content for them - if a content maker wants to churn out that stuff then they should be targeting G8.

How you gonna ditch a sweet girl like Vicki 4? I'll buy hair for her... all she needs is hair LOL!

She must be a SoCal gurl lol.

Is that Superfly TwiztidKidd?

Poser4Fly lol I think it was rendered in Poser 7, last Poser version that had the P4 style render, I keep a render/image with each pz3 file so I know what they are. It really helps when you have over 200 pz3 files.

Poser's material room could use a zoom feature.

TwiztidKidd posted at 4:56PM Tue, 20 July 2021 - #4423566

Poser4Fly lol I think it was rendered in Poser 7, last Poser version that had the P4 style render, I keep a render/image with each pz3 file so I know what they are. It really helps when you have over 200 pz3 files.

Over 200? Pffft! Amateur. I have over 2,000. :D

I need to be more organized with my pz3s. Frankly I don't keep many of them. I wish I still had a lot of them that were lost on older machines, file references would be a nightmare of course.

Has anyone ever noticed wandering nodes in Poser 11's material room? It's really annoying. I neatly place and align nodes, move to another material, come back to the previous material and the nodes are slightly out of alignment. It seems to do it with no rhyme or reason. Sometimes it does, sometimes my placement sticks. I have an align nodes script and can also edit the 2 node pos values in the files to match but I think it might be a bug. It's not a large position change, just a slight misalignment.

Amateurs keep only the essential pz3 files and delete the ones that are pretty much alike, to save disk space lol

I archive everything off to DVDs, seeing as they're dirt cheap. They'll probably last longer than me anyhow. :D

I wrote stuff on DVDs before, after a year or two they were blank. Not very reliable, maybe cause I never stored the DVDs upright or the room temperature... but if it works for you that's all that matters.

If it is something I need, I don't care who it was made for originally. We have had the ability to decouple content from specific meshes for almost a decade now, and we have had the ability up update legacy meshes for almost as long. I still regularly use figures I bought back in 2005.

The post V4/M4 Poser figures are short of EVERYTHING except for early 20's Caucasians, so they don't get all that much use from me.

I will definitely buy hair for any figure, because it's so easy to use it for different figures. Just bought some hair over at DAZ, and didn't realize it was for V3. Doesn't matter; it will work fine with V4, Dawn, LF, etc.

I would love to see more....well, normal...hair available. There's a lot of wild fantasy hair. Or hair that looks like a woman might wear on her wedding day, or a teen might sport on date night. Not many styles that an ordinary woman might have at work, or that's suitable for an older woman.

I would like to see more normal everything. I am very, very tired of trashy outfits. LF & LH are the 1st set of Poser figures that I simply can't be bothered with. They bring absolutely nothing to the table, after a year and a half.

I just recently purchased a couple of Tempesta characters I didn't have yet, an M4 and a V4 (just posted a render of the M4 character a few days ago) and both are rather recent. I do believe Tempesta may be the only one still making Gen 4 characters, and since I adore her products I know that I would be more than happy to add them to my runtime. Oh, actually, Mortem Vetus also released a new M4 a couple of weeks ago and I didn't hesitate one second in buying him. The newer ones look great in Superfly out of the box too. I also purchased a few Ali hairs (even older styles). I find they adapt well to LF and LH too. Also some vendors are making items that have fits for Gen 4/ Dawn & Dusk and LF/LH. I think that's awesome and gives me extra motive to buy their products.

I only discovered Daz about 6 years ago and even though I kept buying stuff I would only make an occasion al render every now and then. At the time a lot of people were already switching to Daz 4 and Genesis (I was still using Daz 3 on a very old computer with a lot of limitations). Then about a year and a half ago I tried Poser and after the initial transitional phase I fell in love with it. But it wasn't until Poser 12 and LF/LH that I really found myself wanted to play more and more. I will never stop using Gen 4 however. I have too much stuff that I bought for V4/M4/K4 that haven't even used yet. Not to mention characters that I absolutely love. Also, there is already a lack of male clothing in general, but even more so for LH, so sometimes it's just more practical to use M4. And then there is the whole child factor. Baby Luna and Diva are adorable, but just recently I made a render with LH and it called for a little boy, so I had to dig up a K4 character and clothing for that.

As much as I love some of the Genesis characters I know that I will never invest in a computer powerful enough for Iray. Also while I do appreciate realism in renders, it's not exactly number one on the list of my priorities. I'm a photographer, so I guess the portraits I take of real people satisfy those needs. Don't get me wrong, I love how some things look realistic with Superfly and I love looking at renders made with other programs that look like real photos, but I know I can't achieve that and that is fine with me. There are still a lot of things I need to learn about 3D and when I read certain comments I realize that I am still basically a newbie. That said, what really interests me is making images that can go along with the stories in my head. I like playing with the lights and expressions. And I can do all that with Gen4 just fine. I just wish we had more stuff for the dudes, because I noticed that Genesis really has a LOT more male stuff in general: characters, clothing, hairstyles.

I think I may have strayed from the original question though, but to some it up yes, there are still some occasional new M4/V4's on the market and yes, if they look good I will buy them.

I still have hopes for LF and LH. I kind of like Anime Girl, though I'd prefer to have some more normal clothing for her. Or fantasy/SF clothing that looks something a human might actually wear while exploring strange new worlds or tramping through Mirkwood.

With a few exceptions, I'm underwhelmed by the clothing available for La Femme. A lot of pinup gear, and some contemporary clothing like jeans and t-shirts. Nothing wrong with that stuff, I use it sometimes, but I'd prefer things that could be used for fantasy or SF.

The lack of morphs for newer figures is another reason I keep using M4 and V4. There's so much available for the Gen 4 figures. It's much easier to get a likeness with them than with Dawn or LF.

I also still use K4 a lot. Now that Poser does scaling right, it's really easy to make K4 anything from a toddler to a preteen. And the clothing will fit, if you check the scaling box. I assume not many people use kids in their renders, though, since there's never been a lot of Poser stuff for kids.

TwiztidKidd posted at 5:16PM Wed, 21 July 2021 - #4423605

I wrote stuff on DVDs before, after a year or two they were blank. Not very reliable, maybe cause I never stored the DVDs upright or the room temperature... but if it works for you that's all that matters.

I found out the hard way that brand is a good indicator. Store brand discs failed after a few years, top drawer stuff is still going after about 15 years, or over 20 in the case of CDs.

I have a ton of DVDs dating back to Poser 6, mostly from when I used to obsessively collect freebies and backup files. They all read fine. Now I have 2 paid Google drive accounts that I back up to, store imagery, etc.

randym77 posted at 7:21PM Wed, 21 July 2021 - #4423642

I still have hopes for LF and LH. I kind of like Anime Girl, though I'd prefer to have some more normal clothing for her. Or fantasy/SF clothing that looks something a human might actually wear while exploring strange new worlds or tramping through Mirkwood.

With a few exceptions, I'm underwhelmed by the clothing available for La Femme. A lot of pinup gear, and some contemporary clothing like jeans and t-shirts. Nothing wrong with that stuff, I use it sometimes, but I'd prefer things that could be used for fantasy or SF.

The lack of morphs for newer figures is another reason I keep using M4 and V4. There's so much available for the Gen 4 figures. It's much easier to get a likeness with them than with Dawn or LF.

I also still use K4 a lot. Now that Poser does scaling right, it's really easy to make K4 anything from a toddler to a preteen. And the clothing will fit, if you check the scaling box. I assume not many people use kids in their renders, though, since there's never been a lot of Poser stuff for kids.

I have the Millenium Baby. Never got around to buying the Gen 4 kids... There's something vaguely... off... about being a dude buying pre teen dolls lol. Plus I'd be tempted to morph them into something horrific :-D

Not so with the Millenium Baby, it's flat out creepy out of the box. I've been greatly tempted to recreate the creature baby from that cheesey 70s horror flick ITS ALIVE using the Millenium Baby, the commercial for which used to terrify me as a child when it would come on TV. I spent a lot of nights alone in a spooky old house as a child, my mother was fond of the Discotheques, watching things like Night Gallery and the Night Stalker (if anyone remembers those old 70s TV programs)...