Hi hborre, really no apologies necessary. :-)

I don't think I never had a closer look at the Poser Place M4, but to be honest, mainly because I wasn't too impressed with the Poser Place V4WM in the first place.

(I had some good conversations with Phantom3D about weightmapping, but I had the impression that he did V4WM mainly because others pushed him to do it, not because she was near and dear to his heart like Antonia.)

Here's a comparison about my own weightmapped 17K V4LOD (back), the Poser Palace V4WM (middle) and a weightmapped V4 (front) distributed by AerySoul/AsShamin/Whatever they call thenselves now.

As you can see, both the Poser Palace as well as the AerySoul weightmaps still suffer from the dreaded "exploding butt" syndrome.  ;-)

As for M4, I did my own weightmap, again based on the lighter 17K LOD mesh.

I made all of my (released) weightmappes basically "opensource", so everyone wanting to modify and/or improve them is more than welcome to do so.

I think strictly commercially speaking, nothing but full Genesis compatibility could "save" Poser from oblivion. so I see all my work just as a "fun addition" for stubborn amateurs like me.

Still I think having our "very own" figure would be a tremendous help to make Poser attractive again.

But these figure should be based on Posers core strenghts, not rely on "latest greatest" or "professional" technology.

I'm currently fooling around with the Poser 5 DON mesh, given that "gender-fluidity" is now all the latest rage. ;-)

But seriously, Don would be a perfect candidate for "our own" Genesis mesh.

Lightweight, good built in muscle topology, easy accessible "front-back" mapping (Remember the days when anyone could create/modify their own textures without the need of complicated and expensive 3D painting programms?) that can use M2 textures by default. (As well as any DAZ texture that can be easily converted to M2)

There is also full Face-Room compatibility.

Throw in modern single-axis scaling, some better expression morphs (like Miki), a nicer and more realistic default shape (no JUDYs, please!) and of course some decent weighmapping.

Maybe I even go fancy and add a few polygons here and there for even more built in mesh detail.

Or do a Poser 11 high res morph.

Still not happy with the face, but I think I "exorcised" a lot of the Poser 5 "look" out of that mesh already.

Anyway, sorry for the "rambling". ;-)

As I said, I don't see a commercial future for Poser if it sticks with the way it has taken during the last 10 years or more.

But it's still fun to mess around with it and see how much life I can squeeze out of those vintage meshes.