Am I correct in thinking the Poser 4 ethinic characters cannot have texture maps applied to them? I tried. If not, what good are they? I mean, object color is tres gauche. I suppose I can apply the ethnic morphs from the Poser "content" CD to one of the vanilla texture-friendly models. Or maybe generate a face morph from one of the hispanic characters, for instance? (I know the CD has black and asian morphs) Someone once asked about a Lt. Uhura character, which got me wondering.

Wrong Talos, they all have the P4 Woman texture 2 already applied, the only diffence being instead of setting the object colour to white (Render/Materials/Surface Material Dialoge Box) it is set to another colour to give that ethnic look. Try using some of the high quality textures by Tim Laubach and many others and playing with the settings in the surface material box for some interesting results. STORM

Talos I also meant to say that learning to use the texture settings, highlights etc in addition to lights and shadow maps is the key to producing good final renders. I don't know how long you have been using Poser but it took me ages to discover how to use the material and texture settings (I was too busy getting all these naked ladies to pose right and do bold things!) and I am still learning (to use the texture settings, that is). "I mean..honestly honey, dearest, that naked woman on the computer screen is not my girlfriend, its a model, art, you know"...CRASH.."not the monitor dear, please... ". STORM

I don't know if this has to do directly with what you're talking about, but the only changes between the P4 Default ManWoman and those ethnic figures (that I've noticed at least) are the facial settings. Since the bodies are identical, you can simply load each figure, save the face, and then delete the sizable CR2s. All of the faces are created using the standard morphs (Heartface, Roundface, etc.), so you don't need to spawn a new morph target. This also allows you to use the ethnic faces with morph-filled figures of your own creation. Just a thought there, hope it helps. :) SnowS Hoping his pictures are worth 1001 words.

Thank you, Snow Sultan and Storm - it was a ridiculous,obvious mistake on my part. If I haven't had enough sleep, I busily reset all the object and highlight colors, forgetting that the inconcievable default setting is also to have the little texture ball turned off down there at the bottom. Embarrassing!! I promise never to do it again. When I first got Poser 4 in May 99, I actually wasted months before learning to get rid of those rotten object color settings so I could see the textures. -Talos

To save myself time, I've saved a 'white' Posette and a 'white' Vicky--then all I have to do is add one of my textures.

I do that too, picnic, that's why I forget certain details when blundering into new territory. Sometimes I makes these posts just one day too early before intelligence returns. :-)

Since the bodies are identical, you can simply load each figure, save the face, and then delete the sizable CR2s. Ditto!!! Why can'r a named character merely be an expansion of the pose file format with a face morph target and a skin color, and any necessary morph settings for fatness etc?. instead of 2 megabytes most of which is always the same repetitive qwertyuiop about finger joint parameter settings and suchlike. And what happens if I want one of the named characters e.g. casual or business or as my wetsuit-man instead of nude?

Well, Talos, we all do that LOL. I've certainly been guilty of posting before the answer set in--too fast on the draw.

Hi Folks! Just in case you didn't know, Talos--you can also rename each of the ethnic characters by changing the respective cr2 filename in the appropriate Runtime folder. Peter (Dr ZiK)

Thanks Peter, I did that to 2 of them so far, and they look better with new hairstyles and textures, even my own unfinished ones. :-)