I'm wondering why there are bodysuits for characters now that MAT groups seem to do the same thing? I was disappointed that some of the M3 tunic texture sets require purchase of the M3 bodysuit, for the full costume effect, when it seems as if legging textures could just as easily have been applied directly to M3's legs. I guess I don't understand Poser well enough to know why bodysuits carry an advantage over directly applying textures to a figure's MAT groupings.

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/photos/GAL_200305/GalleryImage393702.jpg

The bodysuits allow greater flexibility and allow for transparancies etc ... One thing you can do with them is create a hair suit .. You can't really see it here but it actually gives a better appearance than just having it on the map ... You can also do a number of other things but the main thing is flexibility.

The body suit is... well, a suit! That means that it looks as it is covering the body with a fabric, even if it is a tight fit. It will look more natural than a texture applied directly to the body. I don't have the M3 Body Suit (yet...), but the V3 Body Suit looks more natural around e.g. the breasts than just a texture applied as a MAT group. For the default M3 body it might not make such a difference, but if you play around with the body morphs, you will probably find several settings where the Budy Suit looks very different than MAT group textures.

Also, as Ghost of Macbeth said, TRANSPARENCY. Like if you wanted to do a net shirt. You could do that with a clever texture applied to your character, true. But if you suddenly wanted it to be a black person instead of a white? You'd have to redo the body texture. As a transmapped suit it stays the same. And it DOES look more like cloth than a bodypaint will ever do.

I understand the debate, I was doing it myself in reagrds to, "Why do I need to buy a bodysuit when I can use MATs?" One reason is body hair. I thought it was cool how the recently released M2 Wolf uses Ninjasuit to create body fur. MillBeard basically works the same way. So I was thinking, "Why not use the body suit to create a hair layer for M3?" I wonder if anyone has tried this yet. I would like to see how it went. :D Another reason to get the body suit is because the bodysuit is whole new mesh with M3's shape & morphs and it's NOT the One-Mesh-Fits-All Unimesh. Therefore a body suit made FOR M3 will move and morph differently than M3 himself with mats. Perhaps a M3 bodysuit will show M3's morphs better then than M3 himself? I know that's a strange thing to say, but the bodysuit doesn't have nearly the demands placed on it as the Unimesh mesh. The bodysuit is made for M3 morphs, and that can be an advantage because lumps and folds in M3's body that bug me, such as the pecs not being as smoothly M2's when morphed can be easily be covered up by the bodysuit which doeon't have the excessive polygons for female breasts (which is what I think is reason why M3's chest distorts when applying a morph on top of morph). I need to play with the Bodysuit some to see if it lives up to my expectations. Make sense? bB

p.s. I like the smoother look of the body suits which is what I want it for my M3. The body suit does look like something ONTOP of the body and not a Mat. Is subtle, but i know the difference.

ernyoka1 wrote: "Also, as Ghost of Macbeth said, TRANSPARENCY. Like if you wanted to do a net shirt. You could do that with a clever texture applied to your character, true. But if you suddenly wanted it to be a black person instead of a white? You'd have to redo the body texture." Actually this is not the case if you render in a higher application than Poser 4. You can store the net shirt in a texture channel and apply this on top of whatever skin texture you like (I do this often, you can see examples in my gallery). I suspect you can probably do it in Poser 5, but as I don't have it, I haven't tried. Combined with judicious use of bump maps and morphs, you can get very effective tight clothing without either using a body suit or MAT groups.