Well, I'm back from my month-long break from Poser.  I just finished a really tough week (I had a programming assignment that was kicking my butt), and I decided to take it easy this weekend.  So, on a whim, I dusted off my male V4 project and decided to have another go at it.  I've been having trouble getting the chest to look right, but I think (or rather, hope) I've made some improvement.  Here's what Nathan (that's his name) looks like as of right now:

The texture wasn't even the real challenge.  I just added some extra body hair and a facial stubble to my Natalie textures.  The morph has evolved quite a bit.  In a nutshell, here are the key attributes:

-   flattened breasts (down to slight, hopefully muscular-looking bulge)
-   lowered and shrunk nipples
-   narrowed hips
-   mildly enlarged upper torso
-   more overall bulk
-   slightly enlarged hands and feet
-   shortened fingernails
-   increased muscle tone and mass

Of course, that's just the body.  If anyone would like a close-up of the face, just let me know.  Anyway, I'd greatly appreciate any comments or ideas you may have (constructively critical or otherwise).

looks pretty good IMVHO add adam's apple, raise the nips back up, and work on that shelf below the collarbones. latter would be "natural" morph, possibly.

Thanks for your response!  How far do you think I should move the nipples back up (they're at -1 in the pic)?  An Adams apple is the one thing I'm not sure I can do.  I'm not very good at all with making custom morphs, and an Adam's apple would require one.  That "shelf" is actually the "Pectoral" morph at work (from the V4.1 Muscle Morphs pack).  I've toned it down a bit as per your suggestion.

looking good you are on a good track. If shown that figure I would not know it started out life 'on the other team.'

I also have been working with the provided morphs and the MorphBrushTool to acheive a male V4, with some success. I have found the Daz V4 Muscle Morphs very important to the project. It's only for my own use, so I don't have to worry about any distribution issues.

Here's a pointer:   the breasts and the texture! If you are starting from a female texture, you have to open it in 2D and eliminate the inevitable shadows and skin changes right below and to the sides of the breasts. If you don't do that, it does not matter how well you smooth the mesh, you can't get the male chest to look right. 

I think you know that Iuvenis, but just thought I'd throw that in for people attempting this for the first time.

::::: Opera :::::

I agree with Miss Nancy, the chest is off. His nipples are way too low. As for the adams apple, you could make a magnet and shrink the zone down to a small size on the neck. That should help.

I'm working on a new draft, and I'll be posting a test render shortly.  In the meantime, why don't you show us your male V4, Operaguy?  I'd be interested to see your approach.

Improvement or retrograde?

okay, will do, didn't want to step on your thread....

Big animation rendering on my 3D computer now, I'll work up a render and a post later tonight.

Go Rockies!

::::: Opera :::::

My only comment would be the breasts appear too rouded, whether due to the texture as OG suggested, or because of the mesh shape. In my opinion, and based on the few male chests I've looked at at any great length, the underside of the male chest muscle tends to be somewhat flatter in its curve. Nice job, though.

JonTheCelt

Better, worse, or no noticeable change?

Lookin' good!

Frankly, out of the entire thing...the item that strikes me as "off" is the eyebrows! And that's just because of the way they are on the texture, I am sure. I agree you can just see a little rounding to the breasts, which is female, as opposed to the "pecs" of a man.

I did some more work on my male V4 last night, but I'm not quite ready to show him. You are doing better than me.

That is really good work. What are your plans? Are you a vendor? 

::::: Opera :::::

You think mine is better than yours right now?  That's surprising, 'cause I think you have better resources (namely an easy and efficient way to create custom morphs).  I'm doing this completely with pre-packaged morphs (V4.1 Morphs++ and V4.1 Muscle Morphs).  Of course, I may have been working on this longer than you have.  When did you start?

The idea behind Nathan was that a male character created with nothing but standard-issue V4.1 morphs would be able to use any V4 clothing items without any conversion hassle.  Of course, you'd still have to morph the clothes to match the figure, but I think even that is preferable to most users over having to buy and use third-party utilities or something.  I have Vittorio 4, and I think he's severely underrated, but he has virtually no clothing support.

Of course, the fact that I have to use the "ChestSize" morphform kind of defeats this initial purpose since no V4 clothing item seems to have an equivalent morph.  I decided to keep going just to see how far I could take it.  I do hope to come up with something vendible, and since very few Poser artists seem to be attempting the masculinization of V4, I might be able to latch on to a profitable market niche.  I'm pretty much at the bottom of the vending totem pole right now, largely because I don't think I have as much experience as my competitors do.

to line up the pecs, abs, deltoids and nips, try to superimpose it over a torso shot of brad pitt or gerard butler.

Well, here is my work in progress. This is about it for a while. I am going to use this character in a music video I am animating, gotta get to work on that.

I think your plans are excellent, and I might well be a buyer for your product. There has not been a squeak out of Daz about M4, but some people think he could burst on the scene in time for Christmas, I hope you make some hay before that.

I am comitted to using this V4 technology for all my characters, so either male V4s or M4 are in my future, big time.

::::: Opera :::::

editing: I realize the left nipple looks to be missing in the first image...it is just washed out by the reflection of a strong backlight.

Also, there is no facial or body hair...didn't get to that yet!

:: og ::

another view

:: og ::

NIce to know I have at least one potential buyer!

Your WIP is not bad!  The chest could use a little more contouring.  I'm not sure if even a child's chest is quite that flat or not.  But I think you know that and probably plan to adjust it later on.  The face is interesting.  Were you going for a particular look other than just "masculine"? 

Have you tried posing your male V4 at all yet?  I ask that because Nathan doesn't seem to handle extreme poses very well.  I'm not sure if that's something I should be responsible for or not.  Like I said, there are NO custum morphs being used for Nathan at all, so it's not like I'm doing anything radical to the mesh.

I'll be very grateful when M4 comes out whether Nathan precedes him or not.  I'm yearning for a male figure with all the advantages of V4.1 who also enjoys widespread third-party support.

I find that after extreme morphing like this, the figure does not bend well. I doubt that animation of the nude body would look very well at all.

Yes, I was not going for a generic masculine. He is a specific character.

BRING ON M4!

::::: Opera ::::

one note, the chest size morphform is not actually a morph, its a scale control. It scales the chest and both collars.

Iuvenis_Scriptor:  Chest could stand to be a bit bigger as others have pointed out.  Also there is something odd going on at the nipple and where the crease of the breast would be on a female - if you're using a merchant resource type texture it probably has some shadow painted into the texture, you may want to go even that out.

OG your guy's nipples are quite a bit too high, it's mangling the texture - you don't need to make the chest COMPLETELY flat, most men have a bit of boob too, as well as some meat on the pectoral.  Hips are a bit too narrow as well.

Bring on M4!!

:: og ::

Did you look into Vittorio 4?  Morph pack from pdxjims that does a pretty good job of V4 maleness?

Yes, I see it there. I'd have to dig in and see if it can give you normal guy instead of superman. I know there are pictures there of normal guy......hwo good are they, when he starts to move is it smart? Etc.,

...... I am exhausted by all this!

BRING ON M4

::::: Opera :::::

I just bought the Morphia package (http://www.daz3d.com/i.x/shop/itemdetails/-/?item=5755&cat=421) and that enables the design of pretty darned good male characters.

I have Vittorio 4, and I'm aware of the Morphia package.  As I said before, the only problem with Vittorio 4 is that he's severely underrated and therefore extremely lacking in clothing support.  Also, I don't think a Vittorio 4 character would be as marketable for the same reason.

Pjz99: By "bigger," do you mean broader or more muscular?  The texture is an edited version of a female character texture of mine.  It has its basis in a merchant resource, but it's been substantially customized.  There are no breast shadows that I can see painted onto the texture.  The nipple issue may be a result of moving them much farther down than they were intended to go.

By "bigness" I kind of mean thickness of the torso, unless you just want him to have an unusually slim torso (the bishie fans will like that but then he'd have to shave his chest)

Here's the latest.  I hope it's an improvement.  I think I've managed to make the pecs look more square and a little more muscular.  I also thickened his torso.

I'm still seeing that wierdness around the top of the nipple and the low part of the breast/pec.  Can you show a render with no textures and same lighting?  And/or an export image in Smooth Lines mode closer in on that area?

Right now, my main concern is getting the shape and orientation right.  I'll tweak the textures and lighting after I perfect that.

Wonder if adjusting the joint parameters could help change the odd look of the breast area and maybe broaden the shoulder upper torso a tad. That's the main problem with him. Otherwise a really nice transformation.
Word has it that DAZ may one day release a Michael 4. Possibly sometime before this century draws to a close. Remember - the kind of thing they used to do really well before they got into the business of creating second-tier software?

Omigod there I go! Bitch, bitch, bitch!

Here's the latest.  The body is completely redone in hopes of morphing him in such a way that he handles extreme poses better and is compatible with V4 clothing.  Better or worse?

Great All you Need  to Do now is to choose "**delete figure"
**
install and load Appllo Max ,Daz "freak" Daz "David " etc. And you will have a perfectly suitable
and CONVINCING poser Male figure.

great job!!

DEATH TO "BISHIE BOYS"!!!!!!

The Freak and David don't have the improvements of Victoria 4, being generation-3 figures, and Apollo is overrated.  Until M4 comes out, the best male figure in my book is the grossly underrated Vittorio 4.  The only problem with him is that he has virtually no third-party support, which severely hinders his versatility. 

Well, after taking a break so I could keep up with a hectic couple weeks of college work, I went back to the drawing board with Nathan.  Here are the improvements I made.

• tweaked morphs
• improved eye texturing
• revamped body hair

This artistic render, postworked for color depth and background only, is the result.  To shake things up a bit, I opted for what hopefully resembles a Beatle-style mop-top created by morphing and slightly re-texturing Kozaburo's Short Bob for V3.

Comments?

Is this character meant to be a teenager or grown up?

Ideally, young adult, I'd say (about 20 - 30).

Attached Link: Angelo

[quoteAs I said before, the only problem with Vittorio 4 is that he's severely underrated and therefore extremely lacking in clothing support.. Three words: Wardrobe Wizard 2. ^^ Your clothing problems will be over soon, very soon.... -^

"Maybe this male model will help you. Click attached link."

Not Likely
you see SSAfam1 ,The problem is that you have linked to a Model (M3) that was ORIGINALLY MODELED to appear Decidedly Male/Masculine
therefore your link is only relevant to those actually seeking to render a Masculine looking figures.

We see proliferation of free MALE models
such as Apollo and M3 RR yet some  still insist on
on taking the decidedly feminine mesh of the
 "V" Chicks and trying to force hammer them into "Males"  which inevitably come out looking like some bizarre sex change surgery gone horribly ...HORRIBLY wrong !!

but apparently there is a market for these ultra fem
"BISHIE BOYS"

so to each their own

Cheers

Iuvenis,

I think you've done a good job.  His eyebrows need some work , though.

I feel really dumb asking this, but could someone explain to me what a "Bishie Boy" is?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishonen

Iuvenis you still have that weird shading going on where the breast crease would be on a female.  The nipple also looks pretty strange.  If it's not in the color map then it's something in the specular or bump map (probably specular).

Well, here's the latest. I slightly reworked his chest morphs to reduce the excess shading (i.e. crumpling) on the pectoral border, got rid of the lightened area surrounding the nipples, and reworked the eye textures. As a bonus, I also managed (finally) to come up with a light set that gives me the best of both worlds (realism and speed).

Further comments are welcome. I am pleased to announce that a third-party tester reported that he renders pretty well.

SSAfam1, his breasts look low because I've noticed that most male nipples (especially on athletes and body builders) are very low on the pecs, and I'm trying my best to imitate that without crumpling the mesh.  Also, I did put some stubble on the face.  Maybe I'll post a close-up of his face to show it more clearly.  He's quite cleanly shaven, but the evidence that he has something TO shave is there.

Wolf, You are very wrong about what you think "Bishie" is. Bishie is not a man who looks like a woman, he's an attractive young man, and is therefore wildly popular with the ladies. Bishie is AVERAGE masculine (like M3), Not LESS masculine (like V3 male), and not OVERLY masculine (like the Freak). He is definitely a man, every thing about him say Male, but people who look at features like beautiful hair will think "female." These people are not very observant, and/or brainwashed into thinking that anything that is pretty = female, and anything that is not pretty= male. Most women aren't into Neanderthals. (OVERLY masculine)(Arnold Schwarzenegger) And most women aren't into men who look like girls. (LESS masculine) (Jaye Davidson) Right in the middle is the sweet spot. (AVERAGE masculine) (Brad Pitt) And the Sweet Spot is full of lots and lots of Bishies. ^^ For example, here is a bishie character I made: http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1561145 As far as the figure on this thread, it's a work-in-progress. I don't think it's fair to pass judgement on an unfinished work. imho, There is a lot of work needed to turn V4 into a convincing male. In fact, V3 took two tries to get it right. V3 Male was a failure, but M3 was a success. I personally am content to wait for M4. Make DAZ earn their money. -^ bB

Quote - For example, here is a bishie character I made: http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1561145 but M3 was a success. I personally am content to wait for M4. Make DAZ earn their money. -^ bB

IMHO that so called "bishie" character you linked to looks WAAAY more like a human MALE than the one in this thread most notably is the larger more masculine nose and harder jawline in your render. he's a "pretty boy" but CLEARLY a boy never the less Not every male figure has to be shwarzenegger but frankly these "V" Chick abombinations never look convincing as males including "Vittorio" but people are free to engage in what ever pleases them with their poser stuff but threads inviting opinions of these "attempts" will get varied opinions.

Well, I've completely redone the chest morph for the third time, and I'm proud to say that Nathan now shades and poses much better!  I also made some slight revisions to the face.  Here' s the latest:

Yes good going on the nose job! Makes a world of difference.