I've just added a V4 runtime to my almost up and running P7.  I already have V3 loaded up so that's OK.

Did a bit of messing around - one or two (3 actually) observations, two of them being moans:

1. the morphs are chuffin' awful!  

2. she reminds me of those vinyl type dolls I used to have when I was a small girl.

3. I think I may stick with V3 - unless I make my own textures for V4.  Talking of which - are there any good tutorials out there on texturing V4 - her maps are SO different .......

Sheila

if you mean her texture or skin looks plastic, then the answer is skin shaders and look at a lot of the posts by bagginsbill (who is developing a commercial uber-shader) at here and RDNA in the Node Cult forum.  also, face_off's RSS works with a tweak.  if you're useing D|S, get pwSurface, it's worth it.

if you mean her face and body shape look plastic, then there's  few options. V4 has more realistic bending and proportions, but way less definition and facial realism than V3.  she shows an obvious A3 heritage, especially in places like her knees and elbows.  or her back, where she has no shoulder blades, even though you can see ribs on her chest between her breasts.  looking at her eyes, there are some really basic and obvious flaws V3 doesn't have, and i've yet to see a morph that corrects them.  bagginsbill is presently having problems with her eyeballs, and i think they just need to be replaced.   Alice by Aery Soul and (iirc) Sensational SuperStar Vickie have more defined  bodies, but both have a very definite appearance.   and they basically make thinner characters, instead of just giving her a more accurate shape.  you can use Alice with V4's morphs, but she never stops being distinctive rather than a basic, fairly neutral detailing.

that's not a criticism of Alice, because she's supposed to be distinctive. it just means she's not a silver bullet.  and not sold, presently.  she might be re-released for XMas, but AerySoul pulled her from market already.

at this point, i've seen lots and lots of people (including myself) and merchants try, but i think her face is a wash.  she's my least realistic modern non-stylized figure in that regard.  you'll notice that textures with lots of make-up look more realistic.  it's because they hide the glaring problems with her eyelids that help make her look like a doll. not entirely hide, but help.  

cheers - yes, it's the face that's my main bugbear - the expressions (or lack of).  I've just added her to my Runtime so I'll play around with her and find out her full pros and cons.  I have to be honest than on balance, at least for portrait work, I prefer V3 - so much more expressive, and better constructed eyes and phenomes.

Sheila

I'm sorry, i find it hard to believe that with V4's face morphs, included shader tree and detailed mesh you can't find a way to make her look compeletely different.

I mean, just mixing and matching the eight or so "ladies" that are included, a little Lisa, a touch of Kirstin, etc., will get you great variety of looks. And the other shaping morphs I find powerful as well.

This is not to mention the MorphToolBrush, FaceShop (etc.) and altering the texture in 2D.

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Eh, ........  i have v4, and I can relate.  There are those who tout she's just fantastic...... but fantastic for what exactly? LOL, I haven't figured that out.  I've managed to make ONE image with her, and i got her oh, within a week of her coming out.   I find her extremely hard to work with.

Its not the "character" faces for her that are the problem, at least, not entirely.  She's very limited especially trying to get something ETHNIC that doesnt have pouty lips and big doe eyes.   I'm sure I could get it, but why couldnt it be as easy as say, V3"s simple inject of "asian".  At least v3 you have more options to play with.

Anyway, its the expressions that are lacking enirely.  Unless your figure is happy, sad, disgusted or angry.......i've mixed those with tweaks  of other dials and have yet to get any realistic and SUBTLE facial expressions.

I'm not bashing vendors here, they're trying at least, but there simply isn't a plethora of V4 textures out there.  Someone will argue with me, yes there's lots, but most seem like the one before it.  I've only seen a minor handful that actually look good when rendered, unfortunately they are almost all primarily the classic "white woman"

Again, sure she's a good figure in someone elses hands, I just find her way too time consuming to get a look that i want, I have better luck airbrushing over the entire rendered figure.

Here are three renders from my archives. 

#1 is my V3 two years ago. Terrible. I was just starting out and knew nothing.
#2 is my V3 a year ago. Much better, but needs a lot of work still.
#3 is my V4 a couple months ago.  (Full size here.)

Shaders, pose, lighting, textures, expression, render settings, all must be refined.

Search this forum for posts about realism and skin shaders (try "realism skin shader"). Particularly look for posts involving face_off. We've talked about it endlessly.

Also, have a look in the Node Cult forum at RDNA. Search for UBSS. I present a really basic 3-node skin shader there. Learn to use it until you've exhausted its possibilities, then move on.

If you really want to get advanced (hundreds of nodes in a shader), learn to use my matmatic program to make complicated shaders. Search here and the Node Cult for matmatic.

The way I work around the faces is to first, buy some REALLY nice V4 character sets. About 1 out of every 30 sets will feature a unique look. Most of the stuff you'll find are nothing more than some skin thrown on top of a slightly morphed character using Poser's default dials. Some good sets are like and of Aery Souls characters, Brooke 2.0 from Daz3D (today is the last day to get her for half price http://www.daz3d.com/i.x/shop/itemdetails/-/?item=5587 ), then there's Lecretia from RDNA (http://www.runtimedna.com/mod/bcs/index.php?ViewProduct=3014&TopID=163266 ). And then I'll use Dulce from Daz (http://www.daz3d.com/i.x/shop/itemdetails/-/?item=5446 ). 

What I found is that in Poser 7, once you inject a particular morph into your V4 model, in the list of pose dials, Select the head and then scroll all the way to the bottom of the list. The last dial will read the name of the charater dial you just loaded with a value of 1.0 next to it. Simply dial down a bit and you'll notice the head/face look a tad different. It's as if you are melding the injected character with the features of the base V4 to come up with something more "unique."

Also what I like to do is take the base V4 and tweek the body up a bit. Add some size to her hips, give her a slight tummy buldge, add in some Posermatic's NGM, and give her some muscle definition. Then, I'll inject a character morph to the head only to give V4 a whole different look. Also, one of the most underutilized aspects of changing V4's overall look is trying the right hair style! She can really take on a whole separate personality simply by using the right hair. You can ge more sultry looks out of a base V4 just by using hair the may cover one eye.

When I get home, I'll make some renders and show you what I mean.

I don't normally purchase "texture sets" but the head morph included with the new "Vanessa" set called to me. There is something powerful about the morph itself.

http://forum.daz3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=71101

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That Vanessa package IS magnificent but...

I don't have V4 and I don't want V4. It would only be fair to offer the hair seperately for those of us who'll never abandon V3.

Thanks everyone for answering my post.  I admit the initial one was just a litany of gripes and complaints - I shall try V4 out for sometime longer - I am one of those impatient creatures, however, who wish to be able to change things - and I either don't have the time or the skill to do so..........

Ah well, back to the drawing board!!!!

Sheila

barrowlass one last comment: while v3 had the "asian, african," etc ethnic dials, V4 has them also. They are just not called that, they are given 11 different girls names. Try setting each one to "1" one at a time and note the 'face style' or ethnicity inherent in each.

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Attached Link: Sub Surface Scattering

Bagginsbill's shader is probably a nice place to start too.  Hey BB, is the Free V3 script around yet?