This is my vent, but if I make a few valid points feel free to chime in - and feel free to chime in anyway. Here is my list of pet peaves about POSER, DAZ SUDIO, and sites like 3dcommune, runtimeDNA, DAZ, etc. Please don't let it offend you, because this is therapy for me - and if I don't share it, I'll drop like a rock from hypertension, lol.

#1, FAIRIES!!! Fairies, or fae, or sprites, or twinkles, or whatever the hell that you want to call them. O-V-E-R-K-I-L-L!!!, I refuse to believe that there are that many combination Disney fans / former Dungeons & Dragon players on the ENTIRE planet. Enough with the fairies already!
If I see one more pair of pointed ears - I'm going to go outside and lay down in the middle of the road.

#2, Why is it that every time somebody comes out with a new figure, or a new version of Poser, SUDDENLY - all that you see is the stuff for the NEW crapola in the market place and in the freebies. Is SMITH MICRO, or DAZ, or any of those other folks giving you independant merchants any income or gratuities for pushing their latest buggy, beta qauIity ugrades?

I just bought Poser 6 like yesterday, and just finally was able to buy the freakin head and body morphs for Victoria 3 and Mike 3, and now BAM! Everythings about POSER 8, ALYSON, VICKY 4.2 AND MIKE 4, MIKI (whoever that is), AND A4, AND A BUNCH OF OTHER HOOKY FIGURES THAT JUST SUDDENLY "HAPPENED"! WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?!!! 

SLOW DOWN AND TAKE A BREATHER ALREADY!!!! Maybe MYSELF AND OTHERS  may want to still buy stuff for the G3 figures. Think of the revenue your losing!

Vicky3 looks just as good (actually better when you get right down to the details) than Vic4.2.
Victoria 4.2 comes with this creepy head hair texture, a cheezy second skin purple bikini, and no secondary gender characteristics to speak of whatsoever. She's WORSE than a 1950s era department store mannequin. At least THEY had some measure of non-utilitarian symmetry, and a heck of a lot more character!

Hey DAZ - what's wrong with giving her a set of nipples? Not that I'm a perv or anything - but I DO NOT think that seven year olds with impressionable minds are the ONLY one's downloading these figures, so you don't have to sanitize them to Sesame Street grade ultracensored  androgeny!

#3, THE SECONDARY MORPH CHANNEL PACKAGE SCAM!!!  Not ONLY do we have to buy seperate HEAD AND BODY morph packages for V4.2 and Mike4.2, but to make some of the ultra complicated characters that some of you short sighted, business saavy  NIMRODS out there want to sell or give away - we have to buy OTHER morph packs as well to make them work - like the "ELITE" morph packs, or the "Perfection" morph packs, or the "Celebration" morph packs, or the "I Just Burned You For Another Buck You Stupid Sheepish Dufus" morphpack. 

How is this progress? Vicky 2 had intact morph channels - but Vicky 4 doesn't? You have to buy the base AND the morph channels seperately (CIP, for example Aiko 4). That's a beef I have with Daz - BUT - it seems that you guys selling stuff HERE would make a heck of a lot more money if you made characters for sale or as freebies (good PR) that DID NOT require the seperate purchase of someone else's morph package that YOU YOURSELF ARE NOT MAKING ONE RED CENT FROM! Duuuuhhhhh... Your promoting THEIR Morph Packages - but are THEY giving you any kick back for that? Hmmmmmmm? Duuuuuuuuuh.....

Here's an idea, if your gonna do that, make your OWN morph packages that people have to buy to make YOUR OWN characters work. That way - at least your being cruel and not stupid.

#4,  WHORE CLOTHES!!!  ALL I SEE ARE WHORE CLOTHES!!!
Do you know how much I would LOVE to see a regular police officer's uniform for Victoria 4, 3, 0r 2, that did not involve fish neck stockings and anal floss? How about a regular cable tv repair person's outfit - or a construction outfit,  or a military uniform, or a fire fighters outfit, or a sci fi astronaut outfit, or a swords and sorcery type ditty that doesn't look like stripper gear, or a costume for a vintage Linda Lovelace flick? Something that doesn't look like a wet T-shirt party?

I know that sex sells - and yes - you do want a little "sleeze and cheeze" in your work every great now and then, But there ARE limits - and the Valley Of Good Taste DOES have a well posted corporation line. 

Also - underwear. I'll bet that if these figures were REAL people, 99% of their wardrobes would be underwear. Their mothers would be proud because they would always be wearing fresh clean underwear and NEVER have to crank a washing machine. We need more JEANS - and NOT the crotch cutting mini cut off slut pants, I mean everyday slightly baggy, mediocre, straightleg jeans.

#5, More MALE FIGURE STUFF to.  Poor MICHEAL 2,3, and 4 has to get most of his hair from female hair refits - THIS IS SAD! We need eqaulity in the render room please!!!

Now I feel much better having had a good gripe. That is - until some DIM WIT out there does something else DUMB to annoy me. Thank you...
    

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#2, Why is it that every time somebody comes out with a new figure, or a new version of Poser, SUDDENLY - all that you see is the stuff for the NEW crapola in the market place and in the freebies. Is SMITH MICRO, or DAZ, or any of those other folks giving you independant merchants any income or gratuities for pushing their latest buggy, beta qauIity ugrades?

I just bought Poser 6 like yesterday, and just finally was able to buy the freakin head and body morphs for Victoria 3 and Mike 3, and now BAM! Everythings about POSER 8, ALYSON, VICKY 4.2 AND MIKE 4, MIKI (whoever that is), AND A4, AND A BUNCH OF OTHER HOOKY FIGURES THAT JUST SUDDENLY "HAPPENED"! WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?!!! 

Poser 6 came out four and a half years ago.  If that was just like "yesterday", you have either an incredibly slow metabolic rate or are accelerating at near light speed in a moving frame.  V4 came out three years ago.

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SLOW DOWN AND TAKE A BREATHER ALREADY!!!! Maybe MYSELF AND OTHERS  may want to still buy stuff for the G3 figures. Think of the revenue your losing!

Last time I checked, you could still buy the vast majority of the G3 stuff.  And some of it is now free.

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#3, THE SECONDARY MORPH CHANNEL PACKAGE SCAM!!!  Not ONLY do we have to buy seperate HEAD AND BODY morph packages for V4.2 and Mike4.2, but to make some of the ultra complicated characters that some of you short sighted, business saavy  NIMRODS out there want to sell or give away - we have to buy OTHER morph packs as well to make them work - like the "ELITE" morph packs, or the "Perfection" morph packs, or the "Celebration" morph packs, or the "I Just Burned You For Another Buck You Stupid Sheepish Dufus" morphpack. 

How is this progress? Vicky 2 had intact morph channels - but Vicky 4 doesn't? You have to buy the base AND the morph channels seperately (CIP, for example Aiko 4). That's a beef I have with Daz - BUT - it seems that you guys selling stuff HERE would make a heck of a lot more money if you made characters for sale or as freebies (good PR) that DID NOT require the seperate purchase of someone else's morph package that YOU YOURSELF ARE NOT MAKING ONE RED CENT FROM! Duuuuhhhhh... Your promoting THEIR Morph Packages - but are THEY giving you any kick back for that? Hmmmmmmm? Duuuuuuuuuh.....

I'm sorry, but didn't you just say something about finally buying the morph packages for V3 and M3?  The separate packages have been part of DAZ's selling since V3 was released 6 years ago.

If you have to gripe, you might want to consider doing so involving things that don't make you look like someone who has missed the better part of the last decade.

Thanks Kieth - let's cover the last first. I had to buy the morph packages to make the characters that I wanted to work - WORK!  Why do you think I'm complaining - IT'S BECAUSE I HAD TO BUY THE MORPHS!!! Not so with Vicky two. By the way there "Dustin Hoffman", do you like paying someone every time you take a dump? I SURE DON'T! BUY A CLUE!!!

Also Kieth, I am limited income - that's explains a lot about the belated purchases. But four years is actually NOT that long -  unless your young, dumb, and mentally numb. I realize that to, that to trend sucking bandwagon riders and chronic change fanatics, four years is undoubtably an eternity. Sounds to me like your the kinda guy that can't tolerate the same color of paint being on your living room wall for longer than a month.

Besides - who wants to spend $400.00 on something that you have to update to a new version every 24 months to keep up with tools and content.

Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/tos.php

 You know, ranting is all well and good, but, let's attempt to keep it civil, and not sling insults.  

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Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it into a fruit salad.

I see a render of Poser 5 Don Quixote tilting at a nice big windmill somewhere in my future. :tt2:

I think I may just frame the OP's post.  I love it.

However, consider that "market forces" are what drive the industry.  Most of the new content is created to cash in on the wave.  I'm not against that at all - being a merchant meself - and the old content is out there if you care to look.  

DAZ et al have to drive new sales in order to survive.  Merchants tend to see their products disappear quickly after an initial flurry, so they generally rely on volume of product.  You can always take the route Blackhearted takes, though.  Create a unique and very desirable product, charge accordingly and see it stick around for a long time.  That takes skill and determination.  Several other merchants do that, too.  Billy-T springs to mind.

As for the "whore clothes"... well, obviously, that's what sells.

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OK-OK-OK, allow me to re-iterate. I just got a fresh pack of smokes (I'm one of those low life, nicotine addicted chimney heads that is now as hated and despised as a bad case of mumps) - and I'm feeling much better. Sorry to dump on you like that Kieth. I'm just grumpy and muddling through the final stages of "Man'epause".

Anyway - yes your making valid points, but some of us do use figures for actual graphics work, and not for "SIMPORN", which is my beef with the "WHORE CLOTHES" concept. Mind you I fully support the further developement of "FAKE PORN" , because if it nudged out "real porn", it would actually decrease gross human exploitation. Cartoons don't have souls or an id to scar.
Still - I would like to see a lot more universally usable clothing products and freebies. I'm not saying don't deprive Melvin the geek who lives in his mom's basement of a non-damaging,
victimless outlet. I just want to see stuff that people can actually use more universally.

FYI - I'm planning on being a merchant here as soon as I build a product base. I am, however, going to make the packages as runtime simplified and backwards compatible as possible.

Linda Lovelace? I was more of a Christy Canyon fan but I seem to recall that they all wore the basic 70's era disco garb that was generally  in style at the time, before doffing them for the dénouement. 

Poserworld has lots of non-whorish clothing. Daz has a police uniform, albeit for V4, but she could be wearing fishnets and a garterbelt underneath so you get the best of both worlds.

"Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance." - H. L. Mencken

Good points Imckenzie. However, as far as the Linda Lovelace thing. If I recall correctly there were a few interesting wardrobe choices in both "Deep Throat", and "Beyond The Green Door", so the seventies skin schlock did have it's more cheezy side - lol. Could be just a matter of perception and personal taste though. What's funky to one person is mundane to another.
I think 1980s mainstream films are better examples of the much wider use of "WHORE CLOTHES", lol.

Quote -
Anyway - yes your making valid points, but some of us do use figures for actual graphics work, and not for "SIMPORN", which is my beef with the "WHORE CLOTHES" concept. Mind you I fully support the further developement of "FAKE PORN" , because if it nudged out "real porn", it would actually decrease gross human exploitation. Cartoons don't have souls or an id to scar.
Still - I would like to see a lot more universally usable clothing products and freebies. I'm not saying don't deprive Melvin the geek who lives in his mom's basement of a non-damaging,
victimless outlet. I just want to see stuff that people can actually use more universally.

Let's wander off the reservation a bit, shall we?

Speaking as someone who hung out waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much at Renderotica awhile back, I have to say that the best pr0n (at least IMHO) usually didn't involve "sexy" clothing.

Seriously - ordinary clothing works just fine, and adds a touch of reality to the image. Besides, the ultimate driver of good vs. bad pr0n isn't the clothing anyway - it's all the little details that come together.

I've lost track (and count) of the number of renders that, like the ones here, are pure crap. The 'artist' barely gets the mechanics together, and forgets about all those10^5 little details that together destroy whatever it was the 'artist' was trying to convey. Things like overly-exaggerated facial expressions, joints bent beyond the point of tearing and sloppily post-worked (if they bothered to), lighting that was flat (if you were lucky), the eyes pointed off into space somewhere, the facial expressions consisted of just the mouth (sloppily done), and the body's positioning often defied physics.

Oh, and the joints... holy sh!t. Most of the joints are not even close to being paid attention to (hint: every joint on the figure should be used if you're posing a humanoid figure - not just the big/obvious ones). Most times, a canned pose is plopped in, then a couple of joints are (maybe) tweaked --and often wrongly-- to fix the obvious collisions and hose-ups. Here's a few hints, kids:

• Hands do not rotate/twist on their own - they take the forearms along for the ride.
• Feet can and do roll from one side to another, or point outwards, inwards, etc (and they even do it when standing to help the body keep balance). Note that feet can twist, but they take the shins along for a good part of the ride, just like hands do.
• Yes the thumb joints are awkward and do weird things - but please, at least try to make them fit in! And while we're on this point, STOP with making the (finger)2 and (finger)3 joints move side to side unless you're breaking the finger! It's too painful to watch.
• female reproductive organs are analog, not binary. What I mean is, there's more than just the "shut tight as a drum" state and the "...holy crap I think the Exxon Valdez could fit in there!" state.
• same with the male organ - as the owner of a real one, I can tell you that there is no instant-on switch for the things (at least not after 30...)

...anyway, I'm meandering a bit too much here.

Back to the subject - pr0n or not, there's usually a huge diff between good and bad. Good does not require window dressing - as long as the subjects are seen to be doing something (and the whole body is geared towards expressing it), the clothes are superfluous.

Personally, when it comes to pr0n, give me conforming clothing to work with that actually moves, and I'm a happy camper. It's infinitely more sensuous to have a figure with an open collared button-down shirt, than it is to have a figure with a top designed explicitly to let the 'girls' flop around in the breeze, yanno? A pushed-up/down/sideways sweater is a hell of a lot more useful in this endeavor than a "camisole" that has two 'strategically' placed holes carved in the mesh. Ugly work jeans that open and fall are way the hell more useful in expressing the subject than even the tightest cameltoe-displaying "hot pants". Hell, 'granny panties' that actually have some movement to them are more useful than even the sexiest thong.

Anyrate, them's my 2 rubles on the subject...

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I think I may just frame the OP's post.  I love it.

I agree.
I got into an argument with this dude recently, about what I can't even remember now, but I never forget an avatar. ;-)
But that's one of the best and funniest Poser-related rants I think I've ever read here. If anything it's too tame. ;-)

Yes Mike - it was about a little quipe that you made that ticked me off. I'm over it now brother, thanks for the plus man. As I said before I'm a grumpy gus that's standing on the declining side of lifes rollercoaster ride, and the transition wasn't too long ago, lol.

Good points penguinisto...

LOL!!  it just temporarily Deactivated my Adblock Plus
to see all images
I vote Musgeys Avatar to be the funniest in the history of the internet .

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Quote - I refuse to believe that there are that many combination Disney fans / former Dungeons & Dragon players on the ENTIRE planet. Enough with the fairies already!
If I see one more pair of pointed ears - I'm going to go outside and lay down in the middle of the road.

I'd just like to point out (as a former D&D player, current Pathfinder RPG GM) that fairies are nowhere near being something we find interesting enough to even think about often, let alone render.

Dragons, OTOH...

________________________________________________________________

If you're joking that's just cruel, but if you're being sarcastic, that's even worse.

amen...I think we're suffering from 'give 'em the Razor (V3/M4/V3...etc), sell 'em the blades (Morphs, morphs plus, morphs ++, morps #...wait, that's C....never mind...;). I am truly grateful to Daz for offering the base characters free, but I do miss the 'fine tuning' I could do with earlier characters.

Throwing fuel on the fire - I think Apollo Max got a lot of it right; that's him in my avatar...;) if only the other vendors could do that....;)

Whore clothes - seconded. While I'm not averse to scantily-clad women, this isn't the 'Last Action Hero' world...;) Period clothing is nice to 'shake things up' every now and again. I gather normal clothing is a lot easier to model (heck, I'm still doing hats..;), but I still notice the more cleavage, the higher the ti..er, hits...;)

I wish I'd said that.. The Staircase Wit

anahl nathrak uth vas betude doth yel dyenvey..;)

lol- Great rant :P

*"...sanitize them to Sesame Street grade ultracensored  androgeny"

*It's been a bitch of mine for years that way to many of these sites are 'Disneyfied' not for the sake of the arts (or business) but to passify that loudest of the 'new age puritians' (R).

*"I am, however, going to make the packages as runtime simplified and backwards compatible as possible"

*I applaud that big time. Basic props for the most part should be usable on versions all the way back to P4pro!!!!!!! Even clothing that dosen't have sub surface scattering should be made backwards compatible!!!!!

All of my props are useable in all versions of Poser and DS-- and I do this on purpose.

First of all - pakled made an excellent point and may have hit on a real "EUREKA" principle here. Take APOLLO MAXIMUS, I have that figure. You can make this figure male, female, hermaphroditic, nueterian, black, white, yellow, brown, red, and green. He can be from Arkansas, or Arabia - China or Charleston South Carolina - Maryland or Mars. He can be made into a wafey little asian chic JUST LIKE AIKO OR MAYA DOLL, a buxom beauty JUST LIKE VICTORIA, a dude JUST LIKE MIKE, HIRO, DAVID, G2JAMES, and the VICTORIA MALE FIGURES, or he can be a muscular giant JUST LIKE THE FREAK OR EVEN SIXUS 1's BEHEMOTH. He can be ANYONE! A SUPER POLYMORPHIC PRO GRADE MASTERPIECE!!!

 APOLLO MAXIMUS also renders superbly, realisticly, and beautifully. APOLLO MAXIMUS is like getting 3000 figures in one package. If you had enough supporting clothing, props, and materials for this figure (which is ironically the problem) - IT WOULD BE THE ONLY FIGURE THAT YOU WOULD EVER NEED - PERIOD! The clincher about this perfect all purpose actor? THE COMPLETE APOLLO MAXIMUS FIGURE IS TOTALLY FREE - NO STRINGS - THANK GOD!!!

Now herein is the puzzle of the ages. EVERYBODY KNOWS ABOUT APOLLO MAXIMUS. My question is - why isn't the freebie sections of these sites dedicated to almost exclusively APOLLO MAXIMUS clothing, morphs, accessories, and textures? WHY???!!!! It's a mystery like Bigfoot, UFOs, The Loch Ness Monster, and why women hate you enough to kill you just because you left the toilet seat up. WHY??!!!

Almost EVERY freebie offering that I've ever seen deals with something that you have to have already paid a fortune for. NOBODY that I know of is getting any deals under the table or off to the side from Smith Micro or DAZ for making freebies that hinge upon ownership of these pricey figures. If they WERE getting at least a discount coupon or two from these guys for doing this - then I'de say "SURE - MAKES SENSE!" - But they ARE NOT!!!

APOLLO MAXIMUS is like clay. If you want a goofy cartoony character - HE CAN BE THAT!
If you want a sexy rail thin supermodel, HE CAN BE THAT!
If you want a voluptious fat woman - HE CAN BE THAT!   If you want a terrifieing alien or monster - HE CAN BE THAT! HE CAN BE TWEAKED TO BE ANYTHING! Short, fat , thin , human, mutant, alien, male, female, inbetween, neither, any nationality, any race, any age.

So WHY don't I only use him and noone else? Simple - hardly anyone bothers to create that much supportive material for him at all! He is NOT as well supported as Victoria or the other figures - if he were, I would be willing to PAY FOR HIM, simply because he is such a versatile figure that I could tell DAZ and SMITH MICRO to go take a shower on the whole damn deal.

Ponder that one for a while!  I'm also concerned that AM might disappear all together because he's not getting the P.R. he needs to stay existant. Almost seems like an orchestrated conspiracy. This is strange in the main because APOLLO MAXIMUS technically renders EVERY OTHER FIGURE MADE COMPLETELY OBSOLETE!!!!!!

Also - yes - my projects will be as backwards compatible as possible, because I'm tired of days of work being reduced to obsolete garbage overnight.

Quote - Take APOLLO MAXIMUS, I have that figure. You can make this figure male, female, hermaphroditic, nueterian, black, white, yellow, brown, red, and green. He can be from Arkansas, or Arabia - China or Charleston South Carolina - Maryland or Mars. He can be made into a wafey little asian chic JUST LIKE AIKO OR MAYA DOLL, a buxom beauty JUST LIKE VICTORIA, a dude JUST LIKE MIKE, HIRO, DAVID, G2JAMES, and the VICTORIA MALE FIGURES, or he can be a muscular giant JUST LIKE THE FREAK OR EVEN SIXUS 1's BEHEMOTH. He can be ANYONE! A SUPER POLYMORPHIC PRO GRADE MASTERPIECE!!!

 APOLLO MAXIMUS also renders superbly, realisticly, and beautifully. APOLLO MAXIMUS is like getting 3000 figures in one package. If you had enough supporting clothing, props, and materials for this figure (which is ironically the problem) - IT WOULD BE THE ONLY FIGURE THAT YOU WOULD EVER NEED - PERIOD! The clincher about this perfect all purpose actor? THE COMPLETE APOLLO MAXIMUS FIGURE IS TOTALLY FREE - NO STRINGS - THANK GOD!!!

Now herein is the puzzle of the ages. EVERYBODY KNOWS ABOUT APOLLO MAXIMUS. My question is - why isn't the freebie sections of these sites dedicated to almost exclusively APOLLO MAXIMUS clothing, morphs, accessories, and textures? WHY???!!!! I.

Because no one buys Real estate in Afghanistan.

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Huh?...No-one buys real estate in AFGANISTAN?...SEE - THIS IS ONE OF THE MAIN PROBLEMS - TOO MANY GLUE SNIFFERS!!! Lmao :lol:

Quote - Thanks Kieth - let's cover the last first. I had to buy the morph packages to make the characters that I wanted to work - WORK!  Why do you think I'm complaining - IT'S BECAUSE I HAD TO BUY THE MORPHS!!! Not so with Vicky two. By the way there "Dustin Hoffman", do you like paying someone every time you take a dump? I SURE DON'T! BUY A CLUE!!!

Sorry but you are completely forgetting the Vicky  2 in her day was ~$60 while Vicky 3 with head and body morphs and texture was about ~$39 or maybe ~$49 (I payed less due to Platinum club discounts and there may have been a discount for upgrading).  Vicky 3 actually cost less and you had to option to only get what you wanted.

Chris Cox

I share your disappointment about all of the new marginal quality BS fairy characters that are coming out, and all of the time and effort the merchants are expending on something I guarantee I'll never buy. But that's their choice and business decissions, and it's none of my business.

As to clothing for V4 that's not slutty, try 9MBi.com. The best clothing out there for a non-slutty Vicky.

There's quite a bit of M4 clothing over at Poserworld.com with more coming all the time. 

The reason no one supports Apollo has to do both with the figure being flakey and with politics directed toward the creator (who pissed a lot of people off a few years back.) Don't look for much more to come that not from Anton's site.

Good Luck!

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This is strange in the main because APOLLO MAXIMUS technically renders EVERY OTHER FIGURE MADE COMPLETELY OBSOLETE!!!!!!

Not true, not when you look at it from a technical standpoint. All that supermorph/cross-character stuff, such as turning V3/4 into a dude or a superfreak, the whole Unimesh idea, morphing any figure too much beyond what it was designed as creates serious problems with textures and even rigging. Problems that can be somewhat fixed by the developer, but not really by the end user, particularly not the typical point'n'click Poserite.

The best figures are the ones  that were completely designed to be one thing, and developed as such.

That's just my opinion on the whole deal and definitely not an anti-Apollo or anti-Anton statement.

DAZ has gone quite a ways towards helping to spread this myth that all characters should be able to be created equal, with their uni-mesh snowjob, and the Poserverse gets less and less original with each year,largely due to DAZ' efforts to pwn it with their overly complex, yet overly simplified figures that they try to pass off as universally interchangeable.

Quote -
Not true, not when you look at it from a technical standpoint. All that supermorph/cross-character stuff, such as turning V3/4 into a dude or a superfreak, the whole Unimesh idea, morphing any figure too much beyond what it was designed as creates serious problems with textures and even rigging. Problems that can be somewhat fixed by the developer, but not really by the end user, particularly not the typical point'n'click Poserite.

The best figures are the ones  that were completely designed to be one thing, and developed as such.

DAZ has gone quite a ways towards helping to spread this myth that all characters should be able to be created equal, with their uni-mesh snowjob, and the Poserverse gets less and less original with each year,largely due to DAZ' efforts to pwn it with their overly complex, yet overly simplified figures that they try to pass off as universally interchangeable.

Quoted for Absolute Agreement!!
to me every Vicky "male morph" has always looked like some bizarre sex change operation gone horribly wrong.
I am still amazed that some people actually  try to $sell$  a V4 "male morph"
when there is a completely Viable  FREE male in the form of the M4 Base.

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To the OP, I'd like to echo the idea of PoserWorld.  There's a TON of good Generation 3 (and Gen 1 and 2...as well as Poser 4 Female and Male) stuff over there.  If you haven't already checked it out, I'd dare say you'd be in hog-heaven when you did!  Plus, that's where a lot of the "normal clothing" for Poser figures lives.  I think PoserWorld is one of the best deals out there.  That plus a few figure licenses Crossdresser and you've got a treasure-trove of stuff.

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Rant On! I learn much more about software from a a good rant and the resulting thread. I learn the good, bad and workarounds that you cant find in the manual or book at any price. a good rant......priceless. the more emotional the better!
Thanks for sharing.
Steven

Not ONLY do we have to buy seperate HEAD AND BODY morph packages for V4.2 and Mike4.2
@Mugsey: I am still poser newbie. Could we create head morph for V4.2 with poser morph tool or magnet and then sell them?

imagination304: Actually dude I would create a seperate FREE version of a deluxe morph pak for the GEN4 figures that effectively replaces DAZ's commercial offering if I could, but I don't want to get the crap sued out of me. It's a tantalizing notion though.

Creatingimages: I had to rant tonight because it was just building up too much. Thank you for understanding.

To those who echoed that I should check out POSER WORLD - I am indeed going to see about a subscription - seems like just the ticket for now.

To MIKEJ and WOLF359: The Apollo Maximus figure is not what you describe - as a static figure that get's warped unnaturally beyond it's design limitations - it's DESIGNED to be a polymorphic seed figure for multiple forms. It cannot be compared to the Victoria male figures in that regard.

To chriscox: Vicky2 and V3 were about the same price when they first came out straight forward with no discounts. Sorry...

Mikej: No Mike - the BEST figures are the ones that come complete - where you don't have to buy four different accessory packages to create halfway believeable characters. You know - the one's that ALREADY have morph channels. Apollo 1 - Vicky 0...

Quote -
To MIKEJ and WOLF359: The Apollo Maximus figure is not what you describe - as a static figure that get's warped unnaturally beyond it's design limitations - it's DESIGNED to be a polymorphic seed figure for multiple forms. It cannot be compared to the Victoria male figures in that regard.

Well I'm not going to argue with you on the technicalities of the Apollo Maximus mesh, since I don't think I have it, but I was speaking in more general terms. It may very well be that it was designed to be many different figures, but I don't care what the mesh is like, if you deform it too much in any direction you will have texture stretching/pinching/warping and you will change the poly flow in ways that could negatively affect its joints.

Nothing that can't be fixed mostly by someone who knows wshat he's doing, but I did also mention the "average point'n'click" Poser user. Most have no idea how to deal with the myriad of problems that can result from over morphing, and don't even notice there's a problem. One quick look through the Poser gallery on any given day will prove that. ;-)

Quote - imagination304: Actually dude I would create a seperate FREE version of a deluxe morph pak for the GEN4 figures that effectively replaces DAZ's commercial offering if I could, but I don't want to get the crap sued out of me. It's a tantalizing notion though.

From what I understand...as long as you don't use any of DAZ's morphs in any way (including those in the base) and you don't name your morphs the same as any of theirs (to be confusing), I think you can create your own custom morph pack (using Zbrush or the Poser morph tool or modo or whatever) and redistribute it.  You can check with DAZ but I'd be shocked if you can't.  RNDA has their own Ultimate Morphs. 

But, I'm not sure if the V4 or M4 BASE come with the FBM PBM empty channels or not, though.  If not, it would have to be supplied as something like Poser PMDs.

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andolaurina. I wouldn't risk it anyway - to many "ifs, ands, and buts", but the suggestion is appreciated.

Qoute: "I'm not sure if the V4 or M4 BASE come with the FBM PBM empty channels or not, though.  If not, it would have to be supplied as something like Poser PMDs."

See - that's why I'm SOooooo p!ssed about this whole thing with the DAZ characters.
I'm glad that quite a few people had the foresight to create character morphs for the G4 unimesh figures that DO NOT require the special "++morph packs". I'm going to create figures myself, probably using the "MAKEHUMAN" free figure building app, that has dimensions that will accomodate the clothing and accessories made for the Victoria and Mike figures, or, I'll make clothes for them myself. I don't HATE DAZ, I don't want anybody to think that because they do offer people breaks and good stuff every great now and then - but the seperate morph pack requirement thing, and selling base figures with no channels (primarily Aiko4 right now) has me greatly disillusioned with them at this point.

 Just a reminder folks, please use the language flags if you're going to swear AT ALL. 

Thanks,

Jeni

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Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it into a fruit salad.

 Of course, this discounts how OOOOGLY the G4 characters truly are IMHO.

Mugsey, I think you really need to take a deep breath and understand that this is, and has always been, a VERY expensive hobby. As with most other things in this world, you get, pretty much, what you pay for. Free is free for a good reason. Investment in something you truly think is useful is worth the asking price.

Take it from one who's spent over $7000 on Poser related materials. People at my site ask me how I get the results I get when their's look poor by comparison. It's not that I'm a great artist... it's gigo. They use garbage and I don't.

This is not to say that all freebees are garbage. There are many quality artists like trekkiegirl who offer freebees that are well worth having, but my point is, you have to have some quality major items to start with if you want quality outcomes from your renders.

My $.02

I can't look at any more Halloween related content LOL!!

As far as the other content you ranted about I gave up long ago saying anything about it or making suggestions. It seems the more people rant about it the more that type of stuff ends up in the marketplaces. I figured it is easier to be happy when you find something not related to your rant about ho clothing as such.

There are many ho clothes and fairy outfits that with some other textures will look like everyday clothing. The best thing to do is buy stuff you know you're going to use over and over becoming a content ho will really break your wallet and fill up your hard drive. There are a lot of great freebie items that are very high in quality and very nice to use. Just because you may buy content from the market places doesn't always mean it's of good quality not all of it is.

I don't know if you are just starting out with the hobby but understand it takes time and practice to make pretty pictures, getting to know the programs in and our and what they can do and I don't care who says different. Above all take it slow don't try to keep up with the Jone's it took me years to amass the library of content and figures I have. Buy what you can afford and just save for what you want believe it ain't going no where especially in the case of Daz content.

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Quote - Huh?...No-one buys real estate in AFGANISTAN?...SEE - THIS IS ONE OF THE MAIN PROBLEMS - TOO MANY GLUE SNIFFERS!!! Lmao :lol:

Actually, his point was pretty simple: You don't buy stuff that you can't really use. You mentioned it yourself - AM doesn't have much in the way of clothing. It's a damned solid mesh, but w/o accessories (or a shitload of time in Wardrobe Wizard), it's not all that useful by itself.

Sorta like buying an airplane, then discovering that you have to build your own wings and engine for it.

 Yes, the learning curve on Poser is steep enough without having to learn modeling as well to make your own content. I, for one, am grateful that the modelers are out there doing something I'm not capable of doing myself, and I'm more than willing to pay them to do it so I can get on with creating my images!!!!!

"...it would actually decrease gross human exploitation."

Well, your knowledge of genre fashion seems to suggest that you've watched enough - over two decades no less - which begs the question: Was the exploitation that well disguised or were your higher cerebral functions dulled by the 'er lower ones? At any rate it would make an alternative to the classic Playboy gambit, to wit, 'I only watch for the clothes.' :-) 

Apollo languishes because, well, because he is a he, his mutability notwithstanding. I can (almost) guarantee that his rumored female counterpart (Venus, Diana, whatever) would be much more popular. Aphrodite - good, Hermaphrodite  - bad. The fact that female figures are much more popular, even though Poser probably has more female users than many 3D applications, underlines a basic fact IMO, Barbie = more popular than Ken. Assuming those female users purchase a not insignificant amount of clothing, I suspect that a number of them are buying 'whore' clothes as well. Given the growth of the MILF/Cougar phenomenon, I'd bet that even a lot of grannies have ditched their eponymous panties in favor of thongs. 

"Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance." - H. L. Mencken

Quote - Vicky  2 in her day was ~$60 while Vicky 3 with head and body morphs...

Thing is, you only paid once - there was a metric ton of free clothing, textures, and etc - and you could build your own back then, no sweat. Also, Vicky 2 hung around and had widespread support for what, 2-3 years or more? Nowadays, building one's own accessories requires a lot more work, time, patience, and effort... and there's likely a new figure coming down the pike within the next few months nowadays.

==

Quote - The reason no one supports Apollo has to do both with the figure being flakey and with politics directed toward the creator (who pissed a lot of people off a few years back.) Don't look for much more to come that not from Anton's site.

Seriously? Most of that should've been dead and buried by now. If Anton wants to reform himself, nobody's stopping him.

...and honestly, the mesh is still rock-solid, no matter what you may or may not think of the maker.

==

Quote - All that supermorph/cross-character stuff, such as turning V3/4 into a dude or a superfreak, the whole Unimesh idea, morphing any figure too much beyond what it was designed as creates serious problems with textures and even rigging. Problems that can be somewhat fixed by the developer, but not really by the end user, particularly not the typical point'n'click Poserite.

Agreed, perfectly... OTOH, some of them managed to do okay in spite of it (A3 as a ferinstance - though the leg bends could use a lot of help...)

FWIW, the V3 Male morph was pretty cool, and very useful. Pity there was pretty much no clothing for it.

Quote -
The best figures are the ones  that were completely designed to be one thing, and developed as such.

See also Terai Yuki. Best damned figure I've ever seen come down the pike, IMHO.

There is a danger that the figure becomes too limited, or "typecast" for lack of a better term. But that can be overcome with the right morphs.

"Seriously? Most of that should've been dead and buried by now. If Anton wants to reform himself, nobody's stopping him." 

Try posing the hands. The rigging still sucks.

I see...I should have seen the 'don't go there' signs for AM, and left it at that...;)

I guess the point was, that AM is (still) as versatile being free as all the bells and whistles in M/A/V/H 1-4. I don't pose hands often, perhaps that's why I haven't noticed...;)

still, bein' the po' boy I am, it's either free, or I make it for the pic...;)

I wish I'd said that.. The Staircase Wit

anahl nathrak uth vas betude doth yel dyenvey..;)

> Quote -  #1, FAIRIES!!! Fairies, or fae, or sprites, or twinkles, or whatever the hell that you want to call them. O-V-E-R-K-I-L-L!!!, I refuse to believe that there are that many combination Disney fans / former Dungeons & Dragon players on the ENTIRE planet. Enough with the fairies already! > If I see one more pair of pointed ears - I'm going to go outside and lay down in the middle of the road. 

 (sorry couldn't be helped)

AAAaaaahhhh - now AKURA that was just mean, lmao:lol:

lmckenzie: I have long been a fan of "B MOVIES" - cinematic cultural darkhorses. "Deep Throat" and "Beyond The Green Door" were in their time merely 2nd grade skin schlock, but they are now considered cult classics. I also know about Citizen Kain, Spider Babies, Plan 9 From Outer Space, Night Of The Living Dead, Swamp Girl, The Tingler, and I'm real big on Hammer Films. Just because I'm aware of a few adult titles, and have SEEN them, doesn't make me a member of the sticky trench coat crowd.

Also - I'm in my forties, and am all for grannies in thongs, provided that they aren't in their nineties and look like the anorexic versions of one of the dancing California raisins - but I'm not into using the MILF term to describe ladies. Must be the redundant scrapings of trace puritanism still left in the cake batter bowl of my superego, lol.

To PENGUINISTO: about AM - I agree completely brother, but don't you find it strange that nobody has exploited this figure any more than they have?  I think it's probably because they really don't know it's capabilities - because if they did, and if they weren't too lazy to play with the dials, they'd find out that AM isn't just one cookie cutter character, but an entire cast!
If there were more materials for it - like I said before - then personal preferences aside and from a purely practical standpoint - why would you need any other character figures with the exception of animals or non-human figures?
Heck maybe you know - but it sure puzzles the crapola outta me. An earlier poster called it (AM) "flaky", but it seems pretty kosher to me. How can it be flaky when it can be made to be anything you want to?

Also - I must not have been frequenting the site all that much when the dreaded "Anton Incident" - whatever that was - took place, so that's a mystery to me. Unless they found out that the guy was the Antichrist or something, I couldn't imagine how that would affect EVERYONE who visits Rendo for Poser content. Seems like that (whatever it was) would involve only a select circle of individuals, and couldn't possible kill appeal for the AM figure net wide.

don't worry about it, muggs.  some of these guys didn't like anton.  nobody even remembers that anymore.  very minor contretemps IMVHO.  they're alot nicer and laid-back nowadays. :lol:

p.s. ye forgot one gripe - my theory that texture makers buy the cute girl fotos (aneta) from 3d.sk or wherever they sell those, then resell her again and again with various alterations.  I can't prove it cuz I ain't bought all known textures, but it would be an interesting experiment to line 'em all up in photoshop.

RORRLOL*, Mugsy, you are pretty good at this.  --reminds me of some standup routines, only more humor in yours.  You really got us.

*Roll'ng on rug really laughing out loud. 

Quote - ...but don't you find it strange that nobody has exploited this figure any more than they have?

Not really - merchies tend to latch onto what they think is the best bang-for-buck figures and concentrate on them.

It's like software. OSX is technically superior to Windows, and Linux is technically superior to both (at least in my opinion). OTOH, Windows is the most widely used, so a small software shop usually starts writing for it first. shrug

AH HAAAAAAA!  TO PENGUINISTO:   (in the voice of a meak chinese lad) "Thank you master, grasshoppa learn much at temple today asai asai". Lol.  SOOoooooo...It's all abou P.R.? Hmmmmmmmm...interesting...

Miss Nancy:  Yeah - I know about the "clique" mentality well Miss Nancy, I myself sat at the "geeks" table in high school while the football team sat together in the middle of the cafeteria and got served by the cheerleaders as if these girls were Tavern Wenches or something.
I don't know Anton, I don't really know the people who seem to despise his very aroma either, and seeing as how this petty little despute doesn't involve me in any qauntumly infitesimal way - I really could not give a flying Hoo Hah either way period. All I know is that the AM figure is a good figure.

OH - Noooooo - I hope that I haven't misled a lot of people into thinking that I worship the darn thing like bowing to a buhdda or anything - It, like every other figure - has it's faults for sure, but it is - to a certain extent - a revolutionary thing as far as figures go. If it were developed a little further, and supported a tad bit better, then hey - GUESS WHAT - no more Vicky, Mike, Stephanie "petite", Miki, Miko, David, Hiro, Maya, Dolly, "Teri Yaki - or whatever", Minnie, Mil Kids, Mil Girls, Mil Teens, Mil Pre Teens, Aiko, G2 / G3 James or Jessie, Larry, Curley, or Moe - THERE WOULD BE ONLY ONE!!! (Cue the theme song from "The Highlander").

Oh and Miss Nancy - I have also seen a lot of "incidental identicalities" in the texture packages (mostly from just the posted ad images) - so I get your point.

"scrapings of trace puritanism still left in the cake batter bowl of my superego, lol." 

Too much Freudian symbolism for me :-)  BTW trench coats went out with the VCR.

"Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance." - H. L. Mencken

lmckenzie: Meeeeeoooowwwwww, Phst Phst, Meeeeeeeeeooooowwwwwww, lmao.

Just for the hell of it.

#1 rabid Faerie fans have been around for a lot longer than D&D or Disney, and there have always seemed to be people fascinated with them, and wanting to do pictures of them en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cottingley_fairies why? IDK

#2 the market hates a vacuum, new figure means new opportunity to create new products for the figure that people will want because they have the figure but have no content for the figure yet. the creator of the figure doesn't have to pay merchants to support their figure because the merchants know that fact. and on your second point in that question the time frame, its pretty spread out as others have alluded there have been two versions of poser since P6 (3 if you count Poser Pro)

#3 The secondary morph package thing? Well that started out based in part on people's desire to have more and more morphs in a figure, but complaining that the figures have gotten too bloated, you yourself champion the one figure fits all concept well that means more morphs generally. and with V2 there was no way to expand the figure beyond it's base morphs easily. Yes there were aftermarket morphs and they could be loaded with Morph Manager and by other means but it wasnt a simple one click solution (Don't get me stared on people's dependence on one click solutions). as far as why people sell characters based on those prepackaged morph channels rather than create their own. the answer is simple, conforming clothing support, if you use stock morphs than more clothing will fit your character and more people will buy the character, yes there are a number of merchants like Blackhearted who create their own character morphs from scratch, but try to find clothing that will fit those characters and you will see why everyone isn't doing it. That's not to say this will always be true, Morph transfer to clothing has come a long way since the Tailor. Dimension3Ds Morphing Clothes is a perfect example of how far its come. also we have dynamic clothing which doesn't have to be concerned with morphs.

#4 if you are on the internet and don't realize that sex sells now than I don't know what to tell you. and btw yes there is a realistic Police Uniform for V4, I created it. www.daz3d.com/i/3d-models/-/real-world-heroes I like doing realistic clothing, but I can tell you that it's not as lucrative as the "Whore Clothes" which is why you see so many of them and less of the realistic stuff.

#5 I'm working on it. (;  But I also like to do the female stuff. and again, the female stuff sells better so guess what most merchants focus on?

Qoute: "The secondary morph package thing? Well that started out based in part on people's desire to have more and more morphs in a figure, but complaining that the figures have gotten too bloated, you yourself champion the one figure fits all concept well that means more morphs generally.": UNQOUTE.

Well - you can create what you need for free with AM by just turning the dials, all of the essential morph channels are intact. Ask the folks who have made morphs for V4.2 WITHOUT the ++morph packages, and that DO NOT require the ++morph packages to be used by the end user - and they'll tell you that it's not an easy task at all. No-one whose either sane or smart wants to pay for something that they really shouldn't have to if it's not a sneaky marketing ploy. I don't know why you should be defending that train of thought unless you work for DAZ.

Qoute: "with V2 there was no way to expand the figure beyond it's base morphs easily. Yes there were aftermarket morphs and they could be loaded with Morph Manager and by other means but it wasnt a simple one click solution (Don't get me stared on people's dependence on one click solutions)." Unqoute.

 The AM figure is NOT V2 - your argueing apples and oranges. AGAIN - the AM figure is a POLYMORPHIC SEED FIGURE, the V2 figure is a STATIC MESH WITH MORE LIMITED ADJUSTMENT OPTIONS.

Qoute:"as far as why people sell characters based on those prepackaged morph channels rather than create their own. the answer is simple, conforming clothing support, if you use stock morphs than more clothing will fit your character and more people will buy the character, yes there are a number of merchants like Blackhearted who create their own character morphs from scratch, but try to find clothing that will fit those characters and you will see why everyone isn't doing it. That's not to say this will always be true, Morph transfer to clothing has come a long way since the Tailor. Dimension3Ds Morphing Clothes is a perfect example of how far its come. also we have dynamic clothing which doesn't have to be concerned with morphs." Unqoute.

Although you pretty much rebuttalled your own statement - here's another fresh perspective.
A figure like AM would actually STIMULATE more qaulity merchant offerings insomuch as accessories and clothing are concerned - because you would not have to deal with the "keeping up with the Jones" factor as far as new static characters popping up all over the place like Swine Flu cases. It would force them to be more innovative and not crutch lean on the same old tired approaches and formulas.

Qoute: " if you are on the internet and don't realize that sex sells now than I don't know what to tell you. and btw yes there is a realistic Police Uniform for V4, I created it. www.daz3d.com/i/3d-models/-/real-world-heroes I like doing realistic clothing, but I can tell you that it's not as lucrative as the "Whore Clothes" which is why you see so many of them and less of the realistic stuff." Unqoute.

Read my original post, I am VERY AWARE that sex sells, what I am SAYING - is that we need more of the mundane stuff to actually be able to do tangible work with. SUPPOSE I'm a professional artist (hopefully I will be soon) who is creating a visual novellette about an actual historical event like, Oooohhh, for example Pearl Harbour. Would it make sense to have all of my sailors 23 year old hotties in anal floss and stilletto heels? YES - it would probably attract a larger audience (mostly mouth breathers wearing house arrest anklets), but it would totally trash what I wanted to accomplish. It would also invite a mob of peed off vets to show up at my door and beat me senseless - to which I could not protest their actions at all, or blame them in the least, because I would totally deserve it. 

Keep the WHORE CLOTHES selling. I SUPPORT THAT, just sell as many NORMAL CLOTHES too. Don't let market trends exclusively RULE YOUR ARTISTIC LIFE COMPLETELY - BE CREATIVE and show that you have a modicum of artistic integrity and sheer guts.
Like I said before, I would rather Melvin the geek to be in his mom's basement having a simporn Poser pervathon, than stalking people with a paperback copy of "S&M For Dummies", and a coil of rope in his pocket.

Ah ok I didn't realize that your theme was an attempt to push AM. I have nothing against him, but I don't particularly find him versatile enough to completely cover the gammet as far as characters are concerned. No single figure is, for reasons laid out by others already, and if it was possible you would still end up with the bloated figure issue where you would need tons of morphs to get every variation possible. Believe me if there was one figure I could create content for that covered every variation and the software could really handle the requirements of such a figure it would make my life simpler as a content creator.

as far as your argument about whore clothes, sorry guess you didn't look at my catalog, there is far more conservative stuff in there than not.  but bottom line, most merchants are in this to make a living, they can have all the artistic integrity and sheer guts as they want but that doesn't actually put food on the table, and as long as customers are buying more of the sexy stuff, and I can attest that I have seen actual numbers that say they are, merchants will go with what is most likely going to put that food on the table. yelling at the Merchants who sell the stuff is putting the cart before the horse because the merchants wouldn't sell it if people didn't buy it in huge numbers.

Qoute:"Ah ok I didn't realize that your theme was an attempt to push AM. I have nothing against him, but I don't particularly find him versatile enough to completely cover the gammet as far as characters are concerned. No single figure is, for reasons laid out by others already, and if it was possible you would still end up with the bloated figure issue where you would need tons of morphs to get every variation possible. Believe me if there was one figure I could create content for that covered every variation and the software could really handle the requirements of such a figure it would make my life simpler as a content creator." Unqoute.

Actually - in a way your correct - I am to a certain extent pushing AM. As I said before (if you were paying attention) I don't think he's flawless, and every figure has faults. The AM subject on this thread was a can of worms first opened by my very good online buddy and long time Rendo aqauntance pakled. He made a VERY GOOD POINT. I have been waving the AM character on this thread around like a flag since then for a VERY GOOD REASON - and that is that he represents a concept that can stabilize the "Poser World" a little more, and in my opinion, make it a lot friendlier towards people who don't want to have to spend their eyeballs out on materials just to get character diversity in their scenes. NAMELY - an icon for folks who want highly flexible figures with INTACT CORE COMPONENTS THAT THEY DON'T HAVE TO GO BROKE OVER!!!

Qoute:"as far as your argument about whore clothes, sorry guess you didn't look at my catalog, there is far more conservative stuff in there than not.  but bottom line, most merchants are in this to make a living, they can have all the artistic integrity and sheer guts as they want but that doesn't actually put food on the table, and as long as customers are buying more of the sexy stuff, and I can attest that I have seen actual numbers that say they are, merchants will go with what is most likely going to put that food on the table. yelling at the Merchants who sell the stuff is putting the cart before the horse because the merchants wouldn't sell it if people didn't buy it in huge numbers." Unqoute.

Firstly - I'm not "yelling" at anybody. For those who feel that excessive capitalization is equivalent to yelling - you need to get away from the keyboards and get some nice fresh air and sunshine for a bit, it's starting to ware on you profusely.

Secondly - I am NOT in opposition to making a buck, otherwise I would not be contemplating being a merchant here. I am not saying go STARVE yourselves (that's being a tad bit over the top - don't you think?). I AM suggesting that you DIVERSIFY YOUR OFFERINGS A LITTLE!
(AGAIN - YOU DID NOT READ MY COMMENT CONCISELY).

Tell you what - you would make a heck of a lot more money just bending over and mooning the world in front of a web cam for five minutes a day than sitting around for hours tinkering with making little 3D models - but are you willing to do THAT? It seems logical according to the basic premise of your position. It would INDEED put food far more quickly on your table.

Show me where my mooning would make me more than selling content and I'll sign up today. :) frankly I think people would pay me more not to put my butt on the internet.
you keep insisting that I didn't read your comments concisely,  I can assure you that I did, perhaps it's just that you don't like my responses to them? In any case as the old addage goes, opinions are like assholes, everyone has one. obviously ours differ.

Yes wdupre, we do have differing opinions - ain't it grand?

Qoute: "Show me where my mooning would make me more than selling content and I'll sign up today. :) frankly I think people would pay me more not to put my butt on the internet."

First of all - far be it from me to corrupt you, but it doesn't matter if your a one eyed, green skinned lab experiment with a hunchback, and both of your boobs AND all of your knuckles drag the floor simultaniously like a misanthropic neanderthal. There are freakoids with hinky kinks of every stripe, kind, and variety floating around the gutteral turges of cyberspace, so you'de probably find a sustainable market. Just look at some of the stuff that's right here in the Rendo galleries and you'll get the picture. Lmao :lol:.

Qoute: " In any case as the old addage goes, opinions are like assholes, everyone has one." unqoute.

Yes...they are...but some are minty fresh - and others are cursed with roids, Lmao :lol:.

Quote - "scrapings of trace puritanism still left in the cake batter bowl of my superego, lol." 

Too much Freudian symbolism for me :-)  BTW trench coats went out with the VCR.

They DID----even the black latex ones----they were great for keep folks nice and dry during a thunderstorm.

I love you Plutom. I love you more than oxygen, lmao! :lol: :lol: :lol:

"even the black latex ones" 

Along with everything that (reportedly) made 42nd Street worthy of a pilgrimage. Damn you Giuliani!

"Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance." - H. L. Mencken

Quote - Well - you can create what you need for free with AM by just turning the dials, all of the essential morph channels are intact.

For the figure, yes. Now how about the clothes? 

Therein lies the rub. Hell, even for clothing that was made for a specific figure, you often find no way to match the clothing to the morphed figure without breaking out a lot of magnets, or spending time in a mesh editor (which most folks will avoid like the plague).

D|S worked out a partial solution, "Magnetize Clothing". Problem is, the solution often bogs things down in a hurry with a lot of clothes (it basically adds a bunch of D-Forms --magnets-- to make the clothing fit the figure). It also only works with certain figures, IIRC.

Long story short, sure you can turn a base figure into pretty much anything, but the clothing simply isn't going to follow along. It won't even follow along if you make the base figure fat, pregnant, small-chested, or, well, whatever deviates too far from the typical runway model shape.

Quote - A figure like AM would actually STIMULATE more qaulity merchant offerings insomuch as accessories and clothing are concerned - because you would not have to deal with the "keeping up with the Jones" factor as far as new static characters popping up all over the place like Swine Flu cases

See above - the effort required to make the clothing would start to get prohibitive.

Quote - Read my original post, I am VERY AWARE that sex sells, what I am SAYING - is that we need more of the mundane stuff to actually be able to do tangible work with.

Hell, even in the sex realm, the more mundane stuff is needed, desperately. There are only so many fishnet stockings, thongs, heels, and bodices that one can stomach.

I still say that there's no such thing as "one size fits all" figure.
As I mentioned above (which was ignored by everyone but Pengy), sure you can morph the bejeezus out of any mesh and make it anything else if you have enough geometry.

But if you take what started out as a medium-build male figure and try to make it a teenage girl, an ogre, Hulk Hogan, or an opossum, while you may be able to physically morph the geometry, you're going to run into serious problems with the textures and the joints.

And while you can (and probably would want to) make new textures for each figure morph, you're not changing the UVs any by doing that, and that is the only way to avoid texture distortion. Same with the joints - Your Hulk Hogan is going to have different bending requirements than your teenage girl, and all that extreme morphing is going to change the mesh topology/topography in a way that simply will not work equally well for both variations.
So your Apollo-As-Teenage Girl suddenly requires remapping and re-rigging. What was supposed to be a simple matter has suddenly become more complex than creating a whole new figure.

This is why animation and game studios create new figures, or alter their existing figures significantly to suit their current CA needs. You can bet they would love to do it if they could get away with it, as it would save a lot of time.
But "One size fits all" seems to be a uniquely Poserverse idea, and it doesn't work for extremes. It's not a conspiracy that there are so many figures, it's a necessity to more optimally suit the needs of the people. And it makes sense. Trying to use one figure for everything is going to lead to major problems for the person trying to do it.

All good points Penguinisto. However - don't you find the typical runway model shape tedious and redundant?

Here's an example - I'm a frequent T.V. watcher because I love to break down media, ANYWAY - I've seen so many "dime a dozen" supermodel body types that I only find so called physically "perfect" woman marginally appealing now (years of desensitization due to incesant archtype overkill). Oh don't get me wrong - they're still attractive to me, just not as much so as when I was 18. I now find myself more compelled to notice female body forms that have an imperfect, earthy, "real life" ambience, like a lady that's a tad bit grungy, a tad bit chunky, and with not so much "perkiness" to certain aspects of their charms. It could be that I'm now technically middle aged and my tastes are changing - but I think it's more of a maturity of perspective really, rather than chronology. Perfect just gets REEEAAALLLY boring man.

I think designing figures - AND the clothing - unless your doing SCI FI or a period type of thing - should reflect reality a little more. For no other reason than the fact that you can't bog your work down with TOO MUCH out there stuff. You really do need standard stock, and more germain to the topics of the thread - you need figures that are COMPLETE - and not in piece meal parts and components.

Last comment also in your court as well Mikej.

Quote -
Last comment also in your court as well Mikej.

Well there's a difference between a malfunctioning 3D mesh and one designed to be imperfect.

Quote - All good points Penguinisto. However - don't you find the typical runway model shape tedious and redundant?

I do, and that's what I'm getting at... even if the mesh can morph beyond it, the clothing mostly doesn't.

Mike makes a solid point as well - a morbidly obese guy is going to bend a lot differently (especially in joint controlled morphs) than a scrawny teenaged waif. The former needs to move a lot of flab out of the way, while the latter needs smoothing and shaping around joints that are hyperextended.

Perfect example - Vicky 3's Unimesh. When you bend up the leg of the A3 variant, the tops of the thighs get a wonky depression and the butt cheek blows out.

AM does a better job of it, but even in its case, it can only go so far before the complexity makes it unusable. AM stops just short of that point (which is what makes it a pretty solid figure in my eyes), but you still pay for it in CPU cycles.

Quote - Oh don't get me wrong - they're still attractive to me, just not as much so as when I was 18.

Welcome to old age. We'll soon be sending you your complimentary lawn to keep the kids off of. ;)

Quote - I think designing figures - AND the clothing - unless your doing SCI FI or a period type of thing - should reflect reality a little more.

Actually, a surprising number of figures do that. Miki for instance stands out very well in this regard...

Qoute: "Welcome to old age. We'll soon be sending you your complimentary lawn to keep the kids off of. ;)" Unqoute:

Response:  I'm partial to Kentucky bluegrass - but not that hybrid crap from Loews Garden Center - throw in some sprinklers and a garden gnome, ceramic - not plastic - make a note of that, lmao.

Ok - in summary, it's not so much the figures, but the clothing. Ok - granted - I'm just thinking "What's the REAL difference between five static figures, and one figure that could assume five static forms? roughly you'de think that the clothing issues really wouldn't be all that different.

Quote -
Ok - in summary, it's not so much the figures, but the clothing. Ok - granted - I'm just thinking "What's the REAL difference between five static figures, and one figure that could assume five static forms? roughly you'de think that the clothing issues really wouldn't be all that different.

I've explained that several times. Are just not getting it, or are you so in love with the idea that you simply refuse to see it?

Yeeeessss Micheal.....I'm getting it..........Lmao.

Ah, if it's imperfection you want then nix the TV and Poser and step outside. Aside from The Biggest Loser, TV caters to perfection and even the TBL folks are trying to get buff. In the real world, diet pills and cosmetic surgery could float the national debt. Assuming that most real people would rather not be imperfect, why would they want their [often] fantasy driven 3D creations to be?

You are perfectly correct that is an probably under served market for less idealized figures and clothing. from historical to contemporary - I'd like to see more 1940's style garb. It's a topic/complaint that comes up fairly often. People are always alluding to a pent up demand that would make creating such content profitable, but for whatever reason, the marketplace has never moved in that direction and I don't see that changing. Apparently content creators place more faith in Sex in the City than Field of Dreams. Can't say that I blame them

While I agree with much of your basic premise, I must say that your argument would be more effective, or at least less tacky, if you dispensed with the implications that those who have different tastes are mouth breathing degenerates. OTOH, your image of sailors, who would have all been male (save for the nurses) running around in fishnets and thongs offers food for thought. I can imagine the Japanese getting one look at that scene and fleeing in panic. Gives a whole new meaning to 'Tail End Charlie.'
 

"Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance." - H. L. Mencken

It makes no sence to tell someone with a low income to use ZBrush for morphes. We all now that zBrush isn´t cheap at all ;-) So it would be more easy to buy V4 with all morphes.

A pack of good quality paper, a bunch of pencils and a trip to the library for art reference books will set you back about 5 quid.  Easy!

Coppula eam se non posit acceptera jocularum.

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lmckenzie - I wasn't saying MALE sailors, I meant FEMALE sailors. Nonetheless - it's a hilarious idea.

Secondly - I'm not saying that everyone who has different tastes are mouth breathing degenerates - just most of them, lmao :lol: .

Thirdly - yes I am tacky, and damn proud of it - behold my freak flag flyeth!!!

Fourthly - Field of Dreams practically put me to sleep when I saw it, and even though "Sex In The City" was both a film, and a TV series that I avoided like Dracula turning from garlic - at least Sex In The City would've illicited a bad case of dry heave gagging, and not a coma.
I was thinking more along the lines of clothing and goods that you could actually make a comic book, graphic novel, or gaming material with - and not just bathing suite and lingerie ads. 
How your eqauting useful general stock material with "Field Of Dreams" - I can't even hazard a guess.

Fifthly, Qoute*:*"Ah, if it's imperfection you want then nix the TV and Poser and step outside. Aside from The Biggest Loser, TV caters to perfection and even the TBL folks are trying to get buff. In the real world, diet pills and cosmetic surgery could float the national debt. Assuming that most real people would rather not be imperfect, why would they want their [often] fantasy driven 3D creations to be?" Unqoute.

Why do you think fictional shows are losing ground to reality shows? Simple - reality shows do not require the gross suspension of disbelief. Yes - it IS an ughly world in real life (metaphorically speaking), and how believable is a detective story, or a horror story, or a science fiction story, or ANY kind of fictional work if all of the actors look like Shakira, and are wearing black leather anal floss and thigh high fetish boots?

Sam Therapy: What's your point brother, I do pen and ink, pencil, AND 3d stuff. I don't get it?
(If your point is actually simple and obvious - but I'm still not getting it - don't get ticked off with me because I think I might be getting senile anyway, lol :lol:).

Quote - It makes no sence to tell someone with a low income to use ZBrush for morphes. We all now that zBrush isn´t cheap at all ;-) So it would be more easy to buy V4 with all morphes.

As a long time ZBrush user I can tell you it makes no sense, period, to tell anyone to use ZBrush for Poser morphs, no matter how much money they have. Between Poser's ridiculously tiny scale and Zbrush's desire to round everything off and arbitrarily rescale, and all the things you have to do on the way in and out, it's just not worth it. IMO, of course, and some would disagree.

A better idea for that is a modeling program that doesn't reorder vertices, doesn't do any transforms on the mesh size, rotation or position. I think Wings fits that and is free, and I think Hexagon does too, and is very cheap. Personally I think Modo is the best software for making Poser morphs because it doesn't alter the import or export in any way and has sculpting and doesn't require any plugins or OBJaction Scaler or anything like that, plus is more suited for manipulating geometry in a way that doesn't radically and adversely distort the mesh  like ZB can do. And you can much better control texture distortion, since you can slide edges along their normals and keep things even, while actually seeing what your morph is doing to your texture. Not free or cheap though.

I use WINGS3D! The learning curve is reasonable, and for a free app, it rocks. Does everything that you essentially need. It's on par with BLENDER and the pay app HEXAGON, but it's much easier to follow - probably even easier than K3D. I own BLENDER, WINGS3D, K3D, Splatch3D, some king of beta nurbs / glunk modeler that came out a long time ago, and several offer off name flash in the pan freebie modelers, and the only one that I really even use is WINGS3D.
Learn it and it becomes intuitive second nature.

http://www.wings3d.com/

Comes in Linux, Win 32, Win 64, and OSX flavors.

Quote - I still say that there's no such thing as "one size fits all" figure.
This is why animation and game studios create new figures, or alter their existing figures significantly to suit their current CA needs. You can bet they would love to do it if they could get away with it, as it would save a lot of time.
But "One size fits all" seems to be a uniquely Poserverse idea, and it doesn't work for extremes. It's not a conspiracy that there are so many figures, it's a necessity to more optimally suit the needs of the people.

Hi
MikeJ, I absolutely agree with your assessment  except that game Studios tend to create figure rigs for a specific title release,and move on to the next project they tend not to develop "long term", often emotional relationships with specific "3D character meshes" that make them want to "do everything" with that one character.

Lets be honest,

There are people in the poser community that are loyal to a specific figure to the point of Pagan IDOL WORSHIP yet do not even realize it.

just look at the emotional reactions you get from some if you say:*"possette is ugly"*or "Apollo is puffy& lacks realistic muscular Definition".

They React just as one might react if you had said "your religion is False"
and immediately begin attacking you and the  poser figure you prefer as the  the "Enemy".
over what, in reality, is just a consumer product but is certainly not treated with that cold same detachment as our other consumer products like our Microwaves & Automobiles.

And then of course there is the ever present merchant/program loyalty/opposition groups. There are some who will buy anything simply based on the subjective criteria that the item is/ or is not
from the evil DAZ "Empire"
for example there there is a dedicated group  of Sanctumart haters  over at the DAZ forums who sieze every opportunity to speak against him  and his products regardless of their high quality & Detail, based only on their perceived
"Arrogance" in Michael Raks( Santumarts) personality.

So to Mugsey& Others you need to realize that the popularity or ,lack thereof, of any poser figure rarely has anything to do with technical superiority or utilitarian usefulness of the figure.

Cheers

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Me point, Mugsey, is if you're that hacked off with Poser in general, why not just draw rather than suffer all this pain?

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Sam Therapy: I'm not in pain bro - just gripin, everybodie's gotta gripe every now and then. It's very healthy.
I do draw by the way and might be posting some stuff shortly if I can pull it out of the mothballs, lol. I'm just trying to champion the cause of the poor and down trodden....OK - ok - the lazy and ambitionless, lmao.
                          

Quote - the lazy and ambitionless, lmao.
                          

:lol:

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Quote -
quoted from wolf
Hi
MikeJ, I absolutely agree with your assessment  except that game Studios tend to create figure rigs for a specific title release,and move on to the next project they tend not to develop "long term", often emotional relationships with specific "3D character meshes" that make them want to "do everything" with that one character.

Well I didn't mean recycling the character, but rather, not reusing the same meshes over and over again. For example, Psycho from Crysis Warhead looks essentially the same as Psycho from the original Crysis, although the character definitely appears to be a different mesh with updated textures.
And while Valve could save themselves a whole lot of time recycling Alyx, Barney, and everyone else from Half Life 2, I very much doubt they'll be using the same meshes and textures for Half Life 3, though I'm sure all the characters will look very similar.

All I meant to say was I bet some of the game studios would love to have some sort of "polymorphic" UltraMesh that could be morphed into different figures with different textures and enveloped/skinned to a multi-purpose biped rig over and over again, without the need for doing any extra work on the mesh. That way they could at least save some time in not having to remodel the figure meshes at least.
But they don't, and even in the cases where they may recycle a mesh to use for a different character, they still have to do a whole lot of work to it to fit with any radical new shapes they might be trying to create.
They don't because although it may seem practical on the surface, it doesn't work in the long run
Obviously they do reuse meshes and rigs in any one game for similar characters, to save time, but not over the course of a series, and if they have a big fat dude character, and a skinny little kid character, they're certainly not going to use the same mesh and rig for both.

But you already know all this.

I've done a whole lot of morphing for characters and one of the things I've constantly struggled with is morphing while keeping the textures from stretching too much. Even something as simple and basic as opening a mouth or closing an eye can be tedious when you're trying to completely avoid texture stretching or distorting, and the simple fact is you can't avoid texture distortion, period. The best you can hope for is to distort it evenly and not too much in any one direction, so it's less noticeable.
And you can see that in the galleries easily enough: Vickies with gigantic hooters and textures obviously stretched well beyond what human skin would ever do.
It's true you can compensate for that to a certain extent by creating different textures for your different morph shapes, but even that has problems. And of course, the more radical your morphing is, the further away from the original shape, the more obvious and worse the problem gets.

So, the only way you could make a "polymorphic" figure work is if you had a new geometry for each radical change, with mesh topography adjusted to suit the new figure's joints, and new UVs to accommodate the new shape.

So in the end you have three choices:
-Buy new figures and the morph packages that go along with them. (spend a lot of money)
-Buy total overhaul packages for "ploymorphic" Supermesh figures. (spend a lot of money, just on different things)
-Use unoptimized point'n'click solutions on your SuperMesh and convince yourself it's good. (spend maybe less money, or no money, or maybe even more, for something inferior to the above)

Of course there's a fourth choice - to do it all yourself, or to at least create your own new modifications for your existing rigs, but there are very very few people around here who have the skills for that.

Long story short - no matter how Super-Wow OMG! Apollo may be in the eyes of some, the idea that he can be some kind of universally adaptable figure that can be anyone from your 102 year old grandmother to your boss, to your martial arts instructor to your pregnant girlfriend without major intrusive and fundamental changes to everything involved, is a fable, a pipe dream, an unreality. Maybe it could work well for when the character isn't up close and in your face, but the closer it gets to the camera the more noticeable the flaws will be.

Then again, if the galleries here are any indication, many people aren't particularly concerned about flaws, or even notice them at all, even when uploading pictures to the Poser-Realism (insert massive snicker-fest here) section. ;-)

Quote -
I am still amazed that some people actually  try to $sell$  a V4 "male morph"
when there is a completely Viable  FREE male in the form of the M4 Base.

I suppose they want Vickie's clothes to fit...  :laugh:

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"How your eqauting useful general stock material with "Field Of Dreams" - I can't even hazard a guess."

Sex in the City = Sex sells. Field of Dreams = 'Build it and they will come,' i.e. create non-whorish outfits and the world will beat a path to your door.

"Why do you think fictional shows are losing ground to reality shows?"*

Two main reasons: 1. Cheap production costs for the networks. 2. The public's appetite for the kind of plotting, backstabbing, dog eat dog mentality many of these series promote - the Colosseum without the blood plus the fantasy of everyman's 15 minutes of Balloon Boy fame. In terms of appeal, I suspect that much of it is more centered on the youthful, fit, skimpy bikini and briefs scenes in Survivor and the titillating bedroom antics of Big Brother (from what I've seen in excerpts). Even the token old folks seem to be pretty far from the typical lineup at KFC. 

"...how believable is a detective story, or a horror story, or a science fiction story, or ANY kind of fictional work if all of the actors look like Shakira."

Granted you need the grizzled and gaunt to fill out a scene but by and large the focus is on beauty - see Marg Helgenberger & Emily Proctor (who hardly look or dress like 'believable' CSIs), Twilight vampire chicks etc. Toulouse-Lautrec wouldn't last a day in principal casting. Most people probably do scenes with one or two characters and they often prefer them to fit some conventional ideal of human (or fae) beauty.

I haven't used Apollo enough to have an opinion on him. Vicky 4 has a lot of versatility for my needs, from teenager, to aged, to a decent BBW but the Millenium girls make better teens, most Asian morphs don't look as authentically Asian as Miki etc. Using a hammer to drive screws only works so far and with or without the clothing issue I think that a dedicated mesh will beat morphs in most cases. If you had a super-duper MakeHuman application that could take a generic base mesh, subdivide it differently and custom rig it for each generated figure and throw in some of the evolutionary algorithms for human mesh generation that researchers are playing with then you'ld have something but it would be close to what people are doing manually now in creating unique figures.

BTW, thanks for the latchworm! I can see it as a worthy opponent for a bunch of totally believable, whorishly clad, space marines. Now if I can just find a Denise Richards morph.
 

"Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance." - H. L. Mencken

Lol. Your welcome!  While I'm working on the hovercar models I'm doing - I oughta start on more freebie offerings as well.

Do a theme. The hovercar looks kind of  like a 1940s-50s vision of the future.

"Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance." - H. L. Mencken

I just checked out the hovercar WIP. Looks pretty cool, really. :-)

I haven't been a member of any community where there weren't angry, heated arguments about issues that would be uninteresting to outsiders. There are cheerleaders and haters everywhere. It's human nature

It's not the tool used, it's the tool using it

What hovercar? Did I miss a link or picture of it?

It's in my gallery spaceman - click on my screen name or do a site search on "mugsey" and you'll find it. My stuff is in the wings3D gallery under Science Fiction AND work in progress.

The hovercars are something that I've been working on off an on now for a spell.

I agree with the OP as well.  I've been complaining directly to DAZ and in their forums about all the fairies, Aiko, Hiro, cartoon figures, and too many items for Vicky.  I recently dropped out of the PC again when for about six weeks straight it was all fairy clothing.  After that it was back to V4 where it still is.  The only items worth buying are props.

I mostly use M4 and V3/S3 and for the limited clothing for M4 I just convert it using PhilC's Wardrobe Wizard.  I've pretty much given up on any support from DAZ PA's on male clothing.  I'm not getting into that debate as to why that is because I think it's all BS.  The PA's create what they want based on just that and nothing else.

I also dislike that every time M4 gets new hair or clothing it also fits V4 and the cartoony characters, while it never seems to work the other way around.

M4.2?  Was there an update I missed?

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Speaking of Vicky 4 - you know what I discovered today?

I was farting around at lunch, stuck in the server room waiting for an install, so I fire up D|S on my laptop.

Now, this laptop isn't exactly a powerhouse: Latitude E6400 w/ a Core2Duo, 4GB RAM, Intel integrated video... and running Windows 7 Enterprise. But wahey - I got a 128GB geek stick with my runtimes backed up on it, so I get and install D|S real quick for giggles and plug in the stick.

Given the constraints (hell, even my ancient dual G5 Mac runs faster for CG), I decide to fart around with an old V3 figure. Then, I remembered that D|S now comes with subdivision, so I give it a shot on the figure.

You know what? SubD makes even the worst joints on V3 not only bearable, but looked pretty damned awesome. And get this - in spite of SubD, it still ran lighter on the resources than V4... suddenly I had a shitload of stuff I hadn't messed with in years, all sitting and ready to mess with again, with results that (IMHO) rival V4 and all her stuff.

"...running Windows 7 Enterprise"

He weakens Lord Vader, soon we will have him. 

"Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance." - H. L. Mencken

Quote -
"...running Windows 7 Enterprise"

He weakens Lord Vader, soon we will have him. 

Yeah no doubt, what's up with that? I had  to re-read that a few times to make sure I got it right. ;-)

Quote -
You know what? SubD makes even the worst joints on V3 not only bearable, but looked pretty damned awesome. And get this - in spite of SubD, it still ran lighter on the resources than V4

It's even better when you have an actual low poly figure to work with to put into SubD, particularly if you can paint weight maps for bone influence. Dunno about D|S, just general purpose.
Does D|S have weight painting these days? I haven't at all kept up with things in the Daz-verse but I often read about all this new stuff that D|S has which has really surprised me a few times.

Quote - "...running Windows 7 Enterprise"

He weakens Lord Vader, soon we will have him. 

LOL! It's part of the job, and represents the only Windows machine that I myself actually use. (I'm typing this on a Mac). If they wanna pay me the salary I get (let's just say it's really healthy), but require that I use Windows @ work to do it, I'm okay with that... (as I slowly install Linux servers into the infrastructure, in spite of my koolaid-drinking boss >:) ).

==

Quote - Does D|S have weight painting these days?

I suspect the Advanced version might (or might not), but I only have the ordinary freebie version. I'm cheap like that.

I don't think DS has that but maybe it could...

If you use Figure Mixer to combine Aiko and Laura, the resulting figure has a "Mix Type" setting which can be set to one of these (quoting the manual):

• Vertex Weights: When selected, uses DAZ Studio's vertex weights to determine the mixing of morphs.
• Joint Params: When selected, uses Poser's Joint Params to determine the mixing of morphs, however, it is not as accurate as using vertex weights and manual adjustments may be necessary.

But other than through Figure Mixer I don't know how you can use "vertex weights" with your figures. (this line shouldn't be indented)

It's not the tool used, it's the tool using it

*" It's part of the job" *

Of course, of course, that's what every undercover agent says just before he falls for the Mafia Don's daughter. Cut to Ballmer stroking a cat and chuckling softly.

"Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance." - H. L. Mencken

Does he do that pinky thing too? I can almost see him doing that pinky thing for some reason.