Hey guys,

I was just wondering why my sales of the latest two character products, Tina Perez by me & Temptest3d http://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/tina-perez-for-v4-s4/109408/ and Reese Sisters by me & P3Design http://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/reese-sisters/103863/ are suddenly down.  I partnered with a couple top vendors to try to get some more exposure & more sales, but it seems to revert my expectations.

Today I looked around characters that were released during and after the release of Tina Perez, and see lots of gallery credits (10+) of them, yet Tina has no credit, & of course my assumptions same comparison of sales.

What gives?  What's making people not buy my products & not want to render them?

I try to make them uniquely different from all my other characters and all other characters, try my best to make them high quality, even my renders are high quality with a realistic lighting (no shadowless or ultra bright lights), tattoos "burned" into the skin rather then "painted" or "copy/pasted" for the more real look, and the skins react naturally to lights (no glow).

All this work costs a lot of time, even if this was a full time job for me (I have a real life job), I couldn't release a character once a month cause of the time involved, so I try to make the prices as reasonable as possible to reflect the uniqueness.

So why am I not selling them?  Is it that my characters don't look like fairies?  Is it the prices?  Is it the quality?  Is it the promos?  Is it my reputation as a vendor?  I can't figure this out.

Can I get anyone's honest feedback?  Maybe an honest feedback from a vendor?  I really need to boost sales but I'm doing something deathly wrong.  Don't worry, I won't be offended on any critics, critics are for people to learn and I've learned a whole lot of things from them.

...wolfie

I'm not a vendor, but if you want honest criticism, it's probably down to market oversaturation.
You're effectively just another vendor putting out the same things as others are.

You have a lot of competition.

You don't have to be a vendor, I'm asking the general public, but a vendor is welcomed to chime in.  And if anyone feels they want to site mail me instead of posting in public, they're welcome to.

Could be "effectively just another vendor putting out the same things as others are", and market over-saturation of characters, but the thing is, other vendors are in the same boat as to that respective, but they're selling more and their characters are rendered more.

I accept your criticism, thank you very much, but honestly that one wasn't an effective point.

...wolfie

Wow, considering what has gone on here in other threads you are brave indeed to actually ask for criticism.

Personally I think pumeco has the biggest part of the answer.  V4 has been going for ten years now and I must have 30 to 40 different character sets and I doubt I am exceptional for anyone who uses V4 regularly.  Anyone who is a Prime member has loads of V4 characters available to them for the massive sum of $3.50 and I counted over a dozen in the first 5 pages alone.  Many of these are not only for V4 but Genesis too which increases the use for anyone that uses both figures.  Any character needs to stand out and offer something different.

On a positive note the sisters are something different but how many of the gallery credits that you noticed were 'pin up' type renders?  While the sisters are a little different not many of the pin up artists are likely to buy and for V4 that is a sizable market.  In addition, and maybe unfortunately unfortunately, just because you spend a long time on something does not mean it is going to sell well. 

Just my view mind, but I don't see anything wrong with your figures, (if I did have a negative comment I cannot see a great deal of skin detail from the promos even if the the promos make an item of it) but neither do they have me reaching for my credit card.

 

 

I use Poser 13 on Windows 11 - For Scene set up I use a Geekcom A5 -  Ryzen 9 5900HX, with 64 gig ram and 3 TB  storage, mini PC with final rendering done on normal sized desktop using an AMD Ryzen Threadipper 1950X CPU, Corsair Hydro H100i CPU cooler, 3XS EVGA GTX 1080i SC with 11g Ram, 4 X 16gig Corsair DDR4 Ram and a Corsair RM 100 PSU .   The desktop is in a remote location with rendering done via Queue Manager which gives me a clearer desktop and quieter computer room.

I love your characters, wolfie. You're one of the very few Poser artists trying to create realistic/natural looking teens and kids.

I think the problem is simply that they are V4 based, which is pretty much at the end of her lifecycle.

Transfer the morphs (Or perhaps better even just the heads while utilizing G2's improved teen/kid body shapes) over to Genesis 2 and I'm sure your sales will improve.

The one thing that grabs my attention when I'm skimming through the marketplace is skin texture. I don't often shop specifically for new characters. I usually just let my eyes wonder. If a character's skin texture grabs my attention, then I'll go look a bit closer. The skin texture has to really pop. Realism is a big plus. Even fantasy textures.

Even though I do like the character morphs you create, the skin textures just don't grab my attention. The renders for this particular product, to my eye, are flat and uninspiring. They definitely do not show off the skin textures to good effect.

Just looked at the Sisters set (I missed that one first time). Same criticism. The morphs look very nice, unique. The skin textures are the problem (for me). If there are any little touches for reality (skin pores, SSS, etc) the renders don't really show them off.

In general, the renders don't do your characters justice at all.

I don't like the mouth on Tina Perez. Looks like she's either perpetually sad or she's trying to do that obnoxious duck lips thing that everyone thinks is so hot. It's not. It's almost as bad as the cyrus tongue. Just my opinion.

The skins look fine though, and there seems to be plenty of options. So I'm with the rest in that its market saturation. You're competing with 10 years worth of V4 skins. So maybe adapt them to G1 or G2 - or even both. Cause a lot of vendors just kind'a skipped over G1, yet there are still people that use it and you see them asking about skins for V5, M5, etc a lot. That or do something other than white girls. Or at least in addition to.

That's my .02

I know that the character here is created to seem more mature than the average V4 character but this is the sort of thing I look for as skin detail.

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/3da-agatha/103528/

 

 

I use Poser 13 on Windows 11 - For Scene set up I use a Geekcom A5 -  Ryzen 9 5900HX, with 64 gig ram and 3 TB  storage, mini PC with final rendering done on normal sized desktop using an AMD Ryzen Threadipper 1950X CPU, Corsair Hydro H100i CPU cooler, 3XS EVGA GTX 1080i SC with 11g Ram, 4 X 16gig Corsair DDR4 Ram and a Corsair RM 100 PSU .   The desktop is in a remote location with rendering done via Queue Manager which gives me a clearer desktop and quieter computer room.

Honestly like all the criticism here, and they make sense.  As for the too many V4 (only) characters, I was comparing mine with "v4 only" characters, for example, Godin's V4 only "Robin" and "Elle", Seven's "Rosie" and "Brindie", etc... released about the time Tina Perez was.  The thing is, a LOT of girls in the Marketplace look the same, although vendors are starting to shy away from that.

However, I really have been wanting to know how to transfer face morphs to G2, and to create them as a morphs.  I don't have Blender and the likes, just DS4.7 & Poser9,  I create the face morphs from Ultra face morphs MR from RuntimeDNA, and I go very random and detailed when I create them..  Anyone have a link?  Now that G2 has young teen morphs, I don't need to create custom bodies.

On the minus side of G2, however, is that there are SO MANY morphs that are already installed (as you unzip the packages), that I imagine G2 is now taking a lot of time to even load.  That right there kinda yields me from doing characters for her.

Tina's lips are the "pouty" looking lips, idea from my cousin (who's name is Tina) and the cute girl on "Karate Kid 1".  I know some don't like it, even one of my RL friend didn't lol.

I agree about the promos, I should've showed some very up close renders for more details, maybe use other lightings as well (but I hate shadowless lights),

Prime, you have to be a top vendor to upload anything as Prime, that's Renderosity's biggest weapon against anyone who doesn't sell much (pun intended).  I was gonna do it but I found out I'm not qualified.

Textures, guess I need to work on that.

Thanks everyone for the criticisms, I've taken them to heart, and thanks a lot for the compliments on the morphs :)

...wolfie

I am going to go with most of the above.

but I will add a couple of things

1st they look like old models poser 5sh

2nd they are young teens

if you look at what is posted in the gallery these days, it is not young teens 

Honestly like all the criticism here, and they make sense.  As for the too many V4 (only) characters, I was comparing mine with "v4 only" characters, for example, Godin's V4 only "Robin" and "Elle", Seven's "Rosie" and "Brindie", etc... released about the time Tina Perez was.  The thing is, a LOT of girls in the Marketplace look the same, although vendors are starting to shy away from that.

However, I really have been wanting to know how to transfer face morphs to G2, and to create them as a morphs.  I don't have Blender and the likes, just DS4.7 & Poser9,  I create the face morphs from Ultra face morphs MR from RuntimeDNA, and I go very random and detailed when I create them..  Anyone have a link?  Now that G2 has young teen morphs, I don't need to create custom bodies.

On the minus side of G2, however, is that there are SO MANY morphs that are already installed (as you unzip the packages), that I imagine G2 is now taking a lot of time to even load.  That right there kinda yields me from doing characters for her.

Tina's lips are the "pouty" looking lips, idea from my cousin (who's name is Tina) and the cute girl on "Karate Kid 1".  I know some don't like it, even one of my RL friend didn't lol.

I agree about the promos, I should've showed some very up close renders for more details, maybe use other lightings as well (but I hate shadowless lights),

Prime, you have to be a top vendor to upload anything as Prime, that's Renderosity's biggest weapon against anyone who doesn't sell much (pun intended).  I was gonna do it but I found out I'm not qualified.

Textures, guess I need to work on that.

Thanks everyone for the criticisms, I've taken them to heart, and thanks a lot for the compliments on the morphs :)

...wolfie

Sorry, I wasn't suggesting you should be selling in the prime market, only that your characters are in competition to a fair few that are less that a third of the sale price of your character. Looking at the characters you have compared with one thing does jump out to me as a buyer.  All of the others have lots of close ups, of the eyes, the lips the face along with full length nudes.  In short it is very easy to see what you are getting for you money.  In addition there is a description of exactly what you get as regards the files included, I had to look in the 'read me' to get the same information for your product.  I know you have added a lot of the information on the promo pictures themselves but that does not work for me and personally I don't like the font used for those descriptions.  I also feel the wording detracts from the figure itself.  I now other vendors use similar methods but usually for props where i do not feel it detracts as much.

I stress these are all my personal views as someone who buys a lot of content, if no one else feel the same you can ignore me but if others do feel the same perhaps it is worth thinking about.  I would make the same comments no matter which figure was involved.  I am not a vendor in any way and the only reason I am being this critical is because you asked.

 

 

I use Poser 13 on Windows 11 - For Scene set up I use a Geekcom A5 -  Ryzen 9 5900HX, with 64 gig ram and 3 TB  storage, mini PC with final rendering done on normal sized desktop using an AMD Ryzen Threadipper 1950X CPU, Corsair Hydro H100i CPU cooler, 3XS EVGA GTX 1080i SC with 11g Ram, 4 X 16gig Corsair DDR4 Ram and a Corsair RM 100 PSU .   The desktop is in a remote location with rendering done via Queue Manager which gives me a clearer desktop and quieter computer room.

Thanks SoulTaker, not really sure what you mean in "old models Poser 5ish", but I do see what you mean in young teens.

In earlier years, people have been wanting more natural looking kids, as apposed to bloated K4 and no "teen4" morphs, and I've been studying in making V4 into V4 teens.  When Stephanie 4 came out, that really gave me the lift in creating them (my second character here, Sabrina Blinker age progress, petite adult).  Sales really boosted since, and she's still the most sold.  When I was doing forums, chatting all the time, I was known as the "child king", yes, I've been called that quite a few times, and I and I think two other vendors are the only ones creating kids.

I've been shying away from kid/teen morphs a bit though, and Lucy Zepp (adult) was the first "adult only" character released by me, though I loaded an add-on for her as young-teens.  What I'm thinking of doing from now on is to create only adults, so that people aren't forced to buy kids when they buy my products.  Then "young-teens" as an add on.

Thank for your criticism, friend!

EDIT:  @hornet3d, I just saw your comment as I submitted my post...I do see what you mean, and yes I do ask for any and all critics, we all learn from them.  If we don't have people that welcome critics without being offended, no one would learn.  People who do the best in everything are people who receive critics to heart.  We have to be out in the world and take honest comments gladly, instead of hiding in the closet thinking you're creating what people want.

...wolfie

Wolfie, I'm far from knowledgeable with Studio, but I know that Studio, unlike Poser, loads morphs "on demand".

So you can install basically thousands of morphs for Genesis 1 & 2, but none of them will load until you actually spin that morph's dial.

So no worries about G2 loading times.

As for transferring morphs from V4 over to G2, that's dead easy as there are V4 "clones" available for G2.

They will reshape G2 into a V4 lookalike and then you can simply transfer your custom head morphs over with a single mouseclick.

You can even still use your textures as there are V4 UVs available for G2.

They will reshape G2 into a V4 lookalike and then you can simply transfer your custom head morphs over with a single mouseclick.

How?  In Poser? I do know about the UV's, so not worried about "G2 textures".  Didn't know about the dials not being "loaded" till you dial them lol, and thanks friend!

...wolfie

No, in Daz. There a product called GenX that allows you to transfer morphs and characters from older generations to Genesis 1 or 2. Or you can do it manually which is also fairly easy, but it requires you to understand how clones work.

My Renderosity Store

Hmm, just looked at my sales report,

Lucy Zepp (teen, first release) surpassed Sabrina Blinker, and more than tripled her adult version, didn't realize that lol.

...wolfie

No, in Daz. There a product called GenX that allows you to transfer morphs and characters from older generations to Genesis 1 or 2. Or you can do it manually which is also fairly easy, but it requires you to understand how clones work.

Ok, I have GenX, and even released a freebie G1 version for those who bought Sabrina Blinker.  I was thinking of doing that as a product for other characters, but then buyers are required to have GenX.  Firstly I don't like requiring customers to have "add ons" for G1 or G2, secondly (and I don't know how many people bought GenX) that would limit possible customers, cause people without GenX and don't want to buy it wouldn't buy the product. I want to learn how others are releasing G2 characters with their morphs in G2 itself not via GenX.

GenX is awesome, it really is and I bought it instantly, but don't know if most others share the same opinion.  Thanks for your advice, friend!

...wolfie

Buyers are not required to have GenX. You transfer your stuff then re-save them on the new figure. It is just a tool that does the transfer. Once saved, it is independent from GenX. In other words, nobody is required to have it for a product that was converted via using it. Hense why you see some people release dual versions of a character, one for V4 and Genesis12, because they either did a manual transfer or just used GenX:)

My Renderosity Store

Buyers are not required to have GenX. You transfer your stuff then re-save them on the new figure.

Oh??  ok, that's new, how do you re-save them on the new figure?  Pretty curious and now gonna load DS, gotta install GenX on G2 though, or do I need GenX update, or 2 (I know there's a new one)?

Well here is the thing. Get to know the basics of the program before you do this. You need to know how to save a character and auto rig bones (fairly easy). Get familiar with the app first before jumping into doing conversions (specially if it's a selling item). Because if you mess something up, it's handy to know why it is messed up and you will be able to identify the cause.

My Renderosity Store

Actually I've used DS for a few years before jumping in Poser6, started when DS 1.3 was released.  Although now I use Poser9 a lot more than DS 3 & 4.7 (especially DS3) cause of the more natural renders that Poser offers via lights/surfaces, I do know a lot in the program itself.  Admittedly though, I've never converted things.

Is there a video available?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYCapNih-A4

That should get you started since you have GenX.

My Renderosity Store

Forgot to mention, if you make a V4 morph for Genesis 1 or 2, people will however require the V4 clones. But don't worry, nearly everybody has it lol.

My Renderosity Store

Talking about Victoria 4 for Genesis 2 Female http://www.daz3d.com/victoria-4-for-genesis-2-female? Did a search for V4 clone and that's what I got.

Watching the video, thanks friend!

Yes that will be the requirement.

My Renderosity Store

Thanks, one more question, is GenX2 required, or is GenX good to use for G2?

Well it's been a while since I actually used GenX, I do transfers manually. I think Gen X2 is required and is the updated version that does both G1 and G2 transfers. I don't see a regular Gen X listed anymore.

My Renderosity Store

Ok, thanks for all your help, friend, guess I'll have to buy that to work.  And yes, they deleted GenX long time ago.

...wolfie

Oh and with regards to the promos of your sets, use a more professional looking font and effect:) A good promo can look "cheapened" all because the wrong type of font was used. EG - I cringe at promos using comic sans lol (not that you used it). Typography and imagry go hand in hand:)

My Renderosity Store

This is going to hurt .but I'm not doing this to be mean I wish you very much success .make a million :)

at times I think sells are just dumb luck .

the technical part : bad renders. the adults are not all out sexy. there kinda ugly .they all kinda look a like to me. the hair looks bloody terrible.
I swear i'm looking at a bad cartoon. I'm not buying that wink look either. I'm not saying ya done a half ass job I know ya worked for this but
It projects a half ass job and if you didn't car enough ,neither will they. 

The emotional part  "THE MOST IMPORTANT PART" : This is the part most never get.
Art is 100% EMOTION. POLYGONES N PIXELS HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH IT !!!
if you look at your render and don't feel over whelmed or excited or aroused or angry or any strong emotion
Well then ... all you have are some colored pixels on a canvases that no one will ever care about.

originality: is it original ?

who ya selling to ? are the ones with money still using V4 ?

 

I apologize if I hurt ya felling in any way ,was not my intentions.

Good Luck 

 

 

 

============================================================ 

The Artist that will fight for decades to conquer their media.
Even if you never know their name ,your know their Art.
Dark Sphere Mage Vengeance

I still use V4, don't ever use Genesis or G2. I have Lucy and Sabrina, not interested in the offerings mentioned. Reasons are basically a mashup of what has already been posted, but to add my 'votes'

I don't like their mouths. Unique, yes, and decidedly away from 'stock' V4 which is great. That AUTOMATICALLY puts the character into aesthetic preference areas. I don't use Dawn either. I don't give a rats about the rigging and topology, I think she's ugly.

Their expressions in the promo renders make them look like spoilt brats, NOT someone I'd want to know. If I wanted them as for a specific character I'd definitely buy them, but as a general character for my runtime, no.

The hair sucks. Just an opinion, but lets down the quality of the skin. Lighting looks flat to me too...

I think you do good work. I don't think V4 is dead at all. Normal looking characters for any base are hard to find. Please don't give up!

No hurt here, all critics taken at heart, and even if I disagree, don't worry friends, everyone does have different opinions, and again everyone learns from others :)

Hmm... hair... can you guys be specific as to which character and which hair, and which promo image?  Not really sure, though I do know I didn't do all that great of job on it... I only try to use "every day", natural looking hair, not these funny looking high buns and pig tail "teen wannabee" hairs, just what everyday women look like.  Even put the Glyn hair on Tina Perez through Clothe room in Poser for it to weigh down as she tips her head (changed to dynamic hair).

Lights... I do know it's a bit bright, my LCD monitor went down on my main computer, so I'm using my 18 yr old CRT Gateway monitor, which isn't very bright, should've looked at everything on my laptop before uploading but I was wanting to release Tina quickly as I needed to make some money.  And again, I really don't know why it looks "flat", I used a light set (included in Tina Perez package) that consists of a main, soft, back, and IBL light, all the lights except IBL with shadows at 100% applied (I hate, hate, hate shadowless lights and you can never find them in the real world so I never use them).  Can you point me to a light set you believe is isn't "flat"?  Not really sure what you mean by flat anyways.

Expression, the only extreme expression I used on Tina was the makeup promos, and that was just to show that you can use expressions on her without her looking all ugly or unrealistically "3D" ugly.  The others were simply a small smile.  Can you point me to what you're talking about as in "brat" expression?  And again most of her promos show her not expressing at all so you'll know what she looks like when you load her.

In my opinion, promos that show no expression at all..... just dead look on with not so much as to care what they're looking at... is plainly dead and I see a lot of them.  In fact, 99% of promos don't tell me whether this character can handle V4 expression at all, cause they're not using them.  A lot of characters I bought can't either, they get really ugly or unrecognizable, that's why I show that my characters can, so that people will know if they want to render my character smiling, they can.

I did look at the finished promos, and I was very proud.  When I did all the update promos on Tina (had to change them for the testing team, no nudity cause they said she looked too young), Temptest3d was all excited and she was very happy with them.  What's wrong with them?  Scratching my head here, I worked very hard on them, though some may think they're "half ass" jobs.  Really got me curious, but don't worry, I'm not hurt in any way, like I said, everyone has different opinions.

Thank you all so very much for sharing your thoughts and being helpful.  Like I said, critics are for learning, if there wasn't any honest criticism, there would be no learning.

...wolfie

Characters do not sell themselves. Even if something is well made, you still have to catch the customers eye. So apart from making a good character, a product maker has to also become their own marketing person, and ensure that they have the tools to properly market the figure.

The main thing is to make promo pictures that capture both the eye and the imagination of the customer. Simply showing details is not enough. Show the "character", give the figure life and personality. Place them in interesting shots that can inspire the customer. You have to "Sell" the character with everything you have in your promos, because if the customer looks in the store and sees the same old shots over and over again, then they wont bother to take the time to look......you have to draw them in, and make it interesting enough for them to want to click.

Rawn

I like what you said, Rawnrr, and it's very true.  This is one reason why my promos are different from the rest, to make it interesting for customers to want to browse through.  Or at least try to, but apparently it's not working.  I see so many promos and they're all the same, with no "life" or expressions at all, yet they're top sellers.  I show expressions all the time and try to give my character life as in posing them to look interesting, but it's not working.  So this really has me curious.

Maybe I'm over doing them?  Maybe it's time I pay someone else to make the promos?  I don't know, I'm in the shadow of question marks here.

...wolfie

No offense meant, but to me your promos look like most every other ones in the rosity library.

Girls standing in a boring pose looking at a camera. (with alot of text and boring background)

Compare that to a few of these at daz (just did a quick glance through he store..so they are not necessarily even the best examples)

http://www.daz3d.com/monique-6-pro-bundle

http://www.daz3d.com/urban-survivors-hd-for-genesis-2-female-s-and-male-s

http://www.daz3d.com/fwsi-marie-hd-for-monique-6

http://www.daz3d.com/lyric-for-genesis-2-female-s

They all have a readily identifiable character, but in an interesting shot that catches your eye and imagination. Through costume, and background scenery, through creative lighting and adding expressions tot he character that give them life and personality. These are the things that sell a a character more than a screen full of text on the image.

Rawn

No offense taken friend!  Funny you showed me these promos, recently I was thinking about starting promos in a scenery instead of just fancy backgrounds, and looking at other promos I don't see a bunch of writings.  As for writings, just wanted to explain things cause I know most people don't bother looking in the Description or Editorial tabs for the info, they just look at pretty pictures to see if they like the products.

Clothings... sexy clothings always sell the characters if you do this right, but for some reason, even though my characters don't have kiddy faces like most, and even though Lucy Zepp & Tina Perez have normal size breasts and physically shaped bodies, the testing team ALWAYS tell me my characters look too young, no matter how big or fat or whatever.  So I don't do nudity or "too sexy for the young" clothing.  I see lots of kiddy faced small breasted characters in nude promos, they tell me it's nothing against me, they just feel she's too young but I don't one bit believe them.

Anyways, gonna try to be creative here and put future characters in interesting scenes, hopefully from now on I can make my them stand out.

...wolfie

If I purchase a character I tend to be attracted to products that have something different of unique about them, either morphs or textures.

I did look at Tina Perez and, IMO she looked very similar to Lucy Zepp, who I already own and like using very much.

I'll credit a recent Lucy Zepp gallery upload to her....sorry I did not get around to it on uploading :(  

I did look at Tina Perez and, IMO she looked very similar to Lucy Zepp, who I already own and like using very much.

I'll credit a recent Lucy Zepp gallery upload to her....sorry I did not get around to it on uploading :(  

Hey thanks longprong!  Looking forward to see your image :) Yes, I agree there are some similarity with Lucy Zepp and Tina Perez, Tina was actually created to be Lucy's cousin, just didn't bother stating that in promos, nothing anyone would think important.  I'm gonna do a render of the two side by side and load it here :)

Ah, OK... if the expressions aren't changing in the promos then it comes back to the shape of the mouth. That combines 2 of my gripes into 1! The mouth shape is definitely realistic, but not one I find particularly attractive, so back to my comment on buyer's aesthetic preferences.

The hair is probably down to just the scene and lighting and was just an opinion. I don't pay a lot of attention to hair in promos because the hair isn't part of what's being sold (usually). BTW, I do read the editorials, the promo blurb at the bottom, and all the promo images when buying. I think the more info available the better. I resist buying on single promo images because 'just occasionally' I don't get the product I was expecting.

By 'flat' lighting I mean lacks contrast. I'm not a fan of IBL and 'light sets', I just use IDL. Again, my own preference. Nothing at all to do with the characters, so ignore me on that one... I can't put my finger on what it is... maybe the textures and lighting made them look 'cartoony'? Hmmm... maybe if I add something as a point of comparison and let others rip into my image there may be some more specific feedback...

This is a test render of a Laura 3 character after applying a new skin texture and Snarly's EZSkin. Not at all meant as a promo, but lit and rendered to show her in as natural a lighting as possible. The hair is also just as old a mesh, but I used the new subdivision function to increase the poly count and remove the obvious jaggies for this close up. Just me, but I appreciate shots like this in promos...

For a bit of comparison (and to demonstrate what I mean by 'flat') here's 2 quick renders of Lucy.

First is using IDL and an HDRI background...

This one is also HDRI, but included an infinite light to get her to stand out from the background and to cast some shadow over her face...

Offered only as points of comparison... not saying they are better than yours, just a bit different.

Ok, here we have a comparison, full body and head only.

First, @ piersyf, unfortunately during the creation of Tina Perez, my last laptop crashed (literally on the floor) so I had to save up to get another one, I haven't installed Poser on this one yet.  On my main computer, I can't render IDL lights scenes, and if I attempt to do partial renders, each partial renders will be slightly lighter/darker, if I'm thinking correctly, it's because of the location of the "lights".  My old CRT monitor on my computer is a little darker then the laptop monitor (which is LCD of course) so I should've loaded the images and check them out on the laptop before uploading the promos.  Seriously thinking of redoing the promos.  For now until I install Poser on my laptop, I'm just doing my best using IBL lights, using AO for the more natural, less flat shadows.  I realize my shadows were too dark, highlights too light so I played more with my lights and did these renders below.

@longprong... admittedly there's more similarity than I wished for, as I made these two girls (Lucy Zepp age 20, Tina Perez age 21) as cousins, but there are differences.  First, the skins come from two different merchant resource textures.

You can see some difference, their height, weight, hip, breast size,  jaws, chin, eyes and even slightly on their noses.

...wolfie

Oh, I forgot to add, the more differences in the packages are the makeups & tattoos, and Tina has tan lines (still waiting for bagginsbill for an updated surface settings for the tan lines since you can't see them with gamma correction on right now).  Tina also will be updated with genital hairs, the last ones got rejected so I skipped that option for now and made new ones after she was in the market when I had some time.

...wolfie

Ah, OK... if the expressions aren't changing in the promos then it comes back to the shape of the mouth. That combines 2 of my gripes into 1! The mouth shape is definitely realistic, but not one I find particularly attractive, so back to my comment on buyer's aesthetic preferences.

The hair is probably down to just the scene and lighting and was just an opinion. I don't pay a lot of attention to hair in promos because the hair isn't part of what's being sold (usually). BTW, I do read the editorials, the promo blurb at the bottom, and all the promo images when buying. I think the more info available the better. I resist buying on single promo images because 'just occasionally' I don't get the product I was expecting.

By 'flat' lighting I mean lacks contrast. I'm not a fan of IBL and 'light sets', I just use IDL. Again, my own preference. Nothing at all to do with the characters, so ignore me on that one... I can't put my finger on what it is... maybe the textures and lighting made them look 'cartoony'? Hmmm... maybe if I add something as a point of comparison and let others rip into my image there may be some more specific feedback...

This is a test render of a Laura 3 character after applying a new skin texture and Snarly's EZSkin. Not at all meant as a promo, but lit and rendered to show her in as natural a lighting as possible. The hair is also just as old a mesh, but I used the new subdivision function to increase the poly count and remove the obvious jaggies for this close up. Just me, but I appreciate shots like this in promos...

Now that is what I find appealing, nice example. While I do not feel the Tina promos were too cartoon like, your render does display a great deal more reality which I like a lot. For the record you are not alone in reading the description and looking at all the promos before buying, I do that all the time and on occasions I also look at the readme file if I still have questions.  Due to this I am not a fan of words added to promos, although I have seen it used to good effect in promos for some props.  Props are very different though and often the wording describes prop options or where they fit in with other props in the same series.  Figures are different, if there are options or different textures I want to see the differences, the same with morphs.  The description might tell me there are a dozen morphs but I want to see what those morphs do.

 

 

I use Poser 13 on Windows 11 - For Scene set up I use a Geekcom A5 -  Ryzen 9 5900HX, with 64 gig ram and 3 TB  storage, mini PC with final rendering done on normal sized desktop using an AMD Ryzen Threadipper 1950X CPU, Corsair Hydro H100i CPU cooler, 3XS EVGA GTX 1080i SC with 11g Ram, 4 X 16gig Corsair DDR4 Ram and a Corsair RM 100 PSU .   The desktop is in a remote location with rendering done via Queue Manager which gives me a clearer desktop and quieter computer room.

You do your work on a laptop, Wolfie? I take my hat off to you! It occurred to me that what I had been trying to say in my own clumsy fashion is that you spend ages making the character, don't skimp on the promo renders. Spend days on them showing as much as you can... I was looking at promos yesterday that had renders in Poser and in an 'external renderer' (unbiased). Really really got a good idea of the potential of the mesh and textures, regardless of whether I have that renderer. Maybe see if you can collaborate on promo renders?

As to the character, looking at the images you posted... it's the mouth. Accurate and realistic lines for sure, I just don't like them. Aesthetic preference.

Honest opinion here.. only opinion - and its cause you asked for honest criticism.  I may come off as harsh and I really dont intend to - I just dont voice myself via type all that well, Im really just trying to help.

When I first opened that page, the first thing I noticed was the terribly flat lighting and some kind of terrible funkiness in the hair and  the shadowing of  the hair on her face.  Her skin lacks any kind of detail ( sorry not trying to be mean here).  To clarify: There seems like there is no actual texture to the map.. and a lack of bump/ spec maps possibly?  Also, the view of her standing there.. her lips are super shiny and give that wax lips appearance.. never a good look.  Her makeups look very blah and uninspired.  Her expressions in the promos - Im not sure if this is the actual morph or an added expression.. but its kinda weird. She definitely has some strangeness at the interior corners of her eyes and the nose bridge area. Im going to assume that it is because she has no defined upper eyelids which adds to her awkwardness a bit.   Maybe larger more prominent lashes may have helped with her overall look.

The Reese sisters - The textures look much better, and the lighting has greatly improved.  However, in my honest opinion the morphs just dont work for them.  Also, the eye blinking to show makeups are not particularly working in your favor either. ( maybe just a fully closed eyelid displaying it would have worked better)  I think this set would actually sell well with improved morphs and promos.

My best advice is to look at some top selling character vendors here - and at daz.  

Madde in particular ( god I love her girls) and there is a reason why;  The promos/renders are top notch - 

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/mdd-rashi-for-v4-2/108283/

The skin is beautiful, and well textured.  You can see  that her eyebrows fit the scale of her morph- the makeup has texture to it.  The character itself is very unique and creative - Indian characters have been done before but the beautifully detailed ornamentation sets this apart.

The lighting- It is well lit, and displays the skin very well... but it has some mood to - there are shadows but in the right spots ) not in or on her face.

The clothing is well thought out and beautifully detailed - and matches the theme she was going with. I cant find a single thing really wrong with this set or anything I would do differently- and its why I want it soo bad. I dont need it but I have to eventually possess it.

Im happy to see you are trying to set yourself apart  - But going too far out there also narrows your market.  The narrower the market the less profit you can make.

Just my two cents  - dont be mad

Me :0)

@piersyf: No, I didn't make the promos on the laptop for Tina, though I did do the renders on the Reese sisters on the last laptop (which is why the lights were better), then worked through Photoshop & PSP on the promos on my computer.  Character morphs creation in DS surface settings in DS & Poser on computer, texture editing in PSP, sometimes in PS on my computer.  The laptop monitor is just too small, and I hate the uhh... stylus or whatever you call it (square "mouse" on bottom) so I use a mouse.

@chevybabe25... quite a critic, if I was any weaker I'd have given up, anything good on them at all?  LOL.  Thanks though, I'm working on the lightings (will install Poser on my new laptop), and will look closer & catch funky morphs.  The makeup... well, I'm just trying to go for the lighter makeups, I just like light makeups and don't like hard stuff though I did add some goth & dark eyeliners, as well as thick/long black eyelashes on Tina for customers who prefer them.

I'm not giving up though, sure that was pretty harsh but I did ask for them.  I'm strong enough to continue and try to do my best on better creations/promos.  And thanks! :)

...wolfie

Im really sorry wolfie.. I know I come off harsh.. I am a critic..but Im also trying to help. ( this is why I tend to avoid offering criticisms, especially in public forums ) Im not trying to hurt your feelings, or be an ass. 

Yes - there are positives in what you have submitted - and I dont want you to give up - The second set The Reese sisters look greatly improved.  The textures looked better, and lit much nicer. The morphs are more improved as well.. 

I make characters too and I know just how ridiculously difficult and time consuming they are; I dont doubt for one second you didnt work hard on these sets. Keep your chin up- and the next one focus more on the things I mentioned. I guarantee it will sell better.

It's all good, Chevybabe25, I've just been going through some failures in life, and trying to do what I do best (character creation), to make more money first my laptop breaks, then my 21in LCD monitor on my main computer gives up so I had to drag my 25yr old trusty 19in Gateway CRT monitor, just another annoyance in life that held me back.  It's good that I'm a tough person and just get up and try again after failures, I know it'll pay in the future.

I've learned a lot from these critics, but then when you get so many bad things said about your work, you wonder, "why do I even bother wasting my time doing this for little money anyways?".  It was hard (not only you, but a lot of people saying my work's bad), yes, but critics do help you learn and get better at what you're doing.  It would've been nice to get some encouragement though, encouragements give you the strength to continue.

I know Tina Perez is a good character, I just didn't display her well.  Gonna try to re-do the promos & hopefully sales would get better.

Thanks all of you for the critics, I'm not asking for any more, I believe I know what I need to do :)

...wolfie

I want to add my 2 cents.......just because you asked honestly.

I just don't buy anymore V4 stuff - characters, clothes, everything.  I think she's been done to death and I've spent all the money I'm going to spend on V4.  I rarely even load her in Poser anymore.

When I lost my hard drive a few months ago with the V4 runtime on it, I was very picky about what I even bothered to re-install for V4.  Mostly, just stuff I paid for that I might be able to convert to other figures.

I do wish you would focus your talents on some of the other figures like Dawn and Roxie and Miki4.  Those are the figures I use in Poser now.  Something like your characters for Dawn would be welcomed by the small but dedicated Dawn fan base and would be well received, I think.  I would grab up anything you did for Roxie, Miki and Dawn.

But, honestly, I'm done buying for V4.

You might want to look into color calibrating your monitor. That would give a more consistent look for your renders. Also, if you're not already, you should run at least your artistic renders through some sort of color correction process in postwork. You can do it by hand in Photoshop or any of the other image editors out there.

Your artistic renders could benefit from better lighting and some judicious postwork.

promo renders don't look good enough IMVHO.  try to set up scene, lite and matls so it renders beautiful.

use BB's anisotropic shaders for hair and eyes, snarly's EZskin (all posted here as freebies) if it's o.k. to use their freebies in commercial promos.

use SSS, BB's envsphere, HDRI, 1 inf lite w/ray-traced shadows, 4 RT bounces, IC=50, IDL=32, samples=6, SR=0.5, GC=2.2 et al.

do not use P4 render settings*.  do not render in empty scene* devoid of background, props et al.

you wouldn't get honest opinions, as rule here: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything. it's more supportive, but leaves users stuck in ruts*.

All V4 characters out there are in the same age area, the same texture sets or look-alikes, the same light setups, and they all look exactly the same.
OK, spin a dial here and there, make some very-very-light external moprhs because you do not want to upset the rigging, but at the end of the day?
You have yet "the next"  V4.

Go to the 30-40 age area, in morphs and textures.
Move on to the 40-50 age area with moprhs and textures.
You are in "virgin" area here. There's almost nothing.

You have the whole market open for you ; There is almost nothing from 30-40 and 40-50.
And then earn your outhouse, your boat, your private jet by building the clothes for those.

And that goes for females and males.

Look at all examples here. All range from 16 to 23 years of age.

Use your imagination, go beyond the 30 barrier with figures, morphs, textures, hair, clothes, props.
It' s all empty, open and up for the taker.

*And for your lmatest cousins render?

Why are they in an empty scene?
Wanna get attention? Put them in a beach ball play setting. Get some "life", some movement in the scene.*

Look at all examples here. All range from 16 to 23 years of age.

Use your imagination, go beyond the 30 barrier with figures, morphs, textures, hair, clothes, props.
It' s all empty, open and up for the taker.

*And for your lmatest cousins render?

Why are they in an empty scene?
Wanna get attention? Put them in a beach ball play setting. Get some "life", some movement in the scene.*

Not all are in that age range, Agatha by 3-DArena certainly looks older than 23 and there are a few others.  That said, I am really nit picking here as you are correct that older V4 characters is barren territory at the moment.  I have Agatha and use the character extensively but I would be interested in other older characters and, as it is not mainstream, I would also be willing to pay more.  

 

 

I use Poser 13 on Windows 11 - For Scene set up I use a Geekcom A5 -  Ryzen 9 5900HX, with 64 gig ram and 3 TB  storage, mini PC with final rendering done on normal sized desktop using an AMD Ryzen Threadipper 1950X CPU, Corsair Hydro H100i CPU cooler, 3XS EVGA GTX 1080i SC with 11g Ram, 4 X 16gig Corsair DDR4 Ram and a Corsair RM 100 PSU .   The desktop is in a remote location with rendering done via Queue Manager which gives me a clearer desktop and quieter computer room.

Look at all examples here. All range from 16 to 23 years of age.

Use your imagination, go beyond the 30 barrier with figures, morphs, textures, hair, clothes, props.
It' s all empty, open and up for the taker.

*And for your lmatest cousins render?

Why are they in an empty scene?
Wanna get attention? Put them in a beach ball play setting. Get some "life", some movement in the scene.*

Not all are in that age range, Agatha by 3-DArena certainly looks older than 23 and there are a few others.  That said, I am really nit picking here as you are correct that older V4 characters is barren territory at the moment.  I have Agatha and use the character extensively but I would be interested in other older characters and, as it is not mainstream, I would also be willing to pay more.  

This is barren territory because there aren't enough customers that reside here. Same for asking the OP to make characters for Dawn, Roxie and Miki 4. The OP is looking for input so he can make more money... not way less. I'll chime in that the promos need much more work in the lighting, posing and presentation. I'm also going to point out that you should never say that one program renders better than others then present actual renders that contradict your argument. It's all about learning your tool of choice.

Lastly, the clothing. They leave much to be desired when presenting your product to a customer.  To be totally honest, your characters' clothing selections (and tattoo options) represent more of a trailer park variety than sexy, and come off as pedo-pervy when you have the young girls in daisy dukes and cutoffs, with the camera focus aiming directly into their cleavage and crotch area. Delete those items from your runtime. Put them in age-appropriate clothing and cover them up. That's really what your QA testers are telling you. There is really a fine line between sexy and trashy. Switch up your choices with classic choices and hair styles and show that your characters are more versatile... like they going to the library, class or a elegant party.. not just riding in a Ford F-50 with a six pack on a Saturday night. Take a look at how the girls in Rendo's hot list are being presented versus how you are doing it and and add in a few renders based on that to break up your presentation. If you are showing the body shape, make one or two renders showing it, but don't make her practically undressed for all your promos.

Ok... wheww, many responses, been busy for a while..

Poser installed on my laptop so I can start using IDL lights.  Copying my runtimes, taking quite a long time!

@piersyf: Will not use textures on HDRI environment, as it changes the color of the skin in renders.   Maybe in an "artistic render", but I want to show the customers what she truly looks like.  I'll use IBL lights with an infinite light though, or maybe my light set included, I'll see what looks good.

@Glitterati3D, I make my head morphs through DS3 and Ultra Face Morphs (merchant recourse at runtimeDNA), there are so many morphs you can play with.  I don't have, or don't know how to play with morphs with other 3D programs, though I do have Blacksmith3D's paint pro which includes morphing ability, I'll play around.  As for Dawn, Roxie & Miki4, I highly doubt neither one has any body morphs that would make them look like teens/kids, and there are hardly any clothes/hair support for them.  I highly doubt they even have as much morphs as V4 and all her add-ons (which is why V4 lasted soooooo many years).  Custom body morphs, yes there are some, but then the clothes won't fit them properly, and I highly doubt there are even some custom morphs that make them look like kids either.  V4 is not dead, V4 characters still sale a lot and there are a huge number of customers that still buy V4 characters.  I'm gonna learn G2 female morphing and jump in the boat, as there are a huge number of support climbing for her, not to mention, she has teen morphs as well.  I may do an adult version of one of the three you requested though, just gotta learn how to morphs their faces.. and then, I don't even know if they are DS compatible.  Yes, I'm an ex-DS user, now Poser user, but I didn't forsake DS users, I always try to support both Poser and DS.

@booksbydavid: When I was online with my main computer with my CRT monitor, yes, I did calibrate my monitor, but it's not online anymore.  My laptop monitor is calibrated, so I'm just depending on what things look like from it.  The CRT monitor is turned up as far as it can be, but it just doesn't compare to the LCD monitors.  Running your promo renders through some color editing is a big no-no.  You are required to show what color your characters look like in mono lights and cannot post work, this way your customers know what they're getting.  If you render them in some different colors, or post work the image, your customers will get something different then what they're buying.  Not good.  I render them in mono lights to show what color the character really is, and never post work on the actual renders.

@Miss Nancy, I don't need to use fancy lights or skin surfaces,I don't know about BB's lights, but Snarly's skin surface scripts seems difficult to use & I don't understand it.  What I used as far as skin surface seems very good and doesn't glow in the dark or react strangely to different lights (with permission, I copied mine from another vendor, and with lots of learning, I edited them).  I don't need extra special surface settings, I've already learned a lot from other people.  The lights I used, yes, too bright and contrast so I'm working on that and will be re-doing the promos.
You quoted: "you wouldn't get honest opinions, as rule here: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything. it's more supportive, but leaves users stuck in ruts" True, very true as for people who refuses to learn from critics, but when you ask for one's honest opinion, you just might get negative.  Most people can't handle it, I do know that, but then if they that can't handle it, they can't learn.  It's nice to get some encouragements though, as to what you did right and what is good.  I agree.  But I prepared my self to get nothing but negative so that I can see what I'm doing wrong, so I can correct them.  In fact, I've became a friend of a person who gave a lot of negative feed back, she will be helping me if I need it, she's a tough one!  Thank you much friend!

@Louis Cross:  Older women just don't sell much here and I don't have resources for older women (wrinkle skin resources, etc).  I support the too and wouldn't mind making a couple older women products, but what most people buy are 20 to 30 yr old sexy women.  I pretty much specialize in the other minority group which are young kids and teens.  Strangely though, my Lucy Zepp teens package has sold far more than all my other characters, all my adult characters are gorgeous, but the teens sold most, so I know what I'm going for.  Also consider this, I'm about the only vendor here that sell the young version of V4/S4 (down to age 5), so people that are looking for kids that can wear V4 clothes are gonna find me.

@Male_M3dia: The icons?  Testers? Sitemail me, you have me curious where you're coming from & how you know these info. As for the clothing used in promos, yes I could've used "normal clothes that cover you mostly" but wanted to display her.  I've seen much more showing, skimpy clothes on younger looking characters here in the marketplace, so I don't think I'm in the wrong here.  Also, you quoted "I'm also going to point out that you should never say that one program renders better than others then present actual renders that contradict your argument. It's all about learning your tool of choice."  Where did I say that???  Not in promos for sure *scratches head

Ok folks, need to go to bed & go to work in the morning!  Fun chatting with you this is getting pretty interesting :)

...wolfie

I agree with the posters who mentioned the renders not being on par with the best. I also agree with the poster who said the clothes weren't necessarily doing you any favors—as a whole, they're not pretty clothes. They are in most cases realistic, but I'd look at what DAZ does with Belle and their other teens, clothing-wise. Like most of the adult characters, they're wearing swimsuits or lingerie for the cover tile, but its age-appropriate, with more coverage. The additional renders show contemporary clothes. The ones you have feel dated.

The other thing you do—which is commonplace in the Renderosity store—is overload the cover tile image with ugly text. It looks like it was done in Word and doesn't look professional. Not everyone is gifted with type layout skills, but I'd find a font that has some teen spirit to it that remains easy to read. Keep the text on the cover tile minimum, and then work to declutter the inner panels. Again, look at what the top vendors are doing. 

Finally, I like the Reese Sisters more than Tina—more versatile, less like an existing product—but on one of the inner panels, you identify their ages as 23, 25 and 29, which is clearly wrong. None of them look that old and the youngest one is a tween at oldest. Since your big selling point is their age (since there are fewer teen figures), you want to make it clear you know what teens look like. Mislabelling them makes it look like you might not have used any references.

The ages on the Reese sisters are 13, 19, & 25. To say that you think I don't know what teens & kids look lIke, rather then saying I made a mistake on the numbers. (Which I didnt, you should look again).. doesn't make me look good at all, in fact you're stating I'm a fool.  I would have thought twice before saying anything like that.  It's all good though.

No more critics please, as I stated before, I'm redoing the promos.

...wolfie 

@booksbydavid: When I was online with my main computer with my CRT monitor, yes, I did calibrate my monitor, but it's not online anymore.  My laptop monitor is calibrated, so I'm just depending on what things look like from it.  The CRT monitor is turned up as far as it can be, but it just doesn't compare to the LCD monitors.  Running your promo renders through some color editing is a big no-no.  You are required to show what color your characters look like in mono lights and cannot post work, this way your customers know what they're getting.  If you render them in some different colors, or post work the image, your customers will get something different then what they're buying.  Not good.  I render them in mono lights to show what color the character really is, and never post work on the actual renders.

**
**

**I understand that for product renders, but I've seen many products that include 'artistic' renders as well. It was 'arisitic' renders I was referring to.
**

Ok, got Poser installed and all my runtimes copied to my laptop, thankfully now I can take my laptop and let things render as needed while I'm working (RL job).  And now I can render full scenes with IDL lights.

@booksbydavid: Ok, I see what you mean.  Doing an IDL render now as I type this doing a comparison, you'll see below.

@Male_M3dia: I forgot to mention last night, a very important issue here.  First of all, as a vendor, I will be as professional as possible, but whether in professional environment or not, one must defend themselves when called a name as horrible as a pedo pervert.  Apparently since you had access to the testing/QA communication or someone that did and told you info, you should know very well that I created Tina as a 21 yr old, thus the "trailer trash" clothes so to speak, and tattoos.  The ONLY reason Renderosity says she looks too young, is for fear of people who can't handle the fact that there are MILLIONS AND MILLIONS of women at average height and shorter (5ft 6in) and have even smaller breast then Tina even way thinner hip/thighs then Tina.  Just look around, google "23 yr old women".  Funny though, I googled that and a bunch of nudity images popped up, but anyways I looked through and found many women who look younger/smaller then Tina.

I realize I shouldn't make her dressed skimpy all through the promos, but I ABSOLUTELY REFUSE to be called a pedo.

In fact, I looked around all the popular vendors' characters who were allowed nudity, all faces of course look kiddy and cutie and all that, most bodies don't even show any physical activity strength on their bellies (V4 definition & fitness).  I loaded one of Godin's character, Nandi, who looks younger then Tina, she's less physical fit, smaller hips and thighs, the only thing that would make her look "older" is that her breasts are slightly larger.  Her height was "basketball V4" which is way tall, so I shortened her to average height.  I rendered them side by side to show everyone.  Since Nandi is allowed nudity I rendered her nude to show her breasts size.  (The shoulder fix messed up on Tina, but I'm not worried for now).

Again, I absolutely refuse any accusations as some kind of pedophile!  I should ask administrators to delete your post.  I almost pulled Tina out of my store cause of what you said, that was bad!

Also one more thing, where you said, "That's really what your QA testers are telling you." I don't know if you're another tester or part of the QA team, but you should NEVER share these type of information to the public, and if you're not a tester, who ever shared you any information shouldn't have.  Not one hint, that's between me and the testers/QA.

...wolfie

Ok, I'm going to go through this rather quickly because I have some more figures to work on.

First of all, you asked for honest opinions and I gave you one. And I stand by everything I said. If you don't want to be referred by certain labels, then your promos need to not reflect that. I'm not taking it back, because that's I'm and others that I've showed are getting from your promos. 

Several pages back you said that your QA testers said your girls look young... going by that comment and your promos... take another look at my 2nd paragraph and do with it what you will. That's my feedback on that.

Next let's go through clothing a bit. I didn't respond earlier because I was submitting my product that coincidentally is a set of young adult and corresponding adults morphs. All custom morphs in zbrush... the teens only use the genesis base, the adults based on V6. The most difficult part of doing promos for younger characters is to display body options without setting off the pedo-meter, especially when the clothing choices for the 3d females are quite revealing.. but it can be done. The attached pic below shows a bit more age appropriate and classier selection of clothing. I opted not to use it in favor of a texture-less render of the body shape using default genesis head like I've done in my other morph packages...

You see the difference between my clothing and yours? The clothing that you are using aren't even fitting right in the correct places. That image isn't doing your figures any favors as another poster said.

Next let's do older vs younger and clothing them differently. Here's another WIP of one of my morphs younger version... put her in some anime clothing and she's a bit more innocent looking...

Now throw the morph back to zbrush... age her up, give her some adult makeup choices, a sexier body and some classy but sexier clothing choices, then you end up with a more versatile set.. which got accepted for testing and should be in the store in a few weeks.t

And with that, back to work.

Ok, I see what you mean by the tester/QA comment.

I know I should've clothed her up a bit more on most promos, I got that, and I'm looking at all my clothes and promos from other vendors.  Still, being called a pedo is quite a bit more offensive than you might think, and with so many people seeing that post, word goes around and suddenly I have this rumored reputation.  Name calling (especially that) I believe is a no-no in forums.  Also, as my image shows in the comparison I still stand that Tina is 21 and is more physically shaped then Nandi, but isn't allowed nudity only cause her breasts are smaller then whatever they allow, so this "pedo" is clearly out of the question.

I'll just shake hands and leave it at that.

Thanks for the render samples, friend!

...wolfie

@jamminwolf: I don't think M_M was actually calling you a perv, just that he thought some of your promos might appeal to such groups based on composition choices.

Nothin wrong with F-150s and a six pack with daisy dukes. That is what most of America is all about on the weekends anyway, regardless of how much city folk want to deny it. ;)

But you might want to mix it up a bit to show variety in different clothing.

hello :))

i think you've got many ideas on how to fix things, so i'll refrain from what has already been said.  one thing though that i've been waiting for someone to mention, and that you referred to back on page one is pricing.

looking in your store and going through ReadMes to obtain rough dates of release, i can understand why there is a slight increase in your pricing, not to mention that you are having to share revenue with partners.  but back on page one you also mentioned packs by Godin & Seven that were released roughly around the same time as Tina.  both those vendors might also be having a bit more success due to having lower price points than you.  even if you fixed your promo images, etc., personally i would not be willing to spend $19USD on your sisters pack, especially since, as stated in your product description, it is roughly the same base texture for each with colouring adjustments.  but also keep in mind that i am one of those purchasers that will quite willingly go in and edit textures myself, like colouring or mixing make-ups, blahblah, so that i get more 'bang' for my buck.  i don't know how many others might do the same, but surely there is more than a handful of us.  now if the there were at least two identifiably different detailed & exciting textures, then $19USD would be easy and justifiable to drop.

best wishes for improved success!! :))

Ok... did a render... a few render actually coming up with ideas and changing hairs. But first...

@AmbientShade: ok I understand it better, still knowingly I attempted to make her a 21 yr old woman, pedo shouldn't have been mentioned.  Perv... if he feels it was too much, yes that's fine, and I got what he meant, but not pedo.  It's ok though, subject dropped and all is forgiven :)

@Giana: Yes, I've been thinking about the price, and since I sold a few already, it would be a headache for Rendo to refund them the difference if I change it, so instead, I'm gonna add another tan line.  The price being higher actually reflected cause of the tan lines (without all the extra textures, these textures are loaded in a node to give her skin the effect), a new idea I came up with.

K, so here's a render.  I have RSP8 IDL_Sphere (from RNDA) loaded, size not changed, ambient white at 0.75000, an infinite light at 20% (with shadows at 1.000 of course), and an infinite specular light at 40%.

I think it came out well, but I'm not sure if the hair will pass.  The shadow min bias is at 0.20000 for both lights (I don't like a "separate" shadow that shows if you have the smb too far).  Here's the image, what do you suggest?

Oh, and the hair is my own color, one of the textures edited for a true blonde instead of yellow and orange.

...wolfie

WTF??? Tried to load an image and I get this "we are unable to load your amazon s3 account, please contact administrator"?????

Ok, I clicked post too soon before the image loaded.  Learned something new lol smacks self

Ok, I clicked post too soon before the image loaded.  Learned something new lol smacks self

Well it is clear you are moving forward and I do like this render but it does appear to lack punch.  Compare it with the render at the top off the page from Male_M3dia.   I am no expert but the lighting seems to be the problem not the figure.

 

 

I use Poser 13 on Windows 11 - For Scene set up I use a Geekcom A5 -  Ryzen 9 5900HX, with 64 gig ram and 3 TB  storage, mini PC with final rendering done on normal sized desktop using an AMD Ryzen Threadipper 1950X CPU, Corsair Hydro H100i CPU cooler, 3XS EVGA GTX 1080i SC with 11g Ram, 4 X 16gig Corsair DDR4 Ram and a Corsair RM 100 PSU .   The desktop is in a remote location with rendering done via Queue Manager which gives me a clearer desktop and quieter computer room.

I think the "punch" comes from the main light aiming straight at her from slightly above, with a rim light, and a stronger specular.  He rendered that in DS, so I doubt he used anything like IDL.  IDL in Poser kills the specular strength so we need to load a specular light.  I load the specular light and copy the angle from the "sun" (infinity) I used.  Course then again I can lower the sun's diffuse color in material room and make it brighter in pose room where the specular will show more, instead of loading a specular light only.

This is, yes I agree, an improvement, but it's an example to ask what I can do to make the hair look not so... uhh.. defined.  Looking for a more softer look.

...wolfie

Are you using a 3-point light setup for your promos?

It's probably to best start there, have your rim light shining towards her and off one over her shoulder so she's popping a bit from the background. The 3 point set up will also give you a light into your eyes to show reflection. 

You don't need too elaborate setups for lights in promos. They just need to pop the character from the background and allow you to show texture and morph details in neutral light.

Are you using a 3-point light setup for your promos?

It's probably to best start there, have your rim light shining towards her and off one over her shoulder so she's popping a bit from the background. The 3 point set up will also give you a light into your eyes to show reflection. 

You don't need too elaborate setups for lights in promos. They just need to pop the character from the background and allow you to show texture and morph details in neutral light.

Totally agree, and I used it for the promos that are there now (tho they're too bright and contrast), that's what I'm planning to use with softer shadows and not being too bright.  I'm just wondering if I'm using the wrong settings somewhere for the hair, as it looks too defined.  Or do you think the hair looks fine?  I don't. Still playing around.  Also gonna play with Depth of field lol this may give it a little more punch!

Also angle the model a bit in the render so she isn't straight into the camera. That will help give the image a bit more depth with the lighting.

Edit, I would try a different hair as well. It looks a bit clumped together.

Edit, I would try a different hair as well. It looks a bit clumped together.

Am thinking of doing that, might use "End of Summer" by goldentassle and a variety of others.  Thanks a lot, M_M!

Ok, here we go.  IDL with a 3 point light setup (main, soft, and rim).  If all goes well, gonna use this image and fade/blur the background (depth of field), this will be a simple up close detail of face & texture with eye icons on the right side.

Again, edited the texture to look true blonde, different hair by same vendor, Ali (I really love this vendor's hairs).  Edited the material to be more bumpy and specular (specular maps aren't necessary as the bump does the trick).

What do you guys think?

For me, the big issue is that these are V4 Characters, and I've gone almost completely over to Genesis 2.  As a result, your characters have just kind of faded out for me.  I'll probably get the Reese sisters at some point, but most of my budget is now going to Genesis 2 and other content.

The other issue I have is that Perez doesn't include multiple ages.  I've come to associate your name with multi-age character packs, which you do incredibly well (even before S4 came out ;)), but without that element, Perez is just another V4 Character, which I have way too many of as is.

The final issue I have is fitting clothing to your characters, especially the younger ones.  Most clothing don't include the S4 and Elite morphs, and the morph transfer processes in DS and Poser don't always do the best job of fitting clothing  properly.  Add to that the often mature nature of V4 clothing, and it's hard to find outfits appropriate for the younger characters as well. 

Ok, here we go.  IDL with a 3 point light setup (main, soft, and rim).  If all goes well, gonna use this image and fade/blur the background (depth of field), this will be a simple up close detail of face & texture with eye icons on the right side.

Again, edited the texture to look true blonde, different hair by same vendor, Ali (I really love this vendor's hairs).  Edited the material to be more bumpy and specular (specular maps aren't necessary as the bump does the trick).

What do you guys think?

Much better, but dump the background!  All it is doing is distracting from the subject - way too busy and that grass sucks.  Use a simple background in post by rendering on a white background in Poser and save the file as a PSD, then drop it on a simple background. This hair is better, but still flat and too deeply shadowed.  Another distraction from the subject at hand. 

Quit doing artistic renders and do PROMO renders.

@nightwolf1982a: yes, I'm gonna learn how to transfer morphs to G2 and jump in the boat, for now I'm re-working Tina's promos.  I agree about the clothes, it's very sad that most clothes don't include Stephanie4 morphs (FBM or PBM), and almost all clothes don't include Stephanie4 partial body morphs (PBM) which I use exclusively on my characters, especially the teens/youngs.  What I use to make them fit is Morphing Clothes by Dimision3D here http://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/index.php?ViewProduct=64629

As for Tina Perez, I have an age progressive "add on" package that i will release (they might have their own "softer" outer skins, but will require Tina Perez adult for the others, such as eyes, bump maps, teeths, etc...), and I will price them as cheap as Renderosity will allow.

@Glitterati3D: The background was someone's suggestion and it's a new idea for me for promos (like Daz3D does), it will be faded as well as blurred out (like depth of field).  In fact, I'm gonna go ahead and do that on this sample to show you.  Not sure what you mean by the hair being flat and too shadowed, can you explain?  Does it need more specular?  Bump?  I like this hair and it allows me to show Tina's full face without any hair in her face or covering too much of her forehead.

a very basic remark here. Does your figure look happy? Does it look "inviting". Does it look like she "wants to meet you". Says ; " Buy me?"

Would you fall in love with someone walking around with that sad expression? Also, there is absolutely no "life" in the texture. No detail, no life, no contrast, no tan nor shadow.

Look to get some "flicker" in the eyes. (Not specular, but that "lifelike flicker" young women can have when they are inviting you to buy. Promo girls "have that" touch of wider inviting eyes. The eyes have no 3D in the mesh nor the texture around the eyes. She looks pale as if she was ill. But even when ill, there must be some "life" in the girl.
And those pouty lips, as if she "has" to kiss, but does not want to kiss.

The only skin texture we see is on the nosebridge, and that's about it.

We see a smoothed head, with a texture deprived of contrast and detail, and a girl that does not like to live. Pale skinned and sad..

Sorry, to be "hard" but that's what I see.

Poser 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, P8 and PPro2010, P9 and PP2012, P10 and PP2014 Game Dev
"Do not drive faster then your angel can fly"!

Going off the reservation a little, since everyone is recommending Env Sphere and IDL, I would go more towards a studio setting and try to convey a sense of youth and innocence.That might help you out a bit with the "perv police".
Maybe a gymnast's outfit for the younger characters, or something like that.

You might have a look at LilFlame's Simplicity- IBL light set. It works very well for pin-ups and I'm sure they would work well for your promo's, and I think would give you a head start on some of this stuff.
I'd steer clear of Poser's AO, which Poser's IDL seems to add to a scene automatically. I don't know anything about the technical stuff, but to me, it just doesn't look good to my "brown eyes".

It's one thing to make a really large image look good, but quite another to make a small one look good.

Just a few thoughts, FWIW

PS: I wouldn't worry all that much about the hair. IMO, there are no realistic looking hair characters or props- at least not at the Poser or Daz level of CG.

@Glitterati3D: The background was someone's suggestion and it's a new idea for me for promos (like Daz3D does), it will be faded as well as blurred out (like depth of field).  In fact, I'm gonna go ahead and do that on this sample to show you.  Not sure what you mean by the hair being flat and too shadowed, can you explain?  Does it need more specular?  Bump?  I like this hair and it allows me to show Tina's full face without any hair in her face or covering too much of her forehead.

You're losing site of your single purpose - to show off your character.  There's so much in that image, there's not even a way to determine what it is you're trying to sell. Promo your CHARACTER.  Nothing else.

The hair......I like Ali's stuff too, but certainly not for closeups and not for promo renders.  It looks like 3D hair.  There's a shadow on the top of her head in the back - hair doesn't do that, and certainly not that pitch black shadow that leads your eye to it wondering what the heck in in her hair!  The side in front of her ear look like painted on hair.  Bad choice - but your insistence on IDL is leading to those mistakes as well. Did you at least turn off the light emitter on the hair?

IDL is tough lighting to begin with.  Using it in promos is gonna be a hard sell.

viters, the pouty look is a natural shape in some girls, personally I know a couple of them, and one's my cousin who's name is Tina.  No she isn't smiling right now, I'm just taking advices as per promos.  I'll have her smiling again with "glittery" eyes, just not focusing on that.  Besides, most vendors don't have their characters expressing at all and there's no "life" in their promos.  I like to show that life to prove the morphs can handle a nice smile and wink without deforming, that's why I tell my girls to smile pretty ;)  I'm working to show the texture life more as well, I think the point lights are fading it out a bit.

bevens84, I'm sorry, but your render sample shows her a bit too bright, and actually blurred out.  Yes, the "majority" suggests IDL lights and that's what I'm gonna use.  The "minority" suggests IBL or shadowless lights and that's what I'm not gonna use.  If I want to reach out to the majority of customers with pictures with a "punch", then I need to use IDL lights.  For now I'm also trying to make her bumps look better and give her more "life" with the lights.

Well, I tried. :)

You need to re-do the face morph from scratch.

1. Google: 18 year old beautiful girl and pick a highly attractive girl.

2. Use V4's basic morph settings to achieve the exact look of your reference model.

3. If you have Zbrush, export the face to zbrush and begin MINOR sculpting to match the details in the reference images.

Total time: 2-4 hours tops.

Skin texture is fine IMO.

You need to keep going, keep learning until you catch up with the current level of competition in facial character detail.

YOU ARE ALMOST THERE, DON'T STOP.

Can you show us your original reference image?

You need to re-do the face morph from scratch.

1. Google: 18 year old beautiful girl and pick a highly attractive girl.

2. Use V4's basic morph settings to achieve the exact look of your reference model.

3. If you have Zbrush, export the face to zbrush and begin MINOR sculpting to match the details in the reference images.

Total time: 2-4 hours tops.

Skin texture is fine IMO.

You need to keep going, keep learning until you catch up with the current level of competition in facial character detail.

YOU ARE ALMOST THERE, DON'T STOP.

Thanks for the encouragements, friend!

Zbrush is clearly out of my budget, as far as I remember... I only have Ultra Face Morphs (merchant resource) from RNDA.

the face morph is my cousin's face and she looks almost exactly like her, except a little younger.  My cousin, who's name is also Tina, is actually 40 right now.  The body morph is also almost matching my cousin as well.  With her permission, and some pictures, I made a 3D version of her, but I don't have permission to share the pictures, she said no (was gonna include it in promos).

The next character will be totally different though :)

jamminwolf, do you have PP14?

It's been a while since I used V4/S4, but fitting any clothing to S4 with PP14 is fairly easy.

Load the clothing

Copy the S4 morph from your figure (Figure>Copy Morphs From>Choose from list)

Then, on the properties tab of the clothing, check off Include Morphs, Include Scale

Magnetize the clothing

Result = almost perfect fit.  I used the morph brush under the breast because the S4 morph always causes crushing there.  A tiny bit of smoothing and the fit was good, but I could have smoothed more.  You'll note, this is S4 and a small breasted figure much like yours.

Now, I did this render using IDL, but I would never use it for a promo because of all the IDL artifacts.  Also included is Ali hair, but it's serving a single purpose - for the viewer to NOT notice the hair except to think, yeah, she has hair.

Wow, your image does have a lot of artifacts, and yes, IDL does cause them.  I just might revert back to IBL, just thinking about it.  Tried another hair and it's got quite a few artifacts, and I have Irradiance catch at 50 & Indirect light quality at 32, I believe that's a high quality setting as far as IDL.

No, I don't have PP12, I only have Poser9, and Morphing Clothes did wonders for me.  Here's an image using Morphing Clothes on quite a few clothes for young girls and a teacher (classroom) I did long time ago in Poser.

I think in both of the above renders (jamminwolfs and bevans), the figure is still blending into the background. Both probably could work if some DOF was applied or the background blurred. For promos, generally you want to make backgrounds neutral so that your product takes the focus. 

As far as Tina's lips: I would try to smooth them a little bit more. I do have a head morph with a similar lip shape; I used zbrush to smooth it out to make it a bit natural. 

Also some tweaking of the facial expression can help sell the promo a bit as well and give your product more personality.

A

Ok, here we go... first @Male_M3dia: I don't have Zbrush, as mentioned before it's out of my budget as far as I remember.

And your suggestion is what I was doing at the time you posted lol... here's an updated sample, this might be my "Eyes" promo (except I'm gonna re-render her with a different eye then the default).  Not sure about the hair though, any suggestion on a V4 hair?

Edit, darn artifacts.  Thinking about going back to IBL lights... sigh!

BYW Male_M3dia, I like your character, she's cute :)

The render is much better. It probably needs a point or spotlight in front of the face to catch the reflection in the eyes. 

And as far as the cost of zbrush: The initial cost may be steep, however I've made it back in terms of sales. For custom morphs and the ease of making characters and fixes with it as vendor, it's worth the investment. This is especially true when you want to make younger characters with just one figure. 

The render is much better. It probably needs a point or spotlight in front of the face to catch the reflection in the eyes. 

And as far as the cost of zbrush: The initial cost may be steep, however I've made it back in terms of sales. For custom morphs and the ease of making characters and fixes with it as vendor, it's worth the investment. This is especially true when you want to make younger characters with just one figure. 

Thanks friend!  I'm getting somewhere here lol. I think I will get Zbrush some time if I can, gonna go look at the prices now.  Hopefully it won't take ages to learn.  I do have Blacksmith's Suit 4, but it's hard on my machine, gonna install it on my laptop and try my hand on the morphs... can't remember where the serial number is... then gotta learn how to import into DS to make the inj/rem file.  Don't know how in Poser.

You can take a look at SyrInj in the daz store. It can create INJ/Rem files from your Obj files so you won't need to go into DS. You will need to edit the file to change one value to 1 so that the injection will inject and automatically activate. It's been a few years so I forget what needed to be set in the file. It's on sale right now so it's a good time to grab it. 

Sweet!  Gonna get that when I get some money (don't have any at the time, in fact that's why I'm not out playing pool with the buddies tonight lol).  Thanks M_M!

jamminwolf- check your sitemail.

jamminwolf- check your sitemail.

Gotcha friend, thanks! :)

Wow! I think you've gotten some great feedback in this thread. I'd just add, whether it's fair or not, this marketplace is cut throat. While if I really like a character, with or without the skin included, $18.99 is not going to stand between me and having it. On the other hand there are similar sets out there which include a lot more bang for the buck. V4 + Genesis or Genesis 2 versions, included hair and poses, lights etc etc the list goes on. This has already been touched on but be as diverse as niche as you possible can be. Caucasian V4 characters are the most flooded category without question. Maybe find a way to branch out to ethnic characters or partner with someone to bring in a partner to add clothing or hair to include. All that, or and this is probably not going to appeal because of all your hard work, but i'll say it anyway. Lower your price to as low as you can possibly stand.

These are my thoughts. Best of luck to you. Your work looks good to me.

If you want to up your content game, get schooled to be a pro with Sixus1 Mentoring today!

 

they recommend a Wacom intuos pro medium or better for zBrush or any sculpting app.a mouse is all but worthless for sculpting. 
you can muddle threw with a intuos small.

Blender is free.has sculpting tools.
you can get  mudbox for $10.00 a month.
there's 3DCoat. 

V4 has such a ridicules high polycount sculpting tools are advisable for original morphs.
Roxie ,Genesis 1,2  ya don't need sculpting tools for original morphs.

 

============================================================ 

The Artist that will fight for decades to conquer their media.
Even if you never know their name ,your know their Art.
Dark Sphere Mage Vengeance

 

V4 has such a ridicules high polycount sculpting tools are advisable for original morphs.
Roxie ,Genesis 1,2  ya don't need sculpting tools for original morphs.

 

With lower poly meshes, actually you do need sculpting tools. Especially if you're wanting to create detail with either normal or displacement maps.

 

RorrKonns quote
V4 has such a ridicules high polycount sculpting tools are advisable for original morphs.
Roxie ,Genesis 1,2  ya don't need sculpting tools for original morphs.

 

Male_M3dias quote
With lower poly meshes, actually you do need sculpting tools.
Especially if you're wanting to create detail with either normal or displacement maps.

 

I was just talking about **original morphs
**Since Roxie ,Genesis 1,2 details. belly button,nipples,gen's ,eye lashes ,nails etc etc are modeled in to the mesh.
there not a low polycount mesh ,there Sub Divided meshes.

Details are not modeled in to low polycount game meshes.

============================================================ 

The Artist that will fight for decades to conquer their media.
Even if you never know their name ,your know their Art.
Dark Sphere Mage Vengeance

You'll  have to explain it better then. Original or not, they both really need sculpting tools, if nothing else to flesh out the base shape. Having a sculpting tool actually makes the lower poly meshes easier to create.

I'm not talking about making a character from scratch.I'm Just talking about Roxie ,Genisis 1 ,2 original morphs n only original morphs
You can make original morphs for Roxie ,Genisis 1 ,2  buy selecting vertices in a modeling app and moving vertices.

V4's polycount is to high for vertices moving to be practical.
ya really need sculpting tools to make V4 original morphs.

 

 

============================================================ 

The Artist that will fight for decades to conquer their media.
Even if you never know their name ,your know their Art.
Dark Sphere Mage Vengeance

That"s all French to me lol, never done any sculpting.  Don't have a Wacon of any kind except this silly little thing on the laptop (hmm... gonna grab my smart phone stylus from work and see if it works on the laptop, pretty curious).  And thanks for the info RorrKonn!  Maybe if you do a sample image of doing something with Roxie & G2 without a tool and show us?

Anyways, @Greybro, the $18.99 price is on the Reese sisters, we're talking about Tina Perez.  She's a little high too, but it was for the tan lines and the added (but rejected as per quality) gen hairs (again, before the pedo subject comes up, this was intended to be a 21 yr old character).  It's quite too late to change the price on Reese sisters, her sales aren't too good, but not too bad either.  But I've been working on something (a surprise, something that's never seen on the Marketplace) to add for Tina Perez to make her more worth the $16.99 price, also am gonna do something about the tattoos.

...wolfie

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BILitPXem6s

there just selecting part of the mesh .no sculpting 

and then

youtube is full of zbrush sculpting

 

============================================================ 

The Artist that will fight for decades to conquer their media.
Even if you never know their name ,your know their Art.
Dark Sphere Mage Vengeance

Wow, that was quite interesting, watched the whole thing.

Actually you're doing the same thing whether your working with a high or low poly mesh, so I'm going to have to disagree. You can use the same exact tools regardless of the poly counts. You are still sculpting.

I'm pretty illiterate in this area, but maybe people define "tools" differently, some say only a chisel (and other real life sculpturing tools) are the only tools, some say that the "re-sizing" (and other such) tool is a tool too.  I'm not confused as far as the poly count is, I know what that is, and it makes sense what you're saying (no matter the poly count), but for being illiterate in sculpturing programs, I'm confused what RorrKonn is saying.

**Male_M3dia
** do you even know what box modeling is ?
have you ever boxed modeled any thing ?
do you even own a box modeling app ?
have you ever tried to morph V4 using box modeling tools ?

jamminwolf 
you have box modeling tools to model meshes with.
you can use box modeling tools to morph a mesh.
a mesh is any 3D object.

then you have sculpting tools.

there two different ways of making and morphing meshes.

 

time stamp 1:50 he's using box modeling tools to morph V4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNazgfhm14M

maybe not the best example but ya can see her polycount is around 20,000
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BILitPXem6s
 V4 polycount is around 60,000 if ya tried to morph V4 with box modeling tools likePaweł Łyczkowski did with the MakeHuman basemesh .
the extra 40,000 polygones would cause you a lot of grief.
ya have some room to move on a 20,000 polycount character .
there's no moving room on a 60.000 polycount character.

 

 

============================================================ 

The Artist that will fight for decades to conquer their media.
Even if you never know their name ,your know their Art.
Dark Sphere Mage Vengeance

You can use the same exact tools for low and high poly meshes. The selection area that you use would be the only difference. You are still sculpting on both. I think you trying to make a distinction where there is none.

Ok, sculpturing for me comes later when I start messing around, for now...

I haven't started with promos just yet, I wanted to touch base with a few subjects before I started.

First, the lip comments have been bothering me, especially the "sad" or too pouty look, and the fact that Tina did look a bit like Lucy Zepp (morphs), especially the lips.  So I went to phrase 1 DS scene with Ultra Face Morphs (yes, I save these progressive scenes so I can go back if needed), and played around with the UFM as well as Morph++ dials for the lip.

The cost, instead of reducing the price and having to refund everyone that bought her, which would be a lot of head ache, I decided to add a new option that you almost never see in the market, as well as add 1 more tan line, some poses, and edit the tattoos.  I finished the new option (but I'm not gonna say for fear of other vendors stealing this idea) and haven't got to the others yet.

For now, I'm gonna load an old and new image so that you can see the changes in her lips, also I think this hair is best for close up IBL images. 1st image is the old lips, 2nd image is the new, she don't look too sad now lol.

Let me know what you think!

...wolfie

Hey guys,

I was just wondering why my sales of the latest two character products, Tina Perez by me & Temptest3d http://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/tina-perez-for-v4-s4/109408/ and Reese Sisters by me & P3Design http://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/reese-sisters/103863/ are suddenly down.  

I'm going to apologize in advance here for my honesty because while tact isn't my strong point, hurting your feelings isn't my idea of a good time either. 

1. Tina's random, arbitrary features draw attention to themselves individually rather than contributing to a character design as a whole and the overall effect is jarring… except on the goth, where the makeup manages to play to and compensate for most of it. Had the character been marketed exclusively wearing that makeup, I have a feeling she would have sold much better, and she wouldn't have been the first V4 character to pull off that trick. If a texture doesn't flatter your character, don't render them in it and reconsider why you'd bundle it with the character.
2. Lack of any nude renders. Unless the subject's a minor, it's a reasonable requirement to show complete textures and how breasts/buttocks are sculpted. Tight clothing and/or descriptives are not a substitute. I won't buy a character without nude renders because I assume the vendor's not taking it seriously.
3. Too many expressionless, staring faces. Besides looking creepy, they don't advertise the expressive range your characters have. You're a character designer, show character. Smile. Cry. Snarl. 
4. Surnames on characters. I dislike this and wonder how alone I am in that regard. Some things should be left to your customers' imaginations. 
5. Trailer trash outfits on characters standing next to their 13 year old sister. As of now all your promotional renders take place in Ohio in the month of October, and no one 13 years old gets to wear adult textures with heavy cosmetics on them. No shirts with boob holes you could pass a Schnauzer through.
6. Quantity over quality. So many morphs for the Reese sisters that they can't be squeezed into the renders, superfluous tramp stamp tattoo MATs… I have never had a character purchase decision be tipped by how many textures, MATs or alternate morphs came with it.  

Invest time in presentation and more focused, intentional character design. If your free time requires you to choose between the two, Renderosity has a service to do your product presentation for you.

Lol... duanemoody, did you even go through this thread to see all the feedbacks and the progress I'm making? Not to mention 2 times I requested no more critics, all the help has already sent me doing much better.  One thing though, trailer trash tattoos next to a 13 year old? Eh? We're talking about Tina Perez here, but the Reese sisters were brought up a couple times and none have tattoos. TIna doesn't have a sister.

Nudity... Renderosity didn't allow her nude cause she doesn't have huge breasts, nothing else contributes to her being viewed as young.  Surname. .. they're actually last names, unique names frome the rest and it gives me the ability to select more names for future characters.  This is the first time I've ever had anyone say they didn't like them, in fact I had quite a few compliments, so your point in this is mooted. 

 Goth... I don't really care for Goth but do sometimes include them for customers who want it. Quantity over quality, I spend a lot of time with my characters,  and try my best, the others spit out 2 or three at a month copy/pasting a lot of things & most of there characters look the same.  Mine don't...

i'm learning more though, so I ask you all, QUIT BEATING ME UP! Thanks! 

...wolfie 

Ill chime in again ;0) I think the last renders you have posted are a huge improvement in terms of lighting, posing, and clothing choices.  Her lips dont appear as though they have been changed all that much.   I can see what you are going for Wolfie, but her top lip is pulled out still in a very strange way- reminiscent of a duck bill.  You may have not gotten to it yet.. but her eye situation should be addressed too.  Maybe a less extreme morph around her eyelid, or a heavy duty eyelash map to help solve the problem.  You are making great progress..( Im glad you are not only asking for crits and accepting them, but you are also using all this valuable information in front of us..keep your chin up and keep going! I think there are a lot of people who could learn from this thread :0)

For now, I'm gonna load an old and new image so that you can see the changes in her lips, also I think this hair is best for close up IBL images. 1st image is the old lips, 2nd image is the new, she don't look too sad now lol.

It's better but the main problem is that the lips still look too much like a duck bill. Generally you can have a wide mouth or you can have pouty lips but it's not common to see both at the same time so it looks kinda odd. The ears also need a fair bit of work because the inner whorl is looking really big and out of place.

Ok, new, updated  critics, I'll accept that. Just don't like the same old stuff repeated when I addressed them, especially when my latest images show them.  Sick of the trailer trash comments too.

All this time I thought you guys were talking about another area on her lips, I did push them  both back some though, as well as edited the sides a little straighter.  Well, you can say I'm attracted to "duck bill" type lips (which my cousin Tina has), but I'll work on that too.

will work on the eyes too, but would like to know specifically what you're talking about. 

Also, what do you guys think if I made her breasts bigger and gave her more fitness, and widen her hips more? Adult? Or will I still be a fool thinking i'm not discriminated?  She's a little petite and average height like most cute adult womeN are, what can I say?

For now, I'm gonna load an old and new image so that you can see the changes in her lips, also I think this hair is best for close up IBL images. 1st image is the old lips, 2nd image is the new, she don't look too sad now lol.

It's better but the main problem is that the lips still look too much like a duck bill. Generally you can have a wide mouth or you can have pouty lips but it's not common to see both at the same time so it looks kinda odd. The ears also need a fair bit of work because the inner whorl is looking really big and out of place.

Folks, seriously, he gets it.  Stop now, please.  He's asked the critiques to stop page back. ENOUGH.

jamminwolf had the courage (and it takes a LOT of courage) to ask.  Now, please honor his request to stop.

Folks, seriously, he gets it.  Stop now, please.  He's asked the critiques to stop page back. ENOUGH.

jamminwolf had the courage (and it takes a LOT of courage) to ask.  Now, please honor his request to stop.

lol thanks friend! straightenes head bandage & eye patch with good arm

For now, I'm gonna load an old and new image so that you can see the changes in her lips, also I think this hair is best for close up IBL images. 1st image is the old lips, 2nd image is the new, she don't look too sad now lol.

It's better but the main problem is that the lips still look too much like a duck bill. Generally you can have a wide mouth or you can have pouty lips but it's not common to see both at the same time so it looks kinda odd. The ears also need a fair bit of work because the inner whorl is looking really big and out of place.

Folks, seriously, he gets it.  Stop now, please.  He's asked the critiques to stop page back. ENOUGH.

jamminwolf had the courage (and it takes a LOT of courage) to ask.  Now, please honor his request to stop.

I'll second that, not only did he have the guts to ask he is also listening and trying to take a lot of comment on board.  The fact that latest renders are very much improved shows, to his credit, he is working hard and trying to learn.  He knows he has more to do and no figure will ever be perfect, but you have to stop somewhere and by keep adding to the list means we are, to a degree, moving the goal posts. 

 

 

I use Poser 13 on Windows 11 - For Scene set up I use a Geekcom A5 -  Ryzen 9 5900HX, with 64 gig ram and 3 TB  storage, mini PC with final rendering done on normal sized desktop using an AMD Ryzen Threadipper 1950X CPU, Corsair Hydro H100i CPU cooler, 3XS EVGA GTX 1080i SC with 11g Ram, 4 X 16gig Corsair DDR4 Ram and a Corsair RM 100 PSU .   The desktop is in a remote location with rendering done via Queue Manager which gives me a clearer desktop and quieter computer room.

i think the issue with the eyes is, first, you have the eyefolds down so low that they make an unnatural crease at the inner eye corner, and second, the outer edge droop is probably slightly over exaggerated. I get the duck lip thing, but i would say once again, that the problem isn't the type exactly, as much as the degree of exaggeration.  i think the new renders are a big improvement, would just say you need to darken up the lashes. make sure the gamma is set to one on the trans map, and maybe a touch of displacement.

other than that, if i was you, i would move on. take all the comments good and bad, look hard at your work, turn your pictures upside down,& flip them horizontally, literally, and see if things still look natural, then move on to the next project. this might not have been the success you wanted it to be, but don't get trapped into endlessly trying to fix it. make a new one, start from scratch. i have done things i thought looked amazing, then seen them 6 months later and been horrified. not saying that is the case here, but am saying you will get more out of moving foward than getting stuck on "fixing" what you have already done. you asked earlier about rendering hair, am sure there are many far better suited to give advice but a very slight amount of translucence, set at the colour of the hair your rendering(ie light browns/yellows for blonde etc) can make the heavily contrasted shadows much less, and less fake looking. i use about .05 on the translucence value. if you overdo it it looks bad.

anyway, good luck.

 

I think some of you need to actually read the threads you're white knighting in. He specifically asked for feedback on those renders which is why I bothered posting it. See:

For now, I'm gonna load an old and new image so that you can see the changes in her lips, also I think this hair is best for close up IBL images. 1st image is the old lips, 2nd image is the new, she don't look too sad now lol.

Let me know what you think!

And if he didn't like my suggestions, i'm sure he'll tell me himself.

Not to mention 2 times I requested no more critics, all the help has already sent me doing much better.  

I apologize for not reading all the comments beforehand, I should have. I look forward to your future efforts and thanks for taking the onslaught well. 

I think some of you need to actually read the threads you're white knighting in. He specifically asked for feedback on those renders which is why I bothered posting it. 

I've been here since 2000. The Poser community shares deviantArt's tendency to want to praise peoples' efforts even though the demographic is older and we predate dA by at least 5 years. It's easy to drop a like on something just like it's easy to give social media snark; the middle ground is the one that makes people uneasy because it has to be tempered.  The scene has changed since V4 came out and the standard for saleable characters was "stands out" and/or "recognizably the work of X." We're more aware of what can be done with the mesh thanks to celebrity likenesses from fygomatic, MRL, MDD, Sabby and others – all of whom do a lot of their work in third party mesh editors. Bodies are dialed, but heads are sculpted. This isn't to say you can't do impressive work with only dials: the Snooki lookalike Angela has no custom deltas at all, but LiquidRust pushed those dials to the limits and overdialed some of the mouth expression dials to the point that the edges of the mouth crack a bit from what it took to make her signature pout. 

Textures are expected to show photographic levels of detail variation where a few moles and cosmetics sufficed before. Bump and displacement mapping, hi-res eyebrows…

And then you still have to contend with a market that might just prefer everything be Genesis/G2 because they grew up on a product that cost them nothing to install. 

It's an interesting time.

Ok, sculpturing for me comes later when I start messing around, for now...

I haven't started with promos just yet, I wanted to touch base with a few subjects before I started.

First, the lip comments have been bothering me, especially the "sad" or too pouty look, and the fact that Tina did look a bit like Lucy Zepp (morphs), especially the lips.  So I went to phrase 1 DS scene with Ultra Face Morphs (yes, I save these progressive scenes so I can go back if needed), and played around with the UFM as well as Morph++ dials for the lip.

The cost, instead of reducing the price and having to refund everyone that bought her, which would be a lot of head ache, I decided to add a new option that you almost never see in the market, as well as add 1 more tan line, some poses, and edit the tattoos.  I finished the new option (but I'm not gonna say for fear of other vendors stealing this idea) and haven't got to the others yet.

For now, I'm gonna load an old and new image so that you can see the changes in her lips, also I think this hair is best for close up IBL images. 1st image is the old lips, 2nd image is the new, she don't look too sad now lol.

Let me know what you think!

...wolfie

No, that is still not good enough, no offense but it's horrible and makes me want to punch a hole in the wall.  Show me your god damn reference image.  It looks like a face model that has been created without a reference image.  If you want to join the big leagues, you need to step it up ten fold.
I took the liberty of finding you a reference image [edited for personal attacks], the following is similar to what you're going for.

Your current face model is in stage 1, you need to go to stage 2, stage 3, then finally stage 4. 

I don't understand what you are trying to do with those eyes, can you show us an example of someone with eyes the way you designed? 

You need to step it up and stop making subtle changes.  Don't be afraid to rip something apart and recreate it, that is how progress is made.  All these people here in this thread are trying to be nice, but that ain't going to help you.  If you follow my advice you will become pro fast.

KEEP IT SIMPLE, LOOK AT HER EYES, THEN RECREATE IT with the eye morphs, do you have a second monitor?

You need to setup your characters face so it's right next to the reference image so you can compare and reproduce.

1. Reference Image

2. Compare and reproduce, REPEAT, compare and reproduce, REPEAT... REPEAT.. Compare and reproduce... Repeat, Render.. Keep going.

[mod note: You can give input without the language or personal attacks. Consider this a warning]

Can I get anyone's honest feedback?  Maybe an honest feedback from a vendor?  I really need to boost sales but I'm doing something deathly wrong.  Don't worry, I won't be offended on any critics, critics are for people to learn and I've learned a whole lot of things from them.

...wolfie

(Disclaimer: I don't own the figures, so can't comment on anything not communicated by the product page. I am not a Renderosity Vendor, sorry. But, I have plenty of other valuable experience to offer that could help.) Just honest commentary, nothing more, nothing less. :)

I'll focus on Tina Perez, but may come back and comment on the other product, if you wish.

Tina Perez

1. It may have been a better idea to go with a more neutral name for your character. A single name might have been better or even a fanciful name. ie: "Tina" or "Tina the Bombshell" It most likely would have been much better if you had used a name that promoted your figure's unique attributes. A potential consumer should be presented with a product's "selling point" as soon as possible. Often, the best place to do that is in the product's name. So, for instance, "Versatile Tina" (if your figure was exceptionally versatile) or, probably more accurately in this case "Custom Tina", since the model includes some custom morphs and even some "extra" morphs. So, in that line of thinking, "Extra Tina" might be an interesting name. (But, whatever you do, don't name a product like that "Tina With Extras" or "Tina With Custom Morphs." The idea is to pique the customer's interest by using words that they can quickly associate with certain features, not to "spell it out for them" with a non-snazzy descriptive name.)

1a - Additional advice: If you continue producing "custom" morphs and products that make heavy use of them, I would suggest you start learning about "Brand Marketing." Specifically - You need a "Brand Name" for this sort of "Product Line." Why? All it takes for a customer to associate value with a product line is ONE good experience. That's it. Of course, the same can be said for bad experiences and that's where "quality" comes into play with helping to generate product sales and brand-name recognition. If I were you, I would begin marketing a brand name by creating a line of custom-morph figures and I would use that brand name to help me market them and to associate quality with future products. (This goes far, far, beyond anything your user/vendor name can do on its own.) For instance, the brand name of "Custom" or "JW Custom's" or "Wolfpack Custom's" or whatever you can think of that is catchy, implies the major beneficial attribute of the product (Custom Morphs, which can be scarce.) and can be easily remembered by both current and prospective customers would be exactly the thing you'd want to create. In this case, "Tina Perez" would be changed to "Custom Tina" or "JW Custom's "Tina"" or "Wolfpack Custom's "Tina."" (Take a moment to look through "Brand Name" products in the portfolio of successful competitor creators and, after a bit of consideration, you'll see the benefits of using the same strategy.)

2. The ad-panes do not quickly and easily communicate the most desirable or most important features of the product. The title render does a decent job of it, but what's the first render after that? Fingernails... and eye colors... You've been around for a long time. How many eye-colors have you seen advertised for a figure product? Lots, right? And, count on your fingers the number of times you have said to yourself "Gee, I really wish I had six eye colors, some custom fingernails and six makeup options for this figure!" Yes, it's possible that you have said that... BUT, was that the first thing you thought about when using the product for the first time? I hope not! :) And, if it wasn't, then why is that the first ad-pane on your product page? See how that works?

Use this product as a case-study on how you should consider marketing your products in the future:

1. What makes this product unique in what it offers the consumer? Find the most powerful "reason to buy" for this product that you can. What is it? Is it the custom face? Custom gens? Materials? Texture choices? What, exactly, is in this product that will force a customer to purchase it because they "just gotta have it?" Find those things, list them in order of "customer's incentive to purchase," then structure your marketing in such a way to focus on those features, first, before your "also-ran" filler material.

2. So, how do you focus on those desirable qualities that will bring customers? Well, for one, you don't devote an entire ad-pane to "tanlines and tatoos" and then don't show the "tanlines and tatoos." Go ahead, refresh your memory of that ad-pane and then think on the sorts of things I'm focusing on. What do you think I would say about that ad-pane? Now, take ALL of the text off that ad-pane and then ask yourself "What is this picture trying to advertise to me." What's your answer? Is it unique "tanlines and tatoos" or is it clothing? Or, is it just texture sets for clothing? Maybe poses or hair?

How many ad-pane pics have you seen for a hair model that don't show the whole hair model or ANY of its special morphs or movement morphs? How about clothing? How many clothing products do not show movement morphs or opening/closing/on/off/whatever/special morphs? Take a look at "texture packs." What do they typically advertise effectively? (And, this is one of the few instances when I will praise non-merchant-resource-clothing-retexture-packs...) They show the product that they are selling and make it obvious what that product is. (Kind of hard not to with those products, really...)

Do the same with every single ad-pane that you produce. Yes, you can do "glamor shots" and there is nothing wrong with a few of those to show off your product. But, the only thing your prospective customers are looking for are answers to the question "Why would I want to buy this product." If you don't answer that question in your ad-panes, it will NOT get answered and they will move on to products that answer that question successfully.

3. In highly technical product pages, a good bit of pointers and text are needed to get the customer to focus on specific visual features. But, remember that you have limited real-estate - Every letter on a graphic covers up what is behind that letter, if anything. So, do you really need that much descriptive text and, if you do, how can you arrange it so that it doesn't detract from the graphic image you're using to show off that particular feature? You have two lines of communication in those ad-panes: Written language and graphic presentation. Which is more important for each and how much of either should you include in that planned ad-pane?

On Renderosity, you have the option to include a wall-of-text (More or less), if you wished, on the product page, but you have LIMITED options regarding ad-panes. That means that graphical presentation space is at a premium! Yes, include some descriptive text, here and there, but be sure that you use the ad-pane graphics and renders to the fullest extent that you can. Customers here want to "see" the product and, while they do appreciate good descriptions, you have a word-count for every ad-pane! You must give a good graphical representation, FIRST, if you're creating a demonstration pic of the product's features. Only once that is done can you then determine the best way to incorporate any necessary text inclusions. Once it starts to get filled with text, then you have to think about moving such "details" into a good, textual, presentation on the product or editorial page.

Too much textual explanation in a graphic ad-pane means that either the graphic is poorly done or a graphic, and must be explained, or the ad-pane is not suitable for a good explanation of the product's features.

4. From what I can see of this product, from its product page:

a) The mouth morph is too extreme, almost cartoonish. This is the first thing I notice on any morph package, free or for sale, that has been done by an amateur intending to produce a "realistic, yet distinctive" morph. Please, understand, I'm not calling you an amateur! I'm saying that this portion of the morph looks amateurish, considering that the product appears to be intended to be rendered as a realistic figure. Further, I'll also add that V4's facial topology, while forgiving in some respects, can get cranky when it comes down to the realism of dialed Expressions a custom face can portray. So, whenever geometry gets yanked around too severely, unexpected results can often be found when custom morphs are not created with close attention to working with common Expression morphs. I don't know if that is the case or not, here, but seeing that extreme lip/mouth morph causes me to ask the question - "How well does that morph really work with the figure's Expression morphs?" (That might just be me, but others could have asked themselves the same question. In essence, unless done very, very, well, with very close attention and evidenced knowledge of how V4's topology deforms with its Expression morphs, there is every likelihood that truly "unique" face morphs will just not deform very well. This is the strongest limiting factor for V4 Custom Face morphs. Some conscientious creators recognize this and add their own custom expression morphs, fixes or controlled morphs to handle this ever-present problem. See the "GND" figures or "Aery Soul's V4" figure for excellent examples.)

b) The eyes are too rounded on the outside edge. It looks as if the geometry was smoothed there and contracted around that edge and others. (I don't have a wire-frame, obviously.) The eye opening also, consequently, appears small. Here, I'm not talking about "beauty", just a "technical" issue if the figure's facial features are intended to be realistically proportioned. In that line of thought and in concert with the point above concerning Expression morphs, the chin, from bottom lip to bottom of chin, looks a bit too long and could present some issues, IMO, with certain morphs. You can see those issues in some of the expressions you rendered. The resulting expression, due to that distance AND V4's native topology, moves out of the region of "the uncanny valley" and into a more cartoonish look. Is that what you wanted? If so, then, perhaps, you should have moved further in that general direction with the rest of the figure. Consistency of overall artistic design is important for discriminating customers. That doesn't mean that every single customer is going to be very discriminating in this sort of category of choices! However, you want to maximize the opportunity that EVERY single category of potential purchaser is pleased with your product, right? In terms of overall choice, between caricature and realism, the best products seem to firmly embrace one or the other, not both.

c) It's great that you have taken steps to optimize certain material and platform choices. That's a very smart idea! However, you should probably have pushed that a little bit more in your marketing. "Crossover" character sets are not that common and that is a quality in your product that needs to get noticed a bit more. Also, you have no full texture shots that I can see. (Also remember the "Tanlines and Tattoo comments, above.) That means that I can't see the full quality that you're promoting, only tiny bits of it. I don't want full body nudes of the character for some prurient interest I might want to satisfy, I want to see the whole "product" that I am considering spending my money on.

d) Tanlines don't look like that, from what I can see of them. A "tanline" texture should be more than just a Photoshop overlay or filter. The tanlines look painted on because they do not diffuse realistically into the surrounding skin tone. Tanlines are sharp only where the clothing is held closely to the body and will not move very much, giving the sun ample opportunity to do its concentrated damage in specific areas. Fade your tanlines in areas where clothing would be loose and only make them sharper, not "sharp", in areas where clothing is tight. Sharp tanlines do, however, depend on the clothing, so I would advise that you provide three types of tanline and ADVERTISE that fact: Bikini, One-Piece and Halter-Top. You could, if you wished, add others or even use some material wrangling to mix and match them. Once you have the base texture done, taking some time to add features to it, like you have done, is a great thing. But, don't put that extra effort into it if what you're producing isn't truly "special" or isn't done well. It's just not worth your time to go through that unless it's done right and is truly a "value added" feature of the product.

e) I have no idea what tattoos are included beyond the partially obscured bits I can see. They look like overlays of mostly "primitive tattoos." That's not "bad", but it's not "great", either. So, having them spotlighted tells the customer what, exactly? "Not great tattoos", perhaps? You may have been better served by devoting that space to something else and combining the tattoos and tanlines in a collage shot of all the various types, so that the customer just gets the impression "The product also includes some tanlines and tattoos" with no increased expectation beyond that. Spotlighting them makes it appear as if they're a major feature and they're really not looking good enough to me to be a "major feature" of the product, considering that you have more features more worthy of increased marketing shots. If you really want to highlight the tattoos, make sure that they are of a quality worth highlighting. (See various, very good, tattoo texture packs sold here and compare them with your inclusions. You're not selling just tattoos, but if you're highlighting them, their quality should be no more than just a mere step below good quality examples of such products.)

Let's take a look at what I consider to be a good presentation and overall good product page that incorporates many of the things I've pointed out, above: http://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/the-metropolitan-collection---lyon-and-paris-v4-2/93874

For any Poser user, the name "danae" is almost synonymous with "Quality" when it comes down to texture packs. This is no exception and it's obviously no accident - It's a wonderful product. But, more importantly, see how danae has used some of the principles I discussed, above? "The Metropolitan Collection." That's a "Brand Name." Look at what the ad-panes focus on and look at their hierarchy of presentation. What's being stressed in this product's images? Two faces, very distinctive, and a nice body shape with very good body texture, right? Notice how ad-pane space is maximized in this product page by the combination of the use of the different faces and some makeup options in the SSS product highlight ad-panes! Two ad-panes, one for each morph, and even some flaunting of makeup options, without the distraction of the mention of them, in a single ad-pane that is actually meant to focus on the SSS feature. See how that small amount of space was used to communicate several different attributes for the product without being overly "busy?" Very classy, right? And, what's the "punchline" for this product at the end? What little "extra" does this product advertise at the end? Hands and feet, right? AND, another plug for the SSS feature, as well. There are four pics there and they tell the potential customer "This product pays attention to details and, not only has great SSS, but has very realistic textures for the hands and feet - No expense has been spared in bringing you this high-quality product." That's a six-shot combo straight to the potential customers "throw money at it" button. An extremely nice finisher!

These are "honest" criticisms made in an honest effort to help you better promote your products. When I make these sorts of comments, my first concern is, almost always, in helping an artist increase the quality and saleability of their product. Here, that is my only concern. I am willing to answer, or attempt to answer, any sort of question you have regarding this subject. What I would suggest that you do is to spend some time researching a few key points that can help you improve the presentation and quality of your products:

1. Take a look around for information regarding human form, especially facial characteristics and facial proportions. V4's face is difficult to get "realistic", but it has a good bit of geometry to work with, which is more than can be said about some other figures. Focus not on "defining" individual features, but in defining them in relationship to the overall proportions of the face. An example: "Big Lips" are often considered "big" in regards to proportion of nearby facial landmarks. A narrower jaw and chin, for instance, will make lips appear "bigger", right? Similarly, a narrower face and higher cheek structure can make a nose appear "hawkish" in combination with just some slight adjustments to the nose structure. "Hollow" eyes can be defined by a heavier brow ridge and some puffiness added below the eyes. etc.. So, when going for a "distinctive" look or when trying to reproduce a certain face, those features that really stand out at first-glance may not actually be the ones that truly add that "certain something" that gives the observer that overall impression.

2. Sell what you mean to sell and be sure that the customer knows it when they look at the literature for your product. Establish a hierarchy of important selling points and stick to it. Any "value added" features that are not main feature of the product should be presented as such. Keep the focus where it needs to be and the customer will naturally interpret those small, value-added, features as being truly valuable additions. Don't water everything down by showing everything, but focusing on nothing.

3. Work on two rendering styles - Technical and Illustrative. Do Not Clutter Up Your Marketing Materials With Unnecessary Glamor Shots. (I didn't focus on this, above, but will try to quickly explain, here.) All of your marketing ad-panes, except for one, are glamor shots that don't really add anything. In some cases,like with the tattoos and tanlines, they actually confuse what's being advertised. Either the render is a "Technical" render, showing off technical and specific aspects of the product, or it's an Illustrative render, showing how a certain aspect of the product works in a "real world" situation. Glamor shots are good for the main pic or as an additional inclusion, but do not use them in Technical or Illustrative shots. They're for funsies, appeal and for eye-catching, not for explaining to a customer what a product's features are.

4. Work on writing ad-copy. Go to a major manufacturer's website and take a look at their ad-copy. What you wrote in your text portion of your product page was not worth writing. I'm sorry, but that's the truth. In this particular market, what you must do is to elaborate on the features that you have presented, visually and effectively, to the potential consumer. All you did was tell the potential consumer that you were proud of the product and that it was "good." That's not worth writing.

What you write must be worth writing because it is worth reading!

Focus on that when you write your product's description. Also - There's an editorial page available, right? Does it cost extra to fill it up? If not, why didn't you use it? If it costs more to use it, then you either have to be much more efficient in your initial presentation or you're going to have to make up for that by footing a bit more percentage. While I don't think you would have had to use the Editorial section, you probably should have, just because you chose to highlight so many features of the figure. But, no matter what, there is no excuse for just using what amounts to a "tagline" in your product description. None. Words are important and they were invented for people to be able to communicate across space and time. Use them effectively and you will be rewarded.

PS - I'm a long-winded blowhard and I know it. :) That's ok, since nobody sent me a check to limit my word-count on this post. (I charge eight cents (USD) per word to redact words... and only five cents to write them.) But, I'm also willing to offer whatever sort of helpful commentary I can, either on general or specific topics. If you have any questions or would like me to address anything specific, all you have to do is ask. If you want to cuss me out, you can PM me and launch a tirade in my general direction and I won't mind. :) But, I think you wanted honest commentary so that's what I'm giving. Take care and good luck!

Edit-Add: I'm sorry that I didn't see your "no more critics desired" instructions. I just answered the OP. Just know that once you turn it on, you can't turn off the Internetz... :) If Rendo would allow long-term edits, this misunderstanding could have been cleared up by an edit to the thread-title or OP.

hi again :))

i agree that the lips don't looked changed that much.  if you look at the lighting on your most recently posted renders of her, you can see that the light is hitting a large defined area on the right side of her face to the side of her mouth [upper lip to nostrils area], meaning that the mouth is drawn forward a tad unnaturally, hence the 'duckbill'.  also, it is so very hard to tell in the renders if she even has top lashes - i can kind of see them, so i don't know if they're barely visible due to colour, or if possibly the morph has caused the lashes to inbed a little into her overly heavy lids [which could happen if her eyes are to drawn too far back/sunken], and i do think the lid lines themselves could use a bit more definition, meaning create a little more actual lid area for the makeups to be visible upon, if that make sense.  i also think that by giving her a bit more lid area it would help to better balance out the space betwixt lid line and brow.  and i don't think that by making these kind of changes that it will alter her too badly where she'll no longer feel like the Tina you created/intend her to be.

i know, i know, you've so very much to take in right now, but a thought occurred to me about your promos/lighting situation...  there have been some awesome words of advice in this thread, along w. examples of various lighting, and i'm of the extreme belief that in renders, paintings, etc., lighting is so extremely crucial.  there have been a few folks that seem to know quite a bit lighting and setting things up to show things off, so i'm wondering, Wolfie, if you've thought about just giving your pack to one of them [regardless of where you might be right now in her makeover] just to see what they could produce - i'm not talking about anyone doing your promo renders for you, i'm simply curious what she may look like under someone who truly gets the whole lighting business and all its subtle nuances.  it may be that some of the things i see could look vastly different under various light set-ups, and that those differences could lend further insight into your character.  of course, i don't know if anyone might be willing either, so as i said, it's just a thing that passed in my mind...

jamminwolf : Can I ask about ya work flow n what app's you are using ?

============================================================ 

The Artist that will fight for decades to conquer their media.
Even if you never know their name ,your know their Art.
Dark Sphere Mage Vengeance

Seems you have a bit of an attitude trepleen... have you made any character?  Do you have a store here? No, I looked.  Any gallery here?  No I looked.  Am I too lazy to get a reference photo?  No, my cousin, Tina gave me a few.  Is it easy to morph a character to the exact look you're intending to?  No, it takes LOTS AND LOTS of experience.  Do I have a real life job that hinders me from staying on the computer all day studying and doing perfect work?  Yes.  Am I perfect?  HELL NO!  Am I listening to those who gave me critics and are helping me out with what needs to be changed?  Yes.  Do I misunderstand at times, and/or do the people who critic not give me enough details at times?  Yes.  Is this an easy task?  NO.  So quit yelling at me, I'm making a lot more progress than you sound like I'm doing.  A few  people even said in this thread that I'm listening and making progress.  Did you read the thread?  Don't sound like it.

Yes, the people are being nice, but hard enough to give me TRUE critics.  Trust me, read this thread, they're tearing me up and I'm taking it all and making progress.  Like 3 people said already, IT TAKES GUTS to stand up here and say, "hey, I need critics and your opinion".  Trust me, I've taken some beaten.  But I'm still here :)

The main thing is I want to know what customers think of my work, what I'm doing wrong, what I'm doing right.  I'm getting out with the people to find what they want and looking for in a character, also I'm getting help with technique stuff, such as lighting, clothes, morphs, and poses.

cough Anyhow!  Was checking and posting via my smart phone during breaks at work... Got home from work ready to roll my sleeves and get to work but a storm was brewing.  Unplugged my computer and stereo, brought in my laptop from my car and did some work till the battery died (unfortunately it wasn't fully charged).  Waited a few hours till the storm ceased, then copied the changes to my main computer, did some more work, made the pose file (head and body morphs), copied them to the laptop, updated the Poser scene and rendered.  I'm not definite sure about the lips, what do you guys think?  I fixed at least the inner eye pretty good, and the outer eye some, just haven't had a lot of time to thoroughly check what's making her top outer eye do that, but I think they all look much better.  Made the eyelash a little darker.  Also, added translucence to the hair as adviced, looks much better in IDL, thanks! :)

Body morphs, yes, I pumped up the breasts, fitness, and hips.  She should now pass as an adult that's not so "petite breast/hip size".  I feel brave enough to render her nude, but I want to make sure, don't want Renderosity breathing down my neck, what do you guys think?

First render... almost like the recent sample renders, corner view, camera zoomed out a little.  Second render... body sample to show you her new body shape, gave her a "life" by letting her smile... lol.  Third render... dead straight look at the camera so you can see her face from straight front.

Ok, and now I must go to bed, too bad I didn't have more time, would've liked to edit them tattoos... sighs

Again, I want to thank each and everyone of you for all the critics and help.  But people... read up with on thread, don't just read the first post on the first page and come here and repeat everything everyone's already said... sheeshh!

...wolfie

jamminwolf : Can I ask about ya work flow n what app's you are using ?

Not sure what you mean by "work flow", but I use DS3 and Ultra Face Morphs merchant resource for the morphs.  Gonna learn Blacksmith 3D (morphs) to sculpture some.  I use Paint Shop Pro, Photoshop, and Blacksmith 3D (paint) for the textures. And finally, I use DS & Poser for the mat files and Poser for icons, both for promos...
Ok, got a couple more LONG posts to read, but for now I'm hittin' the hey, gotta work tomorrow!

...wolfie

...yes, I pumped up the breasts, fitness, and hips.

Just wanted to say, you can never go wrong by doing that. lol

regards
prixat

...yes, I pumped up the breasts, fitness, and hips.

Just wanted to say, you can never go wrong by doing that. lol

Posting via smart phone, 

Yes, well, a lot of you do like huge breasts, I & many others prefer medium (average) to petite.  According to Renderosity testing QA standard, no matter how old characters look, breasts have to be huge for them to say "she's adult".   Glad you like it though, maybe I'll start making them big so I can finally display nude promos.

...wolfie 

PS I'll try to respond to other posts when I get home 

i think it is again improved in all the respects you worked on. i will try to keep this post purely on what i would say are technical corrections to be made, but will briefly add, that i agree with the posts of many, to progress in the marketplace at this point, you need more custom morphing experience. that said, using poser magnets, wings3d and the poser morph brush, you can create any conceivable face or bodyshape you want on v4 if you learn them well, you dont need to spend a lot, but that is another debate.

 first the eyes, the closest person i can identify with eyes like that is actress jessica amlee

in poser terms her eyes are at a negative slant, and the outer eyelid height is lowered slightly, but you see that the eyefold still follows the curve of the eye. for you to achieve this on your model, you can either use the morph brush set to smooth with a very small area of effect on the eye fold, (to hide it)be careful of mirroring. i'd just morph each side individually. (mirroring often works but is not always ideal) or use poser magnets with small targeted mag zones and z rotate the eyefold that extends out to match the eye curvature. a combination of these two things would be ideal. this would be a good way to begin learning custom morphing. it will take tweeking, and getting used to the quirks of the mag zones and morph brush settings.

 the lips, i would dial back every custom setting you have on the lips and mouth, by say, .08 and then see what it looks like. you could also try a magnet zone that covers the mouth and lip area, then increase the y scale slightly on the mag, and maybe move the z scale lower slightly, or just move the z plane back.

the nose seems too narrow to me, but not impossibly so. a basic rule, while not an absolute at all is, mouth corners are at the same lateral point as the pupils, the inner eye corners are at the same lateral point as the outside of the nostrils. this is a guide only, but when deviating, if you deviate greatly, you will begin to hit the uncanny valley

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley

the darker patch of texture that goes across the mid line of her nose, is also i think too much contrast, and to me, is oddly positioned. if possible, i would lower it slightly, and decrease its darkness level a bit.in the front on picture of her smiling, it also looks as though the curves under the eye are overly pronounced, possibly from eye height or depth, i would fix this with the morphing brush set to smooth(careful not to let the morph brush hit the lashes)

i would consider making her eyebrow texture double the current vertical thickness they are now as well, but that is probably more a personal opinion.

lastly, while the lashes are improved, they still look overly transparent, or hazy. i assume you are using a gamma correction of 2.2 to render. if so, is the lash trans map gamma set to 1? if it is, consider setting it to .08

i know you've taken a lot of critisizsm, but you have responded to it and improved on Tina within a short space of time, and clearly wish to keep doing so. that is why i have listed so many things as flawed.i hope it is not disheartening.

good luck

 jamminwolf : why is daz the biggest vender ?

daz has a lot of $$$,$$$ ,endless experience a 3D crew and all the tools.
how prepared is daz for the race ?

jamminwolf  has some $$$ ,has some experience and a few merchant resources tools.
how prepared is jamminwolf for the race ?

 

V4 polycount is 60,000 cause at the time of her release poser didn't have sub divide.
20,000 polycount characters are much better then 60,000 polycount characters for every reason.
bend better ,rig better,a lot easier and faster to work on.

I've been around CGI for a long time and I have all the experience and tools to make V4 in to any thing I wanted.
I flat out refuse to work with any 60,000 polycount character
,cause I've been around long enough to know a 20,000 subdivided charter is the way to go.

 

If I really wanted to compete on a daz level I would get Genesis 2

https://www.blender.org/

free, has box modeling tools and sculpting tools

http://www.wacom.com/en-us/products/pen-tablets
there's one for $80.00 for sculpting.

 

 

 

============================================================ 

The Artist that will fight for decades to conquer their media.
Even if you never know their name ,your know their Art.
Dark Sphere Mage Vengeance

Ask yourself one simple question : What am I doing??? Spinning dials or being creative?

If you'r a dial spinner? Join the club, that's what most do, and that's why ALL V4's will Always be V4"s. And honestly, the pot is full for the next decade or 2.

if you use V4++ morphs, you"ll never get where you want to get. When you use a merchant resources morph pack? Ten times worse.

Do yourself a pleasure. Throw V4++ out the door and throw ALL merchant resourses morph packs as far as humanly possible.

Uninstall them, delete them, pulverise them, nuke them, pour them over with chemicals, burm them, shoot them, stab them, crack them down bits by bits, drunk them, drug them, poison them, jail them, crush them. Morph packs are for end users, not for content creators who WILL all end up with just the: "Next dial spinned one".

Wanna be creative? Wanna sell?
Download Blender, (or equivalent) import the standard V4 basic object file, and start.
That is where you have to start if you want to achieve something.

2 more remarks  :
I am NOT a vendor, oh dear lord please help me to NEVER become a vendor, and I do not have a gallery either..
Secondly, V4 has 78.000 polygons, 75% of those are doing exactly and including taxes NOTHING.

My 2cents:

The main reason your products don't sell is that most people don't find them attractive. Simple as that. Yes, the masses prefer 'Pretty Fairies', that's just how it is.

While I commend you for trying something 'different', it won't get you many sales. You pretty much have to decide if you want to keep making 'different' morphs or if you want to make money. My best advice is for you to stop wasting your time on improving your current figures, no matter how much you improve your promos, most people won't be interested. Instead, spend your time making new characters.

Harsh? Not really. I've read through the thread and I haven't seen any comments I would deem unnecessarily harsh (granted I have one person on ignore), only good advice. Honestly, if you feel the critique given to you in this thread is 'breaking' you, then content creation is not for you ;)

I wish you good luck, it seems you are listening to much of the advice given, but you would be better off spending that advice on new characters and forget about the past.

(Oh, and don't ignore what LouisCross is saying, they may sound harsh, but they do have some good points!)

Hope this didn't sound too harsh, and I don't mean to 'break' you, just help you improve :)

(I'm not a vendor, but I do spend a lot of money on content, including a fair share on v4 morphs, and I know what I look for)

I'm kind of with DreaminGirl on this.

It seems you're getting to a point with this character set that your time is being wasted trying to improve it when you could be spending that time on a new character set that might sell better. Spend some time looking at the character sets that are selling the highest, and try to go with something similar, if you want to try making real money. The pet projects are for spare time when you want to make a character because you want to make it, regardless of how well it sells. I think that's the case with the Tina character. She's not very attractive to a wide enough audience. She has a certain level of cuteness, but the mouth is where it falls short. Plus she's extremely young looking, which might appeal to some people, but could put off a lot of others for being "too young". If you're basing her on someone you know in real life, then your personal opinion of her is going to find her more attractive than the average stranger, because you know that girl's personality and that adds to her physical appeal on a mental level. It's hard to convey that, especially in a 3D model, to strangers. All the marketing and promo advice has it's merits, but it doesn't matter how great the promos are, most people are going to look at the final images of the character and ignore the descriptions.

I remember reading an article about a designer who made ceramic dinnerware. She hated it, because it wasn't what she wanted to do as an artist, but it's what paid her bills. In her free time she made the art she wanted to make and sold it on the side, but it was never enough to pay her bills. And that's pretty much what most artists have to deal with. You make the art that sells to make the money, and make what you want to make on the side, for extra money or just because that's what you want to do.

You might try attempting this character again at a later point after you've produced a few more that are more mainstream, and see if you can take a different approach with her. Sometimes it's best to step away from a project for a while and come back to it after you haven't seen it in a while with a fresh set of eyes. That tends to show you a lot of things you didn't notice before.

It also takes a while to build up a reputation, especially in this market, and with that reputation comes higher sales. There's a lot of competition, so it can be difficult to find a niche that you're good at that also produces high volume sales. Steer away from using merchant resources as much as possible, and learn to create your own textures from scratch. That will go a long way with helping to increase sales. If customers see the same skin texture on your characters that they see on 20 other characters, they're less likely to buy it unless you include something unique that the other 20 don't include, such as a new outfit, or some kind of accessories. That of course requires learning how to build and rig clothing if you don't already know how.

Sorry for being "hard" on my previous post but:

Correct, V4++ and the resourses morph packs are for end users that do not have the tools nor the time to invest to create something "new".
Using V4++ and the resourses moprh packs, everybody, content creators and end user will Always end up with "about the same thing".

if everybody can achieve the same results? Why would they buy? They aleady "have" what you offer up for sale? 

That's why I wrote : Start from fresh.
Use Blender (or equivalent) load the V4 object file, and sculpt, morph, become creative, make something "unique", make customers "see" what you have created.

The obj file being, one thing, the texture being a second. => Create a texture to go with your new morphed object file.

The rigging being a third thing. => Improve the V4 rigging, and show it in your renders.

Customers want to "see" what they are ppaying for, and you have to be unique in what you have to offer.

And on a last note; Nobody buys a sad looking girl. They have to look overjoyed, happy to see "us customers".

I pretty well much agree with AmbientShade in his last post, particularly on making a reputation for yourself.  I am not a vender but I do spend a great deal on content every month but the biggest chunk of that goes to probably only three vendors.   I have great deal of V4 stuff so my spend on that is limited and most goes on sci-fi scenes but I but I buy what is good quality and easy to use.  So when I find a vender building a scene that, not only has good textures and you have the ability to remove walls and other objects so that you can get the right camera angle, I tend to come back for other scenes.  It is all on reputation, I know what the scene is like and, more important, how I can use it, before I buy.  OK your product is for V4 but the principle is the same and building a name that buyers can relate should mean repeat business.

There is also a lot to be said from walking away from a project at some point.  If you are doing it for money there has to be a point where you say that there is no way you will recover the time spent in any financial way.  That does not mean you don't learn but take what you learn and use that on another project.

Whatever you decide to do I wish you the best and hope you can put all the valuable information provided by some helpful and well meaning people to good use.

 

 

I use Poser 13 on Windows 11 - For Scene set up I use a Geekcom A5 -  Ryzen 9 5900HX, with 64 gig ram and 3 TB  storage, mini PC with final rendering done on normal sized desktop using an AMD Ryzen Threadipper 1950X CPU, Corsair Hydro H100i CPU cooler, 3XS EVGA GTX 1080i SC with 11g Ram, 4 X 16gig Corsair DDR4 Ram and a Corsair RM 100 PSU .   The desktop is in a remote location with rendering done via Queue Manager which gives me a clearer desktop and quieter computer room.

Correct, V4++ and the resourses morph packs are for end users that do not have the tools nor the time to invest to create something "new".
Using V4++ and the resourses moprh packs, everybody, content creators and end user will Always end up with "about the same thing".

if everybody can achieve the same results? Why would they buy? They aleady "have" what you offer up for sale? 

That's why I wrote : Start from fresh.
Use Blender (or equivalent) load the V4 object file, and sculpt, morph, become creative, make something "unique", make customers "see" what you have created.

The obj file being, one thing, the texture being a second. => Create a texture to go with your new morphed object file.

The rigging being a third thing. => Improve the V4 rigging, and show it in your renders.

Customers want to "see" what they are paying for, and you have to be unique in what you have to offer.

That's true to an extent, but when it comes to body shapes, it's important to use the Morphs++ packs so that customers can use the clothing they buy on your custom figure. Of course you can also include a custom body shape as well, (in addition to), and that has worked for a few top selling artists, but the one thing those artist's custom characters have always lacked is clothing support. Creating a custom figure that doesn't work with the available clothing, is basically just like creating a new figure. It needs clothing support to really catch on. Unless you are willing to be the sole creator of all the clothing that comes with it, or your character is intended pretty much entirely for nude/mostly nude renders. We do have the fitting room in PP2014, but more people have P10 than 2014. And it doesn't work all that well with everything, unless you're willing to spend some time with it, and even then it still depends on the individual clothing.

"That's why I wrote : Start from fresh.

Use Blender (or equivalent) load the V4 object file, and sculpt, morph, become creative, make something "unique", make customers "see" what you have created."

How exactly is V4's obj file sculpted in the almightly blender

going to produce anything more compelling than what 

Daz used to make the (now free) morph++ packs

or what any other third party has done with that mesh??.

Shane is quite correct

Look at what already sells and emulate it.

and accept the reality that $commercial trends exist for a reason.

Sure there is always a place for "personal projects".

look at the "indie"Film market

Full of films that refuse to submit to hollywood

formulaics & procedurals and none of them are making money

Meanwhile repetitive junk like "hot tub time machine 2" gets green lighted and makes money.

My website

YouTube Channel

 

LouisCross it's complicated n ya need lawyers etc etc
so you don't mess with vickys rigs for commercial sells.

============================================================ 

The Artist that will fight for decades to conquer their media.
Even if you never know their name ,your know their Art.
Dark Sphere Mage Vengeance

wolf359 quote
Meanwhile repetitive junk like "hot tub time machine 2" gets green lighted and makes money.

apparently they didn't send you directions.
drink a 5th of ya favorite alcohol n smoke a pound of weed.
till your iq is lowered to about 50.
your love the movie then ;)

============================================================ 

The Artist that will fight for decades to conquer their media.
Even if you never know their name ,your know their Art.
Dark Sphere Mage Vengeance

 

LouisCross it's complicated n ya need lawyers etc etc
so you don't mess with vickys rigs for commercial sells.

Actually, with animated joint centers you can pretty much do whatever you want with Vicky's rig as long as whatever you do can be injected and you aren't including proprietary content. Same is true with any other figure.

 

LouisCross it's complicated n ya need lawyers etc etc
so you don't mess with vickys rigs for commercial sells.

Actually, with animated joint centers you can pretty much do whatever you want with Vicky's rig as long as whatever you do can be injected and you aren't including proprietary content. Same is true with any other figure.

probably could have worded that better. other then about 2 or 3 people here think areo soul was one .

no one else ever does that do they ?

I could be wrong but it just seems like a bad idea to me to mess with the base rigs cause you would probably create a lot of on foreseen problems.
 

============================================================ 

The Artist that will fight for decades to conquer their media.
Even if you never know their name ,your know their Art.
Dark Sphere Mage Vengeance

Ok..... i'm still at work, took a break last night going out for a couple beers playing pool with the buddies, came home & watched TV, then looked and found what a couple of you were talking about.  Fixed it and now she looks good, will upload the images when I get home.

For now, I want to respond to a couple things.  First, I have a real job, this is my "extra money/fun" projects.  I do not like, and am SICK of seeing big lip, big eyes, kiddy face on adult bodies fairies, so no, there are plenty out there, I'm not making any.

I downloaded Blender, gonna play and learn a little sculpturing in Blender and Blacksmith 3D, but there's no way in hell I'm just gonna jump in and start creating things & character, he'll the program itself may take a year to learn, much less the sculpture tools and all that jazz.

I am NOT gonna get some couple hundred bucks program and start taking pictures of woman/girls, or buy skin images to make textures. That program itself may take another year to learn & become a pro at it. I don't even want to learn.

Folks, this is where merchant resources come from, whether it's morphs or  textures come from, for people who specialize in character creation and have no interest, time, or cash for resources to make all these other things.

And the people who make texture & morph resources, maybe they have no interest in making characters.  So what are they gonna do? Sell it to vendors who don't have time nor interest in making there own textures/custom morphs.  Make sense? 

Anyways, after I upload the images, I'm done here, gonna walk out the door & ignore this thread, tired of hearing same old critics that I already or intend to fix, tired of hearing the hate for merchant resources & V4, tired of hearing Blender and all that unnecessary "morph & texture your own stuff".

Just because someone else created those things, it doesn't become crap if they sell them.  Also, my morph MR I use isn't just  a bunch of heads, it's a whole lot of head, forehead, eye, nose, etc. etc. morphs for your own creativity.  We have "just head" MR here but I don't care for them.

...wolfie

The main thing is I want to know what customers think of my work, what I'm doing wrong, what I'm doing right.  I'm getting out with the people to find what they want and looking for in a character, also I'm getting help with technique stuff, such as lighting, clothes, morphs, and poses.

Again, I want to thank each and everyone of you for all the critics and help.  But people... read up with on thread, don't just read the first post on the first page and come here and repeat everything everyone's already said... sheeshh!

I want to address something that is easily overlooked and, in my opinion, you might need to think about - A potential customer will never, ever, know anything about your product until you tell them.

That means that no matter how great your product is and no matter what care you took with morphs, a potential customer will only know what's on the outside of the box.  That's really the only thing that you can truly get quality feedback about when it comes down to sales figures. When you ask why you may not have gotten the sales you expected and then provide details like good renders, closeups of unique features, detailed morphs, etc, etc,... those things are not why you didn't get the sales you expected and it's fairly useless to ask why people didn't like them unless you're examining what your product return-rate is. They only matter inasmuch as they were communicated to potential customer base, not as actual users experienced the product after purchase.

Your renders in this thread which highlight the details and the customizations that you crafted into the figure are the sorts of renders you should have included in your original product advertisements. You're somewhat demonstrating in this thread why you believe this product is of a quality that should merit purchase, right? The place to really do that which will get you results is in front of a potential customer and plastered all over your product page in the marketplace. You're doing a fair job of it, here, but that's the sort of thing you should focus on with your product page.

Don't beat yourself up on the "quality" of your morphs as being somehow a reflection on the lack of expected sales. Don't do it. (Except, maybe, for the lips, and you've gotten enough about that.) The reason is very simple - Potential customers did not "see" the quality of your custom morphs and dials in your ads, so they didn't even get far enough to experience them. IF, however, you were examining return rates, then this would now be the time to examine those quality issues, but only because those unique morphs were not adequately communicated to the customer before purchase and they really didn't know what they were truly getting in the first place.

On your renders - Just from the few I've seen here, the skin needs some more highlighting and specular. It's sort of flat in the above renders with the soft lights and taking some time to get some lighting in that will show off highlights (or, make material changes to emphasize those) will be what "shows off" the morph features and skin. Otherwise, it's going to look a little "flat." I'd also recommend trying a couple of hi-contrast light setups, to pull out some of those features for a "Illustrative" profile/isometric shot. For a good Glamor shot, since she sort of looks like a "70's chick", I'd make a light-gel with psychedelic colors in it and project that for a render, too, with appropriate clothing if you have any. (There's a decent freebie light-gel setup either here on or sharecg that has some nice psychodelic colors in it. IIRC, it was originally for DS, but you can rip the textures out of it and use them as gels in Poser and it's not difficult to set up. It won't be a perfect gel shot (no caustics), but it's "good enough" for a fun Glamor shot of your character.) By the way, the hair materials look pretty decent if they had a bit more punch to them, which I think a nice spot used for highlighting/specular would bring out a bit better. I assume you didn't author them, but if you did, you might try the ones BagginsBill posted not long ago. It's a decent material setup, true to form, that yields good, fast, results on transmapped hair, with a little tweaking, just in case you wanted to "pop" the hair a bit, for additional appeal.

jamminwolf youtube has a lot of blender tutorials.

blenders a big app that does every thing but you can learn sculpting tools in a month easy.

============================================================ 

The Artist that will fight for decades to conquer their media.
Even if you never know their name ,your know their Art.
Dark Sphere Mage Vengeance

jamminwolf :

trepleen looking for a V4 HD

 http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/?thread_id=2890825

maybe for ya july or august project with ya blender sculpts ya could make a HD normal or displacement maps for V4

 

you can see what HD's do here

http://www.daz3d.com/victoria-6-hd-add-on

 

** **

============================================================ 

The Artist that will fight for decades to conquer their media.
Even if you never know their name ,your know their Art.
Dark Sphere Mage Vengeance

Anyways, after I upload the images, I'm done here, gonna walk out the door & ignore this thread, tired of hearing same old critics that I already or intend to fix, tired of hearing the hate for merchant resources & V4, tired of hearing Blender and all that unnecessary "morph & texture your own stuff".

Look on the bright side, next time you post a thread asking people to crit your work, you won't have so many annoying responses to read through because most of the people who took the time to offer their opinions in this thread probably won't bother. Your thread title should have been "Looking for advice I agree with, all other advice not welcome".

@Morkonan: Funny you should mention return rates, in all honesty, I've never had one product returned from a customer, not even so much as a complaint.  Only a couple of technical situation in which a customer didn't understand.  On my renders here, yes, I can see that the IDL lights aren't doing justice on her specular values, the IBL lights show them though, so I'll have to play with the lights some.

@RonnKorr: I'll have a look at some Blender lessons and check them out.  Didn't know Blender has anything to do with creating displacement maps... HD stuff... but only morphs?  How does that go about?

@obm890: Didn't think about that, was just having a bad day and with all this Blender/create your own this and that, my head was spinning around, all I can think of was years of learning all this stuff I'm not interested in for a simple hobby/extra money fun job, and all the confusion.

@TetsuTora: Yep, Jessica Amlee is one very cute girl, and I'm not talking about just sexy and all that, she is that, but she's got this so cute and innocent face about her.  I remember when I first started watching "Heartland", the first thing I thought was, "Wow, her eyes look like my cousin's eyes", in which I made Tina to look like.  Her character as the neighbor girl on Heartland was very annoying though lol, but everyone loved her of course!  Thanks for the tips on the eyes and nose, I followed those lines very closely and succeeded!

Ok, here's the latest renders.  I played with Morph++ and found where the eyelid wasn't following the shape of her eyes (or however way you say it), made her nose wider, and totally re-did her lips (zeroed out V4 Morph++ and started from there).  Yes, I finally got rid of the duck bill lips, lol.

Can anyone tell me if she looks adult or not?  I've not had one respond on that since I changed her body morphs.

This package may go a different direction... maybe "Like Mom, Like 'Daughter", "Sisters of the Stars", etc... I won't be allowed to update her current package unless I add "50% NEW" stuff (said by Jenn), told her my plans, waiting for her respond.  Might pull her out of the store till I'm done.

You are making progress and I hope you are able to carry all you have learnt forward to your future figures as well.

Does she look adult?  Not to me I am afraid.  Her body could be but the face is certainly a young face, not saying this is bad but not adult.  Age is difficult to portray and, as others have said, there is little demand for V4 characters after the mid twenties.  As far as the age is concerned the shape of the face is important as are the textures. Faces change as they age as does skin textures and it is something we are very aware of in our day to day life.

My personal view is that she would be difficult to age, her face is a young face and there is not enough detail in the skin texture portray anyone much older.

That said, I am not a vendor and, from your early description your original intention was not an adult figure, if it was I suspect you would have progressed differently. 

 

 

I use Poser 13 on Windows 11 - For Scene set up I use a Geekcom A5 -  Ryzen 9 5900HX, with 64 gig ram and 3 TB  storage, mini PC with final rendering done on normal sized desktop using an AMD Ryzen Threadipper 1950X CPU, Corsair Hydro H100i CPU cooler, 3XS EVGA GTX 1080i SC with 11g Ram, 4 X 16gig Corsair DDR4 Ram and a Corsair RM 100 PSU .   The desktop is in a remote location with rendering done via Queue Manager which gives me a clearer desktop and quieter computer room.

I would put her at 19 to 20 years of age mate

Oops, I uploaded the wrong full body render without the updated face...

Minor issue though, her nose is not long enough, which makes her look younger.

Ok, thanks for the respond on the adult question, I guess I edited her face to the point that it made her look younger.  Gonna have a look.

As for the texture, Temptest3D supplied the base texture, I'll have a chat with her & see what we can do.

...wolfie

Ok, thanks for the respond on the adult question, I guess I edited her face to the point that it made her look younger.  Gonna have a look.

As for the texture, Temptest3D supplied the base texture, I'll have a chat with her & see what we can do.

...wolfie

That is interesting do a comparison of Tina and Temptesta3D's 'Faith the fighter', body wise they are not exceptionally different but the Faith's face is much older.  Some of this clearly comes from the shape which implies and independence and aggression but there are also the very slight lines around the eyes and there is a lot of skin detail. There is a good reasons for photographers using 'soft focus' on models as it hides some of the detail and the subject can look younger as a result.  We tend to pick up on small details almost subconsciously but we use that to judge a person. I would put Tina somewhere in her late teens but Faith I would judge late twenties or early thirties, much would depend on the scene and the lighting.  Faith is certainly a character I could happily use as a heroine in a wide range of renders, Tina less so due to her appearing younger and far more innocent.  Again I am not saying that is wrong I am just trying to answer the question of whether she looks adult of not.

 

 

I use Poser 13 on Windows 11 - For Scene set up I use a Geekcom A5 -  Ryzen 9 5900HX, with 64 gig ram and 3 TB  storage, mini PC with final rendering done on normal sized desktop using an AMD Ryzen Threadipper 1950X CPU, Corsair Hydro H100i CPU cooler, 3XS EVGA GTX 1080i SC with 11g Ram, 4 X 16gig Corsair DDR4 Ram and a Corsair RM 100 PSU .   The desktop is in a remote location with rendering done via Queue Manager which gives me a clearer desktop and quieter computer room.

  Again I am not saying that is wrong I am just trying to answer the question of whether she looks adult of not.

Thanks a lot, hornet3d, went and looked at Faith the Fighter, then looked at the face morphs.  Added "face square", "cheeks high", "cheeks define", and subtracted "face round" (all were set at 0.00 before), and here's the result. The bump on her skin, I was looking at the textures in PSP and realized the bump textures are a bit flat.  I didn't do them this time, but when I do the bump textures, I make them so that the bumps will show better in renders.  So, that said when I get home, I'm gonna edit the bump textures.  Also looking at other merchant resources I have, gonna have a play at giving more details on the skin.  There are some details, just that I think the lights I used doesn't do a good job at showing them.  Sooooo... gonna play around with all that when I get home.

As for the morphs, I'm done.  She looks cute, innocent, and over 20 now :)

I'm thinking about pulling her out of the store, work on my next  project which will be a cute teen with a theme (gonna partner with someone).

Ok, off to RL work I go...

...wolfie

jamminwolf : there's ,bump maps ,normal maps ,displacement maps ,vector maps
that all in different ways do the same thing ,make what daz calls HD's.

you can google,you tube
bump maps ,normal maps ,displacement maps ,zbrush vector maps.
I'm not 100% sure what versions of poser supports which maps.

bump maps & normal maps do not raze the topology.
normal maps are better then bumps .
normal maps are the standard for game meshes.
you could use normal maps to make Vicky's HD's

low polycount character with normal map
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=121794

 

displacement maps & vector maps will raze the topology.
don't know if daz ,poser ,blender supports vector maps.

 

slang varies from app to app but there's also a lot of different maps like occlusion ,specular etc etc
that can also really make a difference.

Andrew Price he's using a brick road in blender but still applies to characters in daz poser.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W07H7xeUnGE

 

 

============================================================ 

The Artist that will fight for decades to conquer their media.
Even if you never know their name ,your know their Art.
Dark Sphere Mage Vengeance

bump maps & normal maps do not raze the topology or polycount

displacement maps & vector maps will raze the topology and polycount

============================================================ 

The Artist that will fight for decades to conquer their media.
Even if you never know their name ,your know their Art.
Dark Sphere Mage Vengeance

bump maps & normal maps do not raze the topology or polycount

displacement maps & vector maps will raze the topology and polycount

Nope, sorry, I have to step in here.

The first line is correct, bump and normal maps do not raise topology or polycount. = Correct. They visually "fake" 3D without actually doing anything in 3D.

The second line has an error => Displacement maps will raise topology, = correct, but it WILL NOT increase polycount.
Polygon count stays exactly the same as before.

A displacement maps "displaces" the topology at pixel level, and only the pixels that are inside the UV_Map unwrapping are used.
Finer detail can be obtained by using bigger displacement maps from 4096x4096 up to . . . . the highest I went during testing was 16Kx16K (Poser has no limit on texture maps size.) All pixels that are inside the UV unwrapping will effectively "diisplace the topology in 3D space at pixel level.".
The more pixels/surface, the higher the detailing.

Carry on.

Poser 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, P8 and PPro2010, P9 and PP2012, P10 and PP2014 Game Dev
"Do not drive faster then your angel can fly"!

That's all french to me lol, except I do, of course know what bump & displacement maps do. Tina has a displecement map for her nipple & Gen area. I'm really not sure about using displacement on her whole body, as it may cause poke through in clothes, and I don't know how I can get Poser to make them both negative  (black) & positive (white).  You can in DS though.

I f I can learn that in Poser, I'd like to find some good displacement maps then.  I'll have to look into that, thanks friend, will click those links when I get home  (I'm on my smart phone at work now)

...wolfie 

Vilters, that makes sense, and  now I understand what "topology" is, never knew that word.

BTW, if anyone can answer, first where is the magnets in Poser, and how can you go from there to making a custom morph? For example, say I have a character with a custom morph, but I want to add something special that my current tools don't have.  Please don't mention Blender, not just yet, I've yet to learn that program.  I used to know how to spawn deformed morphs in DS 3, but I can't for the life remember, and there's no free inj/remember script for DS 4 & up.

I have (only) Poser 9.

...wolfie 

Object menu -> Create magnet (with the body part you want the magnet applied to selected of course)

manipulate the magnet as needed.

Then,

Object menu -> Spawn Morph Target; name the morph

Or, if using multiple magnets on multiple body parts and you want one dial for all of it,

Figure menu -> Spawn Full Body Morph; name the morph

Edit: For P9/10 (and earlier), you'll have to create multiple magnets on multiple body parts, if the morph affects multiple body parts.

In PP2014 magnets can be weightmapped, which means you can use less of them.

Have not used it myself, haven't had a reason to, but that's the theory at least.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kb3uC1nY7Q

 

vilters : I'll reword it.

if you use displacement maps & vector maps .

if you don't sub divide the mesh a lot and raze the polycount a lot then displacement maps & vector maps are worthless.

Better rewording ?

jamminwolf : normal maps are better then bump maps.so I'd use normal maps if ya could.

 

============================================================ 

The Artist that will fight for decades to conquer their media.
Even if you never know their name ,your know their Art.
Dark Sphere Mage Vengeance

"normal maps are better then bump maps.so I'd use normal maps if ya could."

Evidence please. This meme keeps coming back and whoever says it wanders off like an Alzheimer patient when I ask for visual evidence that a bump map and a normal, made with the same level of care, produce a difference in appearance.

"f you don't sub divide the mesh a lot and raze the polycount a lot then displacement maps & vector maps are worthless."

This is not a correct statement if you're talking about Poser. In the Poser forum please confine your facts to those that apply to Poser, not other applications.

Poser can fully displace a single quad polygon to any degree of detail you want - it uses REYES, which means micro-polygons are built FOR YOU, during rendering.

Please study your reference material before you make any objections or other statements that confuse people.

---

Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)

i think she again looks better in the newer renders. the lips in particular look way better.here also is a link showing how to do positive and negative displacement properly on a figure in poser.

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/?thread_id=2759991

in regards to magnets, unlike the morph brush, which will make its own independent morphs, if you have an existing morph on, lets say brow arch and eye slant, then you add a magnet, and change the shape of the nose with it, and then spawn a morph target, that morph will incorporate all the morphs you currently have on for that body part. so, if you want it to be individual and separately dialable, you have to reset the part to zero before spawning a morph target.

 magnets are great. keep in mind the key to using them is shaping and manipulating the magnet zone. symmetry is easy where needed with just copy and paste and flipping the pos/neg values where needed of the mag and mag zones. make a mag zone on the head, change the xy&z scale of the zone and move it to the chin or nose and just mess with it to get a feel for whats possible. manipulating both the zone and the magnet gives a huge range of possibility very simply.

 

**vilters wrote
**Displacement maps will raise topology, = correct, but it WILL NOT increase polycount.
Polygon count stays exactly the same as before.

 

**bagginsbill wrote
**Poser can fully displace a single quad polygon to any degree of detail you want - it uses REYES, which means micro-polygons are built FOR YOU, during rendering.

 

so then the REYES micro-polygon count is razed then. So if I word it that way ? is every one happy ?

**
**

 

 

** **

============================================================ 

The Artist that will fight for decades to conquer their media.
Even if you never know their name ,your know their Art.
Dark Sphere Mage Vengeance

 

bagginsbill quote

Evidence please. This meme keeps coming back and whoever says it wanders off like an Alzheimer patient when I ask for visual evidence that a bump map and a normal, made with the same level of care, produce a difference in appearance.

 

since you ask so nicely .I'm not making a video to show you how bumps vs normal treat shadows from lights.

.there's not a create bump map button in zBrush.
.all the best looking game meshes have normal maps on them.
. allegorithmic makes normal maps.
. quixel makes normal maps.

so if the old timey bump maps are so great then why would any one bother with normals ?

cuse n hate me all you want but don't use the word Alzheimers again.
ya never know who on here might have kin with Alzheimers.

** **

============================================================ 

The Artist that will fight for decades to conquer their media.
Even if you never know their name ,your know their Art.
Dark Sphere Mage Vengeance

I do have to say while the characters look nice, I usually wait for sales. Part of it is the current economy. The sort of pout lip look tends to make me want to see how that will look with other expressions. I worry that the morph might change or look odd during a particular expression. I do greatly admire trying to make individual and unique looking characters.

Edited to add the following

Nice to have a thread talking about texture maps, topology, polycount, and more.

The dust settled, thinking "what a fine home, at least for now" not realizing that doom would soon be coming in the form of a vacuum cleaner.

THANKS TETSUTORA AND KAZAM561!!  That's the very first compliment I ever got since this thread.  All the rest are critics or talking about other subjects MAJOR SIGH  I seriously wondered if I was even going in the right direction or not, NO ONE WAS TELLING ME!  WTF???  All everyone was talking about was what I was doing wrong, what looked bad.. etc or blender and bump/displacement stuff, I never knew if I was going in a good direction till you two told me.  Thanks!

Anyways, working on bump textures, and thanks AmbientShade for the magnets instruction, and Tetsutora for the link, gonna have a play with tonight :)

sigh did I only ask for critics?  Shame on me lol, hopefully people will start saying "hey, now she's looking nice, you're going in the right direction" :) Critics make you learn, sure, but COMPLIMENTS AND ENCOURAGEMENTS make you go further.  Am I correct?

I commend you for sticking  your neck out in the first place. :) Good on you.

Thanks booksbydavid, I guess I do have a lot of guts according to world standards, but it's what you gotta do to learn.  My real name, Bernie, I learned that it stands as "brave as a bear".  I didn't really believe that for a long time, and that I was named that cause of that.  I was actually named after my grandpa.

I'm a little guy, but I never backed down to bullies, even big ones, I've always stood my ground, win or lose, I didn't care, I knew what was right and wrong.  Also I have a quick learning ability and the willingness to learn things, also love learning things.  I guess that all goes hand in hand, wouldn't you say?  Not that I'm boastful about it, everyone's got great abilities, and everyone's got bad ones.  I'm almost deaf, that's my inability and I shy away from group talks cause I can't understand what people say.  I like talking one on one, then we both understand each other.  What I'm getting at is everyone's equal, no matter the so called "handy cap" (I hate that word) we have, we all have our ups and down in life.

...wolfie

@Morkonan: Funny you should mention return rates, in all honesty, I've never had one product returned from a customer, not even so much as a complaint.  Only a couple of technical situation in which a customer didn't understand.  On my renders here, yes, I can see that the IDL lights aren't doing justice on her specular values, the IBL lights show them though, so I'll have to play with the lights some.

Can anyone tell me if she looks adult or not?  I've not had one respond on that since I changed her body morphs.

If you haven't had any quality concerns or legitimate complain returns, then pat yourself on the back for knowing that the customers who purchased your products were satisfied with their purchase. That is meaningful, no matter how disappointed you may have been with this particular product's sales. But, remember - A potential customer only knows what you tell them. If you're wondering about why someone may not have bought what you believe is a great product, THAT is the first thing you must examine, always. Did they know it was a great product? Be sure to answer this in your marketing, else no magic pixie dust is going to be sprinkled around which informs them how great it is. (You can not count on word of mouth, alone. "Word of Mouth" doesn't pay your electric bill. :) )

As far as an "adult" looking figure, I'd say she was in her 20's or so, given her... somewhat statuesque build. (Wide hips, plenty of jiggly bits...) There's a small amount of neotany going on there, but not enough to make the character look entirely juvenile. Neotany characters are fairly popular, but without exception, they're all adults, even though most "fairy" producer's characters wouldn't be given driver licenses in most states in the US, if only their faces were used as a criterion.

Note: The bottom lip needs a bit more bulge and more cleft beneath it. Check the original V4 head mesh and note the edges where these adjustments need to be made in your face sculpt. Pay close attention to increasing the bulge of the lower lip and the cleft that needs to be there and where, exactly, the original edges for those features are on your sculpt. Those areas get lots of deformations in certain default expression sets, so you want your custom sculpt to deform well with them.

The eyes may be a smidge too far apart. That's not, necessarily, "wrong." But, you might want to bump the eye-size a small bit (.2, perhaps?), if you plan on keeping the eyes spaced that far apart. (Check morphs like squint and some brow-lowering morphs as well as the eye/cheek morph (whatever it's called) to see how the eyes look with these morphs at or around 1. Then you'll know what you might want to do to improve their look, if needed. Yes, you're a slave to V4's topology, even though it's your morph. :) )

Because of the sever nature of the custom lips, somewhat subdued since you started reworking them, you may wish to consider making a custom smile and frown morph as well as pucker and pucker wide. (Or, just one custom pucker that can be substituted in lieu of V4's various pucker morphs, which will likely be called by many Expression Packs your customers might try to use.) V4's smile and pucker morphs tend to use up a few more faces below the lips than one would think. It may be due to there not being enough of them, there, considering all the other expression deformations. This tends to cause quite a few faces around the mouth to "move up" the face of V4 when smile morphs are used, often resulting in what can only be called a "poop-eating grin" effect found in many custom face morphs when "smile" morphs are used. :) The cleft below the bottom lip can also get over-pronounced in custom face morphs when certain expressions are used. (You'll have to check a few of them to see if that happens in your case.) Again, an issue due more geometry being needed there. (That's not a dig against V4! She's got plenty of geometry to play with. It's just that getting custom faces and their topology, that are very different from the original's, to work well with all of V4's expressions can be difficult to do, at times.)

And you are correct, I didn't market Tina Perez well and tell what a great product she is, thus low sales.  That will change though, thanks to all of you for pointing out what I was doing wrong :)

Cleft in the bottom lip, you talking about a minor crease in the middle?  Never even thought of that, and it's one thing that's overlooked by most vendors and customers.  I'm not changing Tina's face any further, but I'll think about that on my next adult character.

Expressions... ahh, yes, a subject I like to talk about... See, when I make my morphs, I check the expression dials to make sure she looks good and recognizable when you use an expression on her.   Even after my final full body image (this same thread page), after the final lip, eyes, face editing, you see her smiling... that is, if you looked closely.  I did that on purpose to show off her ability to smile without cringe.

Now let's see one of the Reese Sisters, the youngest one, Carla.  Lots of custom morphs in her face.  I'm gonna do a render of her smiling and frowning... no, how about pouting. 

This is something I can't do with most custom morphed figures I bought from other vendors cause they "cringe" and look bad, or you simply can't recognize them (This is why most characters' promos have no expression, to hide their deform when expressions are applied)  I always have at least one promo in every product with an expression or two to show that she can handle them...even in my very first product promos, Tindra Thompson (in fact, look at this render http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1949720 )  Hell, even my Lucy Zepp teens/kids have expressions written all over them on the main promo.

Ok, here's a render... First image, you're giving her a candy so she gives this excited "open mouth" smile.  Second image... frown???  Hell, let's go for the extreme, let's go for a big pout, you just told her to clean her room and now she's having a cow... lol

This is her normal skin, didn't feel like rendering the SSS version, nor did I feel like rendering in IDL light, too time consuming just to show expressions.

 

jamminwolf so do ya think my babys pretty ? LOL ,bad joke,bad joke.

if I ever do cute n cuddly. ScareCrow take me to the asylum.
 
I do like this render :)
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=2227998&recent_upload&user_id=534626&member
cute n sweet ,not really my thing or apparently compliments.

 

but I have no doubt if ya keep fighting like you do and get a good work flow with some killer tools your be a top 10 vender in no time.

 

 

============================================================ 

The Artist that will fight for decades to conquer their media.
Even if you never know their name ,your know their Art.
Dark Sphere Mage Vengeance

this forum is changing my .jpg size.

how do you get to the HTML to set .jpg size ?

============================================================ 

The Artist that will fight for decades to conquer their media.
Even if you never know their name ,your know their Art.
Dark Sphere Mage Vengeance

 

**vilters wrote
**Displacement maps will raise topology, = correct, but it WILL NOT increase polycount.
Polygon count stays exactly the same as before.

 

**bagginsbill wrote
**Poser can fully displace a single quad polygon to any degree of detail you want - it uses REYES, which means micro-polygons are built FOR YOU, during rendering.

 

so then the REYES micro-polygon count is razed then. So if I word it that way ? is every one happy ?

**
**

 

 

** **

And we are both correct, LOL.

Make / build a single polygon. A simple square, 4 vertex at the corners, 4 edges,  and a single face, you have ONE single sided polygon. => Next, UV_unwrap it, and you have a UV_Map for that single polygon.
Now texture it with an 4096x4096 texture map, and add a 4096x4096 pixel displacement map.

**What is happening at render time?
**
You render your single polygon, with its texture, with the displacemnt map, and if you did the UV_unwrapping correctly, you have 4096x4096  pixels "acting" as 4096x4096 micropolygons.

But?

• The actual polygon count is still 1 (one)
• Rendered are the 4096x4096 pixels from the texture, pushed in 3D by the 4096x4096 displacement map.
• Result => "Visually" you have 4096x3096 pixels "acting" as micropolygons.

Pffft, what an explanation, but polygon count is still 1 (one)

Poser 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, P8 and PPro2010, P9 and PP2012, P10 and PP2014 Game Dev
"Do not drive faster then your angel can fly"!

That's one skull I wouldn't cuddle with haha!

Thanks for the compliment, RorrKonn, if I was doing this full time (didn't have a RL job), I have no doubt that I would become a top 10 as well, especially cause I have guts to ask for critics lol.

Was gonna upload an image, but there was something I forgot...

k... wanted to do a nude render, also show off one of her tan lines, got one of her gen hair loaded as well (will include those if I'm able to update her in the store).  Also updated the bump maps and settings, not that you can really see from this distance.  I have no doubt she now looks adult! 

jamminwolf : I'm thinking milf.Like the tan lines.

I hate to give advice about what your making thou.

Areo Soul morph was popular I really liked the body but I did not like the face.
another vender made a killing off a prop that I never would have thought would have sold once.

so all I can say for sure is make killer renders for promos.

When I'm making my Art .I set my Art beside the best Artist Boris ,Royo etc etc to judge my Art.

so I don't know maybe you could set your morphs beside top venders morphs. 

============================================================ 

The Artist that will fight for decades to conquer their media.
Even if you never know their name ,your know their Art.
Dark Sphere Mage Vengeance

vilters : can't wait to hear your all's divination of poser vector maps :)
as soon as poser supports them.

&

how do you get to the HTML to set .jpg size ?

============================================================ 

The Artist that will fight for decades to conquer their media.
Even if you never know their name ,your know their Art.
Dark Sphere Mage Vengeance

jamminwolf : I'm thinking milf.Like the tan lines.

I hate to give advice about what your making thou.

Areo Soul morph was popular I really liked the body but I did not like the face.
another vender made a killing off a prop that I never would have thought would have sold once.

so all I can say for sure is make killer renders for promos.

When I'm making my Art .I set my Art beside the best Artist Boris ,Royo etc etc to judge my Art.

so I don't know maybe you could set your morphs beside top venders morphs. 

Lol, "milf" hehe. figured I'd make her body quite adault, as in like she already had a kid.  In fact, instead of an age progress add-on, I might just make a daughter, with Tina's custom face morph, and a mix of her V4 morphs and another V4 morphs (mom & dad's characteristics), with the cheapest price Rendo will allow. The tan lines are made via color node & separate tan image, but I learned that if you have gamma correction on, it won't work, I asked BB if he can help cause I only have Poser 9, which doesn't have GC.  and can't test them. He said he would but apparently hasn't had time,  so for now I'll just use what I have & warn customers to turn GC off.

Yes, Areo Soul made some killer bodies, I too don't like the face, just too weird looking.

...wolfie 

The tan lines are made via color node & separate tan image, but I learned that if you have gamma correction on, it won't work, I asked BB if he can help cause I only have Poser 9, which doesn't have GC.  and can't test them. He said he would but apparently hasn't had time,  so for now I'll just use what I have & warn customers to turn GC off.

Newer versions of Poser have several ways to use GC, especially involving the image map, before rendering corrections. You will not have access to those hooks in your material room. So, users with GC enabled should manually set the GC for any black&white process node/channel maps, like trans/bump/displace/spec/blend node B&W maps/etc, to 1.

Example: http://i.imgur.com/yzW27kn.jpg

If one doesn't manually set GC, "1" in the case of these sorts of maps, Poser will apply default GC to the image. This can cause B&W maps to grey out or become undefined, resulting in bad transmaps for hair, bad overlays, etc..  One can also use Scenefixer to do this, but it's easier and often less troublesome to just go through one's nodes by hand, making the correct adjustments.

PS - You could get someone to do this for you, in a later version of Poser, then simply upload the corrected Material Pose room files to a Free section for "GC-enabled Poser users."

And you are correct, I didn't market Tina Perez well and tell what a great product she is, thus low sales.  That will change though, thanks to all of you for pointing out what I was doing wrong :)

The only thing you did "wrong" was starting off with nail polish and eye texture options. The rest was guilt by "omission", not necessarily by conduct. ;)

Cleft in the bottom lip, you talking about a minor crease in the middle?  Never even thought of that, and it's one thing that's overlooked by most vendors and customers.  I'm not changing Tina's face any further, but I'll think about that on my next adult character.

It's called the "Bottom Lip Cleft" morph area in V4's standard face morphs, IIRC. Sec...

Move the indicated edges on the bottom lip out a little bit, to define it better when morphing. (So it doesn't flatten out a lot.) The bottom lip "cleft" is that indention below the lip. Move that in, slightly. (You'll have to do that after you move the bulge of the bottom lip out a bit and then judge how much you need.) You may need to favor the faces/edges lower on the face more than the ones closer to the bottom lip region if there's not a lot of real-estate to play with when emphasizing that cleft. Check the morphs, after. Also, the chin edges tended to crawl up during certain morphs. After your done with adjustments, watch for that and see what effect it has. On undefined chins, it can wipe them out to a flat surface. On well-defined chin morphs with deep clefts and short separation between the bottom lip and chin, it can push the top of the chin into the bottom lip. You shouldn't have that issue, since you've got a lot of space there, but I don't know how many faces/edges are between the chin and bottom lip. If too few, the morph effects will be magnified. Yes, these are all little nitpicky things. :) But, every bit of attention to detail is worth it and these sorts of adjustments don't take a lot of time for someone who is used to working with V4's face.

This is something I can't do with most custom morphed figures I bought from other vendors cause they "cringe" and look bad, or you simply can't recognize them (This is why most characters' promos have no expression, to hide their deform when expressions are applied)  I always have at least one promo in every product with an expression or two to show that she can handle them...even in my very first product promos, Tindra Thompson (in fact, look at this render http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1949720 )  Hell, even my Lucy Zepp teens/kids have expressions written all over them on the main promo.

Ok, here's a render... First image, you're giving her a candy so she gives this excited "open mouth" smile.  Second image... frown???  Hell, let's go for the extreme, let's go for a big pout, you just told her to clean her room and now she's having a cow... lol

You're right and this is good work. Child faces are a little difficult due to lack of real-estate needed to make corrections for standard morphs. However, one thing that does help is the "Face Size" morph in the main V4 Facemorph channel. Giving that a .2 or so generally gets you a decent set of proportions to work off of, since a child's face is smaller, proportionally, to the flesh/skull of the head. Widening the distance between the eyes, shortening the nose, making the gap between septum and top lip greater (depending on age) and making the jaw narrower/smaller tends to round out most of what you can do. Emphasizing the forehead with a separate morph, enlarging the upper skull area with a custom morph (V4 doesn't have a standard one for that.) and enlarging and lowering the ears, to again emphasize the cranium proportions, sort of finishes things off a bit. After that, it's a morphform headsize setting slightly larger than normal along with all the rest of the necessary developmental proportion percentage changes. (Morphforms are teh evil.... ) Needless to say, making a good child face is very difficult with only default V4 morphs and it takes some tweaking. However, V4 has a goodly number of verts in her face and it's not too difficult once you get used to working with the topology. Expressions, however, are very difficult to work with and often move parts of a custom morph that shouldn't be moved. What you can do is enable the expression, export the head, make the corrections in your chosen app, import that head as a morph target and then back-out the expression with a negative value, save that resulting morph as a dial-controled morph hooked to the expression it was created for and then, walla, instant fix. :) Easy, right? :D

And you are correct, I didn't market Tina Perez well and tell what a great product she is, thus low sales.  That will change though, thanks to all of you for pointing out what I was doing wrong :)

Cleft in the bottom lip, you talking about a minor crease in the middle?  Never even thought of that, and it's one thing that's overlooked by most vendors and customers.  I'm not changing Tina's face any further, but I'll think about that on my next adult character.

Expressions... ahh, yes, a subject I like to talk about... See, when I make my morphs, I check the expression dials to make sure she looks good and recognizable when you use an expression on her.   Even after my final full body image (this same thread page), after the final lip, eyes, face editing, you see her smiling... that is, if you looked closely.  I did that on purpose to show off her ability to smile without cringe.

Now let's see one of the Reese Sisters, the youngest one, Carla.  Lots of custom morphs in her face.  I'm gonna do a render of her smiling and frowning... no, how about pouting. 

This is something I can't do with most custom morphed figures I bought from other vendors cause they "cringe" and look bad, or you simply can't recognize them (This is why most characters' promos have no expression, to hide their deform when expressions are applied)  I always have at least one promo in every product with an expression or two to show that she can handle them...even in my very first product promos, Tindra Thompson (in fact, look at this render http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1949720 )  Hell, even my Lucy Zepp teens/kids have expressions written all over them on the main promo.

Ok, here's a render... First image, you're giving her a candy so she gives this excited "open mouth" smile.  Second image... frown???  Hell, let's go for the extreme, let's go for a big pout, you just told her to clean her room and now she's having a cow... lol

This is her normal skin, didn't feel like rendering the SSS version, nor did I feel like rendering in IDL light, too time consuming just to show expressions.

Did you create this character? If so you did a good job. This is great work.  The other one still needs A LOT of work.

I wwas checking out Morkonan free stuff

saw a Brad Pitt Achilles out fit for G2 on the add to the right.

killer movie by the way .So I click on the add

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/index.php?ViewProduct=110126

so what was the first thing I noticed ?

the inter cut on the Achilles shield is modeled like a game mesh and the texture is a bit off.

99.9% of every thing is perfect but that .01% that's off.

maybe why it's on sell 40% off.

 

============================================================ 

The Artist that will fight for decades to conquer their media.
Even if you never know their name ,your know their Art.
Dark Sphere Mage Vengeance

Hey jamminwolf....keep checking the evolution of this thread and...

IMO your last render of Tina (the one with the tan lines) is the best one yet.

Mind you, I may be in the minority by having a preference for the more mature character.

I like to make my own characters look different to the norm and keep an eye out for venders who do the same.

That's what attracted me to your Lucy Zepp product :)

daz poser uses the Greek rules of characters. Marvel and DC does also.

a adult head is 5 eyes wide 7 eyes tall

a adult body is 8 heads tall.

the shorter you make the face the younger the face will look.

the more you shorten the body the younger the body will look.

younger they are the shorter the legs also.

google is full of ratios n charts using all kinds of measurements

every thing from the Greeks,golden main to a ruler.

 

fat cheeks n a small nose will make them look younger also. 

============================================================ 

The Artist that will fight for decades to conquer their media.
Even if you never know their name ,your know their Art.
Dark Sphere Mage Vengeance

They say knowledge is power.

I would think all the top Artist are aware of all this.

 

golden mean or golden ratio _ google

there's google n you tube to search all this as much as you want.
I only pay attention to the Art part of them.some links will wonder off to none Artist materials.

 

golden mask _ google

http://www.beautyanalysis.com/

http://www.goldennumber.net/beauty/

you can google ,you tube how to apply good make up

 

**Human anatomy
** schools would have you learn all the names of the muscles & bones
I can't even pronounce half of them .LOL.

 

composition _
https://fstoppers.com/architecture/ultimate-guide-composition-part-one-just-say-nokeh-31359

 

color _

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qj1FK8n7WgY

 

 

============================================================ 

The Artist that will fight for decades to conquer their media.
Even if you never know their name ,your know their Art.
Dark Sphere Mage Vengeance

Did you create this character? If so you did a good job. This is great work.  The other one still needs A LOT of work.

Thanks a lot, friend! Yes, she's Carla in the Reese Sisters product http://www.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/reese-sisters/103863/
I did the face morphs, P3Design supplied the textures and we did the makeups

Tina is getting a lot of makeover, even just decided to edit the textures, and am gonna re-do the tattoos.  Yesterday I edited her speculars.  It's a lot of work, yes, but still fun as she's looking better.

@RorrKonn: am looking at the links you supplied.  I did do a render of her, and copied just the head 8 times and stacked them up she's about 7 & 1/2 heads tall, but then again she's only 5ft 5in, a tad bit shorter then average (which is 5ft 6in for women).  Yes, her legs are slightly shorter (Stephanie4 proportion "Petite" at 0.400).  I don't like leaving my characters at default V4 height, which is 5ft 10in, unless I want to do a very tall basketball player.

...wolfie

 

left to right.
Posetta ,Chrome ,Diamond ,V6 super model.
Chromes looks 7 feet tall doesn't he ?
he's 5 foot 3 inches tall.in the real world

the Greeks great illusion
how tall is supermans & batmans ?
if a eye is one inch then a head is 7 inches tall.
real humans is 9 inches or more
7*8=56 inches tall
56 inches = 4.66666666667 feet tall
so supermans & batmans is a bit taller then 4 1/2 feet tall.in the real world.

the Greeks 5x7x8 ratios just looks better then real human ratios.
I think Posetta follows it to a T.

daz uses the Greeks 5x7x8 ratios as a guild line ,more or less.
they always make the face a bit small.
I think it's to keep from there meshes looking to young.
kids heads body ratio is different then adults ,kids heads are a bit big for there bodies.
so if ya make a head a bit small it gives the illusion that there older.

I just use the Greeks 5x7x8 ratios as a guild line.
Chromes face is 7.5

the first girls face I posted I asked if she was pretty.
the response was.it's a girl ? LOL.
I can do evil n dark easy but some thing pretty .LOL.

there's a saying natures gold is green.
meaning younger is best.
so the younger a girl looks the prettier she is.
it's a trick to make a girl look 18 + 1 day old in the face.

it's no big deal where not doing CAD but I don't know if posers ruler is real world or a Art world ruler.
there's the real world and then there's the Art world that's an illusion.
poor short superman ;)

 

 

============================================================ 

The Artist that will fight for decades to conquer their media.
Even if you never know their name ,your know their Art.
Dark Sphere Mage Vengeance

Ok guys, I was doing some major editing on the textures, but saved the old skin, and there's a little bit of color difference.  Seeing that someone said there weren't very much details on the skin, I decided to add a daughter, named Kim Perez and name the product "Like Mother Like Daughter".  Probably a 10 yr old.  Tina now looks like she's about 30 yrs old.  Or, if I want to make Kim a 13 or 15 yr old, I'll name the product "Sisters of the Stars" (got that idea from the stars tattoo).

A lot of work, but when I finish the young one's face morph, I'll upload an image of the two side by side.

BTW Morkonan, I edited Tina's bottom lip and chin, there's now more definition on her bottom lip.

...wolfie

 

 jamminwolf : sounds great.

if it wouldn't be to much trouble.
when ya post ya jpgs think ya could also have a front side golden ratio mask layed on them ?

 

============================================================ 

The Artist that will fight for decades to conquer their media.
Even if you never know their name ,your know their Art.
Dark Sphere Mage Vengeance

 

 jamminwolf : sounds great.

if it wouldn't be to much trouble.
when ya post ya jpgs think ya could also have a front side golden ratio mask layed on them ?

 

No idea what you're talking about, went to the page and see a bunch of html coldes to copy.  Do you mean when I load the .jpg images in a post?

 

 

 

the wounders of the web

 

thought maybe you could post some .jpgs of ya characters face under the golden ratio mask .like these pics :)

 

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The Artist that will fight for decades to conquer their media.
Even if you never know their name ,your know their Art.
Dark Sphere Mage Vengeance

lol how the heck do I do that?  No clue where to paste what, and why do you want me to do that?

get the mask here
http://www.beautyanalysis.com/research/perfect-face/facial-masks/

 

render front and side face of your characters
in your 2D app
put your render on layer one
put the golden ratio mask on layer two .mask and erase the white.

golden ratio mask it's for 9 eyes tall not 7 eyes tall.
I don't no how many eyes tall V4 is
since where making greek versions and not real humans might need to modify the golden ratio mask a bit.
would need to modify for kids also. 

as to why
the closer your morph is to the golden ratio mask.
the better your odds for more sells :)

============================================================ 

The Artist that will fight for decades to conquer their media.
Even if you never know their name ,your know their Art.
Dark Sphere Mage Vengeance

Apparently you've studied this mask thing, and only maybe a handful of customers follow the rules of head/eyes/body size & length.  This is the first time I've even heard about this golden mask rule myself.  But really, if she wasn't matching this mask thing, I seriously doubt it'll dent the sales, as I seriously doubt 99% of the people even care about it, as long as the products look good, and close enough to look like a real human (or a fairy or whatever they want), and the price is right, then they'll buy it.

And again I seriously doubt 99% of vendors even bother comparing their face morphs either, much less even know about this golden mask.  Of course, most of them make fairies wannabes/kiddie faces on adult bodies anyways.

I do look at images of women and study, looking from my characters to them to see if she looks right, especially the young/teens.  And I have a V4 height scale that a friend built for me, I used a freebie height scale a famous freebie creator made (forgot his name) to make the texture of the V4 height scale, as well as learned how tall V4 is according to Poser rule of length (which is 5ft 10 & 1/2in).  I use it all the time to ensure the women and kids are the size according to their ages following a progressive growth scale thing.  The women, I usually set them at around 5ft 6in, average height of women (don't know about Greeks though, but I do know average American women are that tall).

As for the price, this is why I'm adding a second character, either a sister or daughter (what I have now looks about 13 yrs old).

I'll do the layer thing, I'd have to copy this mask thing to my main computer (not connected to the internet) cause I didn't install my art programs to the laptop.

For now, I need to hit the hay for work tomorrow, just came back from my parents, been there all evening.

...wolfie

jamminwolf : 

Most venders aren't real Artist.they do a few tricks and fail as a vender and wonder why.
They don't even know enough about Art to even know why they failed.

most haven't heard of the golden main before but every one is surrounded by it every day of there hole life.
most haven't heard of the golden ratio mask or ever maid there own.

since the golden ratio mask is all over the web I thought it would be a excellent place for you to start.
I have my own mask that I made for males ,females from head to toe ,long before PC's.
but all boys judged girls buy the golden ratio mask there hole life.

doesn't matter what any one else knows it's what they see.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teaBK6YEQi0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKiXKSQGq3A

do they look better before or after ?

won't better sell better then worse ?

============================================================ 

The Artist that will fight for decades to conquer their media.
Even if you never know their name ,your know their Art.
Dark Sphere Mage Vengeance

Haha, those two videos were interesting, and yes they do look better after.  but what I concentrate is real human features, not "perfect" humans.  I may not be the greatest but well...

Anyways, I tried my best to place a primitive plane with the golden ratio mask on it (image and trans-map applied, no shadows, no light emitter, ambient set at white), same ratio as the image, zeroed Tina and camera rotation & tran, camera pointing straight to her face.  Placed the mask just before her face as best as I can and rendered.

Thus now I see why her height is 7 & 1/2 of her head size, her chin & jaw might be a little too tall (Long face in "full head & face" not applied).  However, her eyes were lowered some already, and there's no way to lower her eyebrows.  It actually looks to me like if I shrink the "Long Face", the mask might fit better.  But I fear if I do that, people will start saying "too young" again, and I'm trying to shy away from that, as I really want Tina to be an adult character (both face and body).

As for the "mad"  or angled down eyebrows, I don't like those at all, I don't care how many photo models have them, I never liked them, I always like the natural looking eyebrows, not high model stuff.  Down to earth, know what I mean?  Real people.

This is interesting though.  At first I didn't care about this mask thing, but it may teach me some things further so I'll have a play with another character.  I won't change Tina, I've already changed her enough and she looks good as is.  Here's the image...

I just realized I had the wrong (older) face morph on my laptop, so I updated it with the latest morphs... here's the image of her face, then the second image is with the mask.  Pretty close, but I feel if the lip was that low, then she would have a less adult chin, as well as the width of her cheek would make her young looking.  Anyways, here they are, I think I'm gonna stick with the face morph I have now :)

BTW I added the mask via layer in PSP instead of a primitive plane in Poser this time.

I understand your not making super models.
your making down to earth girls ya see at MickyD's,Wally World etc etc
but there's still some very nice looking females there.

I understand you want to make real world females.
but
V4 is based on the Greeks 5x7x8 slightly modified.all of daz meshes are.
V4 is not based on real world females ratios.

so the mask probably needs to be modified to Greeks ratios.
you always measure faces from the eyes.
so you line the mask up with the eyes so the mesh and mask eyes are in the same place.

I understand the age thing. believe me I understand the age thing all to well.
my faces are either younger or older then 18 I can't make a exactly 18+1 day no matter what I do.
I got 16's n 20's down to a T but 18+1 day ,not even if hell froze ,it's really driving me insane...

so can't say I'm qualified to give advice about faces age.
you just half to try n try n try again n again till ya get it.
and every little any thing will change there age.
since humans can register a billion different faces.
then there's a billion different tweaks to a face.

the Gods must think it's a riot when we try to play on there level.

 

 

============================================================ 

The Artist that will fight for decades to conquer their media.
Even if you never know their name ,your know their Art.
Dark Sphere Mage Vengeance

Oops, I uploaded the wrong full body render without the updated face...

Minor issue though, her nose is not long enough, which makes her look younger.

That's a big improbvement, Bernie!  I had played with the original face, and smiling just wasn't her thing, but this is tons better... :)

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@Rorrkonn, ok I wasn't sure exactly where to place the mask, but it's pretty close and moving it up the mouth & brows wI'll be closer.  Yes, V4 was probably made do making models, but that goes to show how good I am to making everyday girls.  I really think everyday sexy girls will sell better then high models, and there are already a few venders making high models, so this makes me even more unique as a vendor, thankfully I had all you helping in the technical aspect, so now i'm even better at it.

@WandW, thank you very much friend ! Wait till you see her young sister ;)

...wolfie 

 

I was playing around M5SH,Posy,V4,V5SM,Rex 

============================================================ 

The Artist that will fight for decades to conquer their media.
Even if you never know their name ,your know their Art.
Dark Sphere Mage Vengeance

Posting from work...

so you see they made men & wome about the same height,  which is wrong according to average height. 

Didn't do anything last night,  a friend called & threatened to kick my ass on the pool table, so  I went & kicked his haha, had fun, lots of beer, and a few shots :D

...wolfie 

 

 

 

 

Beer ,Pool n Babes ,works for me :) 

 

 

 

 

============================================================ 

The Artist that will fight for decades to conquer their media.
Even if you never know their name ,your know their Art.
Dark Sphere Mage Vengeance

JW - You might be interested in this site, specifically this section: https://www.anatomy4sculptors.com/anatomy.php

There are a number of really good references and discussions about proportion, here. It's all collected in one spot, so it's easy to browse. They used to have an online app for basic realistic proportions for the entire body depending on sex, age, build, etc.. But, they took it down. (I think it's going to be an application they or the creator will end up selling.)

There's a good explanation of the differences between the Heroic form, what is being called the "Greek" form in this thread, and a Realistic form. There's also some general tips for "beauty" consideration, as well.

Proportions are key to a realistic human sculpt. But, DAZ3D figures are based on the Heroic form, and their topology supports that form, so creating a truly realistically proportioned figure in all aspects is quite difficult. That also applies to face proportions, just as much as it applies to overall body proportions. Smith Micro figures are touted as being more realistic and that may be true, in some proportions, like limb/torso/head proportions, but their "features" do not appear very realistic, either.

A blend between the two artistic extremes of Heroic and Ultra-Realism generally yields the most popular Poser figures. Of course, individual artistic style counts for much more if it is exceptionally well exampled.

OMG I have a lot of work to do, since I added a 13 yr old sister named Kim... had to re-name the "inner" textures (ie bump, specular) to "Perez" instead of "TinaPe", then replace "TinaPe" to "Perez", specifically the inner names so that I don't change her outer textures (ie face, limbs, torso w/gen hairs/tattoos, etc...), as well as the folder names, renamed from ":JWP3:Tina_Perez: to :JWP3:Perez_Sisters:".  I believe I finished all the Poser mats, just tested the full body mat but more testing to do... now on to the DS mats.

Also, like I said before when I added a new "surprise",( something I don't want to show now for fear of vendors stealing the ideas and quickly doing a character before I update Tina)... I also added braces & brace face morph for Kim.  Not sure I want to add a tan line for her, maybe.  If I do, it'll be one of those "1 piece bikini" tan that kids wear when swimming.

@Morkonan: Thank you very much, I'll look at that later, don't want to lose my concentration on what I'm doing (just taking a short break to update you guys on what I'm doing). 

Will do a render sometime later today or tomorrow :)

...wolfie

Ok, here's a nice simple plain render, with Tina and her little 13 yr old sister, Kim :)

@Morkonan: Thank you very much, I'll look at that later, don't want to lose my concentration on what I'm doing (just taking a short break to update you guys on what I'm doing).

No problem. It's mostly good for making sure that the proportions are correct if you're going for a "realistic" figure. If not, that is if you're keeping the overall V4 proportions, which are "Heroic", then you may not find it of much use. But, sections on sculpting certain body parts, achieving good sculpting effects, etc, are very good. (I used to do some sculpting, long, long, ago. Now, I do it in 3D! :) )
You're really not going to see any major scaling issues for figures above 7-8 yrs old, with the exception, perhaps, of slightly larger heads in proportion to the overall body. So, no need to worry about these figures. (IIRC, limb/torso proportions are the same as an adult's.) What's only really significant is the "rate of change" in growth in later years, which can, in some younger individuals, result in things like slightly different leg ratios relative to other features, that being the most prominent difference in body growth. Despite certain morphforms, like "leg length", Poser does not handle other leg deformers/joints well for those sorts of figures. Anything with radical leg-length/proportion difference needs custom work. One can see that from DAZ3D figures based on unimeshes with radical FBM's, but using the same riggings, for instance - Almost all of them have substandard leg deformers, due to squished/changed geometry and subsequent rigging issues.

Note: Ref to the above render: You may wish to alter the face on the younger model so that Face Size is set at/around .2 or so. The retention of youthful features, neotany, often involves smaller facial features relative to the overall face/head. At .1 or .2, it should be just about right. (Take care that the features of the face have to "grow into" the adult's, so they should keep around the same proportions, relative to age-related proportions, but not be the same size an adult's. (Eyball size, IIRC, is the only exception, which stays the same from several years into childhood, can't remember age, then through adulthood.) It's really all about unique proportions.) Also, if the age is correct, the skull may be slightly smaller than an adult's, but there's some standard variation there to consider. There no good way to measure that in native Poser. However, there is a freebie that can do it - http://www.renderosity.com/mod/freestuff/?item_id=73717 (Instructions included. The vendor also has a decent product for measuring proportions/sizes from within Poser.) There are also plenty of freebie measuring tools out there, but that circumference one is the only freebie that I know of that accurate measures circumference and it's really invaluable for anyone trying to attain realism or good translations from real-world objects. I was astonished to see it as a "Freebie", actually, since there is nothing else out there that is like it. But, I am glad that they chose to offer as a freebie!

Extra: Why do I know all of this junk?  I've been working on a little project involving taking a baby's measurements and then translating them to projections of adult sizes, based on WHO and standard human growth data. This isn't too difficult to do, in a general, statistical, sense, and there are plenty of general charts and some "baby" websites that can do this with, but I've been trying to figure out a way to do it visually, quickly, with the ability to let the operator change certain sorts of values. In other words - Put your baby's measurements in an app and see it generate their measurements/stature as an adult, not including environmental influences, of course. Next part - Import your baby's face and see what they'll look like as an adult. :) I started doing this when my friends starting having babies and thought it'd be a fun present for them. But, it has gotten much more complicated... :) I often try for too much "completeness" in some of my work, when "good enough" would be... good enough.

Good info... I do refuse to sculpture the bodies though, as then clothes won't fit properly, and I don't know how to make morphs for clothes to fit custom sculpts... yes I know there are tools out there and I can learn them, but I'll learn about that later.  Right now I'm not dealing with V4 alone, I deal exclusively with S4 PBM's (ie breasts, proportions, etc..) to create children.  Even before she came out, I still did good and had a lot of fans that watched me create them, and been called "child king" numerous times.

Anyways, that must be cool to be a real sculpture guy (sculpturist, spell?), I wouldn't sculpt real things myself but it would be fun watching someone do it, it's one art I really appreciate :)

Thanks for that freebie link, it's very useful :)  And I'm happy to say that Kim is actually the waist and chest size that a clothe chart said a 12-14 yr old is (looked up "children size" and got a bunch of clothes size for ages, with average sizes)  28in at the waist and 30in at the chest.  I did change her head to .1 in morphform (that's about right for a 13yr old).

According to the particular clothes size chart I followed with the tool, the 12-14 yr old should be 63 inches, but the chart I've used for a few years (which I also found online in a doctor site), and for the "average size" 13 yr old (who grow to 5ft 6in, average size for women), the height is 61in, so that's what I got her set at.

What I don't understand about this prop, is that even though I got it flat, and type 62 inches (at DS scale which is 8), it doesn't even extend half her height, which according to my height scale (in which V4 is 5ft 10 1/2in (70 1/2 inches), Kim is 5ft 1in (61in).  I don't understand how it's a height scale as well.  And I only got a 4 pg manual which doesn't give good details about the prop.  Or am I missing something?

...wolfie

Note as per the image, I deactivated IDL light and SSS for a quicker render, and didn't bother fixing poke throughs on the jeans lol...

What I don't understand about this prop, is that even though I got it flat, and type 62 inches (at DS scale which is 8), it doesn't even extend half her height, which according to my height scale (in which V4 is 5ft 10 1/2in (70 1/2 inches), Kim is 5ft 1in (61in).  I don't understand how it's a height scale as well.  And I only got a 4 pg manual which doesn't give good details about the prop.  Or am I missing something? ...wolfie

It's for measuring Circumference. :)

The reason I linked/mentioned it is because there is no other freebie out there, that I am aware of, that can come close to accurately and visually measuring the circumference of a Poser object in the Preview Pane. (PhilC has one in his Toolbox product, IIRC. It's a "Tape Measure" sort of thingie, I think.

Transferring custom body morphs isn't too difficult, depending upon the tools you have and how the custom morph was generated. If you're distributing them, the cardinal rule is, as always, any proprietary/third-person morphs that were used must be backed out or just not used at all.

"Morphing Clothes", by Ralf Sesseler, sold here, is the easiest choice for transferring custom morphs to clothing. (For both Vendors and Users, IMO.) Though, it takes a bit of learning to get used to using it well.

Some vendors used to include custom magnet sets, saved in the Props folder, for a sort of "all purpose" helper for their customers. It's also possible to create Pose files that transfer the morphs to clothing, just like one would normally use. However, the custom morph creator would then have to create custom morphs for only the most popular products, else they'd obviously be in for far too much work...

Lastly, if the custom figure was popular, creators might choose to make custom morphs for that figure for their own products, similar to what was done for both GND and AS custom figures, way back when.

The "Custom Magnet" solution is the easiest way to help customers fit compatible clothing to a custom morphed figure. But, IIRC, newer versions of Poser have some sort of thingie that allow morph transfers between figure and clothing, from within Poser. But, I don't have such a version, so I can't speak on it. Lastly, there's a one-click solution in "Crossdresser" which allows direct morph transfers. But, the version I had didn't usually yield good results, though many seemed to be happy with it.

What I don't understand about this prop, is that even though I got it flat, and type 62 inches (at DS scale which is 8), it doesn't even extend half her height, which according to my height scale (in which V4 is 5ft 10 1/2in (70 1/2 inches), Kim is 5ft 1in (61in).  I don't understand how it's a height scale as well.  And I only got a 4 pg manual which doesn't give good details about the prop.  Or am I missing something? ...wolfie

It's for measuring Circumference. :)

The reason I linked/mentioned it is because there is no other freebie out there, that I am aware of, that can come close to accurately and visually measuring the circumference of a Poser object in the Preview Pane. (PhilC has one in his Toolbox product, IIRC. It's a "Tape Measure" sort of thingie, I think.

Transferring custom body morphs isn't too difficult, depending upon the tools you have and how the custom morph was generated. If you're distributing them, the cardinal rule is, as always, any proprietary/third-person morphs that were used must be backed out or just not used at all.

"Morphing Clothes", by Ralf Sesseler, sold here, is the easiest choice for transferring custom morphs to clothing. (For both Vendors and Users, IMO.) Though, it takes a bit of learning to get used to using it well.

Some vendors used to include custom magnet sets, saved in the Props folder, for a sort of "all purpose" helper for their customers. It's also possible to create Pose files that transfer the morphs to clothing, just like one would normally use. However, the custom morph creator would then have to create custom morphs for only the most popular products, else they'd obviously be in for far too much work...

If the custom figure was popular, creators might choose to make custom morphs for that figure for their own products, similar to what was done for both GND and AS custom figures, way back when.

The "Custom Magnet" solution is the easiest way to help customers fit compatible clothing to a custom morphed figure. But, IIRC, newer versions of Poser have some sort of thingie that allow morph transfers between figure and clothing, from within Poser. But, I don't have such a version, so I can't speak on it. Lastly, there's a one-click solution in "Crossdresser" which allows direct morph transfers. But, the version I had didn't usually yield good results, though many seemed to be happy with it.