Product Notes

MICHELLE FOR M4: M4 FEMALE UTILITY Beta VersionBy Gregory H. Bontrager(c) December 2010PREREQUISITES: Michael 4.0, M4 Morphs++, V4 Morphs++, M4 Enhanced/Mina, Hiro 4, Stephanie 4DESIGN & INTENTMichelle for M4 is intended as a convenient base for creating custom female characters for M4 or an easy way to give your favorite male character a sex change (with more authentic results than any surgery can yield). While V4's default face is that of a character unrelated to M4, the face morph provided in this pack seeks only to create a feminine version of M4's default face. So while creating a female version of a normal M4 character from V4 would probably take a while of trial-and-error to arrive at a convincing but still girly resemblance, the Michelle morphs turn the process into a simple matter of applying the male face morph and then dialing up "Michelle Face." This morph set creates three "master" dials that automatically change the values of several third-party "slave" dials at a given ratio. The "MichelleFace" dial on the Head has an effect which is explained above. The "MichelleScaling" dial controls height and relative proportions of the chest, hands, feet, and legs. The "MichelleBody" dial controls the shape of the figure. Dialing all three to a value of 1 will give you a fully female figure whose stature closely matches that of V4.The only new geometry is corrective. Several custom morphs were created, most of them JCMs in the arms, to smooth joints and make them look more natural. The fourth master dial on the Body, "MinaFixJoints," turns all of these JCMs on or off. Turning them on for female characters is highly recommended. Also included is a shortcut pose that automatically INJects all required third-party morph packs, a fifth master dial simply named "Michelle" which controls the other four master dials for even quicker transgender morphing, and one sample character face morph named "Melanie."INSTRUCTIONS1) Load one of the two M4 CR2s provided in Pdxjims' "M4 Enhanced/Mina for M4" pack2) Find the "Michelle" folder in the Poser library.3) Select "!!Michelle_Prep_INJ" to INJect all required third-party morph packs (if you haven't already done so).4) Select "!!Michelle_Main_INJ."5) Apply "Restore_Dependencies" if chest does not appear to shrink and/or you notice that certain PBM's no longer work.5) Enjoy!KNOWN ISSUESFor some reason I have yet to determine, the INJection of the Michelle morphs seems to render several partial-body morphs on the affected body parts no longer dependent on the corresponding dials on the full Body. A separate "Restore_Dependencies" INJection is provided to counteract this phantom effect, and unless you somehow do not experience it, applying it is necessary in order to achieve the desired look.These restorations were not incorporated into the main INJections because doing so would cause a doubling effect when the Michelle morphs were INJected along with a similarly constructed setup. For example, Lil' Mikey (my juvenile base morph for M4, a current WIP) presents a similar issue. If the required restorations were assimilated into their respective sets' main INJections, each would work fine on its own, but if you applied one and then the other, the accumulated restorations would create dependencies twice as powerful as they should be.Unfortunately, although it should work fine in Poser 6+, functionality in Daz Studio is dubious at best. I have plans to experiment and hopefully find a solution to the DS compatibility problem. A separate edition for DS will likely be released if and when I do.CONTACTThis project has frustrated me for months by working smoothly for me but causing random, inexplicable mesh explosions for everyone else who tested her. After the latest tweaks to the V4 Child beta, which were then retro-applied to Michelle since she uses the same technique, at least one user has reported that the pack so far appears to work as intended. This implies that Michelle may finally work properly as well. Part of why I am releasing this beta version is to find out if this is indeed the case. I am eager to find out, so please send all feedback to linguaphile@earthlink.net