Here's something which is always a bit unclear to many 3D users and it sometimes leads to confusion:
A FIGURE:
It's a basic mesh which defines the default body shape, plus the "rigging" (or "rig") which defines how the figure bends. This is the most basic form of a figure.
In most modern figures the mesh also comes with a layout of UV coordinates which allows you to apply texture maps to the mesh.
Because it would be pretty useless like this (no one wants to render the same look over and over), most figures also come with a set of MORPHS (like the "Morphs++" addon for DAZ's Victoria 4).
These Morphs define a way to "shape" the basic mesh (the mesh is deformed), which allows you to achieve different body shapes, expressions and so on.
So each time you load Victoria 4 or SASHA-16 into your scene, you load A FIGURE.
But of course you now want to use the morphs to create your own shape of the figure, or you load one of the gazillions of pre-made "character injections" out there.
You can purchase these at the usual places and by a simple click in the library you load that injection into your figure.
What you've got now is:
A CHARACTER:
It's still the basic FIGURE, however with morphs (and textures if available) applied.
It looks different from the basic FIGURE:
--> It has something *characteristic* about it now.
Hence we call it: A CHARACTER
So each time when you change or modify the body or face shape, inject shapes or change the texture maps, you create a CHARACTER.
(Think "Automobile" vs. "Ford F-150", or "Lada Niva", or "VW Golf" if you prefer)
...
...
UH-OH!
"!! Dear god help me! I've created a character! What to do, oh what to do?"
This is no joke!
I know of several people whose daily drill is to:
--> Just to get the same character back which they've used yesterday!
What a nuisance...
SO WHY NOT save your character, once created, to the library?
As a "ready-load-go" FIGURE complete with CHARACTER morphs and textures?
Poser can do that for you, and it's so easy:
Go to the "Figures" Library tab in Poser, select your FIGURE, hit the + sign in the library, and save your complete CHARACTER as a *new* Character preset.
I've provided a folder "My Girls" in the "Character /SASHA-16" library where you can save your characters into, to be added to a scene anytime without further ado.
So if you want to work with this CHARACTER preset again, just reload it from that folder. It will load with all the CHARACTER morphs which you've set, and with the textures too.
(in fact it loads even in the same POSE which the figure had while saving it. This might be helpful in some situations.)
Whenever you see an asterisk appended to a morphName *, you'll know that it's a special SASHA morph. I added this feature so that you can recognize SASHA morphs more easily: this might be especially useful if you want to copy SASHA's morphs into a piece of clothing etc.
(Minor issue: If you are still on Poser 9 then in a very few cases the asterisk won't show:
That happens if morph names are longer than 32 characters. This limit was raised to (256?) in Poser 10.
However, apart from this slight "cosmetic" display issue it won't have any impact on the functionality of the figure)
When you look at the SASHA morphs you'll notice that some of the SASHA morphs start with a - (minus sign) dash while others don't.
If you take a deeper look you'll find out that *all* of the "Pose" morphs (not just SASHA, but DAZ morphs too) start with a dash, while most of the "Shape" morphs don't
The reason for this is two-fold:
(NOTE: The dashes can be found on some of the DAZ "Morphs++" "SHAPE" dials in spite of what I said before!
These are mostly morphs which have "left/right" subdials, e.g. "EarsIn-Out/EarsIn-OutR/EarsIn-OutL".
If PoseWriter Panel saves all three dial values in a character the result is a duplication of the master value, and you wonder why your character suddenly resembles the Prince of Wales...
While you can apply all V4 injections and scripts to SASHA, you should *NOT* apply any of the scripts or injections *made for SASHA* to a standard DAZ V4 - unless you know *exactly* what you're doing! *1
(especially when you're still using Poser 9!)
These scripts were written specifically for SASHA and might cause surprising but unwanted results in figures other than SASHA.
Just saying...
Footnote *1:
You'll recognise scripts which are "SASHA-16 Only" by the "S-16" stamp in the thumbnail.
While I tried to make SASHA as compatible as possible with the standard V4, a few compromises had to be made to ensure SASHA's unique bending and her other functionality.
I had the choice of "stick to traditional V4" and "Apply Poser's advanced features". It turned out that such compromise is nigh impossible.
So I decided to abandon the past and go with the new tech.
This may raise some minor problems with clothing and body props but it will give you the probably best-bending figure for Poser yet.
And I've added a couple of easy-to-use scripts to make fitting clothing etc. very simple.
If you prefer a standard V4 for the benefit of "same old" - use it...
But there's no "in between", no SASHA "lite". Take it or leave it!
Anything else would be just a lukewarm, restricted compromise.
Even between the advanced features of Poser 10 over Poser 9 = (PP2012 vs. PP2014) there are some differences!
Some of the advanced features of Poser 10 might not be available in older Poser 9 and won't work at all in even older versions.
A good example here is that in P10, you can inject new morphs directly into the figure and create the new morph channels "on the fly". This can't be done in P9 where you are still dependent on the "Community Channels".
You want my advise?
Update to Poser10/PP2014. It's worth it. Definitely!
- Although I already said it before:
Do *NOT* use any of the "V4 FIX" morphs out there ("Perfect V4" etc.) or any other morphs made to "fix" the joint bending of the original V4!
Remember that SASHA often has different joint centres and all her joints bend the mesh in a completely different way!
(And to be honest, I don't think you will ever miss these fixes when working with SASHA)
A final word goes to the ".cr2" explorers:
If you find a morph of which you don't know what it does (especially if it's set to "hidden"), better don't mess with it - it might cause unwanted surprises.
WHY?
Because some of them aren't actually morphs.
They are just "computing" nodes which are controlled by parent dials and in turn control other dials or morphs.
So be careful, and most of all *never* touch the "valueParm SCONST -1"!
(see the separate "SASHA-16 Developers Notes" for more)
EDIT JUNE 2017:
Due to the passing away of Ralf Sesseler I can't predict how long the links to "d3d.sesseler.de" above will still be live. If they die a Google search might help you, or ask in the popular 3D forums like Renderosity or Hivewire3D.