Unfortunately I missed this discussion when it was in a more active phase, but hopefully one's better late than never. I wasn't very familiar with Animotions, what was or wasn't available there, and who is or isn't a superhero these days, but I have a number of these freeware P4-era character models, including many not previously mentioned. If anyone knows which authors have grown more either stingy or more liberal in their old age, I've listed what I have below along with the author's name whenever possible. If anyone can comment on which models would or wouldn't be appropriate to upload to
Posette Forever, I'd be glad to share these classics.
Given the fairly crude standards of quality and lack of technical know-how many years ago, many of the characters (particularly those who are merely costumed heroes rather than beings with unique anatomy) can be easily updated to modern loveliness with only a little effort. For example, in literally three minutes I updated the
Poser 3 "Kin" character (who hasn't aged well at all, example 1a) with a decent texture map and some transmapped hair, and now she would look at home in any contemporary scene rendered in the latest versions of
Poser (example 1b). If only we had all known years ago how to actually use
Poser 4 to its full potential, we'd all have cushy jobs with George Lucas by now. Regarding models that use custom geometry, many simply don't look good given today's standards and I doubt much can be done in those cases since starting from scratch to build a better model would be much more efficient than trying to put lipstick on a hog; in most cases I didn't include the ones I have that look really horrible.
Documentation Key:
1- Documentation specifically allows noncommercial redistribution or documentation makes no mention of redistribution (typically, silence = no contest)
2- Documentation included at time of publication specifically prohibits
any redistribution. Congratulations to all the freebie makers of yore who used this harsh condition and thereby inadvertently helped some website gather enough users to turn commercial and stop distributing formerly available freebies-- all your hard work will soon be entirely forgotten. Happy now? On the other hand those were more naive times, and presumably their main concern was to avoid commercial exploitation rather than hobbyist accessibility, so perhaps we shouldn't judge too harshly. Yet I see considerable irony in claiming no one may redistribute your own blatant rip-off of a commercial IP. In other words, in cases where a claim of copyright is made for material that itself infringes copyrights any such secondary claim is invalid and frankly laughable.
3- No documentation available or meagre documentation makes no mention of author's name and terms of use (in either case, whoever made the thing was almost certainly a knucklehead regardless of their artistic talents)
Comic-book Characters
1-AIM Flunkie by Immortal. A pz3-only that calls for geometry files not included with the character. Sigh. Otherwise, he's pretty interesting. (example 4)
1-Ambush Bug by cagedrei (example 6). I never heard of Ambush Bug, but I originally downloaded him because he looked like Mr. Bug from the
Micronauts (if anyone but me still remembers that comic).
2-Doc Octopus by AofD (example 5). His mechanical arms are fully poseable, making this a quite nice character for its time.
1-Dr Doom by Phil Hokusai (example 3). Unfortunately this fellow isn't quite a full-fledged
Dork, as his body parts are props rather than figure elements.
1-Elektra by Rai (example 8). A nice figure with well-made transmapped clothes, which was unusual for the era in which she was created. With a few updates she could be a starlet once again, and her classic P4 conforming hair has high nostalgic potential in itself.
3-Hawkwoman (example 7). She's a P3 figure with clothes painted onto her figure texture map, but otherwise is a pretty nice character from the old era of P3 figures with clothes painted onto their primary texture maps.
2-Kin by Tweakedout82 (example 1a). Where exactly
does she keep her guns and ammo? I'm not sure I want to know.
1-Lara Croft by Phil Hokusai (example 10). Most of us are probably mentally scarred for life from viewing a zillion ineptly composed P4 images of this particular model and her gargantuan... err... guns posted at
Renderosity and Renderotica ten or fifteen years ago, but if you haven't had enough here she is in all her glory. In truth, with some better texture maps and plausible proportions she could actually be a pretty nice model even today.
1-Space Ghost by Scott Benson (example 9). I don't know if this is the cartoon or the talk-show version, or if there's even a difference.
1-Ultron by Dan Swofford (example 11). Was there ever a freebie P4 Jocasta model and if so, does anyone have her?
1-Vision by Richard Kane (example 12). Another clothes painted-on P3 job; not bad for the era, but unlikely to ever be very satisfying to his wife the Scarlett Witch in this condition.
2-Wolverine by AofD (example 13). I can't believe this fellow wasn't posted already; presumably then this AofD guy really does want to be a grinch all these years later?
GI Joes (anyone else have more of these?)
3-Cobra Grunt (example 14). An standard-issue minion of evil, with a few decent props.
3-Cover Girl (example 15). Either I don't understand how this character is supposed to work or some files are missing. She seems like she should have a pretty cool jacket that opens and closes in the front (but doesn't work), and the jacket texture is both applied to the wrong material and set as transparent even though no transparency map is included. The cr2 and rsr are in different subfolders and the rsr doesn't accurately depict the character, implying the author was a bit frazzled (no documentation is included). Finally, her gun (which shows up as two props but is actually one item) mysteriously disappears at render time despite being fully opaque. I'm confused-- how about you?
3-Lady Jaye (example 24). No documentation and author unknown, but presumably by the same person who made Cover Girl. Like the former, Lady Jaye has a shirt with all sorts of morphs listed but none of these work. However unlike Cover Girl, the rsr thumbnail for Lady Jaye accurately represents her actual appearance, so presumably she works as intended.
Star Wars Characters
1-C3P0 by John Malis (example 17). Human-cyborg relations? That's actually against the law in Alabama...
1-Darth Vader by rodnoy (example 18). Great for his time, but he hasn't aged well.
1-Mara Jade by John Malis (example 19). A nice character with good clothes and props; all she needs is a decent texture map and some better hair to remain a first-class model for the 21st century.
3-Stormtrooper (example 20). Whoever made this-- good job! A very nice model even for today, it was definitely cutting edge ten or more years ago. I also recall a very similar 3ds version who was eternally frozen in a single pose, but this fella is the fully functional P4 figure.
Original Heroes and Villains
1-Adine by darkworld (example 21). Supposedly she's a cyborg elf from the year 3000.
1-Circe by Menno Jensen (example 22). The documentation description seems like she's meant to be a Greek superhero, but either she forgot her costume or superheroes in Greece prefer to work au naturel in honor of the ancient Olympic traditions. Maybe her superpower is to streak around and create distractions? In any case, she has a pretty face and was rather novel years ago for featuring a decent P4NW bump map that was much better than anything else available at the time.
1-Ultimis by Sekroid (example 26). I don't know this lady's story, but I definitely wouldn't want to meet her in a dark alley.
Base Models for Aspiring Superheroes
1-Female Body Builder by John Paul Moore (example 23). I've certainly got a lot of mileage out of this gal over the years. If John Paul Moore is in the audience, THANKS!!!!!
1-Physique Man by Richard Kane (example 16). Highly detailed with dozens of morphs; seems to be the exact counterpart of the female bodybuilder even though made by a different author.
Not supervillains but too nice to be forgotten...
2-Alien by SixPackWolf (example 25). "Made exclusively for the
Poser Props Modelers Guild." What a shame, this outstanding model now seems destined for oblivion. I don't make many sci-fi scenes, but if I did this guy would be in them.
1-Orc Warrior by John Malis (example 27). Calls for a geometry file (some kind of pants) not included with the character, but otherwise a fine model. Can be easily updated with a contemporary outfit instead of medieval gear to make a modern-day menace.
1-She-Orc by John Malis. This unique
Posette is definitely a keeper. Using a revised texture, better hair, and some body reshaping, I recently made some fairly nice-looking Halloween pinups starring this orc lady (example 28).
Endosphere