Since P5 now supports directory substructures its really handy to be able to sort my figures into sub folders based on types etc. Sadly, some merchants create their CR2s to point to obj meshes inside the same folder the cr2 is located in. This prevents a layman from moving the figure to any folder they choose wihotu editting the cr2 and changinbg the figure obj file reference. Is it possible for merchants to avoid this when selling figures in the store and place the obj into the geometry folder? Thanks.

This has caused me considerable excess work as well. It's the way ProPak does it, and a lot of products are left that way for distribution. I rename all my new Poser folders and consolidate similar items all the time. I've been hoping the next version of Correct Reference (possibly commercial this time) will deal with Geometries as well as textures. Poser Object Organizer will, but it has no batch-processing capabilities, and takes forever for each file. I had hoped for an update since it first released, but so far no go.

Ah so Pro Pack makes the oobj's inside the cr2 folder? I wass wondering why anybody put them there in the first place :o) Now I know. I've only recently started to supply separate objs with my things, mostly becourse when you make PROPS in Pro Pack the obj is embedded in the pp2. You can of course move that pp2 to whereever you want, but it is a larger file and people using other programs such as Bryce will have trouble (more or less) extracting the obj if they wanted to use it in these programs. But I found the solution. It's a commercial solution but it's a great one IMO. The solution is PWizard. It has this clever obj ripper which extracts the obj from the pp2 and with only a little bit of pp2 editing, you can make perfect pp2's that point to your external obj. Oh and WHEN you make external objs, PLEASE use a proper path'ed zip. I HATE zips that require you to make StRaNgE cAsEd folders inside your Geometries folder and move objs there. Too much filure risk imo. Actually, in general, PLEASE make paths in your zip files. Most free stuff I download that hasn't got paths ends up on a cd without ever being installed. And I know I'm not the only one that feels this way :o) You've had the trouble creating something nifty. Now it's a pity if noone uses it coz they don't know where to install it, isn't it?

Another plea to merchants who might read this... Please try to be both helpful and economical with your use of folders when placing your geometries (external OBJs) by observing these guidelines: 1) Don't place your stuff in someone else's folder (ie: DAZ or Zygote)just because it's already there. 2) Create a unique folder for your own OBJs and stick to using the SAME folder for most (if not all) of your products without resorting to sub-folders. It is really galling to buy a commercial object from someone who has three products in the marketplace (and not liklely to have more), and not only is each in a different folder, but they are in SUBfolders of that! - (for example :geometries:joeBlow:P4:Clothing:VickyUndies1: - this is just a WASTE of resources! 4) PLEASE give your objects UNIQUE names - if you can't think of anything more creative than chair1, MikeShirt or V3Panties, then you probably shouldn't mess with 3D modeling. One clever way to make your object names unique without stressing your grey cells too far, is to simply append your initials to the end of all your files - for example MikeShirt-me Chair1-me or V3Panties-me! No offense meant to anyone, but I'm getting tired of commercial products that don't meet some basic standards.

PS - about why Poser Puts objs in the character folder. There are some a REALLY good reasons: 1) It only puts an obj in the character folder (where the CR2 is) when YOU have ALTERED the geometry of the original file in some way within Poser (morphs alone don't alter the geometry but some other things in Poser do). 2) When you alter the geometry, Poser is PROTECTING the original geometry by not placing it in the same folder as the original (and perhaps overwriting it if you use the same name). 3) When you make custom geometry, Poser assumes you would like to find it easily if you want to backup your work or perhaps share it with others. The LOGICAL thing to do is put your custom geometry in the same folder as your custom CR2 because the two work together, and its nice to be able to find them together when you decide to move or share it. This is designed so that AMATEURS can use these geometry-altering features without endangering the originals. It is NOT created to make commercial products. 4) If you decide to market something made in this fashion then you REALLY should know enough place the custom geometry in a folder OF YOUR OWN (in the geometries section) and to edit the CR2 to reflect these changes. This is REALLY SIMPLE! With a decent text editor it takes a couple of minutes - you don't need any fancy CR2edit program, just a good ascii text editor. If you can't do this, then please re-consider selling your product. Maybe as a freebie people will forgive the lack of consideration to the end user.

I seldom keep the names of folders as they were - I have my own naming system. So when this kind of obj reference is in the cr2 I have to edit it by hand - a real pain. :] Fish

While we're on the subject, how about merchants not trying to chug their files to the top of the directory by adding ! or !! or even !!! (I kid you not) to the beginning of their directory name.

1. It smacks of bushleague marketing like naming your company AAAAA Wrecking so you will appear first in the phonebook.

2. It makes your stuff HARD to find in a long library folder, unless I remember, with irritation, that merchant "SelfImportantGodofSexwithUzis" is under '!!!Self' rather than 'Self' in the directory alphabet.

3. It's a waste of time, yours and mine, because the first thing I do is take the damn !!!!!'s out, and the second is decide for myself where I'll keep your stuff (and yes, I can fix the references).

When I saw the gazillion !directories installed by V3, I removed her from my system. Enough is enough.

Just asking..have nothing in market place or freestuff, but when you say please put stuff in proper pathed zips, what does that mean? If there is a tutorial out there I'd like to read it...preparing your file for other people to use. Shanna :-) just in case.

Just make sure that your paths inside the zip starts with Runtime..... Easily done by making a Runtime folder on your desktop and inside that making the correct folders, such as librariespropsYourFolder or textures or librariescharactersYourFolder Get the idea? :o) This way you can drop the file onto your Poser folder and everything will end up in their correct places. One thing to avoid is making folders like MyNiftyThingRuntime.... or C:Program FilesMeta CreationsPoser 4Runtime.... Or for that matter D:program files....

Thank you :-)

Shoshanna, there is a document in the marketplace information section that talks about how to set up the files. I saw it this morning but don't have the direct link handy.

A subpoint about names: Bear in mind that the names get truncated in the library menu, and put the distinguishing words first. If you -have- to use a long name for a morph or something, don't use "Victoria3OrVictoria2AbdomenBulge" but instead use "BulgeAbdomenVictoria3OrVictoria2" (This is a concept that used to be generally understood in the days of 8-letter filenames, but has faded lately.)

Attached Link: http://www.fallencity.net/lore/index.php

I have a tutorial on getting your .zips to contain the path information with WinZip, and I also have a tutorial on where Poser files are normally located, if anyone is interested. For folder and object names, why spell out the standard figure names? P4M, P4F, P5M, P5F, V2, V3, M, and S are pretty easy to figure out as they're very well-known. And death to "!"

And label your MAT files for the item they affect.

Some very good suggestions here... Now if somebody would get the merchants to read them!

Here's another hint for merchants: if you want people to remember whose model/texture it is, customize your thumbnails. I always recognize Dark Whisper's stuff because he has a stylized DW in the background for each thumbnail. I move my stuff all around, so I can't rely on folder names to remember whose stuff it is. 25 character item names are hard to read, if they don't get truncated entirely. If there's a small logo or name on the thumbnail, I can remember whose it is, and I'm more likely to buy in the future as I'll remember how much I like the stuff I already bought from them.

Crescent, I've been passing the link around to your packaging tute. Very useful stuff. Obj files in Libraries - A total no-no. Geometries exists to hold obj files. That's why the bloody folder is there! Use it!! If you don't know how to make an external obj, stop modelling for about half an hour and learn how to do it! Folder names - Amen to 'Death to !'. It's SO infantile, it's a joke! A folder name should be unique and descriptive, and if possible, actually refer to the product. If you churn out 50 products a year, by all means use sub-folders like JoeBlow/Dresses, JoeBlow/Hair. Otherwise, ditch the sub-folders. Ronstuff said. 'No offense meant to anyone, but I'm getting tired of commercial products that don't meet some basic standards' Well, Ron, I agree with you, but it's perhaps not always the sellers to blame. There is such a thing as enforcing standards. I broker with DAZ and they have a clearly-written, exhaustive FAQ page of what they will/will not accept. (ie. obj files MUST be external and MUST be in Geometries). Perhaps if all stores told their vendors the basic rules, some people might actually follow them. Other points - Help files PLEASE! Good ones that explain in simple terms everything the user needs to know. YOU may have had poser for 5 years, but the person who buys your product could have bought it last week. - Material names - Do we really have to have metal1, metal2, yadda, yadda, yadda? ALL names, INCLUDING obj files, should be as short and descriptive as possible. It would be great if material names actually had some connection with reality. Amd no more chair1v007.obj. Do you really think you're the first person to make a chair, and that we care how many tries it took you to get it right? MAT files - Like crescent says, mark the dratted things so we know who's they are and what they do. My MATs to switch body parts on/off have a big green ON or a big red OFF. This system can be extended to identify any MAT you make. A MAT's thumb should instantly identify it's function to the user. Rant over mac

Great idea, crescent - I think I'll do that in my first commercial product release coming to a marketplace near you soon!

Boy do I agree with all of this....especially Crescents comments about the texutre files. They are a real bear to keep track of if not labeled properly. I'm a "mover" as well. One of the nice things about P5 is that you can move stuff around pretty freely and nest folders. I try to group things as much as I can as it really helps when trying to find what I want. But the textures that don't have MAT files are really hard as there is no viewer built into the Poser material room that I could find, that let's you take a peek before you load it up :)

Oh, MAT files for commercial textures are a must nowadays! (I don't know if that's a requirement here, but IMO it should be.) I went through my V2 collection to convert to V3 and found a bunch of textures I hadn't been using because they didn't have MAT files and I'd forgotten about them. I spent most of the day doing texture conversions and MAT files so I'd realize I have them for future products. (To be fair, some of the files were purchased before MAT files were well-known.)

Sooooo....how exactly do you do these conversions to create MAT files???

If anyone's interested, this is how I personalize MAT thumbnails. 1. Render the image you want in the MAT. I render at 500x500. In this case it's a 'MAT' or 'SET' file which switches body parts (drawers in a cupboard) on/off. So I make 2 renders, one at 100% transparency and one at 50% transparency. This distinguishes on from off. 2. Import the render to a paint program and add your logo. Save it under a new name as a jpeg. It's a good idea to keep a file with the various logos in layers, so you just drag them into the render. 3. In Poser, go to Menu/File/Import/Background Picture (alt-f-i-b) and import the jpeg with your logo. 4. Move the camera to one side so your figure/object is out of frame, leaving just the background pic. 5. Now either save the MAT to a library, then edit the file to make a proper MAT. Or, if you make the MATs in MatPoseEdit or whatever, just save it to any library, rename the .rsr to match your MAT file, then delete the .pz2/.cm2/whatever. I'm sure there are plenty other ways to do this. The main point is to create an image with an accompanying logo or text which tells people what the damned thing is. I use semi-transparency to indicate an 'off' state. You can see what the body parts are, but know they're off. You could use gray instead if it's for a texture on/off. With maybe TEX/NO-TEX as an added indicator. Hope this helps. Hope people actually start doing it. LOL. mac

Mmmm, crescent, Good idea. I must add my name to MATs before I release the forhcoming packs. mac

Attached Link: http://www.fallencity.net/lore/index.php

I also have a tutorial on personalizing the thumbnails. It contains a few more steps, but I prefer mucking around in Photoshop instead of trying to compose the thumbnail image in Poser.

Cool, crescent, As I said, there are lots of ways to do this. Actually though, you don't need to compose the thumbnail image in poser. If the render size and your document window size are the same (in my case, 500x500), the image just blatts straight in. No composing. And I'd rather let poser do the saving, than reduce and convert images. But, as they say, 'there are more ways than one to make a sleeping cat thumbnail'. LOL. mac

Just been trying to install something, and thought I'd add a please do to the list Please put a read me in with some distinguishing characteristic eg read me (your name here) if they aren't all the same for your stuff then you could try numbering them, but otherwise I have to rename each one in order to avoid overwriting them. Also, if I want to check the read me, I don't want to read 300 of them searching for the right one. Shanna :-)

I second the readme request. Sooo many readme's are named readme.txt. Name it productnamereadme.txt or something along those lines. Or like Shoshanna said, put your name in the readme. Just something. It helps everyone out if it's done like this.