I have a few questions, such as: Is D|S any easier to work with than Poser 5? Is the file (Lack of) system as big of a mess as P5? The screens I've seen posted seem a little more intuitive than P5's mess is. True? Having spent most of the day trying to find out where poser wants the files, then dumping it in the recycle bin, then emptying the trash, I'm looking for something that might at least work. (P5 might be ok for the programming team(?) that wrote (?) it, but not worth diddly to me if I have to keep finding what it should be able to find.) Maybe I'm spoiled by POV-Ray, but when I can put all of the required files in one folder, no subfolders, and it finds them all when needed, I consider it far superior to the mess that poser creates.

Poser has a very specific file structure, which for most products, must be adhered to. The geometry goes somewhere in "Geometries", textures in "textures", figures in "libraries/characters", poses in "libraries/poses", etc. Most products adhere to this when being installed. Many freebies may not in one way or another. If you go to the Poser forum and click on the Poser FAQ, the first question deals generally with the placement of files. Problem is that geometry and texture file locations are dependent upon what is stated in their library files. PBoost is a good way to check, fix, and change file references.

Poser has a very screwed up file structure compared to almost anything else that's available. I'm not interested in trying to learn what some programmer had in mind, I'm looking for a replacement for it. Spending an hour trying to make up for what could have been done with one "set path" line in an .ini file isn't going to happen again. Opening one of the files and searching for the locations should be the last resort, not standard operating practice. If D|S shares the same file structure, it's going to mean that I'm still looking for a replacement. I don't care for poser's interface either, too much like a video game. All D|S has to do is work a little better, and instead of me searching for the files, IT should do the searching. It shouldn't have to search, they should all be in the same folder, one character, one folder. I have one scene file for POV-Ray, the program calls more than thirty .inc files, and they're all in one folder, no sub-folders. It has no problem. That includes the basic scene, props, colors, textures, height maps, and anything else I choose to put in. For D|S to follow poser's mess would be a huge mistake.

Haven't looked at LightWave lately have you? It requires that you point (from inside LW) to a properly constructed directory structure with separate directories for objects, scenes, textures, etc. Depending on your standard filing procedure, you may need to set this for each and every project, each and every time you load a different one. No better than Poser - a little worse even. This is a $1600 3D program I'm talking about. Sorry to say, but .ini files are basically dead. Still used, but no longer supported by Windows directly. When it comes to multifile-based project structures, there are better ways. Poser sort of does this ".inc" thing, except that the includes for figures, props, geometries, and textures are within the Poser file (pz3, cr2, ps2, hr2, etc.). The difference is that Poser isn't exactly a "project-based" program. It's a content-based program, meaning that you have content (figures, props, poses) which can be reused. Instead of embedding scores or hundreds of MB into a single file to encapsulate each scene file (e.g.) and instead of duplicating the same data locally for each scene, references are made to the original files in their respective locations. The creators of Poser (Metacreations) decided on this format some time ago and it is basically too late to change (what with tens of thousands of products following this standard). What can I say? There is absolutely nothing that can be done about it either by you or by Curious Labs. I donot know what file structure D|S uses (haven't tried it yet), but it definitely depends of Poser's file structure to load native Poser files.

Daz Studio "seems" to be a mix of Lightwave and Poser, in that it is allowing content loading from a visual library folder like Poser uses for Lights, Models, etc. You click on the PNG thumbnail and the MAT or object loads into the scene. But DS stores files in a hugely more compact binary system like Lightwave objects, scenes etc. Other major (and modern) 3D programs use a similiar binary storage system. The real advantage is that Daz Studio spends only a FRACTION of the time Poser does to find and load Geom and Texture elements. So bottom line is- Daz Studio is a 2004 era 3D program that can cut your current Poser Libraries down to about 10% of what size they are now. I am realizing now that POSER will become a UTILITY program for DAZ STUDIO, allowing all kinds of old Poser tinkering around with Cr2's, etc., but if you are into some SERIOUS PRODUCTION and want ACTION, SPEED, QUICK RESULTS, the Daz Studio binary file system is great.

only way Poser is a utility for D|S is if you can export files from D|S into Poser to work on them... if you can't export from D|S into Poser then they are two totally seperate things with seperate marketplaces and uses. The community splits into two seperate entities and becomes much smaller for both.

In my case, the first thing to remember is that every other 3d program I use is only a utility to POV-Ray. It's extremely frustrating when, if a pose isn't correct, I have to re-pose, re-export an .obj., re-convert it to POV, and then try to place it where I want it in the scene. It's even worse when poser can't seem to find all the files to the subject and I have to search through the mish-mash of the poser directories. Rotate, scale, translate are no problem, but there is no way to change the pose from within POV-Ray. And while a lot of the programs will export directly to POV-Ray, none of them will import from POV. My scene files go into c:ScenesFilename(Files) and all have all of the .inc files in the same directory that are needed for the entire scene. As far as windoze and .ini file support, the POV .ini is an instruction to POV-Ray, I don't think windoze even knows about it. Guess I'll just have to wait for the beta and try it myself to see if it's better than poser.