I've been reading through various tutorials to do with creating mat files for Poser. Open in a text editor, remove non distributable stuff, add changes to materials and save.....save is my issue. If I use word pad, it saves it and removes formatting, thus turning the .cr2 or pz2 into a txt file and making it useless. None of the tutorials cover saving the file. How should I save it?

There are various options to hide file extensions of known file types. Turn those off (show all file extensions) and you'll get less fuss. Check under Tools/Folder Options/View tab on any open folder. Alternately, I use WinSyntax over notepad or word pad, you can get it free from download.com. It's actually a PHP code editor but it works very well for Poser files and especially Python scripts where preserving the original format of whitespace matters.

Attached Link: http://www.editpadpro.com/

Good advice from CastIronFlamingo about showing file extensions. Word Pad is a crap application! When using 'Save As' it adds a file extension, and as far as I know there is no way to stop it doing this. Notepad has an option in the 'Save as type:' called "All Files (*.*)", which allows you to save a file with any extension you like, but Notepad cant't handle large files and is anothjer crap Microsoft application. You can just use the Windows Explorer right click context menu to change or delete the file extension, but the real solution is to get a decent text editor. The text editor I use is 'EditPad Lite' its a very good editor and its free.

In OS X, the app to use is called BBEdit. It resaves the cr2 file with no change in formatting. P.S. CastIron, we have often referred to your tutorial on Poser-to-Carrara in the Carrara forum. It's been a big help to many.

Thank you for helping me figure it out. I've a program called textpad as well and just tried it all out on that and voila, it saves. Wordpad sucks! Laughs

Ah, but it was free. ")

Well i dont know if it could works but, in notepad(windows) it gives de TXT extention to de file you create, but if yuo write the name and the extention you want enclosed by "" you file will get that extention; for an example: "creating.pz2" , the files name is creating and the extention will be pz2. -Vlad

Hay Vlad, thats real cool! Thanks.

I've created some Hi Res textures and am in the process of trying to package them to market. In doing my research it seems that I must create a rsr & a png (thumb files) and a pz2 or pz3. Is the only difference between the pz2 & the pz3 versions or are they different animals all together? If so can I get more info on them somewhere?

Luckyred, they are diffrent animals. A pz3 is sometimes called a "scene" file, it saves a poser document, that is to say it saves almost everything in the Poser document window. Maps (textures, etc) and external Wavefront objects are not saved to the pz3, instead a path showing where these files can be found is saved to the pz3. A pz2 is a pose file, it saves information about variabls in a Poser item such as a character, prop, light, etc. the most common use of a pz2 is to store information about joint rotation channels (poses), but a pose file can also be used to inject many other types of variable into a Poser document, exaples are MAT, MOR, and Delta.

To apply textures to a figure you would use a pz2, specificly 'MAT Pose'. A MAT Pose applyes textures (+ other things), it does not contain the actual textures them selves, the textures still need to be distributed and installed to the correct folders before the MAT Pose will work. 'Mat Pose Edit' is a very usefull free utility for making MAT poses, you can find a link in the Free Stuff here at Rosity.

Another strategy I use with Wordpad is to start by making a copy of an existing, similar file that has the .cr2 or .pz2 extension already and then renaming it. For example, if I want to make a pose file which applies a texture to a figure, I use Windows Explorer to make a copy of a similar file I've already made (e.g., VICKYMAT01.PZ2) then rename it (e.g., VICKYMAT02.PZ2). Then I open the clone in WordPad, make the changes I need, then hit "save." WordPad then saves with file without appending a .txt extension.

I've also found when creating .pz2 or .cr2 files from scratch in WordPad that I can just go to Windows Explorer, delete the appended .txt extension, and the file works fine.

I may have done something wrong with it, but I actually installed EditPad Lite a few months ago but it crashed alot so I uninstalled it. So I went back to my sloppy workarounds with WordPad.

Problem is I think WordPad adds formatting codes, and on principle I'd rather not have those cluttering up what should really be clean text files.

Maybe I'll find the perfect clean editor someday which (a) doesn't add formatting codes, (b) doesn't crash, and (c) can handle really, really big .cr2 files.

Tguyus, I have never had any problems with EditPad Lite on my system, it has always been perfectly stable for me, but there are a large number or alternatives out there. Two that you might considder are: P F E = Programmer's File Editor ( 32-bit ). http://www.geocities.com/thestarman3/tool/pfe/PFE32.htm Or Vim. http://www.vim.org/ If you check out the text editor section of a freeware site such as NONAGS and you will find a lot more. http://www.nonags.com/