The Free stuff area has been this way a long time I realize, but it could be made better for searching purposes. For instance, Poser specific items like Poser 3 textures as opposed to just "Textures" for narrowing search options would be a great help. Just a thought.

sad to say, but searching on Poser 3 stuff is going to be relatively easy; there's not much left. Greylight, maybe Phil C (well, he used to..;) are the only sites that come to mind. I'd try a Google search, which often brings up a 'canned' search of sites that might do for you.

I don't have a problem at all with a Version subset, but it would have to wind up having at least 5 categories (Poser 3,4,5, Propack, Daz Studio [there, I've said it..;)] maybe even Vue 4 and up) I think that's going to wind up having a lot of extra coding (number of categories * number of versions), not to mention sorting through 10,000+ items. I'd love it if it happens, but I'm not holding my breath..;)
Y'know, the easiest way to get Poser 3 stuff would likely be search, and then page to the 'last' page of the matches. Not guaranteed (there's some things Poser 3 didn't do that the later versions did), but probably the way to go for now.

Message edited on: 01/17/2005 10:29

The freestuff area search engine is bad, you type in Mike 3 texture, and it returns 1502 results that aren't textures for M3 but instead are any item in the data base that has to do with a mike figure (from poses to props) or any textures in general. It does this sort of thing with most searches. I can't recall exactly when the search engine changed but it used to work, so that if I typed Vicky 2 texture, you only got Vicky 2 textures. It was so specific that you sometimes missed out on textures that said for Victoria, or V2. Anyway it'd be nice if it could work the way it did before.

Just did a little test MIKE TEXTURE gave 1467 results These would be any thing refering to MIKE OR TEXTURE +MIKE +TEXTURE gave 22 results These would be anything refering to MIKE AND TEXTURE I guess that it uses the same logic as the Market place search which is available if you press the help button on that part of the search page. By the way- +(MIKE MICHAEL) +TEXTURE gave 52 results so you can add in the items refering to MICHAEL AND TEXTURE at the same time. I'll have to admit Poser 3 might be a problem as it will probably find 3's all over the place You could trawl through the results of +POSER +3 P3 and POSER3 found some but how can I be certain that was all of them.

Thanks for that nghayward, very useful info!

It is too bad about poser 3 stuff. Going to LAST page usually means a large percentage of the links are broken. V3 is great and all But I love how fast my machine renders poser 3 figures. The biggest problem (tragedy) about Freestuff has been a problem for years now. Busted links. Stuff no longer available. Hard drives are big enough now, can't renderosity provide a place for freestuff to be uploaded to, where it will stay archived for a thousand years or so? The file locker is a good tool, but I have seen members get all huffy about something and quit renderosity and take all their stuff with them on countless occasions. Artists. :::shrugs::: go figure. Anyway I think the freestuff area is still a HUGE draw to this site, it deserves to be kept swept and mopped and dusted and fresh IMHO.

Try using quotes and 'OR' the query: "poser 3" OR Poser3 OR P3 yielded 22 results 'AND' works 'NOT' doesn't seem to work but you can use '-' I'd like to see at a minimum, figure and version categories and perhaps major item categories like clothing, skin textures etc. The basic search functionality seems to be there but the database needs to be set up to take advantage of it. It shouldn't entail any additional coding of the search engine.

If you're using Poser 5, but using Poser 3 figures for render speed (and they are still very good figures), you might want to just use Poser 4 figures instead, since they have the same polygon counts and should render with the same speed, with the added benefit that there are more textures/extras available for them.

This is probably a good time to explain that I am currently in the process of working my way backwards through the freestuff checking for broken links or any other problems and fixing them up :-) So far I have checked through 4,395 Poser items and fixed or deleted 1185 links. It's taken me 3 months so far and I expect to have finished by the end of February, at which point I will turn my attention to the other software sections if need be. So if you go to the last page of Poser freestuff now, you should find a much easier ride than previously ;-) Cheers!

I'm not complaining, freestuff is free stuff after all! Just making some observations. I strongly believe in that saying "don't look a gift horse in the mouth" still not sure what the heck it means. Seems to me the folks of Troy should have looked in the mouth before wheeling it into the city. Oh well. Thats a big job sorting all that stuff, and I have taken much more than I have contributed over the years, The free stuff area is much appreciated.

And having a designated "free stuff mod" is MUCH appreciated! Thanks, Karen, for taking this on. {hug} A note to others: even if the search function will return say, textures for Vicky 2, the author of the file MUST include that information in the file description. Sometimes it is on the thumbnail! How often have we wondered which figure a dress was for or which dress a texture was for because the author assumed that we could identify all of them at a glance? I try to rename files when I download, but sometimes have had to open it later and see if there was some info inside the zip. Carolly

I believe that just because something is free, doesn't mean it should be of low quality, or that one has to put up with countless irritations (such as broken links) in order to get it. The free stuff section was what first attracted me to Renderosity (like many others, I suspect) and I think keeps a lot of members here and this community so alive through the generosity of those who contribute. So that's why I volunteered to try and tidy it up a little; I was also frustrated with the number of broken links and so on. I'm really looking forward to getting through the whole lot and reporting back on how many we've managed to tidy away :-)

@Karen1573- there are some freebie link-checkers out there on the web that may automate some of the checking. I don't know what procedures you're using, but I do something of the same thing with my list (about 1,800 links, a vast majority from Freebies here). I have a listing of '404' sites (actually a database). If you like, IM me and I can send the 404's to you... it might speed things up. I know what you're going through, and you have my sympathies. Thanks for doing what you're doing.

Thanks pakled, IM sent :-)

oh man, I wish they would update it and takeout the old stuff from 4 years ago. afterall, it is 2005! lol. Some of it is so old that the links are no longer there. :)

zippyozzy, And some of that "old stuff" is still quite welcome and valuable! Props don't age quite as fast as the latest fad-a-minute figure. There are also people who get the Poser3 disk on a magazine and want something to play with. Would you deny them that opportunity? There are people who need several hundred figures in a scene, and only the P4 figures will do, given the massive overhead of the latest models. Would you deny them all the clothing and textures and props they need? Carolly

Karen, your efforts are much appreciated. The automated link checker idea would help for the sites that have just gone away but it's probably a good idea to do a manual check is the site is still there. It's conceivable the item may still be there, just moved and the link not updated I suppose. I agree that even the old items are still valuable to someone. Just for fun, try doing an image with some of those old gems.

I'm confused by the Free Stuff section because we're suddenly seeing great quality items from Nerd3D (for example) I'd downloaded several years ago. It's hard to figure what is really new. Do we have some way to label stuff as "repost," and put it in a "repost" section, rather than "What's new?!"

Hi B_B, that functionality is not present at the moment... although I do have hopes for the future ;-) Nerd is redesigning his site at the moment so he's resubmitting all his links to get them working again. I am trying to spread them out so the freestuff doesn't get "flooded" with just his stuff (this has happened before and caused a lot of complaints.) We don't like to edit the title or notes without the creator's direction, but you could always IM nerd himself and ask him if he would consider putting "repost" in the title or notes. Alternatively, looking at the download count is a good way to tell how old something is - if it already has over a thousand downloads and it's on the first page of What's New, it's sure to be a repost ;-)

Since the download count is maintained, perhaps it would be possible to retain the original posting date as well. Still, the best solution would be a couple of checkboxes for the submitter to label an item as a repost or updated.

Maybe one thing to consider eventually is a feature where you could select to see ll new submissions within a selected period of time. Ex: last week, last 30 days, whatever. Thanks for the explanation of Nerd's stuff. It's actually great. Back in my early Poser days, my characters didn't have many clothes, so they wore Nerd's stuff for hundreds of renders.