This is a question directed to you folks who have what you would consider a rediculously deep archive of Poser Assets to manage. How do you manage it????? for both 4 and 5 users. I am under the impression that the program itself will bog down to a crawl when its folders are bloated with a warehouse of items. At least mine seems to have done this. I didnt fully understand the finer nuances of Poser functionality when I was first bit by the "lets start downloading all the neat free stuff" bug. Now, months later, my folders are seriously overgrown. I've archived all of my .zip folders from day one and am thinking of wipeing all of my Poser, then loading from scratch. But I want a better idea of how to manage my assets for both versions so I dont wind up in this spot again. Some of you out there I know have got to have some seriously large libraries of poser assets. How do you archive them for quick reference? Yet keep your Poser program lean and mean for work. PS. If there is a resource of answers to this question please direct me to it. I perused the tutorials here but didnt find anything on this topic (may have missed it).

AFAIK it's impossible. Join the club! Seriously, though, the one thing you do have to do is over-ride the ridiculous attempt by most providers to arrange things by provider name. If you arrange folders by the name of the maker you will never find anything, and you will have a bloated and unwieldy structure. Use sensible folders like "Vicky skirts" and "Vicky shoes".

Attached Link: http://market.renderosity.com/softgood.ez?Who=hogwarden

Basically, PBooost lets you split each library (pose, character etc) into a series of 'banks' which can be switched in and out of Poser. So you can have a pose bank for Vicky MATs, a pose bank for Mike Characters etc.
In the image, I only have 2 banks... the default bank and one imaginatively called 'new bank'. I'm just about to start organising the library.

Of course, you can move stuff around between folders and banks, re-name anything to whatever you want, etc.

PBooost 1.3 is for Poser 4 only, but 1.4 is very nearly ready. It's fully Poser 5 compatible and has loads of seriously useful features. The update from 1.3 to 1.4 will be free.

If you need any more info on PBooost or have any questions, please feel free to mail me at h@horseless-headsmen.co.uk or IM me here... or even post in the forum!

Hope this helps!

Howard:)

I bought P Booost but it doesn't work with my Windows 2000 pro. Do the Test Howard has there. (((I didn't)) now I have a product, thats no use to me.

Thankyou for your reply folks. This is exactly the content I was looking for. Howard, Is there any chance of fixing the Windows 2000 pro compatablility? Perhaps this is fixed in your upgrade soon to be released:) PBoost looks like a fantastic solution. -Ironsong

.

Does this come with a read me or help file? you lost me a bit on the "banks"..but it sure looks like something I could use

Now what we would need is a sort of Poser file Database that would let you find an item based on a description, eg : Vickie - skirt would give you all the skirts for Vickie, wether they are for medieval od SF, wether they are part of a set or stand alone. Anyone has a clue ?

I just use a neurotically logical method of archiving, and wipe my poser of non essentials every few months. I do wish that CL could somehow make a poser 4.5 patch to give Poser4 the Poser5 nested libraries sigh

great idea Lyrra :)

I am confused hogwarden, I now have your PBoost 1.4 running and I like it for P4PP. It works fine on my W2000 machine, but I am moving over to my Dream Machine I just got. A VT2 (soon to be VT3) workstation with dual Xenon3.06 processors and 2 gig of ram, should speed up Poser, I can use my render cow for Vue and of course LW uses both processors. Now that I have P5 and have a collection out of control, I would sure like that update. I just have so little time to organize stuff, let along use it! Please write a plug-in that turns a 24hr day into 48hrs....I will pay whatever it costs!!!! Seriously, did you get the versions mixed up? Mick

Hmmm... Re: win2000 pro... This problem does not occur if you run NTFS drives!!!!! PBooost is perfectly happy running on NTFS under ALL operating systems. Unfortunately, I can't fix this problem as it lies within Poser and Windows. On some NT/2000 machines with FAT32 drives... some... the whole folder structure is 'locked' as soon as Poser starts. This means that folders cannot be re-named while Poser is running at all. Not even from windows explorer. The little compatability tester in free-stuff can tell you whether your folders are locked or not. Folder locks are also caused when Poser loads a file containing incorrect reference path pointers... but CorrectReference fixes these. Turtle and Nancy... Ouch! I'm really sorry you're having problems...(!) There are still ways to get your monies-worth from PBooost! Instead of using the 'switch banks' feature (which is the ONLY feature compromised), you CAN move content around even when the folders are locked. So you can move stuff from other banks into the bank Poser is looking into and out again. Many people work with PBooost like this. I suppose it depends on how you like to have your stuff organised. Mick... you've confused me! You say you have PBooost 1.4(The update I've been e-mailing out)? If so , you will be able to use it with Poser 5 quite effectively. If not, let me know your e-mail address and I'll send you the 1.4 beta. Howard:)

Something that caught me at first and locked banks as soon as I opened Poser: I had moved the default ground map to another folder. When I dropped it back in the top texture folder, Poser was happy again.

Hogwarden:
I probably got this from you and did not even realize it until now! It is hell getting over 50! Just wait until you get your first mailing from AARP!

Here is the info screen, but I did not realize it is now setup for P5. I will need to get to your website and re-educate myself. If there is one thing in Poser that is challenging for us "addicts", it is managing all of the files.

Thanks for the good work!

Hi... Fyre... Streuth! Of course... Poser was having to search for the ground texture file and locking up. There are some nasties in the Poser default libraries too... I found that ALL of the 'characters - male' figures in the Poser 4 setup have an incorrect geometry reference. The blhipnogen.obj call (in an alternateGeom entry for the hip) has an incorrect path. When PBooost 1.4 is released, you'll be able to fix these. mglant... Lol! My site might not be too much help as I still need to write all the instructions and tutorials for 1.4!! That's quite a big task which I am NOT looking forward to! H:)

I will be patient....I am busy trying to learn LW and other stuff. Mick

Two questions... 1. If you rename folders, does Poser automatically update its references? It seems that this trick works sometimes, but sometimes not. 2. Howard, can you elaborate on using P-boost without the switch banks feature? I'm going to go check the tutorial now, so if it is there go ahead and disregard this. Greg.

Wow! This is an old thread!! Hi Greg... I feel we're alone in here... hear the ECHO Echo echo? No... if you move folders in textures and geometries Poser does not correct the references. It will have a go at finding them when you load the content... but in the process, this will lock up the folders so PBooost can't switch. There's lots about the "alternative method of work" in the tutorial...:) I'm actually working really hard on PBooost II at the moment! It's looking pretty cool now, and has such useful features as "automated scene-recovery" if your banks do get stuck and you don't have CRPro. Any of the buggyness.. and apparent buggyness of PBooost 1.4 will be gone:) H:))

(chuckle) This is a very very old thread. And I cannot believe I started it. But it is a great venue aparently to see what became of the initial answers to my delema that were totaly answered here. Thankyou Hogwarden!!!!!! I rely on Pboost entirely to coordinate my poser assets and it works like a charm. I've been exploring and using it since your suggestion here and know the value of Pboost to be worth every penney and some. _Ironsong aka, Brad Rinke

Look forward to Pboost II. I've got my "safe" files in Pboost banks, so I can switch to them; but the older stuff has to be loaded first from the "Default Poses", which is riddled with bad references, made worse by my clumsy attempts to manually reorganize files. Lets just hope I don't get any more posefiles installed named "! V3 MAT ******". Thanks. Greg