As some of you may be aware, Poser doesn't care about pathnames in the character, prop, and pose files. If you have abc/shirt1.jpg and bcd/shirt1.jpg, Poser will load the first one it finds, ignoring the folder name. In the case of P5, Poser will load the first one it finds in the Runtime order (one in the P5 Runtime will load before one in the Downloads Runtime, etc.) I've also noticed that when I create a character or prop file in P5, the shader node section only has the texture filename (i.e., shirt1.jpg) with no folder names. Now why would it do this if it actually used the pathnames? Theoretically, you could just put the texture filename in the correct line in the MAT Pose file and not put :Runtime:Textures:foldername in front of it. So my question is, does anyone know if Poser 6 will use the pathnames to find textures or ignore them like P4, PP, and P5 do now?

curiously watches, cuz would like to know too

i think that it will to continue what it's predessors did and choose ignorance as its destination. But thats just my thought.

Here is something which might come in handy for finding the paths of texture files. I often forget where I put a texture file. I use the "Texture Manager" to see the file names, complete with paths, of the last 11 texture files I used.
If you don't know how to do this, follow these steps the first time.

1. In the P5 Materials Room, click (on Diffuse Color, for example) to create a "New Node... 2D Textures... Image Map".
2. After the Image Map node is created, click on the Image Source filename (the default is "none"). This opens the "Texture Manager".
3. Click on the filename (or "None") in the Texture Manager.
4. You will see a list of your recently used filenames, complete with paths.
   And you can select a filename by clicking on any name in this list.

"I've also noticed that when I create a character or prop file in P5, the shader node section only has the texture filename (i.e., shirt1.jpg) with no folder names. Now why would it do this if it actually used the pathnames?"

I was under the impression that it could do that in the nodes because the texture was already loaded in at that point and was merely being referenced.

--Rebekah-- edited for some extremely bad grammer

Message edited on: 02/23/2005 23:05

Rebekah, I can understand that for an item that is currently loaded, but it saves it that way to the library or scene file. So when you open Poser later and load that item or scene file, it's finding the texture somehow and loading it - without the pathnames.

I think that I know what you mean now. Sure there is a full reference to the texture if it listed as a texture map for a material, but you are talking about when a material is added to a merely a node and saved back out without a complete reference...how does it find the right texture. Gotcha. You know, I never really thought about it before. --Rebekah--

The fact that Poser ignores pathnames is a blessing. Otherwise one would have to use the stupid directory names that are referenced in the cr2 file and you would end up with a terrible mess of a file structure. If I need to locate the CharacterX skin texture files, I know at once it will be in runtimetexturesvicky3CharacterX. If I followed the file structure in the cr2, it would be something like runtimetexturesvendornamemilfigurestexturesCharacterX. This has superfluous nesting levels, and makes life difficult when you can't remember the vendor name (and why should you?). It's a great relief that I can organise my textures in a sensible structure and Poser will still find them no matter what is encoded in the cr2 or pz2.