I have Poser 5 and was looking at the "Edit" "General Preferences", and noticed a "Use File Compression" option there. What exactly is that for? I can't read my Poser 5 manual because I'm still installing files from my last reformat and haven't installed Acrobat Reader as yet. Does "Use File Compression" make the .pz3 files that you save, any smaller?

Not just PZ3 files - library files too. These are all plain text files, and can be considerably compressed. The down side is that you can't do hacking with a text editor without decompressing first.

EnglishBob, how do we decompress those files?

check in your Curious LabsPoser 5RuntimePythonposerScriptsUtility folder, there are 2 scripts there. One compresses and the other uncompresses.

Attached Link: http://www.gzip.org/

Thanks, both of you. I looked for gzip but it looks too complicated for me so I guess I'll resort to python scripts (that I don't really understand either for that matter). ;o(

I don't use these files outside of Poser. I use poser, save in .png and then use my graphic program. Is it safe for me to check that "use file compression" option in that case?

Definitely, it will save you a good deal of disk space. The Poser 5 library files are supplied in compressed form already (CRZ, PPZ etc), but it's worth having for your scene files alone. They'll be saved with the PZZ extension.

Wooo whooo!!!!!!!!!!! I am all for saving disk space!!! I have multiple runtime folders. How will that work for those? I'd like to compress those too. Plus I save my .pz3 files that I'm working on my My Documents. Should I save them elsewhere?

it'll work anywhere, I keep mine in My Documents too. You can compress any runtime you want but only P5 up will be able to use them compressed.

Francemi, gzip can be used with winzip to decompress the files.

xantor, would you mind sending me a pm at 3dSC and explain that to me in details please?

Actually detail explaination here :) I have no clue how this works either. How do you compress the runtime files? I managed to compress a .pz3 file I was saving and rather than it being 60K kb, it was just over 9K kb in size. There is something in that option that says "run python" something or other. All I did was check the box "use file compression" and didn't touch the python button, then clicked OK. Do I have to do something else to compress the library files because I don't notice a difference in disk space at all.

If you click on english bobs link and click on executables and download one of the first two pc versions of gzip. Install it somewhere on your harddisk. start winzip and drag a compressed obj or cr2 into winzip, it should (in version 8) ask you where gzip is installed, find gzip and then winzip will be able to decompress the files (you only have to point to gzip once). Version 9 of winzip is supposed to automatically handle gzip files but I havent tested that.

Quote - start winzip and drag a compressed obj or cr2 into winzip, it should (in version 8) ask you where gzip is installed, find gzip and then winzip will be able to decompress the files (you only have to point to gzip once).

Is that how you compress all the zillions of library files too? Winzip, gzip... one at a time?!!

There is a script supplied with P6 that will do the job for a whole directory tree (i.e. a Runtime).

Windows menu, select Python Scripts, click on Utility Funcs.
You should see buttons for "Compress Files" and "UnCompress Files".
When you click on either of them you'll get a dialog asking you to chose a directory, and some other options which you can set.

I suggest you try it out on a copy of a small Runtime (or just unpack a single item to a temporary directory), just to get a feel of what options you want to use before running on an important Runtime.

Thanks xantor. Will try that. ;o)

lol Actually, I tried with Winzip and it works! I have Winzip version 8.1 - I chose "Open with Winzip executable" and it worked so I changed the properties of all the compressed poser files (crz, cmz, p2z, etc.) so that they open in Winzip now. That way, if I need to edit a file, all I have to do is double-click on it in my explorer. Thanks a lot for all that info!

Acadia I was answering francemi`s question.

Quote - There is a script supplied with P6 that will do the job for a whole directory tree (i.e. a Runtime).

I have Poser 5. There is a Python button just below the "use file compression", what does that do? I know Python is some kind of computer coding, but never heard of it until last year when I got Poser 5. The only coding I know anything about is HTML, and that's not really coding :)

The same instructions work for P5. Windows menu, select "Python Scripts", click "Utility Funcs", and you should see the "Compress Files" and "UnCompress Files" buttons.