Is it just me or does anyone else think that at this point in the game it's silly that MAT poses are considered "Poses" and go in the "Poses" folder? I think that they should be able to add new categories of things at this point. Not just "Figures" or "Hands" or "Poses" but also "MAT Files," "Conforming Clothing," "Soundbytes," "Backgrounds" and maybe a few other things. There. I've got that off my chest and I feel better. If I'd kept it in any longer I'd have gotten indigestion, and people would have accused me of having rants in my pants.

I'll second that! It would make it easeir to find textures or poses. While I'm at it would be nice to make MAT file in Poser without a pulg in to buy. Maybe on the next version? (hint,hint)

Well you can already have that, if you dump Poser's library interface... And P6 already has a replacement for MAT files... Material Collections.

Message edited on: 09/23/2005 15:31

Aw c'mon Bobasaur ... whazza prob, bro? NaySayGuy's been putting all his poses in the Textures folder for years. (maybe that's why he can never find any of 'em) ;=]

"dump Poser's library interface..." I didn't know you could do that. I don't have P6, but even so I should think I would have at least heard of it????? It's about time! @geep Oct. / Nov. is coming soon. I'm looking forward to it! And tell NaySayGuy to let Miss Posey out of the Textures folder! (Actually I was referring to a new category in the main interface, not the folders themselves.)

@Bobasaur

I dunno ... everytime I look at that map ... it looks more and more intimidating ... Mama don't like heavy traffic, ya know.

;=|

P.S. You can't tell NSG anything (Lord knows I've tried) ... it just goes in one ear and out the other ... prolly 'cuz there ain't nothin' inbetween to stop the sound waves, no?

;=]

P.P.S. I hope Rita doesn't get far enough north to bother you guys.

Well, with the PRPC Python script you can load and now save most content from outside Poser. I'm no longer using P6's library for anything than saving MC6's (as the Python method's broken...). Made my own library browser with my own categories ;-)

I see seriously dark skies east of the office - over downtown Dallas - but suspect we'll be fine. Of course, the expected rain this weekend may make it a bit difficult to take my daughter to Six Flags. Darn. We'll just have to sit out on the porch and watch the neighborhood cats fly by.

You can also use a sub-folder in your pose folder and call it "MAT poses" and further sub divide it into clothing mats, V3 mats,M3 mats etc, Where's the problem?

LOL @ Bobasaur .................... ;=]

Actually, I think it's the point in the game where MAT poses ought to be going the way of the dodo. Since P6, MAT poses are obsolete. You now have material collections, which can be made right in Poser without any 3rd party software and go in the material library (which is the most logical place for them). The only reason to still be using MAT poses is if you want compatibility with older versions of Poser.

OK, now I love this. Want it, have to have it. Question: Would you have to have only one Runtime? Or could you have multiple runtimes? I finally got mine organized by catagorys like Hair, Clothes, People, Poses, Animals. But it's still driving me crazy to choose a hair then have to go find a hair color and/or pose. I would love to have a hair file and then it's own mats in a subfolder dedicated to just that one hair. As it it you have to jump from character, hair, poses, props and that's just for one hair model. Or Vicky Fantasy dress in one spot with all corresponding mats right there in one or more subfolders that you could really see. Fantastic! I often open P3dO just so that I can see more but it's not always stable. To have this inside Poser would be great. A huge thumbs up from me.

I see seriously dark skies east of the office - over downtown Dallas must be the polution from all the evacuating cars. I work in Downtown Dallas and the sun was shining when i left.

Let's be logical here, most people are still using pre P6 stuff even if they're using P6. I have P6 but I still have it connected to my P5 runtime with the MAT files in. I'm not going to start messing about to change them all to suit P6 when there's really no need to! the MAT files work perfectly well in P6.

all you need to do to "convert" mat pose files to material collections is move them and rename them. I did my 10 runtimes in about 3 hours. I have found that the material room is much easier to select the proper figure because it selects what is visable, thus you wont accidently select the figure or prop behind the one you want. I copied my entire pose folder contents to the materials folder. deleted all the actual poses out of the collections folder. deleted all the MATs out of the pose folder used 1-4a Rename (freeware) to change the extentions all at once. removed all the MAT, MAT-, MAT_ etc. It also gave me a chance to clear out some rsr files and convert some to png that i had not gotten to. my runtimes seem much cleaner and easier to use now.

I don't think it's silly in the way you mean but maybe I'm looking at the whole thing differently. There are basically 2 types of file in Poser files which load geometry and files which modify or act on geometry in some way. It's a hark back to the old days of Poser and the fact that MAT poses were a hack, dreamed up by someone who looked at the code and thought "Hey, I can do this". I can't remember who that "someone" was but it's someone well known in the community IIRC.

Why don't we just have ... what everyone else uses. folders. Put figures and mats and mors and poses where we want them. Geometry and textures are where they should be, everything else should go where we choose. Everyone knows that mats are not poses, the guys who thought up that brilliant hack are probably mumbling, duh, they still don't get it.

Ariel: As long as all runtimes are linke inside Poser, you can load from any runtime you like. P3dO also has a plug in for PRPC.

Thanks Dizzi! Oh, I do hope you continue with this. I spend more time mucking though the Library than I do anything else. Takes me forever...waiting for folders to open, scrolling, backing up and going from one runtime to another. Kind of like keeping all of your clothes in a closet in a house down the street and having to run over there to try things on. Then to the hairdresser, then next door to the colorist...oops decided to wear something different so it's back to the clothes house and on and on and on. Takes about as much time. I really need a faster computer. Well my brain's fried...too much CNN.

The problem is a historical one. Poses were originally intended to be just that - but then it was found that the same file format could be used for other things. Since then, the pz2 file has been heavily overloaded with functionality.

Of course, Material Collections can only be accessed by going to the Material Room. Poses, like all of the other Poser files, can be accessed from the main Pose Room. P5 and P6, you can create sub-folders in each category. So, under your main Poses folder, create a new category called "MAT Poses", then under that category, create one called "V3", then maybe another one called "Clothing". Sure, this may seem like a lot work to set up, but once everything is organized, your workflow will be a lot faster. :) --John

John, I totally agree, that is exactly how mine is set up with sub-folders of clothing mats, hair mats, character mats etc. Works just fine! thefixer, poser coord.

LOL @ JHoagland & thefixer! I did the same sort of thing - but organised it differently..

I created (within the poses folder) categories for V2, v3, Judy etc, then within each I created MAT, Pose etc. folders...

Similar strategy, just different tactics....

(For me, it seemed to make sense that if I was working with eg. V2, then everything (as far as possible) should be under her category...)

@alexic:
"Geometry and textures are where they should be, everything else should go where we choose."

I don't entirely agree. Personally I think we should be free to set up our own file system. After all, for the majority of content the characters, geometry, textures, poses/mat files are model specific.

So it makes sense (to me, at least) that the access should follow that pattern.

However, I doubt it will ever happen, it would probably cause problems for content-providers as well as needing a major overhaul of Poser with no sexy new additions included. (Can you imagine the reaction of the sales team if they had to try to sell a new version of Poser when all they had to hook us with was a "new, sensible library system"?)

Cheers,
Diolma

Message edited on: 09/24/2005 17:16