I have this problem a lot of losing items in the runtime directory of Poser. So I'm not quite sure where to look for certain things once they've been downloaded and installed/unzipped. Does anybody else have this problem? If so how did you solve your dilemma?

-James

PS I'm looking for the morphing fantasy dress. Can anybody point me in the right direction?

The V3 Morphing Fantasy Dress is under Figures/Victoria 3 Morphing Clothes.

I solved this issue by using external runtimes for each character (i.e: V3, SP3, A3, H3, M3, D3, Luke3, Laura3, Props, Hair, Lights, etc) when I got P5 and was able to use the externals.

:lol: Whenever I can't find something (and that happens all too frequently) I switch to the PBooost bank where it rightfully SHOULD be... and ... reinstall it...

The GOOd thing with using PBooost instead of separate Runtimes is that although you do get a (potential) duplicate of the CR2, the textures and obj are still in ONE place, and is overwritten - that's also a way of checking if it's actually there at all. I do have things I've bought over time that I was SURE I'd installed... but when I reinstall there's no duplicates anywhere. So occasionally I really never did install it in the first place :lol:

If the package came in a ZIP file, I just open it in WinZip and look for the paths.
If the package came as an installer (almost all DAZ stuff), I view the readme after installing.

I save all the readme files in folders. A lot of stuff is named after the artist or some weird name. Instead of "Pool Table" under props, it might be called, "Joe Flecekestein3D" How are we supposed to remember that? Save the readmes.

I save my readmes in a Readme folder and then folders named after the brokerage and then the name of the item so that I can find them easily enough.

Files and working our what names are whos when poser is looking for say a texture, is a real nightmare.

This is a suggestion, why can't every provider use the same name for all items in all folders ie the same name used in character should also be used in geometries, textures, pose and so on why can't this be.

Or why can't we do away with folders altogether and just stuff every texture without the folders into textures folders, or I guess there may be textures called the same name?? which would cause problems.

We may find it easyer to remember item names rather than the creators names, no offence to them in anyway intended here.

Anyhow my first suggestion seems real enough.

Rowlando

Whan I do a product all of my files have as close to the same name as possible.  For example, I'm doing a set of textures for the new V4 Morphing Fantasy Collar and the files are all named with a derivative of DI_FC01 - 02 - 03, etc.  That way the textures and mat pose files are all easily recognizable.  Also, they extract to a folder named ~DI~ (for Digital Imagination) and then a subfolder for the product.  My Readme files all go to DI_Readmes and have the product name in the title, such as DI_FantCollar_Readme.txt. 

Quote - I have this problem a lot of losing items in the runtime directory of Poser. So I'm not quite sure where to look for certain things once they've been downloaded and installed/unzipped. Does anybody else have this problem? If so how did you solve your dilemma?

 

-James

 

PS I'm looking for the morphing fantasy dress. Can anybody point me in the right direction?

http://forum.daz3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=9060

I used to lose things all of the time and became so frustrated that I gave up on Poser a number of times and uninstalled it.

I tried a number of ways to sort my content, and finally settled on Multiple Runtimes.

I currently have about 40 runtime folders and know exactly what I have installed and where to find it.  Examples of some runtimes that I have:

V3 Character addons (includes the install of V3 and her morphs)
V3 Clothing
M3 Character addons
M3 Clothing
Aiko
Plants
Backgrounds/Environments
Angels and Faeries
Mermaids
Christmas
Halloween
Lighting
Poses
Props
Hair
Vehicles
Animals
Miscellaneous (for anything not large enough to warrant having  it's own runtime IE: Millennium Dragon)

A runtime is a runtime is a runtime. They are all set up using the same structure and they all function the same. All an "external" runtime is is a runtime folder that sits outside of your Poser folder. It doesn't need any special consideration and it doesn't need any special set up or any special way of installing the folder. You treat it just like you do your main Poser runtime. 

Another way you can do it is instead of using multiple external runtimes, you can set up separate sub folders inside your main Poser library folders.

For example, inside the library/character folder, you could set up sub folders for:

V3 Clothing
M3 Clothing
Aiko
Plants

*You can further sort them by adding more sub folders to the inside of those, for instance:

Inside the V3 Clothing folder you could create sub folders for each outfit*

In the library/pose folder you could set up sub folders for:

V3 Clothing
M3 Clothing
Aiko
Poses

*You can further sort them by adding more sub folders to the inside of those, for instance:

Inside the V3 Clothing folder you could create sub folders for each outfit: For example:

Morphing Fantasy Dress
Morphing Cocktail Dress
Morphing Starlette Dress
etc
etc
etc

Then when you install a texture for those outfits you put the texture inside the folder for the dress/outfit it belongs to. This way all of your textures for the MFD are inside the folder called "Morphing Fantasy Dress" and way easy to locate :)

*Another thing I do to help me find things is naming continuity.  I discovered quickly that merchants don't always name their folders the same thing from one library folder to the next. That doen't help me to find something when the folder inside the character folder is called "jane's dress", while the folder inside library/poses is called "dress MATS" or "smith_dress".  So I rename ALL of the folders that the item is creating  to something I will recognize when I look at it IE:  "Jane's Bride Gown". That way when I want to use that outfit, I can look through all of the library folders to see if I have other folders called "Jane's Bride Gown" that I know go with that dress.

I alos have many runtimes - 41 now :) Then when I have downloaded something it goes into the runtime where I think will suit best.
Some of my runtimes names;

Aiko3
Aiko3 costume
Buildnings
Plants
Hair
Animals
V3
V3 Cloth
Scene

So when I want to add... lets say a chair, then I know I most likely have placed it in my runtime called "Furniture"

The trick is the make runtime after Your way to work, then orginaze things so you will find them, keep things that are simular together.

OH and I allways have Explorer open, so I can look around in my folders, so I don't have to switch runtime folder soo often (sometimes hard to tell if a thing I want is a character or a prop :))

Love Jenny

Geez 40+ runtimes, I'm affraid to count mine. I really apreciate your input everybody. I'll give these ideas a thought, because I'm thinking about redoing my hard drive soon. And I doubt that I'll be installing so much stuff in to the Poser directory as I have in it this time.

-James

You give your braincells a good work-out, when you try to recall whether the folder had two exclamation marks, or none, was in upper or mixed case, said "MAT", or didn't.    It has to beat sudoku.

Quote - Files and working our what names are whos when poser is looking for say a texture, is a real nightmare.

This is a suggestion, why can't every provider use the same name for all items in all folders ie the same name used in character should also be used in geometries, textures, pose and so on why can't this be.

Or why can't we do away with folders altogether and just stuff every texture without the folders into textures folders, or I guess there may be textures called the same name?? which would cause problems.

We may find it easyer to remember item names rather than the creators names, no offence to them in anyway intended here.

Anyhow my first suggestion seems real enough.

Rowlando

Well, part of the problem would be if everyone used a standardized or near standardized way of naming installing the files would become a real pain.

Imagine, for example, the pool table someone mentioned earlier.   If it's a figure it would perhaps go into a folder under characters called "Game Room" and then the pool table.cr2 file would be in that folder.

Under textures another folder called game room with some easy to recognize texture names like felt, wood, etc...

Sounds great?  Sure, until the next time your out and about and find another model of a pool table you like.  You download it and install it, and because it uses similar names in similar folder it overwrites some if not all of your original pool table.   So as long as you'd be happy only having one pool table figure or spending a ton of time renaming everything in the download file before installing it or run the risk of overwriting some other files used by some other prop/figure/character.

So most artists/vendors generally go out of their way to make their directory names at least somewhat unique, thus avoiding the potential risk of overwriting something else the customer may have installed that they want to keep.

Sure, that does make it a little more difficult to find certain items like texture files and the like, but just imagine how hacked off you'd get if you had some custom textures or tweaks stored under fairly common, common sense file names only to have them overwritten by installilng someone elses distributed file?  I know the artist or vendor in question would get quite the tounge lashing over something like that.

So really your suggestion is a double edged sword, it would be great if they could implement something like that but due to the way the software works it makes installing new items a bit impractical.

Just my 2 cents worth.. :)

I end up using windows search function and a thimbnail browser program (Thumbs plus) to fond what I need, then look for it from inside Poser.
Sometimes I use Daz Studio too, it has a little easier preview and search navigation. I really hate Poser's navigation around directories, and use it as little as possible. I really wish they redid that in P7. The same ole interface was really not a bonus in that aspect.

I prefer to be frustrated once with something new and better functioning then feel frustrated every time I use it with the same ole dysfunctional content browser. I mean when you go nack and forth between the directories, the darn thing doesn't even remember where you came from, it kicks you back to the top of the list. How lame!!!!!!!!!!!!
(okay, sorry, off the soap box now. That's a HUGE pet peeve of mine with poser. I'd probably use Poser a lot more if content search was not so slow and frustrating)

I have 12 Runtimes plus 13 (12+1) Readme folders now.

I've been doing what Acadia said above:   create new runtimes, regroup folders within folders, and rename them in a way so I can easily recognize the items.

I also save readme files in the respective readme folder I created inside each runtime, plus in an overall readme folder.

In addition, whenever I purchase and download a package, I'd download at least one thumbnail or promo picture showing the product's name on it, and save it in a "product pics" folder I created inside each runtime.    
I rename the picture file to match the package or item's name, and regroup them inside the product pics folder as well.   

So whenever I want to pick an outfit for my V3 character for example, I can use Windows browser to quickly browse the pics in the "product pics" folder in my "female outfit" runtime,   and clearly SEE what options I have for her.

.

**I always install my new files manually, I put them exactly where I want them to go. I have special folders for my main groups ie clothes, character textures, hair etc. I even have a special folder just for Aery_Soul! I will also have sub folders like in clothes: V3, SP3 & A3 etc. Very little searching is ever needed. I have that many items that to do it any other way would be a complete nightmare!
**

I've created multiple runtimes, mostly divided by genre, and I've been slowly migrating my stuff over to these, but one nightmare I've run into is that so much of the clothing I have does not specify who it is for!!

Not a huge problem if I can go look it up online and find who it was intended for, but that only works if I know where I purchased it.

One request I would really like to make of content producers is that they include something simple in the thumbnail or something.  A picture of, say, a dress with a little "S3" in the corner would mean a lot to me.

Well, once I get all my stuff organized, this won't be as big of a deal.  In the future I'll install everything properly and there will be no headaches, right?  RIGHT!?

lol.

I like 3DVim's idea of downloading the product promo image.  I might start doing that and go back and do that for the stuff I can find.

Oh, and the read-me thing?

Yeah, when I first started with Poser waaay back I really got tired of everybody calling their readme the samething, so I would read it when I installed incase there was any issues to be aware of (like no commercial use) and then when the next product came along with the same named readme, I just overwrote.  I don't do that now, but back when I started, I really had no clue as to how big this hobby/obsession was going to get for me.  Going through my oldest stuff is a nightmare.

I just hope I will never have to re-install it all. (I've backed up my runtimes).  I have stacks of bizarrely named disks with loads of files that I downloaded all mixed together.  Imagine trying to figure our if that "Angels_HolySabre.zip" is for Poser or Never Winter Nights!!

Ah, the folly of youth.  (I can blame youth, I started this hobby in my late 20s, now I'm in my mid 30s, so much wiser... and balder.

Quote - One request I would really like to make of content producers is that they include something simple in the thumbnail or something.  A picture of, say, a dress with a little "S3" in the corner would mean a lot to me.

I woot for that too.

When I was new to poser I just installed things without any thoughts, and when I started to orginzed my studd into diffrent runtimes, it was hard to remeber for wich character a cloth was made.
So I had to launch Poser, bring in every human and then try the cloth to every one, just to see which it suited best ...lol

Love Jenny

I actually keep a word document (organized by category and subcategories) which lists what and where I have everything installed. As soon as I've installed a new product, I open Poser, go to that products location, verify it successfully installed, then I write down a brief description of the product and where it's located within Poser. The initial documentation is a pain, but this way I have a direct road map to what I want and I save myself countless man-hours of blind searching. For the curious minds, my document's structure is as follows:

Name=Name of Item, Location=Item's location within Poser, Description=Brief descprtion of item, Intended Character=Character(s) Item was created to be used with

1. Hair 
   (Name, Location, Description, Intended Character)

2. Clothing 
   (Name, Location, Description, Intended Character)

3. Characters 
   (Name, Location, Description, Intended Character)

4. Sets & Environments 
   (Name, Location, Description, Intended Character)

5. Props 
   (Name, Location, Description, Intended Character)

6. Poses
   (Name, Location, Description, Inteded Character)

I am a total newbee to poser. But I have been doing a mix of the above, multi runtimes, change folder names and then do a search and replace in the resource file to point at the appropriate texture, etc folder via my text editor. In most cases make my own 91x91 png image in PS for the folder icon. Those icons are nothing fancy. Just text on a plain background in a small simple font explaining what is in the folder, (ie as stated above Jane's Dress) with the bottom right hand corner having V3 or V3/SP3 , etc. telling me where it can be used. I think you get the picture. But way to much work. Again being a newbee to poser, and the fact these are basically text files you need to control-edit and or folder names inside the runtime directory structure. Excluding creating the folder structure in the runtime folders, I am surprised (unless I have not stumbled across it yet) that there isn't a py script to move things around for you automatically. Move item A from folder 1 and put it in folder 2. and edit the resource file to reflect the changed location. The whole process is time consuming to say the least. I'd rather spend my time using poser then managing content. Being on OSX, I am thinking I could automate the whole process in apple script. But again creating that script, takes time away from why I bought the product in the first place. Plus scripting is not something I care to relearn from a zillon years ago. There has to be a py expert that could whip this out in a hurry somewhere I bet and then sell it in their content store. Again I operate under the assumption this py script doesn't exist yet.

I am building something like yours but using Excel instead. This allows me to search through any category very quickly. Because of how I set it up I can browse by a character name, by hair, clothing etc. I can also browse & search in multiple catagories at once. V3 - hair for example. The biggest problem is a newbie I have been adding items faster then I can catalog them. ~ccbig~

Quote - I actually keep a word document (organized by category and subcategories) which lists what and where I have everything installed. As soon as I've installed a new product, I open Poser, go to that products location, verify it successfully installed, then I write down a brief description of the product and where it's located within Poser. The initial documentation is a pain, but this way I have a direct road map to what I want and I save myself countless man-hours of blind searching. For the curious minds, my document's structure is as follows:

Name=Name of Item, Location=Item's location within Poser, Description=Brief descprtion of item, Intended Character=Character(s) Item was created to be used with

1. Hair 
   (Name, Location, Description, Intended Character)

2. Clothing 
   (Name, Location, Description, Intended Character)

3. Characters 
   (Name, Location, Description, Intended Character)

4. Sets & Environments 
   (Name, Location, Description, Intended Character)

5. Props 
   (Name, Location, Description, Intended Character)

6. Poses
   (Name, Location, Description, Inteded Character)

I used to get really frustrated trying to find things in my runtime until I found Net Snippets.. The basic version is free, and it's a nifty little programme 'cause  it lets you drag and drop selected text and images into files and folders.  Npw when I buy a product, or download a freebie..I can easily find what I'm looking for at any time.  

NS lets you set up folders..ie my top one is Poser, and within this I've set up other folders into categories.. Base Figures, Hair, Characters, Clothes, Animals, Props etc.  

Now when I buy a product  I drag whatever text I need + an image - from the readme or the product site etc -  and this gets saved as a new named Net Snippet file into the relevant folder.   ie for Sapphire Fox Hair I would save it in:

Poser/
Hair/
AI

So when I want to find out the runtime info., or what a product looks like..or what other hair I've got for AI, I don't have to waste time trying to remember names...I just look under Hair/AI.

 It takes up hardly any screen real estate..and  opens up on the side when double clicked.  Anyway..check it out..it might help you find those lost files.  [http://www.netsnippets.com/basic/index.htm 

](http://www.netsnippets.com/basic/index.htm)

...maybe adding the name of the vendor could be added after the name of the product so that it won't overwrite another file of the same name...ie

PoolTable_Vendor1
PoolTable_Vendor2

It would also be great if poses  could be actually be named as a pose..ie Pose_Fairy_Vendor3

Quote - Files and working our what names are whos when poser is looking for say a texture, is a real nightmare.

This is a suggestion, why can't every provider use the same name for all items in all folders ie the same name used in character should also be used in geometries, textures, pose and so on why can't this be.

Or why can't we do away with folders altogether and just stuff every texture without the folders into textures folders, or I guess there may be textures called the same name?? which would cause problems.

Hehehe. I had the same problem. I solved it by reorganizing my character and Props folders to fit my own personal logic and using P3dO Explorer to do the finding. P3dO Explorer opens folders and lets me view everything instantly giving me thum nails of everything in each folder instantly. Finding things used to take some times an hour and now only takes minute or few seconds. Senosofts P3dO Explorer made my life a lot easier.

Senosoft is the place. http://www.senosoft.com/

:biggrin:

Always install/extract products into an empty temporary folder.  Give the structure a look, then place the library folders where you want them, drop the extraneous stuff (ReadMes, promotional pics, pz3s, etc.) where you want it, then drop the rest where it belongs.

Vendor habits WRT dir structure are generally pretty absurd (checked out your libraries folder lately?), but this will at least allow you to know and control where the library folders wind up.

I thank you all for your input and ideas. :thumbupboth:

Cheers,
James