Hi everyone just had a couple questions about how to use poser 7 and some products.

I can't figure out how to use injections (GND athletic, NGM, etc) and new characters for V4. Also, none of my characters end up rendering like the picture in the product sample images. Is this becasue there are different textures, or do i just have the wrong settings and stuff?

Thanks for your help.

GND Athletic is for V3 so the morphs won't work on V4.  The reason your renders aren't looking like the promo's is probably a mix of things like lighting and render settings.   You could always fire a PM to the vendor to see which lights etc they used.

Here is an essay of information that I have been compiling which is geared to the brand new user. **It has links for free characters, tips on clothing, file organization, newbie tutorials etc.
**
V3, M3  and Aiko are free.  3D Models Pack  Free from Daz at Download.com

You just need the morphs packages to change their shape. 

A picture to show you the file structure of a Poser Runtime can be found here:

http://www.daz3d.com/support/faq/index.php?id=94

Basically, what it boils down to in a nutshell:

If you are looking for a Character or a piece of clothing/shoes, in Poser you will find them in libraries/character. These files have the extension cr2 (uncompressed) and c2z (compressed)

If you are looking for hair, you will find them in either library/character/hair OR library/hair

If you are looking for character texture addons, hair textures, clothing textures, you will find them in library/poses. These files have the extension pz2 (uncompressed) and p2z (compressed). Sometimes on the rare occasion, a merchant will package their textures so that they go into the "Camera" folder (.cm2 files). If that is the case then you can either apply them from there, or do what I do and change the file extension to .pz2

If you are looking for props, they are located in library/props. These files have the extension pp2 (uncompressed) and ppz (compressed)

Sometimes you will find clothing and hair or shoes in library/props too, depending on whether the item is actually created and saved as a figure, or it was created and saved as a prop.

Figure (cr2) items like hair and clothing are "conformed". Figure items like wings are "parented"

Props are parented. Some props that are made for a specific figure will seem to go where they are supposed to and "stick" without you having to do anything. Those are called "smart props". You can use those on other figures, but you have to use the XYZ trans dials to place it where it belongs on the different figure. Then you need to parent the item to that new figure's body part.

If you are just starting, it's best to get started on the right foot. DO NOT just install files into the runtime! That will only lead to frustration because you won't be able to find anything, and not all files are packaged equally and land up all over the place.

Here is a link to a tutorial on using multiple runtimes.

http://forum.daz3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=9060&start=0

http://www.drgeep.com/p5/run/run.htm

Another tip is to never just unzip or install anything directly to your runtime. Always unzip or install to a separate folder. Then browse through the folder to have a look at the structure of where things are going and make sure that it's in "proper runtime structure" so that when you move it to the runtime, they get into the proper folders.

Once you get your files installed, the next thing you want to do is to start making things :)

Here are some great newbie tutorials that will get you through the bare basics. They are for Poser 5, but it is still the same in newer versions:

http://trekkiegrrrl.dk/tut1.htm

http://www.poserguide.nimprodaction.com/issues/issue2/cover.htm

http://www.poserguide.nimprodaction.com/issues/issue3/cover.htm

http://www.poserguide.nimprodaction.com/

http://www.canary3d.com/tutorial/3d-intro.htm

http://www.ebonshire.net/tut-posb/index.php

http://www.cooltuna.com/poser/poser-tutorials.html

Dr. Geep Studios ( Basic to Advanced Tutorials. Periodically offers free classes for Poser)

http://www.anniescorner.net/posertuts/GettingStartedinPoser5.htm

Getting Started in Poser

If you don't have the Daz  V3 or the V4 figure, you should pick one or both. I'd personally suggest that you go with the V3 one as it's been around for years and there is a TON of freebies around for her, as well as a TON of stuff in the various Poser stores.  It will be a couple of years before V4 catches up with clothing content and stuff, especially FREE stuff  and  V3 stuff won't work on V4 because they are different figures. There are work arounds to getting clothing from a figure to fit another figure. I've included information on that further down. 

Victoria 3

3D Models Pack  Free from Daz at Download.com

Victoria 4

But if you want to change the look of her face and body, or use any of the available character addon packages, you need to buy the head and body morphs.

The V3 head and body morphs are here:

http://www.daz3d.com/shop.php?op=itemdetails&item=3008

There is also "Michael 3".  He is available free at the link above at download.com.  Again, like Vicky, you need the head and body morphs to change the shape of his head and body. Those can be found here:

http://www.daz3d.com/shop.php?op=itemdetails&item=3009

If you have both figures, you can get both of their head and body morphs in one package, here:

http://www.daz3d.com/shop.php?op=itemdetails&item=3010

NOTE:  You can use the textures from the character addon packages without having the head/body morphs. 

If you want to change the look of the head/body and have the head/body morphs, do the following:

Install the head and body morphs. 

Locate the morphs you want to use in the "Poses" folder.

Find the set of morphs you want to inject IE:  Full Body, Full Head.... or just certain parts. 

Left  click the picture

Click the Single Checkmark at the bottom of the page.

Go to your Parameter Dials and start turning dials.  (make sure that you have the part of the body you want to adjust as the active one IE:  Morphing the ears, make sure you have the had selected.

Also, you can find many, many free morphs and textures for Vicky, and Aiko, and some even for David and Michael.  So you don't have to turn any dials if you don't want to.  Here are a couple links to get you started.

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/freestuff/index.php?user_id=55140

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/freestuff/index.php?user_id=178490

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/freestuff/index.php?user_id=105158

Using ready made character addons is pretty easy.   You need to have the figure and it's head and body morph packages installed.

Load up the figure IE: Vicky

Go to the Poses folder, and instead of looking for your morphs from the packages, look for th character you want to use.  Left click the image that has INJ, click the SINGLE checkmark at the bottom and the morphs for that character's look is injected into your figure.  No dial turning necessary.  Of course if you want to tweak the settings you can, but that's not mandatory.

Next locate the textures (if the package has some). They will be usually in the same library menu as your INJ that you used.   Left click the image for the texture and use the SINGLE checkmark to apply it.  If you don't like that texture, apply another one overtop. 

You can even use a texture from another package.  IE: Morphs from package A  and textures from package C.  Or morphs from packag A, texture from package C, eyes from package D, lips from package E.  the combinations are endless :)  If the packages have their head morphs seprate from the body ones, you can mix and match morphs too. IE: body morphs from package A with head morph from package D.  That allows for even more versatility.

There are lots of sites out there that has free V3 character addons, and some that have for Aiko, Michael and even David.

Hair, clothing and textures are all figure/item specific, which means:

Michael 3.0 needs hair and clothing and textures made for Michael 3.0
Victoria 4.0 needs hair and clothing and textures made for Victoria 4.0
Victoria 3.0 needs hair and clothing and textures made for Victoria 3.0
Victoria 2.0 needs hair and clothing and textures made for Victoria 2.0
Aiko needs hair and clothing and textures made for her.

Like figures, a texture made for one hair style can only be used on that hair style.

Clothing is also specific when it comes to textures. A texture for a pair of pants, won't fit all pants... just the pants that it was made to fit. Same with all clothing items.

Sometimes you can manage to  clothing item to fit another figure by tweaking of dials and increasing or decreasing the scale percent, but that doesn't always work. Sometimes a clothing item for Victoria 2 will fit Victoria 3, but their joints are different so posing a figure wearing clothing not made for it specifically will be hard.

Some figures can share items more easily than others, here is a link that will help sort that out:
http://market.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?message_id=2682279

There are 3 types of clothing:

Dynamic:  This is clothing that you use inside the Cloth room. It takes longer to work with and there is a bit of a learning curve, but it's not too bad, but the results are more appealing in that the clothing actually looks more natural instead of "posed and stiff".  I have included information about this type of clothing further down.

Confroming- Non Morphing:  This is clothing that you conform to a figure. The clothing is made to fit the base figure.  If you change the shape of the figure you will also have to refit the clothing, which isn't always easy if there aren't any corresponding body morphs in the clothing.  Plus posing a character in positions where they are not nearly upright is difficult.  But many prefer this type of clothing over dynamic.

Conforming-Morphing: This is the same as conforming-non morphing, only there are morph dials that you can turn that have corresponding body morphs for easier fitting.  This is the preferred type of conforming clothing because it's easier to fit.

Using a clothing item on a figure that it is meant to be used on, after you have added morphs and adjusted the shape of the body,  can be problematic because the clothes are made for the default figure shape and not the new morphed up shape. So the clothing no longer fits and you get parts of the body showing through the clothing after you add morphs and change the shape of the body.

There are programs that can help fit clothing from one figure to another, or even from the same figure to one that has been "morphed up" using their morph packages.

The Tailor, which can be bought here:
http://www.daz3d.com/shop.php?op=itemdetails&item=677

Wardrobe Wizard (I use this one and it's great). It can be purchased from PhilC's site here:
http://www.philc.net/WardrobeWizard.htm

Clothes Converter, which can be bought here:
http://www.daz3d.com/shop.php?op=itemdetails&item=3069&cat=131

Things like hair can be used across all figures just by tweaking the scaling and trans dials and then parenting the hair to the figure.

Poses are something else that can be used across most human-like figures with just a bit of tweaking to dig out a hand, or fix a shoulder.

Dynamic Clothing (more information):

A nice thing about dynamic clothing is that you can easily use clothing on various figures.Here are some tutorials on how to use dynamic clothing in the cloth room:

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2665209

http://www.philc.net/CC_sampleVideo.htm

http://www.poserfashion.net/howvic3dress1.htm

http://drgeep.com/p5/cr/cr.htm

Here are some links to some great FREE dynamic clothing:

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/freestuff/index.php?username=mapps

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/freestuff/index.php?username=svdl

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/freestuff/index.php?username=Stegy

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/freestuff/index.php?username=carib98

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/freestuff/index.php?username=teyikung

It's also possible to make conforming clothing into dynamic clothing:

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/tutorial/index.php?tutorial_id=868

And it's possible to take a conforming outfit and work with it in the cloth room so that parts of it act dynamic.

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2517340&page=1

These are all things I learned along the way and found to be valuable, so I try to pass them along because I know how frustrated I was when I first got Poser.  Hopefully you will find the information helpful.

So far as organization goes...

You have 2 options that can help you with organizing and being able to find things:

1.  Create sub folders inside the library folders.

You can move around the files inside the library sub folders. 

Don't move, touch or rename files or folders  in the top level of the library folder that carry the name of the merchants, or the "Morph" or the !DAZ  folder because those are morphs and need to stay where they are.

Just work with the standard ones inside the Library folder such as camera, faces, hand, pose, props, hair, lighting, character. 

Leave the files inside the geometries and texture folders alone.

Right now you have a hodge podge of files for various figures in each folder plus props, poses, lights etc.

Open the character folder and create sub folders for each of your figures IE: V3, V4, M3, D3, Aiko, Apollo etc.  Do the same for each of the other library sub folders.  You can also create other folders too, such as "Poses" or "Props" or "Backgrounds" or "Hair" etc.

Then go through your files in each of the library subfolders and move them into the appropriate folder for the figure they belong.

Things like lights, and poses and hair and props are universal items really, and can be used across figure, so I like to have those separated instead of filed by "figure" because I often use V3 poses on Aiko and hair for Posette on V3 etc.

You will run into a problem for items that are for more than one figure. Like where do you file those?  For exxample an outfit that is for V3 and M3 and Aiko and SP3: where do you file them? If you put them in the V3 folder, then you forget that they can be used for M3 and Aiko and SP3 too. It was this complication that prompted me to move onto using external runtimes (described below).

I did it this way at one time and it worked well enough,well except for items that could be used on a few figures like I described above.   I decided I wanted even more organization, and I didn't like having one huge runtime because it was impossible to really burn it to a CD/DVD without having to break it into bits and pieces.  Plus it took Poser forever to load because the runtime was so big.  So I tried option 2 below.

**2. Multiple External Runtimes
**
It's important to understand that a runtime is a runtime is a runtime no matter where on your hard drive or external hard drive it sits. 

All an external runtime is, is a runtime that is not inside the Poser folder.

All "multiple external runtimes" mean is that you have more than one runtime sitting outside the Poser folder. They all have the same folder structure as the main runtime in your Poser folder.  I have 42 at last count and I  know exactly what is inside each one and I know where to look for files.

Another nice thing about external runtimes is that you can have specialty runtimes for various holidays such as Christmas or Halloween or different themes that you like to use sometimes but not everyday. The benefit of this is that the runtime is often small enough that you can burn it to a couple CD's or a DVD and save yourself some hard drive space instead of having stuff on your hard drive that you only use once or twice a year. The following is the link where I learned to create and use external runtimes. When I was trying to do it I was really confused about the concept but I eventually caught on and now I won't ever go back to using just one runtime.

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

Some of the runtimes that I have are:

V3 Character addons (includes the V3 figure and her morphs)
V3 Clothing
M3 Character Addons (includes the M3 figure and his morphs)
M3 Clothing
Aiko
Christmas
Halloween
Angels and Faeries
Mermaids
Millennium Kids
Backgrounds and Environments
Props
Poses
Hair
Lighting
etc. etc. etc.

I like knowing that when I want to add some hair, that all I have to do is go to my "Hair" runtime and all of my hair files are inside. If I want a prop, then I go to the "Props" folder.

If I want to make a mermaid, I go to my "V3 Character" runtime and load V3, apply a MAT POSE and morphs. Go to "Hair" runtime and find a hair figure/prop that I want to use. Go to "Mermaids" folder and load up my mermaid tail and textures and anything else mermaid related including mermaid poses. Go to "Lights" and find a nice set of lights that fit my scene and then render. 

I know some don't like to go runtime to runtime, but I find that having so many runtimes that each one isn't gargantuan and doesn't take very long to load. And  as I said I love to know where I can find things directly without having to search through unrelated stuff. If I am looking for V3 clothing, that's all I want to see. I don't want to wade through M3 and Aiko things or Poses and Hair etc.

Setting up an external runtime is easy.

1. Create a new folder;
2. Name it whatever you like IE: V3 Character Addons;
3. Open folder;
4. Create new folder called "Runtime";
5. Right click and create a new text file. Change the name to "Poser.exe". Accept the warning that changing the file format etc.  You want to change it.
6. Create a new folder called "Readmes". Use this to place all of your readme files for easy reference.
7. Create a new folder called "Templates". If you do texturing you can place the  texture templates that come with some packages in there. Or you can just delete them if texturing is not you thing. In that case you won't need a "templates" folder.
8. Open "Runtime"
9. Create the following folders inside "Runtime"

• Geometries
• Libraries
• Reflection Maps
• Textures

That's it, your done.  Copy this structure for as many runtimes as you want to create and rename them to whatever you want your runtimes to be called.

Your runtime paths will then be something like this:

Runtime Folders V3 Clothing Runtime
Runtime Folders M3 Characters Runtime
Runtime Folders Halloween Runtime
Runtime Folders Christmas Runtime

You can place your runtimes anywhere you like. On my old computer I had them inside "My Documents" on my C Drive in a folder called "My Runtimes".

On my new computer I have them on my partitioned D Drive in a folder called "Poser Runtimes", and I back them up on my G External Drive..

You might also read my post in the following thread on how to further organize your multiple runtimes using naming continuity so that you know what belongs with what as you go from folder to folder in your library.

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?thread_id=2704637&page=1#message_3024920

Damn! thanks a ton everyone. Didn't think anyone would post. special thanks to Acadia for the awesome tut.

Another quick question, is it ok to rename folders so they are called what i want them to be in Poser? or will i lose the link to those files?

I think this might have been answered in the tut above but im not sure if i was understanding correctly.

No, don't rename anything until you REALLY know what you are doing. objects and textures are referenced in files by thier paths, and if you change those, poser can no longer find them.

ok that could be part of the problem why poser cant find texture files. good thing i only renames a couple.

People spend a LOT of time when they distribute content fixing paths n such. Some things CAN be renamed, but unless you know what you are doing, you'll end up reinstalling a lot of busted content in a very short time.

Just install things into separate runtimes for now, and use that organisation until you learn more.

im not to confused by having one runtime. actually im more confused with using multiple runtimes. i read acadis stuff a couple times now and i dont really understand what im looking at. btw, i used poser 5 a while (years?) back and i just recently got poser 7 so thats where my skill lies. lol

anyone wanna aim/msn/icq help me?

Believe me, you REALLY don't want to just dump everything into one runtime.. it'll quickly become huge, and startup and content search will become a nightmare.

My main runtime has ONLY what's need in it. python utilites, and the V4.2 crap.. everything else lives in it's own catagorised runtime.. christmas, plants, buildings, Freak, ect.

I only activate whatever runtimes I'm using, and remove inactive ones every few weeks, so poser runs faster, and so searches go smoother.

If I want to stop using a figure or reinstall a catagory, I can then just delete the old one, and only install what ever I want in it, instead of hunting through a 20 gig runtime folder.

There's a very GOOD reason why they made multiple runtimes possible. USE THEM and have smoother/faster operation and less organisation work for yourself, or deal with the mess you've created a few months from now.

ok i have all of my content stored in a seperate folder. (all my content meaning before i installed it into the runtime folder.) Should i just delete everything and start over? and can someone explain how the multiple runtimes thing works, mainly how do you specify what runtime folder you want to search through once your in poser.

and can you do seperate runtimes even if its an installer?

Quote - ok i have all of my content stored in a seperate folder. (all my content meaning before i installed it into the runtime folder.) Should i just delete everything and start over? and can someone explain how the multiple runtimes thing works, mainly how do you specify what runtime folder you want to search through once your in poser.

and can you do seperate runtimes even if its an installer?

Go to that thread and read through it a few times.  It's the thread that taught me about external runtimes.  It even shows you how to point Poser to them.

http://forum.daz3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=9060&highlight=runtime&flatnum=1

One thing to keep in mind is that a runtime is a runtime is a runtime. They are all exactly the same and work exactly the same. The only difference between the main Poser runtime and an external one is that the external one sits some place else on your hard drive and not inside the Poser folder.

All "multiple external runtimes" mean is more than one runtime sitting some place else on your hard drive.  They all function in the same manner as the one inside your Poser folder. And you install content into them in exactly the same way because they have the exact same file structure.

What I posted above is a great deal to wade through. I suggest that you print it out and read through it  a few times because it's a lot to absorb.

thanks ;)

ok uinstalled everything. restarting now. multiple runtimes here i come.

ok sortta got the folder architecture working. one question. for installers like V3, V4, M3, etc... do i jut let those install to the poser 7 directory or should i change them to go where i want them to go.

ie: im installing V3. Should i install it into the Poser 7 directory, or should i install it into the "V3 Character Addons" runtime folder i created?

ok i did a test run on V3 body morphs. I installed it to the Poser.exe that Acadia had me make in the V3 character addons folder. Was that what I was supposed to do?

ok i think i know what im doing now. all i have to do is add the runtimes to the list once im in poser. cool.

You don't have to wait for Poser to locate the poser.exe file.  When it starts to search, hit cancel and I think with the next window you are asked to browse to the folder you want to install the files to.

I would suggest that you not install them directly to any runtime. Instead create a folder on your desk top. Mine is called "Unzipped"  and install and unzip your files into there first. That way you can look through the library folders and sort your content the way you want, then you can move it all to the runtime you want them to be in.

Installing/unzipping to a folder on your destop allows you to see what is being installed. While daz installers put folders pretty much where they belong, not all zip files do. 

o yea thats what i do

ok i got it so far. if i were to get the Victoria 4.2 pro bundle, is the Victoria 4.2 Morphs++ the thing i need to use body and head morphs (ngm, new characters, etc)?

Yes, the Victoria 4.2 Morphs++ has the default DAZ-produced morphs.

Note that some content creators make their own morphs though, and don't require the default morphs (NGM is one such package). Usually a character will list the Victoria 4.2 Morphs++ package under requirements if it is necessary.

Acadia this is awesome information.  Thanks so much for all the time and effort it took to put it together.  I think it deserves a sticky so all the newbies and not so newbies have easy access to it.:biggrin:

agreed

up in the sky, it's a bird, it's a plane, it's a frog, no not a plane, nor bird or frog, not even Underdog ... it's Acadia to the rescue :-)

As for injections on V4.2 has anyone had major problems with them?  I have. For custom morphs like blackheared or thorne make, no problem they all load fine, but if it is a custom character uing DAZ morphs they don't load (I do own all the morph packages)

Here is the real kicker, say for example I load "Vampire Hunter by KM" nothing happens, but if I hit the "load all morphs" in the DAZ folders the Vampire character suddenly applies (not singling out this one character it has done this on all most all the ones I have tried I suspect the ones it did work on used custom morphs)

I have uninstalled and reinstalled 3 times and I have manually removed all of teh V4.1 stuff (which I am considering going back to). It sucks if all the morphs ahve to be loaded in order to insure a character will load. The whole idea behind morph injections was to allow you to load only the morphs you are using.

Just as a further not these characters worked fine on V4.1. It seems like the dials are loading but not the deltas.

That's a "new" feature for V4.2: all DAZ morphs must be manually loaded before applying character morphs which use them.

DAZ has taken a step back in morph technology, going back to the Millennium 3 way of using INJ for everything.

Not sure if it is happeing to everyone or just me :-(

Quote - Not sure if it is happeing to everyone or just me :-(

Hehe.  Same thing happened to me, too.  I posted about it a couple of days ago.  The thread is somewhere in the forgotten wastes of page 2, I believe.

Well if it is a wide spread problem let's hope that means a patch is on the way :-)

It's not a problem, it;s a feature :-) I just loaded viclie injected all her morphs and resaved. Ta da!

-Sarah

 You're not suppose to need to inject all of her morphs, it makes the character file huge. The whole idea behind injections is to avoid needing to have all the morphs loaded all the time. The early poser and DAZ figures were all loaded all the time, DAZ created injections to bring the file size down, it seems they have messed up their own tech. I hope we see a V4.3 very soon or I am going back to 4.1 :-)

I don't know. In the forums they said you will need to inject her first before using characters we used for 4.1 , I didn't hear any mention of a fix. But that would be nice if they made one :-)

-Sarah

 Would be nice since who wants to inject 200 morphs to use the 8 you need :-)

blushes

me................lol

First thing I did after installing V4.2 was inject the Morphs++, muscle morphs and creature morphs and save her Vickieness out fully loaded and ready to go.

I did the same with A4 as well.

Well A4 is really just another V4 morph pack, so yo could have just added her to your V4 :-)

Do keep in mond though that morphs are additional coppies of the characters object geos. The fully loaded Cr2 for V4A4 (all v4 and A4 morphs loaded) is about 73 meg the "un-injected file" is 1.2 meg. Makes a big difference how many morphs are loaded :-) Makes a big difference on how much ram you a using too.

Back to the original topic... I have a couple questions.

When I create external Runtimes, and then want to use them in Poser 7, do I need to load up all the necessary folders into their respective categories?

Ugh...What I mean is.... Let's say I want to work with Vicky 4.2 and I have external folders for all my Vicky 4.2 stuff (base, morphs, hair, clothes, poses, etc.). Do I need to load those folders into Poser in the Figures AND poses AND props AND hair AND (whatever other categories)?

The way I want to set up my external runtimes is like all things Vicky 4.2 would go in ONE folder, with sub-folders within for HER poses, clothes, props, etc).

INJ's have me completely confused (I've only been using Poser for about 3 weeks and there seems precious little information about anything Poser 7 related ...everything seems to be about Poser 5). I've downloaded so many freebies, and I now have Vicky 3, Vicky 4, Vicky 4.2, Michael 3, David, Apollo.... and I've also gotten tons of freebie characters for those "base" characters and they all have INJ's/REM's and I've lost track of what character works with which base, so I really need to organize badly. Not to mention my Poser is running slower than a slug in molasses.

I know a complete uninstall is in my near future to straighten out this mess that I created all by myself, so when I do reinstall, I really want to do it "right". I easily have over 3GB of ZIPPED freebie downloads and I really don't want to have to go through uninstalling/reinstalling after this time. So I just want to make sure I understand what I'm going to do, before I do it, LOL!

Thanks for all your help! Wish I had seen this....errr wish I had LOOKED here....three weeks ago, LOL.

well the good news is that there is not a huge amount of difference between 5 and 7. The general workings are the same. Going from 4 to 5 there was a huge leap forward in the technology. 6 and 7 improve on these features but add very few 100% new features.

the main things that the average user see is that there are new types of lights and improved render features and mt6 files (material files that store all the information for a figure like a mat pose file).

Ya can get confusing what goes to who.

I only have one runtime (internal) and it is 40 gig, yet I can quickly find what I am looking for.

This is because of how I organize it, this is the method that works for me, but perhaps something like it would work for you. Even feel free to do it exactly like this

inside my "Character" folder i have folders called "Guys" "Gals" "Hair" "Vehicles" etc, then inside the "Gals" Folder I have folders called "A3" SP3" "The Girl" "Vicky" "Kids" then inside the Vicky folder I have it divided into V2 V3 and V4 so if i am looking for a item for V4 I just go to Gals-Vicky-V4 and I know everything in that folder is for V4 (I also break the folder down into free and market and then by merchant so I know what is is if it is free who it is for and who made it ... but I am pretty anal retentive)

Hiya Mapps! Wow, I'm a big fan of yours and have gotten tons of your stuff! Thank you so much for all the amazing freebies!

40GB in a single runtime and you have absolutely no performance issues? Wow!!! I wish I could say the same. The more I add to Poser, the slower the poor thing gets.... I'm talking a good 5 minutes just to load up....and switching between folders sometimes takes several minutes. This is why I decided to opt for external Runtimes.

I do very much like your suggested organizational path, I think I will set mine up very similar, if not exactly the same. There's nothing more frustrating to me than knowing I have a certain prop or pose and having to spend an hour just to find it! LOL

One of the reasons I really want to get organized is that now I'm actually doing some renders and posting my work, I want to be able to give credit to the actual makers of the items I'm using. Oftentimes, I've either forgotten who made it, or where I got it from. So the idea of having separate vendors folders is an excellent one that I will definitely be using.

Thank you, kind Sir, for your reply.

So glad you like all the goodies ;-) will be uploading a new one soon if I can get my PC working properly again (had a major system crash). No poser files lost though ... yippy!

Breaking it into sub folder helps, the longer the display list is in the Library window the longer it takes to show up :-) Some merchants give you a mother load when you but a product for example renapd has a ton of options in a character texture pack. I break the folder down inside to "heads" makeups, eyes, body's poses etc this way instead of trying to load 50+ options in a single folder you can load 10-15 in sub folders. Makes a huge difference. But if you want to be Poser Pro compatible you have to put it all in one big folder.

The vender folders work best if you grab allot of stuff from the same merchants over and over. My ali, BATLAB, renapd, goldtassel, AL3D and a few others their folders are quite full. My "mapps" folders I think are the largest ... lol

I do break down all of my main folders this way, it really helps find the other part for the cloths you are using. For example if you are using a "A3-BATLAB" outfit then you would check your A3 BATLAB "props" "pose" etc to see what else goes with it. I've also started grouping merchants together if they overlap. For example a outoftouch texture for a ValArt3D outfit would be in the ValArt3D mat pose folder Marked "oot-Sauraian" so I if I am using the Saurian Prestess dress and I check for textures i don't need to remember who made textures for it. I got it out of my ValArt3D V4-Clothing folder so  check my ValArt3D textures folder in poses and know that alternate textures for the same outfit will be there marked by who did them.

No I have so many textures by outoftouch I have a oot folder in ValArt3D with all the texture sets he has made for their outfits, the same goes for renapd and a couple of other merchants that I have a bag of their work.

To be honest you were lucky to get a quick reply, I don't wander in here very often, about once a week :-)