Hiya everyone

I downloaded 3 zip files earlier and I was just wondering where I unzipped the files to please?  I downloaded 2 dresses and 1 set of earrings and the read me file just says that it will be extracted to the right place... thing is, the destination folder (or whatever it's called) points to the place I saved the zip files to!  Can anyone help me please?

TIA

Mandy

heya again

Well this is how I do it, others may do it in a diferent way.

I save the zip in a special folder I keep for such downloads.
I unzip it in that folder also.
From there I place all files in the specific folders of my runtimes.

I use diferent runtimes, if I dont "trust" the item, in other words if I want to try it first.
I place it in my test runtime before it go's to the apropriate runtime...or get deleted.

Quote - heya again

Well this is how I do it, others may do it in a diferent way.

I save the zip in a special folder I keep for such downloads.
I unzip it in that folder also.
From there I place all files in the specific folders of my runtimes.

I use diferent runtimes, if I dont "trust" the item, in other words if I want to try it first.
I place it in my test runtime before it go's to the apropriate runtime...or get deleted.

You've lost me... sorry!  Am I getting ahead of myself and I should leave the downloads until I've used Poser for a bit longer?

The easy answer is to unzip them into 

?:Program Filese frontierPoser 7
?:Program FilesCurious LabsPoser 6
etc.

or where ever your version of Poser is installed

Make sure the folder structure is kept intact.

But the long answer would involve creating extra runtimes to extract the filesinto. This will stop the main runtime becoming to large and unmanagable when you really get hooked on poser.

Most of the time, if th author is considerate, the folder extracted from a zip will be a runtime folder which should go into the Poser main folder.  If you follow jester's suggestion about unzipping in a special folder, the contents can be transferred folder by folder or the entire runtime folder can be mover to the Poser folder.  But do not move it into the Poser runtime folder, you will never see the content.  Transfer to the Poser folder, you will see an overwrite warning, just click yes.  You will not lose anything, but the new content will be deposited into its new home in the right places (hopefully).

What I do is unzip things to a separate folder rather than directly to the runtime as Jesterjuuh does. I use WinRar, which lets me open up the zip file like it's just another folder on my computer...then I just drag and drop to which ever runtime or my temp folder if I need to double check things.

What you can do to follow a procedure such as ours, so you know exactly where it ends up every time you unzip everything, is to create yourself a folder named something like PoserTemp on your harddrive. You can then point it to unzip to this location, then copy the files over to your runtime.

I'm not sure what you're using to unzip the files....that would help us give you some pointers too.

No need to, its not that hard.

Usualy the zip file contains a runtime.

If you look at the runtime of your Poser and the runtime in the zip, you see the same folders.
Just open the folders in the zip untill you find the items, than copie them to the same place as your Poser runtime.

That is the basic, but I advice to create diferent runtimes out of Poser.
Like a V4 runtime, fairy runtime, prop runtime (just examples)

All these runtimes contain the same folders as the Poser runtime but have diferent runtime names so you can find them back.
You wont have much items now, but in time when you colect more figures, props, cloth etc, you will be glad to have diferent runtimes.
It is easyer to find things back and one huge runtime slows Poser down a lot.

There are people who have runtimes of more than 25 Gig.
Imagine to try to find back that one dress you want to use  :scared:

You find a excelent tutorial about runtimes by Dr Geep here

Other great tutorials by Dr Geep are here

Thank you all for your help... I'm thinking I should wait until tomorrow to try this!  lol  I'm hooked now though so you'll have more questions coming at you in time!  I'm going to take my pills and head to bed now though!  :)

As jester posted, 25 gig runtimes is definitely not the way to go.  I tend to create project runtimes for 1 time use then delete or transfer them to disk.  It keeps my drive uncluttered and manageable.  And it just came to mind, don't discard your original zip or installer files.  Transfer them to a safe place and find a way to catalog what you have.  Content does have a tendency to accumulate rather fast and the last thing you want to do is lose that one item you would like to use down the road.

Yup, the back up is a good one.

I burn all my zips on cd's, same go's for home made models and importand projects.
If my disk crashes, at least I didnt lose my content.

the challenge is that not everyone zips their creations in the same way. Some skip using a runtime folder altogether, some create a runtime folder inside of their own folder (which may or may not transfer over to the zip).

If only there was a standard way to arrange zips (which is about as likely as a standard for barbecue...;), you could be assured that the zip would work as intended. There's a poster by Doc Geep that explains where everything goes in a Runtime (should be in the Poser back room up at the top of the forum, haven't looked).

The real trick is there's usually 1 file which explains where everything goes in a prop, character, etc  (has directory paths in it). Not sure if that's the .cr2 (I'm no Poser expert...;), but that's something for when you really get a handle on Poser. It's a text file, and can be edited, but that's a whole 'nuther can of worms..;)

Maybe a "specialized" unzipper for Poser content may be usefull for you. There is a free one here: http://www.poserprofis.de