This is more a question to see what works best with those ever increasing content files.

Over time mats, obp's, skies... files have grown in number.  How is the various ways folks here found best to sort it all out?

Example of decisions to be made are:

With purchase of extended content for Bryce you receive terrains, skies, mats usually sorted by the original contributor.  Do you keep the content filed under that persons name for easy credit or do you separate it out and put all glass mats under one location, all terrain mats in another , all skies in sky folder, ...    ???

What works best?

I do both - organise the content of the working directories by type (glass, metals, ground textures, water etcetera) so that I can find what I want easily, and back up the content as I get it to an archive directory, organised by the artist. When that gets full it goes off to DVD, which gets indexed and the index held on disk. So, if want to post or publish something and I need the artist's name to give a credit or to check their terms of use, all I need to do is search my index for the component name (e.g. "Green Dragon Sky" or "Fantastic Terrains"), and I have the information. Last, but by no means least, I also have a handy backup for when the unexpected happens..... 

For some reason, my brain work-flow works best when I keep presets in the folder with the authors name, if it comes that way.

Otherwise, if say absolutely all my Glass mats were thrown into one large place, I would have to then memorize all the tiny thumbnails of all the mats in there that I liked using.

With using various author names for folders, it breaks up that complexity for me somewhat.

This makes me think though that Bryce could use a "Favorites" option in all of its libraries.

Literally just another section of your Library that held your "Favorite Mats" from the rest of your library. While it would look just like the rest of your Library with its thumbs and all, they would just be shortcuts and not copies. Of course, each normal mat would have a little option button to it to "add to favorites" and where in your Favorites to add it. Yeah, pretty much like an internet browser.

Wouldn't surprise me if this wasn't already in the beta-testing official suggestions to Daz. I swear, those people thought of everything.

cat squeezing out of bag?

I must say this latest turn of affairs in the way Daz in handling the Bryce 7 development is wonderful.  Look at all the interest it is sparking in the community.  Bryce is not dead, for sure.

Lol, no, I honestly don't know if that was included in the suggestions, but I wouldn't doubt it. I read through them all and it was literally headache-inducing there was so much technical info.

AS, hope you don't mind but I've added it to the bug report as a feature request, with a little addition of my own, about including a link to the original mat in the library, from the mat when on a model, so that if people add copyright info there (and I do, my own when making mats and others' when I get them - if they haven't and I know who made it.)  then you could easily see who's it is.

Just in case they can do something about it, as I've wanted that for years.

Just in case you didn't know, (you probably do) you can rename Textures, so that your name will show up whenever they look at least it in the Materials Lab.

Where is it you would want a Materials Info (copyright) to show up at?

Like this:

The red "HERE" I've put where we normally see nothing after we've put a mat on a model and then click on M.

And unless you remember where you got it, you don't know where you got it from... and if you don't know where you got it from you can't remember where you got it from... (wipes brow) see?

So if Daz used your shortcut idea, and linked that mat to where you got it from in the library, then you could see the actual info that was originally typed in - like the one below where I typed mine in...

Oh and yeah, I know about textures, I have a lot of fun with that sometimes.

Sorry, I don't see.

If I get a Texture from you ...whenever I click on that texture of yours in the Materials Library your info will come up, just as you typed it in. I'll know where I got it from.

Is there somewhere ELSE, somewhere in Bryce, you want this info to pop up in? Other than the Libraries?

Yes, but the info does not pop up when you click on the M beside a model.

To get the info, you have to remember which of many many many many libraries, you found it in. 

And I almost never can.

Then when you click on it in the library, you get the info.

But for that you either have to search for hours, or you have to remember which library it came from.

I have (for instance) so many metals that it's just not possible to have one library for metals, so each library is named in some way, either after the time I created it, like the 3rd or 4th, or after the project like "Robot Metals" or Vinloi Metals, or after the type of metals, Like Galvan Metals (for Galvanised).

Other people can have even weirder ways of naming, like David Brinnen:

Now all that probably means something to David Brinnen, but it means nothing to me, so how the heck I could remember that I've used Mop Varient 42 something or other on one of my models is just beyond me.

GreyWolfe is like that too only worse:

So I'd like some sort of shortcut type link from where you click on the M beside the model to the original location in the library - saving me hours and hours of searching to find a mat that looks just like the one I've used but can't remember anything about. - probably for around 40 odd mats, maybe more.

This explains maybe why I try never to use any mats but ones I've made myself - that way I don't need to remember - I can just say - I made it myself.

It still means I have to try and remember which folder I got my own mats from - If I want to use the same one again. (I keep forgetting about copy), but then sometimes I can remember what else was in the folder with the metal mat I put on this handrail - and that other mat would be really good on this next panel.... but I can't remember where I got the handrail metal from...

Arrrggghhhhhhh!!!!!!!!

GOTCHA.

You would like a bread crumb trail back to where the Mat sits in your library.  ;o)

THAT, I don't think has been suggested before. I like it, interesting.

Attached Link: Feature request for Copyright info etc added by mat or object author - linked to Library info

But this feature request has been confirmed now, although I don't know if that just means "Yes, we see that" or if it means "Yes, we'll do that".

I'm not sure what attention the libraries will receive for Bryce 7, I'm sure they will focus more on modernizing some of the larger features.

But, the Libraries are an area that could use quite a bit of upgrading, imho.

Yes to both of those AS Lol. 
Yes - a big YES PLEASE to large features and yes the libraries do need upgrading - but I for one can live with messy libraries if we get lovely new workable (and fast?) big features.

I wonder what else is in the pipeline?

(goes all dreamy eyed)  Particles?  Displacement?   Sound?  GI?  Better Modeling abilities?  Wind?  Gravity?......  The contents of the wishlist?

ROFLMAO!

I can most likely tell you with no fear of my NDA that No, Bryce will NOT get sound, lol.

But you only said most likely, not absolutely.

Wow, think of that... sound in Bryce7.

Lol!

Well, the DTE was created by a musician. (Eric Wenger) Who did later make MetaSynth, a piece of software  that can create sounds from images.

I had a look at that, interesting, but a shame it's only for macs.

I am bringing this thread back up.  I still have a pertinent question and no sense starting a new thread.  I just did a clean install of B6.3.  I saved my content and presets in another folder for safety's sake before the re-install. 

Now before I copy/paste the content back to the new install, I have a question:

Fran used the example of David Brennan's mats in an above screen shot so I will expand on it.  Example: within his DAZ Pak 1 , there are volumetics, metals and terrain mats.  Is there a simplified way to separate these mats and redistribute them into logical locations ie... the volumetrics into the clouds library, the terrains into the terrains libraries, the metals into metals?

Is there a short-cut within Windows file wizards to do this outside of exporting/importing them one at a time inside of Bryce???????

No.  Not that I've ever been able to find.

And BOY! Have I wanted one.

And you can't do it in windows explorer because if a collection is all saved to 1 .mat file or one ,obp file, then windows sees that as just 1 file even though inside Bryce that file has multiple things inside it.

Having said that - it's an idea to post this as a request in the Bug reports... I'll go do it now.

So we can't do it now, but Daz might listen and we might then be able to do it later...

I've done it:
Bug Report Feature