Is there a good way to organize content for Poser 8.  I've acquired about 6 GB and it's difficult to find what I want.

A lot of us organize our content by figure (Mike 4, Mike 3, V4, etc.) or by content type (clothes, figures, props, etc.) in separate linked runtimes. It's all in how you think you'd like it best. What it's not easy to do is move things that are already installed...I found it easier to just start over and reinstall everything where I wanted it to be, but that's just me...lol. All you need to do is prep the runtimes you want ahead of time and just install what you want into whatever runtime is appropriate and then add those runtimes to your Poser 8 library.

And btw...6 gigs is NOTHING...lol. I think I'm over 30 just with the stuff I have installed. And I won't even go into how many gigs I've actually bought...cough.

Laurie

And, perhaps, you should also consider whether all that content is worth maintaining over a long period of time.  If you are the individual that used a particular content once or twice, then you are just increasing your overhead in terms of hard disc storage.  Install it, get as much mileage out of it within a short time, then uninstall.  As the old adage states, if you haven't used it in six months, then chances are that you might not use if any time soon.

Some of us make rich scenery with a lot of figures and props which need a particular style. So I never uninstall things because I might need it later. I occasionally use stuff that is 7 or 8 years old.

How you organize it, is a matter of taste and workflow. I use a 3rd party database (PzDB) which finds things within seconds and I can select the ones I want. I have set up my runtime with subfolders and break them up into more logical structures when they get too large. With the new library and the scrollwheel it is extremely easy to navigate through the tree.

New realease of PzDB just out. It's what I use.

I use P3DO Explorer (the free old version that I don't know if is still available) to actually see what content I'm handling, and use just one Runtime. But I separate everything in subfolders...

In Figures, I have one folder for the DazFigures (base models), and another for each of these figures for their clothing and such, and another for all Hair (because those tend to be multi-figure). Inside V4 (because I have little content for everything else) I separate into style when I'm feeling patient (a folder for Fantasy, other for Lingerie, other for Modern and so on).

In Poses, I have many more sub-folders. For instance, in my Daz Victoria4 folder (named just the way V4's installer names it, to avoid breaking the INJ poses), along with the morphs and general poses V4's installer creates, I have a "!Characters" folder for characters, "!Clothing" for clothing mats and "!Poses" for installed ready poses for her.

In Props, inside a "V4" folder there are all my V4 smart props and the props that come with V4 clothing, plus the deformers (Like Kaposer's Naika, EasyBreast and EasyButtock) and the deformer folders I rename to put a "! " in front so that they show on top.

It's all a matter of how you think you'll find things easier. Also, whenever I download/buy new content, I install them manually, placing the textures and geometries folder where they should and anything inside "Libraries" I unzip manually directly in the correct folder. Everytime I use a Daz3d installer, I load P3DO and move their folders around to the correct place...

Quote - And btw...6 gigs is NOTHING...lol. I think I'm over 30 just with the stuff I have installed. And I won't even go into how many gigs I've actually bought...cough.

Laurie

That all? Last time I checked my total runtimes were about 220. And that with a buttload of old stuff still zipped and uninstalled.

Mind you, that's with very inefficient storage. Because drive space is so cheap these days that I don't really worry about it, if, say, a clothing item has a V3, Aiko3 and V4 version with common texture maps, I will have three copies of the texture files (since I generally sort by figure). I'll have copies of commonly-used props or materials in just about every runtime so I don't have to keep going up and down in the runtimes list to get them. And when I create a character, I will usually have multiple CR2s of it saved; a superheroine might have a base (nude) cr2, another with her in costume, another in street clothes, and so on.

Thanks All, you've given me some great ideas.

I use several runtimes organized into folders, my runtimes are:

Marketplace (anything from Rendo, Daz, RTDNA, etc)
Free Stuff (from everywhere)
Projects (Stuff I create or modify)
Temporal (Where I install stuff for testing or whatnot, I emtpy it from time to time) Inside the runtimes, I use the following structure:

Libraries
**   Character**
  **    Animals**
        Air
        Land
        Water
        Toon
        Fantasy
 **     People**
        Antonia
         Clothing
         Figures
         Props
       Michael 3
         Clothing
         Figures
         Props
       Victoria 3
        Clothing
        Figures
        Props
       Victoria 4
        Clothing
        Figures
        Props
**  Pose**
    People
      Antonia
         Characters (sets of morphs and textures)
         Textures
         Poses
      ... (same for the rest of the figures)

And a similar structure scheme for the rest of the library folders.
I keep my downloads organized the same way, it's great for finding stuff.

http://www.renderosity.com/mod/forumpro/showthread.php?message_id=3700922&ebot_calc_page#message_3700922 Here is how I organize my runtimes, complete with pictures.

I'm really unorganized, so the search function in the library is a savior and so is the favorites tab. :D