I've mentioned this in other posts, and have gotten a couple of PM's asking for more information on how I did it. So here goes...

** A Practical Way to Manage Content**

There have been numerous discussions as to how to organize Poser materials into multiple runtimes. I will not repeat them here other than to say I endorse the practice. Divide it up any way that makes sense to you, but DON'T dump everything in there together. Separating the runtimes is the first step to making an organized environment that WORKS!

Ever since Poser 6 (when I started the hobby) I have been incredibly frustrated with the Poser folder layout. I would start looking for an item... say a surfboard. OK, is it a figure or a prop?? Open the Props folder. Look through all of the stuff there. No surfboard. Open the Figures Folder. Look. Nothing. Go to Search. There it is... under the name OSHKOSH... the person who made it. That was helpful. (NOT!) Fine. Load the board. Now... where are the textures? Go to Poses. Look under OSHKOSH. Nothing. Look under Surfboard. Nothing. Do another Search. Oh. There are the third party textures under the name of TEXTUREGUY. Now, on to the ocean... (if I have any hair left to pull out of my now bald head!)

The above points out a number of issues with the Poser file management system. However, it doesn't have to be this way. Ever since Poser 9 it has been possible to put anything in any folder and Poser will be happy. With a little work it is possible to bring order to this chaos.

Here is how I did it. 

Before you begin, MAKE A BACKUP of your current runtime(s). It is not my fault if you screw this up and/or are unhappy with the results.

First rule: MAKE NO CHANGES WHATSOEVER TO THE TEXTURE OR GEOMETRY FOLDERS! Doing so will destroy your runtime. Make any changes you please to the folders under the LIBRARY section. That is where we will be doing all of our work.

Job 1: Get rid of the Ego Folders.

By “Ego Folders” I am referring to the folders some artists put into the Rtuntime chain that contain their name. The idea here is it will automatically put all of their work together in a single folder. I understand that desire on their part, but it doesn't help me for a couple of reasons.

     a. I normally have no clue who made the item I'm looking for. I DO know what the item is.

     b. One has to open the artist name folder to see any icons as to the content within. The ego folder short-circuits Poser's preview function.

IMHO, the easiest way to do this is to go to the drive where your runtimes live using your operating system desktop. Open the runtime, then the library, and start with the Figures folder. Open each folder you find there that is not descriptive of the contents of the folder. Usually just under that non-helpful folder you will find one that DOES have the name of the item the folders contain. Highlight the folder and select “Cut” (or Ctrl-C in Windows). Backup to the Figures folder. Paste the folder there. (Ctrl-V in Windows). Now, delete the ego folder. Move on to the next.

Go to each of your other content folders and do the same thing.

You can test your results when you are done by opening Poser and bringing up the runtime you've just worked on. You should be able to open any area (Figures, Hair, Props, etc) and see an image in the folder.

There are a few character sets that I have purchased that still will show up with blanks in the main library display even after all of this. These are the ones where the Morphs, Textures, and SSS textures are all in subfolders under the main character name folder. This is easy to fix. Go back into the folder using the system file manager and copy an image of the character (look in one of the texture folders for a *.png file) and paste it into the folder that contains all of the sub-folders. This image will now display in the Poser library.

Remove all leading characters from filenames.

Make another pass through all of the content folders looking for content that uses a ! or other non-alphanumeric character as a leading character in the filename. The artist did this to force their content to the top of the Library listing. It does nothing but much up with works when you are looking for something specific. Do this in all of the content folders.

Begin to consolidate the folder contents.

Go to the Pose folder. There are going to be two types of files there. The first will be, well, POSES. Leave them where they are. It makes sense to have them there. The second type of files there will be Mat Poses. These are the ones we want to move.

Cut each Mat folder from the Pose directory and move it inside the coresponding folder in the Figure folder. DO NOT MERGE THE FOLDERS. Paste the Mats INSIDE the Figure folder. In this way, when you open the folder in Poser, you will see the main figure... the one you must load first, THEN you can call up the textures available for that figure with a single click.

When you are done doing this, there will still be a number of Mat Files left in the Pose folder. These are third party textures for figures. Sometimes they will tell you what figure they go to... sometimes not. If it tells what the Mats are for, cut and paste the folder to the specified figure folder. If not, you are in for some trial and error work. It's just a matter orf opening Poser and loading each figure that you suspect might be the target, then trying to load the Mat file. If it works, you know where it goes. If it doesn't, delete the figure and move on to the next suspect. In the case of dresses and other clothing items it is usually pretty plain which figure the Mats are for if you just look at the neckline and other destinctive features of the figure.

At this point, I would also move all hair Mats to their respective hair folders in the hair library folder.

Once all of this is done, you ought to have nothing but Poses left in the Pose folder. If this is not the case, don't worry... leave the extra folders there... sooner or later you will stumble over where they belong and can move them then.

Next, go to the Material folder and repeat the above process. When you are done, the Materials folder should be empty.

Now, go to the Props folder. Highlight ALL folders in this directory and cut them. Paste them into the Figures Folder. If the system wants to merge them with existing folders of the same name, allow it. This is because some products contain for figures and props, and it is best to have them all together. The Props folder should now be empty.

Do the same with the Expressions folder, the Hands folder, the Lights folder, and the Scene folder.

I leave Poses and Hair separate. To me, these divisions make sense.

What you now have is one HUGE Figures folder. Time to bring order to this chaos.

If you are dealing with a runtime based on a figure, such as V4, I suggest the following:

Create a new folders in the figures folder called !Clothing, !Characters, and !Accessories. Leave the base V4 character in the top level folder. Do not put it into !Characters. Now, start sorting. Just drag each folder inside one of the ! Folders you just created. You can do this either with the system editor, a third party library management utility, or the Poser Library (which allows drag and drop... bet you never realized that!) This really won't take that long.

Once everything disappears into one of the three folders you can go inside those folders and decide if you want to do further sorting. My !Characters are all in there together. I see no point of subdividing them. I have sub-folders under !Cloths to divide up !Dresses, !Casual, !Undies and Swim, and !Shoes.

If you are working with a Scenes and Environment folder, you might want to divide it up into !Living Spaces, !Street Scenes, !Outdoor, things like that. Again, feel free to create any sub-folders that make sense.

That's it! You are done! The vast majority of your Poser content is now well organized, all the parts in the same folder, ready to use easily! Since I did this my work flow has sped up by a factor of at least three. My frustration and use of the Search function has dropped about 95%.

As you purchase new content, it is a small job to move things into their new proper places. I tend to go in and do it about once a month. Takes 10-15 minutes.

Hope the above suggestions are of some use. If not, feel free to ignore it.

The only trouble I have now is that I've collected a lot of content over the years that I no longer use. Some of the older stuff is not high quality, but removing it involves chasing down where all the geometry and texture files have been hidden.

Sometimes, it's best to leave the old stuff in place . . .

I made a folder called zOld (the z to push it to the bottom of the list) to toss all of my deletable content into.  Once in a while I go in there for something specific, so it's nice to still have it available.

I've been slowly working on cleaning up my V4 runtime to put all of the mats with the figures and props they belong to, but I've been hesitant to go too far as I wasn't sure how far I could go with it.  Looks like I can be far more agressive than I thought.  A messy runtime drives me absolutely crazy.

Sometimes it's necessary to re-name folders when unpacking everything so that the folder names make sense in the context of the overall runtime hierarchy. That makes things much easier to find when I'm looking for content, as BasicWiz mentioned earlier.

I like your idea about zOld. That's clever!

thanks booked marked :)

Great minds think alike.

Have you been looking at my runtimes or did you read my Poser File organization Rant over at Deviant Art?  Because a lot of this looks familiar.

As far as materials - EVERYONE should have a copy of Batch Material Convert by Netherworks studio (You can pick it up over at Content Paradise).  It will convert your .pz2 material files into .mc6 material files AND will also move them from the pose folder to the materials folder.  I converted a 30Gb of V4 .pz2 materials to .mc6 in less than 60 seconds.

I fixed my runtimes this way about 15 months ago. Never have looked back.

This is brilliant...and a good laugh, 'ego' folders!   I've cursed this practice and thank you for giving it a name.  I once had an item that was eight (8!) folders deep with self-aggrandizing.   I wish the heck ALL the content sites would police this practice.   

This is about the only instance where being obsessive complulsive with neatness and organization has paid off.  My runtimes are beee-you-teeful.  It's about the only thing with Poser that I'm good at.  

I have so much content that I long ago started going back to using ego folders, even for vendors who don't use them. Well, for my favorites, anyway. Xurge, Luthbel, Stonemason, Mec4D, Faveral, Mairy/3Dream, SAV, SWAM -- among others -- all get ego folders.

But recently I've started organizing by theme, rather than by figure because the other way still left me with runtimes that were just too large. In a thematic system, I can just unlink runtimes if I'm working on a project that just won't use them.

Thanks.  I've got my runtimes scattered over three hard drives and I'm going to buy a new 1TB drive to hold all the Poser/Studio files.  This is exactly the type of info I need.

Hi

I've done pretty much the same thing.

I have a My People folder in the Runtime, for all the characters I've created etc.

But I also just have a My People folder in the Poser directory.

I always put my Runtime in my Poser directory as well.

As for textures' props and things like that I just put them in a folder in the Poser directory and ignore the Runtime folder.

My Lucy textures all are in my Lucy Textures folder.

My clothes textures go in my "My Clothes Textures" folder etc.

I know right where to go to get them and when I upgrade I just move them to the same location in the new version of Poser.

It just seems easier to me then loading everything into the Runtime and searching for it there.

Mike

Frankly, I don't know how anyone can get anything done in Poser using the default library setup, and I have often wondered how many new users abandon Poser due to the frustration of dealing with the illogical arrangement of the content.

I know that I was extremely frustrated early on by Poser's content management, but fortunately I came upon a thread that dealt with how people had taken the library structure into their own hands, so from the beginning I was working with my own content organization.

I started out with multiple Runtimes, but over time I have merged most of them into just one main one. All my people figures go into the "Figures" library. Clothing, whether dynamic or not, goes into the "Materials" library. Since I keep materials with the clothing that they were made for, there was no real need for a "Materials" folder per se, so I repurposed it for clothing.

There are a couple of caveats with reorganizing your content. First of all, if you're working in Poser and you want to save a pose, figure, material, etc. that you created, you HAVE to save it to the library that Poser intended for it. So if you have created a light set that you want to keep for other scenes, you HAVE to save it to the "Lights" library. If that's not where you want it to end up, you have to move the files around with your operating system file manager.

Second, much of the content that comes with the installation of Poser has .pmd or .obj files that are hard linked to a parent file. By that I mean that the parent file - a .cr2, for example - will have a link to a .pmd file that includes the entire path starting with "runtime:...". So if you move the cr2 to another directory, that will break the link. For this reason, I don't mess with reorganizing the runtime that gets installed with Poser.

Finally, some vendors will do something similar to what Poser does by having a hard link to an ego folder inside the "libraries" folder. Usually this is for some morphs that the product comes with. In these cases I just move the offending folder to the Geometries directory where it belongs, and make changes to the parent file with a text editor.

When I learned Poser had this flexibility now I re-organised to an exent similar as above, but made consideration of portability. 

Hair for example is usually easily converted between figures. Wardrobe Wizard does for short hair, and for the large base of hair pieces for the Victorias there is HairConversionSystem. For the purpose of a single scene, some transformations and an odd magnet may suffice. I do not want to go trough all my figure runtimes to find a hairstyle I like, so I simply made one Runtime dedicated to hair content. I go in there to find what I want, convert if necessary, and store along with the basic hair. Each hair 'product' has its own folder, in which there are the content files for the different figures. There is also a sub folder for the textures. 
I kept this hair sector as a separate runtime to keep the overview. To be done: Listing of the various 'fit-morphs' that are already included.
From Poser point of view hats, caps, glasses and earrings or any headwear are not different from prop hair and may come out well with the same transformation techniques, so I consider consolidating that too.

The adventure with hair worked out very well. So, encouraged by the success and the ever improving clothing conversion tools: (Wardrobe Wizard, XDresser, Fitting Room) I did same for clothing items and made a clothing repository Runtime. Here too items have their own folder with versions and materials. Also, all prop auxiliaries are merged in. So, if the set came with a matching umbella or optional bow, it is all in one folder.

Likewise, figure based environments find themselves with their auxiliary props, lights and camera settings each in their own single folder.

This is an ongoing project, of course, with progress depending on the need of the moment and my level of irritation with the old setup.

The good thing about this work is that when having all this pass trough your hands you find jewels you had forgotten about. It is also a way to economize on your purchases, first of all because you no longer buy things while you in hindsight already had, somewhere, something similar, and also because the old stuff gives you plenty of inspiration and possibilities. Load Posette, let EZSkin and subdivision have a go on her, put her a few minutes under the morph brush, render her with indirect light and you will be surprised what she can still do for you.  

Hi again.

I think that part of the confusion is that people see the Runtime as an integral part of Poser somehow un-ignorable. 

What the Runtime really is is Posers equivalent of Windows Explorer.

You can put it anyplace in your computer; I always just put mine in my Poser directory.

For the most part you can ignore it as far as added 3D content that you make or import yourself is concerned.

Now I don't want to reorganize my light settings and poses etc.

Just too much work and it works the way it is.

But as far as my figures, textures, poses and new objects that I create, I just find it a lot easier to make my own directory structure within the Poser folder.

You will see that I also use icons that make it easy to identify what I'm looking for.

 I do this with all my major folders in my computer, many of the icons I make myself.

 Each of these folders has sub folders however I want to organize them.

The best part of this is that when I upgrade to a new version or reinstall, I can just copy these folders to the new version and everything is just like it was before.

Mike

Quote - I have so much content that I long ago started going back to using ego folders, even for vendors who don't use them. Well, for my favorites, anyway. Xurge, Luthbel, Stonemason, Mec4D, Faveral, Mairy/3Dream, SAV, SWAM -- among others -- all get ego folders.

But recently I've started organizing by theme, rather than by figure because the other way still left me with runtimes that were just too large. In a thematic system, I can just unlink runtimes if I'm working on a project that just won't use them.

Hi Moriador, please tell me how you unlink a runtime. I am using Poser Pro 2014 (64 bit, Win 7) and no matter what the user manual says the "Remove Library" button never appears. I searched the FAQs at Smith Micro and did not find any info.

Quote - Hi Moriador, please tell me how you unlink a runtime.

Open Library Manager -> change "Show Library": to your library you want to remove. Look to the right side there appears a folder icon with a minus sign and running man inside. Press it.

Thanks Honzu, I cannot understand why I did not see it before.

Okay - just playing with this.

I made a backup of my runtime folder onto my desktop... did a bunch of organizing there, but when I add the (backup) folder back to my Poser library (easy to find), it comes up with nothing - as in, 0 files/folders. What did I do wrong? 

When I am creating products I try to be consistant with my folders.

All folders start in "FL:whatever" and that is my main folder for Poses, Materials or textures.

It may go "Pose:FL:FL_Ambyr_Dawn_Inj:DawnFc.INj" and "Materials:FL_FL_Ambyr_Dawn and "Textures:FL:FL_Ambyr_Dawn".  That way everything can be found with no problems.

I also have external or subfolders for stuff but still go nuts trying to remember where it all is. :lol:

I'm grateful for anyone who designs their products to deposit themselves in a logical fashion!

Unfortunately, I'm having problems getting my new management folders to work at all within Poser, so off to find me some tutorials! Hopefully someone can show me what I've done wrong.

Quote - Okay - just playing with this.

I made a backup of my runtime folder onto my desktop... did a bunch of organizing there, but when I add the (backup) folder back to my Poser library (easy to find), it comes up with nothing - as in, 0 files/folders. What did I do wrong? 

Not sure what to tell you here... except... you did it backward from the way I did it. I made a backup of my runtimes, then edited the existing runtimes. That way I could see the changes inside of Poser as they were being made and  KNEW that what I was doing was working. Just needed to hit the redfresh buttom to see the results.

$.02

Good thought. Will try that next.

Yes, hitting 'Refresh' is essential. 

Sometimes you have to hit refresh twice because the first refresh will show duplicates.

Each runtime of mine is attached as an external runtime, unless it is an add on set eg if it is a hair called wonderful hair it has it's own folder called Hair_Wonderful and if there is a texture set I merge it into this one.

I can add or remove multiple runtimes using advanced library manager.

I have a lot of content and continue to buy big shopping lists of stuff. It would take me forever to do what the OP does.  My way is simple and quick.

I would not be without semidieu's advanced library manager though, because I have so many runtimes, I may just want to see the ones with the word Hair in them to decide which hair I want to use etc.

Love esther